Ten years ago I took this photograph, and published it on my Tumblr site. (Remember those?) This is the agapanthus, the African lily. From the Greek agape (love) + anthos (flower).
The plant is believed to have a hemolytic poison and can cause ulceration of the mouth. It does have other medicinal properties, however. There are about 10 species in the genus.
(Haven’t put anything on that Tumblr since November 2014. I wonder why? Probably just rightly remembered I should put everything here.)
Nine years ago I was at a baseball game, and the good guys won. We found our friend watching from a nearby parking deck.
(Happy times!)
Eight years ago we ran a triathlon in the morning, and watched a baseball game in the afternoon. (Good guys lost.) And I got Aubie to take a selfie on my camera.
(Happy times!)
Seven years ago we ran a 10K. I did it in brand new shoes.
This was a fundraiser in London, and on part of the route we ran around Wembley Stadium. The guy that won the race was an Egyptian Olympian. He lapped us. It was amazing to watch him run. He could not stick around to get his medal, they said, because he ran off to run another race. Long distance runners, man.
But look at this awesome bling!
(The next day we were in Paris. It was a whirlwind.)
Six years ago, plus one day …
No. My granddaddy, knife and salt shaker in his pocket, taught me how to eat it: warm and fresh out of his garden. https://t.co/g68wf9MMBM
— Kenny Smith 🌌🐀 (@kennysmith) May 17, 2016
I’ve never been able to eat watermelon without thinking about that. And I can’t eat watermelon without being a bit sad. Had some this morning, in fact.
Five years ago, boy, I was right about this one.
It is a problem of precedent-setting historical accumulation, you see … https://t.co/dIccvY9XNJ
— Kenny Smith 🌌🐀 (@kennysmith) May 17, 2017
Four years ago, we were in Tuscany, specifically, Siena, and just one of the beautiful things we visited that day was the Duomo di Siena. In the 12th century the earliest version of this building starting hosting services, but there’d been a church on this spot for centuries by then. The oldest bell in the church was cast in 1149! These beautiful facades started appearing in the 1200s.
That was a grand trip. We’d do that one again, I’m sure.
Three years ago, the 17th was a Saturday, and we went on an easy bike ride.
Two years ago I apparently sat around and thought of little more than Covid. Remember the pandemic?
And last year at this time I was recovering from my first long drive in a year. We’d just come back from visiting my vaccinated family members. It had been my first drive out of the county in more than a year. It took a day or two to recover.
I did have a reason to re-use this gif, however.
This is a gif from November 2019, and it is one of my favorite spontaneous gifs. @CalCoff and @TilkaMichael are just so perfect in it.
(With special appearance by @APStylebook.) pic.twitter.com/hi2z77eFdK
— Kenny Smith 🌌🐀 (@kennysmith) May 17, 2021
The guy on the left is a sports director at a television station in Illinois now. The guy on the right is a 2L at a Washington D.C. law school. (We’re all going to work for one of them one day, I’m sure.)
So a bit of everything on this day in the last decade.