Morning.

Morning. Almost ten. Waiting on phone call. Came to eat breakfast. What a concept: eating breakfast at 9 in the morning rather than 9 at night. Feels downright civilized, almost.

Long day ahead. Going back out to McMansion to water in plants so they'll live through the big party. Going to the place I guess I'll simply call "the Manor" to plant a bunch of flats. The Manor gardens get maintained quite well, unlike the McMansion's. Of course the banker's family living in the Manor actually live there, in a manner of speaking; the McMansion owners (lawyers) practically don't, using their big property with the gorgeous views of the Sandias as what I'd call a trophy house. The place is mostly cement and grass. Of course Bill's done some great work making nice private garden spaces out of the old fields, and Charles goes in and makes it just about as beautiful as anybody can on such short notice. But really there's not much that you can do when the owners don't water, or at least have people to do the watering, and there's no chance of it developing over years into the showcase garden that it could and should be.

The Manor is the total opposite. A stunning house on a stunning property with old growth cottonwoods providing shade from the high desert sun. Replica actually -- and a damn good one, I might add -- of the family's old house in town, a real Gatsby deal, which was torn down in the fifties to put in a parking lot, or something like that. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the original were a Trost. White limestone, of the "be sure to wash your footprints off the South Portico" variety. Formal and informal gardens both. I put on my white gloves, my straw hat, and feel like the lord of the Manor pulling weeds, cutting bulbs back, walking the Santa Fe brown gravel driveway from the front gate to the big house and back.

Got to go.