Crouching tiger, hidden spider

 Except for the tiger part. Although the fact that tiger selfies are/were a thing still astounds me. That gets girls how? And who came up with it in the first place, anyway?

People are weird.

Anyway. This will, I hope, be a short post (and it never is when I say that, so why do I keep doing it?), because I was arting this morning and I have neither the thoughts nor the wrist to type a long one. So... an update on my usual summer spider hunt, whether you want it or not.

It's not going terribly well, to be honest. I haven't exactly seen an abundance of anything, and those that I do find -- with one exception, which I haven't posted yet -- I seem to be finding in the photoeditor after I've taken the shot. There was that Goldenrod Spider in the High Bush-cranberry flowers from a few weeks ago, if you'll remember, and there's one above in that Centaurea. Bottom right, if you're looking for it. I wish I'd seen it at the time, because my focus would have been way different.

To the left, at least, is a spider that I found before I took the picture. It's on Mock Orange (third flower down), to give you an idea of the size. Pretty tiny spider and pretty hard to get in there, but at least when you zoom that one it's pretty easy to tell that it's a spider and not just some random white legs like the other ones.

Ah well, they'll come. And when they do, it's looking like the new lens will do a pretty good job of them. It was interesting this weekend, comparing the two lenses. Other than Christmas it's the first time I've had them both here at once. I'll have to do it more often.

There. Does that count as short? Ish? It'll have to do, I'm afraid, because I'm done now.



See you in a bit. However long a bit may be to this blog.

Tea, with no picture of tea

As promised. This columbine intrigues me, though. I could swear that there wasn't a columbine in the yard last year. And I'd say that maybe it was hidden under the rose except that the rose is a climber rather than a bush so it's not especially thick. Ah well, nothing wrong with pretty volunteers, wherever they come from.

Just as an aside, I had my kit lens on the camera rather than the 50 mm wide angle I've been using to take close-ups lately. Biiig difference. And I miss the bokeh, so it's probably back to the other lens for more flower pictures after this.

Anyway, tea. Again, as promised... or should I say threatened? My latest tea order arrived at Dad's this week (I generally have parcels delivered to Dad's address rather than mine for a few reasons; one of which is less hassle since he's on a superbox -- aka Community Mailbox now, apparently -- and, unless the parcel's too big for one of the parcel boxes, doesn't have to go down to a mail outlet for pick-up), so I'll be talking about tea again whether you want to hear it or not. A topic's a topic, after all.

First, though, the actual parcel. Does anyone else think it's slightly overkill to mark a parcel that (only) has six plastic bags of tea in it with not one but two fragile, handle with care stickers? Two stickers, kraft paper, tissue paper (to make it look pretty), six of those air-filled packing things that avoid a carton full of styrofoam peanuts (I get that one, though. You don't want things to thump their way across country). Six plastic (and did I say plastic already?) bags of tea.

Ah, modern shipping.

Before I give you the links to the teas you'll be hearing about (so that you can study, of course), let me talk about the samples. This company sends three samples along with each shipment, which is good for the consumer and of course good to help create repeat consumers. I think that they might have struck out with me this time, however. They're pushing a series of teas in a carnival collection, with flavours that are supposed to remind you of the concessions at a fair. Yes, seriously. As a result, I have samples called Caramel Corn and Cotton Candy. Um? They also included a sample of Mango Fruit Punch since it's iced tea season. Um. Don't get me wrong, I'll try them (because... free), but I don't hold out a lot of hope. The mango might be all right, though. I'll keep an open mind.

There was also something in their included catalogue pamphlet that was a little eyebrow-raising, but only because I don't want to see tea go down the gimmicky road that coffee's gone down these past few years. So how does Teapop sound to you? You can try it in their stores if there's one near you, or you can make it at home by (and this is a rough recap here. I don't have the recipe in front of me) making a bit of strong tea, putting it in a glass with sweetener (they suggest agave because that's what they sell), adding ice, and then topping it off with soda water. It'd probably be ok. I might try it. But I'll cringe for being such a follower while I do it.

Ok then. The teas. I haven't tried any of the new ones yet so you still have the critiques to look forward to (yay?), but as I said I'll give you the links. First, the repeat orders of Second Flush Darjeeling and Chocolate Rocket. I've said before that Darjeeling is my favourite standard tea, and this is a good one in my (fairly limited, true. But my blog, after all) experience. And Chocolate Rocket... well, I can see why it's one of their most popular. Chocolate? Almonds? Raspberry? Yerba mate buzz? Yes please.

The new to me teas are: Saigon Chai (sounds like a fairly pure -- as in, un-effed-with -- chai. I have high hopes), Quangzhou Milk Oolong (Oolongs come a firm second after Darjeeling for me), Chocolate Chili Chai (I've never done the chili thing with tea. I'm predicting that it'll either kill me or I'll become an addict), and Jungle Ju ju (which is guayusa-based).

I've never tried guayusa, by the way. They say that it's similar to mate but without the bitterness. Confession here, though. I've never had mate on its own, so I've never noticed how bitter it apparently is. Anyway, we'll give the guayusa a try and see what happens.

A buzz at lease, I hope.



Less tea talk, more lunch now. I'm sure you're all relieved, but try not to look it too much. I could take offense, you know.

Quick (I hope) jewellery post

Work got busy so there wasn't time to post. And, of course, my two fans know that I don't usually like to post at night (no particular reason), so let's all try to keep this short, ok? I just wanted to explain the shopping channel reference I made last post.

Regular viewers will already know that I watch the jewellery (and no, I don't care that it's Fourth of July. It's still jewellery, not jewelry) shows on the shopping channel -- they're not getting a link from me since they don't need one -- purely for entertainment. So much of the jewellery is bad (for various reasons) and they work sooo hard to make it better in their sales pitches. I sometimes feel sorry for the presenters, really. Until I remember that they get paid to sell bad jewellery and whatever innovation Wolfgang Puck has put his name on now.

Anyway.

Yesterday they had an entire day of jewellery clearance. An entire day. An entire day of trying to sell the stuff that even their audience wouldn't buy. An entire day of seeing the same bracelet that some poor buyer asked for way too many of come up again and again, each time more desperately. An entire day of wondering if the tsc shoppers watching were in heaven because they could finally afford the cheesy whatsit (or should that be cheesy wotsit? Sorry. I just love that sketch. Too bad the BBC decided to cut it off before the punchline. Erm, such as it was.) they'd really wanted, or were totally pissed off because they'd paid four hundred dollars more for that same cheesy whatsit three months ago.

It would have been wonderful. But I had to go to work.

It was really, really hard to do that.

Ah well. I saw enough of it to at least feel like I'd been there. And I probably would have been sick on it if I'd had too much. Oh, and to prove that I'm not just being a snob when I talk about the ugly jewellery, above you'll see part of my misspent eighties. Well, except the Mardi Gras beads; they came later (and no boobs involved, seeing as it was a City function thank you very much). All 100% plastic, and all 100% cheese. I kept them when I did the jewellery box clean-up a while back because they made me laugh, remembering how much I wore them. And... well, I may use them for an art project sometime, who knows.

I do have a tiny portion of the real thing, though. Literally tiny. Freshwater pearls so small they could be seed beads. My brother and I bought them for my mother when we were still pretty young, and with our own money if I remember right. $25 at... I want to say Zales. Someplace like that, anyway. I think she wore the earrings a few times, but I doubt very much she used any of the rest.

I wore the bracelet to work a couple of months back on a whim. Stupid whim, since I work as a naturalist. Picture proof right here. Bandage courtesy of The Puppy, who was more or less fascinated with the bracelet and tried to take it away for a bit of playtime. No worries. It was just a nick, and the bracelet returned unharmed. And I still think that pearls and STARS bandage is quite the look.

Well, as usual this became longer than I was intending. It's almost a post, even. Tomorrow? Tea, probably. Likely accompanied by a picture of a flower because today's photos were altogether too close to losing their pointless status.



Puuumpkin tiiime...

Holy weird day Batman

You were going to get a real post. Sure, it was going to be about jewellery again (The Shopping Channel's having a jewellery clearance today. That gives me so much joy of stupid that you may still get a post about it tomorrow), but it would have been a semi-organised thought-about post, at least. Instead?

Well, amongst other things I became the accidentally-designated sugar provider at work today. Stopped on my way in to get some Timbits for everyone with a gift card I had (and no one was in the drive-through. I've seen a line-up at that drive-through at 6 am. This morning? Empty. I was worried that it might be the zombie apocalypse). Then, work stuff, and if I was a Seinfeld fan I'd probably just say yada yada yada and leave it at that. I probably could anyway, since you got a glimpse of work yesterday. Let's just say, then, that I did assorted work things and when I felt myself getting a monitor/air conditioning headache decided to grab the camera and head out to the lake to take pictures of duck bums.

Yeah, duck bums. Here's one I took last year (or whenever. I take a lot of pictures of duck bums).

Anyway, when I got back I noticed on twitter (twitter counts as one of the work things. I still have trouble believing that) that a local radio station was delivering slurpees and that if you replied your office might be on the list. I replied, naturally. I mean, free stuff from a radio station, right? And the free publicity to our followers, the station's followers (and 7-11)... social media's weird. I joked about it to my coworkers.

We were their first stop. I'm officially the Sugar Fairy.

For today, at least. I'm not planning a return performance for a little while. We're sugared up enough for the moment.

And now it's home time for me, so I really should wrap things up. I won't promise much of a post tomorrow since the week's been so bizarre, but I'll try.





No duck bums or slurpees, though.

Aaand she forgets to blog

I guess I'm a bit (a bit? A bit? Seriously, a bit?) out of practise these last couple of weeks, but I really did forget about the whole blog thing and now my lunch hour is nearly over. However, do enjoy this pointless photo of dragonfly sex that I took this morning at work.

Hmm. Work. That might give us (me 'n alllll the voices) a quick topic. What have I done at work this morning, then?

I checked twitter and the work blog. Oh, and e-mail. I flipped the calendar page (by the way, did everyone have a happy Calendar Flipping Day yesterday? I have somewhat of a thing about flipping calendar pages. Just ask my father, who only ever seems to flip one of his. I fix that for him. Every month.). I checked my personal e-mail. I tweeted some info on how to get to us while the road construction buggers things up all summer. Yes, the whole entire summer. I went for a walk with a couple of others to look for a nonexistent grebe nest and ended up taking pictures of bug porn instead. I answered prep questions from the person who's running our day camps. I looked at my previous tweets, realised that I'd made a little mistake, and decided that it was probably too late in twitter timeline land to bother correcting it. I answered a question about how to get rid of a group (charm, tiding, congregation... also, apparently, a collective, although it's not on the linked list) of magpies (answer? You probably don't. They're too smart to be scared away from anywhere for too long if they really want to be there). I had lunch. I answered  a couple of more questions while I had lunch. There was also a dog involved in there somewhere. No, not the puppy. He hasn't been to work much lately. And there was tea.

And I've spent altogether too much time with this song going through my head. To those who know it, I'm truly sorry for the link. Just don't play the music file and you should be fine.

Anyway, that'll be it. I had to go take pictures of a moth (yes, had to), and now I need to see if any of them are good enough to be used as part of a display thingy.

Yes, thingy.



Going now.

Yeah, you know it

The I've got nothing that you're about to see, I mean.

I've got nothing.

And now you've seen it.

I sure wish I'd seen the spider that was hiding in these High Bush-cranberry flowers when I took the picture, though. I would have worked harder to get it into focus. It's there, at any rate. Even a mostly not visible spider is better than no spider at all.



And as for me? Back to work. Happy Canada Day tomorrow, everyone.

Sigh

The post you see below was actually yesterday's, not today. Apparently it didn't publish. Ah well, read it as though it was Sunday, and read this as though I'm extremely busy right now because I am.

Later...