Urban Oasis: New Chair

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Of Leather and Sleeping Dogs ...

Constant flux in our living room configuration is now again at play at Casa IVG. In fact the whole house is in flux, as my job is going to a virtual office, so I have to be set up at home to do everything I did in the office ... it's been a bit daunting and I'm nowhere near done or happy with the space at present. But it's progressing --hey we have a wireless network set up now, even though it's incomplete one computer for a few days more-- and another week or so, it should be in more than workable shape.

So, what did I have to go out and do? The second picture explains that quite well without words.

Some of our nicest pieces of furniture have come from World Market (dining table, a CD cabinet and the media armoire and the other leather recliner 'Bruno.') ... so this recent sale was a bit hard to resist, seeing that we needed a new good chair anyway. (You might remember the other flux time when we were getting rid of all the old hand me down furniture ... we're not done yet and that loveseat is soon history!) Anyway, this new one -- 'Tosca,' companion to good old 'Bruno' that I got a few years ago -- is a fantastically comfy recliner, well worth its sale price.

Now, I know some people drop by to see the occasional shots of the dogs (usually snoozing these days), so the first picture is probably of greater interest ... Pepa took an almost immediate liking to the piece of foam packing material and proceeded to claim it for the night, snoozing happily. As always it's difficult to catch her in her absolute cutest moments (the camera's never handy!), this one shows pretty well how she and Rolly spent most of their Saturday night.

Oh yeah, another 6" of snow and some ice and slush came in overnight, so that's how Fernymoss spent most of the day digging us out of the latest big snow. So here we are again, with over a foot of snow cover ... don't think we'll see the snowdrops much before March now unless things warm up drastically, which is certainly not in the short term forecast. Nor the crocus ... nor the squill ... we're done with this winter! I guess it's still not done with us ....

Transforming one urban corner, one season at a time

Welcome to our little corner of the Plant Universe!

I started Urban Oasis almost three years ago with the intent of both chronicling the seasonal changes of our gardens, as well as to serve as a kind of "rough draft" for a gardening book I've been wanting to write for about six years now. Well, the book remains unwritten, but readers will still find in these pages, the seeds of what it may eventually become when I'm gifted with adequate time and resources to really apply myself to writing it....

When we moved into our house in 1998, (affectionately dubbed Casa IVG), it was a practically barren garden canvas just waiting to be reborn. Our urban transformation project began in earnest in Spring 1999, and continues to this day, with some major changes occurring along the way (such as the boulder beds in 2003) ... and the evolution continues to this day.

Urban Oasis itself has evolved too, from its original exclusive focus on the plants to postings on some of my other more personal interests, such as Politics, International and Independent Cinema, and one of the enduring passions of my life: our dogs. 2008 was a year of many transitions for us, the saddest of which was the loss of our beloved Pepa and Rolly in December.

But, as in any garden worth its petals, we are now experiencing a joyous renewal with the recent adoption of our new pup, Hanna, who will be appearing regularly here as the seasons progress. She'll never truly replace Pepa as the official "mascot" of the blog, but she's an eager "intern" who will go far in filling the enormous paw prints left behind by her predecessor ... and fill them well, she will!