Tiny chartreuse leaves have sprung from the twigs and branches of large trees visible from my office window. A few days ago, those leaves did not exist; or they were so small they were invisible from my vantage point. Each day since then, when my eyes were able to barely detect them, they have grown and unfolded a bit more. In a few short weeks, they will have exploded in size to the extent that they will hide the branches that hold them. Today, they are the color of yellow pears. They will shed much of their yellow hue in the coming weeks, changing to darker greens. I would like to train a video camera on them, so I could play the images back at high speed to watch them develop. Have I written of that desire before? Probably…and recently. Spring is a magical time. And, as weather forecasters will attest, a time of natural rage.
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Today’s weather: Warm, Wet, and Vicious. For several days, weather services have delivered what a Weather Channel headline calls a Rare ‘High Risk’ Severe Forecast. The subheading is even more concerning: ‘Weather service warns that numerous tornadoes, along with multiple long-track EF3 or greater twisters, appear likely.’ As if those dire warnings were not enough, meteorologists go on to announce: ‘Tornado Outbreak Expected Today In Midwest And South.’ Day by day predictions for today through Saturday put the chances of rain and thunderstorms at one hundred percent. As for temperatures, today’s peak is expected to reach 75°F and forecast nighttime lows in the upper 50s to middle 60s are expected. Times like these make me wish we could seek protection in a tornado shelter or apocalyptic retreat.
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Yesterday, I visited the hospital medical records office to request details about the port implanted in my chest on Valentine’s Day last year. My objective was to obtain information about the device to give to the people at M.D. Anderson, in the hope that medical technicians can use the port to draw blood and infuse chemical treatments. The veins in my hands and arms have become uncooperative, treating needles like attackers to be thwarted. I have the details now; next week, I will learn whether the existing port can be used. I do not want to have another one implanted.
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Colors hide themselves in darkness and express themselves in the presence of light. A rock that is bright blue in the daytime may be brown or black on a night when clouds make the stars invisible. But, of course, the rock does not change colors; the difference in its appearance is governed by the amount of light that bathes it. White light. If the rock is illuminated by light that appears red, the rock may appear purple. If light from a spectrum invisible to the human eye bathes the rock, the rock does not become invisible…but what happens to it? What color is that same rock when washed in white light, but viewed by a dog? My understanding is that the dog sees blue as a shade of gray or brown. If I look at the rock at the same time, what color is the rock? Does color depend entirely on the eyes viewing it? These are matters we discussed in elementary school; if we learned from our discussions, we would understand the nature of colors. How would our life experiences be different if sounds were different, depending on the human ear hearing them? For example, if you heard a word as “nomenclature” and I heard the same utterance as “gasoline,” would language confuse us? Or would our thought processes make the necessary adjustments so both of us would understand the difference sounds to mean the same thing?
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I hear a cat’s complaint. She has been fed, so it’s not food she’s after; it’s freedom…or human contact…or domination over human beings.
