Miscellany

I've seen this little bit of natural dyeing on the sidewalk at the library every year, for many years. I've taken pictures from time to time, but never come up with one as nice. I'm guessing that where the brown is a streak, someone stepped on the wet oak leaf and moved it.

Woollie Bear caterpillars grow black  and orange "fur." The black is on both ends, the orange in the middle. The more orange, the milder the winter.

Not looking good.

I've read this winter is forecast to be bitterly cold and the reason is the continuing shift of the polar vortex. The vortex is a band of air that corrals the arctic cold and keeps it where Santa lives, close to the North Pole. Now the vortex is shifting toward Europe, but still has a long way to go across the Atlantic.

Do your Woollie Bears have orange vests over there?

Change of address

I have lived here since July 4^th. That represents four monthly paychecks. Finally this morning I changed my address at work. As the person who closes the year, issues W-2’s, and does all that other tedious stuff that interests no one, except in its absence, I may have noticed it in December.

I did change my address with the post office, and important people like Visa. Then my address began updating itself. Social Security Administration sent me a letter telling me the post office had informed them of my new address, and if I was not the person at the new address on the notification, please let them know.

Junk mail arrived with my new address. My health insurance statement of benefits arrived at my new address as if it had always been.  On the one hand, it seemed seamless. On the other, some digital machine knows too much.

I did change my address with the Board of Elections. The other day I produced my driver’s license as photo ID, and saw my old address. I renewed that license on my birthday this year, and it’s valid until 2020. It expires March 31, 2020, the last day of my current term in office. I like that.

Renewing or replacing a driver’s license costs, I think, thirty five dollars. The license I renewed for thirty five dollars last March will cost me another thirty five dollars to replace with my new address. We must produce picture identification in order to vote in a couple of weeks. I have toyed with leaving my license alone until I must renew it, and producing the Board of Election’s acknowledgment of my change of address.

Then I think of that pesky Republican poll worker who challenged me at the last presidential election. I did face him down with a well used “Listen, young man”, but I don’t want to take a chance. Tomorrow I’ll get the driver’s license updated.

Bird feeder decided, for me

I intended to hang the bird feeder on the pink mandevilla's hook.

I see several neighborhood cats, and until this youngster adopted the front porch, I didn't give them much thought.

Laura says the little girls across the street claim him as their own.

I guess I'll ask their mother if she has plans to have him neutered, and if he really has a home for winter.

After five years with a feral cat, I'd lost track of how friendly house cats can be.

This fellow was in my lap as soon as I sat down.

I removed him, so he moved to the other rail for an "ear show down" with Pig.

And so the generations roll

The old lady and the kid went shopping at Loews last night,

for some things to improve the laundry room and the shed. 

I watched the young man with distended ear lobes

cut a piece of 2x4xeight feet into 2x4x24 inch sections.

From behind me, Laura demanded "What's the Pink Panther doing here?"

"It's a brand of weatherproofing," I said.

"It's a cartoon," Laura said.

I believe her Pink Panther predates my Pink Panther.

Pa-thet-ic

Caroline presented me this orchid for my birthday, four years ago.

Tiny thing, in a two inch pot.

We put it in one of Jan's little ceramic pots.

Marty Froehlik, an artist friend, made the little dragon fly pot.

The orchid grew and grew, and made more flower spikes every year.

In a while there obviously was no dirt left in the little pot,

so I bought a four inch pot and transplanted the orchid.

We fitted the plastic pot into another of Marty's pots.

The dragonfly pot had a fatal encounter with the cat who must know all.

Mother used to say, it wasn't the fall. It was the sudden stop.

The dragonfly pot became a lot of pieces.

And, the orchid kept on growing, and sending out spikes.

One even grew through the openwork of the pot.

The orchid is growing another new leaf this year.

Now, Marty is not an infamous potter, so I set EBay searching, searching for his pots.

I hoped to replace the dragon fly and find another Marty Froelick pot this size.

In one year I have found two pots.

One is the little purple pot on my windowsill.

And, one is a similar pot, but, smaller than the pot the orchid  occupies.

Today I had to make a last trip to the old house, and the pot on the right was sitting on the old mantle.

No, my sister did not want that pot. She wanted her pot.

So it goes.

The EBay search continues.