Barbara's Blog

Just got the news. Here she is, as a volunteer auto mechanic and driver towards the end of WWII. What an amazing life, and time - the Second Elizabethan Age indeed.  

  Saw this pretty lady - or one very like her (I snitched this picture off the Internet, since I'm beyond lousy with a cell-phone camera) - as I took my walk before sunup this morning. She's the second mantis I've seen in the past month - I saw one of exactly her dust-brown color sitting on a wall in Chico on my road-trip. They were all over the place when I was a little kid, in several colors - usually leaf-green, but often golden, or a darker brown than this. We had them as pets. My sister had a white one. Later this morning when I went to the campus I saw a full-grown and DAMN BIG hawk flap down onto the seat of a chained-up bicycle, and case the surrounding area like he'd paid for smorgasbord there. It's still hot - the temperature plunged clear down to 106 for today, though I'll bet it tops at 108 like it did yesterday (Sunday was 112). I'm still resting between projects (though I admit I'm working on another Further Adventure). The final page-proof...