Category: Photography

Pets, Photography

Status Report (Illustrated Edition)

Shelly

100_5627

100_5628

Harriet is home. She’s doing great! She’s alert, happy, and has a good appetite. That first photo is of her hoovering the kitchen floor for stray crumbs.

The surgery site is going to ooze blood for awhile. I was prepared for that (it’s a bad location for that sort of tumor on a lean dog). They’re sending the mass out to be identified, but the vet is pretty sure it’s a spindle cell tumor. If he’s right, he thinks it’s going to be benign, but will come back in the same location and grow more quickly than the last one. We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it. Right now, I’m just glad to have my dog back in one piece!

Oh, and the incision itself? It’s a smiley face. My dog has a happy butt!

My Garden, Photography

Bee and Sedum

Shelly

IMG_2469

IMG_2476

This bumblebee really, really, really likes sedum. Even repeatedly bumping the plant with my camera strap didn’t disturb him.

I’m pretty sure that my mom originally told me that the sedum she has is bright red, but then she decided that she also had some pinky-colored plants, as well. Since she didn’t see where, exactly, I took this start from, she didn’t know which color I had. I’d say those are pinky, which is not at all the same thing as bright red, but I’m not complaining. The color is light and delicate and very pretty. Andalsoplustoo, this means that there is still red sedum to be raided at my mom’s house. Ahem. We’re practicing looking on the bright side, see?

Photography

A Visitor

Shelly

100_5621

100_5618

Miss PossumPants is about a million years old. She’s lived here for years, and was apparently hit by a bike or car, because she has some serious mobility problems. She’s also got cataracts in both eyes and appears to be deaf as a post. I wouldn’t have known that she was out on my patio, except that Harriet and the cat suddenly got Very Interested in the live action nature TV. When I went to look at what the uproar was about, I saw Miss PossumPants with her nose plastered against the outside of the patio door. I don’t know what the hell she thought she was doing, but it was pretty funny.

I tried to shoo her away, but she was either unimpressed or unaware of my presence. She decided to have a nice, leisurely drink from the upturned rim of a big flower pot, so I went and got my little camera.

Pets, Photography

Watching TV

Shelly

100_5609

Harriet’s surgery is next week. I’m assuming the best, but just in case, I’m spending lots of time just hanging out with her. I would really hate to regret not having done so. Tonight, hanging out means watching CSI re-runs with a lap full of dog. Every time I get up, Harriet sits up straight, with her best “We are not amused” expression.

My Garden, Photography

A Garden Update

Shelly

IMG_2447

My sedum is finally getting ready to bloom. The little buds are starting to take on a pink blush, and a few of them have popped their outer skin.

IMG_2465

As I was photographing the sedum, I noticed that 1) my volunteer basil plant has gotten ginormous and B) there was a praying mantis hanging out in it.

I’ve also got something else volunteering in another bed. I’m hoping that some of the seeds I planted last spring finally decided to grow. Otherwise, it’s just a weed. It’s got buds forming, so I should know soon, either way.

And speaking of things I didn’t think were going to grow, the purple aster I got from a coworker is blooming! The grounds crew scalped it not long after I planted it, and then it got hidden by the basil, so I didn’t notice that it had come back.

IMG_2453

Crankypantsing, Photography

Clouds

Shelly

IMG_2434

I’m cat sitting again, and on my way home from the evening shift today, I pulled over to take a photo of these puffy, white clouds.

I like sitting for these cats. They’re easy keepers, and though they’re out in the country, they’re close to my side of town. It only takes about 15 minutes to get there. The only problem is that there are a lot of bicyclists on Hwy 45, which is a narrow, two-lane road with absolutely no shoulder. And since this is southern Indiana, it’s twisty and hilly. There aren’t many safe places to pass even a single bicyclist. When they travel in packs, and they often do, it’s even worse. They won’t pull over and let cars pass, even if there are 10-20 of them trapped behind, which makes people cranky, which makes them do stupid shit. Stupid shit, like passing bicyclists on hills and curves (and there isn’t much of that particular road that isn’t a curve or a hill or both).

I had the living hell scared out of me on the way home tonight. Some jackass was trying to pass three bikes, ON A CURVING FUCKING HILL!!! I came around the other side of the curve to find a huge truck in my lane, and there was no place to go. Luckily, we both hit the brakes, and he was able to get back behind the bikes, in his own fucking lane, where he fucking well belonged.

I really want to be sympathetic to bicyclists, but it seems to me that, if there is not a bike path, and you cannot go the speed limit, then you have no business putting your puny, little body out on a road filled with giant, hurtling boxes of doom[1]. It’s just asking for death and dismemberment. And lemme tell ya’, if I happen to be one of the people who ends up dead and dismembered, onna counta you just had to ride your bike on the highway, you’d better hope you’re dead, too, because if you aren’t, I will come back and haunt you.

________________________________
1. Really. That this seems like a good idea to some people makes me think they might be batshit crazy. I can’t think of any other reasonable explanation for their behavior.

Crankypantsing, My Garden, Pets, Photography

Rust and Lilies

Shelly

IMG_2380

1. If you’re a supervisor, shouldn’t you know that it’s kind of inappropriate to say “Good job, girl!” to a black employee? Aieee!

2. Slowly but surely, all paths to the library are being eliminated by road work. This morning, 10th street at the bypass was closed. WTF?! They really shouldn’t make it difficult for me to get to work in the morning, because I just might take it as a sign to turn around and go back home.

3. One day last week, I came home to a note from FedEx on my door, telling me that they’d left my package with Charlene. Okaythen! Who the hell is Charlene (an apartment number might have been helpful), and whose package is FedEx trying to deliver to me? Because I hadn’t ordered anything, so I knew it wasn’t mine. Nor did I have any way to find out who the package rightfully belonged to, to inform them that Charlene had their goods.

Of course, my iPod is being shipped FedEx. Hopefully, they won’t leave it with Charlene.

4. Windsor and Newton’s Galeria line includes an iridescent acrylic medium. I didn’t buy any, but I did make note of it. Ooooh! Shiny! I did get a tub o’ acrylic structure medium for the new painting, as well as a few new brushes and two big, fat tubes of cerulean blue and naples yellow paint. There shall be painting this weekend!

5. Across-the-hall neighbor trapped a kitten, and I got to go over and hold it. She’s super cute and not nearly as wild as my neighbor first thought. I’m betting that her owner moved out and left her. That tends to happen a lot in college towns. I held her for about 30 minutes, and she was perfectly comfortable. She purred, but not in an anxious way, and when I rubbed her ears, she leaned into it. So if any local folks are looking for a nice cat, I can hook you up. (Yeah, fat chance, I know!) She’s all black, short-haired, with two little white toes on one hind foot, and a small white patch on her belly. And a DC-10 motor.

6. Harriet could not be any cuter, not even if she tried. I have no new photographic proof of this, because I was too in awe of her ubercuteness to take peechurs. She was in a Mood, last night, though, so there was much kidney beaning, boinging, and wrinkly-snarly-smiley face making. (Lamprey face-making, even. Totally ridiculous.) And much rolling around with legs in the air, flippy-flapping like a happy trout. I should also mention the snorting and the nubbin wiggling. There was quite a bit of that, too.

She was very happy about something, and when Harriet is happy, it’s impossible not to be happy right along with her.

IMG_2402
Surprise Lily Keeps Surprising