Darkoshi

The killdeer chicks must have hatched. I saw & heard the 2 adult birds along with at least 3 small ones cheeping about in the shade of a tree.

Worked late today. Left the office a bit before 11pm. The ..critters.. in the trees making their noises - I don't even know what they are (note to self: look up the critter sounds; do cicadas make 2 different kinds of sounds?), but the sound is so relaxing and peaceful for me. And the quality of the night - the temperature, amount of humidity, scents as well as sounds - reminded me of similar nights experienced when I was a child.

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Outside the gate on my driveway, something odd. Reddish brown spots, like something bled along there. They don't look like rust spots, as they aren't directly under the gate. Maybe a dog was wandering around bleeding. Or maybe a dog caught some prey and carried it, bleeding, in its mouth.

Then I remembered something odd from yesterday. Driving home, I had passed a guy jogging along the side of the street. It's rare to see a jogger in that area. He had orange shorts on. The odd part was a black scarf over his mouth. It had white circles on it which somehow reminded me of those ghost/ghoul masks. It's summer and was probably at least 85 degrees outside. Why would someone jog with a scarf over their mouth in summer? It's not a dusty area. I wondered if it was some kind of gang initiation.

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For the past month, my LJ has been getting spam comments on old posts, all of the same style but with different wording and URLs, and from different IP numbers. At least one every other day. All comments on my LJ are screened by default, so it's not doing anyone any good.

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Last Friday, the day I found out about my sister moving... when I went outside for lunch and a walk, I got caught in a rainstorm and got soaked. The forecast had foretold a clear sunny day, so although it started to get stormy and sprinkle, I didn't pay it much attention, other than bringing my umbrella along. My mind was on other things. Then suddenly it was pouring down, really pouring down, and even standing under a tree with my umbrella didn't help much. After it finally let up, I walked to our nearby Fitness Center to dry myself off with paper towels. It sounded like I was the only person in the building. Besides the paper towels, there was a blow-dryer that I used to dry my shirt. That was an experience. But my pants and shoes were still quite wet, and I didn't want to wear wet socks and shoes the rest of the day. So I drove home and worked the rest of day from there.

Went grocery shopping yesterday. Red chard (so pretty - the combination of reddish purplish stalks and green leafy parts), later cooked for dinner. Big sweet ripe raspberries - they drew my eye as they were larger and darker-colored than the ones in the adjoining cartons. But they really were raspberries. Their taste reminds me of ones picked wild in Germany.

In Germany, vanilla ice cream with hot raspberries is a common dessert. The combination truly tastes wonderful.

Right before entering the 2nd store at 6pm, nearby church-bells started ringing, and I tarried outside a while to listen. Nice sounding bells; real bells. They reminded me of Germany too.

In the 3rd store, I overheard another customer asking an employee for help in finding an item, "Jum". She had a foreign accent, and I wondered what this "Jum" might be. Jumbo? Gumbo? Jambalaya? Even when she explained to the employee that it was something one eats at breakfast with bread and butter, both he and I were still puzzled. (Does one eat gumbo for breakfast?) When she mentioned marmelaide, it finally clicked for me. Jam! The poor employee still wasn't getting it, so I went over to help him out.

Later, it occurred to me that the woman's accent was very familiar to me. Sort of Indian; sort of German. I can hear someone's voice in my head speaking with the same accent, but can't remember who it belongs too. Maybe someone on TV or in a movie.