I have a miniature variety of black-eyed susans (Maryland's state flower), one bunch of which produced even smaller flowers.
Regular mini:


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My vacation is more than half over, and I've accomplished three of the four things that I wanted to do: take the bike back to the shop, enjoy a fancy breakfast, buy new sneakers, and work on cleaning up my vintage Tupperware. We also went to a bookstore, and I bought four new books. I've already read half of the Greek-Turkish-Cypriot cookbook, Ripe ( Read more... )

Today's the first day of my week off. I went to my shrink's office for the first time in a month (she was on vacation then tested positive for COVID two Mondays in a row, then I was sick (not with COVID)). I bought absurdly large Italian subs/hoagies from a place down the street that we hadn't tried before. Tomorrow morning we're going into town ( Read more... )

I occasionally think of things to write here, but by the time I sit down to type it out I decide that they're dumb/silly and end up with nothing, which isn't good either. So here are some half-formed thoughts that I would make more coherent if I had time/energy.

• I bought tickets to Washington National Opera's Fidelio. The photo indicates that the ( Read more... )

In thinking about bike riding for errands I neglected the exercise part, which is formidable for a couch potato like me, and the fact that the last time I road a bike was on trails. I've been forcing myself to ride in a two-block loop around the neighborhood every morning after rush hour. The first time was humbling. There are a couple of small ( Read more... )

None of the books in my library's Pride collection was available this month, which, yay for people reading for Pride but also a little sad for myself. Instead I read a few things from my old wish list, which suddenly popped up after being AWOL for a few months.

Born Into This, Adam Thompson

Thompson is a Tasmanian Aborigine (Palawa), and most of the ( Read more... )

It took almost two weeks, but my bike was finally ready Thursday. I picked it up today. I rode it around the block and determined that the seat/saddle was really uncomfortable, so I bought a new seat and a rack over the back tire:


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I decided to buy a bicycle so that I can pick up our vegetables from our farm CSA without sitting in traffic. Brent has been doing this for a while. I did it once and that was enough. It's about two miles to the pickup site from our house, including a stretch with no sidewalks, so walking's not really an option even when the weather cooperates.

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We're kind of barely hangin' on lately, both very busy at work. I was able to hire a new copy/production editor for my team, which is great, but then I got just over 175 applications, which was less great. The Post had an article about the surge in applications--apparently it's so easy to apply for jobs that people apply for anything regardless of ( Read more... )

This month's books are in two categories: music biographies and Asian-American fiction. Music first.

Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington and Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, both by Terry Teachout

A friend of ours invited us to join a mostly virtual "musicology" book club hosted by a DC Public Library employee on the west side of town. The Ellington book ( Read more... )