Flower Friday : : Cherry Blossoms

It was quite a lovely surprise to come around a corner and find myself face to face with these cherry blossoms in February. Especially as we had a smattering of snow on Tuesday and it has been very cold since. So far they seem to be holding up remarkably well despite their unseasonable appearance.

I was in Japan during cherry blossom time once when everybody was having cherry blossom viewing parties. The parks in Tokyo were wall to wall tatami mats and blankets and picnickers. The Japanese word for cherry blossoms is 'sakurai'  and the festival season begins in March with Ume or plum blossoms and move on to the showier sakurai in April or May. 

Our plum tree has already been pruned, a precarious feat performed by OilMan with a ladder and a long handled saw. I think he may have jumped the gun since I don't think it had bloomed yet. But the birds find the bare branches a perfect place to line up and wait for a spot at the bird feeder.

A chunk of concrete fell out of an expansion joint on the San Rafael/Richmond bridge yesterday landing on a Mercedes Benz beneath. The man in the Benz said he was glad he touched his brakes as it meant the concrete damaged the front grille rather than falling through the windshield. He carried on to the Oakland airport because he had a flight to catch. HIs wife notified the authorities who closed the bridge in both directions for the rest of the day. They made it to the airport only to find that their flight was cancelled due to bad weather somewhere. I wonder how he got home?

Except for the obvious fact that the top 1% of people in this country control 40% of the wealth, the rest of us seem to be living in an increasingly third world place. The bridges are falling apart, hospitals are closing and our power company, Pacific Gas and Electric Company has just declared bankruptcy because of their growing liability for devastating wildfires. They are on the hook for $30Billion (with a 'B') worth of repair and restitution, certainly a good deal more than if they had put the power lines underground years ago.

We just got a letter saying our power will be turned off for a day next week while they do 'overhead repairs', whatever that is....When I traveled in India many years ago, even upscale hotels always had candles in the rooms in case of power outages. Now here we have flashlights in our bedrooms....