The wind’s a-flurry and the TV meteorologists are showing maps with electric green and yellow and orange, and there’s talk of hail north and west of us. Hopefully, it’ll stay in someone else’s back yard, and not shred our azaleas—which are abloom in round two for this summer.

I am trying a new weed control system. It took us a while to obtain the raw materials.

At least two ways to take that title, if you know that JCB recently found those nuts in the bottom of a box that was squirreled away in a closet somewhere in this house.

Several days ago I thought I noticed that Google was giving me quite different results when I searched for journal article titles. Today’s online wanderings confirmed it. I’m guessing JSTOR and others wrangled this? Or maybe there’s a transitional phase at the moment, with few pages returned? G-Scholar is effectively eviscerated.

Oddly rainy day, like early spring, cool and…unexpected.

I’ve been reading about versions of slaw made with shredded brussels sprouts. So, I’m trying it tonight. Still trying to figure out the dressing part, but I’ve completed the shredding!

I’m discombobulated. Morning low in the upper 50°F’s.

And, still, the weeds mock me from the “vegetable garden” plot. Note to self: leave coffee and attack weeds. Tomorrow.

When I was a kid we had a cat for a long time that was commonly called Fat Cat*. Actually, he was large, but not fat. And he was a black-and-white with semi-long hair. He adopted us after Dad fed him the leftover Thanksgiving turkey carcass Mom was saving for soup, a cooking strategy Dad wasn’t aware of, so he thought he’d give it to the clearly hungry stray.

I don’t think the cat ate quite that well after that, but he didn’t leave, either.

The Flat Cat, shown here, arrived later, I think in a Christmas stocking (but I may be artificially creating another commonality—a holiday connection—for these two Ef Cats). This one is also quite similar in markings (less so body type) to the famous JRB family cat, named TinTin, pronounced correctly (tan-tan). And the JRB family gave us the Flat Cat…so we would have a cat that wouldn’t trigger any allergies.

Actually, this was one of a pair of Flat Cats, but the other one got chewed on by Baby B, the offspring member of JRB, and thus it wasn’t pristine enough for long-term preservation. Of course, it looked like their other cat…Mieze (pronounced, by me anyway: mee-zuh).

* Fat Cat’s real name was Omar Ben Sufi, named by my bro for the cat in Edward Peple‘s lovely A Night Out (1909). As the Project Gutenberg version shows, the first sentence is: “Omar Ben Sufi was a cat.” Nice.

This year’s crop of Arum maculatum is fading; this photo is from 10 days ago. Delay seems to be my speed these days….

We stirred up the dust today. Flinging. That term should be patented (in a manner of speaking) by the infamous Super-Flinger, KW.