Every so often Mother Nature throws you a jewel, something so incredibly beautiful that you stand they and simply stare at it in awe. Such was today. I have seen one of these little guys before, but, as luck would have it the camera was in the house and I was in the middle of something else. Today I had the chance to run inside and get my camera and actually take some shots. It is at times like these that one wonders at Mother Nature's design. This beetle, for those purists among you "Golden Tortoise Beetle" is literally that, it looks like it has been made out of pure gold. At first sight it is takes ones breath away, and then as one looks at it more closely the fascination does not diminish. Today I had my camera, today I had the chance to take a shot of it, albeit a lousy one, due to the fact that this little baby is 1/4" long...... sometimes, just sometimes, mother nature just blows you away.

I saw that sticker on the bumper of a car the other day, and as it turns out it was driven by one of the clerks of court so I was able to ask her where she found it, cause, in the interests of public safety I think I need one on the back of my car. You see I am one of those folks that brakes for wildlife, such as birds, frogs, turtles, snakes etc., but then I also brake for things that are PRETENDING to be wildlife such as sticks, pinecones, leaves etc., so I tend to brake alot, and I mean alot, so the person behind me probably needs some sort of warning due to my efforts to evade squishing wildlife.... I have also been known, on a regular basis to pull off to the side of the road so that I can pick up a turtle that is attempting to cross the road and take him to where he feels the need to be (which is a puzzle in itself, why on earth would a turtle, living in a nice drainage ditch, with water and bugs and slugs and everything else galore to feed on suddenly decide in its wisdom "hmmmmm I think I will cross that busy road and risk being squished like a CD so that I can see what is in the ditch across the road"..... what is up with that?) I was on the 17 bypass just recently and a turtle in its wisdom, decided to leave the green, leafy, no doubt bug ridden drainage ditch to the right of the highway and head towards the concrete barrier in the center, which had no way of escape, there was just concrete, which the turtle could have absolutely no hope of climbing. Can someone please explain this to me? Do you know how dangerous it is to pull off the side of the road in order to rescue a turtle when vehicles, in their wisdom, are whizzing past you at at least 80 in a 55? How stupid would one feel to get hit by a car during one of these forays in an attempt to rescue a turtle who is obviously not smart enough to stay in his safe, and food laden drainage ditch? I am hoping that someone can explain this to me, but in the meantime I will continue to brake for wildlife, and no doubt be the subject of much derision from the drivers behind me.

When I get to play my favourite game which is "see what absolutely absurd names parents in their wisdom (or lack thereof) chose to name their unfortunate (and undoubtedly emotionally crippled for life) children" This game is accomplished with the aid of the local newspaper which, of course, prints the photographs and names of all the youngsters graduating from their respective high schools. Some of the High Schools, those located in the smaller towns in the area, have slim pickings, as parents at those schools tend to be traditionalists, naming their children after their relatives, so there are generally alot of juniors, IIIs, and even IV and Vs in the males and lots of girls with good old fashioned names no doubt after beloved grandma or great grandma. The "city" schools though are a veritable gold mine of the absurd. One reads some of the names and wonders if perhaps shortly before the child's birth instead of perusing a book of baby names the parents threw the entire contents of a scrabble game into the air and then named their child based upon how the tiles landed on the carpet. It is apparent however that their particular game of scrabble appeared to be missing most of the vowels, but contained far more than the required amount of apostrophes. I really do not think that it is fair to give a child a name that contains more than one apostrophe, and personally I think one that contains four (which I saw recently) ought to be against the law. Parents also like to get creative with the spelling of traditional names, no doubt thinking that their particular spelling of the name is unique (which happens to be the name of one young lady graduating this month Unique). Their machinations however do not make one think, "oh how clever to spell (insert name here) that way" rather they make one think "these people must have failed English in school and are basically illiterate". (The basketball player Anfernee somethingorother comes to mind.) Several years ago there was a young lady whose name I am assuming is supposed to be pronounced Isabel, but her parents apparent quest to be unique turned it into an almost unrecognizable (and no doubt teacher confounding) Yzable. I think it is unfortunate seeing as most names mean something, such as mine (Dawn) however what would it mean if my parents, being either funky or illiterate, spelled it Dorn? Perhaps "pet" names are allowed in graduation notices, I am certainly hoping so, otherwise the parents of the young girl Pebbles who graduated this week are going to be spending alot of money on therapy. The all time classics however have yet to be overshadowed, I am not sure if the parents of Euphonia (girl) were music lovers or they just thought it would be neat to saddle their unwitting child with a name such as that, there is the boys name that I cannot even remember right now, so complicated was it, that contained no less than four apostrophes, at least three Qs and no vowels whatsoever, I am assuming at this point that his teachers and his friends called him Q rather than try to grapple with the impossible pronunciation. I am torn with the top two, but seeing as we have a boy and a girl lets go with the boy first, a young man with a name that sounds innocuous when it is pronounced Sha - tead, however it takes on a whole new meaning when one sees the spelling of Shithead. Without a doubt though, the shining example, the ultimate, the absolute king of why there should be a "child name" police on duty at every hospital that delivers babies, a young lady named Latrine. I am hoping upon hope that everyone that this young lady ever came in contact with was kind enough NEVER, EVER to advise her as to the meaning of her name, and if they did, I hope she then sued her parents for emotional distress. I am so looking forward to the other announcements this week.

My dahlia have begun to bloom, I just love them, they are the most wonderful things in a North Carolina Garden, the heat just doesn't phase them, the only thing that bothers them is the weight of their own stems and blooms which quite often results in them taking the "dahlia nap" on the lawn, which results in me having to find some heavy duty stakes to prop them up with. This one bloomed today, while lying quite happily on the lawn. Once I got a stake and got her properly propped up I was able to take some shots of her.

The most amazing thing happened this weekend. We were in Myrtle Beach, for our annual meet up with the Band Boosters dinner and general drink too much beer and have fun gathering. As is our want my husband and I played a round of stupid golf (aka putt putt golf, or mini golf). As is the norm on these courses the water is dyed blue, so it has more of an impact. As I wandered around the course shooting an almost consistent set of 4s (while my husband was shooting an almost consistent set of 2s) I thought that if they did not dye the water blue then what a wonderful resource it would be for wildlife. All these streams and ponds would be an absolutely wonderful breeding ground for frogs, toads and dragonflies... what a pity it is that they dye the water blue and therefore turn it sterile. As we reached the 17th hole of a particular course I looked into the large pool by the side of the hole. It was teeming with tadpoles, and as I continued to look there were baby frogs leaving the pond and venturing out into the world. As I picked my ball out of the hole I noticed a baby frog had got himself stuck in there, so of course I had to rescue him, placing him into the flower beds around the hole. I mentioned this wonderful phenomena to my husband, wondering at how the tadpoles and frogs could exist in the blue dyed water when he said "perhaps they use food coloring" HA HA light bulb over head, perhaps they do, and the tadpoles can exist and thrive in these artificially created rivers, streams and pools. Is that not neat?

There is a tree frog in my kitchen. I don't know where he is, because despite looking I cannot find him, but the minute the tree frogs in the Canna bed outside the kitchen window begin singing my tree frog in the kitchen joins in. I am hoping there are enough flies in the kitchen to feed him, if not I am going to have to seek him out and evict him, can't see him starve or anything like that.

Why do I keep getting e-mails telling me "how to loose weight" first up if you are going to send me an e-mail do me, and the world, a favour, learn the basic usage of the English Language. One does not "loose" weight, (unless perhaps one is speaking of the "loose" feeling of one's clothing after one has "lost" weight but I digress), you "lose" weight if you do anything, you do not "loose" it. Another example of this massacre of the English Language appeared in my local newspaper one day "hundreds of local workers to loose jobs" it was all I could do to stop myself driving down to the newspaper's head office and smashing out their windows with large bricks, I was almost foaming at the mouth to see that a newspaper, of all things, had plastered such a headline on page one of the front page of their paper. Recently I received a response from the NC ABC Commission to an application for a permit. Written in red ink across the bottom of the cover letter was the following "is this person going to be the sight manager, if not then we also need an application from the sight manager." As I gazed in awe at these words it occurred to me that a) this person is working for the State government, b) this person, due to the fact that they are working for the State government, obviously has either a high school diploma or even a college degree and c) I did not realize that one has to hire the services of an optometrist in order to run a bar. Is it just me or is the basic skill of spelling one of those things that is being let go in this present world? While I understand that most teenagers and techno-savvy peeps communicate by means of abbreviations so that GTG, BRB, CU, LOL, are considered acceptable ways of communication it means that people are not required to know how to spell. Quite often at the office we receive letters from people who are in jail or prison. On reading the letter it is quite obvious why that particular person has ended up in said jail or prison, the fact that they do not have the ability to express themselves in writing (and one would imagine through speech). The mangling of the English language that one sees in these letters makes one wonder how on earth these people EVER passed a standardized test in Kindergarten let alone in High School. Now, perhaps working for a boss who was an English Major at Duke, and having excelled at English in school, I am a little more picky than most but come on people, if we can't communicate properly then where does that lead us? Are we going to start saying to people as we leave their presence BRB, instead of articulating our enjoyment at a particular situation are we going to say LOL? We are loosing our ability to articulate, and yes that was a joke. (And you bet your sweet bippy that I ran this through spellcheck before I posted it :))