| Bird Brains |
[May. 26th, 2012|11:02 am] |
Now I have a blue jay bickering with Portia through the window. The bird saw Portia sitting on the window sill and decided to attack. Of course the bird can't peck the cat through the glass, but that hasn't stopped the bird from trying. Portia has decided to crouch on my desk and peer out over the sill, and when the bird dives at the window Portia leaps up to swat at it.
She can't catch the bird through the glass, of course, but that hasn't stopped her. She ought to be embarrassed that she and the jay are about evenly matched when it comes to understanding how glass works, but she gives no sign that she is. She just wants to smack that bird, and the bird just wants to peck her, and neither of them has any intention of letting a little thing like reality thwart their will.
It's a bit like watching one of those political debate shows on television.
I think I'll close the drapes for a while. The bird will think the cat is gone and go away. Then I can open the drapes again and let Portia look outside in peace, and I'll be able to use the computer without having a cat leaping hither and yon across my desk. |
|
|
| Mere Damp |
[May. 25th, 2012|11:05 pm] |
A blue jay pecked Portia on the butt this afternoon. Portia was intently watching one squawking bird, and another swooped down and pecked her right at the base of her tail. The poor cat was so startled that she ran back into the garage and leaped up onto a defensible shelf. I couldn't tell if the bird got a divot of her fur or not, but I wouldn't be surprised. Jays have sharp little beaks.
The rain hasn't amounted to much so far. There was just enough drizzle early this afternoon to coax the smell of wet asphalt from the street for a while, but not enough to wash that odor away. It just faded as the street dried. Unless there's more rain in store, this storm won't be saving me anything on my water bill. I still had to irrigate the rose bushes this evening, and all the other plants will be wanting drinks in their turn.
A couple of times I've thought I could hear distant thunder, so maybe the storm is still going on in the mountains. I just hope that lighting isn't setting any fires. Smoke from a forest fire smells much worse than damp asphalt. |
|
|
| Seasonal Backsliding |
[May. 24th, 2012|08:54 pm] |
The first few jasmine blossoms did indeed open overnight, as I'd expected, but the rest are still coiled and waiting to pop open. They might have to wait until the next warm period, as there is still a chance of rain predicted for tonight and tomorrow, and it is now extended through Saturday.
It's going to get quite chilly tonight, too. The house never really warmed up today, so I'll probably end up having the furnace going again before morning, and perhaps all day tomorrow and Saturday as well. I hate when winter makes a comeback in late May. It ought to be long gone by now.
One of the lamb's ear plants has produced its first flower of the year. There are so many lamb's ear plants in the yard this year that the display should be quite nice once they've all bloomed. I'm expecting at least a dozen of the plants to flower, and maybe more if some of the younger plants that don't have tall stalks yet manage to sprout them.
The feral cats are making a nuisance of themselves. Timmy began hanging around in the garage a few weeks ago, after the other cats drove her from the back yard, and now Jarhead has started making frequent appearances there as well. Portia and Timmy had gotten to the point where they tolerated each other, though barely, but Portia and Jarhead have a mutual antipathy of long standing. If they run into each other when I'm not around there's bound to be a fight, and I'm not sure which cat will get the worst of it. I'd like to keep the garage door open at night for Timmy, but if Jarhead is going to be sticking her nose in there all the time I might have to go back to closing it so Portia can have her rafters back.
One good thing about the cold and possible rain is that it will dampen the pollen that gave me so much misery today. I'm not sure which plants are spewing right now, but they certainly pack a punch. |
|
|
| Changing |
[May. 23rd, 2012|05:59 pm] |
I'm pretty sure the first jasmine blossoms will open tonight, unless it gets really cold. The timing is bad. It is cooling off, and there could be rain on Thursday and thunderstorms on Friday. The weekend will be closed-window weather, too, so I won't be able to fill the house with the scent of jasmine until next week.
It's nice been today, but it will cool off early in the evening and I'll have to close the windows by sunset. Right now I've got them open, and stiff breezes have been slamming doors. Portia had the door to the garage slammed in her face and was quite put out by the experience. It's a good thing she was just standing there looking, and hadn't started out yet, when a gust of wind yanked the knob from my hand. I've had to wedge various items under the doors in the house so she won't get squashed should an untimely gust catch her in a doorway.
One good thing about the approaching cold spell is that I'll be able to bake more of the potatoes I've got too many of. I hate to bake potatoes in hot weather. There's a nice yam I need to use up, too. Of course spring can be so changeable here that the rest of the week could turn out much warmer than expected. I could always fry the baking potatoes, but I'd hate to have to boil that yam. It would make dandy tempura, but I have neither the equipment nor the skillz for making tempura.
Oh, and the geese are finally going home. I've seen three flocks heading north over the last couple of days, and heard a couple more by night. I hope they don't find Canada all dried out from the weird weather. |
|
|
| WTF?! |
[May. 22nd, 2012|11:42 am] |
It's time to think the unthinkable, and consider the possibility that I'm switching to a schedule in which I sleep at night and stay awake all day. Last night I fell asleep just after one o'clock in the morning, and today I woke up at nine. The sun is not supposed to be in the east when I wake up! I know what to do with a night, but have no idea what to do with a day. Doing the same things I'd do at night just seems wrong. The outdoors is visible! There's all that light, and it's falling the wrong direction!
I've tried reading, but I can't concentrate. Same with the Internets. I've tried watching television, but the wrong programs are on. I suppose I could wash the windows, but then the outdoors would be even clearer, and the light brighter. I could do some yard work, but the watering has to be done in the evening so it won't evaporate, and I'm afraid to stay out to long anyway because I'm pale and will sunburn easily.
I'd know what to do with a day if I were in Los Angeles, but those things are impossible here. This place is all trees and scattering, is totally free of busy neighborhoods that are interesting to walk in, and besides that it has no ocean to look at. If this sleep pattern takes hold I have no idea what I'll do with myself. I might have to get a DVR and record nighttime television and watch it all day with the drapes drawn. I might have to cover the windows with aluminum foil so daylight won't leak in. This is a disaster.
But at least I got the wheelie bin back in the garage within minutes of the trash truck going by and emptying it. That took two minutes. What will I do with the rest of the day?
Day! Appalling! |
|
|
| Delayed |
[May. 21st, 2012|06:02 pm] |
What became of me yesterday? I went to the store in the afternoon heat. The day did not turn cloudy. Home again, I went outside and waited to watch the sun be eaten. As the eclipse progressed, the light turned paler, but remained bright even when the moon was centered over the sun's disk. The foliage of the trees cast crescents on walls and ground. A few birds sang premature evening songs, but I saw none go to their nests.
At its dimmest, the light was like the light at the beginning of sunset, but seemed strange because its angle was too high, and there were shadows instead of a genreal shade on the ground. The air grew perceptibly cooler for a while, but as the moon shifted away from the sun the evening grew hotter again. Altogether, the event was not especially spectacular. It might have been more enjoyable had I gotten some glasses through which to view it. A pinhole in a sheet of cardboard projects little of interest.
After the eclipse, I had dinner and once again fell asleep on the couch, but this time I didn't wake up until long after midnight. I left the windows open all night, and didn't even notice that I had fallen asleep without a blanket. It reminded me how soon the nights will grow sultry. By then I'm sure the jasmine will have bloomed. Hot nights are not so bad when they are scented with jasmine.
So that's where Sunday went. It's too late to fix it now.
( Belated Sunday Verse ) |
|
|
| Counting Down |
[May. 19th, 2012|08:03 pm] |
The grass is starting to turn brown in spots, so I gave the back lawn a drink this evening. That won't be enough to restore its green state, but it should retard the dessication for a few days. I might put a sprinkler on the front lawn later tonight, once the air has cooled a bit more. The afternoon approached sultriness, but now that the sun has gone behind the pines it has become a pleasant evening.
The birds are out in large numbers again, and from the shady spots under bushes I hear crickets chirping. The crickets ought to be quiet until the birds have gone to bed, if they know what's good for them— the not good in this case being the innards of a bird.
It is only a matter of days— maybe even hours— before the jasmine blooms. It got a good irrigating this afternoon, too. The buds are numerous, and I can hardly wait for them to open and release the scent of late spring. Perhaps the first whiffs of perfume will emerge during the eclipse tomorrow evening. That would be perfect timing. |
|
|
| Springiness |
[May. 18th, 2012|08:22 pm] |
It was cool enough today that I can bake a potato for dinner with no risk of getting the house too hot. It's nice when spring is spring-like. The pines have finished spewing pollen, too, and there's probably nothing else pollinating at the moment as I haven't been sneezing. There is, however, a plague of jays this year. Every time Portia goes out they follow her around the front yard. There might be a nest or two in the bushes already. The feral cats appear to have done a good job of keeping them from nesting in the back yard, although the birds do come down to snatch food from the cats' bowls now and then.
Birds of all sorts seem to be more plentiful this year. When the jays aren't screeching, the music is pleasant. A pair of woodpeckers have been hanging out in the mulberry tree this evening, occasionally flying to the utility wires to check on the sunset. In a few minutes they'll probably begin making their chuckling evening songs. I'll leave the windows open long enough to listen to them, then close everything up once they've gone to their nests for the night.
I'm not prepared for the solar eclipse on Sunday. I'd intended to get something to watch it through, but didn't get around to it. It's not certain we'll get to see it here, anyway, as Sunday evening is expected to be mostly cloudy. If the sky clears up for a while I'll probably resort to the old pinhole trick. This is the first time I've ever been right in the path of totality for the annular eclipse, and odds are I'll never get another chance to see one. I'll be very annoyed if the clouds prevent me from seeing it. |
|
|
| Belated |
[May. 17th, 2012|03:27 pm] |
I missed a day. Sleeping was involved. Beer might have been involved as well, but its effect was so intensified by the balmiest of afternoons that I'm inclined to give it a pass. I recall lying on the couch after a late lunch and looking out at the leaves rustling in a soft breeze, and suddenly it was almost midnight and Portia was mewing to be fed.
I'd missed my own dinner, too, and ended up eating a can of soup as I didn't feel like cooking anything when still groggy from a very long nap. Well, a full night's sleep at entirely the wrong time of day, actually. Surprisingly, I fell a sleep again a couple of hours later and slept until six o'clock in the morning. I have no idea what will happen next, but as this is another balmy afternoon I intend to make sure it won't involve any beer. Coffee with lunch today. |
|
|
| Digital Complaint |
[May. 15th, 2012|11:22 am] |
While updating programs the other day, the Java of the desktop icon for my earliest Firefox installation told me that this "new" computer, Butch, was seven years old in April. No wonder he's getting almost as sluggish as Sluggo, who has now been napping for more than six years. Applications and web sites keep getting more elaborate, and I've still got a mere 448MB of RAM, which was pretty good seven years ago but terribly limited now. Having a dozen browser tabs open slows everything to a crawl.
A few months ago I priced RAM upgrades, but Butch uses very old-school RAM, and it turned out that the maximum upgrade possible, which would still be little more than a Gigabyte, would cost about half as much as a new laptop far more powerful than the upgraded Butch would be. Right now I can't afford either one. Since I installed the new firewall and anti-virus, boot time has increased alarmingly, and everything else has slowed as well.
I suppose I'll just have to reduce the number of browser tabs I have open at any given time, and severely limit the number of memory-hogging pages such as Google Maps street views that I try to use. Oh, and Flickr. I don't know what Yahoo did to Flickr in its latest round of changes, but it now takes forever to open a page there. Luckily I can still use LJ's old comment pages, because the new ones are as slow as Flickr.
But I do have to think about getting Butch replaced, as he's probably not worth the cost of upgrading at this point, despite his 2.66GHz processor, which I'm sure is still adequate to the sort of tasks I do. There's also the fact that, compared to the new laptops available, Butch is an energy hog. I hate to think of moving everything to a new computer, though. I actually still have some files trapped on Sluggo that I never got around to moving to Butch. I'm sadly lacking in both patience and organizational skills. I fear that I'm gradually joining Butch in obsolescence. |
|
|
