This entry is not about the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia where this picture was taken. It’s not about Amy Tan’s latest book, Saving Fish from Drowning, where I first encountered the quotation below. Remember when President Bush told us he took along The Stranger by Albert Camus for holiday reading at his Texas ranch? (We’ll believe that when we watch him write a book report under the watchful eye of an impartial observer.) Bush would have had plenty to reflect on from this anti-war writer who explored themes like the abuse of authority and tarnished values. In light of the consequences we need to hope no one foresaw or intended when we went into Iraq to quash terrorism and bring democracy to a beleaguered country, this political statement is sadly appropriate:

…Lisianthus, for lasting forever in a flower arrangement (well, often ten days or more). Because it is not familiar to many people, it is often mistaken for a rose even though one of its most glorious colors, a deep purple-blue, doesn’t occur in roses yet. There are single and double forms in white, champagne, pink, rose, and purple, and picotee varieties edged in purple or pink. This year, an unlabeled variety turned out to be the all-time winner, a creamy bud which deepened to peach, pictured in the main bouquet here. They are more suitable for a cutting garden than a border since they don’t bloom until the beginning of August and don’t look bushy even when there are four or five flower stalks loaded with buds and blooms. They’re worth the wait, though.

In a word, yes. I would have expected the hair to emanate from the body parts, maybe the thorax, but on this Tiger Swallowtail hairs clearly come from the wings and have the colors of the wing sections under them. This butterfly is one of the most common in our area, the Northeast U.S., and it’s a beauty. Its caterpillars aren’t too choosy about their diet and like to feast on common area trees such as wild cherry and ash. The “tail” extensions on their lower wings probably appear to some predators’ fleeting glances to be antennae, suggesting that the butterfly is really a bigger and more fearsome creature. Since it spent about a half-hour sampling from the tiny flowers of a lantana on the patio, photographing it was not exactly a heroic feat; however, it’s also true that it was quivering and flitting the whole time. We can call it a minor feat, then.

Those of us who have had the recurring thought, “What if George W. Bush were not the President?” have plenty of serious topics we could discuss. One thing is for sure: no matter who might be President, David Letterman would still be getting laughs at his or her expense. Surely, though, one of the funniest bits is Letterman’s Great Moments in Presidential Speeches, showcasing GWB’s way with words. Some of the videos of this Late Night feature can be found out on the Internet; click on any of these examples for a taste.

About 45% of us consider Web surfing our favorite “time waster,” according to a Time Magazine article on business oversight of employees’ work habits, and I can attest to the allure. I’ve come to believe that if I try hard enough, I’ll always be able to find The Answer online. Unfortunately, The Question keeps changing; once I’ve established one fact or idea, there is always another layer of detail waiting to be revealed. About 60 pages into The Stolen Child, I realized I couldn’t wait until our Book Club meeting to discuss the book, so I went to my laptop to check out the book on Amazon.com. There I would usually expect to find excerpts from published reviews and ratings/commentary from ordinary people; instead I found numerous bookjacket-style blurbs by people I’d never heard of. A further search turned up two NPR features, with audio, on the book, one a description of the roundabout route this book has taken to the bestseller lists, thanks to Amazon.com, and the other an interview with the author. This led me to look for the W.B. Yeats poem The Stolen Child, the source of the idea for Keith Donohue’s fantasy novel. (Biographical notes on Donohue state that his doctorate is in English literature, especially modern Irish literature, and his next book will be on myths of America.) Oh, and the author’s website has a Reading Group Guide for this book. This peeling of the literary onion could continue endlessly unless I stop the game, nest the dolls back together, and return to the book itself. At least I’m a little wiser than I was at the outset about what it all means.

Aunt Christy wanted to make S’mores over Labor Day weekend, except that the tail end of Hurricane Ernesto eliminated the possibility of a campfire. We eventually made them on the grill, which is beyond lame. Felix had told me on the phone that he had only eaten mini-marshmallows and I heard him ask his father if he was old enough to have big marshmallows. Suffice it to say that his wise mother, who has somehow induced her children to enjoy tofu, edamame, and unsweetened cereal, does not promote puffed sugar balls. As a result, Felix took advantage of Aunt Christy’s indulgent attitude and was eating them delightedly up to the moment the car left for the airport for the return to Chicago and the sensible life.