Biker Buddy rules

We were out walking and a huge storm came rolling in with thunder, lighting, wind and sudden hard rain. Biker Buddy ran home and got the car and picked me up--he got soaked--and then took me to the mall to complete our walk--even though he was still soaked! There was six-eight inches of water in the streets and the traffic lights were out. Hard driving waiting turns at every light and puddling through the water. The sky looked GREEN but it doesn't show up in the photos. Tornado warnings.

A Parting Quiz and off to Slovenia

This will probably be my last post until I return from Slovenia. The first picture is the Julian Alps, in Slovenia. I apologize, since some of you have seen it before, but just a little hint of where we're headed.

The rest of the post is a QUIZ. Hpy had a quiz when she left, so I am having one too. I will turn OFF the comments so you can't see what each other wrote until I return and turn them on again. There may be an award for the winner. You still WRITE your comments and guesses, but they won't show up until I turn them back on.

These are enlarged crops from various photos of mine--your job is to guess what they are. The numbering starts with the first one AFTER the Slovenia picture.

I will be back in early July. I am leaving tomorrow, but frantically busy today. I shouldn't be doing this. LOL! But I am.

You can enlarge the pictures, all of them, by clicking on them.

baby woodchucks

The most exciting thing at St. John's Marsh were two baby woodchucks--they were SO cute--they weren't afraid of us on the bikes--they didn't move and we almost ran over them because they were in the middle of the very narrow trail, but when we got off they hissed and spit at us like little kittens and then turned and ran into the tall weeds. It was very cool! :-D Unfortunately it all happened so quickly we didn't get any pictures. Too bad.

Forget-me-not

In a Dream of Remembering, forget-me-nots. These remind me of my Mom, especially after I made that forget-me-not painting of her forget-me-nots after she died. These were from Cranbrook Oriental Garden, and the misty "effect" may have been caused by overheated "dew or perspiration" (otherwise known as sweat) devaporizing on the lens.

I did a new "quick painting" tonight of myself reflected in Biker Buddy's eye. I may do some additional work on it sometime.

I will be out of the country June 14-28, so I will not be blogging for quite a while, probably (at least once I leave and maybe while getting ready).

Rain?

What do you do when it's raining? Take a walk in the rain? Stay in and paint a picture, write a poem, or write a story? Clean the house?

Tell me about it. Leave a rainy-day comment. Or a sunny-day comment would be nice, too.

I do all of the above, and more. Or less. Read.

Write a new poem. Write a new story. Unpack a box. Hold my sweetie. Take a photograph.

Forget Me Not!

These forget-me-nots were growing in my mother's garden as I was preparing to leave her house for the last time after she died. I felt it was a little request--"Don't forget me!" Don't worry, I won't, Mom! (wahn!). I really miss my mother, and it hasn't subsided at all yet. Grief is a strange being that sits heavy on the heart and is not eager to depart.

They are in a small vase of hers on the front of Biker Buddy's car, which is reflecting the sky.

I posted 4 other flower photos to Photique 3, including trilliums au natural a wild geranium and the mighty lion. If interested in the others, click home while there and scroll to May 14. (I back-posted them for the flower challenge.)

Feeling Crabby

Yes, I know this is a CRAYFISH, but I'm a crab, LOL!

Blogger has gotten so much harder I almost don't want to bother with it at all. And that's just one of my problems. I'm still dealing with my mother's estate and while I was away, I got huge piles of snailmail and email, and I'm not caught up yet. I am feeling crabby about it all, so watch out! (To say nothing of canceled and multiply rescheduled and recanceled doctor's appointments and worse yet, the health issues behind them.)

Why did blogger make blogging harder and less user friendly than it was before? Any ideas?

It will be a while before I can blog regularly again, I'm so so far behind.

I did, however, post some new posts including some juvenalia self portraits and two newer ones, some of my father's paintings. I have written some "real" posts but haven't had time to download them yet.

An interpretation of feeling overwhelmed, On the Street, for Self-portrait challenge, One of the juvenalias (click home while there to see the rest), one of Pa's unfinished paintings (click home while there to see more), one of my new pieces (click home while there to see more--I think there are at least 4 new pieces).

I took the crayfish photo last night at the tiny beach along Lakeshore while walking with Biker Buddy.

Wordless Wednesday

Trout Lilies and leaving

The trout lilies here are different than the ones where I used to live--white instead of yellow. But I know a place where both coexist at the same time in the same location. It's a waterfall in Canada. If I remember the name, I will post it. They are found at different elevations, which must say something about their habitat requirements.

I am leaving again and will be off-line and incommunicado all or most of the time. I do not know yet when I will return. Until then, enjoy life.

Evening

We walk every day, or at least I do, for my fibromylagia. It was a beautiful spring day today, but I didn't get my walk while the sun was out. Instead, we went down to Lakeshore and walked in the evening, watching the subtle hues of evening shift to night. It was quiet, one of the first warm nights of spring and before all the loud boats ruin the stillness in summer.

Twice, we sat together and soaked in the stillness and beauty of the shifting light. I feel especially close at these times, which feel rarer than I might wish they'd be.

The World Outside my Door

(SPRANG!)

I’ve been frantically hunched over my computer in the dark house all morning and into the afternoon, working on estate-related issues. I hadn’t eaten breakfast or done my morning exercises or showered or dressed and I was getting really hungry. Finally, I took part of my breakfast outside and sat to eat it on the ivy-covered terrace* in the backyard in my pajamas. It was after noon. I watched the cardinal flying in and out of the lilac bush with nesting material and the squirrel chasing a grackle through the spruces. The morning doves are cooing and birds flutter over my head. The little blue –s are flowering, and two more squirrels chase each other through the grass, almost running over my bare toes. One sees me and sits and its haunches staring at me. When I don’t move, it continues nosing around in the grass.

It is a perfectly clear day, the sky a pure blue, the sun warm, the air light and fresh. Spring. The Christmas roses are in flower, the hyacinths, and the brilliant yellow forsythia. Birds are cheeping and squawking and singing. There is a whole world out here that is lost to me when I am inside working. I bring my mail out to open and read in the yard. I am wondering if the blue wave length recommended for SADD is the same wavelength of blue that the sky appears to be. I wish I had time to look it up, but I don’t now.

*Yes, I know English ivy is an invasive alien species, but I didn’t plant it here, and haven’t had time to attempt to eradicate it.

I have trouble seeing the computer screen in the bright sun. There is a way to adjust the brightness of the screen, I understand, but what I don’t understand is how to do it. Nor did I bring a pen and paper to take notes while I work.

For now, the sun and the birds and squirrels and the fresh air are wonderful, but were I to try to work out here, I’d need a table and chairs and “stuff”, pens paper etc.

The mail contains bank statements, my mother’s will, trust statements, life insurance info. All of which need to be attended to ASAP before I leave again for NY, or worse yet, taken with me to deal with there when I will have so much else to do. Now I am getting too hot to work outside. And my lower back is starting to hurt because of the odd position I’m in here on the edge of the ivy terrace. I could move to the shade if I had a card table. I could set up a chair. It occurs to me that there is a card-table-like object in the garage, which I could set up and move about to follow the shade, but I need to do stuff inside, so I will say goodbye to the sweet outdoors and go back in for now.

When I took the Kuder Preference Test[MNT1] in eight grade and other times, the one thing I scored way higher on than anything else was OUTDOORS followed somewhat closely by nature and then science and writing/literary. I love the outdoors and really miss it and real wildness/nature living here in the city.

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[MNT1]Now called the Kuder Occupation Interest Survey