New Obsession

[lydamorehouse]

 
Image: a bumble bee on a purple echinaca/coneflower

My wife and I play the New York Times Spelling Bee game together every morning as part of waking up. I recently discovered that they have a way for anyone to submit photos of bees, which they use as lead pictures for their hints page. I have started obsessively trying to get good pictures of bees to see if one of mine might make the cut. There's no pay. You do get a byline as a kind of a thank you, and, since, I'm not actually aiming for a job as a photographer "for the exposure" is actually plenty of payment for me. I'm kind of in it, actually, for the bragging rights. 

They probably get a million of these a day. And, they will likely never pick any of mine.

NONE of this diminishes my enjoyment and obsessiveness. 

Check out this picture of a TINY-ASS bee in flight.


Image: find the tiny bee. Be impressed!

Anyway, this is what I am doing to keep myself sane during these trying times. How about you? 

Comments

[pameladean]

Ohhh, tiny bee is tiny!

What am I doing to keep myself sane? Uhhhhh. Rereading Mary Renault's historical novels, having already reread all the Murderbot Diaries. The Last of the Wine, which was published in 1956 and is about the Peloponnesian War and the fall of Athens to the demagogues, startled me a lot -- I was mostly in it in my younger rereadings for the very hot attempted-Platonic (actually Socratic) relationship of the primary characters -- by being extremely relevant to Right Now, Right Here. This is the time of Socrates and the Sophists, and at one point in the book characters are thinking they have just lost their minds, they have no way to grasp what is happening, because the reigning cabal has outlawed the teaching of logic.

So, maybe that isn't going so well -- though there are a lot of other lovely and also tragic things in the book and it was weirdly soothing in a way.

P.

[kore]

"Rereading Mary Renault's historical novels, having already reread all the Murderbot Diaries."

Ooh I reread all of Mbot last time but one T was in the hospital and it helped SO MUCH. Then there was the new Ben January book for the last procedure. I started reading Katabasis by Rebecca Kuang ("grad students go to hell. No, literally") but might save it for his next visit.

[lydamorehouse]

Well, as I like to say. One day at a time.

[kore]

I LOVE THE TINY BEE PIC SO MUCH.

Staying sane? Hahaha. I don't say much in the actual communities but I do find the NYT games page a big help every morning. Rereading Pratchett. Fresh fruit (basic bitch cosmic crisp apples, bananas, blueberries, nothing fancy around here). Getting a little more active about washing dishes and cooking snax. Breathe in breathe out.

[lydamorehouse]

That last one. YES. Remembering to breathe is super important!