Frog and Goat

Before I bumped the web with the lawn mower

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Frog

I carefully avoided hitting the web with the weed eater. Good job me. Then I bumped it with the push lawn mower. Bad job me. The spider immediately began fixing the web. So all is not lost.

I took some really bad pictures of the spider and the web before I ran into it. Unfortunately the orientation of the spider was such that I had to sort of wing it on the picture taking. I couldn’t see the camera’s screen so I just took as many as I could. OK. Enough excuses. You don’t come here because of my outstanding photos so what am I worried about.

I took a couple of images and turned them into this gif:

Posted in Gardening | Comments Off

Not at all sad

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Frog

We’ve been on vacation this week and the photo below shows where I’ve been most of the week. The chair is on a screened porch that has for most of the week been in the exact right place for breezes. The better-half has been in the house working on a pet programming project. So both of us have been doing things we like best. For me it’s reading and for him it’s figuring out how to do something completely different than his usual programming tasks.

A bit ago I amused him with my hair. I believe it is sticking straight off the top of my head. We took a long walk on the beach this morning and I had on a ball cap. My hair is a tad unruly anyway, but the combo of hat head, a breeze and beach humidity makes it hilarious. I do what I can to amuse and delight…a tough business.

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Because I like it

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Frog

No meat to this post, just a picture:

Posted in Watching | Comments Off

Figs

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Frog

In 2009, we thought we were going to have to pull up the roots of our fig and pitch the dead limbs and roots into the woods. As it turns out, the fig was just teasing us when it made us think it had died. It is now at least 15 feet tall and earlier this year it was filled with figs. Who knew that some figs produce a round of “false” fruit? When we had the tremendous storms in late June nearly all of those early figs were knocked off the bush/tree/monster. It was OK with me because those figs never ripened. They just turned yellow and dropped to the ground. So many dropped onto our pool deck that the yellow jackets and wasps made that area of the deck a bit scary.

Even though one of those storms snapped off a couple of large branches, the fig has been doing well. Yesterday I was walking past it and did a double-take. Ripe figs!

I made a little appetizer of figs, spinach and goat cheese for dinner last night. Delicious.

This morning I ate one right off the bush/tree/monster and brought in four more. I hope there’s enough in about a week so that my mother and I can make fig preserves. From fig preserves comes fig cake. To.die.for.

Posted in Eating, Gardening | 2 Comments

Lo, they built a table

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Frog

Yesterday afternoon my sister brought Niece 2 over for her first sleepover with us without her sister. I’d have to say we all had a really good time and it was especially nice to see Niece 2′s true personality. Which makes it seem like she’s hiding it when she’s usually with us and I don’t mean that. But, she’s the little sister and sometimes it’s just all about the competition with her sister.

Niece 2 is an unabashed fan of bacon so the first thing we did was make a batch of bacon and maple ice cream. She cooked the bacon until there was a grease pop and her finger got the brunt of the burn. Then, she was in charge of stirring the custard ingredients. We had bacon and maple ice cream with a side of bacon this morning for breakfast. The three of us agreed that I’d alter the recipe to up the amount of bacon and make sure we kept the maple syrup under control. The recipe called for 2 1/2 cups, but I only had 2 cups of syrup and we all agreed any more would have taken the ice cream in another direction. Yes, we had that conversation. For reals.

We had an early dinner at a local hot dog restaurant and then played a round of miniature golf. The Niece didn’t win, but she was the only one who managed a hole-in-one. Pretty excellent. To top off the evening, we went for a nighttime swim and used the “disco” light at the end of the pool. It was the first time this season the better-half and I had been in the pool at night and I remembered how fun it is to be out there when the first stars appear and the bats are hovering over head.

At one point after Niece 2 and I got in bed (first time spending the night alone–need the aunt to be there) there was an outbreak of the giggles. The better-half asked me about it later and I think it was just the giggles of someone who didn’t want to go to sleep, but they were contagious nevertheless. Little kid giggles are the best.

This morning the better-half and the niece went into the garage and built a table out of scraps. The niece cut the legs and helped to affix them to the top.

Turned out pretty well:

Posted in Thinking | 2 Comments

Sometimes you get what you need

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Frog

I’ve been doing some volunteer work for an organization that offers elearning to people who work for NGOs. I was asked to work on the last module of a project management course. I’m happy to say it is ready to be translated into a variety of languages. It’s been an interesting process because I had all of the content and a template to use. I just had to figure out a way to tell the story so the content was engaging.

Usually when I work on elearning, I’m responsible for coming up with most of the content so it was a breeze in some respects to get the module done well ahead of the deadline. What wasn’t a breeze was getting the story together especially since I wasn’t present for the development of the previous six modules. I could only review those finished pieces and make some assumptions. Does it sound funny that I had to get the story together?

I suppose, without sounding too grandiose, that it is like a sculptor saying, “the form is there, but I just needed to remove all that marble so we could see it”. It is very much like that. Otherwise the course is just too many words on a screen and a back/forward set of buttons. Would you want to be that learner? Not me. If presented with that course, I’d take my chances with passing the final assessment/test by skipping ahead and seeing if I could score a satisfactory percentage.

Back in late June when I was first assigned the training module, the better-half and I were taking a late afternoon dip in the pool. I told him I was working while we were floating around in the water. He laughed, but said he knew I was. I was thinking about how to get all that marble out of my way so the learning could come into being. When I tell people that I get a lot of my work done when I’m not sitting down and banging away on the thing, it’s true. I’d rather let it perk and then let the solution come out all at once.

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I lied

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Frog

I lied to my sister and brother-in-law last night. It’s only been six times.

The four of us went to see the Indigo Girls last night at Maymont. Who knew they sometimes have shows there? It was a nice experience and probably the closest thing we have to Wolf Trap. The only complaint was that outside food/drink were prohibited. That’s a shame, but the food and beverage prices seemed pretty affordable. The best thing was that in order to drink a beer we did not have to be corralled in a “beer garden”. Really? I’m in my 40s and I’m not going to get freakin’ nuts because I drank two beers on a 100 degree evening. I don’t need to be put in a fenced-in area. So, thank you concert people for trusting us. It’s a refreshing change.

The opening band was The Shadowboxers and they also performed duties as the backing band. I really liked them and will check out more of their music.

Here’s a photo I took last night (with my craptastic cell phone) as the Indigo Girls sang Closer to Fine. I love that song and have to admit it’s one of those songs that tends to float around my head on a pretty regular basis. I first saw them with my other sister when they were touring in support of the album that included Closer to Fine. That album came out in 1989. Talk about musical staying power or maybe it’s the failing of my brain to latch onto another song.

Posted in Listening | Comments Off

Occasionally, you impress yourself

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Frog

The better-half and I made ribs for dinner last night and they were amazing. So amazing, we took pictures:

We also had tomatoes and cucumber from the garden. The weeds have pretty well choked the cucumbers so these easy-peasy pickles may be the last we see:

There was a ton of meat on those bones so we will be having porky BBQ goodness again tonight. I’m thinking we’ll make sandwiches this time around. I have some leftover Napa cabbage that could be mixed into a slaw. I need to investigate that over the next few hours.

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The Show

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Frog

We made plans with the better-half’s aunt months ago to go see the B52s and Squeeze last night. About three weeks ago his aunt broke her foot. She asked us to find someone to use the ticket and that she’d really like for us to stay with her even though she wouldn’t be able to go to the show. We decided to ask Niece 1 if she’d like to go. She did. The better-half’s aunt was thrilled to finally meet Niece 1.

We knew the show would be popular because come on…it’s the B52s and Squeeze on a Thursday night. We were not prepared for how many people showed up:

If you’ve ever been to Wolf Trap, then you know there’s the lawn, the upper lawn where lawn chairs are allowed, the asphalt paths to the bathrooms and to the gate and then a wee bit more grass. We were in the wee bit more grass area. We could not see the stage unless we stood on tiptoe. It could have been worse, though. When we went to see Prairie Home Companion several years ago we couldn’t even see the stage area–that whole massive thing in the picture above? Couldn’t even see it. We were on the backside of the wee patch of lawn. In the woods. We’ll never go back to see one of those shows again because no amount of folksy humor is worth the view of bupkis.

We took turns walking around with the Niece while Squeeze played. I was singing along by the time the Niece and the better-half got back from their walk-about. It was about that time that more and more devices around us started to light up. Everyone was checking their various weather apps because behind us the lightning started. It was far off and we thought the storm might go the other way. It’s happened before. Then the wind came up.

The breeze felt so good because it was about 9000 degrees at 9pm last night in Northern Virginia. The storm got worse and those of us in the wee bit of grass started packing up. The better-half took back the rental chairs–which are absolutely worth the price and you can sit anywhere in the lawn with them–and retrieved his driver’s license from the rental folks. The Niece and I gathered up our picnic blanket and other bits and pieces. We bolted to the car, laughing in the rain. The storm unleashed just as we got into the car. Lucky us. We listened to the B52s in the car, pretending it was the show.

This morning we pried the Niece out of bed just before eight and the four of us went to Anita’s for breakfast. The three adults indulged in New Mexico style breakfasts and the Niece chowed down on French toast. After breakfast, we took care of some chores for the aunt while she was on a conference call and then we left. Traffic was crap on the way home until we stopped in Fredericksburg for milk shakes. The better-half and the Niece got two shakes apiece–it was lunch, after all. I ended up drinking most of the Niece’s second serving. We were going to take the scenic route home but 95South opened up and we cruised home.

I’m not sure what the Niece did after we dropped her off, but I took a half-hour nap. The better-half is still napping. Too much fun is what it was. Too much fun.

Posted in Listening | 1 Comment

Tossed it back in

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Frog

I’ve been reading a lot this summer. I don’t know if it’s because I’m increasingly becoming a curmudgeon (being more comfortable with that title, perhaps) or if I’m just lucky in selecting books that have pissed me off.

I started reading Lydia Davis and I was amused by some of her very short stories at first. Then it became an endurance test. While showering this morning, I decided her writing, at least in Varieties of Disturbance, is like performance art. You are pulled in for the first few minutes and by the time the piece has run its course you are just annoyed. You don’t care if the artist has a vision and you beat a hasty retreat to another section of the museum or gallery.

I really felt like some of her pieces are how it must be for creative writing professors to read class assignments. Smartypants students writing on a theme and using their brilliance to shine a light on one trope (key words: smartypants, brilliance, trope, boring). The title story is a circular piece about the variety of disturbance each member of a family felt when an adult son offered to help elderly parents. By the time I got to the third paragraph about who was more disturbed, I decided NO ONE could be more disturbed than I was and I tossed the book on the table. Today I tossed the book onto the book return cart at the library. The next book had better not vex me.

The book I read before the annoyance was riveting and disturbing on an entirely different level. In the Garden of Beasts is the story of Ambassador Dodd and his family in Berlin during Hitler’s rise to power. I read the book using the Kindle app and I had a short loan period from the library. When I first loaded the e-book, I was worried the loan period wasn’t long enough, but I don’t think there was a way for me to read the book any faster. Larson has a way of hooking you immediately and not letting up until the story runs out. I can’t say that I was a fan of any of the characters (characters is the wrong word since this book is non-fiction) and I actually found myself sympathizing with one Nazi. Good grief. I never thought those words would ever come out of my mouth–read the book and tell me how you feel about Rudolf Diels. A moderate man amongst the beasts.