The Grandest Garden

We met our cross-the-street neighbor Kim and our mutual friend Clariza this morning to go pay a visit to Clariza's mom Millie. Clariza brought her dog Milagro who stays so often at Kim's that I will refer to her as Clariza & Kim's joint-beagle from this point forward.

Everyone clear on the key relationships? Good.

We spent two hours or so wandering around Millie's yard while she snipped off bits of this and that for Raphael to put in a big cardboard box and Mila terrorized the cats. We had coffee and doughnuts midmorning while perusing Millie's books on succulents and then went back out to say goodbye for another hour.

Millie is sweetly and matter-of-factly enthusiastic about her plants. She would say "obsessive." But she is not scary at all. She does have a number of scary things in her garden however. Her thumb is very green and some of her plants are very, very pointy.

But we had an awesome time. You will more clearly understand exactly how awesome from a glance at the number of pictures I am posting below.

Yes, this is what we do for fun now. Oh my god. Adios childhood, hola people-whose-big-weekend-plans-involve-planting-things-hood. At least upon saying our goodbyes to Clarisa and Kim, one of them mentioned cervezas around the pool. And at least Kim has a pool.

So we're not that lame. We do have neighbors with a pool.

And we have a lot of plants.


it's Christmas for Raphael.



A tree you wouldn't want to lean against.























chicken.






sweetie Mila.














the back of our truck after our visit to Millie's.