Odd Day, Odd Assortment

This color is dedicated to friends farther north who haven’t seen much color except for white and brown. The winter pansies in the front of my house are getting more beautiful every day.

Because I was scurrying around like a mindless robot at the office today, I forgot to take my camera out on my lunch hour. I missed two incredible photo opportunities. The first one was a perfect airplane cloud image of “Tic Tac Toe”. The second was of a white-haired senior gentleman taking a walk on a thoroughfare juggling four or five tennis balls. I watched him walk and juggle while I was sitting at a stoplight. I wanted to clap for him.

The winds calmed down today so I walked the trail on campus and noticed the college groundskeepers are whacking away at dead scrub pines with loud saws. Now, I know the pines are a mess, but this really upsets the birds. Hmmmph.

Now this is funny. I found a sand flat with tracks. I examined them closely to find they aren’t bear tracks or deer tracks, but DOG tracks. Woo-hoo. What a thrill!

These rocks are for Lynne. I would have loved to climb down into the gulley and learn who lives under them.

This is a lifer, although I’ve probably seen them many times up north. A female red-winged blackbird. Not a good shot, but worth recording.

On my way home, I just had to stop in my neighborhood and take a quick photo of these Pink Flamingos. This decoration is so atypical around here.

This brings back memories of my husband’s native town in Dundalk, Maryland, home of Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point. It’s a blue-collar town, full of row homes outside of the Baltimore City limit. Every Christmas and Easter, the residents on the streets leading to Michael’s parents’ house decorated to the extreme, in competition with each other.

At Christmas, all of the homes on the rows were lit up and decorated with every decoration available at K-Mart or Walmart. It didn’t matter what the decoration was or how much room they had to include it. Fifty-foot blow-up Santas and snowmen were tied to their porch roofs. Every ornamental tree was adorned with blow-up tree ornaments. Tinsel garland hung around front fences and millions of lights were strung haphazardly.

During Easter, there were hundreds of blow-up one-story high bunnies tied to rooftops and blow-up plastic Easter Eggs were hanging from every tree and porch roof. It was a pink, green, yellow and white wonderland.

We couldn’t wait to see the glitz during those holidays! And we laughed out loud as we drove past the gaudy stuff. Terribly gaudy… Yes, we laughed like idiots on the way to Christmas and Easter dinner but we weren’t laughing at the families who lived here. It made our hearts warm to know there was ample spirit in those homes. It didn’t matter if their properties would never be photographed by Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. What mattered was how much those plastic bunnies made the children, parents, and grandparents smile. It's been a few years since I've seen the displays and I miss it.

I noticed this digital photo number is 1988. What a great year I had at age 33! I loved my thirties…

After nearly two hours of running and partying very hard with me tonight, Chloe still WANTS MORE.

Bella is ready to fall over but insists on keeping her eyes on me. Lazy sit, ey?

They never have enough. I’m irritated with them tonight, but Michael is away and I'm listening to Celine Dion and Taylor Hicks. Then, American Idol airs soon. We'll make it a good night.