Uncategorized | aLightningbug

Happy New Year!

01 Jan 2016 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Uncategorized Tags: happy new year 2016

I don’t know how it got to be 2016 already. At this rate it will be 2017 in about a month. Our cats seem completely unphased by the passing of the year. They ate dinner, so it’s sleepy time for them.

Wishing everyone a wonderful year filled with fun, family, friends, laughter, and new things to wow and amaze you (in a good way).

Happy 2016, folks!

Wrap It Up, November

30 Nov 2015 2 Comments

by alightningbug in NaBloPoMo, Uncategorized, Writing Tags: November, That's a Wrap

And that’s it for November.

Not quite as many posts as my goal, but I’ll take it.

NaBloPoMo.

Time!

Advance Warning

26 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Food, NaBloPoMo, Uncategorized Tags: advance knowledge, burping, farting, politeness, social norms, Thanksgiving

Earlier this Thanksgiving Day I burped. With all the food eaten and beverages consumed today I’m thinkin’ I’m not the only one. I hadn’t even eaten our Thanksgiving meal yet. It was a soda burp.

In my case, it lead to a discussion on whether or not people have advance warning before they burp (or fart for that matter), so that they can close their mouth or even excuse themselves to another room before cutting loose.

Years ago I had this same discussion with a co-worker, and dear friend, who complained that her husband (now ex) farted right there in their living room in front of her. On the couch even!

She’d tell him that he should go to the restroom. He’d argue that he had no advance warning, and therefore had no choice but to fart wherever he was at the time. She was somewhat offended by this. Her thinking was that he was just being lazy about where he dispensed his farts, and the claim of “no advance warning” was his unbelievable excuse.

In comes me. I was a little nervous about defending my friend’s husband as she seemed pretty certain that farting in front of others was uncouth. And really, her husband was a little uncouth sometimes in general, so it wasn’t a great stretch of the imagination to take his actions that way.

But no matter his other social manners I had to defend him because I hated to see him being unfairly accused. I wouldn’t want to be unfairly accused either. I too get very little advance warning that I might burp or “break wind” (if we want to be a little more polite here). So I told her that I rarely know ahead of time.

It was a surprise to her that anybody else would make this claim. While to me it was a surprise that other people get advance warning most of the time like my friend apparently did. It’s like some kind of magical fart-burp-ESP. Not me.

I almost never get a building of pressure to give me warning. Just, “frrrrp!” I’m sorry! I might shift my weight. Stand up. Sit down. And frrrrpppp!

Today’s burp was the same, I was breathing in, breathing out, just like all the other times I breath, everyday, day after day.

Today, instead of the normal exhale that comes 99.9999% of the time, out came, “BRRRRURPPP!” I said “excuse me.” And, because I have the sense of humor of a five-year-old, I laughed.

I think I tend to laugh louder when I have zero warning. It surprises me. It feels like aliens have momentarily taken control of my body causing the burp. It tickles a little as it comes out. Then the aliens leave, and I once again have control of my body. Except for the laughter. (I can’t always control that either.)

I’m pretty sure the giggling kind of nullifies the “excuse me.” And it doesn’t help my argument that I had no advance warning. But I didn’t. Really!

My only advance warning was that I drank soda pop earlier, and that I was breathing. I didn’t feel it ahead of time at all (and don’t most of the time). And for those rare times I do feel it ahead of time, I try to be polite, but I don’t feel like I have time to go to another room.

I briefly might know I’m going to burp. Then I burp. The End.

I’m probably not a very good role model for my daughter in this way. But I do believe her when she claims she didn’t know it was coming (except after the third time in a row I get suspicious).

Happy Thanksgiving Folks!

(This post was also for NaBloPoMo.)

Paris and Everywhere

14 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Uncategorized

My heart goes out to all who have been affected by the tragic events in Paris yesterday and in Lebanon earlier in the week. Really, my heart goes out to everyone, ever, who has been a victim of senseless violence. And that’s what violence almost always is — senseless. (I won’t try to figure out when it might make sense — maybe never.) More

Grasshopper

15 Oct 2015 3 Comments

by alightningbug in Plant Life and Balcony Gardening, Uncategorized Tags: balcony graden, container garden, grasshopper, insects, locust, totems

While watering my balcony plants this morning I discovered I had a visitor. A grasshopper was perched high on my Celebrity tomato plant. (That’s the name of a hybrid tomato — it isn’t that my tomato plant is famous). We’re four flights up on this side of the building, so some of our balcony visitors are quite a surprise.

My first thought was, “oh cool, aren’t grasshoppers good luck?” Then my scientific brain kicked in. It said, “don’t think of it as so much of a lucky grasshopper think of it as more of a plague of locusts.”

Thanks science brain — always there to burst my bubble. Grasshopper on the hearth — good luck. Locust on your crops — bad.

Grasshopper or locust — those things do eat plants. I know the frost will get my container garden soon anyway, but I don’t want my few tomatoes to get chomped on in the meantime. So I decide to take a few photos (he’s really cool looking) and then relocate my little intruder.

Thinking I can just scoop him (or her) up with my hands and fling him over the railing of the balcony, I go for it. This startles the grasshopper, who can indeed hop very forcefully. He jumps off the plant, banging right into my chest as if to say, “back off, b****, this plant is mine.”

I scream, loudly and flail my arms at my chest in case he’s still there. He is not. He apparently bounced right off my chest and back into my tomato plant. So now he’s still there, and I need to remove him.

I know at this point that using my hands is not the way to go. So I pick up two unused drainage dishes from nearby and use them to form a sort of clamshell over and under the grasshopper. It works very nicely. The makeshift clamshell holds just long enough that I can fling him over the side of the balcony. Since we’re four flights up, I’m not sure if he’ll survive. Never fear. That’s when he sprouts big fluttery wings and uses them to glide softly down — all the while looking back at me like, “you may have won this time but I’ll be back.”

Searching a bit online, I guess they are lucky in many Asian and Native American cultures. (It might be crickets on hearths that are considered lucky though. Meh, close enough. Probably better for all of us that I didn’t try to bring him inside. The cats would go wild!.)

My search found this: Grasshopper Totem. It was actually cool to have him visit. And it just figures that a symbol of good luck visits my plant, and I rationalized that I should throw him over the balcony. Maybe I’m okay if he has a little nibble, he may have left some good-luck grasshopper poop, but I still don’t want him to eat much of my tomatoes. There’s plenty of stuff to eat down below.

Not Done Yet, The Tomato & Pepper Edition

11 Oct 2015 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Plant Life and Balcony Gardening, Uncategorized Tags: balcony gardening, tomatoes in fall

I picked two newly ripened Patio tomatoes yesterday morning. There are several varieties of green ones left, and about five tiny green ones that just started on my Celebrity tomato plant. So, hopefully, it’s not over yet. All the rain and cool temperatures the week before last had me worried.

There are a bunch of jalapeño peppers that just started growing too.

I don’t know if the new little green tomatoes or peppers will fully grow and ripen — probably not. But I hope the get some size before a hard freeze hits us.

I picked some of my green tomatoes before Hurricane Joaquin hit or, more accurately, didn’t hit here.

I may fry a couple but what I did with some of them was dice them and add them to a mix of hot peppers in vinegar and spices. So, yes, I pickled them. They were a really nice surprise. They’re tart, spicy hot from the peppers, and have a nice crunch. I could see adding this mix to many types of food for a nice pop of flavor.

Also I picked most of my ripe tobasco peppers and put them in vinegar. They are beautiful colors — yellow greens to yellow orange and finally reds. This variety is so juicy it’s almost like tiny bottles of hot pepper sauce grow right on the plant. Even the stems and “caps” easily pop right off a ripe pepper. There’s no need to cut them. They pack a wollop!

What the Storm Takes

01 Oct 2015 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Plant Life and Balcony Gardening, Uncategorized Tags: autumn, balcony garden, balcony gardening, hurricane joaquin, seasons

Tuesday’s storm blew over one of my tomato plants. It was a little top heavy. That’s the risk of not being rooted in the earth or tied to the balcony. I’ll have to fix that. Two hard green tomatoes flung off the plant and rolled under the table & chairs on our balcony. Maybe they were ducking for cover.

I’ve been hoping the few tomatoes we have left would ripen and be yummy. Now I might have to look into green tomato recipes like pickled tomatoes or the classic fried green variety. I hope I can still coax some to ripen on vines or the windowsill if nothing else.

Bonnie Plants just posted on their Facebook page that now is the time to pick green tomatoes still on the vines. “Nooooooo!” Where? Everywhere? Or just up North? I still want to leave some on the vines to grow and ripen, but Mother Nature may have other ideas for them. Maybe I’m a little ahead of the times with my two green tomatoes.

We’ve had more rain here this week than most of the summer combined with the exception of early on when it seemed to rain every single afternoon. It’s like bookends.

Hurricane Joaquin may hit inland near here in the next few days. Or not. Who can say. The rain seems to be announcing it’s approach as if a red carpet were rolled out. But winds change. The scruffy superstar may not show up inland. It may only rain a lot.

I’m both a little relieved and a little worried that my mom and stepdad have moved out of their old house and into a newer house that’s farther away. The new home isn’t yet storm-tested but the old had a beautiful large oak with branches over and behind the house. It is somehow both protective and precarious.

In the meantime, I’ll need to move our table & chairs to someplace less exposed just in case part of the storm reaches us. Our balcony gets very windy. I’ll also need to move or tie down any remaining plants. The rest remains to be seen.