An eleven-inch churchwarden with a repaired crack. So sleek and pretty that even my mother admired it. I've thought about painting that paste. Either to match the wood, or maybe just going wild and painting it jewel-like -- jade-green, or sapphire maybe. I'm not sure. For now it's going as is.
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Today, as I stepped out the door after a heavy rain, I saw something remarkable in the distance.
A bank of mist trying to climb over mountain peaks!
Century eggs from the neighborhood Chinese restaurant.
It's a very "divisive" food. Some people swear by these (largely Chinese), others (the majority of non-Chinese -- especially westerners, from what I've seen online) think it's weird and appalling, on a level with *balut. Myself, I wouldn't say I'm a yuuge fan, but I do like them. The lady at the restaurant counter seemed just a tad concerned, and she actually asked me if I'd had them before... I had to smile. And she advised me that the sauce provided would improve their taste -- except, the sauce wasn't strong enough to suit my palate, so I added a bunch of stuff from my pantry, and yes, they were good.
*Filipino name for boiled duck eggs with partly developed embryos inside. It's reputedly a popular street snack. Which is why some people humorously claim it's best to eat them after sundown, so you can't see too well what it is you're eating.
For some time now I've been staying indoors if at all possible during the day and only going out briefly in the evening, all to avoid the heat and the sweating. Then I noticed my feet were swollen. I looked up possible causes online, and one of them was "sitting too long" -- which I've been doing, sitting at the computer, navigating the net for hours at a time. So I started walking more, and over the past three days I've logged some 30,000 steps. And I'm gratified to see the swelling has gone down quite a bit.
And during today's walk I came across this car with the cheap repair job.
Real convenient the car just happened to be the same color as the common duct tape.
If there were a medically recognized form of prenatal deformity in which toes were formed on hands in place of fingers, I suppose in vernacular speech, it might well be known as Toefinger (or maybe Fingertoe).
And it so happens that in Greek the word "dactylos" can mean either finger or toe.
So, in technical terminology, Toefinger Syndrome (or Fingertoe Syndrome) would be known as "Dactylodactyly".
I was checking out this shot of a cloud with an oddly even, rectangular hole in it taken some days ago when I noticed that it had been "photobombed" by a cicada.
The shot reminded me of another one, an unused surplus shot of a cloud from a set of ominous clouds, photobombed by an airliner in the same relative place.
Yesterday evening I went out for a stroll in the cool(er) evening air, and saw these gorgeous displays of color and form in the darkening sky. I went out again today, hoping for a repeat performance, but there was not a wisp of cloud.
With one or two of these photos I was very tempted to add some obviously "surreal" effects. Ultimately I decided to leave them as is. No filters, no impossible situations.
Ha, that sounded like a commercial: "We never compromise on quality -- we will never use artificial ingredients of any kind!"
Which reminds me of a line I once heard on The Muppet Show. I forget which character said it, and I'm probably misquoting it, but anyway: "Shampoo? Never! We only ever use real poo!".
I found out that the painting on my fan was copied from a photograph of the Huangshan mountains of China. I don't remember what prompted me to mount a search, or how the heck I discovered the source. For ought I knew, the painting could have been completely imaginary. Kudos to me!^
Not quite "Cicada Rescue", but at least a creature saved from the nearly certain prospect of a very disagreeable death.
I spotted this cicada on the granite steps of the mini-strip mall in my apartment complex.
As this is not a normal setting in which I encounter cicadas, at first I thought it might be dead, having literally just "dropped dead". So I sat down next to it and very gingerly stroked its back, just to see. It didn't respond at first, but when I touched its foot it drew back a little. Thus encouraged, I gently swept it up in my fist, feeling no resistance whatsoever and thus having my suspicion that it must be very close to the end of its life confirmed (from what I've read online adult cicadas only live several weeks at most). It did manage to crawl out of my fist however
and then proceeded to fearlessly climb up my arm and tickle me.
That was yesterday. The cicada is probably dead now. I hope it died a peaceful and uneventful death.
Yes, the song by the rock band KISS. That's what this dramatic image of "burning" clouds in the evening sky made me think of.
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By the way, if you're not familiar with the song, why not give it a listen -- it's some fine rollicking, boisterous fun: "Heaven's on Fire"
Cicada season seems to be slowly winding down, but I came across this straggler. Cicadas are pretty chill creatures -- when you find them resting on trees they'll let you stroke and pet them. O.K., so if you close your fist around them (loosely!), they'll flap around and make a bit of a racket for just a moment, but then they'll quiet down and climb out and crawl about on your hand. It tickles!
A rather unlikely-looking combination of very different cloud forms -- at the top a body like a squid's with a side zipper, above a cutout-like "crescent Moon" with a star that made me think of all those Islamic countries' flags, over what look like cotton fibers or feathery ghosts braving the wind. Makes me suspect these might actually be wholly separate clouds at different levels that just happened to coincide when seen from the ground. Maybe.
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