Arnold Zwicky's Blog

🐅 🐅 🐅  three tigers for ultimate May, and locally (here in the middle of the San Francisco peninsula) the tigers are blazingly summer-hot — in the 80s F yesterday, which made tending to my garden even in the early morning a challenge; the blooms of my cymbidium orchids (which thrive in our cool rainy winters) are withering away faster than flies dropping in a mist of Raid

Two flower stalks went down yesterday morning, and by 2 pm two more needed removal (although mad dogs and Californians will go out in the midday sun, this exotic Swiss transport from the green farmlands of Pennsylvania Dutch country will not), a task that awaits me as soon as the sun comes up — it’s only 4:30 am as I write this — by which time more will probably have succumbed, and they might all have gone down by the time the rabbits of June appear tomorrow. That would not be unusual. The plants will use the summer sun (and my daily waterings) to fortify their root systems, develop new pseudobulbs, and (eventually) send up fresh shoots as the rainy season begins, in December.

Meanwhile, the grasses and other plants on the hillsides will wither from lack of rain. The hillsides will turn golden brown for the hot dry summer, only to revive in fresh bright green when the rains come again; the world is renewed in green for Christmas and New Year’s Day, a transformation that never fails to delight me.

Later. It’s now 8:30. I have had breakfast and cleaned up afterwards. Gone out in the morning heat (much worse than the heat: the low morning sun in my eyes) to cut down the withered cymbidium stems, cut them into bits, and toss them into the garden strip as compost. A few days ago there were 12 flower stems, now there are 5, and most of them look like aged palm trees: long bare stems with a small topknot (of orchid flowers, of palm fronds). They will probably come down tomorrow, to inaugurate June (though in my world, it has already busted out all over).

And then 15 minutes to wash down the plants and patio tiles and to water the plants.

Meanwhile, I do not wither, but, somewhat astonishingly, thrive (with dramatic but nevertheless minor perturbations like my current pollen allergies, which have moderated some). Being focused on standing up and standing out hasn’t made me tense and jittery — quite the opposite; my blood pressure and pulse rate are spectacularly good.

I realized yesterday that my t-shirts of outrage and gay pride are probably a good thing for the world, but at least locally, they seem to be viewed as just my thing, even the GAY AS FUCK shirts. Well, my neighbors and the delivery people mostly know me, if only shallowly (everything I buy comes to me through a delivery service, or the post, so the regular delivery folk have come to know me a bit; we exchange brief pleasantries). But in all this, there’s something I realized when I was wandering around on my own as a kid in strange places, like NYC: however it works, I radiate good will, amiability, competence, and trustworthiness. I give off nice-guyness (no matter what I’m wearing), so random people often smile at me, and will appeal to me for small acts of assistance. Even on Fifth Avenue in NYC. I’m good at sniffing out crazies, grifters, and genuine dangers, so that’s almost never been a problem (though I’ve lived long enough to collect an assortment of stories).

(I understand that this works for me when it might not if I were female, effeminate, Black, Latino, Chinese, etc. and always had to be aware of the threat surrounding me. Though I’ve come across strangers in all of these categories who radiate good will anyway; whenever possible, I’ve tried to reward them by striking up a conversation with them. And have made a number of friends that way. So everybody benefits.)

This entry was posted on May 31, 2025 at 8:50 am and is filed under Clothing, Events and occasions, Gender and sexuality, Language and plants, My life, Seasons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.