Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Spring skiing


Okay, I'm sick o' snow. I'm ready for spring, so I went looking for it, and I found this amazing photo of a Japanese flower garden, or at least that's how it's labeled. It looks like the world's most colorful ski slope to me.

20 comments:

GhostFolk.com said...

This one is Amazing Grace.

Christmas was complete on the trip out when I had skillet fried chicken for breakfast in Nashville. With, you know, the usual, cheese grits, corn pudding, pumpkin pancakes (don't ask why because I don't know), hash browns (okay, potatoes cut into thirds), country ham, biscuits and gravy, baked apples, and some sort of homemade peach preserves that I believe were supposed to make the maple syrup I poured on the ham seem healthy.

The gravy was served in a large bowl and was not limited to biscuits, I noticed through study of my fellow breakfasters...

But, really, is is the fried chicken for breakfast, still too hot to touch when served. Thank you kindly, Far & kin for getting those things up to size for the rest of us.

You cannot get a meal in someone's home or any resturant, once you hit the Mississippi, without a slice of onion on your plate. I swear if your order a piece of pumkin pie in the diner in Piggot, Arkansas, you'll get a slice of onion on the side.

Oh, but it's the Amazing Grace I wanted to share... dang...

GhostFolk.com said...

Back to..

Amazing Grace. Or maybe it's just kids. On the drive out of the cotton fields, we eventually come upon a little bootheel town. We are passed at a stop sign by a kid on a bicycle.

Maybe 10, maybe 12. He is eating a bowl of milk and cereal. I promise. He zooms right by me without either hand touching the handle bars.

I am amazed. Instead of by-passing the little cotton town, I turn the wrong way on purpose just to catch up to this kid. "You have to see this," I tell the bride.

I really want to catch that kid before he finishes. Either the bike ride or the cereal. And I do.

By then he has had to place a hand on the handlebars to navigate a side-street. In his other, is a regular porcelain cereal bowl, still with cereal in it, and a spoon handle poking out.

Janet and I look at the kid. The kid looks at us. Janet and I look at each other and say simultaneously "Merry Christmas."

AndiF said...

Freaky looking picture, Nancy.

Nice story, Ghost -- what a klutz imagines utopia is like.

We've only had 2 snows so I'm still wanting more. I'm sure if we get dumped on, I'll be sorry I said that. Checks around for Evil Eye, says kayn aynhoreh.

katiebird said...

Good Morning everyone! I'm getting ready for work (Just today & Tomorrow -- then another 5 days off)

Ghost, what a cute story. I can see the boy RIGHT NOW.

Coffee anyone? It's just about ready.

AndiF said...

Morning kb. I'm still off work but I'll be back next Wednesday while you're enjoying your second set of vacation days.

katiebird said...

Hi Andi! I sort of don't mind doing it this way -- working 2 days this week & 2 days next week. I'm definitely ready for a walk. I'm going nuts stuck in this house.

I'm hoping that I'll get over this depression about my brother's jerky-nuttiness and can give my blog a face-lift over the next 5 days. I wanted to do it this last weekend. but, I'm deep into heartbreak.

AndiF said...

I always find that doing something constructive is a good way to combat "the blues". If nothing else, it's makes me think about other things.

I'm at the halfway point on my vacation and I'm already thinking that it isn't long enough (but of course they are never long enough).

Anonymous said...

It DOES look like a ski slope, Nancy. My favorite kind - the ones without snow! Actually, I love skiing, as long as it's 50 and sunny. :-)

Ghost, now I'm starving. I want to go to that restaurant! And riding a bike with no hands? Never could manage that one. You're right, andi, klutz utopia.

Hope everyone's Thursday goes quickly, and you're back on vacation soon!

GhostFolk.com said...

Yeah, it was the spoon in the bowl that drove me crazy. How could he do that?

Larry Kollar said...

Heh, it does look like a snow-covered ski slope, doesn't it?

KB, I'll take a cup o' that coffee. I agree with Andi, just get started on the revamp & see if that helps you forget about the garbage.

I never did get started on the "twin daughters" story — I keep getting chicken house'd. I'm just the opposite of Andi, I'm waiting for this so-called "vacation" to be OVER with, but I won't get back to the office until Wednesday. You know how nobody says on their deathbed, "I wish I'd spent more time at the office?" I will be the exception to that rule.

Ghost. I've done some crazy things no-handed on a bike, but never tried eating a bowl of cereal. If I had a hat on right now, I'd take it off to that kid.

Nancy P said...

Ghost, I love the story about the boy, but I have to confess that I love even more the breakfast. Cheese grits, food of the barefoot gods. I would have looked down at my plate, looked up at you and Janet, and said, "Merry Christmas." Pleeeeze tell me it was red-eye gravy?

Nancy P said...

Oh, you'll be sorry, Andi. Here, have some of ours. ::dumps a shovelful over Andi to give her the illusion of a snow storm::

Nancy P said...

Kb, it sucks. Go do something nice for somebody else, and that'll make you feel better. Either that, or shoot your s-i-l. Actually, those might be the same things. :)

Nancy P said...

Beth, you are water-skiing on thin ice with all that sunshiny Mexican stuff!!! You'd just darn well better enjoy it so much that your smile melts the snow up here. :)

Nancy P said...

You know how nobody says on their deathbed, "I wish I'd spent more time at the office?" I will be the exception to that rule.

Sooo lol!

Anonymous said...

I'm shoveling sunshine up north as fast as my little arms can shovel, Nancy!

Or I'm shoveling something, anyway....

:-)

Anonymous said...

Everyone is absolutely right: Doing something has made me feel better. I particularly like Nancy's idea about doing something nice for someone. I'm stuck in my office right now. But when I get home I'll try to do something nice for my mother in law who thinks I hate her (she told mister yesterday that she's going to put it in her will that I can't come to her funeral) -- she obviously needs some attention.....

All that breakfast talk makes me SERIOUSLY glad that I'm not at home with my kitchen. I LOVE a good hot breakfast.

Ghost -- the mental picture I have of your bike-riding-cereal-eater is the sort of thing that makes me occasionally wish we had cameras behind our eyes. Who would guess that you'd see something so impossible??

I really do like the idea of doing something nice for someone. (thinking/dreaming)

Nancy P said...

lol, Beth! And thanks. It's melting already.

Hugs to Katiebird.

boran2 said...

That's an amazing photo, Nancy. There must be millions of individual blooms. I'm kinda sick of the snow/feezing rain also, but not of the cold. (yet)

Nancy P said...

Hi, b2. I agree. I think it shows impressive imagination and daring. Somebody had to think it up--"Hey, kids, let's paint the entire hill with purple flowers"--and some officials had to give permission. We have an artist here in Kansas--Stan Herd--who does "paintings" in fields, but they are quite simple representational stuff, nothing so truly artistic as this, imo. Of course, I suppose representational stuff might be harder, cause if some flowers don't grow, the face he's Planting/Painting may not have a nose. : )