I miss the weird diction Chinese menus used to have. The proprietors of Chinese restaurants have been here for decades now; their English is too good. So I was delighted to encounter “Barbecued Fork with Vegetable” just now.

Listening to “In Our Time”, I learned that the Antikythera Mechanism may have been created as a thing to show off at parties. Nerds have been around longer than I thought. We are eternal!

Applause for the publishing genius/madman who is marketing the “Meditations” of Marcus Aurelius as a tie-in to the #Gladiator2 movie. #philosophy

Found this praying mantis catching rays on the south wall of the old barn. We had two freezes this week. Haven’t seen a grasshopper sincee October. But here she is, still. #mantids

Part of a window frame, part of a wall, and all of a five-inch-long mantis. In the Virginia mountains. In November.

Who knows about #squirrels? They’ve built a nest in the aucuba bush by my porch. The bush needs pruning, which I was planning on doing this winter. When should I time it so it won’t harm any babies?

The challenges of autumn container #gardening is that squirrels find a nice patch of really soft dirt and bury nuts in the containers. 🌱

Just passed a convoy of twelve trucks from a tree-service company, headed south on Interstate 81. Good speed, y’all! Buy yourselves something nice with all the overtime pay you’re aboutit to earn. #Helene

Cry for help: Cherry tomato edition

My vegetable garden has a sunny end and a sorta-sunny end. Persnickety heirloom tomatoes get the sunniest spots because those give the best yield. Cherry tomatoes, the honey badgers of the plant kingdom, get the afternoon shade. Well, I screwed up the labels last spring, and I ended up with cherry tomato vines in the prime location. Anybody know a recipe that calls for six pounds of cherry tomatoes? Which I can eat before Wednesday, when another batch will come ripe? There’s a garden adage to the effect of “The mistakes you make in April haunt you in August.” I always thought it was about soil preparation, though.

Remembering the old guitar player who told me his religion was Frisbyterian. He believed that when he died, his soul would get stuck on the roof where he couldn’t get it down.

I just got another query from academia.edu wondering if I wrote a paper called “Passionate transformation in vernicle images”. No. As a matter of fact, I am no longer sure I know what those words mean. Do people with uncommon names enjoy the simplicity of their lives?

The meaning of the Latin term “_pace_”, sometimes used by scholars, was finally made clear to me when George Starbuck translated it “with a fig for the fatuous fulminations of”.

Naked woman standing in the median of Rt. 50. The police have the matter in hand. #FallsChurch is becoming a real city!

The TV over my shoulder was showing the steeplechase event at #Paris2024. My niece, visiting from Versailles, casually remarked, “we were sitting by that pond last week eating McDonalds.”

I propagated this #houseplant from a pot my sister left behind. Just found out it was originally planted by my grandfather. It’s almost 50 years old.

Clivia in a pot with lots of long, green leaves and five orange blossoms just after opening.

I purchased the new expanded edition of “The Letters of J.R.R. #Tolkien” from the Apple Book Store, which now suggests “You might like The Fellowship of the Ring”. Maybe; I’ll give it a try.

There’s an old adage that a comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny. The funniest thing I ever heard #BobNewhart say was, “Is this one of the guys at the office?” RIP

Just got junk mail advertising oceanfront property in North Carolina. I opened it, just to see if they had the honesty to name themselves “Greater Fool Realty”. Nope. #climate