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One of the surest ways that we know it's spring in our household is when our new zoo membership cards arrive in the mail. I am not kidding you when I tell you that this is the best investment we make every year. If you have kids or grandkids -- even if your grandchildren only visit a couple times a year -- you won't find a better value anywhere. I mean it. Our grandchildren have been utterly delighted by the new ringtail lemurs, and I am just holding my breath waiting for Stingray Bay to open!
*****
I never, ever, ever win anything. Well, that's not exactly true, but I so seldom win anything that I can be forgiven for forgetting that it happened before it happens again. I'm using Goodreads to keep track of my reading these days, and especially to keep track of books I want to read. That's something I didn't really have to do much of all those years when my job including being the the same room with books every weekday. I mean, my TBR list was just there. One of the cool features of Goodreads is that once you've marked a book as something you want to read, you begin to get notices of giveaways. It's really simple to enter, and of course the odds are usually pretty slim that you'll get one of, say, 10 copies of a book when 2,257 people have signed up for the same giveaway, but it does happen, and here's proof.
*****
I hope you can make out the hawk in this photograph. I had gone to feed my boss' dogs for her this morning, and on my way back saw this magnificent creature perched on the fence around the high school's parking lot that's near my home. I couldn't believe it was so still, and turned around to go back to find it still there. What I'd missed on the first pass was that the mate had just made a kill, to which it was attending on the ground. I really do geek out over this stuff, y'all, but then I was raised on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and I still miss Marlin Perkins, who outgeeked every present day geek there is. If you'll click on that hyperlink, you'll see a particularly harrowing episode of that great show. But come back afterwards or I will just be crushed.
*****
This was another sign of spring I discovered today. The tiller came out and this guy is getting around to do his planting. I'm not sure what's going in those beds this year, but I do hope I'll have some vote. I need cucumbers. I really get to craving them this time of year, and I eat 'em whole. They are really good for you, and if you have any doubt about that at all, watch this.
Note: When I posted this video, I couldn't help but notice that the screen shot is of Macka B. holding up some okra, which I also hope makes it into this year's garden. Just in case anybody's with a tiller is paying attention.....
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I'm also out walking again, after a hiatus that has lasted too long. Part of that is down to having really zapped my ankle back in the fall and the impossibly long time it's taken to truly get it healed again, but it's at least 95%, and I expect that's as good as it's going to get. You work with what you have, and decide that it doesn't matter if you've gotten fat again (don't argue with me about that - I am owning it and naming it). Working with what I have, where I am means my walks aren't particularly challenging, and the best part of them is heading out to see what there is to see again. Yesterday I opted to head out to the Blount Cultural Park, where I used to get a fabulous cardio workout taking the "big hill" on the other side of the footbridge. I wasn't planning on doing that yesterday because I know I'm too out of shape, but when I saw that the footbridge was closed I was bummed! I hope it's a temporary thing, but the setting is still so pretty. 
After one short lap at Blount, I decided to check out Ida Belle Young Park again. It provides a well-maintained flat walking track, and interesting glimpses at how nature gets along without us. In the streams that run through it, which serve as a filtration system and are therefore horribly littered, I spied several sets of nesting ducks and geese. The other thing I spied there were children on the playground with their parents -- all of whom were talking on their cellphones. Every single one of them. I can't go totally old-fogey on that, but I would very much wish those young parents could know how fast these days will be in the rearview mirror, with no way to go back.
*****
Before I go from preachin' to meddlin, it's time to stop and smell my own rose,
delivered to me yesterday from my back yard by my gardener.
delivered to me yesterday from my back yard by my gardener.
*****
And finally, this. This is the reason I write this blog, really. It's for the people I'll be part of who'll never know me, but who might find themselves curious about me somewhere down the road.
****
WHAT I FINISHED READING THIS WEEK
Rage Against the Dying by Becky Masterman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Read on Kindle
Ex-FBI agent Brigid Quinn, in less talented hands than Becky Masterman, would have been the worst kind of caricature, but Masterman clearly figured out how to exercise the sort of restraint that would keep that from happening.
Quinn has given up her career and married a gentle, widowed, retired priest, whose house"came with a set of Pugs, which are sort of a cross between Peter Lorre and a bratwurst." When, however, she is made aware that a man has confessed to being the serial killer suspected of being responsible for the disappearance of Quinn's protege years before, she gets caught up in the investigation. This is not a novel for the squeamish, but if you've got marginally thicker skin there is so much here to really get excited about. Quinn is 58 (like me!) and she's kick-ass tough trying hard to soften her hard edges because she loves her husband so and wants this very different life to work out for herself.
WHAT I'M READING NOW:
1965 Pulitzer Prize Winner The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
One final note. I have no idea why some of the text showed up blue. I've tried to fix it five times.
Life's too short to go for number six.
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