One or two of my blog posts get a lot of hits, months after I wrote them and moved on, and one of them is ‘Touch typist stricken by disappearing keyboard’ so I thought I’d show you my keyboard again. People are clearly fascinated! Interestingly, for this week’s ABC Wednesday, one of the few letters which is still clearly visible is the letter ‘Y‘. The others are Q, Z, X, J and P, with U showing only slight signs of wear.
I don’t notice, being a touch typist, but whenever I ask OH to do anything on my computer, he takes one look, throws his hands up, and says ‘I forgot about your bloody keyboard!’Â Tee hee.
Okay, that’s got the actual letter ‘Y‘ out of the way. What else do I have for you? Well, here’s a little creature I found by the front door a few days ago.  A beautiful pale yellow Swallowtailed Moth. I know some of you aren’t keen on insects, but you have to admit he’s pretty!
Another insect in my June camera folder is this yellow patterned bug, miris striatus. I found him on one of the plants in the fish pond.
He’s a beneficial bug, since he feeds on soft-bodied insects, such as aphids.
Talking about feeding. Here’s some bread.
Now, the slice on the left is from a standard soft white loaf. Hovis square cut, to be precise. Thick, if you must know. It contains yeast, which my body doesn’t seem to like very much. I can tolerate a little, but if I eat too much I begin to feel unwell, and I swell and ache and get very stiff.
The slice on the right is also bread, but really, you wouldn’t know it was food from the same category. It’s organic ‘no added yeast‘ rye bread with pumpkin seeds. It’s quite nice, in a heavy kind of way, but you wouldn’t want to make cheese on toast with it. And I like cheese on toast!
More very plain food, this time rather tastier -
Yeo Valley organic yohgurt. It’s unsweetened, and bio-active, and actually tastes rather yummy, with non of that sour acidity or thinness that so many plain yoghurts suffer from. I use it sometimes on fruit, instead of cream, that’s how good it is.
I had a quick look around for books, and while I’m pretty sure there are some with either title or author beginning with ‘Y‘, I couldn’t find any on a quick search. I did find this, though, newly arrived and sitting in the hallway.
The latest edition of the Yellow Pages! For those who aren’t UK residents, the Yellow Pages is the phone directory devoted to businesses and other non-domestic numbers.
And talking of things that came in the post, here’s a letter I got this morning from the car dealership OH bought my car from about six years ago.
Bloody cheek!! They want my car!! You know what I say? ‘Over my dead body!‘
You see, my car is a Toyota Yaris. It’s the ‘estate’ version, and although it drives like a neat little small car, and has all the safety features and comfort and nippiness of the normal Yaris, it has a huge van-like space in the back, and what’s more it’s extremely low to the ground.
Both are very important features when you want to transport elderly greyhounds (which is why I bought it) or indeed, three-legged greyhounds. And the thing to bear in mind is this: they don’t make them any more! And as far as I can make out, there is nothing remotely like it available today. So they want my car, do they? Just let ‘em try and get it. GRRR!
Now, music, that I do have.
Ol’ Yellow Eyes. I’ve blogged about this before. It’s a CD of old standards recorded by Brent Spiner, the actor who played Lt-Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation. So named because the android Data has yellow eyes, of course, and Mr Spiner was certainly smart to allow the Star Trek connection to influence his buyers. It has now become a much-sought-after collector’s item, since it’s out of print and very hard to get hold of. I love it, actually, it has a slightly eerie quality to it, but it’s all kind of soothing. He says in the notes that he recorded it because his parents would play these old songs every evening while the family ate dinner, and he rather hoped that some poor kid somewhere would have it inflicted upon him, in his turn. The man has a sense of humour. I like that!
Here’s a hemerocallis called ‘Crimson Pirate’. I think it was Baino who suggested this one as a memorial flower for The Pirate, and this is what the blooms look like. I love the deep yellow throat, don’t you?
The yellow flowers behind the hemerocallis are bidens. They may or may not be bidens ‘Pirate’s Treasure’, but they were the last tray left at the garden centre and they’d lost their label. I like to think that they are, though.
This yellow flower is a mimulus, known by the common name ‘Monkey Flower’.
It grows in the water of my goldfish pond, and is the very plant that the yellow and black bug was found on!
Oh yeah. You’re waiting for Johnny to show up, aren’t you? Well, here he is -
21 Jump Street, the TV series that shot him to heart-throb fame, back in the eighties – in his youth. Yes, he was very young when he made that, though not quite as young as he seemed on screen.
Yep…I was waiting for Depp too. This is such an interesting and well thought out Y post. It boggles my mind how many actual y words you used. (:0)
There’s a lot of Y’s ! Very clever!
I love the bugs! Keep them coming.
Enjoyed your Y post
You are the rockstar of the “Y”‘s no doubt! I ESPECIALLY liked the insects.
I have yet to find a yogurt I could substitute for cream. I’d love to try that brand. For me, it’s kind of a necessary evil, something I know is good for me that I choke down. Hmph. I did not expect to find so many bugs here.
A most satisfying ‘Y’ post – and great to see Data back. I missed him
With so many wonderful Ys used here, what are you going to do when you get to round 5? You have hit upon several of my favorite things. I love a good creamy, non-acidic yogurt, and I find insects beautiful. Yellow is such a cheery color wherever it is found.
I thought the Crimson Pirate might qualify as a Depp reference! But of course we all wanted to see his handsome face…
Funny that the disappearing keyboard gets so many hits. Love that pretty yellow moth.
Well at least your letters aren’t literally disappearing! I once lost my 6 to the vacuum cleaner. I realised after it was being sucked up, it might not be a good idea to vacuum the keyboard…
Oh, the memories of 21 Jumpstreet. LOVE LOVE LOVE
Of course all your shots are great!
What a great profusion of Y’s – very creative and interesting!
Liked the butterfly.
FASCINATED by the Brent Spiner.
But as for the keyboard – YUCK (that’s a Y word.)
As an amateur photographer I fell for that little bug – very well caught indeed.
Photowannabe – Well, I kind of cheated a lot in this one since many of my ‘Y’s were actually ‘yellow’, but what can I say? I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Reader Wil – Thank you!
DBM – Well, of course you like my bugs! And yes, there will be more.
Anna – Thanks!
Molokai Girl – Oooh, thank you! I’m glad there are others who like my insects!
JD – Sorry about the bugs. I do warn people in my ‘About Me’! LOL!
Yes, I’ve eaten American yoghurt. Not the same as Yeo Valley, that’s for sure!
Anthony North – I have two Data fans now, so I guess I’ll just have to keep including him, won’t I? LOL!
Granny – I have no idea what I’ll do in the future. I’ll probably do one more round, and at the moment, I think it might be based on my archived pictures, but we’ll see. It’s going to get harder, that’s for sure!
Janie – Well, in a way Crimson Pirate is a Depp reference, because The Pirate was named for Captain Jack Sparrow. He was such a funny little dog, a mix of bravado and cowardice, and pretty, too. And the flower is a memorial for him.
It’s really funny which posts get the hits. The disappearing keyboard is one, ‘Trust me, I’m a physiotherapist’ is another! The third all-time popular post is ‘Conversations with a waiter’. Who knows why?
Mara – You sucked up your 6? ROFL!! Now, that is funny … since it didn’t happen to me, of course.
Animator’s Wife – I didn’t see 21JS the first time around, because I had very young children and I watched very little TV, but watching it now, I can see the magic. For someone who really didn’t want to be there, he did pretty well, didn’t he?
Thanks for your visit! It’s good to see new people, and you have a great blog!
Hildred and Charles – Thanks!
Roger Green – Haha! Yes, the keyboard does look messy, but actually it’s just that the surface has worn completely off the keys!
RuneE – Thank you! I can never resist an interesting insect!
Your keyboard is hilarious! The letter G has disappeared from mine! Weird, eh? I can’t be using the letter THAT much!
Interesting collection of Ys here! I love the yellow flowers most.
Don’t let them take your Yaris!! I remember having to transport our late dog to the vet–not easy getting a 90-pounder with arthritic hips into the mini-van. You were very smart to think of this when buying your car. Enjoyed the beautiful butterfly and seeing the flowers from your garden, and of course a young Johnny!
A bumper full of y’s but for me it’s always how you’ll sneak in a Depp connection and you always come up trumps.
Love the bugs….I too am a bug photographer.
Yes, I also was waiting for Johnny…
Fun post. Thank you.
Sherry
Gosh that typewriter’s amazing!
I love the little yellow moth too and I must tell my daughter to go looking (by water?) for some of those aphid eaters (aphid invasion in her greenhouse and she refuses to use chemicals).
One thing about your postings Jay, they never make me Yawn!
That keyboard is CRAZY! I need to see the letters to type anything!
And I love all the flower photos. So very pretty.
I just knew, knew, knew, you would find a way to work Johnny Depp in, somehow – and you didn’t disappoint, either! (Grin)
Beautiful photos, Jay! Love the bugs too… up close they are so beautiful!
We have Yellow Pages here too… I wonder how much longer they are going to actually PRINT those things (along with the residental number White Pages). It may be a thing of the past soon.
I just love your keyboard, Jay. It has so much personality. It reflects the love that went into each post! And it reminds me of my first computer until it recently died. Yep, this is only my second! HAL has been behaving himself!
Such an interesting read, Jay. I watched 21 Jumpstreet while I was recovering from a car accident! I would never have predicted that he would become the star he is now, then!
Thank you for your comment on Angels… You’re right! Too many tributes are overly sentimental or over the top! I appreciated your honest feedback, Jay!
Hope you’re having a wonderful week!
You’ve done it again! Wonderful Y . .My work keyboard used to look like that only it was black so just black shiny nothingness. We used to use it for typing tests to sort the real typists from the wannabes!
I’ve never seen a swallow-tail moth, and you have such a beautiful photo. The bug is incredibly beautiful, too. Altogether another truly fascinating post.
Love the moth but not the rye bread. I seem to remember that rye tasted better warm, as it went soft, but it could be a trick of memory. Must be difficult to cut out yeast.
Marie Reed – It’s very strange. I am not aware of it, but clearly I hit the keys harder with my left hand. Most odd.
Jama – Thank you!
Rose – It happened that I already had an elderly greyhound when I needed a new car, so it made sense to think of it, because greyhounds are heavy dogs! But don’t worry, they aren’t getting my car!
Babooshka – Heaven knows what I’ll think of for next week’s ABC. Hmm. A Johnny connection with a ‘z’. Heaven help me! LOL!
Sherry – Insects are endlessly fascinating to me – I’m glad you enjoy insect photography too!
GeriAtric – Tell your daughter that a good spray with a dilute solution of washing up liquid (dish soap) will kill aphids. But by all means, if she can find some bugs, that’d work too!
Meleah – I left OH to put Time Machine on the laptop for me while I was away and one of the first things he said was ‘you’ll have to draw letters on those keys next time you want me to do anything!’ ROFL!
Shrinky – Thanks! I aim to please, and if you’re pleased to see Johnny, well, that’s easy then, isn’t it?
Maureen – It’s a thought! How much paper they could save!! But not everyone has access to a computer yet, do they?
Petra – My keyboard thanks you!
I didn’t watch 21 JS the first time around, I was too busy with young children and not sleeping. But I remember Cry Baby coming out and thinking ‘Hmmm. Interesting!!‘ But again, busy with the boys, didn’t want it for years!
Baino – Excellent use of a worn keyboard!! I bet it worked, too!
Dragonstar – Thanks! People often dont’ notice moths individually, because in the dark, they all look kind of whitish grey/brown, but if you do look at them, they’re really quite lovely!
Joy – The rye bread didn’t all get eaten, I have to admit. I’ll try warming it next time. Yes, cutting out yeast is a big task, all kinds of flavouring uses it, including crisps (potato chips) savoury biscuits, crispbreads, and crackers, and stock cubes, soups and gravy. Oh well. It doesn’t kill me, but it’s not comfortable.
Love your Y’s. My keYboard is similar – except the M is clear as Y. Other than that – it’s not for the pecknhunt typist. EnjoYable post!
you do so much with letters it’s always so enlightening..sandy
Your keyboard looks exactly like mine!
I love the flower photos, especially the daylily.
I have to admit: I do like white bread. Much as I know that wholemeal is better for me. As for that stuff on the right you laughingly call bread …
I wish i could touch type. It’s a great skill to have.
Tumblewords – Thanks! No, not for the peck’n'hunter, that’s for sure!
Sandy – Thanks!
Ruth – The daylily is gorgeous, and makes me think of my little Pirate each time I see it. My ‘James’ rose is out too, and the ‘Susan’ is in bud. I think I might have to wait until next year for a flower on my ‘Renie’s Delight’ though.
Liz – I like white bread too. We had some great onion focaccia this week, and I caved and ate some, but it didn’t do my innards any good at all. *Sigh*
Touch typing is a great skill, but like most skills, you soon lose it if you don’t use it. Still, not much chance of that with the amount of time I spend at the laptop, huh? LOL!