Musings

So, this was a yesterday-snowdude, over in front of George’s.

The snowdude creator grabbed material from several tabletops for the creation.

Love the pecan toes!

Today we had some melting, lots of overcast. City still closed, but talk is that mid-day tomorrow we’ll see more places open, and buses running….

With darkness, the wind has kicked up. Unpleasant.

Watched The Social Network and were entertained—enjoyed it, actually….

Heard Zuckerberg closed his office and took his employees to see it. Interesting. Tough guy to be close to, if there’s any truth to the script/portrayal….

In the beginning, Zuckerberg was big on keeping Facebook “cool” to attract joiners. Now, it has considerable momentum, although not everywhere.

I remain off FB, concerned about the centralization of contacts and therefore information. Don’t get me started on photos.

I guess I also have this blog, full of information and photos (although, by design, rarely of—easily identifiable—people), so that’ll have to do for showing my hand….

Posted at 11:44 PM | 2 Comments »

Snow and ice storms are different critters when there’s no equipment to clear the roads (as you’d expect elsewhere like MI and OH). And now that the yay-hoos have driven over the roads, they’re gonna freeze up like car parts in a junkyard and the mess will be worse tomorrow. And the next day, and the next few days after that. Mass melting is days away at best.

Which reminds me…I remembered about ice dams and the lakes they create with ice-melt, and I cleaned out the gutter in front of our house, so we won’t get a little ice pond on our driveway apron….

Posted at 6:26 PM | 2 Comments »

We’re safely back from dinner out, and these are our incoming footsteps from about fifteen minutes ago now. The meteorologists have the wintery part right this time. Here’s hoping they’re wrong about the ice (which makes the electricity part dicey)….

Posted at 9:25 PM | Comments Off on Fat flakes coming down fast

On this house, I found the sun positively brilliant—such a contrast to all the brick walls….

The meteorologists have added “ice” to their weather discussions, and this does not bode well.

After dark tomorrow, we’re supposed to have snow; overnight the temps will rise, so that it may transition to sleet, then it will be worrisome.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Looking ahead, pensively

The paperwhites are full out,* a bit of an antidote to the wintery mix I keep hearing may well be headed our way—although various professional sources differ on how likely we are to get this in OUR neighborhood.

* Yes, I know I mentioned them yesterday, but they’re so luscious….

Posted at 7:02 PM | Comments Off on Indoor-outdoor contrast

Agave leaves from ABG last weekend.

I was such a drudge today, sitting around in front of the keyboard and screen way too long. I did spend about an hour sitting in the sun by the strong-scented paperwhites, though, reading the latest New Yorker—instead of taking a lunch break.

On balance, I would have been far better off taking a walk.

Posted at 6:12 PM | 1 Comment »

B & I collaborated on some fine pizza!

Secret: visit a good salad bar to get small amounts of lots of different toppings!

Posted at 10:22 PM | 2 Comments »

I am always amazed at what lovely visual textures Ma Nature offers up, especially if the light is good.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Light on leaf

Say it: orchid.

Now, say it with your eyes closed: orchid.

Listen to that word. To me, it’s a strange one.

I see from the dictionary that orchid comes from the Greek, órkhis, which in its original context apparently referred to a particular plant that had an underground tuber with a specific double-globular shape, so the word órkhis was a natural to refer to this shape from the animal-world—órkhis meaning testicle.

WikiPee agrees with my dictionary on this….

This shape concept-name may well be a common one to apply to the plant world, as aguacate, Mexican Spanish for avocado, has the same meaning as órkhis in Nahuatl (aguacate is a corruption of ahuacatl).

Or it’s a guy thing*.

* Polyorchidism is when the individual has more than two testes. Egad. (Whereever did this little wander in linguistics and natural history come from? Mystery to me; it sure wasn’t planned!)

Posted at 6:39 PM | 1 Comment »

JCB pointed out to me that this fountain over at the ABG* produces a double rainbow**….

While at the ABG, we found nice orchids, but stayed out of the main orchid house because it was FULL of people.

We found interesting blooms in the high-altitude room, more than we saw there several weeks ago….

We tasted chocolate nibs courtesty of a mobile educational cart, also in the orchid house….

Outside, we strolled the canopy walk, and enjoyed the sun on a bench in at the foot of the Cascades Garden.

We walked to the ABG the long way, via the Carter Center, then up the old rail right-of-way that is becoming the Beltline.

And it was a nice sunny day for all that!

* Atlanta Botanical Garden—and I now include their homepage link because it no longer is a festival of crappy moving images and audio. Or maybe that’s because I’ve blocked flash in Safari with the VERY helpful and useful and I love it: ClicktoFlash.

** Sorry, no audio with over-the-top oooohs and aaaahs….

Posted at 7:24 PM | Comments Off on Double rainbow