Better and borscht

My back seems less inclined to stab and spasm today. I even forget and move normally for minutes at a time before getting a reminder twinge. Fingers crossed that the situation continues to improve!

I even managed to make borscht for lunch with some of the beets that were threatening to bolt, thanks to magscanner 's assistance with the harvesting and carrying of several monster beets. Huh, should have taken a picture of them; they really were quite impressive, 8-12 inches long. And I only deemed 1 1/2 of them to be too far gone to be usable (when they bolt, they develop tough fibers running through them). My back was weary after all that chopping so I did lie down for a while. But it's after lunch now, which we ate out in the pergola, and it's so nice that I'm going to try to work out here for a while.

If I continue to feel okay, we may even go see Lyric Theater's production of Camelot tonight. Or we'll have one last chance tomorrow afternoon if I think going tonight would be pushing it.

Butterflies!

I'm sitting out in the pergola, and I suddenly realized that all those leaves I was seeing blowing past are actually butterflies! They're moving so fast I can't tell what they are. They're not monarchs, too small, but it's still some sort of butterfly migration. Possibly Painted Ladies. Cool! Maybe towards evening some of them will settle for the night and I'll be able to ID them. But here, how cool!

Ghostly amphora

Here's one of my favorite art pieces from this trip: "Matrix Series: Amphora....Saved" by Brent Kee Young, at the Renwick Gallery.

That's a lacy glass amphora suspended in the center of a lacy cylindar, all constructed from pyrex pipettes. So cool! Tricky to photograph too, so kudos to magscanner for this excellent shot.