Tap-Tap

Posted on 01 February 2025 by Isabel Gibson

It looks innocuous, doesn’t it? After all, nothing about it triggers the “harmful or offensive” sense given by Oxford Languages.

Boy, can looks be deceiving. This mug is definitely nocuous.

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Posted in Feeling Clearly, Laughing Frequently, New Perspectives, Thinking Broadly | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Contrails and Cybertrucks

Posted on 25 January 2025 by Isabel Gibson

Some people go to exotic destinations; I spend more time at the grocery store. But parking lots are not entirely devoid of exotic stuff.

To wit, today I saw my first in-the-flesh Tesla Cybertruck. They’re very long; even a generously proportioned parking spot barely accommodates them. Worse, their matte-ish finish doesn’t reflect very well. Maybe I should ask Trey to mention it to Elon. Clearly, the photographer lobby isn’t connecting properly with car designers.

Anyway, Cybertrucks do have windows, so there’s that.

On the same shopping trip, different parking lot, I saw a lovely tableau–contrail, high cirrus clouds, and palm tree–and I learned how patient Americans are with old ladies who stop in a driving lane to take a picture. Thanks, all y’all!

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Built Stuff, Photos of Flora | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

218 Frogs

Posted on 25 January 2025 by Isabel Gibson

He kept all 218 frogs in the wheelbarrow.
– Trey Gowdy, Congressman (ret’d)

I didn’t quite spit out my unsweetened iced tea. Trey (we’re on a first-name basis because I’ve seen him on TV) was describing Speaker Mike Johnson’s success in navigating a vote with his narrow majority of 218 fractious Republican congresspersons. But this is not a political post. (I say again . . . .)

Since Trey retired from the congressman gig several years ago and returned to practicing law in his native South Carolina, I’ve seen him on TV as a political commentator (occasionally). He’s Southern-polite (invariably), interesting (almost always), insightful (usually), and screamingly funny (often). I thought I knew most of his distinctive habits of speech, but this expression was a new one on me. Keeping the frogs in the wheelbarrow?

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Posted in Language and Communication, Laughing Frequently | Tagged , | 4 Comments

There’s a Bush

Posted on 18 January 2025 by Isabel Gibson

There’s a bush,
There’s a bush,
There’s a bush
at the end of the driveway.

Meh. It doesn’t scan as well as There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea, which I knew as a church-camp song and which my mother would have known as a Grand Ole Opry song if she had listened to same, which I don’t think she ever did, not being a fan of any genre of country music. Actual opry, albeit light, was more her style.

Anyway, there is a bush at the end of the driveway in our rented house in Tempe, far from any sea. It may not make for a good song but it’s quite a nice bush. I took a photo so you can see for yourselves. Here it is, as seen from the front. Nice, eh?

Of course, it’s one of those modest, muted-green, small-leafed plants that the desert is known for–not the splashy, dark-green, large-leafed plants of a rainforest, tropical or temperate–but it’s nice. It’s even been nicely shaped by someone who knows how.

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

Step In, Stand Back

Posted on 18 January 2025 by Isabel Gibson

Stand waaaay back.

One of the cooler capabilities of my current camera phone is its wide-angle view. I’d been able to zoom-in for a long while–The better to see you with, my dear, at least until it’s just the fuzzier to see you–but the zoom-out or slightly wide-angle view is an ongoing revelation.

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

Making Better Software

Posted on 11 January 2025 by Isabel Gibson

Let’s talk about open-source software. I expect it’s a common topic in your circles.

No? OK, let’s talk about how we can make the world, or our community, or even our household a better place. Oddly, it’s the same conversation as that obscure software thing.

Sheep are not like ideas.
The cultural commons,
particularly software,
doesn’t get used up
when more people contribute to it.
In fact, it gets better.
– Seth Godin

Seth’s launching point was the tragedy of the commons, a phenomenon where it seems to make sense at the individual level to use more than our fair share of a common, unpriced resource. If lots of folks do it–or even if a few people do it excessively–the commons can be ruined. Then he contrasts the physical commons with the cultural commons.

Sheep are not like ideas.

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Posted in Relationships and Behaviour, Thinking Broadly | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Cornered!

Posted on 10 January 2025 by Isabel Gibson

The boxes of Costco-branded tissues all looked pretty normal. Attractive, even.

Partaking of a coherent colour palette, they offered interesting pattern variations: hexagons, pointillist colours, mandala-like figures, water-colour-y landscape-ishes, abstract smears with bold brushwork, another geometrical pattern but with a 3D effect, and a paisley-ish swirl.

It’s the bold-brushwork one we’re here to talk about. Above, you’ve seen it from the side–the square-on view. Here’s the view of the corner.

A ram? A satyr? A warthog? Yes, that seems to fit best.

Keep an eye out for tissue boxes near you. A face could be right around the corner.

Posted in Appreciating Deeply, Laughing Frequently, Photos of Faces | Tagged | 12 Comments

Memories and Photos

Posted on 10 January 2025 by Isabel Gibson

God gave us memory
so that we might have
roses in December.
– James M. Barrie

And cameras so that we don’t need to rely on our memories, I guess. This seems like a better idea every day.

These photos, of course, were taken just yesterday in a place where God gives us roses in January. She also gave us an upright and bushy-tailed rodent of some sort . . .

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

A Modest Proposal

Posted on 04 January 2025 by Isabel Gibson

As I write this, it’s Saturday. That means tomorrow will be Sunday. There’s only one problem: It’s been Sunday every day this week since Tuesday.

New Year’s Eve is an event that cries out to be held/observed on the same day of the week every year. It practically demands to be exempted from the usual week-in, week-out flow of our lives. And if it doesn’t cry out or make this demand, then I do.

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Posted in Laughing Frequently, Through the Calendar | Tagged | 14 Comments