RECEPTIONIST: Still Blue Cross Blue Shield?
ME: Same as it ever was.
R: That’s from a song, but I can’t remember who it’s by.
ME: It’s…oh hell, now I can’t either.
ME: *looks it up* Talking Heads!
R: Right! …you know, in the old days, we’d have had to wait til it came on the radio again.
ME: Yup.
The call-back because “we just need a few more pictures” is nervewracking, even when they say it’s because they didn’t get a good enough shot of the surgical site.
Clean bill of health! There is some calcium buildup in the breast, which is apparently dead common post-radiation. I refrained from yelling “Oh god, my boob’s growing BONES!”
I almost had heart failure when I had something show up on a mammogram something like 8 years ago. I was 41. It turned out to be a 3 cm calcium cyst that developed over 1 year. I never felt it. My boob had a great bone!
Then a bone density scan, which, to my relief, is much faster than a regular bone scan. The doctor is supposed to call me with results. One of the hips looked a bit peculiar in the scan, but I don’t know if that’s normal variation or “oh god, hip dysplasia!” (Do humans get that?)
For the rest of your life, docs are probably going to be more paranoid about double-checking anything odd. Which will go well with you being paranoid that anything odd, including the docs checking something, is bad news.
I went to a party last week amid some beautiful flower gardens. There were pollinators everywhere but I was chatting with friends and not quick enough with the camera to get any photos.
Narrow leaved mountain mint and anise hyssop in the foreground assorted wildflowers (California poppy is winning art the moment, but the perennials are supposed to take over next year) in the mid, and Virginia Rose against the street.
Yes that's right! Bird-cherry Ermine, aka Yponomeuta evonymella, if my app is to be believed. But that thing thinks ducks are pond turtles more often than not
Sone species of Mammillaria are "cryptocarpic" - the fruit develops inside the plant, and in some cases the seeds aren't released until after the plant dies years later. :)
I captured this picture of an Arizona Sister butterfly in the summer of 1990 in the Huachuca mountains of southern Arizona on film. It's still my best butterfly picture ever.
I once found a mantis in the house surrounded by three of my cats, lunging fearlessly at them, and I respectfully evacuated her to the porch. I remain so impressed by her courage, rage, whatever drove her to stare down three predators so much bigger than her
Also hanging out next to an impossibly smol mantis on our front step was excellent. My dude was measured in wee centimeters, and it was such a great afternoon to be near, take photos, and appreciate being close
Couple weeks ago I found this tiny slug in the lettuce in my fridge and returned it to its natural habitat of "not in my fridge". I just. It was so tiny I couldn't even be mad.
Here is a photo of a friendly lizard I met during the weekend. Helped it not get smushed my a jogger.
And the other photo is a wart-biter that somehow waited inside my apartment building. Helped it escape.
Got my stick insect as eggs from a very nice chameleon breeder I met while doing the prerequisite qualification needed in my country to keep poison dart frogs. No I have to many of them and have been gifting them as pets to friends’ kids.
Saw this gorgeous hydrangea on a walk on Cape Cod and I desperately need to know the name. It reminds me of blue china plates and was absolutely spectacular in person.
Interesting bugs, you say? Here is Nibbles Woodaway, aka the Big Blue Bug, who turned 44 last week. It is the mascot of a Rhode Island pest control company (now called Big Blue Bug Solutions, after the mascot).
have a pet and a friend! Orochi is my 4 year old Stimson Python, they’re very snuggly out of their enclosure and very snappy inside it! And a Spider friend that wouldn’t stop jumping back on me!
I had a tree trimmed in April and the oozing sap attracted all kinds of bugs, but my favorite were the Texas Eyed Click Beetles. Also got a ton of butterflies.
*puts “Let’s Get It On” on the record player*
I don’t have any good pics, but I found a click beetle in my house Saturday night and it was upsetting, not because they are a problem, but because I’ve never seen them or heard them before and it was clicking around in the middle of a severe thunderstorm, sounding an awful lot like a leaking roof.
Also when I I finally found it, a good half hour after having originally gotten into bed, it was embedded in a dust bunny, which made it a small grey mound shape crawling around in the dim light of my phone flashlight, hopping & clicking occasionally. Very weird.
Thank you! She is an ultramel tessera. Her patterning is a lot more subtle as an adult but very pretty colors close up, lots of yellow-white-grey speckles
Also, daughter and I went to Nashville zoo for her birthday and I snapped a bajillion pictures to reference for future art.
(And now I'm reminded to paint some of these beauties today)
Premee, where did you get that? Put it back immediately!
It‘s clearly Uba-Oner‘s wax crocodile. Careful not to throw it in the water or it will come to life & eat your cheating partner and their lover!
Or, well. Make sure you clean up after it‘s done, at least.
I saw a new-to-me bee among my tomatoes recently! I think it’s a California digger bee. Very exciting because I haven’t ID’d a ground-dwelling bee before. Its buzz was very different from that of a honeybee.
Also saw a black crowned night heron at the lake. They always look grumpy & I love them.
All the ones on that plant! I wonder since it's a hybrid that seed got the wrong pollen cross. They're very tasty so I'm going to try to save some cuttings through winter.
Will you accept a BBC article (with several photos) about the rediscovery of a large water beetle species in an area of the UK it hasn't been seen in for 86 years?
Here are two creepy crawlies all the way from Costa Rica. We took a guided night tour in a jungle area and were fortunate enough to see many great insects and arachnids.
Glad to hear that you got good news today! 😃
We watched this gorgeous heron for awhile when we were in London last week. We were waiting for it to catch a fish like the one at the Fort Worth Japanese Gardens did years ago.
Plants, you say? On it. In order- Romneya or Fried Egg Flower, 'Thin Man' daylily, 'Scarlett O'hara' peony, and Dichelostemma ida-maia or Firecracker flower. I clearly like red.
We’re under contract to buy a ranch-style house with large perennial beds in the front.
I’m probably going to annoy someone in the HOA by ripping out this butterfly bush. Besides being invasive, it’s encroaching on the sidewalk & way too tall for the layout.
Comments
ME: Same as it ever was.
R: That’s from a song, but I can’t remember who it’s by.
ME: It’s…oh hell, now I can’t either.
ME: *looks it up* Talking Heads!
R: Right! …you know, in the old days, we’d have had to wait til it came on the radio again.
ME: Yup.
My husband went for 'your boob's growing TEETH' instead of bones, though.
Expect the anxiety spiral, basically.
as in, "I've had these for less than a decade and I'm already having to shove them in a radioactive panini press?"
ME: For my sins, yes.
Sone species of Mammillaria are "cryptocarpic" - the fruit develops inside the plant, and in some cases the seeds aren't released until after the plant dies years later. :)
(I’m not fancy enough to have macro, forgive me)
Tiny, flowering lichen in Saskatchewan.
A gray tree frog hiding on my car
And the other photo is a wart-biter that somehow waited inside my apartment building. Helped it escape.
🦎
(I tried to get some close up shots but they were all blurry because the camera refused to focus on them)
I recently saw them referred to as "crevice angels," which I think is lovely.
*puts “Let’s Get It On” on the record player*
Maybe be real careful crossing the street for a bit?
(And now I'm reminded to paint some of these beauties today)
The spikes are modified scales, I think.
It‘s clearly Uba-Oner‘s wax crocodile. Careful not to throw it in the water or it will come to life & eat your cheating partner and their lover!
Or, well. Make sure you clean up after it‘s done, at least.
https://light.bio/how-to-care/
Also saw a black crowned night heron at the lake. They always look grumpy & I love them.
Are they all big like that, or just some of them?
(the researcher was actually looking for newts)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqv5459qyglo
Glad to hear that you got good news today! 😃
(green-cheek conure, much fierce, so rawr)
(Pinging @dawnf1re.bsky.social )
I’m probably going to annoy someone in the HOA by ripping out this butterfly bush. Besides being invasive, it’s encroaching on the sidewalk & way too tall for the layout.