Playing Hooky

I played hooky today, although it's probably not hooky if your boss knows. I slept late this morning, chatted with a friend on the phone, and then ran errands. Among the errands was a stop at the local dry cleaner/tailor to drop off a pair of pants to have a seam repaired. ( I could do this myself but it would require cleaning a table, pulling out the sewing machine, finding thread to match...). The tailor I use has hemmed a number of pairs of pants for me. She insisted on fixing the seam while I waited, and refused to charge me for it. It's nice to be a regular.

I stopped in the pizza shop next door to pick up a sandwich for lunch. The folks in there asked if I was going out in my kayak today. It was a gorgeous day and kayaking would have been a really good idea. It was not part of my plans although I did debate changing my plans after that stop.

I decided, however, to follow my original plan and treated myself to a movie. I saw Death at a Funeral (just me and 2 other women). It was a cute farce, not laugh out loud funny for the most part but amusing.

When I got home I decided to take advantage of the weather so I grabbed my camera and headed out for a walk. There were a couple of things in the neighborhood I wanted to get pictures of so I headed towards those. On the way I took pictures of other things that caught my eye. Click on the pictures to see larger versions. Enjoy!

First stop is my yard.


This plant is called blue threadleaf. In the spring it sports delicate blue flowers on the ends of the stalks. This time of year it's showing signs of fall.

A bumble bee enjoying our sedum.

Berries on our dogwood.

A house down the street is undergoing a major renovation. The overall design is garrison colonial. This small fake roof appeared on the front of the house earlier this week. Makes me wonder who thought this was a good idea.

The other entry in the "what were they thinking" category are these plastic tulips in another neighbor's yard. When I noticed them from the car the other day I thought they were wood.

It took all summer to paint this fence (it used to be white). It was painted one section at a time. Our guess is that the painter and the gardener in the family couldn't agree on the timing.

I live in the 'burbs so basketball hoops aren't that uncommon. However, I hope I never run into the critter who chomped on this one.

And finally a couple of signs.

This is on the door of a dump truck sitting in a neighbor's yard (they're doing some sort of work in the back yard).

On the other side of our next door neighbor is some town owned land, and a pond. About five feet back from the road is this pair of signs. The vegetation is pretty thick between the road and the signs.