David Saves the Day

By returning home from his two-week-long trip. Welcome back, David!

Beachcombing

On the morning of Memorial Day, the weather was gorgeous.

And we had the beach almost entirely to ourselves. It was the perfect time to go beachcombing.

My awesome new beachcombing book identifies everything you could ever possibly find on a Florida beach. It advised me to look along the wrack line, where a recent storm had washed up clumps of manatee grass and pelagic sargassum.

So I wandered along the shore poking at the seaweed. I found several comb jellies, a darkling beetle ...

... and a shotgun shell filled with shell fragments and a colony of sargassum hydroids, which are weird little animals related to the Portuguese man-o-war.

I picked up coquinas, a dwarf surfclam, a cardita, an Atlantic calico scallop, and an acorn from a salt live oak. I love looking up the names of everything in the beachcombing book!

I started a collection of spiral sea shells (Naticidae), which are beautiful but have really creepy names: shark's eyes and baby's ears. I still haven't found a whole one. Clearly I need to go beachcombing more often.

I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside

This weekend Jennifer, Adrienne, and I are vacationing on St. George Island. We rented this really cute condo just off the beach.

This is the view from our balcony.

The first thing we did was check Facebook, of course.

But then we went to the beach.

Today we spent the afternoon wandering around the nearby town of Apalachicola.

Seeing the sights.

Apalachicola has lots of historical buildings, old fishing boats ...

... a boardwalk lined with shrimping boats ...

... and lots of great shops.

We bought books ...

and looked at some wonderful nautical antiques.

Also, we saw terrifying pirate mannequins.

And we had delicious ice cream sodas and malts.

And then, back to the beach.

Ocean Obsessing

I'm going to the beach tomorrow, and I'm having a hard time thinking about anything else today. I've been looking at all kinds of ocean-related things, and I found something truly amazing: these glass models of sea life made in the 19th century.

These are incredible! I want to go to the National Museum of Wales to see them!

I hope we don't run into too many of the real ones this weekend, though.

Mystery Lizards

Recently three small, wriggly, and mysterious lizards took up residence under our drainpipe. At night they hang out on the wall by the front door and eat bugs. They are pinkish, somewhat translucent, and very jumpy. Even a moth flying too close scares them into running back under the drainpipe. Still, David managed to get this picture of one of them. What in the world are they?

A Day of Celebration (Yesterday)

Happy birthday, Will! Happy Mother's Day, Mom! And happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and mother figures in my life -- you all deserve a celebration.

Another Haircut

So after many missteps, including the time when I took the wrong afternoon off work to go to the hairdresser, I finally got my hair cut.

This is the close-up. David had to take his glasses back in to get the prescription changed, but pictures of his new look are forthcoming, as soon as he lets me take them.

St. Mark's Wildlife Refuge

We had been meaning to go to this wildlife refuge for a long time, and last weekend we finally went.

It's a beautiful saltwater marsh. As you drive through the refuge, the landscape keeps changing from open water ...

... to swamp ...

... to hundreds of little pools.

We saw lots of birds, including this pied-billed grebe and coot ...

... and a huge osprey on a tree branch watching over the water.

We stopped for a picnic at Picnic Pond. But then we saw something to the left of the sign ...

... that was thinking about having a picnic of its own.

As I stood on the bank watching birds, the alligator began to swim toward me. He started to crawl up onto the bank, and I ran for it. Meanwhile David was having his own battle with nature, as clouds of gnats swarmed around him.

Then we watched the sun set over the salt marsh. From the car.

The Cast Iron Anniversary

Sunday was our sixth anniversary, and the theme was cast iron. We thought it might be a challenge, but it turned out to be one of the best themes so far. I got David this fountain, which has a cast iron base. I'm hoping that birds will like it, but mosquitoes won't.

David went to the greatest antique store of all time and got me this cool cast iron elephant ...

... and also a wonderful Victorian inkwell. It's not cast iron, but he couldn't pass it up. He knows I love antique inkwells.

This one is an amazing find! It has fantastic decoration, including siren figures and satyr faces.

And leafy tangles of vine that, on closer inspection, turn out to be weird little faces.

The leaves and vines remind me of my wedding ring.

One Drop of Crocodile

In the parched path
I have seen the good lizard
(one drop of crocodile)
meditating.
With his green frock-coat
of an abbot of the devil,
his correct bearing
and his stiff collar,
he has the sad air
of an old professor.
Those faded eyes
of a broken artist,
how they watch the afternoon
in dismay!
...

(You watch the setting sun,

and your eyes shine,

oh, dragon of the frogs,

with a human radiance.

Ideas, gondolas without oars,

cross the shadowy

waters of your

burnt-out eyes.)

Have you come looking

for that lovely lady lizard,

green as the wheatfields

of May,

as the long locks

of sleeping pools,

who scorned you, and then

left you in your field?

Oh, sweet idyll, broken

among the sweet sedges!

But, live! What the devil!

I like you.

-- from Old Lizard, by Federico Garcia Lorca

Easter Egg Rolls

On Easter we dyed eggs with some wonderful German dye sent to us by Uncle Ralph.

We especially liked the jaunty rabbit and the frog on the dye packet.

And the strange decals, like this beetle with a cane.

Our tablecloth came from Germany too, by way of Dr. Hausfrau.

It has little spring flowers embroidered on it -- perfect for Easter!

David told me that he really misses egg rolls, so I tried to make some gluten-free versions. I made spring rolls filled with spicy steamed cabbage and baked in rice paper, which looked fairly normal.

My egg rolls, though, didn't look anything like egg rolls, partly because I baked them instead of deep-frying. Luckily they still tasted good.