When I held Willow in a standing position today she moved her feet forward in a first, tentative attempt at walking. Little does she know that first she has to master sitting up and crawling. But why do things in the obvious order? The Dickens could climb way before she could do anything else. I think that probably applies to a lot of babies. They're natural anarchists. You can't tell them what to do.

I finally transferred another one of our unfortunate lavender plants from its pot to the ground. We had been hesitating to do this because the ones we have already planted are looking pretty sickly. I wonder what it is about our yard that kills plants. There's a couple of dead trees outside, and I think the pine tree next door is dead as well. In fact, a lot of the landscaping looks like somebody dumped agent orange on it. Well, at least one more lavender plant will briefly know what life is like outside of the plastic pot before succumbing to whatever it is that ails the others. Yard of death. That's not the kind of thing that landlords ever tell prospective renters about.

Or maybe our thumbs aren't green. Maybe they're a bilious shade of yellow, with brownish spots. With crusty black nails.

Cds I listened to while inspecting my thumbs: V/A "KFJC 89.7 FM - Live from the Devil's Triangle", Tom Waits "Paris at Midnight", V/A "Vhutemas Archetypi", V/A "The Nitha Fields", and T.A.C. "Apotropaismo"