For anyone looking for an excellent yard man--who also does plumbing and electricity and carpentry--I have hired today a man I really like.  His name is Homero and I'll be happy to send contact info if anyone needs it.  He's worked with a landscaping company, so he knows plants--how to plant and how to trim.  He is now on his knees rooting out stubborn nut grass. 

To wait out a flare of sciatica, I'm watching Etruscan Smile on Hulu--like it a lot so far.  

While in Scotland movie world, let me recommend to you a timely poem recommended by Bonnie--by Wendall Berry: "The Peace of Wild Things"

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.