Run-On Run-In

Posted on 06/12/2021 by chick

Up in the side yard the partridgeberry was blooming, and the pairs of white flowers were so beautiful, and so were the pink buds and the plush moss, and I stopped to take their pictures though the light was failing and the mosquitoes were humming, so happy to see me that they bit me all over, and now I am itchy, and all the pictures are fuzzy, because no amount of wishful thinking can atone for a lack of light, but the flowers were so beautiful that I could not resist.

Posted in Crazy Me | Leave a comment

Random Thoughts on a Saturday in June

Posted on 06/12/2021 by chick
  • I had to give myself a stern talking-to yesterday, because over the last few days I haven’t been getting my Daily Minimum done. I said to myself, “The Daily Minimum is the best thing to come out of the pandemic, and you’d damned well better keep up with it! Just because you go to Target now doesn’t mean you get to be a slacker!” I had to admit that I was right, and I promised to do better.
  • I had my teeth cleaned on Thursday. What a nice feeling it is to have thoroughly clean teeth. But, apparently I have a cavity that could require a root canal. Send a little positive thought my way. I really don’t want to have a root canal.
  • I’m going to turn 49 in a few months, and then I’ll officially be on the cusp of 50. Fifty is a big, scary number that ought to be an important milestone, but I’m afraid that instead it will slip by, another blip in a long line of blips, and the next thing I know, I’ll be on death’s doorstep, not even knowing how I got there. So, I have decided that I should, before hitting 50, “clear the table.” That is, I should clean up all my half-finished tasks, eliminate any half-baked dreams or goals that aren’t achievable or that I no longer really care about, so that I can start the second half of my (theoretical) century without all that emotional baggage and with the freedom to move forward in new directions. It’s a good idea, anyway, and something to ponder in detail as my 49th approaches.
Posted in Crazy Me | Leave a comment

Masochistic

Posted on 06/08/2021 by chick

One of my shoulders has become higher than the other. That’s a bad thing. I have also developed chronic pain in the lower shoulder, which is also a bad thing. I asked my doctor what I ought to do, and she suggested a posture-correcting brace, and OMG, do I ever feel old. Posture-correcting braces are no fun to shop for either. One brace that I looked at was advertised as “a perfect gift idea” (yeah, it’s not). And the one that said “fully adjustable and comfy” was the one that looked most like a torture device. That’s the one I bought. If I have to suffer, I might as well go full-on masochistic.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Random 6/8/2021

Posted on 06/08/2021 by chick
  • On Twitter I recently discovered a Britishism that I hadn’t seen before. The word was “cagoule,” which is apparently a type of jacket roughly synonymous with what we’d call a “windbreaker.” As is always the way with new words, once I saw it in one place it immediately popped up in another, in this case The Great British Baking Show.
  • I was standing outside the front door one day, minding my own business, when a hummingbird approached the feeder. It paused a moment when it saw me standing there, then continued to the far side of the feeder. Finding the feeder empty, it flew back toward me, and, hovering in the air, it looked me dead in the eye and yelled at me in hummingbird speech. I didn’t understand the words, but I got the message. I went back inside and instructed my husband to fill up the feeder ASAP. Now the hummingbirds have food again, and they have not harassed me since.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Summer Now

Posted on 06/06/2021 by chick

There are times when describing the weather as “baking” is not hyperbole. It’s 98 outside right now, says our outdoor thermometer (edit: it’s actually 99.5–the temperature went up while I was writing). You can feel the heat blaring off the roads and rocks. I’m half tempted to crack an egg on a rock to see if it would cook, if only because I’ve never tried that experiment before. I’m glad that the sun is back, and it felt good to be outside for a few minutes, but I couldn’t tolerate the heat for long. While I was out, I saw a big green dragonfly and some scorched plants, which together with the high temperature made it seem positively July-ish. I don’t care what the calendar says. It’s summer now.

P.S. As of 2:15 p.m., the temperature is over 104. Our thermometer might be exaggerating slightly (if it’s catching sun), but the temperature is decidedly not June-ish, and I am not loving it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Random 6/6/2021

Posted on 06/06/2021 by chick
  • Last week I started to read a Barack Obama interview. I admire Obama, and I am interested in what he has to say, but I couldn’t get past the first few paragraphs. The problem for me is that Obama is such a decent human being–even after the terrible way he was (and still is) treated by some Americans–that the contrast between him and certain other politicians is painful. I can’t stand to be reminded of it.
  • I signed Marshall up to get his Covid vaccine in a few weeks. I can’t believe he’s almost 12! He probably won’t be thrilled with the idea of getting another shot in the arm (he just had a bunch of them at his last check-up), but I know he’ll be happy to get his Covid immunity.
  • I went from having barely left the house in over a year to being out and about most of the day last Monday. The world seemed, at least on the surface, pretty much as I had left it, though one of my favorite restaurants had gone away (sadly, another loss in a year of many losses). But I got to see my best friend again, and though we couldn’t have lunch at our usual place, we had a good day. It was wonderful to see her again.
Posted in Crazy Me | Leave a comment

Reading Report: Early June

Posted on 06/05/2021 by chick

I finished The Wizard’s Daughter by Barbara Michaels. I gave it an A- grade. The characters and plot were only so-so, but it was an easy, enjoyable read. In this story, an orphaned young woman named Marianne dreams of becoming a singing sensation, but she’s so eager and naive that she gets duped into performing at a risque establishment, which puts her in a dangerous situation. Then she is discovered by a wealthy duchess who thinks that she may have a gift for spiritualism. The duchess takes Marianne in and pampers her, with the expectation that Marianne will contact a spirit for her. Marianne is not convinced that she has the gift, but strange things keep happening around her, and she she may have traded one dangerous situation for another.

I am currently reading The Shadows (The Books of Elsewhere, Vol. 1) by Jacqueline West and not particularly grooving on it, but it’s short, so it shouldn’t take long. Livia saw that I was reading it and said, “Why are you reading that instead of the second book of The Forbidden Library?” Why indeed? I loved the first book of TFL (by Django Wexler), which is why I bought the second one, and Livia adored them both so much that I bought the rest of the series, so why am I not reading it? And the answer to that question is that I have about a billion books but no methodology for deciding upon a reading order. I read whichever book ends up in my hands at the exact moment at which I need a new book to read. I persist in believing that I will read all of them someday, so it doesn’t matter which order I read them in. BTW, none of this is to pick on West’s book. It has good ratings, and my only problem with it so far is that it’s not quite suiting my mood.

Posted in Reading | 1 Comment

What the Kids Say

Posted on 06/01/2021 by chick
  • The kids call grilled cheese “grilled chez,” and they call maple seeds “attack helicopters.”
  • I try not to listen to Livia’s after-school meets with her friends, but occasionally I overhear scraps of conversation. One day I thought I heard her say, “I’m a reading maniac!” I asked her later if I’d heard her correctly. She said, “You can quote me on that!” So I just did. And, though I wouldn’t characterize her love of reading as a mania, I applaud her enthusiasm.
  • Marshall enjoys taking words and names and warping them, particularly into opposites. So, instead of the Star Trek shows Deep Space Nine and Voyager, we watch Shallow Not-Space Eight and Stay-At-Home-Ager. LifeSavers are “LifeEnders.” He also frequently mentions “Muffin Time” (not his invention, BTW, just something he thinks is amusing). The interesting thing about Muffin Time is that it can mean either “time to eat muffins” or “time to die.” Personally, I prefer muffins to death.
  • Also, included at his dad’s request: Marshall really likes the word “toes” and adds it to other words and names whenever the mood strikes, which is often. Meanwhile, Livia has grown quite tired of that and would like her brother to quit it.
Posted in Livia Says, Marshall Says | 1 Comment

Reading Report: End of May

Posted on 05/31/2021 by chick
  • The Wizard’s Daughter by Barbara Michaels, 109/325: I am enjoying this book about a young woman, left penniless upon the death of her father, who is unexpectedly swept up into a lifestyle of luxury and spiritualism. It’s far-fetched but in a fun way, and I hope Michaels will keep up the charm.
  • The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland: This book replaced The Wasteland, which I just wasn’t able to get into. It’s textbook-y, but also full of great poems. I’ve been nibbling away at it, poem by poem.
  • The Grace of Great Things by Robert Grudin, 70/243: This book is a bit of a struggle. I sometimes do not see how Grudin gets from point A to point C. Am I missing something, or does he keep skipping over point B? I’m not sure. In order to be sure I would have to finish the book, reread parts of it, and then write about it in order to think my way through it. Who has time for that? So, I might give up on this book instead.
  • I haven’t made much progress on An Appetite for Violets by Martine Bailey, but I still intend to finish it. Ditto The Unfinished World by Amber Sparks, Overture by Yael Goldstein, and On the Bus with Rosa Parks by Rita Dove.
  • I have continued to buy books (naughty, naughty), but I’ve also convinced myself that it’s time to start frequenting the library again. There’s a slew of landscaping and gardening books that I’d like to take a look at. My plan is to drop off some book donations at the library this week, and while I’m there, update my library card, take out the books that are available at my branch, then request the remainder through the inter-library loan system.
Posted in Crazy Me, Reading | Leave a comment

Nature Report: Late May

Posted on 05/30/2021 by chick

Positives: The pyrola is coming along nicely. The flower stalks have gotten taller, as expected. The false Solomon’s seal is blooming. It’s one of my favorite woodland wildflowers, and I plan to feature it in a SITY post later this year, after the berries and fall colors start to show. Now that the winter moth population has been knocked down, blueberries are making a comeback, and that is definitely something worth celebrating. The high bush blueberry shrub that I discovered growing in the back corner of our property has started to develop berries in abundance. A few days ago Marshall noticed that hummingbirds were checking out the empty feeder, so my husband filled the feeder up, and now I see hummingbirds swooping past my office window all day long. Sometimes they perch for a moment on the power lines, presumably so that they can scope out the feeding area before diving in. I can see them out of the corner of my eye as I’m working, and I often pause to watch their antics. I’ve tried to photograph them from my office window, but if they see me or my camera they won’t come near. I need to up my stealth game.

Negatives: The early spring is a honeymoon period during which I like most of what’s happening in Nature (well, as long as there aren’t hordes of caterpillars destroying everything in sight). Early spring is when the trees leaf out, my favorite wildflowers come up, and the air starts to warm but is still fresh. What a lovely time of year that is! But in late spring, summer, and early fall, when it’s hotter (sometimes too hot, and also too dry), the unpleasant and/or dangerous bugs come out in larger numbers, the pollen is thick in the air, and the yard becomes overgrown with less likeable plants, then my mood tends to take a dive. It’s only May, but we’ve already had multiple back-to-back days in which the temperature topped 90 degrees, including one that hit 97 according to our home weather station. While we can’t be sure that those hot days were attributable to global warming, that seems a likely explanation, making those days not only uncomfortably hot but also depressing. I’m a little nervous of what summer might have in store for us. The honeymoon period is over for this year, and I will have to take extra care to keep my mood up from now on.

Posted in Crazy Me, Local Flora and Fauna | Leave a comment