"A Drop of Ink in a Glass of Water..."

As many of you know, I am a die hard fountain pen user.  I am also a huge fan of the band "The National."  So often times I have the music and lyrics going through my head, because that's what music does to me.  To save money by not buying ink cartridges for my pens, I refill them with ink from bottles.  I have a special blunt ended syringe, and I suction the ink out of a bottle and then inject through the opening in the cartridge.  I do this a lot because I write a lot.  So the other day I was cleaning my syringe after filling some cartridges.  I am using purple ink in two of my fountain pens.  And then the lyric came to me from the National's song "Green Gloves."  So I took my syringe and dropped some ink into a glass of water.  Here is the result.  The lyric “like a drop of ink in a glass of water” is associated with the song “Green Gloves” by The National, from their 2007 album Boxer. The image is a phrase often used to describe how the music or feeling of the track spreads and deepens. The metaphor fits the band’s style: emotions slowly spreading and darkening the mood, like ink diffusing through water.

 

Who is This? What is This?

What is this?  Any guesses?  Of course you know who this is!  This is Grace curled up in one of the chairs in the back room.  It is a favorite place for her to curl up away from Sam.  I am looking over one arm of the chair, and the side of the other arm is behind her.  Actually this is more of an abstract photo, but when I saw the shapes I felt that it was a photograph.

 

The Electric Cat

I don't know if many of you know that our cat, Grace, is an electric cat.  Did you know that?  We plug her into the wall outlet each day so she can get the energy to eat and run around and purr and sleep.  It actually takes energy to sleep, which also might be news to you.  I know that's unusual, but we take it all in stride.  We do have to feed her regular cat food but she does need the electric energy for her to eat.  So, you learn something new every day, right?  An electric cat, indeed.

 

No More Snow for Our Garden Angel

The temperature was 64 a couple of our days this week.  It is 40 degrees outside tonight as I write this and tomorrow is forecast to be 51 degrees.  So hopefully there will be no more snow for our garden angel.  Years ago we did have a pretty good wet snowfall in April and we couldn't believe our eyes seeing the trees all covered with a frosting in April.  But it warmed and quickly melted.  We last saw her on March 2nd, both buried and with much of it melted.  Hopefully she will have warm spring days as she waits for the rebirth of the garden as we continue into spring.

 

I Am Done Wirh My White Shirts!

I found this bright yellow Lands End buttondown shirt up in Amy's closet.  It has not been worn much and the color is a brilliant bright yellow, not the pale yellow which is the only color you can buy today.  I realize that it must be boring seeing me wearing white buttondown shirts every day.  So, no more!  I will put them all away and start buying brighter colored shirts from now on.  I actually have, from years ago, dark blue buttondown shirts!  That was a different phase in my fashion style!  This will be life-changing.  No one will recognize me!  And now here is a tale out of school, something I just learned...  You all recognize the name Ken Schwarz, who is a great friend of mine who always comments here?  Well, in a conversation we  just had the other day, he said when he retired he got rid of ALL his buttondown shirts!  I was stunned!  I could not even BREATHE if I didn't have buttondown shirts to wear!

 

Carving My Turns

This is my curvy road about 3/4 the way through my 10 mile ride.  It is downhill and only two lanes so not that much traffic.  I turn onto this road off a main road, with a fairly sharp curve to the right, at the beginning here, and because I am moving pretty fast, I lean into the turn to the right.  Then as you can see here, the road then curves to the left in the distance and I am picking up speed and I carve my turn to the left, by leaning to the left.  There is something wonderful about carving turns on nice roads - it is a very smooth and fluid motion and is one of the rich feelings of cycling.  I have started riding again now that the temps are in the 60's. What a joy to be on the bike again!

 

The Last of It

Well, this is the last of it.  Fingers crossed of course.  We have had a St. Patricks Day snowstorm in years passed, and I think maybe we even had an April snowfall once?  I forget.  But this year, for some reason, the snow and the cold seemed harder to deal with.  Several weeks of 15 degree temperatures were a tough one.  The cold was worse than the snowfall.  I think we got 12 inches of snow the first time and about 16 inches the second time, but that was not a problem because of my snow blower.  On the first storm I cleaned the driveway and walkways in an hour and a half, which was not bad.  But now even this last bit it is all gone, and the temperature today was 64 degrees and out I went on my bike with just a jersey and shorts on!  Fingers crossed that the temps stay reasonable.