Running hot and cold

Been debating with myself whether to keep going here.

I don't have too much of a life these days, so I don't have much to say.

I've been feeling kind of down. Can you tell? I can. Sorry.

Any road, as they say.

These two photos were taken by my Wes today, out in 105 degrees.

They show the little man-made lake, the lower of two, at

the apartment complex where we live.

By the way, it got up to 108 today, breaking a Little Rock record.

Ho hum. It has been so hot so much this year,

that even something as unnatural as that doesn't seem to faze anymore.

I wanted to have a few pictures to send to the kids to let them see

how the 2012 drought is affecting our neck of the woods.

This little lake is not big or deep, but it is host to some

local turtles and a few small fish and frogs,

and some 'decorative' ducks

which apartment complexes in this state seem to love to stock.

The pictures show where the shoreline should be at normal times,

and just how much the drought has affected this small eco-system.

The water level is down well over 3 feet, and

I wonder about how concentrated and mucky the lake must be

and how that is affecting all those little creatures who call it home.

The little 'x' is where our little upper floor apartment is.

Yes, compared to a lot of people, I guess we live like kings.

But it isn't posh.

The lake just makes it look that way. :/

You can see that it has been dry for so long that plants

have been able to grow where the water is no more.

Here's the other photo, showing more of the same.

The green line I added to the bottom right shows

where the normal shoreline is. It drops down a foot at that point,

and then you can see how far the lake has dropped.

That is the lowest we have seen in the seven years we have lived here.

So, thanks to Wes for this bit of photo documentation.

I hope things are doing well in your neck of the woods,

wherever that may be.

Cyber waves to a wise blogland friend, Oldfool, should he see this.

He was born and bred in Little Rock, and

I should imagine he can cope with this beastly heat

a mite better than this old girl from Milwaukee.

::

Gravity works

I dropped something heavy

on my left thumb

and

on the big and second toes of my right foot.

No pictures, because my digits

are not photogenic.

Ouch, ouch and ouch.

A new creed

I gave up religion a few years ago.

Long, long story.

Also, I like American Chinese food.

And I like our little neighborhood take away,

and the people who own it.

The fortune cookies that they randomly

throw in with your order

aren't usually fortunes. They're more like

good thoughts. And some of them

might even improve your mind

and your life, if you let them.

This one, which I got the other day,

I give 20 stars out of 10.

It's that good.

So good in fact, that I'd like to

adopt it as a creed.

Something to try to live by.

It aligns with my liberal sense that

my time here is not just about me.

For me, it's about 'us'.

Community.

A lot of people don't see it that way.

I tried to take an artsy kind of photo

of this fortune cookie.

Sounds like a good creed to me.

Morning ain't broken

Just some pictures of our pretty morning here,

the small man-made lake,
taken from the little balcony of our apartment.

Cheers

It's a wonder

I love this photo. Yes, even as blurry as it is.

Taken with a phone camera, not that it matters, as it would have

come out blurry no matter which camera I was using.

I cannot hold still.

Anyway, we were trying out a pizza place during a short vacation

spent in Hot Springs with the guys, back in May 2009.

Rod's Pizza Cellar, if it matters.

They make awesome meatballs.

Blurry and all, this photo tickles me pink.

It makes me feel extremely and unashamedly proud.

Those two guys are the best things I've done in my life.

I have learned so much from them, far more than they have learned from me.

When they were little, I learned that being a parent

doesn't guarantee you will always treat another human being

with the dignity they deserve.

I have learned what many of my own personal flaws are.

Perhaps those were the most poignant and painful

things to learn.

But look at those faces!

I know you won't see them as I do, which is okay,

since it's just a photo of a couple of guys in a pizza parlor.

It all happened so slowly, them growing into men.

I've lost a lot of the memories that were supposedly

stored in my brain over the last thirty-four years.

Damn biology.

But I retain the gist of their lives, if not all the details.

Frankly, it's a wonder that they turned out so well.

Which is mostly down to them.

Of that I'm very sure.

Well done, men.

It is my privilege to know them.

Being their mother is an added bonus.

So on this Mother's Day, 2012,

"Happy Mother's Day to all mothers and their kids."

Happy Mother's Day.. to me.

:)

Frustrations of a computer 'user'

I don't know. Maybe its just me and my computer.

I use Internet Explorer.

I'm not a computer techy kind of person.

Oliver tried to teach me how to do HTML a few years ago.

I mostly failed.



Why is it that when I try to close some webpages

*before* they have loaded completely..

that webpage starts reopening itself up in multiple tabs!?

Loading.. loading.. loading.. loading!

I had one open up about ten tabs one day!

I couldn't Ctrl-Alt-Del fast enough!

I know, you can click that red X to stop a page.

But.. that doesn't always work!

So what is up with *that*?!?

I'm not a stalker! I don't open up multiple pages on purpose!

Grrrr. Poo.

.

(Not yet the) End of the Line

I've come sort of late to a lot of good music.

I found out about the Wilburys just last year.

This song and their video put my head in a good place.

Glad these dudes came together.

<>

Cheers