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"
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 position.
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.
Yesterday I was lucky enough to witness some very colorful clouds during that jaunt to the bank. When I checked the photos later, some turned out to contain fairly spectacular lens flares. Normally this would be annoying, but I think in the case of these particular images they are a plus -- they make the clouds look positively cosmic.
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And I did go back to check on the worm today. It was gone. Hopefully, it means the worm recovered and dug its way back home.
I set out on my way to the bank today to take care of some bills. Before I got far though, I was surprised to see a worm drying out on the hot sunny pavement. At first I thought it was dead, but then it moved a little. There was no trail of wetness to indicate how it happened to end up there, and it was evidently exhausted, just barely alive in its exposed condition, yet it was still slick with mucus as if it had freshly crawled out of the earth, presenting a small mystery. I carefully picked it up and it didn't put up any resistance, betraying its exhausted state.
I placed the worm in the verge amongst the shade of the vegetation, but the soil was dry and packed hard, so I dug a small hole with my finger and was encouraged to see there was some moisture under the surface; I sprinkled some of the soil over the worm, but clearly the creature needed more than just a light covering of earth to revive -- if it wasn't over its limit already -- so I zipped over to the the supermarket across the street and bought a small bottle of water, all the while anxious to get back to the worm as quickly as possible. On the way in I had to ask (politely) a mother-daughter pair to make way for me on the sliding walkway as I was in a hurry, and they were perfectly nice about moving out of the way, although they might have been slightly perplexed as to why a man would be in such a "grocery-emergency"😅. As fate would have it, my way back was blocked by this little old man with his cart full-laden with bottled water, and I didn't dare to ask him to move it out of the way, it looked so heavy.
Anyway, I trotted back with the water, half-expecting the worm to be gone, but no, it was right where I left it. I gingerly poured a little of the water over it (the water was not refrigerated), and was gladdened to see it move in response. However, I didn't know if it was responding with gratitude to a life-saving gulp of cool ichor or reacting with annoyance to a sudden flood in its (possibly) last moments of life. I therefore decided instead to pour the water on the soil next to it, churning it to mud, and piled some over the worm. To this treatment the worm seemed to respond positively, moving with a bit more vigor than before, and I was encouraged to see it even seemingly trying to burrow its way into the earth.
Whether it succeeded or not, I don't know, because by this point I needed to resume my trip to the bank. I may go back tomorrow to see if there is anything left to see.
Number of worms rescued so far: 78
Here's another favorite that I use from time to time. It's a still from the 2017 Korean movie The Outlaws (Kr. 범죄도시).
This ghost must have lost his head in a propeller accident.
Like this Nazi who almost bested Indy in Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark in this scene:
Late last night I made the unwise decision to indulge in a bit of beer-drinking (OK, maybe more than "a bit") into the wee hours before finally going to bed. And of course the inevitable happened, and early this morning (well, yesterday morning now) I was awakened by nature, and after visiting the bathroom I got back into bed. Interestingly, at that point waking life smoothly transitioned into dream and I dreamt that I didn't fall asleep again but instead went out and was walking amongst the street crowd in the night. My dreaming mind was concerned that I had not had enough sleep before engaging in activity, so I asked someone what time it was, and was told that it was actually 8 AM. Thus I was reassured of having had (somewhat) sufficient sleep, but then I started to wonder why then it was still dark... surely the seasons hadn't changed that much yet! That's how the dream ended and I woke up -- to visit the bathroom a second time, and it was still dark.
Demon birds, horizon-girding bat wings, yet another would-be Sun swallower, and a little flying genie, perhaps a cousin of the Dancing Rain God.
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