Saturday, 16 March 2024
Most of the bulbs are finished blooming. Today I found several flourishing patches of alyssum. Mmmm.
Ah, however, the deep knowledge of the internet says this is commonly called sweet alyssum, if I have it right, but the taxonomists now put it in a related genus these days (Lobularia), so it, taxonomically, has a foot (root?) in two camps.
Thursday, 14 March 2024
We didn’t have pie today, but we did in 2017. They were a mix of sweet and meat.
Tuesday, 12 March 2024
I attended an 80th b-day party this evening, the second of the day for the honoree. This was the best card…I wish I remembered the details (typical of me not to)…the punch line inside was something about no matter the age, we keep the sass.
Sunday, 10 March 2024
I don’t…know the time, that is. I can easily read a clock, but my body is confused. We do this twice a year…why?
Title acronym refers to “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?,” Chicago, 1969.
Monday, 4 March 2024
I looked for a name for this, thinking it might be a labelled artwork. Apparently not. I might title it “broken circles.” On the other hand, it may well be a common form from a context I’m unfamiliar with.
Sunday, 3 March 2024
Looking through a window, there’s beyond the window and possibly a reflection in the glass. I was tempted to use “palimpsest,” but that’s not really the appropriate word. Here’s the warm light inside this morning, while the fog veiled the outdoors.
Friday, 1 March 2024
See this magnolia? It’s actually two adjacent trees on the bank of a former railroad ROW (to the right). Now the ROW is the BeltLine, a pedestrian and bicycle corridor, with landscaping by Trees Atlanta. To the left is a shopping center with a Whole Foods and a Staples (guess which one gets more traffic 🤣). Delivery trucks are the most common traffic along this route behind the stores (and us when the “front” is clogged).
Here’s a ca. 1950 photo from Georgia State’s archives of the Ponce de Leon Ballpark. The info that follows is from 2020 article by Adam C. Johnson (here). In 1890, there was a lake where the field is, and the magnolia was already there. The ballfield was first built in 1907. The photo shows the version built in 1923. If you were sitting behind home plate, you were looking straight at the magnolias. Johnson writes:
If a baseball hit the magnolia tree and bounced back into the field, then the ball was in play because, per the rules, it had to pass through or remain in the tree to be a home run. To this day, the Spiller Magnolia Tree is the only tree in baseball that has been in play, and [Babe] Ruth and Eddie Matthews are the only confirmed players to have hit home runs into it.
Recently, Trees Atlanta has cloned the magnolias, and planted the new trees along the BeltLine.
End of baseball trivia.
BTW, that big building to the far right facing the ballfield was a huge multi-story Sears that had a side track from the RR for deliveries. The building recently was redeveloped and is now Ponce City Market.
Sunday, 25 February 2024
On this day in 2018, we landed in Paris in the early morning and boarded the fast train down to Marseille for a daylight run across central France. We got settled in our apartment, then headed out for a stroll, and caught the sunset near the docks for the ferries that go to Africa and other distant ports.
Hey, it was either this photo of another one of those modern Ferris wheels, or a window display of lovely “meringe” desserts, only €39.50. Thought I wouldn’t tempt you….
Wednesday, 14 February 2024
I strolled around the easternmost of Atlanta’s string of Olmstead linear parks. Its along a tributary of Lullwater Creek—I couldn’t find its name, but the park is Deepdene. The trails have a half-dozen stepping-stone crossings like this. Some of the stones are askew and haven’t been realigned in years.
Here’s a spot where I found a nice, clear pool framed by ferns. Lovely, despite the traffic noise.
Sunday, 11 February 2024
When I moved here, this was a relatively new sculpture, lacking moss-n-lichens. Pet-owner hygiene practices meant we nicknamed this small spot of open terrain+art the Dog 💩 Sculpture. At present, dog-walkers are very conscientious and I haven’t seen deposits here in years. [I read an article this past week about dog 💩 parasites, so I’m very glad my exposure is drastically reduced.]