These little barrel-shaped cacti aren’t very common around here but I seek to know where they are in my stomping grounds because a) they are absolutely paved with the most evil spines ever: Surgically fine and brittle and hooked and barbed to boot, and b) they have the prettiest spring flowers in the whole desert. They don’t bloom every year, but…
This looks like it’s going to be a good year for them.
Night before last I got to bed late and woke (with some help from you-know-who) far too early. As a result, by 7pm I was nodding. I’m a big boy and can decide my own bedtime, so I said screw it and went straight to bed. And straight to sleep. Meaning, of course, that I was awake at 4 after nine straight refreshing hours of sleep. I don’t often get active before Tobie does but this morning he had to follow me for once.
Also we’re heading into a rainy week, it seems: First thunderstorm of a projected several happened yesterday, so the day didn’t dawn cloud-free. And it made for the prettiest sunrise in a while, noted during the morning walkie.
Wasn’t sure the camera on the “new” iPhone would catch the sunrays, but it kind of did. And speaking of the new phone…
I am, obviously, not a customer for the latest and greatest of every generation of smartphone. For a long time I was one of those boomers who delighted in bragging that he didn’t have and wouldn’t have one. Of course I dropped both claims about five and a half years ago when Landlady gifted me her cast-off iPhone 6. It is, as she predicted, transformative technology: It changes the way you spend your day, not always in good ways. Like everyone else, I was quickly hooked. But neato as it is, the 6 was old when I got it and lately (I don’t know which) either being deliberately crippled by its software or just physically going downhill. In particular it was getting harder and harder to keep it connected in our patch of boonies which is at the best of times pretty damned far from the nearest cell tower.
Not long ago, Big Brother gifted me his cast-off iPhone 8+. And in among my usual boomer complaints (“The button is here now when it’s supposed to be here! Dang it!”) I found that it is also more powerful in unexpected ways. The (originally excellent) camera is notably better. I get a lot more range out of a bluetooth earpiece. And the phone works in places the old one never worked before even at the best of times, like…
…Ian’s front yard, which was always an absolute dead zone. There’s a signal booster inside the Cave but it never used to be any use outside the Cave itself. Now I can listen to podcasts while doing every phase of laundry. Still not in the powershed, though. The “new” phone is better, not omnipotent. 🙂
The sunrise photo is one that you should get framed. I like the look of Tobie in Ian’s yard, sitting there just surveying his domain. 🙂
Agree
Nice to see you’re still getting mileage from those white towels with the red center stripe. Don’t recall how old they are, but I just ordered replacements for mine last month, as the old ones were getting kinda thin.
Has Tobie encountered any of those cacti yet?
No, Tobie’s pretty good about avoiding cactus.
Interesting. Tobie is at Ian’s, and so is your bike, and so is laundry. Are you, as a one-legged kind of dude, so damn dexterous that you can balance a laundry basket, keep a big dog on a leash (you say you can’t let him off it), and manage to ride a bicycle uphill? My God, man! Kudos!
😀 The bike stays at Ian’s. It’s the only place I can keep it out of the weather.