life in the old lane

The Zoo is home to a family group of six western lowland gorillas, two adult females, three males, and a female baby born on in January 2009. Two of the males are juveniles who were born here at the Zoo—Kojo, who was born in November 2001, and Kwame, who was born in November 1999. The third male, Baraka, is a silverback, born here in in 1992.

Today all the gorillas were outside in their yard. Sort of hanging out.

Mr C does not like zoos. He doesn’t approve of zoos. He said that the B/W gorilla image was “sad”. Most of the sad can be attributed to my processing. This gorilla – the female who is not the mother of the baby was just hanging out in the shade.

Another lovely “cool” summer day. Think I’ll go to the zoo tomorrow morning.  Maybe not the zoo. But somewhere.

Day 46 of the photo a day project. So, how is it working? Actually – pretty good. Except for when I was on my trip, I have been taking pictures everyday – and deleting all but one. My post processing skills have improved.

New Airnesses supposed to be coming out sometime next week. I am starting to think I might want a new one. Of course, one always wants a new computer. Lighter, faster, sleeker.

I have noticed that my emails, and other “typed” stuff has become somewhat “flakey”. One word is intended yet another word appears. Let us assume that is due to carelessness and not some form of dementia. I will pay attention. Spell check doesn’t help. The words are spelled right. They are just the wrong word. Maybe I need dementia-check?

Decided that I needed a new bathing suit. Was shopping around. Found this little number.

Now, paying $595 for a bathing suit would be a little much. Oh, I could rationalize it, if I really wanted to. But, a swim suit that “…we advise you do not wear it in water. Dry clean”. Nope. I’ll shop some more. And, I have 5 perfectly fine bathers. Plus one that really only works under a wetsuit. But, I only paid $2 for it.

I was late for the bus this morning – but stopped to snap off a picture of some crows walking around the hearses parked in the mortuary lot. I was lucky and caught one leaving the scene. More than a little post processing – and a photograph worthy of Edgar Allen Poe. (I made it to the bus stop – late – but the bus was later.)

Lovely unseasonable cool weather for the last 2 days.

Excessive post processing – the last refuse of a poor photographer!

Here is another one from today.

A couple of times a week, I find Mr C all sacked out having a nap. I find myself watching to be sure that he is still breathing.

Got some none too good peaches at the farm market last weekend. Think I’ll saute up the last few with some sausages. Make a salad from wedges of iceberg lettuce, with a slice of Gorgonzola. And a few toasted pecans. That should be enough supper for a couple of old people. And get rid of those inferior peaches.

My volunteer job is a little under 2 miles away. There are hundreds of ways to make that walk. One of the ways includes a stroll down an unpaved alley. For this city woman – it is a walk in the woods.

Still depressed about our dysfunctional government. Wonder if it is time to completely bail out of the stock market. Then bail out of the country.

Where are “my people”? Those of us who protested Vietnam, burned our bras, lived the “summer of love” … Those of us who didn’t trust anyone over 30???

Are there any of us left?

Why don’t we just yell “What the F is going on in Washington and in our state houses?”. We can take the country back from the “Party of No”. We could do it before the next election if we just got off our privileged butts and once again took to the streets. If we were scary when we were 25 – think how we can shake up things when we are 65.

Or I might just move to Vancouver.

This morning, on my way to work, I walked past our neighborhood mortuary. It wasn’t 8AM yet, but the Arlington National Cemetery Patriot Guard Riders were on the job protecting the mourners from the Westboro Baptist Church “protestors”. And, to honor the fallen. In this case, a Marine who was killed last month in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

 

Not much photo-wise today. Just an ordinary little “purse dog” waiting outside the Starbuck in our building.

 

While we are on photos – What is wrong with Mitch McConnell’s face? Every time I see him, I want to scratch his eyes out.

He looks like some “thing” that belongs on one of my favorite time wasting websites. PhotoShop Disasters.

Today’s ordinary thing is a cicada that found its way up to our apartment. When I walked down to the farm market this morning I saw lots of birds and squirrels  enjoying cicada-treats.

RIP, Betty Ford. After  Eleanor Roosevelt, I think that Mrs Ford made more impact as First Lady than any other in my lifetime. Never mind Jackie’s fashion sense. Or Hilary’s political sense. Betty had common sense.

Today is the second bleakest day in US space travel. The bleakest was October 4, 1957. When Sputnik was launched. This was the sound of failure in my smallkidtime.

Grandmother Blanche was proud to have lived from before Kitty Hawk through Mercury. Grandmother Peggy is not proud to have lived from the V2 rocket era to seeing the US land on the Moon to US buying a ticket to ride on a Russian rocket. But, we do have reality TV shows.

Spent all day at my desk doing “stuff” for my volunteer job and taking care of the household accounts. About noon, in order to get a little break – I went over to the library. Our library grows veggies instead of flowers – so the local kids can see what a growing veggie looks like. Hey, it is very urban here.

So, my old picture today was of the library squash. Several other versions of the squash:

And

WordPress wants me to upgrade, but I am using an old version of PHP. I am not sure I understand all I know about updating PHP. Time to upgrade my technical bona fides. On the other hand, I could just it and do Sudoku puzzles to stay off dementia.

If you never hear from me again, it will be because I destroyed everything by tweaking the the PHP process. It’s not happening any day soon.

First I have to finish being mourning the end of the US Space program. Couldn’t we give up – say tax breaks for billionaires and the wars – and once again “boldly go where no man has gone before”…