As far as I know, “in the ball” is not an idiom. But it should be.
This squirrel is in a ball-shaped sculpture at a sculpture garden.
Tag: photos
keeping the ball rolling
Truth be told, none of the balls in these photos are likely to be rolling any time soon. But they did provide me with an excuse to take the ball and run. Or take the ball theme and run. Because if there’s one thing I love to do, it’s run with a theme. I am far more likely to run with a theme than to run with a ball. I’m much less likely to get winded.
Brick ball in Massachusetts.
Stone (or perhaps cement) ball in Barcelona.
Metal ball in Dublin.
on the ball
Having dropped the ball and forgotten to post a couple of days ago, I have since attempted to be more on the ball. Then I find myself wondering that if I don’t want to drop the ball, shouldn’t I really hold the ball? Or should I throw the ball and try to keep it up in the air? But no, I’ll instead just attempt to be on the ball, since that seems to be the idiom that fits.
Having chosen the post title “on the ball,” and noticing that it’s a Thursday, I briefly mused that I should put together a ball-themed list along the lines of my Themed Things Thursday ists of old. A sort of Throwback Themed Things Thursday. And then I had a vague memory of having once posted a ball-themed list. So, no new themed list. But I can at least take the ball and run with it. Or at least take the ball and post with it. Or maybe have a ball posting. Nah, not so much having a ball, really.
dropped the ball
So, remember how I started posting again? Saying I was planning to post every day for the month of November, as is my long-standing tradition. Well, I dropped that ball. It took a remarkable 3 days. And I didn’t just forget until late at night. I forgot until today. But, I won’t let that keep me from trying to get back into my blogging groove. I may even try to make up for it. Just not tonight. It’s been a long full day of dashing from task to task. I’m beat.
A ball in the cheetah enclosure at the zoo. It is not clear to me whether this ball belongs to the cheetah, or whether some visitor dropped the ball. It is clear to me that while I dropped the ball, it was not in this case not the literal ball that I dropped. I would have remembered that. It would have made a much more colorful story to say I dropped a ball into a cheetah enclosure than to say that I totally forgot to post because I was tired.
car safety for pumpkins
festival of lightsabers
It amuses me that Star Wars Day has become a thing. (May the Fourth be with you.) In honor of this day of geekiness, it seems a good time to share these photos of the kid with lightsabers.
Toy lightsabers can be pretty annoying (especially the ones that make noises), but they do look pretty cool at night.
(We got these for the kids one year when we went to an amusement park for their wintertime festival of lights.)
kookaburra’s perch (friday foto finder: perch)
This week’s friday foto finder theme is “perch .” I had a few candidates (mostly other birds) picked out last night, but this guy popped up as a winner due to his appearance in a conversation I had during my lab meeting. Okay, not this guy. But a kookaburra. Or at least a song about a kookaburra.
I didn’t hear about it when it happened, but apparently Men at Work was sued a few years ago for copyright infringement for their song Down Under. Not the whole song, but a few notes of the song. There’s a flute solo that plays a few notes from the song “Kookaburra,” the Australian popular folk song. It was actually written in 1932, and currently the rights are owned by a now unpopular record company. Men at Work lost the lawsuit, and now must pay a share of their royalties for the song to the record company.
This kookaburra sits in cage in a zoo, and does not collect any royalties from either song.
To see what other photos are perched for this week’s friday foto finder, and/or to share your own, head down under to the fff blog.
in the rain room
A few weeks ago, I posted some photos of views through beautiful sparkling ice. Beautiful sparkling ice that was on our windows and screens and indicated that water was coming in under the roof due to ice dams. One surprisingly warm day in February, we came home from a relaxing weekend away to find that the ice was melting. Oh glory day! And then we walked into this:
Our breakfast nook was raining. The hardwood floors were puddled. Naturally, I felt this was an opportunity to make a slo-mo movie. (Clearly the water had been coming in for at least an hour. A few seconds delay to cleaning it up were hardly going to make a major difference to the damage.)
This wasn’t even the first time we had water coming in. It was just the most dramatic. Other leaks were a bit more slow, and a range of buckets and beach towels kept things more-or-less under control.
I think the beach towels add a cheerful summery look to the room.
John also spent many hours breaking through the ice dams to release the water. Once the water had another way out, it stopped finding its way into the house. (Until the ice dams reformed the next time. And the next time.)
Another view of the summer beach decor, and a view of the ladder where John spent many hours dreaming of summer.
And so ends April, and I did manage to post something here every day for the whole month. Not much of substance, but it still felt good. Hopefully I will manage to continue to post.
magnolias in the rain
These are some more photos of the same star magnolia tree I posted yesterday, that I also took last spring.
These were taken a couple of days later, along with a number of other raindrop photos that I posted last year. I saved these to post another day, but somehow hadn’t gotten around to posting them yet.
Looking back at these photos, I’m realizing that I haven’t been taking nearly as many photos over the last few months. I miss it.
I should really fix myself back up with my macro lens and get back outside.
Or inside. I should really just get back to using my camera.
A few more of these photos are included in the slideshow below if you (like me) can’t get enough views of raindrops.
collecting tokens 