Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Don’t ask me how to pronounce it, but back in Old English days that’s the word that referred to the color orange, and it meant yellow-red.
Then came the fruit from distant lands to the east, and with it the name that was then, for obvious reasons, also applied to the color.
This specimen’s known as a naked orange around here, since it’s lost its zest….
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Discombobulated.
Now there’s a word.
And it perfectly describes my underlying energy levels today.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
For this morning’s walk route, we rechecked the larger pond at the Carter Center. We didn’t visit the smaller, upper pond, as we got distracted by the American chestnut plantings in the demonstration plot.
Thursday, 16 July 2009
Piedmont Park’s refurbished natatorium, main outdoor pool.
While we were walking, we tentatively decided that a natatorium was most likely an indoor pool—the thinking went that the suffix “-ium” referred to a place of…whatever—think auditorium, aquarium (terrarium, not so much).
Turns out that the dictionary says that a natatorium is a swimming pool, especially one that’s indoors—but that’s not a requirement.
This kind of misunderstanding is a result of learning vocabulary from listening and from written usage, and not from study of the reference materials.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
I managed to stay awake and watch the moon over the lake, while a few celebratory fireworks exploded in glorious bursts high above the treeline on the far shore.
For reasons mysterious to me, the Curtis fireworks show will be tomorrow. Hello. The holiday is the Fourth of July—perhaps a rather inflexible name, but not at all the same as Weekend-of-the-Fourth Celebration.
Friday, 12 June 2009
Celebratory festivities tonight, and we got a chance to see the new Kindle 2, sold only by Amazon. Nice, tidy, little, easy-to-hold package.
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
As I began to compose this, my mental landscape was dominated by the word perspective. Of course, I googled it—and discovered the many aspects of the word that Google has separate pages for—here.
The picture obviously illustrates the graphical/pictoral version…. However, I think I was pondering something closer to the cognitive version, or perhaps the wisdom or accumulated knowledge, well, perspective….
And there ya go, we’ve come full circle….
Cool thing—we watched a single swallow repeatedly fly by and swoop to dip into the surface of the pool. Barn swallow perhaps (although no response to birdcall emanating from iPhone)? Enamored of Michael Phelps?
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Around here, April showers bring*…April flowers! At least rains this early in the month!
These were open yesterday midday, but with the rain we’ve had off and on (and sometimes ON-ON) since yesterday evening, I guess they opted to stay safely closed today….
* Apparently this is from a proverb known at least from the nineteenth century….
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Wonderful.
Outstanding performances by Bardem and Cruz.
Woody Allen’s script—extremely well done. Tight. Strange to hear so many typical Allen comments from the mouths of such different characters. Yet, he made the movie totally work in a Spanish setting. Loved the music (but then I’ve been partial to Spanish guitar music for years…).
The sign in the picture? From Piedmont Park. Why here? Dunno. Still searching for the answer. Me and Cristina….
Monday, 19 January 2009
Nandina in winter mode (berries are poisonous), glowing even on an overcast day….
I keep hearing that this inauguration will be historic….
However. I can’t imagine that the inauguration of any President of the USA, or even of Bolivia or Botswana, is not historic.