It was my turn to set up for my Tuesday night still-life group, and I filled a large blue glass bowl with water and plumbago, trained my computer camera on it, and we were good to go.

One of the first purchases I made when we were young and got a little ahead of our bills was this bowl and platter. I got it at Target and used it for everything: to serve food, as a centerpiece, and as a fruit bowl. I especially liked it filled with the plumbago that grew along the back side of the place we rented in our first years in San Diego. Later, when we bought our house, I planted a single container of plumbago, and now it is a towering hedge, much like the one at our rental.

Much has changed in the past forty years, but I still love plumbago in a large blue bowl.