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| Take out from Carrabba's |
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| C's dish: linguine with fresh tomatoes topped with grilled asparagus and basil |
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| I'd picked up a wee bit o'sun during planting the day before |
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| Watergirl enjoying music from Putumayo's Cafe Latino vid | |
C had attended an event at the Broad and brought back these cool LED ice cubes. I had never seen these despite they have been around since 2001!!! They change colors and look fab in our dragonfly glasses (click to enlarge).
She bought Seedlip non-alcoholic distilled spirits for cocktails and our first experience included the cubes. Seedlip comes in three flavors: aromatic Spice 94, the fresh & herbal Garden 108 & the citrus Grove 42. As with many of alcoholic beverages, Seedlips can be an acquired taste. We generally serve over ice with a neutral sparkling water such as San Pellegrino. Our current fav is citrus with a slice of lemon.
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| Ben Stansall |
This photo says it all: Prince Chuck, awaiting ascension now for 73 years, at Parliament to give The Queen's statement to open proceedings. Mumsy who is 96, still present, not dying, not abdicating, turning over the reins at a glacial pace, seemingly sending a message of lack of confidence in her eldest son. Such as (using the Royal Voice) ..."when he was a child, we had to make sure to keep sharp objects away from him out of fear he might stumble and hurt himself or others."
She could hear hail on the roof while watching a fitness video at her office desk during lunch. At one point, the instructor mentioned "if you are hearing a clatter, it's because the wind is up here (TX) and the pecans are falling on the roof".
That summer, "Sunny Afternoon" by the Kinks was in heavy rotation on the radio. His mother was a fan. It would be playing as she came through the breezeway where he was sitting at the picnic table, drawing, and she would smile. The song had been around so long that commentary between them had become needless.
From the Akira Kurosawa film "Dreams"...
A village known for it's expansive peach orchards has an annual festival devoted to the visual immersive experience of being enveloped in a blizzard of peach blossoms lifted by a stiff breeze.
A couple more harbingers of Spring:
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| Medford Taylor |
For some time, the house finch was depressed about his plumage. It was nothing special and in fact he looked very much like most sparrows. Sparrows! He was so envious of brightly colored fellows from other species-cardinals, bluebirds and gold finches. One day he was hanging out on a branch with a robin who asked about his relations with the gold finches, after all, they were cousins.The house finch grumbled that the gold finches were flashy and ostentatious. A gold finch, hearing this nearby, flew over and said to the house finch "I think you are beautiful." The house finch blushed.
*Jethro Bodine referred to his cyphering abilities with multiplication and "go-zin-ta's as in "five gozinta five one times, five gozinta ten two times" etc. Our friend here is engaging in far more sophisticated mathematics than Mr. Heapin' Helpin'.
He
was sitting on the couch with his grey cat. "Good grief, your hair is
everywhere" he complained, seeing grey filaments all over his sweat
clothes. "That's because I own you, bitch" the cat replied.
He
miraculously survived the war and was stationed back in the States in
San Francisco. She took a train from Michigan to be with him never
having been more than 50 miles from home. Her elder sisters generally
did not approve.
"I couldn't pick this kid outta a police lineup" lamented the professor in the final days of the term. "He so rarely came to class and never to conferences."
While she had no regrets moving to her new home, every Spring she experienced a twinge of disappointment. For 25 years living in Paris, the lily of the valley bloomed in time for May Day. But now, having moved to a place in a more northern latitude, they bloom several weeks later.
I came across this term in an article in the New Yorker. I had never heard it before.
From Audubon CA site: Groups of vultures spiraling upward to gain altitude
are called "kettles". As vultures catch thermal updrafts they take on
the appearance of water boiling in a pot – hence the name kettle.
EzumeImages
We lost during a windstorm earlier this month, the birch limb that held our bird feeder. I bought a tall shepherd's crook and awaited the squirrel onslaught. Within days, they had shimmied up the pole and were feasting. The squirrel baffle I ordered should arrive today or so.
The first to access the feeder was a red squirrel named by C as Squirrel Nutkin in honor of the beloved Beatrix Potter character.
A young male that we named Puck soon came along and this acrobat/trickster/thief was all over the feeder.
In the absence of the tree rodents, many of our feathered pals enjoyed a snack. Here, Messrs. Goldfinch and House Finch stopped by.
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| Steve Ryan |
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| Pictured: Blackberry mango margarita |
Best served very cold, neat.
Indian phase
1. Turmeric kombucha with muddled blackberries.
Cooling tropical phase
2. Ginger colada with muddled pineapple
Her father took her hunting only once. The hunt ceased when she asked her father if he could put the rabbit's head back on it's body.
The contempt for her by her colleague was immense. The woman waited to e-mail her wedding RSVP until 48 minutes before the ceremony was to begin.
They won’t eat lettuce!! Her childhood myths were shattered as the lettuce and carrots she left on the lawn were ignored by the wild bunnies.
All of us have a mortality clock inside us that imperceptibly pulses. After the cancer diagnosis, the sound began to intrude upon his consciousness.
Editor's note: all stories are factual.
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| Mr. Red Bird feeding his mate out back. Aww, good lad! |
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| From The Guardian, photography took portrait of a squirrel who came up on his bench, stole a brownie out of his pack and proceeded to enjoyed it in front of him. Cheeky! |
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| Our Rolla on a very wet day. |
After she left her husband, she stayed at her sister's while they were on vacation. She fasted and found particular refuge sitting and staring at one of their roses bushes in a sunny section in the backyard. She saw visions and heard voices as she focused upon the rose's thorns and HIS suffering merged with her own as she processed years of abuse.
One never knew how the night would go at the restaurant when the chef turned up high.
The wind was feeling needy so he blew and blew in order to get attention.
They had taken magic mushrooms while in college. Roberto remarked to a mutual friend: "it was really windy out yesterday. Raoul must have been going crazy."
Editor's note: items one and four are factual.
About 3 years ago, Mr Maple had a severe vertical split on his main trunk. In an attempt to save him, I began to wrap the wound with weed block fabric to help keep out insects and try to hold him together. Each Spring, I would change the wrap. This year, to my great surprise, pleasure and relief, I discovered he had sealed his wound. For an explanation of how trees treat wounds, here is an extract from a Northern Woodlands Magazine article by Michael Snyder:
In order to survive, trees must overcome their injuries. But technically they don’t heal their wounds, at least not the way that human and animal bodies repair, restore, or replace damaged cells or tissue. Trees are built in layers of cells that are bound by rigid walls in a modular, compartmented way. This structure dictates their wound response.
During each annual growth period, trees build their trunks and branches outward from a layer of actively dividing cells. Increments of new wood are added in a cone shape, enveloping the previous year’s smaller, cone-shaped increment. Picture stacked traffic pylons. Thus, trees grow ever upward and outward, in front of themselves, both in length and in girth.
When a cell is damaged, a tree cannot go back and fix or replace it. But it can limit the damage from any given injury by containing it and excommunicating it from the rest of the still-growing tree. The trick is in sealing, not healing. The focus is on resisting the spread of damage – especially infections of bacteria and fungi and the decay they cause – by isolating the wound and then growing beyond it.
Trees close wounds in two separate processes that create both chemical and physical boundaries around the damaged cells. First, they produce what is sometimes called a reaction zone, altering the chemistry of the existing wood surrounding a wound and making it inhospitable to decay organisms. Then, they build a barrier zone to compartmentalize the injured tissue with new tissue called “callus” or “wound wood” growing outward. If all goes according to plan, the callus growth covers and seals the wound and allows new uncontaminated wood to grow over and beyond it.
