Monday Meanderings - 7.23.2012

I have mentioned before that the majority of the books we read at Learning Ally - formerly Reading for the Blind - are text books. Dull, dry, boring textbooks. But we may have reached a new low last week; my director went to sleep on me! The director's role, in addition to following along in the text to make sure I don't misread something, or leave something out, is also to mark the passage of each page on the computer program used to capture and log the reading.
 
I reached the end of a page, paused a second for the director to click on the "Mark" icon, and nothing happened. I looked through the window and my teen-age director had a glassy look on his face. It wasn't until I called out to him several times that he snapped out of it. Did I mention that the books are often boring?
 
Had a little nostalgia trip this weekend. Digging through stuff in the bank safe deposit box, I came across a document with our address in Dallas the summer we married; a two-bedroom apartment on Mt Ranier St., in the southwest part of the city - just bordering the edge of Oak Cliff, a ritzy part of town back then. Perhaps it still is, but a quick Google Street view suggests that our old apartment complex, like us, has aged. That was a fun summer.
 
We disposed of a sack of two-year-old pecans - aging in the garage for want of a working nut-cracker - by dumping them out by the bird feeders. Thus far, only 1 squirrel has discovered this mother lode, and I fear that it will be the death of him. Or her. The squirrel is frantically gathering up each pecan, one at a time and scurrying out into the yard to bury it. A quick cover up and he dashes back for another. I expect to look out in the morning and see the frazzled remains of the rodent, overcome by the sheer size of the task.
 
While watching the normally very skittish hummingbirds at the feeder, one veered over close to me. So close, in fact, I wondered if I was under attack. I could hear the buzz and feel the breeze of his wings on my face! He paused, checking me out, flew completely around my head in a 360° reconnaissance, paused near my face again, then went back to the feeder. I felt like I had just experienced a close encounter of the third kind.
 
And speaking of hummingbirds and other flying creatures, here's a lovely video that's best viewed on the larger screen of a PC or Mac.