My views on politics, religion, health, intimacy, and more
The amazing thing about these is that I inherited 5 glasses like this from my grandmother, who did at one time live in Prescott. I wonder if she bought them there. Does anyone know anything about the provenance of these glasses?
They have no mark on the bottom, and they look hand blown (each one is unique). The lady in the store was kind enough to sell me just the two yellow-green glasses on the front left, because those are the ones that look like my grandmother’s.
This morning, Andy asked me if I was making coffee (which I was), and I responded sarcastically, “No, I thought we’d have hot chocolate instead.” After saying that, I decided to have hot mocha instead of just coffee. I’ve never made that decision before. It was just a “wild hair.” I got the can of hot cocoa powder out of the pantry and used the remaining product to make my mocha. As I was about to throw out the container, guess what I saw on the bottom? “Best before April 19, 2007”! Well, did I get that wild hair just in time, or what?
Then Andy asked me to check the calendar and see whether it was his step-mother’s birthday tomorrow. Well, I found out that her birthday wasn’t until next Thursday, but it reminded me that today was my own dad’s birthday!
And what’s also really weird is that this morning the dogs were so excited they just couldn’t wait for us to get out of bed. I got up and said to Andy, “You’d think it was some kind of special doggie holiday we don’t know about!” Did they know it was their “grandfather’s” birthday? I don’t know. It’s been a freaky morning!
May this flower bring you a sense of the love and serenity you bring to me.
Today on the way to work, I finally tried a restaurant I’ve driven by over a thousand times: Chicago Hamburger Co. It has always looked a bit seedy to me, like the lunchtime equivalent of a “greasy spoon.” But, you know what? It was great. It was bustling and very popular. I had the Western Burger, a hot, juicy charbroiled 1/3 pound burger with grilled onions, BBQ sauce, crispy bacon and crunchy fried onion rings. I also had a side of crispy golden french fries. I was so hungry, and enjoyed my meal so much (AND was in a hurry to get to work on time) that I forgot to take a photo of my food. I hope I did a good enough job of painting a mouth-watering picture with my words. Oh, and don’t let the one space in front fool you: when I first drove past, every space in the lot was taken, and I had to park around the corner in front of someone’s house. Oh, and would it be too naughty to mention that there was no shortage of sexy working-class men eating lunch there, too? 😉
Here is the very first sprig of leaves on our front yard ocotillo this year. Andy pointed it out to me at dusk last night when he was watering the yard. I took one look and ran inside to get my camera, macro lens, and tripod. This is the first time we’ve had a sprig of leaves grow off the tip of one of the stalks, so I think this means we will have a flowering ocotillo this spring! I can’t wait to post photos of our first red-orange blooms.
This is a follow-up to the last of the ocotillo leaves, which I posted in November. Now in March, I have the joy of posting “the first of the ocotillo leaves”! It’s more than that, though: it’s the first time we’ve had leaves come out of the very top of a stalk. I believe this means we will have our first orange blooms this year.
Tech notes: I took this at dusk, while rapidly losing daylight. I could never have done this without a tripod, for two reasons: 1) the plane of focus on a macro lens with a wide-open aperture is very small, so the slightest movement would have thrown the subject completely out of focus; 2) I could never have held still long enough to get the amount of light I needed (shutter) for a decent exposure. I cropped this only slightly for a balanced composition; I was already photographing at about a 1:1 magnification ratio. About the aperture: I know I could have gotten greater depth of field with a smaller aperture, but I was afraid I might lose the shot if I used too long an exposure and the wind blew the stalk, causing the subject to blur.
Daniel Greene 