Part 40

Saturday, May 1, 2004, 1:49am: Happy Beltane! Today is another one of those lovely pagan festivals that mark the Turning of the Wheel!

1:55am: Oh yes, new quilt in the works. I just made the first square, so it's over in My Squares For You so far. I am going to make an elephant quilt!

12:45pm: More on the new quilt: I made a start on My Elephant Quilt this morning. Now I have to go see if other quilters might have some elephant squares I can use! :-)

Meanwhile the guys are at the grocery, loading up on goodies for the new refrigerator!!

Sunday, May 2, 2004, 2:58am: Time to get back to bed! It's going to rain all night, by the looks of the radar loop. It's a perfect night to snuggle up with your favourite human, fur person, or stuffed animal person...or all three!

9:34am: Eep! Oh boy oh boy, a(nother!) Garden of Friendship Angel is coming to visit me for a week! I need to make a page for all her gifts, because she is going to be spoiling me to giggles! Hee hee!

[EDIT] I now have a page (which will be become a section, I feel sure) for Sparkling Angel's gifts to me. Go see!

Monday, May 3, 2004: Here is a new-ish poem I wrote for a literary group I was in. I wasn't sure if my poem had reached them in time for the judging, even though I kept emailing, asking if it had gotten there. But since they have just published the list of poems to be voted upon, and my poem is not there, I no longer feel constraint about putting this poem up on my site.

The poem is entitled "Ambivalence".

Wednesday, May 5, 2004: New photos: these were taken this morning, a misty cool morning on the way to and back from my routine checkup with my radiation oncologist--wooo! I don't have to go back for six months!

Anyway, these photos were taken with the PalmPix, which is not as fancy a camera as my Nikon Coolpix, so just bear that in mind. Plus I decided to let some of the blur and some of the deep shadow/bright light stay as they were. Here they are.

Thursday, May 6, 2004, 3:26pm: More new-ish photos: these are from when we got our new refrigerator last Friday; and then a rainstorm the next day. Here they be.

This is what Cat'r is reading aloud to me now! (click on the pic to see it larger) Yay! We haven't done a Terry Pratchett book for a while! Lots of bears and other stuffed animals in attendance, with Teddy helping with the reading.

We've gone through two chapters so far (Cat'r's voice isn't used to it--he hasn't read aloud to me for a while)--more tomorrow! :-)

Sunday, May 9, 2004: Just a simple wish for all you ladies who are mothers out there:
 

Here is my page about/to my own mother.

Monday, May 10, 2004, 2:11pm: And now, for a bit of intensity: The Highwayman.

6:23pm: There existeth new poetry and a better arrangement of titles on The Poet's Corner index page (at least I think it's a better arrangement ::grin::). ::prod prod:: Go see. :-)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004, 8:38pm: Yep, more poetry, some of it a bit earlier, so you need to poke around a bit.

11:12pm: Where I talk about what: I don't talk about politics and such here. I do that more over in my LiveJournal. Usually.

The world feels like it's going mad, exponentially. Abuses, reprisals, beheadings...it's getting beyond comprehension.

Where is the country I grew up in? Maybe things were more well-hidden then and we just didn't know about bad things. But I thought we used to be the "guys in the white hats". It sure doesn't seem like that anymore......

11:22pm: Just waiting for these guys to show up. And they will, en masse. Five BILLION of them, when they finally emerge. I have no idea why I feel anticipation, because it won't take long for us to tire of the incredibly loud sound and the bugs EVERYwhere. But, still we eagerly check each day. Maybe it's morbid fascination. :-P

Thursday, May 13, 2004, 9:12pm: Everything was out there this evening! The scent, the soft birdsong, the cool breeze, the sweet damp feel in the air of rain nearby, the colours, the sunset, life burgeoning.

I went out looking for signs of cicadas, but instead I found all this. Mother Nature is the ultimate artist!

Friday, May 14, 2004: We have Cicada Sign! We had a heavy rainstorm last night that softened up the ground, making it easier for the wee beasties to emerge. Bunnicula discovered the first cicada in our immediate vicinity this morning.

Here is the beginning of what I hope will be lots of photos and maybe even a sound file at some point! Links coming soon.

Saturday, May 15, 2004, 7:12pm: Rainy rainy day. I put some new photos up from this afternoon of cicadas coming out of their shells.

This got me to thinking of metaphysical things: is this how we will come out of our bodies when we die?

9:37pm: Cicadas! expands! I have now gone onto a second page of cicada pictures. There will certainly be more pages! And at some point a sound file or two. :-)

Sunday, May 16, 2004: I must be nuts + new photos: I must not think I have enough to do alREADY, so I joined, well accepted an invitation to join, a new group: True Hearts of Gold. Looks nice. :-)

Bunnicula and I went out to see if we could see any more cicada activity; but since it's pretty chilly and breezy (and possibly the soil temperature has cooled down a bit), not much is going on. The only thing we saw was exoskeletons hanging from trees.

However I did get some photos of some very delicate lavender flowers out in front of another section of our apartment complex. I have no idea what they are called except lovely.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004, 6:07am: Temporarily took down a couple poems because I didn't know they weren't supposed to be posted on my site until after voting in a competition. So (she says cryptically) if you remember seeing a particular poem over in The Poet's Corner but you can't find it now, don't worry, it will be back later in the month or early in June.

9:24am: It has to come out somewhere, the need to write, the need to express. So here is a new poem.

11:59am: I'm in a darkish mood today. Here is an older poem. See also this page.

6pm: More photos both in the Coolpix section, on Page 16; and also on the second page of the Cicadas! section. Enjoy!

Wednesday, May 19, 2004, 12:20pm: Cicada sound! As promised, I now have some sound files of cicadas up on the site! I took a cassette tape I made back in May 1987 (their last emergence) and made .mp3 files of it. I broke it up into three files, for ease of download, but it's actually one session/recording.

Anyway, you get to hear what the mouse sounds like, especially when she runs on and on endlessly and in a redundant fashion! LOL!

Here they are, on their own page within the Cicadas! section.

5:22pm: Cicada cookies, pictures, &c.: Busken Bakery is very famous locally--and was also featured on Food TV!--and is known for making all kinds of delicious specialty cookies and cakes. Bunnicula brought home some cicada-decorated cookies (only pictures of them, that's all! they are sugar cookies, safe to eat!), and there are photos of them here. I also got a few more photos outside today, although things are starting to be repetitious until we have the major emergence.

I also did a little test run of my new tape recorder out front, just to see how it would pick up the sound. The resultant .mp3 can be found here.

Friday, May 21, 2004, 6:10pm: New cicada mp3 up: They are singing more loudly today, well, or maybe there are just more OF them. And this latest mp3 was recorded at treetop level. Go here to listen and/or download.

7:42pm: New cicada photos plus a little QuickTime movie on Page 2 of Cicadas! Yes, I got up the courage to go out, with Bunnicula as my bodyguard (to pluck off any cicadas that might get in my hair or on me), in order to bring you yet MORE photos! LOL!

I also saw some very lovely flowers and some striking cloud formations this evening!

I went out earlier today and got these flower photos.

8:38pm: Did I mention? That when Bunnicula and I went out to take cicada photos, the sound was really LOUD? Much louder than just a couple days ago! And this isn't even as loud as it's going to get. In about a week, given a nice warmish/hot sunny day, they will sing like crazy, enough to actually hurt one's ears!

Sunday, May 23, 2004, 2:16pm: Newest cicada sounds plus the sound of one cicada up-close-and-personal! Also including the mouse being a wimp when one lands on her. ::grin:: Click here to go there.

3:20pm: I also took photos while we were out in Cicadaland.

A few are of cicadas (although you MUST go see Bunnicula's photos, since they are so much better!--link when you get to my photos).

And there are a couple photos of lovely flowers.

9:09pm: One more cicada sound file: I just couldn't resist. This is for historical purposes, anyway (I tell myself!). This was made from indoors, at treetop level, about two hours later than the other files from today. Here it is.

Monday, May 24, 2004: Gentle readers: in the interest of journalism and history, I have taken extended jaunts outdoors in the massive cicada sound. However, since the newest tape, done today, has left me with temporary diminished hearing and a headache, I think subsequent tapings will be of shorter duration, in order to spare the mousey constitution.

Here is the sacrifice I made for listeners today. I don't sound as perky as the recording goes along, probably because the sound is starting to get to me. We hear it (lessened) indoors all day for about 10 hours each day, in addition to any exposure outdoors.

Wednesday, May 26, 2004, 10:57am: A new poem, very fan-girl-ish, I fear. I just had to write something after the last episode of "Angel".

And a new page in my WOSIB section [EDIT Jan. 14, 2005: no longer there]: yesterday was their/our 4th Anniversary of being an online group! Yayayay! Conga rats!

12:48pm: Well, I've done it. I have written a couple cicada poems. One from the human perspective, and one from the cicada perspective. The second one came to me as I realized how tender the photos of their mating look. How would it be to be an insect? More and more we are learning that "lower" lifeforms have emotions and feelings.

Friday, May 28, 2004, 3:03pm: New cicada movies! I did two little QuickTime movies of cicadas today shortly after noontime. Here they are!

8:01pm: More cicada-related sound files from yesterday: one from indoors; one is The Interview with the Vampire Bunny, errrr Bunnicula; and two are from OUTDOORS! Yes, I went out into it again! Anyway, here they are!

9:15pm: There are new cicada photos, plus a couple new photos in the Coolpix section.

Saturday, May 29, 2004, 12:06am: Magickal Household section: I am going to do some serious rethinking about my spirituality section. It might disappear for a while. It might come back, or very small parts of it might come back. Or maybe none.

I just do not believe the same way that I used to. Oh, I'm still a pagan, but I have gone through some changes that are making me take a good long look at what I really believe.

I do know that I'm paring things way down and simplifying.

So if you are looking for that section that's what's going to be happening.

5:35pm: New stuff: Have you looked at the latest cicada photos Bunnicula has put up on his site? Go see here and here!

I have a new sound file up that I did just a little while ago. Cicadas coming out? Or cicadas wearing clothes??

And there is a new summertime splash page/entranceway to The Mouse House. Please visit and enjoy. :-)

Sunday, May 30, 2004: That is so weird! I have played Windows Solitaire a lot, over the years; but this is just plain weird today. This morning I won three times in a row; and then this evening, again, I won three times in a row! Strrrraaaaannnggge.

Monday, May 31, 2004, 8:55pm: New things: I have the beginnings of my revamped, in-the-process-of-being-rethought spirituality section called My Unitarian Universalist Page.

There are new cicada sound files up, called The Singles Scene and Open Mike Night.

There are also some new cicada photos + two new cicada QuickTime movies, entitled "The Reluctant Suitor" and "Augh, Get That Stalker Away From Me!".

And finally there are three photos I took at sunset last night, many hours before the severe storms rolled through.

Background from Absolute Background Textures Archive | Purple buttons by Jelane | Beltane blinkie from Mystickal Realms | Mother's Day blinkie from Jo's Blinkies | All photographs (except cicada) copyright © 2004-2008 Joanna M. Phillips