Celestial and Planetary Events

Posted on 27 April 2024 by Isabel Gibson

How did you spend the 2024 total solar eclipse? We spent it on a deck in Myrtle Beach, following the local action on a tablet so as not to risk our eyesight. As you can see from the ambient sunlight, there wasn’t much local action, even close to the peak.

 

But the moon had more in store for us that week. Just two days later we sat on the same deck after dark as Venus winked at us (that bright pinprick, lower left) and the new moon held water. Counter-intuitively to me, that’s supposed to mean that we would have rain in a few days.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Built Stuff, Photos of Flora | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

Except Me

Posted on 20 April 2024 by Isabel Gibson

Why does everyone here
know everyone else
except me?

To be clear, me was being excepted from the everyone-here who knew everyone-else, not the everyone-else being known. Although I guess if everyone truly knew everyone, then everyone-here was the same as everyone-else and so me was being excepted from both groups.

Oh, never mind. I knew what he meant and I expect you do, too.

Everyone here obviously knows everyone else,
but I don’t know anyone and no one knows me.
Why do all these people know each other
and I don’t?

And, perhaps more succinctly . . .

Why am I the only outsider?

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Posted in Day-to-Day Encounters, Feeling Clearly, Relationships and Behaviour, Thinking Broadly | Tagged | 8 Comments

On the Scoreboard

Posted on 13 April 2024 by Isabel Gibson

Curling commentary: It’s just such a trove of life wisdom, innit?

Maybe not every week, but it was exactly that a few weeks ago when Estonia (that well-known curling powerhouse?) was playing Canada (that other, and maybe even-better-known, curling powerhouse) in Women’s World Curling. Canada stole points (that is, they scored without having the advantage of last rock) in each of the first two ends: 3 and 4 points, respectively. I can’t claim that’s unprecedented, but it would be exceedingly rare at this level of curling. For perspective, teams work through an entire end to score at least two points when they have last rock, but are often held to just one point by the machinations of the other team. Indeed, games are often determined by a single point, so a lead of seven points qualifies as comfortable.

As this blow-out was developing, Joanne Courtney–who used to play for the same Canadian team that was dominating on-ice play, and who is now a commentator for TSN–said something along these lines:

At this point Estonia has to adjust their objective
[from winning, Ed.’s note]
to just getting on the scoreboard.

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Posted in New Perspectives, Sports and Exercise, Thinking Broadly | Tagged , | 8 Comments

More Trees . . .

Posted on 13 April 2024 by Isabel Gibson

More specifically, more reflections of trees in vehicles. Because you can never have too many.

Amirite or amirite or amirite?
Rite? Rite? Rite?
– Ned Ryerson (Bing!)

I do sort of wish that the vehicle manufacturers had omitted the brake light and the model number, respectively, from the middle of my photographic palette, but we all have our trials and tribulations. Amirite?

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Flora | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Look Up

Posted on 13 April 2024 by Isabel Gibson

Look up.
Waaay up.

If this brings to mind the view panning up from the Friendly Giant’s boots, you might be as high in age as he was (supposed to be) in feet and inches. I don’t know why they never filmed that view like this. Maybe they didn’t yet have a wide-angle lens on their phone cameras.

Anyway, in the absence of giant humans, friendly or otherwise, it’s fun to look more-or-less straight up the trunk of giant trees: a Carolina pine, in the photo above; a Phoenix palm tree, in the one below.

Just a minute. What’s that light standard doing, photo-bombing my masterpiece? Let’s try again.

Better, although ideally I’d have more of the trunk at the bottom and less of the (presumed) cottonwood peaking in from the right.

I’ve made decent progress on thinking about where I’m standing before I tap the screen. I’ve made some progress on accepting the results afterwards: There just is not always a place to stand and a lens angle to choose that will recreate what I see, dagnab it, in a photo that you can see.

 

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Fauna | Tagged | 12 Comments

Shower-curtain Faces

Posted on 06 April 2024 by Isabel Gibson

I don’t know what this patterning style is called. Paisley?

I don’t know whether the faces I found were intentional. Maybe?

In both collages, I’ve put the setting on the left and the close-up of the face on the right.

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Built Stuff | Tagged | 4 Comments

Palmetto Ahoy!

Posted on 06 April 2024 by Isabel Gibson

Poking around our parking lot, I found an interesting van with a porthole. And in and around the porthole? Another car tree.

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Photos of Built Stuff, Photos of Flora | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Another Another Morning Stroll

Posted on 05 April 2024 by Isabel Gibson

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
– Ecclesiastes 1:9

OK, maybe nothing new as such, but still nice, eh? This past week, touring the not-new hot spots with a friend, I saw a few nice things.

There were, of course, the not-new alligators.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Fauna | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Anyway

Posted on 29 March 2024 by Isabel Gibson

Wut?

At this unhelpful, unfriendly, and frankly uninterested response, I wince, inwardly; outwardly, I keep smiling in a non-threatening way. Standing far enough away from the window (opened in response to me waving my phone in what at best only vaguely communicated intent but surely communicated nothing threatening), anyway, standing far enough away that I would need a pikestaff (aka javelin, lance, spear) to threaten the guy (who had been lounging in the car’s passenger seat minding his own business on his own phone and who is now wearing an “Is there no peace?” expression), I maintain what I hope is a “We’re all friends here, right?” expression and try my question/request again almost word for word, betting that the problem wasn’t how I said it or how fast I said it but, rather, his surprise that I had said anything at all: His surprise at being accosted. Fair enough.

There’s a great reflection of this tree
(here, I gesture non-threateningly at the tree behind me)
in your car.
Do you mind if I take a photo of it?

I can see him considering whether “Wut?” will serve again. He decides not.

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Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Day-to-Day Encounters, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Flora | Tagged , , | 10 Comments