God, I Feel Old

I just looked on iTunes to see if Neil deGrasse Tyson's Serius XM talk show is a podcast.  It is, so I'm downloading selected episodes (I'll let you know how I like it once I've listened to a couple), but I found it in the pages of the AARP Bulletin, a newsletter for old people.  Neil deGrasse Tyson is the Carl Sagan of today.  He's the director of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC and the host of a new Cosmos show and his enthusiasm about the universe and science in general is contagious.  Liking science-y things doesn't make me feel old but reading every page of the AARP thing kind of does because now I fit the demographic and can kind of see myself in the shoes of the people in the articles.

I went to the zoo this morning and I swear to God I was the oldest person there.  Everyone else was a young mom pushing a kid or two in a stroller AND, to add insult to injury, the giraffes weren't hungry so they didn't come over to be fed.  What a gyp.  The chance to feed the giraffes whenever I want to is a big part of the reason I sprang for a membership this year.  I did see a gorgeous male peacock pretty close, he didn't have his tail spread but still he was beautiful.  One of the llamas has a skin condition on his head so he has no hair on it.  He looks like of like I imagined the thestrals in the Harry Potter novels looked, skeletal with black skin stretched over bones.  Eesh.  He's not very friendly so I didn't feel bad about

Nov. 2014, not today!

not hand-feeding him llama chow.

The lawn mowers came today--finally.  I was about ready to see if I couldn't comb the grass, maybe part it along the line from the house to the street...  Seems they had equipment issues last week (a phone call would have been nice) so Durwood said the guy went over the lawn three times in order to mow down the long grass.  I hope this was just a hiccup and the rest of the mowing season will be smooth.

May 26--Richard Pasley, Rippled Water.  It looked like seaweed curled around a branch.  Gina stood with her shoes almost touching the water, squinting against the glare.  The day was cold but sunny and she could tell that the very edge of the lake had frozen overnight.  The water had to be cold, too cold to go wading but she knew whatever that was didn't belong in there.  "What are you doing?"  The deep voice made her jump.  She turned around to see Mac Lewis standing just at the tree line, hands shoved in the pockets of his tight Levis.  "There's something in the lake, something caught on a branch and I'm trying figure out what it is."  His steps crunched across the pebble shore.  He stopped beside her and looked where she pointed.  She heard his swift intake of breath and felt his hand on her shoulder.  "That's not a something, it's a someone."  He turned her away from the water.  "Go sit on that log and keep watch.  I'm going to climb up to the road and call the sheriff."  Gina did as she was told and thought the day had gotten a lot colder while she waited for Mac to return.

It's so darned late to be blogging I am absolutely certain that I won't have a darned thing to talk about tomorrow morning but I'll try because I'm just that nice.  Oh, and I kind of like the podcast, it's dorky and the one I'm listening to is about the Mythbusters, I'm a huge fan.  Nighty-night.
--Barbara