Why the spineless are growing spines

Garden expert, longtime edible-landscaping teacher and author Robert Kourik stopped by the Luther Burbank Gardens in Santa Rosa the other day and took a look at the grove of spineless cactus. This was a kind of plant developed between 1907 and 1925 by Burbank so it could be fed to livestock.

What Kourik noticed is that the plants have started to grow thorns; the spineless are becoming spined. Kourik, who has spent a lot of time in the garden, thinks that maybe they are trying to protect themselves from members of the public who like to break off the easily planted cactus paddles. “That’s my anthropomorphic assumption,” he says.

I think the plants are sending a message: Resist.

A person walking with his dog near Buena Vista Park wrote on NextDoor that he had found “about a dozen large raw meat bones” on the sidewalk and in nearby foliage. “The bones looked fresh, and at the same time some crows were circling to get them.” The person who posted it was worried about the bones, thinking they’d either been left to feed coyotes (a terrible idea), or perhaps to poison them (another terrible idea, of course). He picked up the bones and called Animal Care, which directed him to throw them away; next, he wrote, he was going to call the Health Department. There was one comment: “Are you sure they were animal bones?” asked a neighborhood resident. “My roommate is missing.”

Carla Garbis and spouse Peter Turner went to the Tesla showroom in Walnut Creek, where they waited in a line of prospective buyers/curiosityseekers who were there for a twominute sit-in of the Model 3. The dealer has been inviting people in for the sitting privilege since Jan. 19. While Carla and her husband waited for the big opportunity, an employee explained the color choices: The basic color of the Tesla is black, she said, but for $1,000 or $1,500 extra — depending on the color — you can get others.

“Oh, it’s like the Model T,” said Turner. “You can get it in any color you want as long as it is black.” “The Model T?” asked the salesperson. “What is that?”

(Inquiries about how many people have taken advantage of this opportunity were impossible to answer, said someone who works in the deep Tesla state, who responded to the question as though I were asking for the ingredients to secret sauce.)

In the lamp department at last week’s preview of the Oakland Museum of California’s White Elephant Sale (which will take place March 3-4), Steve Finacom overheard one shopper talking to another: “You just have to find something he brought into the house that you don’t like.” I’m taking that to mean the woman had come across some item that had been donated to the sale without her permission.

Berkeley Symphony music director Joana Carneiros, who gave birth to triplets about a year ago, is pregnant with her fourth child. Having attended a concert at Cal conducted by Keitaro Harada taking Carneiros’ place, I’m wondering whether she is growing her own quartet.

Many observers noted it was unfair to read too much into Melania Trump’s fashion choice — off-white, accessorized with a frown — for her husband’s State of the Union speech. In the interests of scholarship, however, I have researched some of the meanings of white clothing:

Female legislators of the Democratic persuasion, listening to a Trump address to Congress last year, wore white, a symbol of suffragettes and feminism. White is supposed to be about starting with a clean slate, fairness and neutrality. According to the site Psychology.com, “White may indicate the completion of a cycle in your life ... or seeking a new relationship or a new career direction . ... Too much white can cause feelings of isolation and emptiness.”

P.S. In related news, correspondent Ken Maley found, in Honoré de Balzac’s short story “Domestic Peace,” the following advice, purported to have been given in 1809 by an older woman to a younger: “My dear child, from now on, think that we can repulse men’s homage as well as attract it.”

Customer: “I’m looking for a sympathy card.” Clerk: “Pet or human?” Conversation at Wild Card, overheard by Steven Short