Him: What did you do with the packet of pumpkin seeds?
Her: I was paying; the checker handed the packet to you.
Him: I must have put in on the cart and then you took the cart to put it away.
Her: It wasn’t in your pocket?
Him: No, I didn’t put in in my pocket. I’ll go look again in the car.
Her: Okay.
Him: It was in my pocket.
Her: Huh.
Riotous laughter ensues.
(“I told you so” is strictly for amateurs…it never gets a laugh and shared laughter is one of the primary keys to a long and successful marriage. Also growing things together: families, gardens, etc.)
You never want to slip through the cracks, crack your head or have to get up at the crack of dawn after a night on the town, but you might think something is Crackerjack, or you could want to have a crack at a job or crack up an audience with a joke. However, cracks on tennis courts are no laughing matter and should be repaired asap.
When cracks on tennis courts reach a certain width and depth, I have observed that they can contribute to player injuries in 2 primary ways. The first way is the most obvious and that is simply catching a shoe in a crack and falling. That actually happened to me many years ago and I was out of the game for months as my deeply bruised right wrist healed from that fall. The second way is more subtle, but can be just as injurious. When you play tennis, you learn to anticipate how balls will bounce and you position yourself accordingly to intercept and return the ball. Anything that causes an unanticipated odd bounce is going to require a last-second adjustment and that is what can cause players to injure themselves, either by losing balance and falling or from having to reach for the ball unexpectedly and wrenching a back or overextending an arm and shoulder.
Of course, some wily players can knowingly create odd bounces by putting back or side spin on the ball (aka “English” or “slime” in the vernacular of the courts) but experienced players can usually spot spin immediately off the opponent’s racquet and/or in the air and are therefore on the alert to the fact that the anticipated trajectory of the ball may change and the bounce might be unpredictable. Forewarned is forearmed and adjustments can be made for taking an oddly bouncing ball in a safe way.
Also, wind can wreak havoc with tennis, but again, everyone on the court is aware when it is windy that balls can bounce erratically and extra precautions must be taken to avoid injuries.
So my plea to clubs where I play is always, “Fix the cracks, please!”
Incidentally, aren’t those about the cutest tennis shoes you’ve ever seen? Let your uniform committee choose any color for your team and you will be prepared if you own these babies. Thanks Julia for permission to feature your shoes, which, happily and for the record, did NOT get stuck in any cracks today. Whew!
Pure watercolor, wet into wet with some scumbling.
So all those years ago when Joni Mitchell was singing about clouds that got in the way and rained and snowed on everyone, many people got her very poetic lyrics about cloud formations absolutely wrong. How many of us have been singing along to these lyrics: Bows and flows of angel hair, and ice cream castles in the air?
To me, the first line of lyrics to that song always seemed non-sensical, but the rest of the lyrics were very good and the melody is lovely so I just sang along like everyone else and didn’t worry too much about it. Occasionally I’d think, “I wonder what she means by bows and flows of angel hair? Oh well, there’s simply no accounting for what was going through the heads of songwriters (or anyone) in the 1960’s!”
That was until recently when this song was proposed as one to do for my ukulele group and I needed to make up a music chart so I went seeking definitive sheet music to help me get everything right. Well much of the sheet music you can buy out there for this song also begins with the “Bows and flows” line BUT on Joni Mitchell’s personal website she generously offers transcriptions of many of her songs and this happens to be one. When I read the first line of music I found on her site and it said “Rows and floes of angel hair,” I suddenly could envision the exact cloud formations she was singing about and I bet she was looking at some Altocumulous Stratiformis clouds when the idea for the song came to her while sitting on that airplane and looking at clouds from above. Thus, Both Sides Now!
I like looking at those formations too, at sunset (above), at midday (below), and after a storm (further below). They tend to stack up in rows and look rather like floes of ice! Or angel hair if you have a good imagination. Aha! But if you really want to appreciate the timeless appeal of this song, watch Joni singing it at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival
She brings the crowd to tears with her poignant rendition of this song she wrote in her early 20’s. Here she is at nearly 80, convincing you that after all that life has thrown at her (and it’s been a LOT), it’s still the illusions she recalls and furthermore, she still really doesn’t know clouds or love or life at all and you get the sense that that’s how it’s meant to be and it’s okay. It’s okay. Just keep on looking and loving and living.
The 2 watercolor cloud studies here are from a journal project I did some time back when I had a wide view of the sky available to me at all times. The framed painting is from further back, but again from the Sexton Road days. Now I am mostly focused up close on botanical subjects, but some days I do miss the joy of splashing about with abandon on wet watercolor paper.
And So It Goes…but that’s another song from another artist for another day.
If you don’t take the time to eliminate the chaff, you’re going to destroy your grinder and/or contaminate your flour and one way or another you’ll be unable to make successful bread.
Nice metaphor for life. Be the wheat. Eliminate the chaff. Leaven with joy and make wholesome bread.
File this under “It’s Always Something.” This one is not too bad, just unexpected. It turns out that you can have a delayed reaction to the Covid vaccine that causes this itchy red rash at the site of the jab. Well that actually seems like something you’d expect to happen after a vaccination, but right away, within the first 24 hours. What’s unexpected about this one is that it develops later rather than immediately. So just when you’re feeling better from the systemic effects of the vaccine and are expecting the usual post-vaccine soreness in your arm to be getting better as well, you suddenly feel like it’s getting a little worse instead of better and it’s red, hot and itchy too. It can last for a while. They call it Covid Arm, of course, and just Google it for all the information anyone could want about the condition, but I’ve already done that and the bottom line as far as I can see is that it’s harmless and might actually be a good sign that your immune system is working quite well in response to the vaccine.
Well this time the fever and body aches were mild and only lasted 24 hours, so I will happily trade the 3 days’ worth of fever spiking at times up to 102 degrees that I had after my last Moderna shot for a milder, shorter fever episode and the later-arriving hot, red spot on my arm that may hang around for a while I got from this Pfizer shot…assuming it doesn’t get worse…
Some years they do, some years they don’t, but when they do it’s spectacular and kind of scary in a Tippi Hedron sort of way. You know what I mean if you’re of a certain age.
You are attempting to put your hair in a tidy pony tail with an elastic band and the cheeky, bouncy band pops out of your hand and carves a perfect arc toward the bowl of the commode next to the bathroom counter and you watch with bated breath as it misses the bowl and lands innocently on the ground. It really is the little things in life that you most appreciate, especially after a week spent fighting a beastly head cold.
A T-ball game is the purest form of sportsmanship there is and very entertaining. Everyone roots for all the players on each side. Everyone bats until they get a hit and then everyone in the stands cheers them on, urging them to run to first base. Some of the players know where it is, some of them don’t. Doesn’t matter, a coach from one of the teams will point a wandering base-runner in the right direction and make sure they get there, even if someone has tagged them out. If they have been tagged out, they go back to the dugout none the wiser. Win, win, win.
If you ever get a chance to attend a T-ball game, don’t hesitate. You will go home with a smile on your face.
Recently I bought one of these awesome Rinse Well thingies. AKA, “The Watercolor Toilet.” Hah! Because when the water in the well gets dirty, you push that little button and it disappears into the well and fresh water automatically refills the basin. It’s a silly little tool for lazy artists who don’t like to get up and change their dirty rinse water. It’s not perfect. The well is a bit small if you’re doing a big splashy painting, but it’s perfect for dainty dry brush work that doesn’t require a huge pigment load. Also all the dirty water doesn’t disappear so the fresh water in the well is slightly tinged with whatever color was there. But it’s still a cool thing that will work for certain things I do in the studio. I like it. Because I like cool tools.
The other item I’m testing is the switch back to the creation of jpegs on my iPhone. Apple sneakily changed the default file type from jpeg to a proprietary file type they claim is better called HEIC (pronounced “HEEK”) in their last major upgrade. Well that’s a heiccup if you ask me because those HEIC files would upload anywhere and couldn’t be converted without paying for and downloading a conversion app. Grrr. What the HEEK Apple? So it turns out it’s easy to make your phone switch back in your settings under “camera” then “format” choose “Most compatible.” That’s it. And don’t we all want to win the award for Most Compatible? All except Apple.
This summer we raised Thai Eggplants to use in curries. Specifically Thai Green Curry. We had to raise them because, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, they are not to be had in any market at any price here in California, in spite of their presence in this photo on the entry door of a local supermarket. Just above the geeen tomato…