Bimactive

Starting bimactive

Peace, Joe

I composed a perfect letter to you in my head. It said all the things I wanted to say, in a way I could publish. But I was driving at the time, so here is another shot.

I met your friend John K., who clearly loves you. I got to know your wife Chris, who sees the best in you. Her emotional intelligence, patience, and energy are astounding. She has since told me things that confirm my sad suspicions.

Babe is grieving, and Judy is acting out. Ani is confused, so I took her with me so that Chris could comfort the older ones. Ani, who you proudly introduced to me on Christmas Day as the last of your Giant Schnauzers. You were worried about your mortality compared with theirs. Four days later you died.

You left behind a wife both grieving and relieved. And a puppy who snuggles her big ridged head into my side for affection. She is used to being shouted at, and is eager to please, and reminds me daily of your capacity for love.

I keep seeing your face – smiling in a way I rarely saw you do. Smiling as if you were happy, which you never were.

The priest who said some words at the funeral home gave me two choices to read. One spoke of friendship, the other, torment. I chose torment.

I am so sorry, Joe. I hope you are on the Peace Train at last.

Update: ~ Amsonia tabernaemontana ~

Hardy Herbaceous Perennial
Flowers: Summer
Height: 36 inches
Position: Partial Shade
Hardiness Rating: 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Germination: Experience Useful
Aftercare: Care Required

Description: Rarely seen; clusters of beautiful star-like flowers. Glossy 3-6in Narrow leaves.

I first saw this beauty in someone's backyard on a garden tour. It was spectacularly blue. My friend J. took a photo of it and sent it to me so I could research its identity. It can be grown from seed, per the Thompson Seed Catalog, apparently with a little experience. This year it was introduced into Native Prairie Nursery's catalog of Wisconsin native perennials. When the privacy fence goes up in my back yard I will plant some of these against it, interspersed with dwarf Canadian spruce, serviceberry bushes, and a Russion sage or two.

Memento Mori

On December 26th I received a phone call from the father of a childhood friend. The man told me his wife died of pneumonia last February. Then he went on to tell of the death of his son, my old friend, last July. Tom died in Thailand of pneumonia, just like his mother, who he loved very much. I hadn't seen him in 20 years, but he was probably the most important childhood friend I had. I was too stunned to say much in that phone conversation, but I have been grieving ever since. I thought I'd be able to check in with him forever.

Tom you were heaven sent to me. The laughter I shared with you during my gradeschool years is one of my most precious memories. Even though we were guilty of cruel mockery of those around us, there was something both healing and teaching in our silly games. What I wouldn't give for one of your little torn paper 'magazines' from sixth grade, with the drawings and the rants. Somewhere I have a 'Certificate of Self' you gave me the last time I saw you alive. You were my chief cheerleader and my gentle mocker. I loved you to the best of my childish ability and I will love you always.

Book Review -- "The Years of Rice and Salt" by Kim Stanley Robinson

This book goes on my favorite reading list. I don't save books, but I don't think I will be able to give this one away.

I have read most of Robinson's books. There is a kind of flatness to them that should be off-putting, but something always pulls me through. The entire Mars trilogy was worth working through just for the last sentence of the last book. It was only two words, repeated three times, but the rightness of that repetition was thrilling. It wouldn't take any thrill to make that trilogy worth reading, but at times I did have a 'so what' feeling. But I kept reading.

"The Years of Rice and Salt" only gave me that so-what feeling in the second-to last section, which seemed to drag a little, and ended so abruptly I had to go back and reread the last paragraph, after I was into the next life, to make sure I hadn't missed something.

But lives are like that, aren't they? Small, inconsequential, sometimes with a so-what quality, and sometimes over without a bang. The last section of the last life acknowledged that smallness, and also how comforting it feels to imagine karmic rebirth and evolution. And that just because a belief is comforting doesn't mean it isn't true. Most satisfying for me was the unexpected discussion of wanting and what it means.

~ Tradescantia andersonia Mixed Colours ~

Hardy Herbaceous Perennial
Flowers: Summer
Height: 18 inches
Position: Sun or Partial Shade
Hardiness Rating: 5 6 7 8 9
Germination: Experience Useful
Aftercare: Easy

Description: Quick forming clumps of fleshy sword-like foliage and a succession of clustered blue, lilac and mauve flowers. Very hardy and trouble-free in the border.

Spring Ephemerals

Columbine and Pulsatilla, two favorites of mine for their delicate and colorful flowers, die back after spring. They should be mixed with perennials in the garden. I could see Amsonia and Tradescantia mixing with them.

~ Pulsatilla vulgaris Red Cloak ~

Hardy Herbaceous Perennial
Flowers: Early Summer
Height: 12 inches
Position: Sun or Partial Shade
Hardiness Rating: 5 6 7 8 9
Germination: Experience Useful
Aftercare: Easy
Description: A striking selection from the Cut Petalled Mixture with large flowers of claret-red amongst soft, finely cut silver-green foliage.

~ Heuchera Americana New Hybrids ~

Flowers: Summer
Height: 24 inches
Position: Sun or Partial Shade
Hardiness Rating: 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Germination: Experience Useful
Aftercare: Care Required
Description: Mix of hybrids will reveal plants with green to bronze foliage, plus some which are marbled and veined with smooth or wavy leaves. Flowers of white, cream, pink and red.

~ Aquilegia Sweet Rainbows ~

Flowers: Summer Height: 30 inches

Position: Full Sun Hardiness Rating: 3 4 5 6 7 8

Germination: Experience Useful Aftercare: Easy

Description: A breeding breakthrough! The result of merging a full range of top quality Aquileglas, all selected for form, colour and the best fragrance. Ideal for adding sweet scentsation to any border.

Book Review (Preliminary) -- Object Oriented Design Heuristics by Arthur Riel

Riel addresses, in the preface, an issue I have had with Object Oriented Programming from the start.

Back when I programmed in Forth, we organized our swap-dups as elegantly as possible, and prayed the algorithm would fit on a 256 k EPROM. Then functional programming in C came along, and Walls and Mirrors (how often was reflection in C used anyway?) had to be mastered. Error returns were compromised all over the place, and we programmers tried not to complain about pointer hell because, after Forth, how could we ever give up access to actual memory addresses?

OOP is the design paradigm of the day, replacing Structured Programming, and claiming to solve all its irritants, which were previously unmentioned, or waved away with 'but you can do that in C'.

Now I struggle to embrace a paradigm whose own irritants will be brought to light when they are removed by another fashion.

That is the gyst of my grumbling to myself when I am stymied by OOP jargon, and struggling to come up with a workable design. Riel's analysis is more charitable, and, what's better, highly sensible:

"My perspective on object-oriented programming is that it is a natural progression or evolution from action-oriented development. As software has become more complex, we are required to remove ourselves one more level away from the machine in order to maintiain the same grasp we have on the software deveelopment process. Just as structured methodologies removed one level from bottom-up programming, object-oriented technology removes one level from structured methodologies."

He goes on to pinpoint the ultimate source of the complexity to memory size, at the same time explaining and justifying the necessity of evolving design paradigms.

I look forward to seeing what Riel has to say about heuristics in OOP. If the rest of the book is as well-thought out I will learn a lot. Maybe I will even learn how to design.