Saturday, 11 December 2010
Just what do you think the world-wide annual sales are of horsefly earbuds?
Yick.
Oh, wait, “Play. Listen. Love.” is on the lips earbuds package….
And, my dictionary has earbud as a compound word….
BTW, horseflies: family Tabanidae. FYI.
Friday, 10 December 2010
I admit it. I’m not ready for the holidays.
Yesterday at the BotGarden, we did pick up some bulbs for some winter flowers and scent—an amaryllis and some paperwhites (LOVE the smell of paperwhites!), but we’ve gotten little beyond that….
So…I’m going to post this, then go hang the wreath Bob sent us….
White Rabbit to Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865): “Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!”
Thursday, 9 December 2010
We were reminded once again that a mid-week visit to the ATL Botanical Garden means virtually no crowds. We enjoyed watching the trains circle through a special miniature landscape (although earlier we’d seen the full-sized version, too!). Then, a Brobdingnagian (if, indeed, that was his clan) did some maintenance.
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Michael Symon’s B Spot, in the east Cleveland suburb of Woodmere.
During our recent wandering, we stopped in a mall restaurant. Which I normally wouldn’t do, or admit to doing. This place specializes in B, as in burgers, beer, and big other stuff.
Not being in a burger mood, I went for a salad, and I have to say: big. Perhaps too big.
And tasty.
Lesson: don’t dismiss mall restaurants out of hand, even the casual places.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
However confusing these arrows may be, the most confusing road-surface notations I’ve ever seen were on the (old) highway descending from the central plateau toward Veracruz in Mexico (probably above Ciudad Mendoza). Actually, we were up-bound from Fortín, and in heavy early-morning fog. And bold white arrows on the narrow two-lane blacktop road went whichaway. When we saw truck headlights right smack in front of us (thankfully slow-moving), we knew that our understanding of the arrows (up-bound in the outside lane—left in this case) was correct. So we scooted to the “wrong” side and safely made it around the hairpin, then back into the “correct” lane when the confusing arrows came again. As I recall, we did this little counter-intuitive move, as instructed, twice.
JCB was driving, with no morning coffee. We try to avoid that, now (the absent coffee part, that is).
This set of arrows? Oh, the one closest to me goes to a ATM, and the other two are to direct regular traffic safely past the stopped banking queue.
Monday, 6 December 2010
We are among the data-intensive iPhone owners, and one of the things we use The Technology for is GPS and traffic info when we’re on the road. A week or so ago, we got this mapping glitch, which was kinda pretty, but not so useful.
Maybe it was the mountains?
If only it were that simple….
All this yak-yak is to avoid one major topic of the day for me—windy-coldness. Meaning the windy part. Awake-asleep last night, noticing it all day, and still noticing it as night locks in.
Yaknow, it’s difficult to photograph the wind—stills, I mean. You can capture Krummholtz-afflicted vegetation, which shows the long-term presence of wind, but it’s not a visual capture of the wind itself, dontchknow?
Sunday, 5 December 2010
My childhood familiarity with horsetails (Equisetum spp.) did not prepare me for their use as a landscaping plant.
To me, they were in the weed category, albeit in the interesting weed subcategory, as opposed to the noxious, poisonous, ugly, or other unpleasant weed subcategory.
I remember picking stems and pulling the sections apart and marveling at the open tubes.
I still retain a bit of amazement that they are used as a decorative garden plant, even after encountering them carefully husbanded in a flowerbed over two decades ago.
And, I spoke just in time the other day about the unfrosted tomatoes; they’re now reduced to plant-mush.
Saturday, 4 December 2010
We found this Acer palmatum in a yard between here and the library. The light did me no favors, but the brilliance is still evident….
Friday, 3 December 2010
We had a winter day today, both like and not like a Michigan winter. The temps were warmer, so no ice like this (from last week), but we did have the unbroken grey overcast.
Somehow, frost got the tomatoes in the front yard over a month ago, but the protected ones in the back yard have survived. They’re not too happy, but they haven’t been frosted, either. (Remember, in their Mexican homeland, they’re annuals, or at least that’s what I was told there.)
Thursday, 2 December 2010
This picture proves we saw snow before we scooted south, where we’re merely finding cold—admittedly, the Atlanta version of cold.
The Guru piloted us down our friend I-75 in the dark hours, arriving in the wee hours this morning, happy with the plethora of lovely recollections we have of visiting friends in many states in the central USA, and seeing sights ranging from Paris, WI to Toledo and Cleveland, to rural OH and KY. Among the many highpoints were seeing Ruth in Chicagoland, spending a quiet Sunday in Milwaukee, going to the DIA and Eastern Market in Detroit (etc., happily), visiting with many relatives in Michigan, and attending Maureen’s defense yesterday.
Interested in reading more about the jiggety-jog nursery rhyme, click here….