You are currently browsing the daily archive for April 18th, 2007.
And so, God willing, I get to spend the next 365 days the same age as Jackie Robinson’s number. How cool is that?!
(Heh: So cool that, despite watching the Cubs’ and Cardinals’ games Sunday, during which players from all the teams involved wore No. 42 in tribute to the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking “the color barrier” in Major League Baseball, it didn’t even occur to me that I was going to be turning 42 today until I asked our sports editor, Eric, earlier this week, “Do I look like I’m going to be 42?” — to which he more or less took the Fifth and then chirped, “Hey, that’s Jackie Robinson’s number!”)
On a whim, I took a little drive to the country this evening, past the house where Sheila spied some poppies last spring.
Happy birthday to ME because I found them. I even rang the doorbell to ask permission to shoot; no one answered, so I went ahead and snapped a few photos.
How could anyone not love poppies?
The good news is, I can now immeDIately recognize that vile weed, poison ivy. Plus, I’m working hard to learn the characteristics of poison oak and poison sumac, as well.
The bad news is, I have several clusters of poison ivy growing in my back yard and possibly a batch or two of poison oak. And, who knows, perhaps some poison sumac, too!
Actually, I think I had a bit of poison something on the back of my right leg a couple of weeks ago. If so, I “caught” it the day of the storm when I was out trying to shoot The Last Hurrah of this year’s dogwood blooms: I saw a bunch of white flowers on a tree in a small patch of “residential woods,” so I waded into the weeds to get close enough for a decent photo — and then I looked down, just in time to see random growths of poison ivy nearby. I snapped a shot or two and then tiptoed out, hoping I’d avoided any contact … and I believe I did, mostly.
Then, of course, along came The Day of the Ticks, and ever since then I’ve been too busy scratching various tick bites to notice any previous skin irritations!
At my next-door neighbor’s house:
