How Random Can You Get?

I don't have photographic proof (for those in the "if you can't see it, it didn't happen" category) but I came home from work last night, grabbed the trash bin from the curb to roll it into the garage, and it wasn't emptied.  I left it on the curb.  I noticed that the renter's bin was still out, checked, and it wasn't emptied either.  I called the neighbor on the other side whose bins were still out, theirs' weren't emptied either.  I called the Sanitation Dept. (by then they were closed for the day, of course) and left a message that we got missed, that all the rest of the houses on the street had gotten picked up, but we got missed.  I noticed when I drove back downtown to the City Band concert that there were a few random bins still on curbs in other parts of the neighborhood.  This morning I was all set to call the city to talk to a real person about this when I heard the garbage truck come down our street, dump the bins, and speed off.  I haven't got a clue what happened but I'm glad it's gone, trash smells bad fast when it's warm outside.

The City Band concert was enjoyable.  It was the first of the season and was very well attended.  And no bugs!  (I probably shouldn't have said that; I'll jinx it for next time)  I even found a parking place within easy walking distance.  I love having a smaller vehicle than Durwood's aircraft carrier of a van, although the van has its positives too.  I got to chat with an old high school pal who plays in the band for a few minutes.  It was good to visit and catch up a bit.  See the lady in turquoise in the lower left of the second picture?  She's a grandma walking a grandbaby to sleep.  That's how Norman Rockwell the concerts are.  I love them.

The sky was gorgeous on the drive home.  Naturally my camera and phone were both in the back seat when I drove across the bridge so no dramatic panoramic sunset shots, only this peek at the pretty sky through the neighbor's trees.

Lots of buds on Dad's rose.  Now if only they all bloom before the Japanese beetles come to munch them up.




Last month there was a big article in the paper that a local company had asked another local company to make a big nut for them to mount outside their new business.  The business is called Packer Fastener and I looked down from a red light the other morning and there it was.  So here's proof that there's at least one big nut in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

June 18--Earl Ripling, ER105 Map.  Hannah loved maps.  She scoured the dusty corners of used book stores and went to estate sales in search of them.  Her first ambition was to be a cartographer, a maker of maps.  For some reason she never pursued it but she never lost her love of those pieces of paper with their thin blue and red lines and dots of cities.  She liked the topographical maps with their elevation lines, imagining hiking up the hills.  The wall map she unrolled had oceans of blue water and the continents shaded from red through golden yellow to dark green but over the colors lay an intriguing band of engraving almost like that on money.  As she turned it this way and that and squinted at it she realized that the engraving led her eye from place to place, leading her to spots on the land.  She took out a blank Mercator projection map and began to trace the path.

The lawn mowing guy came this morning.  I'm beginning to love seeing him come and I'm losing my guilt at not doing the mowing myself.  In a couple weeks I can start losing my guilt over hiring someone to clean the house.  I'm looking forward to that.
--Barbara