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Up flies the kite, down falls the lark
It smells like sea-mist outside. I don't think I have spent so many days indoors in a spring since the year after I left grad school, when mostly what I could do was lie on a couch and be in pain and feel the gap widening between the trajectory my life had been on and the burnt-out debris tumble of whatever it was now. Even then, I could walk around the reservoir on the days when I had strength for it. After losing most of this actual weekend to pain, I finally got out of the house this afternoon; it was overcast, but I found flowers.
Yet another flower I don't recognize, but it looks like what chive blossoms dream of growing up to be.
Not a flower at all, but especially under the grey sky it struck me like one.
Are poppies for Memorial as well as Armistice Day? I found some more poppies.
The stars on Orion's belt, as they grow in the underworld.
The chain-link poppies were in even greater profusion than last week.
For our Halloween parties, my family decorates the house with orange and black crepe paper. I can't remember if we have ever decorated with poppies. My grandmother loved and my mother loves them.
This, on the other hand, was one of the floofiest hydrangeas I have ever seen.
It looked like a vegetable lamb.
I am starting to feel I should carry some kind of herbal around with me, since looks like a wave breaking into the yard doesn't fit into a Linnaean name unless I translate it.
We saw almost no one wearing masks as we walked a kind of parallelogram around the neighborhood. (We did see a number of people with their masks around their necks, like bandannas. Great fashion statement. Lousy efficacy.) I hate what is not being done. I hate who decided this country shouldn't do it. I said elsenet, I'm pretty sure you get sheydim if you say a Mi Sheberach backwards, but I'm willing to risk it.
Yet another flower I don't recognize, but it looks like what chive blossoms dream of growing up to be.
Not a flower at all, but especially under the grey sky it struck me like one.
Are poppies for Memorial as well as Armistice Day? I found some more poppies.
The stars on Orion's belt, as they grow in the underworld.
The chain-link poppies were in even greater profusion than last week.
For our Halloween parties, my family decorates the house with orange and black crepe paper. I can't remember if we have ever decorated with poppies. My grandmother loved and my mother loves them.
This, on the other hand, was one of the floofiest hydrangeas I have ever seen.
It looked like a vegetable lamb.
I am starting to feel I should carry some kind of herbal around with me, since looks like a wave breaking into the yard doesn't fit into a Linnaean name unless I translate it.
We saw almost no one wearing masks as we walked a kind of parallelogram around the neighborhood. (We did see a number of people with their masks around their necks, like bandannas. Great fashion statement. Lousy efficacy.) I hate what is not being done. I hate who decided this country shouldn't do it. I said elsenet, I'm pretty sure you get sheydim if you say a Mi Sheberach backwards, but I'm willing to risk it.
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Yet another flower I don't recognize, but it looks like what chive blossoms dream of growing up to be.
It's a globe allium; a popular cultivar is called Globemaster. Plant catalogs used to love to show them next to a small child, whom they would mostly eclipse.
People here grow them, but I could never get mine to flower.
P.
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So I was right to think of chives!
Thank you. There are a lot of them planted in front yards around here. I'd tried to photograph another one a few days ago, but it was too windy and it just came out as a purple blur.
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I've got some allium caerullium, which is a breathtaking pale blue, with much smaller flowerheadss --- larger than chives, maybe about the size of a cosmos flower, only round -- and I haven't yet managed to get a photo that is more than a blur.
P.
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It was at least a couple of feet high. I didn't have to lean that far into the yard to get that close to it.
I've got some allium caerullium, which is a breathtaking pale blue, with much smaller flowerheadss --- larger than chives, maybe about the size of a cosmos flower, only round -- and I haven't yet managed to get a photo that is more than a blur.
Oh, wow. I look forward to when you do!
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That's an incredibly strange thought. (I had to go look up a catalpa.)
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Thank you. They were vivid in the overcast.
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Nine
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Thank you! We weren't expecting the two yards of poppies.
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I hoped you would see them!
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Thank you!
(I like that icon. I think if I made one of a Flower Fairy, it would be Traveller's Joy. I miss the seaport town where the big ships lie.)
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Is she a mondegreen? (She sounds like one of
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I did see people running who wore theirs on their neck and pulled it up d soon as they were coming near anyone else which seems like not the worst tactic?
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I don't wear masks on outdoor walks but the population density may be greater where you are. In our neighborhood one rarely has to pass someone on the same sidewalk.
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I'm with Sara in that I don't wear a mask outside in the neighborhood because there just aren't that many people, and there's plenty of room on the quiet streets, so for example when I run I can dodge out to pass people at a 10' remove. But in buildings and downtown (where there are more people), as of last Friday we are required to wear masks - and of course the free-dumb people have been protesting, and defiantly refusing. Sigh. This is why we can't have nice things.
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I wobbled out on a walk yesterday (even before the surgery, I wasn't walking enough, and now I am supposed to walk at least half an hour EVERY DAY. This wouldn't be a problem except it's supposed to be on flat surfaces and there are none of those in my neighbourhood). I lost track of the exact numbers, but we saw maybe 20-25 people -- most of them at a distance, some passed by -- and less than 25% of them were wearing masks. Women were more likely to than men, couples more likely than singles (esp lone men). I ordinarily wouldn't get so pissy about it, but there is a new "directive" in WA that you have to wear masks outside! well sorta! only if you really feel like it! no penalties! and I was wearing one of the best made masks I had found after LOTS of shopping around, and I still felt like I couldn't breathe and was close to having a goddamn panic attack. T said since we were outside and there weren't big crowds of people and I was doing it for exercise, I could probably safely take it off, but I was stubborn. Bleah.
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The fact that your area is doing better is heartening to me and I am glad to know it!
I did see people running who wore theirs on their neck and pulled it up d soon as they were coming near anyone else which seems like not the worst tactic?
I've seen that, too. These were people who were walking without masks or just hanging out talking with other people who were either not wearing masks or wearing them decoratively. Since they were out in force for Memorial Day, it made dodging difficult.
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It makes me very happy.
I don't wear masks on outdoor walks but the population density may be greater where you are. In our neighborhood one rarely has to pass someone on the same sidewalk.
Somerville is the most densely populated city in New England. We actually have a city ordinance about wearing masks in public spaces, which is why it is especially frustrating to see people not.
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It lives up behind the right-of-way of the Lowell Line, formerly the Boston & Lowell Railroad and in the process of becoming the GLX. We turned a corner and there it was.
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Thank you!
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Thank you! I feel like we must have two slightly different species of poppy in the different yards based on the difference in petals, but I don't know what they are, except that the first set look like straight-up classic Papaver rhoas.
We have California poppies (the smaller yellow ones) in our wildflower mix around our hose, though, and they're just starting to come up now.
Oh, nice. What other wildflowers do you have?
I'm with Sara in that I don't wear a mask outside in the neighborhood because there just aren't that many people, and there's plenty of room on the quiet streets, so for example when I run I can dodge out to pass people at a 10' remove.
That sounds extremely relaxing. I am so sorry about your protesters. I don't appreciate ours.
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Thank you! I am so glad to have discovered the poppies; they seem to delight a lot of people, including me.
Women were more likely to than men, couples more likely than singles (esp lone men).
We have noted that also. It's sketchy.
I am glad you got out for a walk and did not have an actual panic attack, although the close thing does not sound fun. I hope future walks are less stressful.
May I interest you - ?
https://www.rbth.com/multimedia/pictures/2017/08/10/reanimating-slavic-gods-the-man-who-breathes-life-into-deities_820264
Re: May I interest you - ?
That's really nice! Thank you.
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P.
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I spelled them wrong, though. It's caeruleum.
Also I got so entangled in alliums that I forgot to say how gorgeous all the photos are.
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That's charming. Also sounds like good sympathetic magic these days.
Also I got so entangled in alliums that I forgot to say how gorgeous all the photos are.
I didn't mind. Thank you!
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You're welcome! And thank you.