RSS

Category Archives: Observations

Weed?

04 May

102_1644Mystified by blooms in my garden

Shhh, don’t say anything out loud in case we jinx it, but it appears that spring might have finally sprung here in jolly old England! The April showers that started in 2012 and have pretty much continued unceasingly since, have finally cleared. This week has been a string of mostly sunny days, complete with temperatures in the 60s and bright blue skies, setting the stage for the legendary May flowers. This much anticipated meteorological blessing has caused an eruption of early (well that term is relative, since they are a full three weeks later than last year) bloomers in my garden (British English for flower beds), from daffodils (or are they narcissus–or is there even a difference?) to tulips to grape hyacinth. A couple shrubs have also begun to flower, including a sassy forsythia under the front window.

My trouble is, lots of weeds are also blooming. I can recognize the dandelions, whether in full yellow glory or just popping up, and the prickly sprouts of a new crop of thistles. The little daisies that are carpeting the back lawn are cute, but not supposed to be there. But what about the pretty pink flowering specimen in the picture above? It looks too fancy to be a weed, yet its position on the very edge of the flower border leads me to believe it was not planted intentionally by my landlords. Should it stay or should it go? There are many such mysteries in my garden, so I’ve adopted a very open-minded approach to weeding: One man’s weed is another man’s wildflower. If I like the looks of an unknown bloom and its accompanying leaves, it stays. If it looks, well, weedy, then it goes. I’m sure the passing neighbors alternate between, “Why is she digging that up?” and “Why on earth doesn’t she dig that up?” I figure if the landlords had been concerned with preserving their plantings during the lease period of the ignorant Americans, they should have either left me detailed sketches and instructions or a highly qualified gardener.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Posts I commented on today (well, actually yesterday…this is a scheduled post while I’m antiquing in Wales):
A to Z is over. What next? 1, 2, 3…? (A few drops of ink)  new blog of the day
Friday Fiction–Star-Crossed (elmowrites)
Gramp’s Library (Embracing Life from a Writer’s Perch)

 
2 Comments

Posted by on May 4, 2013 in How It Is, Observations, True Life, Uncategorized

 

Tags:

Tabs

02 May

102_1385
Question 187
In a nice restaurant, after getting the check for an excellent meal, you notice that you were not charged for one of the items you ate. Would you tell the waitress?

Yes, I’d absolutely tell the waitress. In fact, not too long ago, the hubby and I had dinner at the local pub and our drinks had not been added to the tab. I didn’t realize the omission at first, because the pub owner just tells us the amount due and we never see an actual bill. But by the time he handed over the change for the total he had quoted, my mental calculator had finished tallying what I thought the approximate cost of our meals should have been, and I mentioned that I thought the total had been too low for what we had ordered. He checked, and sure enough, the drinks had not been rung up. As I turned over the cash for the remaining balance, the owner thanked me profusely and repeatedly for my honesty; it had never crossed my mind to walk out knowing I hadn’t paid for something I had consumed.

On the other hand, I would just as quickly tell the waitress if we had been overcharged for our meal. Just a couple weeks ago, we dined at a Mexican restaurant in Amsterdam (if you are looking for good Mexican food, Amsterdam is not the place to get it). Overall, prices in Amsterdam were steeper than we are used to (which is saying a lot, because England isn’t cheap), so I expected the bill to be high. But when the check came, I glanced half-heartedly at the total as I laid down our credit card, and nearly dislocated my shoulder snatching the card back–the bottom line was twice what I had roughly estimated it should have been! Looking closely at the itemized tab, I discovered that the entire meal ordered by the neighboring table had been entered into the register along with our items. While I dream of someday anonymously buying a restaurant meal for a randomly selected stranger/family, the gluttonous couple at the next table did not fit the profile I had envisioned as the beneficiaries of a free meal. We flagged the waitress over and she immediately and profusely apologized when I pointed out the extra charges. With the owner’s help, the bill was corrected and we settled our tab, then walked out into the cold Dutch night vowing not to cross the thresholds of any more Mexican restaurants until we leave Europe.

Now that my mom has returned to the States, I’m back on my normal blogging schedule, which means today is Deep Thought Thursday. Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions provides the inspiration for this weekly feature. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Posts I commented on today:
The Old Fire Hydrant (Cee’s Photography)
Best Beware the Sting (Rendezvous with Renee)
At the House of Bones (Sandra’s Scribbles)  new blog of the day

 
3 Comments

Posted by on May 2, 2013 in Deep Thought Thursday, Observations

 

Rumination

01 May

survivor_[2013]

Whoo hoo! I did it, as did hundreds of other bloggers. We accepted the challenge to post every day in April and to somehow, someway incorporate the letter of the day into said posts (we earned Sundays off for good behavior–some, like me, used it as a free-post day, while others simply took the day off to let their brain cells recharge). Now that May has begun, I’d like to take a moment to ruminate on the past month’s challenge, my involvement in it, and what I hope to improve next year.

I stumbled upon The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge quite by accident. Joe Owens has his finger on the pulse of the blogosphere, and I’ve learned of all kinds of challenges and opportunities by perusing his posts over at Joe’s Musings. Following his lead, I went over to the A to Z Challenge site and added my name to the linky list; by the time the sign-up period closed and illegitimate blogs had been purged by the challenge organizers, I landed at 1187 in a field of 1656 participants. One of the best aspects of the challenge, and the reason I think it draws so many bloggers, is that there are no restraints on the content. As long as the theme of a post–be it a piece of flash fiction, a recipe, a personal observation, a travelogue, a photograph, a poem, a letter, or a painting–matches the day’s letter, it is acceptable. This means that no one is excluded from the challenge based on the established theme or structure of his/her blog, and no one is forced to abandon his/her chosen medium in order to join.

Since I had already committed on 1 January to blog every day in 2013, the April A to Z Challenge did not present a daunting posting regimen for me. However, I really enjoyed trying to fit my own self-chosen routine of themes to the challenge’s prescribed letter of the day–well, at least until mid-April when my mom arrived, at which point I bailed on my daily schedule and posted willy-nilly for the duration of her visit.

The point where I fell short, and the key area where I will make a concentrated effort to improve next year, is reading and commenting on other A to Zers’ blogs. Well, not the reading so much, as several times I got lost for hours in an amazing array of blogs, going past the A to Z posts and deep into the archives on several. But I was VERY lax in posting comments on those blogs. I’m bad about this in daily life as well; it wasn’t an aberration during this challenge. I’m not sure why I allow this to happen, as I know how much I value comments on my own blog as proof that there really are people out there reading my ramblings. In fact, I am so ashamed, that I am setting myself a personal challenge for May: I will comment on three blogs each day, and one of those will be a new blog I have not previously visited. At the end of my regular post each day, I will make a note of the blogs I have commented upon (linking to the specific post), both as a way to hold myself accountable during my little May challenge, but also so you can check out some of the wonderful offerings out there in the blogosphere. Who knows, maybe you’ll find a new second-favorite blogger to follow (if it turns out you find a new first-favorite, don’t tell me I’ve been replaced, okay?).

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Posts I commented on today:
juggling mice with both paws  (helenjameson)
Zen like a Zebra  (An Expat’s Journal) new blog of the day
Zen  (Phenomenal Lass)

 
3 Comments

Posted by on May 1, 2013 in Challenges, Observations, What's She On About?

 

Tags:

Yabusame

29 Apr
The first of three targets along the gallery
The starting signal
The archer lines up his horse.
Ready…
…aim…
…fire!
The white flag signals a bulls-eye.
Retrieving his arrow with a bow of his head.

Yabusame is a traditional Japanese martial art in which a mounted archer rides at full gallop, releasing arrows from his bow along the way. It is said to showcase the highest level of skills to which a samurai warrior could aspire, for he had to be both an excellent horseman as well as an exceptional marksman. Today’s yabusame ceremonies preserve the ritual and customs of ancient Japan for the younger generations, rather than demonstrate the might of an army of warriors in order to maintain peace in a feudal land. They are staged along a 279-yard gallery down which the horse runs at full gallop. When given the starting signal, the mounted archer, wearing traditional samurai costume, aims his arrows at three small cedar plank targets along the gallery, spaced 77-yards apart. The entire length of the course is run in approximately twenty seconds, and after each archer has made his run, the entire company returns up the gallery single-file to collect its arrows. Yabasume ceremonies are held in various locations across Japan throughout the year…the above photos are from the April 2009 demonstration at Tsurugoaka Hachiman-gū, a sacred shrine in Kamakura.

 
2 Comments

Posted by on April 29, 2013 in Challenges, Observations, Photography, True Life

 

Tags:

Culture

28 Apr

IMGP0372

For The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture, I chose this photo from the Kecak Dance at Uluwatu in Bali, Indonesia. The dance, performed primarily by men, is still a very important part of Balinese life, and from what we understood from our tour guide, all Balinese boys learn the Kecak dance from a very early age; it is a matter of pride to perform in the local village’s dance, and even more so to perform in a sacred place like this world-famous temple.

 
8 Comments

Posted by on April 28, 2013 in Challenges, Observations, Photography, Sunday Best, The Daily Post Prompt, Weekly Photo Challenge

 

Tags:

Verdigris

25 Apr
Door handle at Blenheim Palace
Cannon at North Entrance of Blenheim Palace
Sundial in Water Terrace Garden at Blenheim Palace
Sculpture on beach in Brighton, England
Plaque commemorating Queen Victoria’s visit to St. Michael’s Mount, Cornwall
Welsh Dragon, Wales
Commando Memorial, near Spean Bridge, Scotland
‘Partnership’ sculpture, Reykjavik, Iceland

ver·di·gris [vur-di-grees, -gris] noun: a green or bluish patina formed on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces exposed to the atmosphere for long periods of time, consisting principally of basic copper sulfate. (from Dictionary.com)

I took my mom to Blenheim Palace today, and as we wandered around the grounds of one of England’s prized treasure houses, I noticed the green patina gracing many of the metallic surfaces. That got me digging through the rest of my photos from our travels throughout the UK in the past eighteen months, looking for more verdigris.

 
2 Comments

Posted by on April 25, 2013 in Challenges, Observations, Photography

 

Tags:

‘Taters

23 Apr

HPIM1790

 

I love potatoes. Baked, boiled, mashed, fried, in soups, in salads. Not sure I’ve met a potato I didn’t like (white potatoes, that is…not a fan of sweet potatoes in any incarnation). I didn’t know there were so many kinds of white potatoes until I moved to England; the supermarket has an entire aisle–both sides–devoted to nothing but potatoes. Heaven must look something like the potato aisle in Tesco.

I grew up eating potatoes almost every night for dinner. Mom married a meat and potatoes guy; Dad liked other starches like rice and pasta well enough, but preferred spuds with his evening meal. Now, I find myself married to a man who would happily eat rice seven nights a week–he doesn’t dislike potatoes, he just likes rice more. So, long story short, because I don’t cook potatoes very often, the ones I buy often go off before I can use them all.

A few months ago, I found a special potato storage bag while wandering through a cooking store. The package stated that the special dark liner inside the bag would keep potatoes fresher longer–the eyes wouldn’t sprout, and the potatoes wouldn’t turn green (this happens when potatoes are exposed to light, and green potatoes are poisonous!) This magical bag sounded like just what I needed to prolong the life of my taters, which hadn’t been faring so well in a plain paper sack. Let me just say, if I had saved the receipt this bag would be going back to the store.

I bought a bag of new potatoes and used several of them in a recipe the same day. The rest were secured in the dark protective shroud of the potato sack. A couple weeks went by, I cooked rice, we did some traveling, and through it all the potatoes slumbered peacefully in their sack. Last week I remembered that I had baby potatoes (only because I’d just purchased a couple larger spuds for baking and needed to store them in the sack) and thought I’d use them to make some potato salad. I loosened the drawstring at the top of the bag and blindly reached my hand in…only to yank it out with a yelp when I encountered tentacles trying to wrap themselves around my wrist. WTF?! Angling the bag’s opening toward the window, I looked in the dark interior to find 10-inch long sprouts coming out of every single potato. Good thing the bag slowed the growth of those eyes, or I’d have had to hack my way into the kitchen with a machete!

Unless anyone out there has a tried and true ‘tater storage trick, I may have to give up and just get my potato fix when we go out for dinner. Rice is a much more docile side dish, not turning poisonous colors or sprouting and trying to take over the pantry as soon as I turn my back.

 
5 Comments

Posted by on April 23, 2013 in Challenges, Observations, True Life

 

Tags:

← Older posts
Newer posts →