Railroad

Found on a recent roadtrip out into Western Maryland — a red caboose from the days of the Western Maryland Railroad. It’s part of a park in Hagerstown, MD. Lots of steel for PS4 Fire there as well….

These are the wheels of the engine that they’re trying to salvage after years of abuse, when it was used as a piece of playground equipment, etc.

The season of ice cream trucks

In looking for the first post on the topic, I realize it’s been a year since this blogspace started. The Asiatic/ Stargazer-type lilies are blooming again too, so the whole backyard is scented in the moonlight. To kill this mood of celebration, the “La Cucaracha” ice cream truck is back.

It’s parked not far from here. I can hear its eerie, ghostlike sound through the walls of my home office. I wonder, grimly to myself, what kid actually NEEDS ice cream at 10:45 PM (and what parents will let him or her walk down the city street to get it)? And, yet again, why cockroaches in a song advertising food?

I like the neighborhood, but sometimes it’s just strange.

Yawn

The knitting isn’t going to make a great photo opp. The blue and white striped sock continues to be blue and white. Once I’m past the heel or near the toe, perhaps it would look more interesting. But really. Yawn.

Last night was filled with disturbing noises from the outside world… perhaps a bit too much excitement for me to sleep enough to make today any fun. Hopefully everyone who was on the warpath last night has sobered up and are willing to stay the heck home. One can hope, eh?

Hopefully by the weekend I’ll have laddered back and reknit the Arches project (I did catch a runner in the lace section before it got too far… there’s hope). Maybe pics of that before too long. It’s at least pink and fits into PS4 Red.

Kind of Odd signs on trucks

I’m not talking about the KANE is Able truck signs (although they make me smile with this slogan that sounds like a Biblical joke), the Batesville Casket Company logo with its green tree or the Leidy logo (which I remember in its pre-2003 incarnation, with Leidy in the shape of a pig). I’ve shared my drive with all three of these.

I’m talking about homegrown slogans with hand-drawn letters (or reflective letters lovingly glued to the side of a truck. Recently I saw two:

1. On the back of a moving van: “The Lord Is MY God!” (Is it me, or do you wonder if the truck was professing its faith too? All I could think in the heat of the commute was “You go, Van! Tell it to the faithful!”
2. On an old, green dump truck, in silver hand-painted letters with red outlines “Pimpin Aint Easy” (Even the trucks out there realize it’s hard for a pimp. I mean honestly… what? Maybe an explanation of why the driver is behind the wheel earning an honest day’s work hauling dirt?)

I’ve seen hand-painted logos from team sports, marijuana leaves on the back of a city trash truck, and a Pinto painted a pink most often found in the medicine cabinet.

So, seen any fun signs on trucks or cars while you fight the fumes of the morning commute? I’ll keep watching. It makes a welcome break in the day when I find something as fun as a yellow rubber ducky stuck on the end of someone’s antenna.

Red

Red is an attention-getter — a glowing stoplight in the dark, a showstealer among a crowd of black dresses, the promise of ripe fruit, the glow of embers in a campfire that emphasize the night. And, sometimes, it’s a big old flag of “do not touch”.

In this case, our friend Virginia Creeper. Some people can touch it. Not me. But I will admit that it’s very very pretty. Of course, so is poison ivy.

Robert Frost — Nixon

“Whose tapes these are,
I think I know.
His house is in the district, though.
Listeners still think it’s queer
The hisses on the tapes they hear,
But I have ratings to make
And he’ll sweat about Watergate” – a failed attempt to cash in on the poet-politics market, quite a few decades too late.

Gonna hitch my train

To a seadragon… — with all apologies to the Dixie Chicks.

Here’s hoping the next cycle of PS4 offers as many fun opportunities to go on safari. In this case, a trip east to the shore was in order, with a sidetrip to check out the lights of the fairway at the kiddie amuseument park.

In the theme of East, I’m reading The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. So far, it’s mesmerizing and totally different from my life and time period.

Lets go down to the sunset bridge

Let’s go down to the sunset bridge

And watch the working barge go by

And watch the mosquitoes bite people,

And stare up at the maroon sky….

– with all apologies to Don Henley

Yellow Art Deco

This is an interior from a theater. Yellow walls, ochre curtains, and an amazing metal Art Deco motif.

I wish I had gotten some of the faux tortoiseshell torch light fixtures on my camera, but I had to leave and didn’t have time to figure out how to get the lighting right.

The only other thing I seemed to have done that is blogworthy is attack the krynoid-hedge that’s making the back fence into a horrible mess. And knit more on my PS4 project from the green cycle (the back is up to 8.15″ and counting). It looks like PS4 yellow cycle will be mostly photos, unless I manage to finish one of my projects that’s been on a backburner since I was first on Ravelry.

Cats forgive slowly

They hold resentments, flicking

Tails:  children on a hot day

Kicking at the steps.

Demanding ice cream.

Embracing drawn-out disdain. – © rn, WordTapestry, 2009

[we had visitors, including 2 small boys with light-up sneakers. Oh, the poor cats.]