The Beautiful Town Idstein – Part 10 – Various Ornaments

One house had these three reliefs in plaster. The first one  and the third one are depictions of Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press. I do not know why, I have found no association between him and Idstein.

Some houses had some sort of coat of arms (more like coat of tools) carved into the woodwork. And one house had a cat climbing the wall which was unfortunately too high up for my puny phone camera to take a good look at.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last atypical ornament was this faun, looking mournfully over a garden fence. I have no idea whether it is a modern addition or genuine antique, but it fitted the town nicely and did not stand out as inappropriate. Which does not prove anything.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Jack’s Walk

The proper name for this path is the Millennial Trail, but I generally refer to it as the Drunken Forest because of all the tipsy trees growing at odd angles. They’re not all leaning in the same direction and some of them lean over so far they seem to be defying gravity. They all seem healthy and happy, though. It’s a very curious sort of place.

Lean to my right

 

Lean to my left

 

Tipsy trees        ©voyager, all rights reserved

Anatomy Atlas Part 12 – Liver, Spleen, Stomach

Given how all these organs are important and vital, it really makes one wonder why they are only protected by a soft abdominal wall. From these only liver has meaningful ability to repair itself.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Liver is, as you surely know, the main chemical factory of the body. Any chemical that gets absorbed into the bloodstream in your gut will go through it – thus the huge Vena cava inferior in which this nutrient rich but oxygen depleted blood is subsequently drained via hepatic veins. These veins are allegedly the reason for abdominal pain when exercising right after a big meal – there is a competition between blood flow through the liver and through the muscles and that leads to the veins having spasms. It is also the reason why I am sleepy about half an hour after a big meal – the liver stops most of the blood by expanding its veins, the blood pressure drops, I gets dizzzzzz…..

However that means not only food, but also every toxin you ingest, has an effect on your liver. That is the reason why liver has such an ability to recuperate or even regrow. It is an organ under huge pressure and essential for life.

We were told during our courses on toxicology that it was selective pressure that is possibly responsible for people of european descent having higher tolerance of alcohol than people of oriental descent – ever since the alcohol was discovered in the Mediterranean and Middle East regions, people of those and neighbouring regions were indulging in drinking a lot of wine and beer. Those who did not have the right types and ammounts of alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes in their liver to deal with it with least adverse effects died sooner, thus exerting selective pressure on the population.

I do not know whether it is true, but there is similar correlation in lactose intolerance. It does sound plausible.

No hot dogs

No Hot dogs!

Just a reminder from Jack and I that it is never safe to leave a dog in a car in hot weather. Even if you are parked in the shade and the windows are cracked. Even if you leave them water. Even if it is just for a minute. It only takes a few minutes on a hot day for the inside of a car to reach 48 – 50° c (120° f.)

Dogs are unable to sweat and their panting can lead to dehydration. Because of this it’s especially hard for dogs to cool themselves, making them quickly prone to heatstroke which is a life-threatening emergency.

If you see a dog alone in a hot car call 911. If you think the animal cannot wait for emergency assistance and you intend to break into the car please advise emergency services about what you intend to do before doing it.

Be smart. Leave Rover at home and pass the word. No Hot Dogs!

 

Spider Catching a Beetle in its Web

During a lunch break at work I was taking a walk along a huge water cooling unit when I have seen a beetle caught in a spider web. Since I of course did not have my camera on me, I have done my best with my phone.

At first I thought the spider is nowhere near, but it only took a while to crawl out of its hiding under one of the metal covers. The spider did not approach the beetle at first, and when it did it only felt it with its front legs and then backed off because the beetle was thrashing around and it was about as big as the spider itself.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Then a few moments later the spider has tried to drag the beetle upward, but it did not work. The beetle was evidently too big and too strong for that and it fought back valiantly.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

After that the spider crawled away from the beetle and I thought it gave up. After all the beetle was tearing the net apart. But then the spider has surprised me. It has merely changed its tactic. It crawled along the edge of the web and coordinated its collapse so as the beetle was tearing the silk threads, instead of freeing itself it got more and more constrained in movement. I did not know that spiders can do that.

When the beetle was constrained enough – destroying about 50% of the web in the process – the spider approached it again and has done its spin wrap of the prey into a cocoon.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

All that was left after that was the final blow – the spider has sunk its chelicerae into the side of the beetle, presumably between the plates of its chitinous armour. That took a few minutes and the poor beetle was still trying to move.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

I checked up on the place before I went home. At first I did see neither the spider nor the beetle. I found the spider hidden under the metal cover again, with only its front legs protruding outward, holding the packed beetle and waiting for the digestive juices do their thing.

I have observed spiders hunt before, but the tactic of collapsing the web around bigger prey was new for me.

The Daily Bird #740.

Picture from early this spring, the light was crap but the picture has an interesting story.

The buzzard flew away when I was trying to take a picture and it perched on the top of a huge cypress tree in the neighborhood. There it was harrased by a magpie until it left. Here it is shown flying circles around the magpie who did not give up its place so in the end the buzzard buggered off and the treetops were ruled by this magpie and two more, who joined it shortly.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Creatures of Brain Sorbet & More Admin Crap.

Creatures of Brain Sorbet, © C. Ford, all rights reserved.

Creatures of Brain Sorbet, © C. Ford, all rights reserved.

A little while ago, I decided I needed a break from Thorns, a sort of sorbet for the brain. As it turns out, a good decision – I need something to focus on without investment because I have been a wretched heap of misery since Thursday morning. Upon waking Thursday, I discovered I couldn’t walk. My left leg went out from under me, accompanied by a scream. Trying again, I could sort of lurch if I took teensy tiny partial steps. The primary pain was to the side and down from my kneecap (outside of leg), a site well known to me, as it’s long been a sensitive one. That’s where the sciatic nerve splits off into the tibial and peroneal nerves. Standing, with no weight on the leg at all, the pain radiated down to my ankle, which was slightly swollen along with my foot, and radiated up the back of my thigh to my arse. Oh good, my sciatic nerve is on a fucking rampage. (Yes, I still went out that night to get shots of the storm, lurching and limping and dragging myself, with the aid of morphine.) Anyone who has ever dealt with sciatic pain, you know what I’m talking about, painwise. People infected with the photography bug know you have to be at least 15/16ths dead before you miss a possible once in a lifetime shot.

The last time I had sciatica, it lasted most of a year. I am just so fucked. The pain has been very near to insanity levels. There has been much yelling, a fair amount of screaming, and a lot of collapsing into a pile of sobs. Thanks to chemo brain, it wasn’t until Friday night that I did  what I should have done immediately on Thursday morning – take aspirin. The aspirin helped much more than the morphine, helping to deal with the inflammation. It’s not helping as much now, but hey, at this point, I’ll take what I can get. I did have to fucking crawl into the lav on Thursday morning though, so I was bit preoccupied. Of course, another storm hit, and the circuit breaker which controls my studio lights keeps flipping off every hour or so. That means…stairs. Interesting to navigate when you can’t bend one knee without screaming. The breaker just went again. Fuck it, I’ll get it in the morning. Apparently, the pain and humiliation of the last four days wasn’t quite enough, as I have been called back into Cancerland early.  My oncologist (first one) insisted I meet  again with Cole (radiation doc) tomorrow (Monday the 18th). Just what I need, a nice long car ride to irritate the holy fuck outta my sciatic nerve. Ought to be fun. I suppose I’ll be getting my tats tomorrow.

Poor Jayne, he’s about a wreck, not knowing what to do with this screaming one second, racked with sobs the next person who appears to have eaten his regular person alive. Thanks to the confluence of morphine and aspirin, I can get 2 hours or so mostly pain free a day, but mornings are a nightmare, because after sleeping, I’m right back to where I was on Thursday morn.  This is one situation where I’m truly thankful to be an atheist. To think or say to myself: the universe is pissed I didn’t take the hint and die, so it’s going to keep dropping  big-ass bricks on my head is obviously sillier than fuck, and can be dismissed as a pity party moment. If I believed in a god though: god is pissed I didn’t take the hint and die, so he’s going to keep dropping  big-ass bricks on my head, I think I would be in a very bad and dangerous place which would lead to very bad decisions, like stopping treatment and placing myself in “god’s hands”, going the “god’s will” route.

It’s now time to stop faking it (puttin’ on that brave face).  I’m becoming increasingly fearful of showering, scared I’m gonna fall and kill myself in there. Think it might be time for some accessories in there, or at least a plastic chair I can sit on, or fall back on. Ah well, time to face the shower. Anyroad, I will be taking Monday the 18th completely off, I didn’t have time to schedule anything, either.  Going to sleep as long as possible, take much aspirin and morphine, wrap myself in pillows, and try to get through the day without breaking the fuck down, and I’ve felt much too close to a breakdown the last few days. As far as I know right now, I’ll be back to Affinity sometime Tuesday. I know my blogging has been on the shitty side lately, really sorry about this, I’ll make it up to you all.

Jack’s Walk

It’s a hot day here so Jack and I went for a slow walk around the shaded pond at the park. We haven’t been here for a while because I’ve been avoiding the swans. They were incubating 3 eggs on the pond’s little island, but the last few times I was here both adults were off the nest and swimming together with no babies in sight. I was feeling sad that none of the babies made it, but I was wrong! There is one cygnet and I found him today with his proud and protective mama.

Proud mama and her cygnet

Feeding together

We also checked on the goslings who are now big, goofy teenagers. The area where they nest also has some younger babies, including one who looked freshly hatched.

Babies of all ages, even a newborn (bottom right)

The goslings are teenagers

Teenagers getting ready to shed their fluff
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