paltry, sage, rose merry & time: fungi

Ever notice how when you buy a vehicle, you suddenly notice there are a LOT of them on the roads? Well, I'm having a similar experience with my recently dented LeSabre... suddenly I am noticing a bunch of dented cars on the road and in parking lots. Seriously, a lot of them... like every 3rd or 4th car has a dent.

I followed a car this morning with a personalized license plate that read:
     PGIRL 2
She clearly has not been around any children lately. Or maybe she's a urologist, from a family of urologists.

I have declared this week the Week of the Daffodil. They are EVERYWHERE now. I love this time of year. Those & along with the forsythias make for some very serious yellow. And the shadblow are bloomin' too.

Sam, done now with basketball, is spending every day after school in "football conditioning". They are not practices, because those are not allowed; it is conditioning. Yesterday the coach hooked up 3 harnesses to the front of his big, extended cab, black pickup truck. The guys had to pull the truck forward down a gravel drive that runs behind the high school, then push it back, with the coach inside steering and occasionally pressing the brake pedal. Crazy stuff. Sam liked it. Something different. Though he did say the dead cat smell at the end of the drive was not very pleasant.

And speaking of dead cats, I haven't mentioned yet, but we do have a new dog, Wiley Blu the Weimaraner (I will do a post all about him)... we got him about a month after Reilly died. I was not ready, but the family was. Wiley Blu is a blue (or gray) Weimaraner, not the light brown kind, and he has gorgeous golden yellow eyes. He is huge and boisterous, very smart, but not at all like Reilly. Reilly would never have destroyed a piece of furniture, for example. Also, our cat, Blossom, used to tease Reilly and Reilly was oddly afraid of her... not so much Wiley, who could possibly consider a little thing like Blossom an appetizer. The 2 of them have grown more tolerant of each other, even to the point of playing... Blossom likes to run by Wiley and have him chase her down. She likes to dart under said furniture where big Wiley cannot fit. I'm thinking she won't be doing that much anymore now, as Wiley has evidently proved that furniture is no obstacle. (No, Blossom is not dead, I only had a moment last night when I wish she and Wiley both were! Just a wee moment...) *sigh*

I am now a quarter of a century old. Had the big birthday last Friday, and took the day off from work. It was a perfect day. Sammy waited until I went to bed Thursday evening, and then he made me a batch of snickerdoodles. From scratch. Mmmmmmm... He put them in a bowl so I could take them to the pottery studio and share them with my friends there, so we had milk and cookies at the studio! And while at the studio, a lovely young lady came and delivered to me a dozen gorgeous red roses in a beautiful glass vase from Kevin, Joyce, Sam, Mike and Wiley. Then Joyce and Mike made dinner, my choice (Mike's Magic Grilled Burgers and Joycie's Vegetable Pizza... Mmmmmmm...). Presents were so excellent and it was a beautiful, beautiful day. Also, I got my first piece of mail from the AARP. Sweeeeet!

And, my best friend, Sandy, gave me a surprise visit on April 3rd. I was at the library when she surprised me. It was a WONDERFUL surprise, and I loved spending the day with her. Joyce and Mike made Mexican dinner for us, and that was also awesome. I shall post pictures soon. I hope Sandy will surprise me again sometime, and I hope then, as recently, I survive the heart stroke. (Did I mention I'm OLD?)

Did you know that insurance companies are now using some kind of rating or score for people, similar to one's credit score (and in fact, one's credit score is a component of the insurance score)? Forget Geico, you can probably save a bundle just by asking about it. From what I hear, one must initiate that conversation; very few agents are clamoring to save you car insurance bucks. Or maybe they are, and I live under a rock. Anyway, our outstanding agent, Alicia, reviewed our insurance, and we saved a bundle! Until Sam starts driving in November...

We are already car shopping for Sam. We haven't decided if he will drive my LeSabre and I get a new* vehicle, or if we will purchase a vehicle for him and I will continue to drive my much-cherished LeSabre. The whole process would be so much more enjoyable if we were rich. So as it is, it is not enjoyable at all.

*New to me, I never purchase new cars. Cha-freakin'-ching.

Sam has been interested in a Cobalt, but because so many teen drivers are and have them, they have a severely terrible insurance rating. It would cost a small fortune to insure a Cobalt even for me to drive it. When Sandy was here, her rental car was a pretty little navy Cobalt, and I got to ride in it. Which decided for me, even before I learned of the over-priced insurance cost, on no Cobalt for Sam. They are too little and uncomfortable; I felt every little bump in the road.

I have heard some excellent jokes from a friend at the pottery studio lately. Attention: corn ahead.

     What's a pirate's favorite letter of the alphabet?
     (The person will respond R, or if they don't, um, duh....!)
     Punchline, delivered in a very pirate-y voice: Ya might think so,
     lassie (or laddie), but it's the C.

     I want to die in my sleep like my gramma did.
     [pause]
     Not screaming and yelling like the
     passengers in the car she was driving.

     The male mushroom said the to the female mushroom:
     Hey, baby, wanna party?
     Female mushroom says: No way!
     Male mushroom says: Hey, why not?! I'm a fun guy!!!
     [get it?... fungi... this one doesn't work so well writing it out]

I am listening to an audio book that is set in London. One of the characters, a man, was riding a bike and was nearly run down by a van. He cycled up to the van, whose driver had the window down and yelled out, "Manners, wanker!" Ah, those feisty Brits.

By the way, do you know why waving your middle finger, aka giving the bird, is a negative response? A woman at the pottery studio explained that in medieval times during battles, the conquering army would, upon capturing the archers, cut off their two middle fingers so they could archer no more, and thus, the army would taunt the other army by waving their middle fingers at them. Wiki does not seem to agree.

And that story was the result of a group question: If you had to lose (aka have cut off) one of your 10 digits (fingers and thumbs), which one would you choose? I chose my left little finger, but the point was that one's pointer finger is less useful than other fingers for things such as balance, utilizing implements and the like. I am disbelieving, but hope never to be proven wrong, or right.

I followed a pair of ducks down our road the other day, a male and female Mallard pair who were moseying down the ditch. They were so pretty. And since our ditch looks more like a creek, it was also pretty. Everything's turning green, so pretty, pretty, pretty!

Well, ok, lichen is fungi... just can't seem to get over my fetish with fungi. Yesterday on my camera-toting walk, I tried to take some close-ups of the lichen I saw. I'm really not very good with my camera, and close-ups are not my forte. (I only recently figured out how to work the flash again... it had me puzzled for weeks... thought I was going to have to enroll in a class.)

I took photos at the wood piles, of course, and of stumps off in the edge of woods around the pond and a couple on living trees. The first shot of the British Soldier Lichen is the top of one of the split rail fence posts surrounding my herb garden. When I was a kid, we called that simply the Red Helmet Soldier Lichen... I have no idea why. BTW, a 'net search on lichen will give one millions of hits. Apparently, I am not the only one with said fetish.

The one photo with the half-eaten acorn was from a stump next to a living oak tree, and there were acorn remains all over the stump area. Clearly someone's dining room. If I were a squirrel, I would approve of the both the location and the table... nice view of the pond while eating an acorn dinner. The half-eaten acorn nut made me wonder why the squirrel went to all that trouble to break open the acorn shell and then eat only part of the nut. Was he too full, did it taste bad or was he interrupted & had to flee... Yes, I spent far too much time at that stump. One could call it procrastination, but I prefer 'enjoying the outdoors.'

Some of the close-up shots turned out okay. I think the colors and patterns are beautiful. I've made smaller views, thumbnails, of each, and to see the larger view of the photo, just click on the thumbnail. How original, huh?!!!...