Blossoms, butterflies, droplets, flies and tiny, yellow-centered daffodils — pieces of April promising new life despite the dry conditions.
Flowers
The sky was cloudy most of the day with occasional sunshine slipping through. The temperature got up to 80 F, and our early blooming pear tree popped its first bloom. A few of the red tulips are blooming and a lot more tulips are thinking about it — with the positive signs of spring, I got out my macro lens. I also got the rest of the iris separated and planted this afternoon, and ran drippers and soaker hoses, but I really need to irrigate. I’ll go out at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning to see if there’s water in the irrigation ditch, and if the gate’s unlocked, but I’m not counting on either.
I know there is a bit of “déjà vu all over again” in today’s spread, but the roses were speaking to me, and another super-wide photo of the cleared property with a bare cottonwood and a stormy sky was too much to resist. The late afternoon sun shining through the bird’s coleus created interesting patterns, as well.
Cleaning out a travel trailer this morning, I found an old scale and iron that made for a nice vintage B&W photo. We had strong winds all day today that blew clouds overhead. At one point the clouds were thick and low, and looked like they might produce a little rain, but alas no, only cold, dry wind.
Today I ended up with a mix of flowers, a sparrow, and a couple of experimental shots with pearls. The dried iceberg looked like a painting in the late afternoon light, and the flowers on the table were vibrant in the afternoon sun shining through the bay windows. While I was out walking around the yard before sundown, a sparrow kept flying around behind me and landing in a nearby tree. At one point I was standing in the shadow of the black bamboo, and the sparrow flew out of the tree, made a U-turn, and flew right back towards me, and almost flew into me, swerving around me at the last moment. I was dressed in black, standing in the shadow of the black bamboo, so I think it actually didn’t see me until it almost flew into me. After that, it sat in the tree across from where I was standing and gave me mad dogs.
There were a lot of band tour buses parked out behind the office this afternoon, so I looked up on the Sunshine Theater’s schedule to see who was playing tonight. As usual I had never heard of or heard any of the groups listed, so I looked up samples of their music on Youtube. The first group in the list is Emmure and the music video I chose at random was what I would call hyper-grunge with caveman lyrics, although to be fair, cavemen were probably much more clear and articulate. After a few painful seconds on listening to Emmure, I looked up Whitechapel, the next group on the list, and the random song I chose sounded just like the song I listened to by Emmure. I had to do a double take to make sure I hadn’t reloaded Emmure — I hadn’t. Obey The Brave and The Plot In You also sounded the same to me. If I got it right, these bands tour together as Brothers of Brutality and from the snippets of the songs I listened to, they are brutal.
I guess I’m getting too old, because I don’t know why the groups want to subject themselves to themselves, or why anyone else, of any age, would want to subject themselves to the Brothers of Brutality, but there is an appeal that goes beyond both my understanding and sensitivities. I left the office a little after 5:00 pm tonight, a bit later than I had intended since I was supposed to pick up Laurie and Tristan at school at 5:00 pm. When I walked out the door the cold hit me like a stinging slap on my face, and I shivered as I walked to the car. While I was sitting at the light at 2nd and Gold, I got a text from Laurie that read “Hypothermia!” The light turned green and as I drove by the Sunshine theater, I noticed that many of the kids who waiting in line for The Brothers of Brutality concert were wearing short sleeve shirts and shorts, and many of the girls who were wearing jeans had slits all over them and plenty of flesh exposed to the cold air. Maybe being brutalized by the elements is a required to properly experience The Bothers of Brutality? Call me old, call me a prude, but it’s much too brutal and mysterious for me.