Here's April Half Gone

zyzyly's photos of the eclipse are almost better than the real thing. In fact for me, at least, they are clearer than the real thing was. I haven't had new glasses in ages, and my vision isn't completely correctable anymore anyway, so the event was a bit blurry for me— an impressionist eclipse. The photos are nice and crisp, so now I can see what I saw. Very impressive.

This morning a bumblebee was trying to fly up through the skylight on my back porch. Bumblebees, I would presume, are easily confused by technology. (Sort of like me in that regard.) When it finally quit smacking itself against the glass and flew downward, it got itself caught in a daddy long legs web. The web already had a few flies caught in it, already dead. This daddy long legs, I would presume, is pretty clever, or at least pretty lucky, making its web under the skylight where dumb flying insects have knocked themselves silly smacking into the glass. Their dazed and confused state probably makes them easier to trap.

The spider's cleverness was to no avail in this case, though, as the bumblebee was too big to stay caught. It buzzed and wriggled for a couple of minutes, and finally broke free. Once it got away it landed on a beam and proceeded to groom itself, removing all that nasty web residue most likely. After a while it managed to fly away, escaping the porch. It didn't repeat its attempt to fly though the glass. It might have been only a stupid bee, but it wasn't that stupid.

Wednesday is when I usually make my shopping list for the next Sunday, but I couldn't do it today because Safeway's web site has been acting up and won't display the sale items. If I still had a newspaper delivered I could just look at the ad that comes with it, but these days I'm stuck with the Internets. They'd better get their site fixed before Sunday or I'll end up buying all my stiff at the other stores.

The back lawn got cut a few days ago, and it is looking very inviting. I'm tempted go roll around on it, but I'd just get itchy and probably pick up ticks. If I were eight years old I'd do it, and probably turn the garden hose on myself, too. Sometimes I miss being eight years old— but never for long (though I would dearly love to still have joints as flexible as I did then.)

Oh, and the crickets are back. I heard them while I was watching the eclipse. There is one chirping in the deep shade of the bushes behind the house right now, even though the evening sky is still bright. Soon there will be many more. My favorite insects!