Frogs and Ravens

Yoga Beans

This most awesome site depicts yoga classes as demonstrated by plastic action figures. It beats the Yoga Bush all hollow, but, then, they are doing different things. Be sure to look at the back archives, too.

link c/o Jill.

ABC Meme

Last seen at jo(e)'s - but a lot of other folks have done it too (duh, it's a meme!).

Accent: Hard to describe. Probably Californian with a dose of Midwestern, as one of my cousins with basically the same background as me has nearly the same speech patterns.

Booze: Foofy sweet stuff. Things with umbrellas. Amarula. Peppermint schnapps. Port. But I don't keep any in the house, because both my mother (who stopped drinking several years ago) and my grandfather (who didn't) easily fell into the drink-a-day habit, and because alcohol makes me depressed and moody.

Chore I Hate: Putting away clothes. Washing and folding's fine... but putting them away? Doesn't happen.

Either Way

I'm so, so tired of my allergies. And I mean that literally as well as figuratively.

I never had them as a kid -- they only cropped up last spring -- so I have few coping skills. Plus I react badly to most over-the-counter antihistimines. The one drug I seem to be able to tolerate without panic attacks, loratadine (in either Claritin or Alavert), provokes in me a persistent lethargy.

So my choices are to go around sneezing and tired because I can't sleep well, or to go around dopey and sleepy because of the medicine.

No wonder I'm swinging between apathy, depression and crankiness these days.

Genetic Selection

The mowing has been accomplished. Along with the selection of dandelions that grow very short stems and ones that sneakily throw up their puffballs immediately after the mower goes by.

The yard is full of 'em. *sigh*

In other news, I've got an indigo seedling still alive and two more are sprouting; the carrots are germinating; and I received my package of mint and madder plants in the mail over the weekend.

It was a stressful weekend; I am looking forward to spending much time bending over my plant-lets, gazing on them and breathing in the scent of their leaves and soil.

Gaze

An interesting photoessay on "the male gaze, fashion advertising, and the pose." It feels like it's shorter than it could be -- I ended it wanting to see and read more.

c/o Bitch Ph.D. The comments at her place are worth a read in themselves.

It's That Time Again!

Time to mow the lawn! Mwuahahaha! AIEEE! *sob*

"My Peeps"

Inspired by Orange's comment at Bitch, Ph.D.:

"My Humps" re-written as "My Peeps"

(It should, perhaps, be noted, that I've only heard about two lines of the actual song.)

Observation and Description Exercise

Just a little test of myself as an observer and as a writer -- what can I say about the birds that have been visiting the feeder and yard while I am here on campus, unable to see any of them?

Grackles
These birds began to show up about the time the snows were undergoing their final melt. Bold and surprisingly flamboyant for birds dressed all in black, they're both captivating and aggravating. They are compelling for their brilliant plumage, which looks at first like a plain black, but upon longer observation is revealed to contain subtle bronzes and brilliant blue highlights, like a raku pot or a woman's naturally black and shiny hair. They sing strange songs, with creaks and ringing rattling trills, like harpsichords mated with rusty gates and old tin cans. Some of them, when preparing to sing something particularly high-pitched, an assertive skrrrr-REEEEK!, inflate themselves like minature bagpipes before letting the vibrations belch forth from their beaks. The males are flying around with their tails turned into vertical mail openers, slicing through the air as they show off for the females; they also puff themselves up like pigeons on the ground before the females. When confronting each other by the feeder, they raise their beaks so that they are pointing skyward, and look at each other out of the corners of their eyes. The feeder is barely big enough to hold them, but they persist in clinging to it, swinging the feeder around wildly while they fling seed out at an astounding rate, aggressively pecking out the sunflower seeds that are a duller black than themselves, and gulping them up whole. When I sit on the porch, the smaller birds will dart in, but the grackles are unwilling; more than once has one swooped in only to spot me in my rocking chair, causing it to then flap indignantly to a nearby tree where it procedes to screak and squawk its indignation.

Robins

Harry Potter Personality Quiz

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

(Referenced in a thread at Bitch, Ph.D.)

Spring Garden Poetry for Cynics

Coming home today
Dandelions everywhere!
Time for the mower.

Young leaves reaching up
Germinating seedling plants
Stretch themselves too thin.

Rough brown peaty pots
They come in packs of six
I didn't buy enough.

Tender growing plants
Lined up in their new peat pots
A thunderstorm looms.