New Camera

The zoom on this thing is amazing:  the phoebe was a good 40 feet away on a branch  I may get over this, but not anytime soon, I suspect

                                                        

                                                                 Phoebe  (telephoto)

small as yet unidentified moth

the road not taken =)

the ledges (which are now more tree than ledge)

Addendum to phone phobia

Addendum:  years ago, quite by accident, I discovered a way to get directly to the place you want to be when calling a big company.  Usually you're put on hold and they play ugly music at you, for an interminable length of time.  You press 1 for billing, 2 for customer service, 3 to speak to a rep (never do this one), 4 because your house is on fire,   on and on and on...  

One day I got annoyed by the wait for "customer service", so I hit 'billing'.  Immediately the phone was picked up by a real person!   I mean, that makes sense. who calls billing?   "can I help you?" she asked. "Oh, Im so sorry I must have hit the wrong key, I was looking for customer service..."  "no problem, let me patch you through..." 

and there I was.  

I suggested this to a friend who was fussing about the same thing, she finally tried it, and said, this works like a charm...

It may not work these days, since so many things are now voice automated, but it's surely worth a try...

phone-phobia

It's one of those things that makes no sense. I LOVE getting phone calls, but I hate making them. Especially the ones that need to be exact, as in, "press 1 for business, 2 for accounting, 3 for armed guards..." well, you get the picture. 

Our bank cards  came due this month, and we had to renew them. Easy, right?  It has taken me three weeks to gather the cards, the info, and my courage, just to sit down and use a phone.  I'm always afraid at some point the Nice-Lady Recording at the other end will say, "we're sorry, we have no record concerning the card number you gave us. Please hang up and try again." click.

later. much later.

yay. I got it right.  It's ridiculous to be that edgy, but  when it comes to phones and debit cards and press this for that and it's all  a recording, well, just shoot me now.  I told my husband when he got home, and he said he had the same concerns when he did his.   We gettin' old.  All this newfangled computer stuff, it ain't natural. 

How is everyone holding up with the Covid thing?  I've been home for three months, Im just afraid i'll have to learn how to drive all over again.   

Sometimes...

Went downstairs a little while ago, and I could hear this flapflapflapflap buzzy noise, very faintly in the corner of one kitchen window.   And there was a pretty little pure white moth, fuzzy and new, little wings just buzzing away, trying to fly.

So.
I picked it up, and it spent two or three minutes propelling itself up the back of my hand and down, and every minute  you could see it getting stronger. It even flang itself into the air and landed on the porch floor,  flapflapflapflap,  and I'd pick it up again.  Did that three or four times and finally gave a hop and took off into the sky.

Oh, the joy of flight.  Happy happy moth. flapflapflapflap...

And a sparrow came along, swooped down, and that was the end of that. 

Sigh.