Chronological Account of the Weiss family with contextual remarks, some weather, sports and other news.
You can write to me at: mhw20854@yahoo.com
The people in the Weiss family are: Martin, Ann, Beth and George. I also sometimes write about other people or our pet.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Wild Wisteria
A lot of the neighborhood wisteria trees are carefully tended but today I saw one growing wild in an industrial area (Southlawn Ave in Rockville - click to enlarge the image). Some varieties of wisteria are native to North America, others (I'm pretty sure this one was) are descended from imports from China or Japan. ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
There is one wisteria in southern California, in the plain bordering the San Gabriel mountains, that covers over an acre by itself. It has been named as one of the seven horticultural wonders of the world ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Madre_Wistaria)
In addition to the white dogwood and pink azalea and white/purple lilacs, there are other plants in bloom now. The late blooming cherry blossom trees are still out. Also, wisteria and redbud trees and money plant flowers are out.
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no wisteria or redbud in our yard however.
First a wrap up of the April trip: I used Uber for both the home to IAD trip and the IAD to home trip. The former was in a Tesla, the latter in a Lexus.
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Some of the late blooming cherry blossom trees are still blooming. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
This was on Executive Drive in the parking lot of the Jewish Federation Administration Building.
The Air Force Museum is about 50 miles north of Cincinnati and we visited it on 10 April. I used a free scooter which is good otherwise I would have been dead from the walking since the museum covers the equivalent of 10 large aircraft hangers. They have several hundred exhibits. I took just a few pictures....................... The first image is me in front of the B-2 (somehow you are seeing it - joke). The B-2 Stealth bomber can fly 50k foot altitude with range 6000 miles can carry up to 40,000 pounds of weapons some of which could include long range air to surface missiles. It's radar signature is, for some systems, about as large as a beech blanket. My scooter is to the left of the image. Introduced in 1997 which was too late to influence the course of the Cold Was. However, this is still in use................................. The second image is the Blackbird, a strategic surveillance plane. It has a long cylindar nose which contains sensors that have to be outside the plane but also need to be outside the airflow displacement of the plane as it flys. ................................................
The third image is a piece of the Berlin Wall that was somehow donated. /.......................................................................................
The fourth image is of the X-44A. It was an experimental UAV that could be used for surveillance and combat and have a very small radar image, equivalent to about the size of a napkin. It's existence was not acknowledged until 2018 but somehow the museum got ahold of it by 2021. .............................................................................................................................................................. We think only one to three of these was ever built. It is not directly related to the X-44 Mantee.
We were at the Cincinnati Museum of Art. There is, of course, lots to see but a famous painting is shown in the image. It is an Andy Warhol painting of Peter Rose using baseball cards as a theme. The painting's official name is Pete Rose 360B. The museum paid Warhol $100,000 in 1985 to do this painting and it was completed on September 9, 1985s two days before Rose officially broke Cobb's record. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... It is generally recognized that official baseball records double counted a Cobb double on year so, if the 'stats' for Rose were correcting counted, Rose would have broken Cobb's record earlier (September 8).
We used the am portion of this day to see the sights at an aquarium just across the Ohio river from Cincinnati. It is a fairly new aquarium. The bottom image is a big gator. The top image is a lion fish and the middle one is a Shark-Ray which has elements of both a shark and a sting ray. They are also sometimes called guitar fish and one such fish is called "Jimmy" honoring Jimmy Hendricks. I got to pet that fish which also seems to enjoy being petted.
.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................The museum had wheel chairs to borrow.
A busy day. I was in the Cincinnati area visiting with college friends, Gerry Berg, Dave Kroes and Rocky Kelman. Our first stop was the William Taft historical site. Lots to see but I was amused that they had t-shirts in extra large size there (2nd image). Then we went to Greensburg, Indiana in a public park to see the eclipse with 3+ minutes of totality. Weather was near perfect for viewing. I was much amused when the city police came by playing the theme from ghostbusters on their car sound system (3rd image). Then we went to a baseball game at Cincinnati's great American Ballpark (1st image). It was kind of sloppy game with a lot of errors but also 5 home runs. ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Cincinnati beat Milwaukee 10-8.
After getting haircuts today, we went on a brief drive through a neighborhood just north of Montrose and about a half mile west of Rockville Pike. We have done this in the past. The neighborhood has hundreds and hundreds of cherry blossom trees.
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I think our drive was about a mile long with cherry blossom trees on both sides.
It must be the end of the asparagus growing season in Mexico (where these grow per the tag on the bunch) to get this 80% discount. It's nice that the vegetables come with office supplies (the rubber bands) too.
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The under caption on the cartoon is (my recollection) "suddenly Bill realized there might be a flaw in his business plan".
I went to the Red Cross Blood Center on Monday March 4. They had called me when I was on the way to tell me that there was a big delay but I didn't answer and when I got to the Blood Center I played the voice mail and the receptionist said that she was the one who called me but a few minutes later they fixed the problem. Anyway, I went to the administrative room with the phlebotomist. He measured by pulse which was elevated but not awful (84). Then he measured my blood pressure. It was 162/104 which was too high to be allowed to give blood. On March 5, I got a package at the door. It was a new watch (the wristband on my old watch broke about a week ago). I was at physical therapy later that day and they measured my blood pressure. It was 118/74. So I think the blood pressure was high because I was stressed out about not knowing the correct time.
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My scheduled blood donation on March 20 was postponed by the Blood Center. However, on March 27 I was there and my pulse was a bit lower, at 80 but the big change was that my blood pressure was now only 120/78. So as it turns out I really need to know what hora it is (unless it was a problem with the blood pressure measurement equipment).
I used 'Que hora es' because I remember once when I was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, several people asked me this while I was walking from the hotel to somewhere close by.
The caterer got a box of wine. The bottles of wine were labeled with a 2022 date. This is an issue because 2022 was a shimitah year and the wine was made from grapes grown in Israel in 2022. The kashrut authority for the wine said it was OK. The supervisor kashrut authority of the caterer said it was not OK.
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Furthermore the supervisory kashrut authority of the caterer said that we shouldn't ever use any product made with the hechsher of the kashrut authority of this wine.
A Mashgiach Task that Simon and Garfunkle would like
In 1965 Simon and Garfunkle released "Scarborough Fair". It was part of album called, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme". It is a song with a long history with the theme going back to the 17th century and the music going back to the 19th century. Part of the Simon and Garfunkle lyrics goes, "
Are you going to Scarborough Fair/
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme/
Remember me to one who lives there/
She once was a true love of mine"
There was also a TV show called "Rosemary and Thyme". It was about two gardeners (one with a first name of Rosemary, the other with a last name of Thyme who become detectives.
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The first image shows the packages. The second shows the vessel with my notes after washing and checking for insects.
A nice afternoon today with very few clouds. Ann and I took a drive. The top picture is where we started, that is, at our house. There is a nice pear blossom tree (my neighbor's) in front of a pair of cherry blossom trees, one of which, the one on the right, is a weeping cherry blossom which is one of favorite trees.
We drove through a number of neighborhoods with lots of cherry blossom, pear blossom and northern magnolia trees (I didn't take a picture of this last one - the tree is nice looking while blooming but the blossoms are dense and become slimy when they decay on grass or, worse, sidewalks).
We go to Cloppper lake a lot. It is in Seneca Creek State Park not too far from us.
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This is the first time I can remember that the lake was nice a blue (because of the sky I think). Usually it is a greyish or grey-blue color.
Once upon a time the only extensive area of blooming trees in the DC metro were the cherry blossom trees at the tidal basin. Of course that has changed. Now various sub species of cherry blossom trees are all over the place. The image of the cherry blossom trees is at the entrance to a mixed use area called Park Potomac (I go there frequently to use the grocery store but we have friends who live in the residential part and I've used one of the medical buildings there also). The other images are of a bunch of pear blossom trees at an intersection in an industrial area (a lot of auto repair places, storage unit business, etc.).
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The cherry blossoms now in bloom are an early blooming species. A lot of the cherry blossom trees don't even have any buds showing yet. The cherry blossoms at the tidal basin are currently projected to be in full bloom in about 10 days. Also, the trees at the tidal basin are going to be thinned out this year. About a hundred trees will be removed as I understand it.
In 2010 after some hail damage from a May storm, we had an inspection that showed damage. We ended up with new roof tiles (paid by homeowner's insurance). In 2020 there was another hail storm and we had an inspection (I can't remember a hail storm but the inspectors said there was one) that showed no damage. We had another inspection yesterday. Still no damage.
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Yay.
One of the caterers I work with asked me if I could light the ovens on Saturday night 23 March. It is the time of the reading of the Megillah this year. Since the Megillah reading is after we switch to daylight saving time, I wasn't sure if there would be a late reading given that the regular reading would be at 830pm or so. If there was no late reading I would only have the one chance to hear the Megillah and I wouldn't be able to come by to light the ovens. I called our synagogue. I explained the situation. The director of events said they had a meeting yesterday on this and decided against a late reading. I got an email just 30 minutes later saying they had cnanged their mind and they scheduled a late Megillah reading at 10pm. .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
I don't know if they did it just for me or if they had other requests.
I bought a single bottle of the newest Coke product. It doesn't taste spicy despite the name. It does have a little berry taste to it. I found it wasn't bad but not as good as Cherry Coke. Also not as good as Diet Coke or Coke Zero. ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
On the good side, there wasn't as much after taste as a previous product, namely, Coke Showtime. Also on the good side, I found that when I drink more than two gulps, it depresses my appetite.
Last week, Tamar got Oz a bicycle. One of the places they frequent is a space where jugglers practice. One of them took about 20 minutes to teach Oz to ride the bicycle. He has no issue wearing a helmet. I think this is because some of the characters on one of his favorite cartoons, namely Paw Patrol (second image), wears a helmet.
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... I don't remember at what age I learned to ride a bike but I'm pretty sure it was much later than the 4 yrs, 9 months for Oz.
I saw the crocus out earlier this month but then we had that snow on February 17 and they disappeared. But today (it was in the 60sF in the afternoon) they were out again.
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Actually, although they are pretty, I think I've planted at least 5 bulbs for every flower I see. Something about the soil must prevent blooming.
I had another odd dream. I was giving at the blood donation center and they took some of my blood for testing and put it into a machine. The phlebotomist said to me, "Looks like you have superpowers." I was startled, "Really?", I asked. "Is it x ray vision or flying ability." The phlebotomist responded, "No." I was disappointed. "But what kind of superpower is it?"............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
"We don't know yet. We'll have to send it to another lab" was the response. Then I woke up.
