silver surprise

over a month ago, i hurriedly bought a pair of pants in a department store chain. they're more casual than what i normally wear, so i never even took them from the drawer until this morning. i put them on, then sat outside with coffee to read the daily news. suddenly i felt poking in my backside. i reached behind me expecting to find an insect of some sort but instead found buttoned back pockets which i didn't realize existed - and tucked deep inside each pocket, a jewelry card with a sole silver earring attached.

i photographed the earrings as i thought about what to do with them. should i keep them? return them to the store? what good to them or to me is one earring of a pair? and it happened over five weeks ago!

what do you think? what would you do?

bovine predictions

growing up, we lived across the brook from a dairy farm. early on we learned that cows lie down when it is about to rain. here, we see a herd of indecisive cows, some up and some down - and i guess they collectively were right in their weather predication. even though it was humid and overcast and the skies threatened the entire after-noon, it never did rain.

the unusual request

so a few months ago, out of the blue, i get this email from a guy named colin at the unusual suspects asking me for an interview. i hem and i haw and i outright stall because, quite frankly, i've never had a request like this before. eventually tho, ego gets the better of me and i acquiesce and answer his questions. and here's the result.

by the way, his is an unusual blog - little snippets of pop culture with links to the bigger story. movie reviews and commentary. an entertaining style of writing - and he posts not once but twice a day. i check it daily and have become a follower. go look around and maybe you will, too.

and why the photo of the pansy? no reason. i just like it, that's all.

right on time

with the early spring we've had in these parts and with plants blooming earlier than usual, it's encouraging to see elderflower blooming here in mid-june, right on time. above is the flower as it appears on the bush. below is the close-up, taken with the macro lens. that whole big fluffy soft flower head is made up of hundreds of these minute little flowers.

spoiling the view

a few times a week, i pass this. a rag, i think. it's hanging off a tree at the top of someone's driveway. and i bet it's been there for a least a year now. what is it, do you suppose? a marker of some sort? a remnant from a rowdy party? something blown in by the wind? whatever it is, it's unsightly and i fight the urge each time to yank it down and throw it away. but i'm afraid if i act on the impulse, someone may go careening down the hill after missing the sloping driveway.

summer solstice

"whatever is dreamed on this night, will come to pass."

a midsummer night's dream by william shakespeare

sweet solstice dreams, dear reader

three!

a big birthday weekend for the little girl. note the chocolate cake-y fingers holding up the candle denoting the new age. as it always does, time continues to fly faster than i would like - and the beat goes on.

nifty gizmo

i've been waiting and waiting for this to come in the mail - and today, it did! now, what is it?? take a guess!

in the wind

yesterday in a store, as we passed the display of hanging plants, the little girl spotted pinwheels amongst the leaves and flowers. she was captivated with their shiny brilliance even before the wind set them in motion. we spent much too much shopping time blowing them and watching them twirl around. in the end, we bought several and placed them in garden spots and in plants around the yard where they will spin with wild abandon all summer long, much to the delight of both the little girl and her grandmother.

graduation weekend

in a small town like this one, high school graduation is a source of community pride and celebration. for eighteen years, we've seen these young people everywhere - on playgrounds and school buses, at the supermarket with their parents, in church, at the library, on the ballfield and at the beach, getting haircuts, scooping ice cream, bagging groceries, taking our orders and washing our windshields. suddenly one day, they're young adults, leaving school and leaving us, as they should. i just love that the entire community comes together with such pride to celebrate this momentous right of passage with our young people.

almost time for tea

spent some time at work on this unusually chilly saturday and, after a few hours, felt the need for a cup of tea to warm myself. i checked the stash i keep in my drawer and found the tea bags and the packets of sweetener - but, alas, i was out of powdered creamer. off to the staff room i went, confident i'd find some there that i could borrow and replace on monday. but look, all i found was this gigantic bag of every kind of packaged sweetener you can imagine. but what good is that with no creamer, i ask you?

june grumbling

when you've been at work for twelve hours and you're tired and thinking about the two more hours of work you have at home, when you're hungry because you got so busy you forgot to eat lunch and all you've eaten was cheese & crackers at the meeting and you know you're now missing dinner, when you still have eleven miles to go before you reach home, this is not the vehicle to get stuck behind in a series of s-curves. particularly when your dashboard light comes on to let you know there's something amiss with one of your tires.

coffee break rituals

sad to say, i'm pretty compulsive about a lot of things, and coffee preparation is one of them. pictured here is the cup i always use at work. after i pour my coffee, i add creamers, one by one, tapping the bottoms to get the last drips of cream from each. when the first one is empty, i stuff its foil top back into the tiny container, put it down, then start on the second creamer. i do this four times, packing each fluted container into the previous empty one, making a stack, as shown. next comes two yellow packages of sweetener, with the empty sleeves crumpled, then packed into the topmost creamer of the stack. a swish with a spoon and i am done. the lid snaps on just so, with the sip hole lined up at a ninety degree angle to the cup's handle when i hold it in my right hand.

now if people would only make available a pint container of cream for my coffee, i wouldn't have to go through this compulsive ritual. well, the plastic part of it, anyway.