Not sure what all the fuss was about. This was our view Friday night, and Saturday night. Seems like we never get the good views. Meteorites, eclipses, auroras, there are always clouds in the way. But the chimney looks cool.
I’m not jealous of the incredible photos I’ve seen online. I’m glad everyone got to see the celestial light show. Now, they can tell me all about it, and that’s nice.
Sunday was a first for us. My lovely bride and I were able to see both of our mothers on Mother’s Day for the first time since we’ve been together. They live about 900 miles apart, so there are always logistics and schedules and logistics. But this year, my mom, of course, was visiting with us for the last few days. We took her to the airport on Sunday afternoon, after a nice deli brunch. From there, we drove up to see my in-laws and had a lovely dinner with them. So it was just lovely all the way around.
And for all of you other mothers out there, happy belated Mother’s Day, please enjoy this virtual flower.
The rose bushes look great just now, here on the inner coastal plain — where the heavy land and the green sands meet.
Standing in my in-laws yard last night, there was still no luck. But the stars look nice.
We drove back to our place today, because the cats will want our attention. Which is a nice way to work into the site’s most popular weekly feature, our check-in with the kitties.
I opened a new box of food for them recently and, as ever, the most important thing was the box itself. Phoebe approves of her new hiding place.
And, right now, Poseidon is wondering why I am busy pecking away at the keyboard. That’s probably a cue.
There’s a fun-filled week ahead here. I hope that’s the case for you, as well. Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk flowering things and music and probably one or two other things that come up between now and then.
It was a damp and chilly and otherwise gray and rainy day here today. It also sprinkled. And moisture just simply hung in the air, like we were looking out over a moor. And it was also grey and dreary and it drizzled and it was cold. Furthermore, it was dank and slippery and nothing in the distance, such as it was, looked appealing. The clouds, not content to just pass lazily by, ground to a halt, and then lowered themselves upon all of us. It was the sort of day you might best address with hot tea and a horror story. Ridiculous for the second week of May, but ideal for sitting around and taking it easy. And, anyway, the pest control people were due between noon and 4 p.m.
He arrived at 4:35.
So it was good, then, that it was a day for blankets, because if we’d sat around and did nothing on a beautiful day waiting on that guy to show up and wave his high pressure sprayer around … that would have been a real … buzzkill.
Anyway, he got some spiders and ants and wasps. We will see if I should remain skeptical.
But while we visited away the afternoon, my mother had some serious cuddles with the cats. I realized that I inherited the “an animal is sleeping on me, and thus I can’t move a muscle in fear of disturbing the creature” thing from her.
Poe took a lot of naps.
We watched King Richard. It was OK. Two or three great scenes where you wonder if they were real, dramatized or Disneyfied. Probably a movie about Venus and Serena Williams, specifically, would be more engaging, but Will Smith can’t play those parts yet. AI can’t do everything, you.
We also watched the first episode, of three, of the new documentary on the Boston Marathon bombing.
I was driving to campus one fine, sunny Monday when those bombs exploded at the finish line in Boston. And I remember listening to the Boston et al scanners online in my campus office later in the week, and wishing people would stop trying to “report” from what they heard on scanners.
Scanners are endlessly fascinating. I grew up listening to them. For my entire childhood my grandparents had one sitting in the living room and it was either on, or I’d turn it on. But that’s where the sausage is being made in the first responder’s world, and that doesn’t at all make it valuable information for a regular audience, particularly in the most stressful circumstances, like, say, a vicious gunfight after a week-long manhunt.
That, too, was fascinating to hear, in an intense and morbid way, but that doesn’t always merit continually commentary from everyone else.
Anyway, the documentary is in three parts, and they’ve got a substantial handful of the key law enforcement types as prominent interview subjects. They are all speaking pretty candidly, which is delightful. The documentary will have to at least touch on the online sleuthing for suspects, but they surely won’t spend a lot of time there. I bet they won’t talk about the scanners at all. I bet David Ortiz makes it into the documentary.
They did not talk about the best part of the whole horrible experience, the one detail I’ll always shoehorn into a conversation about that particular story, and the part I hope to never forget.
NBC Sports reported people crossed the finish line and kept on running, running to Massachusetts General Hospital, where they donated blood for victims.
That’s just the most beautiful damn thing.
Then, so many others were moved to donate blood that Mass General and the Red Cross temporarily stopped accepting blood donations.
Regular people, working in the interest of helping other regular people. That’s why the bad guys can’t win. We won’t let them.
Out in the backyard, the black cherry (Prunus serotina) is flowering nicely. And, if you would, I’d just like you to stop for one brief moment here and contemplate the focal plane of this photograph.
This is how it worked. Our sellers left us a list of all of the wonderful growing trees here. It’s terrific, really. And on that list, it simply said “Cherry trees.” They were very helpful in many ways, the sellers, but I think a little map would have been fun. It would have eliminated some mystery.
But the discovery is the fun, you say! And you are right! And we are still discovering things!
Late last summer I figured out which of the two trees were the cherry trees. That sounds ridiculous, it’s not like we have 400 acres here or anything, but these particular trees don’t look like how I remember, or envision, cherry trees. These are big. Then one day late last season I had this great idea: look for trees with fruits growing on them.
Viola.
So there are the two cherry trees out back. Tall as can be. I thought they were chokecherry trees, but then I began reading about that species and these two guys are much bigger than those. So I’ve now decided they must be black cherry trees. To be fair to me, according to what I’ve just read, the two species are related.
See? Still discovering things. (And I love that part.)
I’ll try to eat more of them this year.
Speaking of eating, for dinner tonight we went to a local Indian restaurant. This is a new-to-us place, but well regarded, and widely so. It sits in an old bank light to look like a new age church and people come from far and wide to try the food. Indeed, when someone who’s been around here a long time asks where we moved, and we tell them, they ask us if we’ve been there yet.
And now, having gone, I’m quite disappointed it took us almost a year to go.
This was so good.
I had the lamb biryani.
The menu describes it as “Fragrant basmati rice are layered with a spicy and delicious Lamb curry made of succulent chunks of lamb leg to make this classic flavorful rice entree.” That’s enough for two meals, easily. And so that’s dinner tomorrow, and I’m sure it will be even better in that way that the best spiced dishes often are.
My lovely bride and my mother each tried different chicken dishes, pronounced them both incredible, and we were all quite pleased. Especially since the guy said “We only do reservations on the weekend, but come right this way.”
Every plate that passed by looked intriguing. Most of the things on the menu was calling out to me. We’ll be back there, and probably quite soon.
Have a great weekend! We’re going to do something this weekend we’ve never done before!
After a morning at the house we set out for other locales. Because we have company, and because we are close to it, and because the weather was nice, and because it is still uncrowded as we’re still technically in their off-season, and because my mother likes the ocean, we went to the beach.
We walked on the boardwalk in Ocean City. We listened to the waves, felt the breeze, enjoyed the sun and a thoroughly pleasant afternoon.
When you go to the beach, you need an ice cream. This is my lovely bride’s tradition, and some traditions are definitely worth adopting.
We walked out on the rocks of the little jetties.
And we enjoyed the sand, looking for shells and feeling the still quite cold water as it sneaked up to our feet.
It was a delightful and low key afternoon on the beach. We had dinner at a busy local seafood joint, cleverly titled The Crab Trap. Try the tuna steak.
It occurred to me today that there’s another thing I miss from Bloomington. That thing is the airport, in Indianapolis. (Yes, it’s a small list.) It was easy to get to the Indianapolis airport. It was small, clean, made sense and moved a lot of people.
This came to mind as I traveled to the Philadelphia airport, which is bigger, older, and feels like both. It isn’t harder to get to. Three highways, half an hour and then you’re trying to figure out the airport itself.
No airport makes sense without a lot of practice, I’m sure of it. And this, I think, is just the third time I’ve driven to the Philadelphia airport. And it was the first time I’ve tried the short term parking. But I got in, and on time. Luggage came off the carousel before the passenger came down the escalator. And so we found the car, and drove away. Now, my mother is here for a visit, her first one at the new house.
So she got the tour, of course. She approves.
(Incidentally, tomorrow marks one year of our having looked at this house as potential buyers.)
Let’s step out to the greenhouse and see how things are going. Suddenly, the asparagus are popping up. We have the impression that these were the longest of long shots. And maybe they are — but some of the other things that sprouted and disappeared may disagree — but we are now pleasantly surprised.
I’m assuming this will give us two or three little bites of asparagus later this summer. (That’d be plenty for me.)
There’s an asparagus festival nearby this weekend, and why anyone would waste their summer festival efforts on something like asparagus is beyond me. I’m sure the many recipes are great, but it’s still asparagus. And the festivities are probably charming, but, still.
The fig tree is coming along nicely.
Hey Siri, when do I pick figs?
The fig tree grows right next to the gazeebo, which is where we spent the afternoon chatting away, before I picked up small-town cheesesteaks for dinner.
Let’s check in on the kitties. Phoebe loves my mom in a way she doesn’t warm up to visitors. She gets to hold her right away.
She’ll be pleased to receive extra pets over the next few days.
And Poseidon has another person to charm.
He’ll also appreciate the extra cuddles.
So the cats, you see, are just as happy as can be.
Except we haven’t told them we’re not taking them along on tomorrow’s adventure.
And how was your weekend? Ours was just grand. Just grand, I say. But I don’t say it so that you’d think I’m trying too hard to convince you, no need to do that, for it truly was grand.
On Saturday we did a duathlon — run, bike, run. It was a local event. We soft-pedaled down to the starting line from the house. A bike warm-up for a race. They had a sprint and a super sprint. My lovely bride did the sprint. Here’s her big finish.
I did the super sprint and finished second in my age group. Clearly, there was a miscalculation.
These were home roads, though, so I thought that would be to my advantage. Part of the course, for instance, was comprised of Strava segments that I made. I figured I would do well on those parts, since I obviously cared about them and traffic was controlled, but no. I was riding about as slowly as possible.
But I got this little thing, which is now sitting on the dining room table as a very funny joke.
Also I was ninth in the men’s division. Not bad for bad running. And, also, my first ever duathlon.
So I wound up doing a 5K run and about a normal day’s bike ride, besides. Also, I had a wind jacket on, because we’re approaching the last week of April and why not?
They had a 28-mile time trial, too. I dug up the results and, one day soon I’ll go out and ride that and see how bad I would have been in comparison to that field. (Some of them looked quite fast.)
We traveled on Saturday afternoon to celebrate a 75th birthday party in the family. It was a fine day. Family, Italian, playing volleyball with kids, and so on. By the end of the day …
… we were tuckered.
Yesterday evening we sat out by the fire pit, where a fire was burning.
It was not my best fire, but they can’t all be the best, right? It warmed the hands and crackled and hissed in a satisfactory way, but it took too long to get there. And just about the time I had the fire where it needed to be, it was time to go inside.
It’s like that sometimes, and that’s OK.
I’ll smell smoke in my nose for the next two days.
The kitties, for the most part, just sit and watch us from the window. Probably they wonder why in the world we’re sitting out there, when they are waiting in here. Or maybe they wonder why we’re out their with the birds, but not trying to catch the birds. There’s probably a lot to wonder about if you’re a cat.
Or maybe not. They’re cats.
Phoebe has been enjoying some tunnel time of late. Perhaps, while she’s in there, she’s contemplating the nature of all of this, channeling her thoughts to the many cats throughout the cosmos, trying to find answers for what the tall ones do, and why. And why she isn’t getting more milk for her troubles of being so adorable all the time.
I thought I was a late sleeper, but Poseidon, when he gets a comfortable spot, you wind up checking on him a few times a day. And there’s nothing quite like being under the covers on a cool morning and contemplating the mysteries of the world, like we won’t let him go outside.
We tell him, “No no, blanket boy. It’s too cold out there for you, you cover cat.” He is not dissuaded. Especially not now. Now that it is (finally) getting warmer he’s becoming more aggressive about trying to get outside to find a bit of dirt to roll around in. Just not at that moment. It was 50 degrees, and he’s smarter than that.
The cats, then, are doing just fine.
Sometimes Poseidon sits with me while I’m at the computer and lately he’s discovered the cursor and pointer on the screen. Just wait until he notices these jellyfish moving around. Here’s another sequence from the Monterey Aquarium, which we visited last month. They’re beautiful, but seeing them all together like this felt a little off putting.
A sea nettle hunts by trailing those long tentacles, covered with stinging cells. When the tentacles touch tiny plankton, the stinging cells stick tight and paralyze prey. From there, the prey is moved to the frilly mouth-arms and finally to the mouth, where the jelly eats its meal.
And if you’re wondering how long I can stretch out these videos, me too! At least two or three more days.
