The sun in his jealous sky

Last week I came across a notification from my local PBS station that there is a documentary about Eva Cassidy, The Essence of Eva. So I watched it over the weekend. It reminded me—yet again—of her stunning gifts, which included the unique arrangements of the music she performed.

I’m proud to report that, about a month ago, I introduced her to someone I follow on Bluesky. He’d posted Sting’s original of “Fields of Gold”; apparently he wasn’t aware of Eva because:

I’ll say it again—along with everyone else who ever heard her sing—died much too soon.

And you’ll want to spend some time with this.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

Moving messages

Time for another installment of vanity plates. I feel like I’m seeing a whole lot of them around these days.

I've seen this one a few times:

I confess that I'm not sure about this one:

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

Down in the weeds

I tuned in to my HOA’s landscaping committee meeting earlier that month, which is 70 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.

I attended because I wanted clarification on what our landscape maintenance contractor is supposed to be doing about back yards. We’ve had three companies in the past four years; the previous one was only contracted to come into our back yards twice, during late fall, to blow leaves. By the time they got to mine for the first round, there were foot-high drifts of leaves and sycamore bark. I’m not sure whether they did the second pass at all.

But this crowd hasn’t been in my back yard all year. They’re here weekly during growing season, but they only mow and blow in the front yards and the common areas.

So I asked—when can I expect someone to attend to the growing piles of leaves in the back yard?

The hand-flapping chair of the committee asked me if I was leaving my gate open? No—because I have no back fence, therefore no gate. It's wide open. As they'd know if they ever walked behind my block of townhouses. Which they have not.

Well, the HOA president (who has ubiquitous tendencies) butted in to inform us that the workers are supposed to mow, trim and blow in open back yards every other week. Which they have obviously not been doing.

Yay.

However, in the course of the meeting for as long as I stuck it out, someone commented on the need for the contractors to address the weeds—which they obviously are also not doing. And I was reminded of this last week when I noticed this weed:

I mean—no banana for scale, but that’s a weed of substance, right there.

I have no weeds, because the leaves act like mulch to suppress anything that's even thinking of growing. 

(Contractors were out yesterday and back yard still ankle high in leaves. I’ll have to put in a ticket in the property management portal.)

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Creeping up

Well, Wegmans is anticipating the season.

I mean, kinda? They’re chimineas, but they look distinctly Halloweeny.

(And it's interesting that you can get whoever set up the display arranged the lids symmetrically.)

Still, they’re not a patch on Costco, which has had Halloween yard décor out for three weeks.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

Gratitude Monday: It's there if you look

Some days your gratitude is macro; some days micro. Today’s the latter, but I think it’s also the former.

One recent morning on my walk, I was struck by the elegant arrangement of three roses on their bush. So of course I shot a photo.

There’s something about the formation of the pink flowers against the green shrubbery and the subtle curve to the right that just hums. I'm so grateful to have this kind of thing all around me.

You don’t have to stop to smell the roses, but it’s worth your time to pause to appreciate what they’re giving you.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu