A day without much of anything

Yet another hot day after a warm night.  I didn't sleep well and just didn't feel like driving to Tabby's Place today.  

It's not as though I got absolutely nothing accomplished -- I powered up the work laptop and went through the mailbox, finding some quick tasks to check off the list before going back on the clock tomorrow morning.  

I logged off at noon, though, and after that the hours dragged by.  Didn't bake anything (I'd made zucchini muffins yesterday) and it was too hot to do much outside.  Even so, I made a lap around the house to get a bit of sunshine, and pulled a few weeds along the way.  That killed 15 minutes, but at age 66 I'm hoping to do more than kill time.

Nothing on TV, and I wound up watching the last hour of The Big Parade, another 15 minutes of Crossing Delancey, and saying "Not today" to the rest of the films on the Tivo.  Internet access here costs more than $300 a month, including the Tivo and a bunch of useless cable channels.  The "cable company" doesn't even bother charging for the landline anymore, not officially anyway.

One small step:  I canceled Netflix after 3 years.  I tried Emily in Paris, Call My Agent, Bojack Horseman, and a few other trendy things, and never finished any of them.  On the other hand, I'm watching an episode of Phil Silvers as Bilko on YouTube every day or so and enjoying it.  There's also a bunch of Wodehouse Jeeves-and-Wooster audiobooks out there, so that's money well spent for the YouTube Premium subscription.

The mortgage is down to the low five figures, so we should have it paid off by the end of the year.  That'll leave money in our pockets.  

More life in our back yard

Sweet Alyssum -- is it a volunteer or did a seed in that years-old packet actually sprout and take root?

Spotted today

BB and I went for a ride to an area business that provides plants that are native to this region.  They emphasized that their plants attract beneficial insects, and a few minutes later, I saw this one, an Asian Lady Beetle.  Aphids are its favorite food, making it a welcome visitor... mostly.

How's that again?

 

This attempted clarification has left me with a question about the timing of the surgery.  

"...during the speech on climate in Delaware, President Biden was referring to his previous removal of non-melanoma skin cancers."   That would have been more successful in clarifying things.

Forever Loved: Willem

 

Another day without stress

No rushed trips to the emergency room or concerned drives to visit someone.  Not today.  Not even a moment's worry about anyone's health.

The first full day of vacation after a half-day of PTO yesterday, and it's starting out slow, the way I like it.

Pat raked up some of last year's leaves, and together we put them in a container for a future trip to the township yard waste disposal site.  I raked away mulch from a 3 by 3 foot square in the birds' garden so they can take dust baths, and used a brush to loosen greenish slime from the birdbath before refilling it with clear water.  Minutes after walking away, I saw a sparrow taking sips from a perch on the outside edge and a finch with its entire lower body in the water, dipping and resurfacing and shaking off everything loosened by the dip.   

The Open Championship and a couple of ballgames have been on the big screen.  On the smaller screen hooked up to the laptop has been a quickie film made to cash in on the character Senator Claghorn.  

The afternoon meal together was leftovers from a visit yesterday to Longhorn Steakhouse, our birthday dinner.  Homemade M&M cookies for dessert.

A drive to the big new Weis in Macungie, past cornfields that must be the subject of transaction discussions behind closed doors.  More and more open land has been covered over with construction of one kind or another.  Got lemons and mascarpone for our birthday cake that I'm going to bake early in the week.

Started taking notes related to what I've learned about photography.  The list got long fast.

Here's a picture of Carrot and another of a Hollywood headshot that Carrot reminded me of.  Google Images seems to think it's Lana Turner.

Now, what is this?

 

How does he do it?

With little to do at work, I went into the Google Books repository of Life magazine and chose one at random.  It was the edition from April 25, 1955, and along with a feature on the Davy Crockett craze and an update on the Salk polio vaccine, there was a two-page remembrance of the photographer Ylla.  

Soon, I was searching for more information and looking for her photographs of animals, particularly (of course) cats.  

A magazine article from 1950 called her the "world's greatest photographer of animals" and notes that "Ylla finds that kittens are co-operative subjects but mature cats are bored by noises and toys, blasé about food, must be handled patiently.  She... is resigned to wasting a lot of film until she gets the right pose."  Some things never change.   

Keeping Busy

 

Familiar-looking Wildflowers

Plains coreopsis

 

Thistles against the sky

 

Taken from the parking lot at Tabby's Place.

Life, not welcomed everywhere

So what we have here is a wildflower that is helping to feed an insect... right?   That's what I saw.

Seen from another point of view, it's a tarnished plant bug on a weed, and neither of them are welcome in a lot of places on Earth. 

According to Penn State University:  "Examples of good hosts for tarnished plant bug are aster-like flowers, from daisy fleabane in the spring to ragweed, goldenrod, and horsetail later in the year."  Yep, that looks like daisy fleabane to me.