In the morning

 

 

I grind the coffee beans and brew two cups of coffee.  Judy’s goes in an insulated cup with a lid.  Mine is an open glass cup.  As I top off the coffee in my cup, that’s when I think about Uncle Doug.  Not really my uncle, an older cousin.  And not a lot older, just the age of my second oldest brother.  But in my middle teenage years, in a random conversation, he called me Uncle Steve, and I called him Uncle Doug, and it stuck.

 

I think of him as I carry my full cup of coffee into the living room and set it down on the coffee table.  Doug would occasionally visit us when we lived in Colorado.  The kids were little and Uncle Doug was always a great hit because he paid attention to them.  And they could legitimately call him Uncle Doug.  We’d shuffle kids in bedrooms so there would be one open for him.  He’d stay a week or two, then be on his way back to Southern California.  He usually visited in the fall, close to the holidays, and several times got delayed coming or going by freak snowstorms.  One year, I spent an entire night at Stapleton Airport to pick him up during a blizzard, while his airplane circled, got rerouted, landed to refuel in another state, and finally made it back to Denver to land.  The only real information I got about his progress as that night progressed was from the pay phone with Judy on the other end of the line, and the best information she could get was already hours old by the time she got it.

 

Meanwhile, us all enjoying his visit, he taught us the dice game of Farkle.  Good fun to play a dice game that makes the kids giggle every time they say it.  And he taught us the card game Bullshit.  There was a more family friendly name, I Doubt It, but what a special treat for the kids to get to throw down their cards and yell Bullshit and not get in trouble.  What triggers all this for me is the full cup of coffee.  Doug would pitch in around the house and kitchen, naturally absorbing chores like he lived there.  In the morning the pot of coffee would be brewing in the Mr. Coffee maker, and I was amazed how he could get the water so perfect in the tank that the pot of brewed coffee would be so full right to the brim.  When he poured his cup, it would be the same way.  Coffee right to the brim.  Getting the most of it I guess.  I don’t know how he didn’t leave a trail of spilled coffee through the house into the living room.  I carry my less-than-that filled cup of coffee to the living room now to accomplish the same goal and still puzzle about how he did it.

 

 

Tiger Swallowtail

 

 

 

Ruby-throated Hummingbird?

 

 

Most of the time they don’t look like it.

 

 

The males have that dark throat.  The females and youngsters don’t even have that.

 

The male hummingbirds have to flash that red throat, and the lighting has to be just right, to see it really light up.  I’ve been waiting and watching, without much success to catch the moment.  Then it occurred to me.  That brilliant flash?  Maybe it’s more of a springtime thing.  Then, the birds are on their way north to claim territory, mate, and raise babies.  They’re all fired up.  On the way south, they’re done for the year.  Their colors are more muted.  They’re taking the rest of the winter off.  That said, I did catch a couple shots of one agitated male revealing that yes, he truly is a ruby-throat.

 

 

 

My memory

 

 

My memory is really good.  I remember incidents from throughout my life.  Like kindergarten when I was five.  Marlena and Judy next door.  Jimmy Olson, my best friend down on the corner in Seal Beach when I was eight years old.  He had a white rat that would crawl around on his shoulders inside his T-shirt.  He had a reel to reel eight millimeter movie projector, but we weren’t any good at threading the film so the cartoons didn’t come out backwards or upside down.  My phone number.  (It only had five digits.)  Crystal clear.  But now, it’s a little harder to hold on to new stuff.  I meet somebody, learn their name, and the next day it’s gone.  I have to hear their name again.  Maybe several times.  Or I set a reminder for the next day, but when it goes off the next day, I can’t remember what it’s for.

 

I’ve figured out what the problem is.  I’m so good at remembering things, I’ve filled the memory bank.  That’s it, and there is a solution.  Pick out a bunch of stuff from my early childhood to forget.  Make that go away, and it will free up room in the bank for new memories.  Then I won’t lose count at two again when I’m putting three scoops of coffee beans in the grinder.

 

The carport

 

 

It worked just fine for a Jeep and golf cart.  It’s not quite deep enough for the Transit Van.  No problem, though.  We back the van in, the front end sticks out to the north, and we put windshield and window covers on the driver’s compartment and everything else is in the shade.

 

Sweet.  (I don’t need to go in and out the driver’s door.  I can get up, walk through, and go in and out the side door.)

 

Now, one might think that if we want to relocate the van forward or back to get in and out of the back end, or retrieve something from behind it, we might have to undo those window covers so we can see out, but no.  Fully enclosed in the driver’s compartment cocoon, we can’t see out the windshield or the side mirrors.  No problem.  We have that screen in the middle. 

 

Cameras on the outside.  Push the button and we get front, back, and 360 degree overhead views.

 

 

We can see exactly where we are and where we want to be.

 

 

Now the Tesla and the carport.  There’s a different issue.

 

We have the same all-around camera views, but that post right behind it ensures that the little car doesn’t get in the shade at all.

 

 

That post has got to go.

 

And the beat goes on

 

 

 

About 50 wingbeats per second.

 

And when they’re flying, a heart rate of 20 beats per second.

 

The Lantana

 

 

Crushing it.

 

As is the Mexican Firebush behind it.

 

Hummingbirds favor those long tubular flowers.