The temperature is starting to crank up a bit here in Florida. I was in Iowa last week, and it was a fantastically beautiful 70 degrees during the day, with a nice breeze to boot. Not so here in the Sunshine State! So that means we don't have much time to try to get our garden looking in tip top shape.
A few weeks ago, we pulled out a bunch of our plants that did not survive the bitter cold of this year's winter. For you northerners, you can stop snickering now - for us, two straight weeks of sub-35 degree temperatures is frickin' cold! However, we hadn't gotten around to replacing them until today.
So we headed out to Home Depot and picked out our perennial of choice - some Gardenias. The guy at Home Depot also recommended that we get some compost mix to help the plants grow. So we grabbed seven plants and four 32-lb bags of compost and put the ol' Scion tC into pickup-truck mode:
I started digging around the mulch bed with our tiny little spade, but finally Cherry convinced me to go get some real tools. So, we hopped back in the car and went to Lowe's (which is a little closer to our house) and picked up a real shovel and also a hoe/rake type thing (obviously I'm not very good with my garden tools!):
About one hour later, the results:
For aspiring gardeners out there, I'm told that gardenias are easy to take care of. Plus they have these nice big white flowers that have something of a jasmine-like scent, which was the main reason we got them! Natural air freshener!
Not two weeks after my own MBA graduation, Cherry had her Commencement ceremony this past weekend.
We went up to Gainesville on Wednesday night for her to take her last exam in Business Law. As per usual, I hung out with Arun and Shawn, practicing kung fu until the mosquitos got out of hand, then watching them play a little StarCraft 2 before picking Cherry up from her test. However, unlike our other visits to Gainesville these past few months, this time we headed back to Cherry's old apartment, where we would experience some drama with her current (and Cherry's former) roommate, Wredee, at various points on our trip.
But first, the pleasant stuff! On Thursday morning, Cherry and I thought we would get up early and head over to Lake Wauberg to spend the morning there. On the way, we picked up Cherry's classmate Michelle, who would hang out with us for most of the rest of the day. However, on arriving at Lake Wauberg, we learned that it was closed until noon! So much for trying to get their in the cooler part of the morning!
As an alternative, we headed back towards campus to visit the Heavener Football Complex, the little shrine that was added to Ben Hill Griffin stadium after the Gators' 2006 National Championship season to house our football-related trophies and awards. I'd been trying to check it out for quite some time, but since it is never open on the weekends, I was never able to get in until now. To be honest, it was a little underwhelming, but it was still cool to see the three National Championship crystal balls, Steve Spurrier, Danny Wuerffel, and of course Tim Tebow's Heisman Trophies, and a bevy of other artifacts of Gator Football lore!
Next, we went to visit the Harn Museum of Art. In all the years I spent at UF, I never went to the two very nice museums across from Southwest Recreation Center (although I did frequent Southwest itself quite often). It's a shame too, because they are surprisingly large and have a number of very good exhibits. Michelle had already seen the Museum of Natural History, so we decided to visit the Art museum instead. There was a special exhibit called Project Europa on display, which was a very interesting stick-figure commentary about the state of the European Union today, but unfortunately, I couldn't take any photos of it. Instead, you'll have to settle for photos of works such as this modern 山水 (mountain-water) piece below:
After about an hour and a half at the museum, we went to the university bookstore to pick up Cherry's regalia. Of course, we had to take a look around at some of the other stuff they had too! We finally got a chance to play with the seemingly irrelevant iPad! We didn't buy it though...
However, we did pick up a pair of baby booties and a Gator baby suit for the baby!
After shopping, we met back up with Michelle and one of her friends to take some photos in their caps and gowns around campus:
Along the way, I managed to somehow cut my foot on a stray twig. Cherry is seen here dressing the mortal wound:
After a long day of shooting photos, we headed to dinner with Anna at Yamato Japanese Steakhouse for some teppanyaki!
Then, on the way back to Anna's apartment, the drama with Wredee started. Wredee, who almost never calls Anna about anything, called, inquiring about the length of Cherry and my stay. Anna explained that we would be here for another night, and apparently, Wredee wasn't too happy about how Anna didn't "show her any respect" for letting her know ahead of time. Of course, Anna did inform Wredee that we were arriving on Wednesday, albeit just before. After arguing for a short while on the phone, we continued and picked up a movie to watch at the apartment - Law Abiding Citizen.
When we got to the apartment, Wredee informed us that she would be having some guests, so we had to move our stuff out of the living room to let them sit down (I slept on the couch over the weekend). No big deal, we moved the stuff into Anna's room temporarily, where we watched Law Abiding Citizen. Wredee's guests stayed very briefly, but Wredee herself stayed in the living room until quite late. After the movie, we found her lying on the couch with a pillow and blanket - she had prepared to "teach us a lesson" and not let me sleep on the couch that night, despite having her own room and bed!
Of course, that prompted a fight between the three former roommates, where Wredee went on and on about not getting any respect from anyone. At one point, she decided to call the police! However, once the officer came and spoke to both Wredee and Anna, he concluded that it was a complete waste of time over a petty matter. It should be noted that Wredee had called the police several times over the last few months over issues such as noisy parties and whatnot!
Finally, Cherry was able to convince Wredee that, as a nice person, she should let us terrible people sleep just for one more night before we left her life forever...
The next day, we got up and had some takeout Chinese for brunch while waiting for former roommate Jeonghee and my dad to arrive for the commencement ceremony. We drove out to the O'Connell Center at about 1:45 and took some more photos before the ceremony.
We even saw an ESPN camera crew doing a piece on the Bull Gator!
Finally, the ceremony started. Fortunately, there were no seats on the sides of the arena, because Cherry and the rest of the Accounting grads (apparently the Fisher School of Accounting is so self-important that they insisted on having their graduates separate from the rest of the business school grads) sat near the back. I was able to get some pretty good shots from our seats at the back!
Some two hours later, the ceremony finally concluded. We located Cherry outside of the O'Connell Center for some final photos on campus.
Finally, I helped Anna, Cherry, and Jeonghee, the original three roommates when Cherry first moved to Gainesville, take some parting shots of their apartment! We will probably never go to the apartment again, but it has served us well over the last two-plus years!
And with that, the next chapter of Cherry's life begins!
