Hey, it's another post!

Probably another short post because I'm literally just waiting for the (watercolour) paint to dry on something I'm doodling for Illustration Friday. See the other blog in a while for the end result, if I feel like it's worth posting.

The prompt this week is vintage, by the way. Kind of a weird one.

Anyway, today's flower. I wish I could have gotten a better shot of this poppy, but it was a bit windy yesterday (today? Rain, so not much better). It's pretty spectacular, though. Pink double with purple bits on the underside. The funny thing? Dad has no idea where it came from. The oriental poppies we had before came from my grandma's former house, and they were straight-up orange.

I hope this one seeds, because I'd like to see it around for a while.

Speaking of Dad, did you know that yesterday was Father's Day? It was for us, since I had to work last Sunday. That edible plant walk for the local U of Alberta alumni (Quaecumque vera! And yes, I'm an alumna as well. 91 BSc spec (Zoology). Sheesh, 1991. And now I feel even older...) went well, at least. Anyway, when I found out that I couldn't come in for actual Father's Day I asked Dad if I could take him out for dinner the next Saturday -- yesterday, in other words -- instead. He chose a local Chinese buffet, which let me off cheaper than I intended. I'm always up for decent buffet, though, and this one turned out to be just that.

Decent, that is. Definitely Chop Suey (Chinese heavily modified for Canadian tastes, that is), a few too many battered and deep fried things, lacking in something spicy except for the sriracha they had out, but generally tasty and definitely fresh. That waitress put on an awful lot of miles continually restocking things.

It was definitely the pseudo-Chinese food of my childhood, and probably what I would have kept eating except for a friend I had at U of A (Quaecumque vera...). She was the daughter of from-China parents who had a restaurant in Fort Macleod. At the restaurant they served  the Canada-friendly stuff, but at home it was straight-on real Cantonese. When she and I would go to the Chinese restaurant close to our places she'd order completely off the menu and get things that I wouldn't have even imagined existed. Not everything went over well immediately with this small town Alberta girl, but it certainly gave me a taste for something that wasn't sweet and sour pork.

And good on her. Life's boring if you only ever eat pineapple chicken balls.

Anyway (again), my paint's dry now so it's on to the pen & ink.





Don't expect much, by the way. I never do.

Pointless photo of the whenever

Actually, I have a bunch of flower photos (taken with the phone since I didn't bring my real camera this week), so there may actually be a few posts in the future.

Don't fall down in shock.

After all, there may be new photos, but they may all be of mating insects like you see here. Oh, you didn't notice the mating insects? You will now.

Anyway, this post is mostly just to say that I'm still around, and it's short of necessity since I have a few things to do before I take Dad out for a belated Father's Day supper (I had to work last Sunday).

Aaand the dryer just went off, so this will be even shorter. Later, folks.

Love you

The picture is of a butterfly in the Blue group (appropriate). I haven't had a chance to look it up yet.

Anyway, here we go.

As far as I know, I've never told my father that I love him. We weren't that way,  you see. We were never huggy or demonstrative. I don't even remember my dad telling my mom that he loved her. I know he did -- I was there after she died -- but it was never said out loud in front of us.

I'm tired of things being behind the scenes.

I love you, Dad.

You drive me nuts sometimes, but it doesn't matter. You're my dad, and you're a good dad. You've been there through a lot of things, including my first word to you being "don't" when you were emotional seeing your kid in intensive care when I didn't realise how sick I really was.

I have a good dad, and I'm lucky. I know it.

I just hope you know it too.



I love you, Dad.

Random garden things

Here's the last scheduled photo post for the week. We'll see if I have time to do something off-the-cuff later on.

Grape leaves

Anyone know? My grandma called it Sea Lavender, but it isn't.

Johnny Jump-ups. European originally, but they grow wild here now.

More irises

I did warn you...

There's something about the swirls...

And finally, it wouldn't be me if I didn't mess with one a little bit.

Iris season

I'm a big fan of irises. I'd love it if we had irises for the whole growing season. That's not how it works, though, so while the irises are out I tend to take a lot of iris photos.

Guess what? Here they are. Well, some of them. They're pretty much snapshots with the 50 mm wide angle lens, but for me at least that gives some interesting depth of field effects. Blah blah blah whatever let's look at flowers already, Dee...

How can you not love those contours?

Hey, bud.

Way too bright a day for these shots. Don't care.

This is either "Hi, dude" or "Heil HItler". Let's go with the first.

Irises are cool. I think that we need more of them, don't you? That's a hint about tomorrow, by the way.

Back in the saddle, sort of. With random photos that have nothing to do with anything.

Bob sits this way by choice, remember.

By the way, these photos really do have nothing at all to do with the blather. Nothing. No false advertising here. Shall we begin?

Back in November of 2014, I was in pain. Lower abdominal pain. I though it was just a nastier than usual period, which sometimes happens as you approach all that menopausal irregularity fun. The problem was, I had an interpreter who hadn't done planetarium for a while and asked me to take her first of two that day so that she could have a review.

That didn't help the pain.

I did it anyway, but asked a coworker if she could watch the second program because I just didn't think that I could handle it.

That night the pain got even worse, and at a certain point in the sleepless night I decided to run a hot bath. It helps a little when I have kidney stone pain. Well, it became obvious as soon as I got in the tub that it wasn't going to work and that something was really wrong. I got dressed and walked to the hospital. Yes, walked. I live close enough that I would have got there well before a cab or a friend would have arrived to pick me up.

Road construction for the new bridge at Dad's place.

 After a longer than necessary wait in an almost empty ER waiting room (I think they figured that it wasn't serious because I walked there. All I know is that I was given an incredibly flimsy excuse when they finally came for me) during which I developed a fever, x-rays basically led to the medical equivalent of OH SHIT when they found gas in my abdomen.

It turned out to be a ruptured diverticulum, and meant emergency surgery, a week in hospital on some pretty heavy antibiotics, and over a year with an ostomy.

Needless to say -- for anyone familiar with mobile planetariums, that is -- I didn't do planetarium for a while.

For those new to the program, I had ostomy reversal surgery at the beginning of April this year. Recovery's been a little harder than I expected, but I'm getting there.

Tom's pose is to remind me that he hates the camera.

This past week I was pulled out of the last day of our Nature School week to do some other programming, including two hours of edible plants and... oh come on, you've guessed... a planetarium program. A program for a youth group that we also used as a training opportunity for a couple of the new interpreters.

Planetarium. First time in over a year and a half. First time since I ruptured. Training. Was I nervous? Not really. I was pretty much too busy being scared to death to be nervous.

But how did it go, Dee? Oh, all right, I suppose. I didn't explode again, which was a good thing. I felt like a bit of a helpless femme because I had to get my interpreters to do most of the heavy lifting (it doesn't hurt very much to lift things now, but I find that I get winded really quickly), but that's partly because I have a hard time accepting help when I should be able to do things myself. As for the program, I guess it was ok. I had a couple of memory lapses, but when it's been over a year since you've used some of the terminology I think that's forgivable.

Back in the planetarium saddle.





I'm not sure if that deserves a YAY! yet or not, to be honest.



I'll let you know.

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I'm going to schedule a few garden photo posts now, since that seems to be the only way I manage to post during the week anymore. Watch this space, as they say.

Any moth people out there?

I noticed this outside our back door at work the other day, and haven't had time to ID it yet. I'm curious.

I haven't had time is the theme of the blog, by the way. Sorry for the lack of posting.

And the short posts.





Like this one.