Saturday came and left without fanfare.
Even the expected rain did not arrive although we are promised a wet week ahead, with a tropical storm coming up the coast.
It’s that time of year.
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School tax time. Ugh.
There’s not much one can do about it.
Is it just me, or does anyone else get irritated that the authorities find it necessary to charge you X thousands of dollars…and 85 cents, or 17 etc.
Have they not heard of rounding up or, God forbid, rounding down!
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Who deals with cents anymore?
Seemingly a lot of businesses, judging by the ever increasing amount of coins in our change jar.
Hard to believe that you could ever buy anything for less than a dollar.
My first job was at a supermarket check-out register and as we had to enter the amounts manually, I soon knew all the prices.
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My salary was minimum wage: $1.25 per hour. Apart from having to stand all the time, it was not hard work but there were a couple of basics to learn.
Heavy glass items should be double-bagged. This I learned while mopping orange juice up off the floor.
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Additionally, you needed to pay attention and distrust your customers.
One busy day I totalled up a bill and my customer exclaimed:
“That can’t be right!”
It wasn’t. I had become distracted while bagging for the previous shopper who had walked out without paying.
Clueless, I had gone back to the register and kept on adding.
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What lowlife would do that to an innocent (idiotic) young girl?
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My next job didn’t involve dealing with customers. I must have found the advertisement in the local paper for on-the-job training.
For $1.50 per hour I could sit at a bench and put together printed circuit boards.
In those days my hands didn’t shake.
And my eyesight was 20/20.
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My hands don’t shake that much now, except when I try to hold something. Like a cup of tea or a camera.
(Since I was mentioning irritations.)
As for eyesight…
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It figures that I would wait until I had these challenges to become so fascinated by everything I see.
The interest was always there, but until I retired I was too busy to indulge it.
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Recently I wrote that many designers are influenced by insects.
Nature as a whole is full of extraordinary designs.
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Not just in fancy flowers, but in weeds. Canadian horseweed below.
American burnweed, left.
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Nature’s jewels.
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Bees love the Crassulaceae. I can’t believe I remembered its name! End-of-season plant.
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Soft shades of colour and sensuous folds.
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“Lesser snakeroot” or Asteraceae.
If I wasn’t exploring with my lens, I may not have noticed this extraordinary design.
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Same plant in a mature configuration.
Either one works for me.
If I was an artist I would want to incorporate the designs into elegant women’s suits and dresses.
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The adolescent version.
My favourite.
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More possibilities here.
“Arachnoid designs”?
They own the patent.
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Another of their designs, detailing: American burnweed.
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A later stage Asteraceae.
“Gone to seed” look.
A bit like me.
Fabulous creations that we so often take for granted but the nectar gatherers worship for their whole life.
What a beautiful photo of the bee on the Crassulaceae (I can’t believe you remember this name either)! If I were an artist, I wouldn’t mind painting one or two of these flowers of yours, but I can hardly draw a stick man 😌. Do you know what I’m thinking now? If you add up all the taxpayers’ cents, it might add up to quite a few rand (or dollars in your case). It can make someone’s change jars go ten-fold …