Author: Rita de Heer

Writing is what I do. What I think about. What I meditate on. What I dream up. Listen to. Imagine. Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I eat. And I walk. Pull out environmental weeds. There are a thousand more things I do, though writing comes into a fair few of those things too.

‘I don’t speak binary…’

One of my favorite lines in The Mandalorian, which I’ve been watching one last time before I cancel my subscrition with Disney+. Cross my fingers that I can achieve that this time.

That punch line only seems paradoxical. In a scene with the maximum amount of technology being used, Din Djindarin tells his droid don’t complain to me I don’t speak binary.

Binary? A language made up of noughts and ones? On and off? Speaking it would be quite a feat. I think it’s hilarious, that idea. Always laugh when I hear it.

Originally, I signed up to rewatch the Star Wars timeline right through. That was last year sometime. Tried to cancel my subscription then, but Disney is one of those ‘sticky’ businesses. It’s hard to get loose once you signed up.

So, OK, I’ve gotten involved in a few other shows. The Bear was good. I rewatched Avatar, then tried to get into part two.

The minute one of the baddies said that they had to leave Earth because it had died, I was over it. I switched it off.

Turns out I can watch any amount of pretend fisticuffs and sword play but keep your so-called fictional future-telling off my Earth. The present day real life predatorial delays are bad enough.

A vague shot of the mythosaur .. he’s an archetype of course. I’d love to see a bit more of him if Disney+ ever does a third series.

At the weekender

Tree: Small Eucalyptus

One of the half dozen or so red flowering, out of 800 +/- Eucalyptus species, native to Australia. This specimen in the grounds of Carinya at Carindale.

This one reminds me of a mallee. It’s about two metres talll but may have been pruned to keep the flowers accessable.

Its leaves are unusual to me, in that they’re not hanging edgeward to the sun, which I thought was a feature of Eucalypts. But which could’ve been hybridised out of them.

I have an inkling that the red-flowering mallee has been hybrised to the nth, it being so suitable for small suburban gardens on account of its dwarfish growth habit.

[In the usual way, I may expand and edit after I have already posted, to be able to have something to put up. if you’ve got something to add, let me know in the comments? This is a one-fingered typing job, and I’ve mislaid the reference to Brisbane Eucalyptus trees]

Screen Saver

Today I learned how to ‘play’ my screen saver. It’s the kelp forest and the diver, drone, or camera moves slowly through it. This is the few seconds before I start the day.

Then I hit ENTER on my password and I have to live with whatever area it stops at. For a while all I could see all day was huge swags of kelp behind all my directories.

Got sick of the boring view. Went through all the other available screen savers, didn’t like any of them. Re installed the kelp forest.

This morning I thought to view the whole loop. Duh, people will be saying. I hit ENTER at a place I liked and hey presto … a whole new and different wallpaper. I’ve got fish now, swimming between the folders.

Art: Evercool by GC Myers

One of the many suppressed longings of creation which cry after fulfilment is for neglected joys within reach; while we are busy pursuing chimerical …

Evercool

This morning found another artist whose paintings ‘speak’ to me. Simple at first glance with well defined shapes. The colours, how I also like to outline them.

But complex, too. Layers signified by tree branches in front and behind. The road topping hills and going out of sight in the dales. Thetr is distance and perspective.

And there’s luscious substance, not to forget. Shapes shadowed as they curve inward to meet the bedrock of the canvas.

I like it a lot.

One thing about this weather report app that irritates me every day that I take notice is Visibility.

So we can see 24 kilometres, but only if we’re looking into the sky, at clouds. Or if you yourself are in space.

If you stand at sealevel, looking out over the sea, the horizon is about 4.8 kilometres away, and this is for a man of average height which is 5’ 10” or 1.75 metres.

If you look inland and you’re not standing on a mountain, it’d be a lot less, what with the lumps and bumps of most of the Earth.

Hibiscus, the Magnificent

Oh hail this magnificent hibiscus flower on this gloomy day …

Yesterday a friend staying at Carinya temporarily, walked me through the almost abandoned buildings and overgrown gardens.

This is one of the most vibrantly colored flowers I have seen. Without its flowers the shrub is insignificant, no more than a meter tall, with every millimetre of its bark covered with lichen.

I know people will tell me lichen doesn’t hurt tree bark. That may be so. But the lichen by creating little pockets, draws water to itself and that allows other, unfriendly, organisms a foothold. Rot is the next step.

When I see a shrub or tree bedizened with lichen, I see a tree in trouble, planted in the wrong place and or climate.