Recent Acquisitions

It has been a long week.  Between marble filled children, football and the a-holes at the Securities and Exchange Commission, there has been precious little gardening time.  Never fear, with the elimination of the US this morning, I am now down to one team to root for.  Come on, England!!!!  I do want it noted that a Tottenham striker, not that useless United striker, propelled England out of the group.  I'm just saying...

Anyway, back to the task at hand.  Picked up a few plants this afternoon, since I had run out of booze at noon, which surprisingly opens up one's day.  We picked up a couple of daylillies to go in the front yard.

Hemerocallis Purple Galaxy.

Hemerocallis Velvet Red

The flowers are from the end of the day, but they still don't look too bad.  We'll be getting them in the ground tomorrow, along with some of the other items we picked up.  After England and Germany, of course.

Big Game Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning, 7 am PDT (or is it PST, I never remember).  The United States takes on Algeria at the same time England go up against Slovenia.  Very simple, really, if the US wins, we go to the knockout rounds.  Lose, and we come home.  Tie and we wait for the announcers to tell us.  Really, I do know, I just don't have that much time.

For England (my second favorite national side), the situation is the same.  Win and they're in, lose and they head back to Heathrow, tie and math is involved.  Everybody keep your fingers crossed!!

Day Off. World Cup. Enough Said.

Tomorrow, the World Cup moves into the second day, with the United States of America taking on England.  There will be no gardening tomorrow.  There will be football.

I do not expect the boys from the US of A to win.  A draw would be a spectacular result.  If (when?) we do lose, I hope it's only by a goal or two, as goal differential is the first tie breaker.  Over the next couple of weeks, we take on Algeria and Slovenia, two teams we should be able to beat.

Now, before anyone screams "UN-AMERICAN!" this is football.  This is reality.  There are no false hopes and winning the World Cup is not the ultimate goal.  This is NOT the National Football League, where the rules are rigged to, at some point, make all teams equal.  There will be teams that will NEVER win.  I don't think the US is one of those.  We will win the World Cup.  Someday.  There are teams that will win consistently, such as the homelands of my ancestors, England and Germany (that made for fun family years in the early 20th century), as well as Brazil and Argentina.  Hopefully, we'll be amongst those.  Someday.

A good result in this World Cup will be to finish second behind England in our group (there are four teams) and then put on a good showing against Germany, our likely second round opponent.  We outplayed Germany in the 2002 quarterfinals, but lost.  Ce la vie.

As you will hopefully remember, I went on a multi-day drinking binge when my beloved Tottenham Hotspur finished fourth.  Fourth, people.  F-ing spectacular the lads were.  Championships are hoped for, but not expected.

England currently has five Spurs playing out of the 23 man roster.  As I tell my friend Pete (he's Irish and a Liverpool fan, but we still like him), Spurs are going to win the World Cup.  Write that down.