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We went upstream today instead of down. New terrain to explore. We tried something new at the end of our walk. Part of the path is like a tunnel through the trees, so I closed my eyes and let Ondine pull me along. She's pretty reliable (though sometimes she stops to smell things), so for a minute or two at a time I got to listen to the birds and wind and our mutual footsteps. It was nice to give my eyes a break and rely solely on my other senses for a few minutes.

happy mother's day!

onion flower

good stay

crane wave

starmaking

v-iii-xi

Went for a bike ride. It's been a while. Nice day for it - right around 70 degrees. That won't last.

whatcha reading xi

"Then what," asked Trunbull, very slowly, as he softly picked a flower, "what is the difference between Christ and Satan?"

"It is quite simple," replied the Highlander. "Christ descended into hell; Satan fell into it."

"Does it make much odds?" asked the free-thinker.

"It makes all the odds," said the other. "One of them wanted to go up and went down; the other wanted to go down and went up. A god can be humble, a devil can only be humbled."

- The Ball and the Cross, G.K. Chesterton

simple gifts

Ondine and I got hot on our Sunday morning river hike, but after we stopped at my favorite "quiet place" the wind gusted and cooled us off. We weren't alone out there. :)

I just heard on the news that this October-April was our third driest on record. We had five inches of precipitation for the seven-month period instead of the normal 17. The average temperature for April was eight degrees higher than normal.

(Later in the afternoon the temperature dropped from the low 90s to the low 60s. We have a 50 percent chance of rain tonight...we'll see!)

nicknames

Ondine has a new nickname: Lilu. As the diva says in The Fifth Element, "She is more fragile than she seems. She needs your help, and your love."

Other nicknames include Bananas ("this [blank] is Bananas, bee ay en ay en ay ess") and Sen (after Chihiro in Spirited Away).

Mrrmmph.

yeah, this one's spinning

This storm was over Bastrop, about 50 miles south-southeast of here. The radar was showing rotation on its southwest side, but I don't think anything developed. (This is the smaller of two storms on the radar this evening - the gnarly stuff is 80 miles north of here, up around Waco.)

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