Ratfish

(Jul 1 4:51 p.m.)

So I managed to attend Saturday group.  It seemed more welcoming this time around, and I responded to questions from across the room, though few.  I know it doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment to speak up, but it was better than not responding at all, which happened in a past month… probably last year.

God, so much time has passed so fast.

(Jul 1 4:51 p.m.)

Time becomes a blur when you avoid the difficulties of the day.  But I know time isn’t lost; the memories can become compartmentalized, harder to access when less involved or interconnected.

(Jul 1 2:42 p.m.)

During break, virtually everyone left the room.  Some walked outside; I did just that.  It was an opportunity to get better, newer photos of the park area.

The end… of a rainy work week

(Jun 29 5:33 p.m.)

I wish I could say I’ve been busy all week, but I haven’t.  It rained, and there were a few thunderstorms.  The rodent(s) in the house — particularly squirrels, given how loud and forceful they are — are sometimes eating, scratching away material in the ceiling (and I have footage and some lost sleep to prove it).  I wrote a little, but mostly I felt sorry and empty for myself… What’s new?  Lol.

Summer zombie

(Jun 21 7:01 p.m.)

Nothing good happens at 2 in the morning… but here I am, a zombie.  My sleep schedule is… not so much a schedule.  But I am getting some sleep.

(Jun 21 7:02 p.m.)

It’s hard to get anything done these days, tired in some way or another.  And then… I have nothing to do.  For days on end.

(Jun 14 5:46 p.m.)

But that’s not true.  There are still things I ought to take care of; I just hate being alone.

Life is tough, but it is never pointless.  It’s going the same direction too far that winds up a dead end.  I’m in need of interaction, and with substance, but I lack substance.  Either everyone’s busy or I seem to mess up the equilibrium of things.

(Jun 21 7:02 p.m.)

Nevertheless, it is officially summer in the U.S.  And a mild summer so far, hitting maybe 84°F in the week, and getting down to the 60s at night.

Restlessness… and flowers

Rain on the first Monday of June. (Jun 5 3:03 p.m.)

Summer solstice is less than a week away, and my Friday was filled with rain.  And I don’t mean crying when I say rain, even though I have plenty to cry about.  I upgraded my mobile plan (more for less), and got back into programming, rewriting expansion sound in the console emulator… and my sleeping habits have turned to crap again.  I didn’t quite feel like living yesterday morning.  But enough about that.

(Jun 5 3:04 p.m.)

Thanks to the magic of photography, you can virtually go back in time to when there were blue skies.

(Jun 7 4:12 p.m.)

(Jun 14 5:46 p.m.)

Nothing says summer like your front yard looking like a jungle.  Every year looks like this now.

Unstable air

(June 1 4:03 p.m.)

It was a thick cloudy day, Sunday, with some blues and rain earlier, and it’s looking to be a cloudy Monday… and I’m seeing rain.  The above photo reflects the last mostly-blue day; so, mostly gray since.

There have been a few thunderstorms entering June.  They tend to come when the temperature rises— something about the thermodynamics of it, as warmer air moves faster than cooler air; thunderstorms are after all, produced by unstable air, lift and water vapor.

Fly on a wet leaf. (May 31 12:29 p.m.)

Green light

By the street. (May 28 2:55 p.m.)

It’s a gray Memorial Day, so I’ll let yesterday and sunny days previous speak for the season.  Summer is closing in now.  The green leaves have filled the view of the windows.

(May 19 11:24 a.m.)

And the front yard is filling up. …Over brown leaves that have yet to dissolve.

(May 17 2:13 p.m.)

And to think, this is what these leaves looked like only two weeks ago.

Another day at the beach (Part II)

Just a taste of the mile-long arc of the beach, bordering on the Atlantic Ocean. (May 13 1:04 p.m.)

Last Saturday, for sake of mental health, I left the house.  It didn’t matter much where I went.  I landed in Crescent Beach that day, and twice returned.  Each time presented the opportunity to think about where things stand in life… and take newer, better photos.  Long story short, I still have some sand in my shoes.

(May 13 1:37 p.m.)

The conditions of the sky turned the color of the visible sun a little bluish.  It wasn’t cold, but an expression, “cold sun” came to mind.

Another day at the beach (Part I)

Anjon’s fountain is up and running (some hours). (May 13 12:31 p.m.)

I needed to get away from the house.  Being housebound does not a healthy mind make.  The destination, I guess, didn’t matter considering I geared for the library but wound up at the beach, and didn’t mind.  Twice in three days… I did mind that.  It was a day of playing random music with the iPhone… and again wondering why the heck Bob Dylan made “Ring Them Bells”.

(May 13 12:15 p.m.)

I noticed the purple flowers are (or were) in style— as seen outside some businesses and neighborhoods, on the way to the beach, and even in our own town.  The above appear to be garden phlox… but I’m not sure.

Taraxacum officinale. (May 13 12:57 p.m.)

Dandelions were everywhere near the parking lot.

(May 13 1:02 p.m.)

Immature, but slowly pushing forward

Early rain. (May 12 7:55 a.m.)

Summer solstice is now only forty days away.  But spring here still has a ways to go.  The birds may be singing, and the seasonal clothes may be lighter, but the leaves and buds are still in their early stages.

A fibrous early start. (May 11 3:40 p.m.)

Soft greens, and even reds, immature plant blooms come in a variety of shapes and colors.  This time the iPhone camera is being used to capture the early state of the budding, particularly the “front porch plant” buds.  (Click a photo to enlarge.)

It’s a Bird-Eat-Bagel World Out There

Nature doesn’t waste food. (Apr 21 3:17 p.m.)

It’s been rain, rain and… clouds, mostly.  One day, someone left out a litter of bagels, and seagulls fought over them.

Nature doesn’t care if your pond’s supposed to be drained. (Apr 21 3:09 p.m.)

I’ve also grown pretty lazy, hence the lazy title for this post, if I do say so.  Till today, I hadn’t been doing my physio-exercises since my final appointment Tuesday (and even then I didn’t know I was seeing the orthopedic doctor, not the therapist, not the general doctor).  The rain interfered with the at-home exercises (the orange bands don’t do well with water— the first band is all stuck to itself now), and then… I was just plain tired.  (Two days spent programming.)

Male and female Anatidae. (Apr 21 12:24 p.m.)

Rain or shine, nature still does its thing.

(Apr 21 12:24 p.m.)

And I end up chasing it for photos.  I caught two ducks just outside the Portland Glickman library building, tucking heads amid light rain/mist.

(Apr 26 2:22 p.m.)

Exercises or not, the scenes made for some notable photos, of wet leaves and less usual colors that challenged my visual perception during the color correction process.