In the parking lot of a shop called El Rey, of all places, I came upon this small garden of roses yesterday. I was rushing to make a purchase of something relatively unimportant, and when I got out of the car after parking I did not even notice the garden.
But when I came back out after the purchase it was almost cinematic the way, from a distance, I noticed the garden right in front of where I had parked. It was like a ray of light focused on that part of the parking lot of El Rey, telling me to come over and, yes, stop and smell the roses.
As I got closer, there was a tinge of thoughts like, no time for this, and: it will likely disappoint because this is not where rose gardens flourish.
I fought those doubts off and the reward was remarkable. I have never tried growing my own roses, so it would be strange to claim an obsession with this flower. But I do favor it. When we lived in Croatia I developed a theory, never disproven, that the most fragrant roses in the world are in monasteries built centuries ago. In that theory the roses are antiques, tended by monks and nuns who have ensured survival of the fittest roses. And fitness is evidenced by fragrance.
By the time I had walked over to this garden the cinematic effect was slow motion. I tried to avoid cliche, but nonetheless found myself slowing to a stop. To smell the roses.
And my theory fell apart. These roses were as fragrant as if they had been planted here hundreds of years earlier.
This one above seemed to confirm one of my other silly assumptions, that a rose can either put its effort into dazzling color, or fragrance, but must choose. Likewise the one below, which was the deepest most natural red I remember ever seeing, but not as fragrant as others in the garden.
And just next to it, a white one with a variation that caught my attention, in the lower of the two flowers below, where I suppose the fragrance is produced. Before the flower opens it seems pure white but when it opens it offers stimulating color. A choice made that did not diminish its intense fragrance.
The one below, with white outer petals and pink at the core, was the most fragrant, perhaps because perfectly mature, with the outer petals preparing to drop but the core at maximum strength. And the mix of color, combined with the intensity of fragrance, was the one that forced me to abandon my various rose theories. The garden attendant in this parking lot rivals any of the monks and nuns who I have thanked in the past for their rose-tending, and this white-pink mix tells me roses have more tricks up their sleeves than I gave them credit for.
I mentioned his coffee 
venture 
Cupping notes on all these later. For now, a puzzle. The name of the coffee company, Organikos, harkens to an older and broader set of meanings related to the word organic. Not strictly the certification for all-natural food production, but a wider selection of good outcomes. We chose only one certified-organic coffee among our twelve coffee offerings. It happens to be from one of the less well known regions, Brunca, in the south bordering Panama. To our surprise, this has been our top-selling coffee so far. We promoted it only as organic, but it is also a single estate (
It is not surprising that organic coffee sells well, but it is puzzling to me that it outsells by such a large margin a certified fair trade coffee from Costa Rica’s most recognizable region of origin. Not to mention that this fair trade coffee is produced by one of the country’s most respected cooperatives.
Finally we had the chance to do that this past weekend. The tree above is a good representative for why the Osa Peninsula is so important. With one of the longest life spans of any tree in this tropical forest, the abundance of diverse plants and animals that depend on the tree for life make it symbolically important as much as it is biologically important. The insect to the right, feeding on the top of a rice stalk, shifted my attention from the charismatic megaflora that made Saturday an immersive biophilia exemplar of a day–and helped me focus on acts taken by Osa Conservation to make their operation more sustainable. A one-time farm in their land holding has been rewilded. A few hectares were retained for experimental organic farming.
The rice strain is an example of that, but I will save that story for another day. After being
We may have been a mere 15 minutes too late in that case, but soon enough another nesting site was found and the surgical strike–to remove the eggs and transfer them to a hatchery where they are better protected–was under way. The protocols allow for digging carefully so that not a single egg is in danger of rupture, or even addled. They are removed one by one, counted, and placed in exactly the same formation as they were in the nest, so they can be re-nested in the hatchery as the mother turtle had laid them. Marine biologists believe that the order in the nest matters to their viability.
It was almost 6am at this point and by 8am this nest moved to safety and hatchlings from two previously moved nests were ready for release. Of all the photos I took yesterday it is difficult to choose one that is most evocative of the power of this experience. But somehow a bucket full of eggs is a candidate. 
133 in total, marching to the water. A race of sorts.
Amie, a bird-lover, wields a stick to keep them away in case that is needed.
…Tender Buttons has spent September boxing up its delirious abundance, and, when I stopped by recently, Safro told me, “We’re down to the nitty-gritty.” WQXR played as she sorted. “Each little thing needs to be considered,” she said. She found a stray shank button—a miniature wire clothes hanger—that properly belonged in a box labelled “homage to Calder, Picasso, & Matisse.” She wants to send the box to Alexander Calder’s daughter, whose daughter used to work here.
In the 1980s, when Amie and I lived in New York, this was a place we knew. The cousin of a close friend was a manager of the shop, and we visited from time to time. The friend made the shadow box to the left, a gift on the occasion of announcing our wedding engagement. All the three dimensional objects in it came from Tender Buttons. 
Organikos 