Thursday, 26 January 2023
Shingles. The nerve ganglia problem. Painful. I’m hoping I’ve dodged it, or am in the process of doing so.
I received shot number one today. I rubbed my arm all the way home from the pharmacy; hope that’ll make the shot-spot less painful. However, the shot-giver (nurse?) said the second one is worse. I plan to rub my arm even longer for that one.
Wednesday, 25 January 2023
Admittedly, I have only a teeny dataset, yet based on it I am proposing an index for inflation. It’s based on coins found on the ground in public areas (not by cash registers, silly, that’d be biased). The index is based on frequency of finds and value of the coins, I guess divided by the time spent looking. Plus, consider change over time. Change…heh.
This past week’s data: two quarters in four days. That’s frequent, considering I spent less than five hours outdoors in the last week.
When I was a kid, we found more returnable bottles than coins. Two cents? I can’t remember what we got for them. And, if we found a coin, it was almost always a penny. However, I didn’t spend much time on sidewalks, and rural roads are still not places to find coins, even today, I’m pretty sure.
Conclusion: inflation.
Thursday, 19 January 2023
This is an oversized splat. No robin did this. I found it this morning early-ish.
Add this data point. In the dark of the night recently we’ve heard a hootie owl holding forth, and the sound seems like it’s just above our bedroom.
To recap, the splat fits with noisy hootie owl, and the walkway location fits with being above our sleeping heads.
Sunday, 15 January 2023
The moon’s been bright on recent clear nights, but I’ve been sleep-stumbling too much to try for a photo. Here’s a flower from last year’s lovely 15 Jan.
Friday, 13 January 2023
Our azaleas sport brown, curled leaves after the seventy-ish hours below freezing we had recently. I thought a picture would be too depressing, so here’s a pansy from exactly one year ago. BTW, today’s high was 26° below yesterday’s high of 70°.
Wednesday, 11 January 2023
I encountered this machine today, fortunately in a display case not my ophthalmologist’s office. I was so enthralled by its elegant form that I didn’t even look for a label to determine what it was designed to do.
Tuesday, 10 January 2023
Feeling genuine? I hope so.
Feeling safe? Hope so, but it’s tough if you’re near the Cali coast.
Sunday, 8 January 2023
This dawn light lasted less than a minute at maximum color. And I was there. Ephemeral.
Saturday, 7 January 2023
I look at this carpet and think, “I have no idea how to decode this textile,” or: once again—my ignorance. This piece was made, I’m pretty sure, before 1950, and perhaps a generation or two before. It’s some kind of special, perhaps not very. I wonder, however, as I tromp across it wearing outdoor shoes.
Wednesday, 4 January 2023
Turns out we got another wave of precip/storm overnight (after yesterday’s post) and through midday. This was at 7:20am. We received enough rain to cause local flooding and general super-moistness. Then, by 2pm, sunshine and gorgeousness.
So, we headed to our favorite international food shopping emporium to peruse a large assortment of plant varieties (while well masked). I found these Win Beans. That’s a typo for winged beans, and winged beans are Psophocarpus tetragonolobus. The whole plant is edible (including roots), and the pods have frilly edges, as you can see. Did not buy (call me chicken?).