Friday, February Twenty-Fifth

Doggone it, I’ve never had a computer virus before, but there’s a first time for everything, huh? I guess I should consider myself lucky that I’ve surfed this long, the last few years virtually unprotected, and not “contracted” anything, but there you go: My preferred computer for working on the Op Op is in the shop.

Fortunately, I have two computers; unfortunately, it was my laptop that got sick; fortunately, my desktop is fine; unfortunately, the desktop is upstairs, and with my foot in a cast, getting up there isn’t very convenient. (Hell, with one foot out of commission, nothing can be convenient.) But fortunately, I’ve decided to crutch up and down the steps, anyway.

Unfortunately, I had a number of posts in the works—ready to put online, in fact!—that existed only on the laptop. I have high hopes that they’ll still be there when I get my laptop back. (Knock on wood; touch metal; toss salt over my shoulder.) Meanwhile, you are treated to the lameness of this-here post.

*Sigh.*

More than ever, I have to admit, getting out of the house is becoming extraordinarily exciting. (Yes, I could drive, but I know I had better not—cops and insurance companies wouldn’t think it was very funny.)

Yesterday, for instance, I rode with Sue to Columbia and got my hair cut! Wow! Such excitement! And I spent the morning on campus at the Museum of Art and Archaeology! They’ve got a really good show going on right now, of a summer art colony that existed in Ste. Genevieve during the thirties.

The ride to Columbia, the art museum, the haircut—that was some doin’s, I tell ya, and I would have done more, if the weather hadn’t gotten all crappy on me. (N.b.: Crutching in snow, sleet, and slush is only better than crutching on smooth wet tiles or on ice.)

Saturday was another big outing—Sue got us tickets to see the final performance of a stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility at the Stephens Playhouse, and we met my folks there.

Each time I go to a Stephens performance, I’m impressed and greatly entertained. They do things so well there! And every time, I come away thinking, “We need to go to more of these. This is art; this is real; this is the kind of thing that makes me proud to be human. We should do this more often!”

Okay, let’s make this perfectly clear: I’m not saying that it’s a good thing to be gimped up. But I have to admit that it sure makes you appreciate simple things a whole lot more.

Honey-Glazed Cicadas

Hah! Now I’ve got your attention! I bet you were thinking this was going to be a recipe!

Nope—this one fits into the category of “natural history notes.” (Aren’t you relieved?)




I took this picture about a week ago; I was in Columbia for an appointment, then picked up lunch and met Sue at Stephens. We had our sandwiches sitting on the wall next to the lovely Eero Saarinen–designed Firestone-Baars Chapel, in the shade of some pines.

Oh! Did I mention that we got me a new camera? Well, it’s used. Off of eBay. It’s another Nikon Coolpix 4500, just like the old one. A dinosaur compared to newer models, but let me assure you, being able to swivel the camera body makes up for its age. (Especially when one is attempting to photograph a spider hanging hip-high in her web—from below.)

Luckily I had the camera with me that day, because this was a remarkable sight. There were several cicada molts attached to the trees. (I guess a plenitude of cicada nymphs in an area is one measure of how undisturbed and healthy a plot of land is.)

And these pine trees were weeping sap, as they do, from places where they’d been trimmed.

So this isn’t really honey—it’s pine sap.

But it looks like honey, and it’s just as sticky!

Fortunately, the adult cicadas got clear of the sap before it oozed upon their spent exoskeletons. I mean, there are enough dangers out there for the adult cicadas; they don't need any pine sap to be threatening them, too.

Ah, but that’s for another post . . . stay tuned.