Saturday Song: Uplifting

There are songs that can put us back together when we feel shattered. Songs that inspire us to pick up and keep going, songs that give us hope. This one lately has become one of my go-tos. It’s beautiful in its own right. It’s even more beautiful when I need to hear a reminder that I’m actually not as damaged as I think I am.

Which song gives you a hand up when you need it?

Image shows a woman's hands making a heart over the setting sun, with a seascape beyond. Everything has a golden hue.

Saturday Song: Uplifting
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Reveal That Metazoan! Red Jelly Edition

I’ve finally pulled my categorized photos off the external hard drive, yay! Now we have lotsa material to work with. We’ll start with a metazoan, as we haven’t done one of those in half of forever.

One of the things I found most charming about Pacific Northwest beaches was the jellyfish washing up. There are little round clear ones that sparkle in the sun like a beach full of diamonds. And then there are these much larger, rarer red ones.

Image shows a transparent red jellyfish with a hole in its center, beached on a lot of rounded gravel, with green seaweed around it.
Mystery Metazoan I

They have a really rich hue, especially from certain angles. Continue reading “Reveal That Metazoan! Red Jelly Edition”

Reveal That Metazoan! Red Jelly Edition

Mystery Flora: Translucent

Yes, indeedy, we’re going with another mystery flower this soon. It’s because the bloody birds aren’t cooperating, the arthropods aren’t out in force yet, and I’m too busy with a dozen other projects to go back through old photos at the moment. You’ll love these beauties, though, I promise.

I have no idea if they’re natives or if they’re something S rescued from a garden and brought home, but they are definitely making the area around our concrete retaining wall more interesting.

Image shows two blooms in profile. They are a transluscent lavender-gray, with green centers and projecting anters and stamens. There's a bit of gray broken concrete slab behind them, which is part of the retaining wall.
Mystery Flora I

It’s not often I run across flowers with nearly-clear petals. These barely even seem to be living things: they rather look like unfinished plastic flowers, waiting to be painted brilliant colors. Continue reading “Mystery Flora: Translucent”

Mystery Flora: Translucent

Saturday Song: Dunno the Words, But Love the Tune

We’re moving our singsongs to Saturdays, as I’ve got other things planned for the next several Sundays. You’ll love it, I hope.

This week’s theme is Songs We Don’t Understand the Words To, but Love Anyway. I’ve got so many of these. This is one of my particular favorites, but the only thing I’ve translated so far is the title: Continue reading “Saturday Song: Dunno the Words, But Love the Tune”

Saturday Song: Dunno the Words, But Love the Tune

Mystery Flora: Contemplative Bloom

Seattle-area plants have decided fuck it, it’s spring, and they are springing. Boo and I went for a walk in the back yard during a rare break in the rain. I got dozens of lovely floral photos out of that brief wander. I never know what’s going to be in our yard – S drags new plants home constantly. He’s worse than me with rocks. But, like my rocks, the plants are generally pretty, so none of us shall complain. I do occasionally give him a mild teasing.

This particular lovely now dwells alongside our creek. It’s fairly short, and it’s contemplating the ground, and it’s a fairly subdued color from above, so you barely notice it’s there at first.

Image shows a mauve flower that looks something like a half-blown rose, its stem bent so that its head faces the ground.
Mystery Flora I

Well, I figured that wouldn’t do for a good Mystery Flora post, so I got down on the bank below it, squatted down, and shot up. Continue reading “Mystery Flora: Contemplative Bloom”

Mystery Flora: Contemplative Bloom

Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Life Among the Lilies

You know what I love about waterbirds? The little buggers are easy to photograph. Well, relatively. When you’re standing on the boardwalk at Juanita and they’re out amongst the riot of vegetation that thrives in the shallow end of Juanita Bay in the summertime, they can sometimes be a bit hard to spot. Like so: Continue reading “Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Life Among the Lilies”

Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Life Among the Lilies

The ACE Cartoon Characters Re-Imagined in the Most Delightful Way

I’ll be you never looked at those utterly awful cartoons from the ACE PACEs and thought something wonderful could come of them, did you? I mean, honestly. They’re painful.

Image is a three-panel cartoon strip, showing two boys talking. Reginald is waving his arms in the air with his back to our view, saying, "Pudge, did I ever tell you about the time I came face to face with a lion?" Pudge: "No. What happened?" In the next panel, we can see Reginald and Pudge's faces. Reg says, "There I stood, without a gun. The lion growled and crept closer... closer... closer..." Pudge, imagining a lion in the grass, says, "Really? What did you do?" Next panel shows Reg imagining a lion in a cage, as he says, "I moved to the next cage! Ha-ha." Pudge, almost off-panel, says, "Oh, Reginald."
Cartoon from page (twenty-four) 24. No, I don’t know what it has to do with earth science, either.

But I’ve had the great good fortune to be introduced to an incredible group of ACE survivors, one of whom is putting a splendid new spin on these awful cartoons. Say hello to the adventures of Totally Hetero Pudge and Ronny by FeezlFuzzl. Here is an excerpt sure to change your entire way of thinking about pious Pudge McMercy and bad boy Ronny Vain. Continue reading “The ACE Cartoon Characters Re-Imagined in the Most Delightful Way”

The ACE Cartoon Characters Re-Imagined in the Most Delightful Way