Life Continues

Suddenly there are violets everywhere purpling the grass. The insects are here to visit them and their neighbors, the dandelions and creeping Charlie. Yesterday I saw not only the usual carpenter bees and green bees, but also a bee fly and a couple of honeybees. Last year, I didn’t see a single honeybee in my yard (that I can recall), so it’s a lovely surprise to see some already this year. Life continues, and so does Hope.

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The Truth About Green Bees

Among the insects that visit my yard are little green bees, and what I call them is “little green bees.” I know that they’re technically “sweat bees,” but I usually don’t call them that, because it’s an icky name. That name comes from their supposed attraction to sweat and other salty fluids. There was actually a story in the news recently about a women who was experiencing pain in her eye. When she went to the hospital, the doctor found four bees living in her eye. They were a type (very tiny) of sweat bee. Gross, but interesting.

Another thing about sweat bees is that they can sting. I have not yet been (and I hope I never will be) stung by one. Yesterday I was a little concerned that I might be, though, when a green bee landed on my foot and seemed disinclined to leave. I gently shooed it with my finger.

The little green bee responded, “Oh, you want me on your hand instead? Okey-dokey.”

(No, Bee, that was not what I wanted.)

Luckily for both me and the bee, I did eventually convince him to fly away. He did not sting me or try to take up residence in my eyeball, and I did not swat him. Peace continued in the yard.

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How Dare She!

What’s really annoying is when a scientist takes the plot for your novel and tries to turn it into real life. (BTW, I’m not suggesting for a moment that she “stole” my idea. I’m just unhappy that it’s taking me so long to write my speculative fiction that the real science is outpacing me.)

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First Violet of 2019

First Violet of 2019

I spotted several buds on 4/14, and this one was the first to open fully (picture taken 4/15).
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Excommunicated

My husband visited his parents today, and my mother-in-law sent some chourico home with him. I reheated the chourico and ate it on a hot dog bun with some ketchup. Yes, ketchup. I’m pretty sure that’s enough to get me excommunicated, or whatever they do to wives who don’t adapt to the proper Portuguese ways.

P.S. For the record, I wanted to add a cedilla to “chourico,” but I couldn’t figure out how to do that. I am not loving this version of WordPress!

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Listening

It’s a beautiful night for listening to the peepers.

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There Are Lines, and There Are Lines

Quote of the day:

I hope it starts pouring. I don’t want to get soaked. I just want everyone to stay away!

—Spoken by the cart-return guy at the local grocery store

Thanks to Stop & Shop’s labor strike, our local grocery store was a mob scene today. It would seem that the people in my town prefer to wait in lines rather than cross picket lines. That’s laudable, I have to say, but I also agree with the cart-return guy. I wish everyone would stay away. Our local grocery store is horrifically expensive. Those of us who shop there regularly do so because it’s convenient. Take away the convenience and the prices are unbearable, and today the extra shoppers spoiled the convenience. I know those shoppers had to go somewhere. I just wish it hadn’t been there!

I’m no expert on S&S or on labor unions, but it sounds to me like S&S posted massive profits then tried to cut their workers’ pay and benefits. That’s unfair, and though it may have become par for the course in the Profits-Over-People economy that our government is currently sponsoring, it’s still wrong. Very wrong.

As a child, I remember going to S&S with my mother. As an adult, I have shopped in S&S and Giant stores in many places over the years. Though I shop at a variety of stores, S&S is where I go for my big grocery shopping trips. But I will give the chain up if they can’t treat their employees better. Really, I have no patience left for this kind of bullshit. Just a little farther down the road are Target, Whole Foods, Aldi, Market Basket, Seabra, and others. Don’t make me have to go there!

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Good News and Bad News

The good news is that if I force myself to sit at my desk, where I won’t be able to stop myself from bingeing on social media, eventually I will become so disgusted with myself that I’ll do some writing. That’s also the bad news. There really ought to be a better way to get myself to write

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Powerful Music

The problem with writing while listening to soundtrack music is that the grandeur of the music does not always match the writing. I’m listening to the soundtrack to Inception. It’s big, powerful music. While listening to it, I could be writing about yesterday’s lunch and that lunch would seem so incredibly important—“It was curried chicken, by God! And my life has never been the same since!”

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More Books

Mail Delivery!

Yes, more books came today in the mail today, but I feel justified in having bought these. I have been needing a replacement set of Narnia books for a long time. Now that my kids are old enough to enjoy the series, I thought I should have a readable set here for them. Not that my old ones were completely unreadable, but they were all nastily foxed and tanned, plus Prince Caspian‘s spine had completely failed and pages were falling out of it. I chose this particular set because the cover art looked good, and it came with a trivia book (and also a cute bookmark, as I discovered when I pulled out The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). These are reading copies, appropriate for the rough handling they’re likely to get from children. Someday I still hope to buy a quality set of hardback copies.

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