Saw two deer today. Perhaps the mother and her fawn. Mom? licking the
younger one, then mom? heading over behind my house to eat my
geraniums by the birdbath. I didn't want to disturb her so I let her
eat them. I should have left some water in the birdbath. She licked
it anyway, getting the dew.

I took some short movies but both deer are so well camouflaged that
they are pretty hard to see, so not worth posting here or in my Yahoo
Briefcase.

More pics of fall colors. These pics (my camera and my picture taking skills) don't show half the brillance of the colors this year. Several trees and bushes have been spectacular.

The dogwood, turning deep red.



Another shot reminiscent of the beauty of a Islamic art.

This pic doesn't come close to showing how vibrant an orange and red there is in these leaves.

Crimson vines rip up the trees like fire.




The ceiling of a mosque?

More, as promised. More to come.

Fall colors. Nice patterns like in Persian art. More to come.

Geraldine R Dodge Poetry Festival

Just got back from the Geraldine R Dodge Poetry Festival. As usual it
was superb. (Actually I thnk it wasn't as good as last time...) I recommend everyone go though. Trouble is, it won't happen for another two years.

Got there Saturday morning in time for the end of Celebrating Rumi's
799th birthday with Coleman Barks and Robert Bly who were backed by
the Paul Winter Consort. Some gems from that: (some are misquoted by
me):

Coleman mused, 'The dawn: What all human beings want'...

Rumi - 'There is a field, I'll meet you there'....
http://www.mowensculpture.com/poetry.html#Poem32
Check out the many other short (Coleman Barks translated) Rumi poems
on that page too.)

Rumi -
"I am so small I can barely be seen.
How can this great love be inside me?

Look at your eyes. They are small,
but they see enormous things."
http://www.nlight.org/A%20Sampling%20of%20Rumi's%20Poems.htm

There were many sessions on Allen Ginsberg. I sat under the Gazebo
Sat and Sun and listened to and read some myself. On Sat it started
off with

Hum Bom
http://www.caterina.net/paw/archives/000071.html

Howl was read through twice. I read one part, the extremely graphic
homosexual sex part. (I was the next reader in the circle and that part was next.)
I also heard some graphic homosexual sex described in someone else's poems at a later session and thought, we don't really need to hear about this. Honesty is one thing but we've heard this before. Do we need to hear it again?. It's better a private thing. Enjoy it on your own, whatever your sexuality. Someone touched on that as well. Talking about the government trying to find out what people did in the dark, which was funny.

Howl
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poem=0&poet=6613&num=21

The footnotes to Howl
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6613&poem=30496

Others included:

A Supermarket in California
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/supermarket.html
(I heard it at least three times this weekend making it the most
popular poem heard at the festival.)

America,
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/america.html

Diane Wolkstein: Told the story of Inanna, a Persian creation myth,
wonderfully.

Ko Un: A Korean poet. Haiku-like short pieces. Some funny. One
paraphrased: A baby dragonfly rests on a ? leaf. The whole world
surrounds it, watching. (?)

Taslima Nasreen read the most depressing poems/prose about the
horrendous treatment of women in Bangladesh/India. Very depressing.

The Poets of New Jersey reminded me that not all poetry is good
poetry. Some less than inspiring stuff there. B J Ward read some
stuff. I'd seen him at a Rockland County Jazz Society event a few
years ago. His stuff was better than most of the others but not that interesting.

Ekiwah Adler Belendez was very impressive. At 18, he is someone to
look out for in the future.

I had never seen Brian Turner before but was impressed although I was
not sure what his political bent was other than all war is hell. He
did remind the crowd that we will have to prepare ourselves for more
violence at home at some point.

I only saw Kurtis Lamkin at the evening session. He was perhaps not
the most eloquent but was certainly spirited. I wish I'd caught the
session he did on jazz with Sekou. He did a very interesting piece on
language. How children go from making unitelligeable sounds to
communicating and how we then lose the desire to speak the truth,
hiding our feelings.

Sekou Sundiata was very impressive. I recommend seeing him if you get
the chance. He did a piece on his reaction to Sept 11.

Anne Waldman: A force of nature.

She read Selections from Marriage (There is supposedly video of that here

http://www.freespeech.org/ramfiles/waldman.ram but I can't get it to
work.)

She also did an amazing rant in two parts with the first part being a
take on a more familiar piece/song (title?) and then "Rogue State"
where she becomes possessed, by the spirit of the poem or possessed
like you'd see in a voodoo ceremony or The Exorcist. The poet that
followed echoed my sentiments when she said she was having a hard
time getting Anne's voice out of her head. I would LOVE to see that
piece air somewhere, either from the festival or another performance
of it.

Here is one version of Rogue State (at U of Penn), much more subdued
than what we heard.
http://www.sonicyouth.com/prmp3/Rogue_State.mp3

Here she is reading Global Positioning (at U of Penn) .
http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Waldman/KWH4-15-03/Waldman-Anne_Global-Positioning_UPenn_4-15-03.mp3

More sound files of her at U of Penn here:
http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Waldman/KWH4-15-03/

I think it was Jorie Graham who said that we needed to counteract
Anne's reading with something boring like some dead English poet's
rhyming poetry. Unfortunately, Andrew Motion followed her. He is the
British Poet Laureate. Self-depreciatingly, he joked in his
opening that he might be thought of by some as a dead British poet
but that he would read a really dead English poet. I thought was
tactless of whoever said that with Andrew coming up. Jorie was
beautifully soft spoken but her poetry wasn't memorable.

The next morning, I saw more Coleman Barks and Robert Bly reading

Rumi and telling about their trip to Iran. (They had mentioned going
to Afghanistan the day before. Sent by the State Dept! The rep told
Coleman to not say anything bad about W. They had their meeting with
academics in the morning and in the afternoon told Nasrudin jokes, Nasrudin being the stereotypical wise fool. One joke: Nasrudin heard that most accidents happen close to home so he moved away. That kind of thing. Would apply rednecks or any other stereotypical character we are used to making fun of.) See more here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Nasrudin

When asked about how these poems should be sung, Coleman offered that
Shape note singing was a pretty good way to do them. He had had a
dream where he and Joseph Campbell were sitting on his mother's bed
(He wondered what the significance of that was...), and Joseph said
that in Heaven we do that all the time (sing Rumi/Emily Dickinson to
Shape Note songs.)

This is all one big yes. Very inspiring. You miss it when you get
home and are not hearing it anymore.

At one point someone said poetry is (something to the effect of) the
one truth. It sounded reasonable when she said it but later I
thought, no, science is the one true thing in this world. Poetry
certainly tries to name the unnameable but it too falls short. It
does cover some areas other fields cannot touch and for that I like
it but it isn't the one truth.

Someone, Sunday, read Allen Ginsberg poem Kaddish Part1: "...Death is
that remedy all singers dream of"... Maybe. Is that what song leads
to?

People at the Gazebo read Stanley Kunitz's The Layers twice (and I
think another poet read it in the main tent, so I guess it is a tie
with Ginsberg's A Supermarket in California.)

Describing the little epiphanies is what interest me in poetry. This
weekend is full of them. Very addictive and inspiring. When Taha
Muhammad Ali said "the flowers bend down and sparrows (flew?)", it
was describing the feeling you have when someone you love reassures
you that they love you. You could say that in prose but the poetic is
so much more powerful although the meaning can be lost by using
metaphors.

Anne Waldman read, amongst other things on Sunday, Skin, Meat, Bones.
(read at U of Penn below)
http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Waldman/Battery/Waldman-Anne_02_Skin-Meat-Bones_Battery_1978.mp3

Sprachsong?: Pieces of "Pieces of An Hour" (for John Cage) at U of Penn:
http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Waldman/Alchemical-Elegy/Waldman-Anne_06_Pieces-of-an-Hour_Alchemical-Elegy_2001.mp3

I enjoyed Linda Paston's Minor Surgery:
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~dalryaug/poems/index.shtml?98/103198.shtml
She and this piece were entirely low key. Used common phrases. When I
hear poems like this I wonder if common sense would rate as poetics
if rearranged just so. Still, I liked it.

Mark Doty's reading on Sunday was more memorable to me at this hour
than what I heard on Saturday night. He had a longer session and read
more interesting stuff.

Billy Collins repeated several poems I heard him read at the 2004
festival. Why did he repeat so many?

The Revenant
http://www.bestcigarette.us/2004/09/the_revenant.html

Dharma
http://plagiarist.com/poetry/7844/

Litany (look down the page for it)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/foundation/release_100604.html

The Lanyard
http://www.bestcigarette.us/2004/09/the_lanyard.html
I do love this poem and want to give a copy to my mother but it
didn't do much for me this time around.

One I hadn't heard last time or at least don't remember. Japan
http://www.contemporarypoetry.com/dialect/poetry/collinsjapan.htm

Someone at the festival mentioned this Nelson Mandela quote: "It is
our light, not our darkness, that frightens us." This festival makes
you renew the light in yourself.

I look forward to it two years from now... Sigh.

C-Span 1 & 2 have looked different for years. Why? C-Span 1 looks like it has less contrast. C-Span 2 has richer, sharper colors. I use DirecTV now but this has been going on since I started using cable, about 15 years now.

Back when Bush gave his State Of The Union speech I took screenshots of each channel. Here they are. Same location, same feed. I would be very currious about any explantion.

Two things that are still not working with Firefox:

1) Even though I have the cache set to zero, I still have to force
reload a page to see changes made in it. Supposedly, Firefox, any
browser I would think, should compare the page to the cached copy and
if there is a difference, it would load the new page. Well, that
isn't happening even with no cache!

2) It still freezes often enough after a period of inactivity, so
that I can't write in a field on a page or in the address box (for
URLs). Very annoying. I have to either create a new page or restart
Firefox.

These two problems have occurred with previous versions of Firefox. I
am using 1.5.0.7 for Mac now, started with a pre-1.0 version. I'm
not sure when these troubles started.

As I was eating breakfast I saw some wild turkey's ambling about.
Overall I counted 15! (I count 11 in this pic). All seemed to be
adult and healthy. It's been a year practically to the day since I last saw some!
Then as I was watching them, I noticed a hairy or downy woodpecker checking
out the eastern bluebird birdhouse! Peeking in, again and again. Maybe he/she will make that its home. Haven't seen any activity by the birdhouse since July I guess. (Some song sparrows were using it then.)

And then a little later, I notice a caramel and white cat moving
through the woods next door. I picked up my cat to show her, which
she protested loudly about, squirming like crazy to get away, but she
didn't see it. An animal day today!

Went to the Arts and Crafts and Blues on Bedford concerts in
Stamford yesterday and today. Saw Lil Brian and the Zydeco Twisters,
Walter "Wofman" Washington, and Dr John Saturday, Bonerama, Syreeta
Neal and (I forget the name of her backup band), and Sonny Landreth
and the Goners Sunday, all playing what I'll call New Orleans music
although some are based elsewhere (but I think all are from LA). It
was pretty good. A bit disappointing actually compared to what I've
heard (many of them) do before but since I hadn't heard some of them
in a long time, Bonerama and Sonny Landreth are two New Orleans music
favorites of mine, it certainly was good to hear this kind of music again.

Here are some pics from Sunday.

Bonerama (4 trombones, I sousaphone, 1 electric guitar and 1 drummer)

Craig Klein and Mark Mullins

They played lots of rock (cover tunes and favoring a rock beat rather
than a New Orleans second line beat) which I see according to their
website, is how they bill themselves,

Syreeta Neal. Kenny Neal was originally scheduled as the main act for
that slot, with Syreeta as a guest. Her guitar was a little off key
which she realized a little too late but she was sweet, fun and a good
singer.

Sonny Landreth with an amazing drummer (who looked like Alan Caulter from the David Letterman show and who would twirl one stick in the air as
he was playing!) Lots of real hard slide guitar.

All were loud and good. And all of this was free!

Saw this guy on the screen the other night. Nice red eye, real, a
marking to convince prey that it has a big red eye, or the result of
the flash, whatever the explanation.

I just got back from a walk around the block. Saw a fawn that had
been hit by a car, dead on the side of the road. It was probably one
of the 3 I'd seen (and have pictures of earlier, see 6/29. I also
have a few I haven't posted.). Sad to see.

(Something to consider: We had the fallen tree, and two others, cut
down yesterday. Were the deer/fawns scared away by the racket,
causing the fawn to be hit? (I feel a little guilty but it is
admittedly a stretch.) I don't know how long the fawn has been dead
there. When I've walked in the bushes between the two houses I have
seen quite a few spots where it looks like some large animals have
been nesting. Will the trees that were cut down have wiped those out
when they fell? There are probably more that weren't affected but we'll
have to see. I also look forward to seeing the mom deer with however
many of the fawns there are.)

Cool. I can get right to the control panel so I can upload the pics
and edit my posts. I hope they have fixed things so we don't need to
go to that alternate URL to do that. Hope this lasts.

I may have to stop using Blogger. They won't let me log in or upload
pics. I can send posts like this but that's it. I was able to log in
once lately but had to throw out some cookies. I'm not going to keep
doing that.

Rev Michael Jacques of the St Peter Claver Catholic Church of New
Orleans made up a new word in his prayers for New Orleans at the
memorial service 8/30/06 (broadcast on C-Span). Shero. The female of
hero. Too bad it isn't a word. It should be.

Great horned owl

Heard a great horned owl a few minutes ago. Posted it's hooting on my
Yahoo briefcase. (http://briefcase.yahoo.com/lipwak)

(Still waiting for Blogger to let me sign in... Blogger has been buggy lately. Won't let me sign in.)

Cool spider

A cool spider seen today.

The best discussion of why Katrina wasn't handled better aired on
C-Span 8/22/06. With PJ Crowley, Director, Center for American
Progress, National Defense and Homeland Security; Robert Block,
Correspondent, [Wall Street Journal], Homeland Security; Chris
Cooper, Correspondent, [Wall Street Journal], White House; Oliver
ThomasJr., President, New Orleans, LA, City Council.

Watch it here:
rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/hur/hur082206_katrinabook.rm

Info here:
http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=196946286

An equally good show, pretty much a rehash of what Robert Block said
before, interviewed by James Lee WItt, aired tonight on C-Span.

Info here:
http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=196892632

--
***********************************************
renew orleans
the new orleans musicians hurricane relief fund
http://reneworleans.net/

At breakfast I see a mom deer then a baby/fawn, then another smaller
fawn, then another fawn (the same size as the first) walk in a line
through the side of the yard. I've seen mom and two fawns all spring
and summer but not three. I wonder what the smaller fawn's chances
are for survival.

Well. My computer is back from Apple. Keyboard had been replaced.
Let's see if that fixes the problem with it typing numbers instead of
letters or not typing at all.

Some pics;

Back when it was hot, a baby grasshopper on the front door screen?

A pretty red flower in the butterfly garden.

Comfrey?

This may be familiar to me but I am drawing a blank. Purple ajuga?

I've seen the deer lately. Got pretty close this time. Talked to it.
I'm wondering why it's eyes look blue rather than red. Blue-eyed deer?

Some interesting mold on a plant by the birdbath.

Finally. I noticed this pile of crap in the grass. Poking at it I
noticed it had bones in it. What kind of animal would make scat like
this? Awfully small bones. Too small for mice? Birds?

I don't eat much beef that isn't already processed. When I eat some hamburger I've cooked or better yet, steak, I sometimes notice that I feel like I am having the same reaction I'd have if I was taking medicine when having a cold. I suspect I am reacting to the antibiotics they feed beef. Does anyone else have this happen to them?

Thanks.

The Rockland County Times came today. Front page article, no press release, unsigned, from Sen Morahan about school tax rebate. Great. The schools don't have enough money and he is proud of giving some of it that was meant for schools back to the taxpayers. Good job.

Page 6: Free screening for vascular diseases. There will be free screening May 13 through 20 of this year. This is the August 23 paper. I guess not even the editors read it.

Miele's Musings: It's time to clean up Medicare fraud. In lieu of any any real progress on having health care be more affordable/available to everyone, Republicans/Miele are/is proud of their campaign to check Medicare fraud. Miele has these gems to offer: "We have the beaters of our government system doing drugs, hedonistic lives, aids, criminals, welfare cheats and so many more beaters of a good system meant to help people." Is that a sentence?

"They are the ones being taken to support the beaters of a great system that is meant to help their fellow person."

These people are idiots.

I really look forward to my subscription lapsing. This is one awful newspaper.

First signs of fall: football on tv and when it's 70 degrees out but
it feels cool/cold. Going down to the mid 50s tonight.

Saw a pretty yellow flower in the front today, yesterday. Took a pic
of it today but it was raining so I couldn't stay out to get better
pics. I wonder what it is.

Here is a pathetic pic of the stalk. The rain had knocked the flower off.

The flower lying on the ground, upside down.

There is at least one buttercup-like flower to the left, out of the
pic, like there were last year which I transplanted and which didn't
take in their new location.

Saw the mom deer and a fawn as I went out to get the mail. On the
other side of them were the lawn crew buzzing around with their
seated lawnmowers and leaf blowers creating the usual din. The deer
were gone when I came back. Where did they go? Further into the
corner where there are some trees and bushes or into the woods or
over by the bushes between my house and the neighbor's where I bet they've nested before?

Mom deer (pic to come). Talked to her today. I think she realizes I am not someone to fear.

I've been thinking that it's been a long time since I've seen an ant
in the kitchen, so long that it must surely be ok now to put
ant-accessible food back out on the shelves rather than keeping it in
the refregerator, when lo and behold I see a little black ant
crawling around the sink edge. I mop it up and wash it down the drain
(my soul will burn in hell) and smirk that of course it isn't time to
leave food out. (Have found a larger black ant in the bathroom
recently but other than these two haven't seen any to speak of.

I have lunch outside on this beautiful day. A fly lands on the pork
fat I scraped off of my sandwich. I moosh it around with my fork,
gently. It stopped moving altogether. I lift it out with my napkin,
using surface tension. It is lifeless on the table. Did the pork fat
kill it? What does that say about Hormel pork roast? I laugh. It is
probable that my mooshing it caused it to drown in the fat juices but
I I like the other explanation better.

(And yes, I have felt chest pains after eating this pork (not today
but a few days ago) but my doctor says I'm ok so if I die, it's his
fault.)

I think it is safe to try life without air conditioning but we'll see.

First thing today I see the mom deer eating near the bird bath.
Probably eat at least one geranium flower, the rest are ok. I didn't
have to reprimand it as it moved on around the corner. I then watched
from the kitchen window. Fawn #1 was eating dead weeds in the
"garden" and as mom walked by, bounded out, tail wagging and attacked
her belly for some milk. Fawn #2 bounded over as well and the two
were stuck to her, tails wagging. Mom didn't stay still very long and
soon after I lost track of them. But, it's nice to see them so
regularly.

Hmm. It's only 71 out now, at about 11:30 pm. Very few bugs inside the window.

So, this is a function of heat? The more heat there is, the more bugs? Weird.

I watch the mom deer eat to her heart's content in the "garden", the
area where a fence remains but other than the raspberries and the
mint I've planted, there isn't anything I care about. I took some
pics, saw the hummingbird but don't know if the pics of it came out,
probably not. Then when I check back on the deer, I see it eating my
raspberries. I bang on the window and it looks at me. I talk to it.
It goes back to eating the raspberries. I open the window and talk to
the deer again. Say hello to it. I don't know if it recognized me. It
went back to eating the raspberries. I clap my hands. It stops but
begins again. I clap my hands again. It finally bounds away. I see a
fawn head in the other direction further back. Nice to see the
fawn(s) still.

Awhile later, they are still camping out a little further back, like
they have for years.

Thunderstorm dropped the temperature 20 degrees but it is still quite humid.

I've had the windows closed for two nights now, with the a/c on cuz
it's so hot and humid. As soon as it gets dark the inside of the
window gets swarmed with all kinds of little bugs that are getting in
through the screen or whatever edges I haven't sealed. It's
disgusting. These guys must get in when the window is open too. That
many little bugs get in? Jeez. And most of them will die when they
can't get out the next day, cooking inbetween the window and the
screen. That many every night? And those that get in when the window
is open end up, I guess, flitting around the bright lights inside. I
hardly ever see them the next day or their bodies. Makes you want to
keep the window closed from now on.

I'd tried taking pictures but none of them show the bugs at all. It
really is disgusting.

One encouraging thing though is that they all disappear the next day. Maybe one or two moths can't get out but I don't see any small bugs. I'm guessing they see the sun rise and fly off towards it. Or do they hang around for the next night? (If so, most die cuz it is so hot out and they don't get any water or food.)

I don't look forward to opening the windows...

A cicada? seen on the screen last night. Is this a June bug?



The temp yesterday. The readings are NOT reliable...

Today, ~110 in the shade!

No butterflies at the butterfly garden O&R gave people seeds for.
Little flies, yes. Butterflies? No. Not yet at least. Some nice
pretty flowers, all miniature but nice. Might take more time for it
to appeal to the butterflies.

Wow, Senator Morahan really wants to be re-elected. He's sent out an
e-mail warning us to be careful about the heat. Funny how politicians
advertise how they pretend to care about the general public when they
need to be re-elected, when they are threatened with losing!

Sorry. I'm not impressed.

Gazillions of little bugs against the window last night. It was too
hot to have it open and I had the a/c on but you could see them light
up the outside of the window as they reflected in the light. Hundreds
of them. All of these little guys get through the screen, that's
discouraging. I don't know how I can do any better at trying to keep
them out.

You might be able to see some of them here:
http://us.f13.yahoofs.com/bc/43e90c12m3cb1ecef/bc/movies/P8010002.MOV?BCiiO0EBvzFtdHVS

Got up to 95, 105 on the thermometer in the shade by the kitchen window.

A hummingbird chirped twice nearby as I was taking pictures of the
agastache (aka anise hyssop) and all the white butterflies twittering
about it. I couldn't get a good shot of the hummingbird but I am glad
I was able to get close to one. All the others fly away as soon as I
appear.

Pic of the white butterflies (potato moths?) that are going nuts at the agastache
despite the heat.

Also, saw this milkweed like seed coming out of what I think is comfrey. Cool.

Will possibly upload some white butterflies-at-the-agastache movie(s)
to my Yahoo briefcase. (Search elsewhere on my blog for the URL.)

First daddy long legs seen in the house today since I sealed all the
screen edges (in May/June). I'm glad that has worked so well.
Usually, I get a bug a day that I escort out and see something large,
a moth usually, flying around inside at night. Haven't seen anything
to speak of since I sealed things off. Hallelujah. Sealing off the
spaces where the pipes come out of the wall in the bathroom helped as
well. I usually get spiders in the bathtub. Haven't seen ANY this
year. Ok, one small one the other day but it's MUCH better than it
ever has been.

Of course as soon as I said that, I find an ant in the kitchen
checking out the one piece of cat food that isn't in the bowl, so I
escort him outside. As I do that I noticed a nice brown wolf spider
so I decide to relocate him too. Might as well relocate the little
black spider I saw in the bathroom too.

Done. He rolled up into a little ball once I shook him into the cup I
use to relocate insects found in the house. Cute. Playing dead.

About 4 pm, I see a deer walk into my back yard. I watch as it heads
to the side yard. As it approaches the plants on my table I bang on
the glass and off it sprints into the bushes and then looks around.
It then walks over to my landlady's back yard. It looks into the
bushes there, looking for/at something. A second or two later out
bounds a little fawn and it begins to suckle her mother. Aww. I take
a movie and might post it but it is pretty far away so isn't very
sharp. So, the older deer I've seen with the fawns is Mom. I think
the fawns were staying in the thicket of bushes between my landlady's
house and our next door neighbor's. Cool.

I posted some good pics of that big orange bug seen a few days ago.
Much better pictures than the earlier ones. Apparently, this bug
didn't like having his picture taken. As soon as the first flash went
off, he roused himself and started to amble off of the door pane.

third try to post this

(Blogger wouldn't post my e-mailed posts for two days. Now it works. Good)

Sunday 7/30
I see the two fawns as I drive in. One is kinda curious so I try to appraoch it after I've parked. It gets bored I guess and goes back to eating. (What's that called in human psychology. Avoidance?) Anyway, it is nice to see them on a regular basis. I hope I can approach one of them at some point. It'd be nice to gain their trust considering their probable fate of being hit by a car at some point.

Saturday 7/29

First daddy long legs seen in the house today since I sealed all the
screen edges (in May/June). I'm glad that has worked so well.
Usually, I get a bug a day that I escort out and see something large,
a moth usually, flying around inside at night. Haven't seen anything
to speak of since I sealed things off. Hallelujah. Sealing off the
spaces where the pipes come out of the wall in the bathroom helped as
well. I usually get spiders in the bathtub. Haven't seen ANY this
year. Ok, one small one the other day but it's MUCH better than it
ever has been.

Of course as soon as I said that, I find an ant in the kitchen
checking out the one piece of cat food that isn't in the bowl, so I
escort him outside. As I do that I noticed a nice brown wolf spider
so I decide to relocate him too. Might as well relocate the little
black spider I saw in the bathroom too.

Done. He rolled up into a little ball once I shook him into the cup I
use to relocate insects found in the house. Cute. Playing dead.

About 4 pm, I see a deer walk into my back yard. I watch as it heads
to the side yard. As it approaches the plants on my table I bang on
the glass and off it sprints into the bushes and then looks around.
It then walks over to my landlady's back yard. It looks into the
bushes there, looking for/at something. A second or two later out
bounds a little fawn and it begins to suckle her mother. Aww. I take
a movie and might post it but it is pretty far away so isn't very
sharp. So, the older deer I've seen with the fawns is Mom. I think
the fawns were staying in the thicket of bushes between my landlady's
house and our next door neighbor's. Cool.

I posted some good pics of that big orange bug seen a few days ago.
Much better pictures than the earlier ones. Apparently, this bug
didn't like having his picture taken. As soon as the first flash went
off, he roused himself and started to amble off of the door pane.

Agastache is peaking, not that that is much to look at. It looks good
close up and smells nice but isn't very impressive further away. Except for the butterfly activity. It is atwitter with white moths (or butterflies). (The one up at Museum Village appeals to bees. Mine doesn't. Haven't seen any any at least. I do have a movie of the moths enjoying it but it is pretty hard to see them. Might post it on my Yahoo Briefcase.)

I saw a stunning black butterfly just now (about 7pm). What's its name?

Also went downstairs to try to take pics of the hummingbird seen by
the monarda twice and each time I'd get in view of it, it'd take off.
Very shy. I might have to settle for a shot taken from the kitchen
window, too far away.

I see (the) two fawns again. Probably the same ones I've seen before.
Glad to see they are still around. It's likely they are nesting
around here somewhere. I've seen them by the front hedge but they
could be in the mess of bushes on the side of the house.

I saw an older deer yesterday and a fawn. Probably one of the fawns
seen today. I've seen the older deer a few times as well. Relatives?
Not a parent. I've seen much older deer that might have been the
parents before.

Sunday, 7/23
Saw the two fawns and the slightly older deer as I drove in today.
They looked at me and weren't too concerned. I talked to them, said
hello, soothingly. When I turned the car off and got out they'd
disappeared. Could have been the noise from my automatic car antenna
(which is broken and doesn't move the antenna up or down, just makes
the noise as if it was, for longer than it would run normally. That
might scare deer.

Is anyone else having trouble with Yahoo?

About a month ago, they forget all the settings for my bulk mail so
good mail started going in there from people I KNOW I've received
plenty of mail from in my Inbox for a long time. And now it is
taking a LONG time for Yahoo to learn what my good mail is... It's
even rejected mail from me, to me and not delivered some test mails
like that at all!

In the past few days they are hard to connect to. Yahoo IM was down
most of yesterday evening so I wouldn't be surprised if they are
having problems otherwise. (Now I am getting a cannot connect
message, trying to access the Yahoo TV guide with Firefox (1.5.0.4
for Mac) Worked a second a ago. Saw an earlier time on the
schedule...)

Cablevision, the ISP I actually connect with*, has also been acting
up, every since my landlady got cable internet months ago. Lots of
can't connect to server messages and slow connects. When she is not
home all is well, for the most part, it does happen when she is not
using it too but it happens much more when she is home. I don't know
if she is also using at the times I have noticed it is slow but I bet
she is.

There is a separate connection, a separate cable running from the
pole to her house for each of our connections so there SHOULDN'T be a
problem unless they screwed up something at the pole.

*I also have at least one other one I pay $20 /month for so I can
keep my old e-mail addresses.

What is this bug?

(The big bug, not the little one, although I am curious about them too.)

I've seen them for a few days now. They hang out on my screen at
night. Last night I think I saw a younger one flying around. Most of
the time they just sit there. One other one was seen crawling around
another screen. I haven't seen them before this summer and I have
lived here for 4 summers now. Big mothers.

11am
The Ramapo police department or the fire department has been
disturbing the peace for the last 15 minutes with some demonstration
of their equipment at a nearby school, using their sirens, probably
to impress the kids.

How bizarre. Watching C-Span. Rep Steve King republican of Idaho
first heralds the fall of the Berlin Wall, as a demonstration of the
appeal of democracy. Later he is showing off a model fence which he
adds barbed wire to, that he proposes for the Mexican border.

Does he not see the contradiction? If Berlin is all about tearing
down walls, why are we planning to build one?

Have heard cicadas in the past few days, in the morning. Their first
calls were different than the usual. Hope to get a recording of them
at some point.

The tree that has one part that thinks it is fall already has some
bright orange leaves on it. It does this every year. Last year it had
some fall colors in September. The third week of July is a bit early
I'd think.

A flower in the butterfly mix O&R gave us. Wonder what it is. Others
are getting ready to bloom too but all seem small, miniature. Looking
forward to butterflies checking them out. Glad they are sprouting,
most seeds don't sprout for me.

Is this comfrey? Nice little purple flowers.

A bug seen inside last night. I get lots of these. I escorted this
one outside, then tossed it.

Sunday 7/16
They're back. The ants. I saw three or four in the window sill as I
was eating dinner and one on the sink, which I washed down. I spread
baking soda all over in the window sill so hopefully they will stop
using that. We've got some hot weather coming up so let's see if they
make an appearance inside.