Musings

I always struggle to get a nice photo of redbud blooms. This time I went for the downers.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

I got distracted into photo metadata and learned a smidge about big-endian (and its opposite little-endian—duh; collectively: endianness), and their distant “friend” circle of confusion.

I think I have spent some time in a circle of confusion, but today I just felt like that was a distant memory.

Posted at 9:40 PM | Comments Off on Minutia

My first mystery: what is this flower called? I don’t ever remember an ID on it…. Kinda like a stalk of violets…which seems impossible.

My other mystery: pemmican. I read about a buffalo jump (stone walls for driving bison to a cliff, where they’d fall and be butchered) near Cut Bank, Montana…which we remember for the giant penguin statue (yeah, Goo it!). The archaeologists concluded that the folks processed the carcasses for several special items, including bone grease. For pemmican.

Just how many paleo-diet freaks today make bone grease? An almost lost art?

Posted at 9:37 PM | 2 Comments »

I was quite flattered today when the Guru asked me for a France picture I had taken, then turned into a good desktop background. Good to me is dark, so the icons show up. The photo is an asymmetrical shot of the down-pyramid at the Louvre, heavily tweaked.

And this is a shrub I bought so long ago I have forgotten its name. Turns out that it thrives with spent coffee grounds dumped on its roots, and little additional horticultural attention.

Posted at 8:08 PM | Comments Off on Of architecture and horticulture (briefly)

I’ve been thinking about the daylight times…not so much the time change, but my inner sense of the rhythm of light, night, and the transition between.

Certainly, the daylight arrival portion of the day is different than it was in Paris*. I notice that it’s dark later and burrow into the warm covers and drowse a bit before getting up to make coffee. I’m a slacker!

France’s seasonal time change isn’t until the end of the month, if I have it right.

Posted at 5:47 PM | Comments Off on Morning light

Sorry, you people in the NE, for sending your way the brrrr weather that came through here. #jesssayin …plus, it’s still cold here.

How many of yesterday’s flowers will be zapped tonight? Predicted overnight low in this neighborhood is right at freezing (33°F). Brrrrrr.

Posted at 9:22 PM | Comments Off on Botanical endurance

I’m calling this fancy azalea; I probably messed with the photo levels and skewed the image too much….

So, last night we heard the weather was coming our way, and we got in the new and fancy car, with iPads and laptop, and went to a nearby parking garage just before 11:30pm. The predicted weather included winds over 60mph and hail 2 inches in diameter. Who wouldn’t want to be safe, no?

What happened in our neighborhood was wind and rain, but not as dramatic as the weather that was predicted and the tornadoes that hit elsewhere. We hid out for less than an hour, but the parking garage rounded up; we paid with minimum grumbling. Yawn. We were safely in bed by 12:30am or so.

I’m calling this regular azalea—the pink—and a yellow-blooming shrub I don’t know the name of.

Tonight’s weather story is that the lows are supposed to be below 40°F, but not down to freezing. In our neighborhood. Welcome spring!

Posted at 8:45 PM | Comments Off on Night weather: Twice

’Tis dogwood-blooming time. If I were naming the seasons or parts of the year by plant activity, I’d call this Heyday of the Dogwood-Blossoms…something along those lines.

Posted at 9:05 PM | Comments Off on Decent proposal?

Still discombobulated from the cross-Atlantic time-change. Managing to fall back asleep when I awaken at appropriate France-time, yet feeling rather listless, languid, and lethargic as evening rolls around. Like now…time for another episode of Counterpart anyway.

These two images are both of light-above at the Louvre, in a gallery and in a stair? connecting? area. As we took escalators from this floor to that, I distinctly thought…this is a change? I may be wrong, but I felt that there had been a major architectural upgrade to the visitor experience since we last visited.

Posted at 7:55 PM | Comments Off on Looooov(re) light

I’m offering two photos of each city we visited….

We might even call this Memory Lane, Marseille.

Rudder view, dry dock boat, old harbor.

On to Aix…love the shadows on the wall to the right, especially in contrast to those angled ones on the door wall.

The shop attendees do step out onto the street when no one’s inside…but not to hail passersby, usually, instead to smoke. Love the rocks holding the racks and the shoeless manikins.

And in Avignon…narrow streets, some construction, often high crowns (suggests rain can gush here).

And sometimes a courtyard peek…usually no longer gardens, but turned into parking. The fountain at the back was preserved…and appears lonely with only a few companion woody plants.

Paris…Paris is always Seine-side to me.

A shopkeeper believes this assortment will entice the many tourists streaming by headed to Montmartre. Why all the hard-sided luggage? Do the vendors push some cheap knockoffs? Who buys a suitcase to trundle around while sight-seeing? Someone must…makes no sense to me. Postcards and miniature Eiffel Towers, yes, but carry-on roller bags?

Okay, one food picture just like during the trip. This is the marmite (say mahr-meet), or seafood stew, that I had in Marseille. Served with dry bread to soak up the juices. And, here, also with grated hard cheese and sweetened mustard. I didn’t know about this stew before the trip, and now I do.

This is one reason to travel—learning something that becomes a reason to return. I had thought I would find Marseille gritty and off-putting. Perhaps before the harbor was turned into a tourist haven, when it was still fisherman and mariners, with smells of oil and fish and dirty sea-water, I would have struggled to find the charming. No longer. Am I a pushover?

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Memories