Spring with a Bang

 We have an ornamental pear tree in our yard. We used to have two, but the really nice big one in front of the house died a couple of years ago. The one that's left is much smaller, and closer to the neighbor's yard on the small side of the driveway. Until this morning it was bare. Naked. In winter shut-down mode. Even more bare than the neighbor's tree is now, as you see on the right.

Her tree is also small, and on the small side of her driveway. They look pretty nice together, actually.

This morning Superman went outside to do whatever it is he does on Saturday mornings and Ta-Da! The tree was in full bloom! Just like that. One day bare, the next day full of flowers. There's our tree to the left. And that's the next door neighbor's house. It looks very nice, much nicer than ours. Which is why I framed the shot to show her house.

 Below is a shot of the two trees beside each other. 

It isn't good photography. The light was bad today. (Bad light! Go stand in the corner!)

It's been wet. The big bad storm that's been making its way across the south finally got here overnight. There was a very big, very loud, very close bolt of lightening that struck at about 2:30 this morning, waking everyone in the house. My very unscientific theory is that the big bolt shocked the pear tree into blooming. Put the fear o' Thor in it, perhaps.

In other news, my back still hurts. Still in the tenderloin district. It's been, what, three weeks or more since it started bothering me. I have an appointment Monday afternoon to get the doctor to reevaluate things. The "duuu-u-u-u-u-d-e" drugs, I'm still taking them, but they no longer "dude" me out. Make me a bit sleepy sometimes, and I have a bit more trouble concentrating sometimes, but I feel pretty normal-ish when taking them. And they do help the back a lot, but not completely. I just took a dose about an hour ago and now I'm getting kinda vacuous.

I read a very good book last night. Do you know how I read books? Especially novels and such; fiction. Non-fiction doesn't have quite the hold on me. I start a good book and don't find a good stopping place. Hell, a lot of times even the end of the story isn't a good stopping place, you know? So I read until close to 5:00 this morning. In doing so I also monitored the storm. The tornado sirens went off at 4:15, though I doubt many people besides me heard them.

But I was telling you about this book. Or I told you I read a book. Changing Tides by Michael Thomas Ford. If it had been illustrated, this is what the pictures would be:

These are nudibranches, also known as sea slugs. One of the main characters was a marine biologist who's specialty was these guys. Nudibranches were not integral to the plot, really, but the author wrote fascinating descriptions of them. I wish there had been pictures in the book, but at least we have Google, you know? Google image search "nudibranch" and ta-da all over again. Pages and pages of colorful fellers like these.

The point I'm pretending to make is that the book was very good and I recommend it. There is a bit of M/M intimacy in the story, tastefully written and not gratuitous.

I have some deep thoughts concerning the subject of my previous post, in which I shared the Roderick Thorp quote: "We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies."

But I haven't sufficiently processed the thoughts for comment here. Right now the "dude" drugs have my brain too sleepy and fuzzy to make sense of much. And this post already has enough stuff in it. 

Spring Break - the finale

This has been an interesting week. We got a couple of inches of snow last Sunday night and the public schools were closed Monday. The low temperatures at the beginning of the week were in the low-mid 20s here in the upper-left chamber of the heart of South Carolina. Last night's low temperature was warmer than the high temperature for Tuesday. Today's forecast shows a high of 76F (24C). So it appears that my spring break was spent bringing spring to Greenwood. I can't take full credit for that, though, so don't get too excited. 

This is what the Bradford Pear tree in our front yard looks like today. 

I was afraid we wouldn't have viable blooms, since it started blooming a couple of weeks ago and, as I mentioned, we've had some very cold temps since then. Evidently these pear blossoms (ornamental only) are pretty hearty. I hope the state's peach trees haven't bloomed yet. South Carolina and Georgia are two very big peach producing areas. 'Twould be a shame to have our peach crops damaged yet again. 

There were many things I had in mind to accomplish during my week of spring break. Alas, I didn't do many of them. Does that upset me? Only a little bit. Mostly I rested, and that is very important. I did not read all the chapters in the various textbooks that I intended to read, did not write up the few paragraphs of response from the chapters in my Careers on Psych book. I did check the syllabus for that course earlier in the week, and discovered that I have a 2+ page paper due tomorrow, in addition to the chapter response thing. I actually did some research for it, and I think I've found the info I need to write the thing. But I didn't write it like I intended to on Friday. Or yesterday. Guess what I'm going to do this afternoon? Write a paper or two. And read a couple of chapters in this book and that, and read a story for my English class. That should keep me busy until bedtime. 

But what am I doing now? I look busy. Sometimes I think I can fool myself into thinking I am busy if I get busy with this sort of thing. The truth always intrudes, though, and I can't deny that I need to get started with my actual work. 

That is all.