Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
Image: honey bee(/) on the wrong end of dipping yellow flower

I am still breathing, which is good, but my stomach flora has been descimated by the antibiotic, alas. So, I have not felt like writing much for the last couple of days as I have been hanging close to the bathroom (sorry, TMI.) I have to say? I am a fan of Flonase!  It has helped tremendously with the whole sleeping through the night thing! Am I improving, though? It's so hard to say because the solution to one problem has clearly lead to another. 

I did manage, on Tuesday, to record a new Mona Lisa Overpod episode, our 30th! If you're interested in the art of Moebius, feel free to check it out. 

Otherwise, I have been entertaining myself by playing around with scheduling Gaylaxicon. We have a grid and I've been enjoying plugging in panels and seeing what kind of line-ups I can create. As I am but one member of the committee, I've been doing this on a dummy schedule with the thought that I can share it with the programming head and we can, if no one else has anything to share, use it as a draft. I'm sure that we will be moving things around until the very last minute. It's like a puzzle game, though, what with everyone's schedules and the desire not to overbook everyone. Wish me luck with that. 

I will tell you all? It's going to be an AMAZING con if we pull this thing off!

Otherwise, it't toast and yogurt for me!

Hopefully, you all are doing better!

 
A bumblebee in the center of a bright yellow flower, a classic shot.

So, what's news, you ask? Or maybe you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Just because I can.

A lot of my writer-type and fan friends are headed off to Worldcon in Seattle. As I have noted before, I am not on any programming this year, though I am attending viturally. At some point here, I'll probably host a virtual hangout or two, just because I can and it is probably the only way that I'm going to feel at all involved in this convention. The only good news is that Naomi Kritizer tends to win the Hugo at the cons I'm in "attendence" at, even when that attendence is only virtual. So, (knocking on wood for her) that will happen.

My day started out kind of supidly. I got a response from one of the attendees about programming interest from this year's Gaylaxicon and so I went into the document to make sure to add names, etc., etc. My keyboard, which is wireless (and battery operated,) started flaking out. It erased entire lines from the programming descriptions (thank all the gods for control-z!) and added rows of llllllllllllllllllllllll or whatever other letter I was attempting to type. I had already been having the thought, "I wonder how I'll know when my keyboard needs a new battery?" so I sussed out pretty quickly that the problem was, in fact, dying keyboard batteries. What followed was a lot of stupid, mostly of the variety of what IT folks used to cal ID10T or Problem Exists Between Computer and Chair. 

I tried a number of AAA batteries that we had around the house and none of them seem to work. To be fair to me, it was clear that in our usual battery bag (in that one drawer, you know the one--every house has that one drawer, I swear,) one of the batteries had exploded. So, when I tried them in my keyboard and they didn't work, it wasn't necessarily that stupid of me to assume that the problem might be the batteries rather than my ability to follow illustrated directions. It was just mildly stupid. Luckily, we already had a real need to get some Draino from Menards since our bathroom tub has been draining very slowly, so I made it a twofer and picked up some always-useful dishsoap while I was at it. 

But then, when the brandnew batteries didn't work, I knew the problem was NOT the batteries. Did I not have the little toggle pushed in all the way? Did I need to reboot?

Please note what I have not yet considered: could it be that I have put the batteries in the wrong direction?

It took far too long for me to figure out that, indeed, perhaps the most obvious thing to do was to flip the batteries and see if that solved the problem. Now, again to be fair to me, I think that I was really convinced I knew which way the positive terminal had been facing when I pulled the batteries out, but it took me FAR TOO long to finally get a pair of reading glasses and a flashlight and shine it into the battery compartment to read the damn "positive goes here" pictogram. 

JFC.

Monday? Do you have to be so damn Monday?!

Monday: "I am this way just because I can!" *evil cackle!!*

In other news, today is Jas's last day with us. They are leaving tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am. I mean, it is true that 5:30 am, is normally when our alarm goes off, but it feels ungodly to have to be leaving the house by that time. The kids have gone off to Como Conservatory today for their last day out on the town, which prompted me to remember to buy tickets for this year's Obon ceremony. As discussed before, Obon is celebrated very differently in America (and throughout the Japanese diaspora) than it is in Japan, where it is more like the Mexican Day of the Dead. Here (and in Britian and Brazil, which, is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan,) Obon tends to be celebrated as a cultural festival. Not that I'm complaining! I have enjoyed the heck out of Como Conservatory's Obon every year that I've remembered to go!   

It's been weird, however, to not have the car? It's been great for Mason and Jas to be able to take off and do whatever they like for however long they like, but, inevitably, I'll be at home and I think, "Ah, yes! I could do that one errand while everyone is out!" and yeah, no, I can't--because whatever it is, isn't really the "just take the bus" kind of errand, like groceries. People obviously do do grocery runs by bus, but hauling a bunch of bags that far isn't fun for anyone. So, yeah. 

I think that's everything I know for now. How's by you?

 
Today's bee, captured in flight.

16;9, y'all. It's just landscape instead of portrait. MAN, I feel dumb. But, I don't feel as though any of my previous bee photos are wasted. I can also submit photos to the New York Times Spelling Bee that are square. So, I should be able to do some editing and send them again! (They are gonna love me, there. OTHO, I'm sure they get a lot of dummies like me!)

I found a resource rich (as in chock full of bees) area that is part of my daily routine. The Minnesota Historical Society! They have a huge pollenator garden on their hillside and yesterday it was literally buzzing with activity. 

 Meanwhile, Jas has proved themselves to be an excellent house guest. Their family recently had to trip to Japan (and Taiwan, where Jas has a grandmother,) and they brought us lots of absolutely PERFECT gifts. Shawn loves konpeitou--the Japanese hard candy that looks like little sandburs. Not only did Jas bring a package of the actual sweets for her, but ALSO earrings that are in the shape of konpeitou!  This is especially wonderful because Shawn (who has otherwise very little interest in all of my Japanese stuff) likes the idea of saying "Ganbetta" (do your best!) but can never remember it, so often tells me, "Konpeitou!" when she means to wish me good luck. So konpeitou has been our silly way of wishing each other good luck. 

For me, Jas brought some fun washi tape and post-it notes. Again, perfect for me, if you know my love of letter writing, etc. 

Then, apparently, their mother also just sent along a whole bunch of odds and ends as gifts, too. We're going to have to step up our game? I have not participated in this competative gift giving thing before. Is it a Southern thing? (Jas's folks live in Oklahoma.) I ask because Mason's other friend Gray, also has parents who send Mason home with odd gifts (they're in Missouri.) Thoughts, any Southern State living friends of mine?

Today, I am planning on letting them have the car to do with as they like. Mason loves Saint Paul (and Minneapolis) and delights in showing off all the cool features found therein. I know they are planning on seeing Minnehaha Falls because that is a tourist MUST (and also Mason loves eating at Sea Salt.) Yesterday, they walked to the Creamery formerly known as Izzy's now... somthing else, which I have forgotten. So, Jas is getting the full tour!  

I shall end with a slightly different bug. If anyone on my list of friends is bug-averse, please let me know and I will put these photos under the cut!


Image: grasshopper on bright red lily (in Grantsville, WI. We stopped at an old-fashioned rootbeer stand type place that had these amazing flowers and I spotted this little fellow.)

 
Image: Artsy shadowy shot of a bee on a fleasbane blossom

I think I will try this one on the New York Times. It's awfully artsy. I'm not sure how the New Yorkers could resist something this fancy! Even though, I'm pretty sure that the shadow was caused by my own body. But, they don't need to know just how amateur I am.

Yesterday was our last day up at our friends' cabin. As I've noted, they have a rewilded and naturalized their shoreline. What I may never have mentioned is that maintaining native plantings is constant work. One of the things I like to do for Gerriann is pull whatever non-natives they identify for me. This work is not required. Our friends are extremely generous and would have us up to the cabin even if all we did was laze around in the sun and swim in the lake. We've been friends for decades. Mason doesn't know what summer is without a trip to visit Ger & Barb's cabin. 

But this year I had some fun because Ger identified TWO new plants for me to pull. Mostly, what I'm pulling are trees that are trying to establish themselves in this nice sunny spot on the shore. Some of them are even native trees, but when you do this sort of thing--rewild or naturalize--You do sort of have to decide what kind of look you want and Ger wants sun and sedges and a kind of open prairie (only with lake plants) look. At any rate, I am sore but happy today having dug up a bunch of offending trees!

Even though the wind was cold yesterday, I also spent a huge amount of time in the actual lake. At one point it was just me and the loon. Lovely.

Here's all of us!


Image: Geriann (center), right front (me), right back (Barb), center back (Mason), and left (Shawn)

 
Image: A seed event, which sounds potentially ominous to me for some reason.

Shawn will, periodically, text or email me things with all-caps headers like, "SIGN UP FOR THIS."  Earlier this week, under such a heading, she sent me a link to something called the MN SEED Project Seed Collection Event at Monarch City. Just as an aside, "Monarch City" also sounds to me like it's a side quest in some MMORPG. At any rate, as we are always trying to expand our native plantings, I dutifully did just that.

Due to this absolutely fantastical name "Monarch City," I will admit that I expected that we would be deep in some hidden urban wonderland, equipped with nets and colanders and gods know what else and told to buddy up and Never To Step off the Path. Instead, when I arrived at the West Minnehaha Recreation Center, I realized that I was looking at a park that I drive by nearly every Saturday morning on the way to the recycling center. It's just a park? Like, the majority of this space is grass, a baseball diamond, and it looks like an urban park, nearly anywhere in the world. EXCEPT. Apparently, along the fence edges are HUNDREDS of unique species of native wildflowers. 

I had, at one point, said to Shawn one Saturday morning many, many months ago, "Hey, I think those are native plantings," but I had no idea that this was an incredible resource for urban foraging for native plant seeds.  

Plus, the MN Seed collector folks had set up a table complete with packets of seeds that were up for the taking. I grabbed over twenty? What will I do with so many? My plan is two fold. First, Shawn and I are thinking about expanding our native plantings to the boulevard. We don't have a huge amount of sun, but one of the places we do is on the boulevard. Plus, I picked up some BIG plants, which I think would probably do best somewhere like the boulevard. We'll see. I have to figure out how to germinate these things, so we'll see. I did get some EXCELLENT advice at least, so it should be doable. 

At any rate, once a decent-sized group had gathered we got started. It will say that today is dark and drizzly, so there were probably only about ten of us total--and I feel like that included the MN Seed Project staff.  We were collecting mostly for the Project itself, although we were very much encouraged to take home small packets of seeds for ourselves. 


Image: Here's me, collecting some rudbeckia trilaba, a.k.a. brown-eyed Susans.

The work was fun. Strangely, so? As I was telling one of the other people in my grouping, this was the sort of thing I did, naturally, as a small child. I used to love to pull apart seed pods to look inside, or to take the little poppy seed pods and pretend they were pepper shakers. I could have stayed the full two hours, but I got very cold and it started to drizzle a little. I hope that they get a ton of seeds out of this event. 

The other fun I had was learning about a new app called iNaturalist and wandering around the newer plantings and taking pictures of many of the flowers still in bloom. (These were planted later in the season and so were a little late blooming.)


Image: prairie coneflower


Image: This one was a favorite, blue sage (salvia azurea.)


Butterfly weed pods

I took a lot of pictures of other native plants, but I won't bore you with them. If you live in St. Paul, MN, however, I will suggest that you stop by and check out Monarch City (685 W. Minnehaha Ave Street, 55104). You will probably be like me at first, where I was like, "Where? Where is this CITY???" because it really doesn't look like much at all, but just park your car and stroll along the fence line and you will begin to see.

I was excited to hear that the Frogtown Green Association is trying to get permissions to plant natives all up and down Pierce Butler Route in an area they've dubbed, "The Bee Line," in part because it is already home to the endangered rusty-patched bumblebee.  I foresee a lot of volunteer opportunities in my future.