i had lunch with eliza today because i thought it was going to be a nice day outside, deep blue sky with lots of puffy white clouds. but wouldn't you know it, as soon as we left the office, some dark clouds rolled in. we bumped into alex and rebecca coming back from their own lunch excursion, each one holding a box of mike's pastries. today was alex's last day, and in a few more weeks it will be rebecca's as well. eliza and i walked to florentina, where i had the gnocchi ("dumplings made of flour, semolina, or potatoes, boiled or baked and served with grated cheese or a sauce"). not knowing how to pronounce it, i asked eliza, whom i figured would be more food word savvy. when i finally ordered, i thought the word still came out of my mouth sort of wrong. while trying to find a good place to sit and eat, it started to drizzle ever so slightly. we found a wooden bench by the cambridge parkway next to the charles river and ate. some of eliza's lunch found its way onto her pants, accidently of course, she is so not a messy eater! for entertainment, we fed bread crumbs to the various sparrows and starlings and one obnoxious mockingbird.

anemones only open during the day when the sun's out. i'm at work during the day. i have never seen an opened anemone. i was hoping to race home and catch them before they closed up, but there were some last minute delivery fixes and i didn't get home until almost 8pm, too late to see the anemone blooms. i'm going to have to wait until this weekend to see them, and only if it's sunny, otherwise they won't open up.

in the five days since i've been in my backyard, the poppy buds have sprouted. they don't look like much now, but in a few more days they'll open up to some long-lasting bright orange flowers.

dang gui flower

dang gui

giant onion allium giganteum

money plant seed

my father's dang gui plants are doing very well this season. they were transplanted to their new south facing location last season. this is also the first year we've seen these plants flower. dang gui are used in chinese medicine. the leaves have a strong unique taste. the single giant onion bulb finally bloomed. the flower is about the size of small plum. when i first got this bulb many years ago, the bulb was the size of a grapefruit, a gigantic purple ball on a 4 feet tall stalk. since then, it's sort of atrophied and every season it's gotten smaller and smaller. end of summer i'm going to have to dig out the bulb and give it some care, maybe relocate, maybe fertilize. i love onion plants. we use to have a small patch of magenta colored chive flowers, but they've since disappeared. at my new place i might be tempted to start a perennial allium garden. the money plants continue to grow, producing those distinctive coin-shaped seedcases.