Wasps

Yellow Jacket (Wasp) nest“You have a bunch of yellow jackets out on your deck.” Kameron announced with a little Southern twang. Yellow Jacket, that’s the name of a road, right? Good thing he’d already explained the term to me. Yellow Jackets are common wasps here in America, big nasty yellow & black buggers. I had noticed a few of them flying around the apartment and had summarily evicted them. Stephen said they often came to visit him when he went out for a smoke.

So, it was with a mild sense of trepidation and curiosity that I ventured out to look at the source of the insects. There were two nests: one large one tucked away to the left (pictured above) and a smaller one straight up in the middle. After taking a few photos, I carefully opened the sliding door, depositing my camera inside. I picked up the outside broom and started sweeping cigarette ash off the balcony. I’m not sure whether I expected them to be watching but it seemed the right thing to do.

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Shawn

Me sans beardOur faces are an important part of who we are, it’s the first thing (we hope) someone looks at when they meet us. Like it or not, it’s the image we present to the world. On a man, very few other facial accessories are as important as facial hair (or lack thereof) it changes your apparent facial structure, accentuates or covers up other features. In short, a change to facial hair can really change a lot about how we look and therefore how we are perceived.

For years now, people have been bugging me to shave my beard off. None so outspoken as my friend & colleague Lara, who, when she first met me, decided she didn’t like me because of the beard. She soon warmed to my personality though, but has since been a stalwart advocate for a “clean shaven Witherden”.

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Happy Birthday Arth

arth-0032Today is Arthur Hall’s birthday. “Who is that?” you well may ask. Well, that’s actually a surprisingly complex question. Another question you may ask (if you know me at all) is how the heck I remembered his birthday when I forget just about everything else. These are both valid questions. I’ll deal with the second one first.

I remember his birthday because he’s born on the 8th of the 8th (August) and one of the first birthdays I celebrated with him was back in 1988. (8/8/88). It was a very popular year for Asian couples to get married since 8 is considered very lucky by some. It’s hard to believe that it was probably around 20 years ago that I met him.

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The great escape

Kameron's StuffStephen & I picked Kameron (Stephen’s ex, ex, now current bf, do please try to keep up) last Sunday. So, Kameron’s currently living with me for the time being till he finds himself a job and place to stay (not necessarily in that order).

It’s all a part of my cunning plan, you see. Kameron had been planning on coming down to Dallas to live with Stephen for a while, ever since they got back together some 5 months ago. That way, when I leave, Stephen is taken care of, mostly. Add to that the free pills, free shrink and (hopefully) free money in the form of disability payments and he should be set. Sadly, Kameron lived in Jackson, Tennessee which is about 520 miles by car from where I live in Dallas. He would have to make the move, but he’d never attempted a move this big before. He desperately wanted to escape from Jackson, though, his great escape if you will.

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