It used to be landscaped

Now it's loaded with volunteer greenery and insects that accompany it.  I like this way better.

Honeybee on oregano flower, 26 July 2025

Been thinking about this already

Lately, the President of the United States has let it be known that the sugar-sweetened Coca-Cola from Mexico is superior to the HFCS-sweetened Coke currently made in USA.  My opinion is the same as his.

After the storm

It wouldn't have seemed possible during the thunderstorm that hit the area at about 5:00 this afternoon, but by 7:00 things were calmer, drier and especially, cooler.  It was just a little too late for this tree the next street over.  

Conditions were much better this evening for walking around the neighborhood, and I got in about a mile and a quarter.  Map My Walk credited me with 2,569 steps, which is about a third of what some medical concern claims is the proper daily amount. 

I saw this about a few hundred steps from home, in addition to a great many other rabbits along the way, which made it worth the trip.

Tonight's recap

Good Queen Swirly (9:44 a.m.)

But why?  (7:30 p.m.)

Two of the many seen along the way.  (7:35 p.m.)

Back in my own yard.  The Indian Blanket flower that began as a volunteer

 in late June 2020 is still thriving, more than five years later.  (7:47 p.m.)

Google Lens says, "The image displays a cluster of Verbena flowers, 

also known as Vervain."  (7:48 p.m.)

Welcome to the new arrival

I found some old nasturtium seeds in the garage and planted them in a planter this spring.  Just three seeds sprouted, and until a day or two ago, no flowers had been produced.  

 

Nice

Rabbit Holes

For the first time in months, I uploaded a photo of mine to Pinterest.  While on the site, I saw someone else's upload, and it had to do with a Chevrolet dealer in Allentown.  An hour later...

When I moved to the area in 1987, there was an appliance dealer whose building had obviously been an auto showroom in years past.  The Pinterest pin provided more detail, and what with one thing and another, I learned that the used car lot on the southwest corner is still a used car lot today, only under another dealer name.  The showroom/appliance store on the southeast corner was torn down in 2006 and a bank erected on the site.  The Esso station on the northwest corner became an Exxon, then a Hess, and today is a Speedway gas/convenience store.  The diner on the northeast corner is still a diner, although last time I drove by, it appeared to have gone out of business.

Then there was the 1971 purchase of a former A&P store a little south of the corners described above.  The A&P had been there for something like 25 years, but it was a small neighborhood grocery store, not a large supermarket, so it didn't fit in the company's plans.  A newspaper ad from the following year, found on WikiMedia, showed the rebranded building.  Then a look at Google street view from May 2008 showed the same building, which now housed a restaurant, but still had the Centennial peak on its roof.  However, in a 2011 photo of the building, it had been remodeled and the peak removed.  As of today, the same restaurant was open in the building, as it had been in 2008, but the outside had been landscaped and looked much nicer than before.  

That's where I stopped with the former Allentown A&P and looked at the Pleasant Family Shopping graphics that showed a newspaper ad for a grand opening of a Centennial A&P in Sandusky, Ohio.  I didn't dig as hard here, settling for learning that the building that opened in 1960 had been replaced by a huge Kroger Marketplace.  Enough for tonight.  That was interesting.

Because I Can

  

PG can't walk very far anymore, so if I want to take a walk around the neighborhood, it has to be done alone.  If I see something interesting, I take a picture to show her afterward.  This is what I'd call interesting.  Farther away in the yard were two more cottontails, but they would have been tiny specks compared with these three.  

Google calls this Wild Bergamot, aka Bee Balm.  There was a good-sized patch of it near the creek that runs through the local park.  

The oregano in our back yard has grown to a few feet tall, and its flowers are attracting numerous honeybees.  (Oregano honey?  Hmm.)  No picture yet, due to the quality of the light.  When it's nice, bright, and indirect, as in the bee balm snapshot above, I'll haul out the phone.  

Some Fun Now

I was watching an episode of Victory At Sea when this screen came up.  Automatically, I tried to figure out when this footage was taken.  

At far left, I can read "Chester Morris", but not the name of the film or the theatre.  A little to the right, there's "Special Agent" at the Central, I believe, and above that I have no doubt that "Bengal Tiger" is at the Strand.  

Some minutes later, I have learned that all three films were released in mid-1936, and that the Morris film is named "Counterfeit."  What's more, the three stars of "Bengal Tiger" are Barton MacLane, June Travis, and Warren Hull.  The New York Times of July 29, 1936 notes that the film is scheduled to open on this day.

But information available says that "Counterfeit" was released May 25, 1936, two months earlier, and that bit about "Second Smash Week" doesn't add up.  Not a big deal, though.

Now all I want to do is screenshot it, and that's where it got weird.  WIN/SHIFT/S caused the YouTube screen to go black, first in Chrome, then in Edge and Firefox.  Anything I'm doing wrong to cause it?  Search says try double-clicking and then choosing save from the menu that comes up.  Nope -- the save function is there, but it's grayed out.  Then to Reddit, where they said hardware acceleration should be turned off, but that didn't change the result either.  

By this time, I would have used my phone to get it over with, but I'd left it downstairs.  A few more minutes, and I think I've found the answer:  It's a feature, applied to copy-protect copyrighted material.  OK then, I'll just bookmark it and come back tomorrow with my phone.

Which I did...

So anyway, the Globe is now the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.  The Central became the Columbia, the Gotham, the Holiday, and more before being demolished in 1998.  Likewise, the Strand was razed in 1987.  

Once more, adding to the sum total of human knowledge.