May Eve

Preparing the bath.

Things My Mower Taught Me

• Eat a good breakfast


• Don't wait 'til the grass is 6 inches high


• Certain individual blades are just not going to do what you want them to, no matter how many times you run them over

Urban Gardening

Top container: arugula
Middle container: radishes
Bottom container: mesclun lettuces

Going to need 12x12x12 containers and soil for cucumbers (and I might try tomatoes this year).

Little Perennials

Forget-Me-Nots, which travelled from my grandmother's house to Chelsea to Ann Arbor, are starting to bloom.
Bloodroot transplanted from Chelsea is up, but only one small bloom.
Lily of the Valley is up. Hosta is up. Daisies are lush. Dianthus that travelled from Columbus to Chelsea to Ann Arbor is greening up.

Looks like the echinacea may be the only casualty of transplanting in the blazing heat last summer (though the echs' demise is probably attributable to the fact that they sat for two weeks in a bucket that had been used for car washing).

Type and Shape

One class finished.
One to go.

I Won €615,810!

Now all I need to do is fax my bank account number to Madrid to claim my prize!

I would have thought this unsolicited letter to be junk mail and a scam, were it not for the official stationery. I mean, look at the banners, the starburst, the authoritative barcode, the two different low-resolution logos. Drop-shadows on rotated text, underlining, bolding, ALL CAPS. No way did just anybody generate that in Word. And only a prestigious institution would print black and white on the highest grade European copy paper for such an important notification.

Off to Kinko's to send my fax! This can't wait until morning!!!

Picnic Table

I left work about five minutes early today, which was just enough ahead of the rush that I got to campus with time to grab a sandwich and sit in the lovely spring air, comtemplating the ancient wisdom offered by the picnic table, the history of non-Roman characters in typeface development, and exactly what has to happen to a bird to turn it into the bland, mushy cutlet sold under the appellation "chicken" at Subway.

Temptation in a Doctor's Office Restroom

Magnolia Buds

Stalking the Wily Eggs Florentine

Breakfast at Angelo's.

Hi There!

Boxelder bug in kitchen sink.

Venus, Luna

No Real Post

The world was too much today.

Holly Gocrisply

D. - wazzamattah with muh holly? The newer-growth leaves are all brown and crunchy (older growth still green and glossy). Is she just not getting enough water? Is it time for a Hollytone throw-down? Should I cut the brown stalks off? The male's looking a little ragged too - the second female seems fine.

New Addiction

Help me, for I have succumbed to the lure of yuppified water.

Alpacas at 55 mph

Near Litchfield, Ohio. The camera was not on the high-speed setting. The alpacas were unexpected.

Basket o' Random Stuff

I use Flickr as a place to store photos for this blog, and that's about all I use Flickr for. I don't belong to any groups, comment on other people's photos, or network with it. Most of my photos garner one or two views. As of this morning, the photo of my feet posted below has generated 72 views since Thursday.

Added to my weekly reading list: Omniglot, a blog about languages.

Bumbi, the slightly creepy "never-miss-me-again doll."

Your chance to be an intelligent designer. I would buy #29 if it's produced.

Ann Arbor Snooze, Part Deux

Dear Ann Arbor News:

Stop it. Just. Stop. Please.

I have a Sunday. Only. Subscription. Why did I get a paper every day this week? Since I get home at 9:30 or 10:00 pm three of the five weekdays, they accumulate on the step as I am too aggrieved by the sight of the horrible orange bags to even pick them up. I was aggrieved enough by the house centipede scuttling across a wall that I did utilize one of your papers to dispatch said pest to multi-legged glory, but it's not often I see a house centipede (I suspect the cat finds them a delicacy) and so this stack of papers is simply going out with the recycling. After I debag them. Which annoys me. Because I agreed to debag one paper a week. On. Sunday.

Summertoes

New cheap azz shoes from eBay.
Now if it would just stop snowing...

Stack of Neglected Reading

Just finished: An Iliad, which I enjoyed more than this reviwer did.

Current read: The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Photoshopped Hyacinth

Late Breakfast

Late breakfast of a simple, one-egg omelet with feta and sliced mushrooms and multi-grain toast. Oh, and coffee, which I don't usually drink, but was necessary to start me moving this morning after last night's Polish Easter dinner, which culminated in several rounds of shots of Passover Slivovitz.

Chocolate Sculpture Idea

Since a chocolate Jesus will get you anathemized (though you will hum George Harrison songs for days), perhaps artists should confine their cocoa creations to subjects of classical antiquity. Like a Leonidas Leonidas. Limited editon of 300. Mmm...praline Spartan.

Bottle Deposit

Good thing I was making a withdrawal.

Giant Microbes!

Vladimir: Will you not play?
Estragon: Play at what?
Vladimir: We could play at Pozzo and Lucky.
Estragon: Never heard of it.
Vladimir: I’ll do Lucky, you do Pozzo. [He imitates Lucky sagging under the weight of his baggage. Estragon looks at him with stupefaction.] Go on.
Estragon: What am I to do?
Vladimir: Curse me!
Estragon: [after reflection] Naughty!
Vladimir: Stronger!
Estragon: Gonococcus! Spirochete!

Busy

Swamped with end-of-semester projects and beginning-of-quarter work. But I made a kitty for you! It's part of a series of three spot illustrations to accompany an article on protecting migratory birds.

I Wandered Lonely as a Daffodil

Thanks to the previous tenant for planting spring bulbs. One every 12 to 15 inches.

Paean to Akzidenz Grotesk

The forerunner of Helvetica and Univers.

What? You don't remember the first time you saw Garamond set really large? Didn't the R make you want to sing?

Anchors Away

The tenure of Fluffy the Office Mascot has abruptly ended.

Blue Sky and Buds

A crow just flew by with an entire slice of pizza.

Sunday Morning Clean-Up