Spidey Senses

September is Spider Month.

If anyone sees me out in the garden, apparently playing with an invisible marionette, I'm just trying to relocate a swinging spidey whose handiwork I just walked through. Feel bad about that.

I wonder if they start building a new one right away, or if they just take the day off, head down to the pub, make a claim at the Web-Compensation Board. Something like that.

Speaking of spidey senses, I think I'm losing mine--I mean, the ones required to ride a bicycle in traffic. All this scootering has eroded my cycling Spidey Senses. I assume I'm honing my scootering Spidey Senses, which is a good thing, but when I went on a long bicycle-ride last weekend, I got honked at twice. Both times, I was following the trajectory of a bicycle-lane that suddenly ended and I failed to vaporize at the same time. Before the Scooter (BS) I guess I never felt entitled to space on the road and obligingly vaporized, because I rarely got honked at.

I am therefore mystified by the behaviour of traffic on Marine Drive in West Van. How many times have I seen spandex-clad road-racing cyclists obliviously holding up a long line of cars as they spin around the winding one-lane coastline. I actually don't think those cyclists are oblivious--they just feel entitled to the road, even though common courtesy would beg they pull over for the parade behind them. Even more surprising, no one honks. I suspect the drivers are afraid the cyclist might be their boss, or someone they don't want to offend.

I guess I don't look like a high-powered cyclist, since the closest thing to spandex I wear is socks (they're tight, and sometimes have a small logo). I am therefore honk-at-able. But now I know what it feels like to Take the Lane. Oh, the power. I have tasted it. Who needs Spidey Senses when you can lead the parade...

Opposites Attract??

This is actually an old pic I just found in my archives.

Is this a case of His and Hers? A case of 1 Hummer + 1 Smart Car is equivalent to 2 Normal Family Vehicles?

I thought that if a Smart Car and a Hummer parked in the same driveway, they would trigger some law of physics that automatically converts them both into anti-matter.

They are so totally pretending not to know one another.

Parking for Self-Propelled People

Need a stick? Take a stick. Have a stick? Leave a stick.

Dog contemplates higher forms of transportation

Good boy, Luke.

Sockeye Salmon Run

Saw a bit of spawning action in the creeks around Adams River (in the Shuswap, an hour past Kamloops) this past weekend--the Big Run hasn't started yet, but will be rolling in the first week of October. (I include Salmon Reports in this blog because of their clear correlation with Life Cycles.)

We walked up Bear Creek and I caught a live-action fish-fight between two males: one defending his territory with a female already digging her nest.

As if ten thousand (?) gill-netters, and five hundred miles of rapids wasn't enough, how about a little sabotage by members of your own species to round things off? Reproduction is a tough gig.

Scotch Creek (below) was awash with dead fish, likely because water level rose with the previous night's rain and dislodged the masses stuck along the banks. This run was almost over, with more carcasses floating downstream than live fish heading up.

The Adams River Run will be something to see for sure...neat how each creek population spawns sequentially. Stinky. Take your fish nose-plugs.

Crazy Beautiful

Here is my lily bulb that finally decided to bloom. For two+ years, the amaryllis-like bulb threw out a few long lancy leaves and remained as such, winter and summer. Finally, this summer I placed its pot in a pan of water outside while I went away for a holiday. When I returned, I left it in the pan another week because it looked happy. When I retrieved it to put it back on my windowsill, I saw this new development...

There is something wonderful about a mysterious plant deciding to bloom. You feel as if it has finally decided to show up for your party. It has accepted your invitation.

The four buds continued to stretch skyward, one pair larger than the other. Then, I happened home one evening and discovered this...

After two+ years transplanted in its foreign home, the lily had the courtesy to choose the certain hour of day that I would be here to watch it unfold...

Have you ever heard a lily bud release the bond between petals and unfold? It is the sound of a silk egg ripping.

As soon as this happened, a scent filled the room; sweet, like a perfume called White Lily should be.

At this point, with the aid of a vintage black wool coat, my camera took me places I'd never been before. I am unabashedly in love with these photos...

Welcome to the Western World, Lily! Here it is in front of a painting I did about two+ years ago, inspired by the lily's origins. Hard to tell where Lily ends and imagination begins...