Category Archives: outdoors

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one of these things

For the Daily Prompt: deplete.

Holy cats, am I feeling depleted! Since I got back from vacation, have worked every day including both days last weekend! Neck hurt this morning, all stiff, I need a day off! No medicine today…

And what repletes you? Walking outside and taking photographs repletes me: and wondering. The gull is hanging out with the whole flock of brant geese. They don’t seem to mind. Nice! Black and white together! And I think of Sesame Street: “One of these things is not like the other.” Really, when you get down to it, the brant each have their own individual characters too, right? Grouped by species or not.

And music and dance and singing replete me: here is a fabulous hour of boogie-woogie piano music with Daryl Davis and others. I danced to Daryl Davis in Maryland back in the 1980s! Go Daryl!!

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Keen kindly kites

A day late, but my theme remains happy things.

Oh, for yesterday the happy things are keen kindly kites and alphabet poems. The kites are from my own alphabet poem alphabeasts. I was thinking of the birds when I wrote it. I have not seen a kite yet. The brant above flying are caught by my cell phone, after my big camera ran out of batteries. They all spooked and leapt into the air. We did not figure out what spooked them.

I love other alphabet poems. Dr. Suess’s ABC, the wonderful creepy Edward Gorey poems, I have my childhood copy of Tasha Tudor’s A is for Annebelle, grandmother’s doll. Edward Lear’s alphabet poems and peculiar drawings always fascinate me. The children’s illustrated alphabets are beloved as well: Graeham Base’s endlessly detailed paintings for Animalia. We could make up whole stories about them! Max Grover’s deliciously strange The Accidental Zucchini with wonderful bright color paintings. What is your favorite?

K

 

 

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jump, jive, joy

Blogging from A to Z, my theme is happy things. The letter J for jump, jive, joy!

And jitterbug! I am a jitterbug dancer, east coast swing or 6 count swing, and lindyhop, and west coast swing. Salsa, merengue, cajun dance, two step, oh and a few clogging steps, about 6 total. I love to dance and I love the Jump Blues!

I took the photograph this morning: of an old t-shirt. We went to as many dance camps of The Savoy Swings Again as we could. There were two bands and lessons all day and I would have to increase my salt intake to keep my muscles from cramping. Deanna Bogart is still playing. And the Washington Swing Dance Committee still has a page devoted to dance!

On my last trip to the Washington DC area, my daughter said, “Let’s go dancing.” We found the DCdancenet site. We found a contra dance at the Spanish Ballroom, at Glen Echo Park. My son, his girlfriend, my daughter and I all went to the dance. The Spanish Ballroom is where I met their father and living on the west coast, I had not been back for years!

Jump, jive, joy and jitterbug! I am glad that dance is still going on, teaching, live bands and all the joy it brings!

J

And check this out: the same t-shirt shows up in this video of the Jiving Lindy Hoppers!

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birds and color

The first birds that we saw and heard on the beach two nights ago were these: black oystercatchers. The red beak stands out, but if they are standing still, they blend with the rocks! Listen to their wonderful call here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black_Oystercatcher/overview. When I hear the call, I know to look for them at the edge of the water.

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I for intent

My Blogging from A to Z theme is happy things. Three happy things with intent!

We took a beach walk two nights ago and the beach was full of birds. Three great blue herons, three oyster catchers, an eagle landed in the surf, crows, gulls and the flock of brant. There were various dogs being walked, who were not chasing any of the birds, hooray for that!

I love this great blue heron: so intent on fishing. What are you intent on? Intent, intention, attention, retention. So many tents….

I was intent in clinic yesterday. We had a packed schedule and I started thirty minutes early to add an extra patient and I had good intentions to run on time. I didn’t. By the last person I was running 20 minutes late, and three people were grumpy. No, four people were grumpy because I have to add myself to that. I had good intentions, but I can’t control what problems people bring to clinic and they don’t always fit in the time allotted!

Here is the eagle, also intent on dinner. I don’t think of bald eagles as surf birds, but this one had caught something and landed. We did not get close, not wanting to disturb things.

DSCN2096.JPG

The photographs are taken at the Port Townsend Bay beach below Chetzemoka Park. Happy blogging.Β 

I

 

 

 

 

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Mundane Monday 155: close color

Welcome to Mundane Monday #155. I will post a photograph and theme. If you add your pingback I will list you next week, and very happy Monday!

Last week’s gorgeous entries, theme color contrast:

https://klallendoerfer.wordpress.com/2018/04/02/mundane-monday-line-of-rvs/

https://bedressed.wordpress.com/2018/04/06/photo-challenge-one-mundane-day-last-may/

Have a good day and check out each other’s photographs!

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G for give

My Blogging from A to Z theme is happy things: G for give and generous and goat!

Goat? Yesterday was the opening of our Farmer’s Market which starts with the March of the Goats.

goat

Give and Generous:

I went to a Rotary fundraiser last night.

I am in the Sunrise Rotary, and the fundraiser was put on by the noontime Rotary. We have three clubs in our county.

There was dinner and both a silent and live auction. The benefit raised $20,000 for a new kitchen for the Boiler Room. The Boiler Room is a youth coffee house, drug and alcohol free, and where people are welcomed and can volunteer. There was a video about three people who talked about how it helped them. The fourth was the director, who told her story from 18 years ago.

Additional funds were raised. I love the Rotary: it sustained me when I had to start my clinic and it does so many things. I am delighted that we are down to two countries with polio virus, the exchange students come from all over the world and go all over the world, the yearly Shelterbox that we buy will go to some disaster area and locally the third graders each get their own picture dictionary. And I get to meet weekly with a wonderful group of people.

I bid on a lunch with US Representative Derek Kilmer. I wish I’d gotten that, I would bend his ear about healthcare. I didn’t. But I came home with an odd ladle and I am signed up for a two day black smithing class at the Cedar root school. And my money will go to multiple projects.

Hooray for all the generous people and organizations working for and with people and the people working for and with them.

G

goat3

Blogging from A to Z.

 

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conversation

Mordechai, our clinic skeleton, had such a wonderful time out at dinner last month. As you can see, she is still conversing about it. We’ll have to take her out more.

For the Daily Prompt: inchoate. I’m not sure quite how inchoate relates to this. My ideas are unformed. Where to take Mordechai next?