Have had one of those days where I got lots of little things done, but added together it really doesn't seem like I did anything at all. I was stuck at home till late afternoon because the old van was in having its oil and brake pads changed; I wrote a couple of articles, answered some mail, caught up on several weeks of
topics which promptly generated more e-mail, and took a walk in the woods (it being too gorgeous outside not to) only to discover that, while the cicadas are gone -- no more red buggy eyes, no more stragglers stuck on their backs, no more phaser fire -- their shell casings and some scattered wings remain scattered among the leaves they've knocked off the trees prematurely. The shells are mostly intact, with little curly leg containers and everything. It's bizarre to see the larval remains when the adults are gone for seventeen years.
In the evening picked the kids up from camp on his way home from work and then we all went to retrieve the van. Then, since we were out already and it was getting late, we went to IHOP for dinner, so I am pleasantly full on harvest grain pancakes, fried eggs, turkey sausage and chocolate milk. I was very tempted to get eggs benedict without the ham, but I wanted the pancakes. The kids were utterly fried after a day of nothing but sports (they didn't want chess, arts and crafts, etc.) and the older one is rather sunburned; apparently he never put the sunblock on.
My other excitement for the day was watching Dark Harbor, which was quite entertaining and nicely filmed, but rather depressing and disturbing. I'd been spoiled for the ending, because among the people I hang out with the last scene is the most interesting part of the movie, but even being able to guess where things were going, I was somewhat creeped out. There are a number of twists in the ostensible plot about a couple who pick up a drifter who seems to be hitting on the wife and...something...with the husband, there are hints they know one another better than it appears and have some kind of bet going concerning the wife, but in the end it's about a guy who conspires in the murder of his pathetic WASP socialite wife so he can inherit her private island and live with his male lover. He appears to have absorbed his mother-in-law's assessment of himself as a "gold-digging kike," as he puts it, and between his Jewish self-hatred, his gay self-hatred, his disgust with himself for having a wife who's more successful than he is and his resentment of her money and background even though apparently all the material trappings haven't made anyone in her family happy, it's difficult to find anything to like about him (other than, you know, him being Alan Rickman, and naked, and kissing a boy).
An egret in shallow water. (This is the same one that was flying in the picture from a couple of days ago.)
Those white spots in the trees? Are more egrets.
And here's another one.
One little speckled frog sat on a speckled log...
Teeny tiny tree frog.
Teenier tinier tree frog.
Croaking in the mud.
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