Life as Metaphor

 i just realized that my name should be "Lady Julia Emma of the Navesink" (where i was born).... i am married to the Lord of this manor of Brookhaven... we have serfs mind the grounds...

 first, of course, i need to talk about school.... i finished the second chapter that we are required to read next week (week #5, it will begin this coming Tuesday)... so i basically spent this Winter Break reading chapters 9 & 10, but no worries, i spread out the reading into little sections (much less stress), and you know me, i spent most of my time taking loooong "sewing breaks"....

about RG, i had posted last night about some old fotos i took almost exactly one year ago (it was 2017-01-13)... Tony had brought me a tiny piece of empty wasp's nest that he found in the backyard (attached to the wooden, unpainted fence).... when i was looking at the nest, under my microscope, i notice a very faint yellowish/orangish dusting; and when i zoomed in (increasing the magnification) i saw these gorgeous *tiny* orange colored sporangia and very light colored sporangiophores:








today 2 doctors of Botany saw my posting, and gave me links to an RG-site article, and asked a couple questions about what is visible under the microscope.... reading the article mentioned that there are Mucor nidicola sp. fungi that follow around the paper wasp; and apparently this is very possible to be the fungus i saw.... 

i went ahead and cleared the dining room table today, and tomorrow i am going to try and view the sample of the nest and see if i can find out any new information on the fungus.... okay, that's what's happening at the RG-site...

onto my other "pondering".... i feel really unsure if i should bother posting any more of my discussions about our in-house conversations/daily-diaries.... i used to go ahead and do this over at LJ, but that was "back in the day"; before the Russians bought LJ, before LJ was turned into a ghost-town (thanks to Facebook)... and back when my friends at LJ were actually friends of mine, but most of the people i am hooked up with via Dreamwidth are still "new" to me, and i am worried that they won't understand what i am writing, and i am also a little nervous that my writings can be taken and used in their own writings (esp. Slash-authors).... so i am still at one of those infamous cross-roads...

have to just think about it for a while..
shalom - Ulla/e. & co.

 i was a bit rushed with that entry i put up yesterday (didn't even edit it, so i hope it's legible), but i just remember that i forgot to tell how this conversation with Melody started (i should be calling her Neh'ima, but give me a couple of days to mentally accept this haha)...

how the conversation started is that i was in the salon (doing schoolwork/reading) and Melody was performing for the little ones, pretending that she was at a concert and singing "Yerushalayim shel Zahav" for Olivia and Manni... in the middle of the song, that is when she came to me and interrupted my reading with "ima, my name is Ofra now, okay?" (renaming herself after Ofra Haza)....

forgive me for being hyper-superstitious, i was hesitant to agree with her, "why Ofra, sweetheart? is this because you don't have a Hebrew name?" (forgive me, i never gave her a Hebrew name, i wasn't at all observant when i had her about 8 yrs ago).... she agreed with me saying that i had a Hebrew name and so do Olivia & Manni (my birth name is Ester (Juju is a nickname), and her name is "Olivia Gila" and his actual name is "Darcy Shneur Zalman"**)

this is why yesterday, i needed to take a break from my work, soonly, and look up the Hebrew translations of the word "melody"....

oh, and something has popped up for Olivia... well, she is about 2 years old, and i was having a HELL of a time keeping her dressed... she was a wannabe-nekkid-baby... the only thing that helped me catch her and dress her again was that she loves to give off a high pitched squeal (and i mean HIGH pitched) as she got naked..... 

just recently we were visiting with local friends (Jonathan and Bryan), and i heard that squeal (and i broke into a sweat) and got up from our tea and tried to find Olivia in the salon... but this time i found that she had not only stripped herself but also undressed Manni, and then she pulled her dress onto my little man and was trying to pull his pants up her legs (they didn't fit, she was too big for them)... and when i tried to get the pants back from her she started crying and hung onto them.....

SO, i wondered if i could just dress her in pants from now on (no more dresses) and see if she would keep them on... for the past week or so, i have dressed her in pants every day and she has NOT stripped herself, not even once.... my fingers are crossed... the only down side is bring her to shul on Shabbat and looking exactly like the little boys (you know how they are with their long hair and barettes, there is no way to know that she is a little girl).... oh well.
shalom! - Juju/Ulla & co.

** btw, i am not fond of the name "Darcy", it is took dark a name, but his father's favorite grandfather was named Darcy... i agreed to it but only if we could call the baby Manni (a fave brother in law of mine, Ulla's husband is named "Manuel Noach" and went as "Manni" when he was growing up)