Friday, 11 July 2014
I’m pretty sure this bumblebee died, and the flowers are dying around her/him. (No red. No tooth. No claw.)
I feel guilty sometimes that I don’t wash garbage. We’re supposed to put our recycling in the bin without foodbits, and sometimes I just can’t force myself to waste water and my time washing garbage—or more accurately, washing garbage from garbage. Elsewhere in this same garbage-ecosystem, foodbits are not removed, so, why am I instructed to do so?????
Thursday, 10 July 2014
I’ve been seeing robins several times each day bobbin’ in the back yard (garden). But I can tell the squirrels have been busy, too.
In an almost-non-sequitur, one fellow I passed today when I was walking had on a t-shirt that read The SQUIRREL WHISPERER. I figure there was a great story there, but I didn’t ask.
(Pause.)
Darn Google. Apparently it’s a sky-mall item. Darn darn. My version (in my head) was better!
Thursday, 10 July 2014
When I depart, it’s no longer dark, although I don’t see the sun. I begin to make my “side loops,” up and back on side streets that add steps without taking me farther from home. I find spots of sun and delightful shadows. I hear doves. I see several cats, awake and watchful.
Hunting? Certainly posing like they’re hunting.
I pass under a tree and feel a leaf land softly on my neck. I reach up to brush it away. It’s not a leaf. Ick.
Wasn’t a bird. Must have been a caterpillar. I’ve been poop-bombed by a caterpillar!!
Wednesday, 9 July 2014
This Land Rover is ready for off-road adventure and the Fourth of July!
Well, the Fourth is over, and…it’s been parked for days…weeks…on a neighborhood street.
Love the reinforced panels over the fenders and the shovel and super-high jack—won’t stay stuck long!
Tuesday, 8 July 2014
Worried that this dogwood might fall, a neighbor put a sign on it warning “parkers” to beware. He had the city arborist take a look, thinking the (very slowly increasing) lean was dangerous. But, no, we heard, the arborist thought the tree was static.
I don’t know how the bureaucratic issues went from there, but yesterday tree-people showed up and took it away.
There’s very little sawdust, as the interior, at least a foot across, was empty. A void. I looked at the narrow remaining encircling collar, perhaps at most two inches thick, and couldn’t decide if the (surviving) rings were compressed, simply narrow, or exactly what.
Monday, 7 July 2014
Found a perfect ready-to-eat avocado today. Chopped up ’maters with the avocado chunks. Added lime juice and salt. Yum!
Sunday, 6 July 2014
I’m back to slogging through the details of Rome’s architectural history (mostly before about AD 400). I find that I have to parse the details first and get them close to “right,” then I try to step back and see…patterns. This afternoon it finally hit me that two ancient shrines were adjacent—shrines to water and fire. The legends place both in very ancient times, so they probably pre-date Rome-ness in some form.
The water shrine (and pool) is the Lacus Juturnae, and the fire-shrine is the Aedes Vestae (usually termed temple in English, blurring the difference between shrine and temple to the Romans). An everyday nymph honored by the first, Vestal Virgins tending the second….
The ancient histories record that there was a sacred grove around the Temple of Vesta, so the Lacus, only a few meters away, must also have been in the grove…. To me they seem like they were paired, at least symbolically, in early times. As Rome grew, the importance of the Lacus must have waned, based on its small footprint and reduced ease of access—plus the insertion of a ramp between the two (attributed to Emperor Domitian, b.51–d.96; it connected the Imperial palace atop the Palatine with the Forum).
Anyway, when I finally put this all together, the fire-water neighborhood seemed especially important, culturally loaded, and… ignored in the literature that I’ve peeked at…so I’m probably just taking meaning when there was none. Ah, can’t be the first time that’s happened (sarcasm). 🙂
Saturday, 5 July 2014
I’m worried that I’m redeveloping that wake-up-at-3/4-am pattern. I’m “working hard” at going back to sleep in hopes of returning to a sleep-through pattern. So far that means I’m awake for an hour, then sleep until almost 8, which is not a desired pattern either.
Friday, 4 July 2014
From atop an ex-industrial building, we could see fireworks in every sector around us, the full 360°, at varying distances. A building (or two) obscured the Big Deal at Centennial Park. Still, the illegal displays here and there added the fun element of where’s-it-coming-from.
Fact is, we were too far from the industrial pyrotechnic night-lights for my iCam. So, here’s a stationary industrial image as a stand-in for…my the interesting names!…turns out an effect I quite enjoy is “boy’s haircut.”
Thursday, 3 July 2014
JCB caught this aerialist today (with the big-cam), but I swear I saw the same (maybe) critter in the same place (without a doubt), several days ago.
Actually, I think just one eye is visible at this angle. Still, no contacts to “tint” them so magnificently.