February 2025: I’d Just as Soon Kiss a Wookiee & Other Noodle Tales

This is the first year of my life that I’ve spent February not in Ohio, and also the first time I’ve gotten to spend the better part of colder months…not somewhere cold.

It was a delightfully-agreeable change of pace.

I started out February in North Carolina, which was a sunny 65°F / 18.3°C when I arrived (a stark contrast from the 37°F / 2.8°C that it was the morning I left Virginia).

I don’t actually know how to say this without its sounding braggy (sorry 😅), but this was my view for the next two weeks:

Evening View of a Lake and Surrounding Mountains in North Carolina

As far as amenities went, anything I’d need to purchase was 20 minutes away, so I mostly just enjoyed the peace and quiet of the neighborhood I was staying in when I wasn’t out for groceries or to try to get a local library card.

(The short version of the February Library Card Saga of Great Futility is that the one in North Carolina had a fee for out-of-state patrons and thought it was super weird when I asked if I could just have the plastic without activating it…and the library I visited in Jacksonville later in the month was closed the day I went to check it out.)

There was enough sunshine and warm weather that I got to enjoy Spring early on. Here are a couple samples of that:

Spring Plants of Unknown Varieties that Demonstrate the Depths of my Botanical Ignorance

The other thing I did while in North Carolina was catch up on all the X-Men movies I hadn’t seen over the past 15 years or so.

Pro Tip: If you watch the X-Men movies, make sure you watch them in theatrical-release order for the optimal viewing experience.

The first two X-Men movies were some of my favorites when I was a kid (and I think they are still probably the two with the best stories), but I was glad to see that Days of Future Past finally redeemed some of that awful stuff that they goofed in The Last Stand.

Oh, and I walked a lot.

By the time I left we were on such good terms that she jumped up and gave me a full-on muzzle kiss to the mouth, which was as disgusting as it was unexpected.

“I had my mouth open and everything!” ~Donkey, Shrek (2001)

I decided to laugh it off.

And go wash my face really well when I got home. 😝

looked kinda eerie as it swayed like permanent whisps of smoke amidst the trees.

Am I the only one who finds Spanish moss kinda creepy (but, you know, in a cool atmospheric, this-should-be-in-a-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-movie sort of way)?

:cue Pirate fog pipes noise (iykyk):

As I began to write this blog, I thought that it would end up being largely about dogs, but now that I’m going through my photos, I’m seeing that plants are probably an even bigger theme.

Bear with me here, ‘though, because some of them are really cool.

Like these little flowers I found (also in Jacksonville) that look like butterflies:

Butterfly Flower in Jacksonville

But back to dogs.

My friend Gen has this little dog I got to meet who knows how to wrap herself in a blanket, which–beyond being impressive–is pretty darn cute:

Gen’s Dog, Wrapped In a Blanket

Speaking of Segways, I also spent some time with my grandparents in The Villages.

Grandma Toni and I made strawberry bread from strawberries we got at the Strawberry Festival. (Did you know you can put the word “strawberry” in the same sentence three times, and in the same paragraph four times? 🌠)

What is strawberry bread, you ask?

Well, it’s like banana bread except with strawberries.

We had never heard of it, either.

But it was quite good with some home made whipped cream.

That was dessert after the dinner we had where Grandpa made one of the best burgers I’ve ever tasted.

Apparently I took no photos of myself with them. (My grandparents, not the burgers. But also not with the burgers.)

Oops.

Next time.

Oh, and Uncle Rick is still the coolest. 😎

While I got no pictures of people, I did get some pictures of sunsets and…more plants:

Various Plants and a Sunset in The Villages

If I may, while you’re paying attention to the photo on the left (and above, if you’re on mobile), I’d like to take a moment to talk about snake plants.

/begin snake plant ramble

The first time I remember seeing a snake plant of this size (and not in a pot in someone’s home) was in Brazil in 2019.

It was twilight and I was walking past one of these.

I knew it was just a plant.

And yet…

It looked like it was about to strike.

It was one of the weirdest things to walk past a plant, knowing it was merely a plant and still having that uncanny, shivery feeling of of, “This appears to be a predator.”

Have any of you experienced this, or is it just me?

/end snake plant ramble…in retrospect, “snake plant rant” sounds way funnier, albeit less accurate

The last part of my month was spent at a work conference in Orlando.

The weather when I arrived at “The Most Magical Place on Earth” felt surprisingly like Cleveland:

Obligatory You-are-Now-Entering-Disney-Property Action Shot
with Windshield-Wiper Photobomb in Foreground

Everything else was really nice.

Whoever is in charge of the food at this conference always does a good job, and Disney really knows how to do desserts:

My friend El asked me to take pictures of the food, so here it is.

I had the great fortune of being invited to a steak dinner while at the conference, too.

You know it’s a fancy party and you’re probably under-dressed when what looks like salsa on the chips is actually ahi tuna and there are all-you-can-eat oysters on the appetizer table.

Yes, this was at Disney.

No, I don’t have any pictures with Mickey Mouse.

All I have are pictures of the food and people’s conference badges (the latter I figured doesn’t make for good blog material).

If you’re not sure where your priorities are, try starting a blog and seeing what kind of pictures you take for it.

It’s a pretty eye-opening experience.

Other Stuff I Learned

This was a fun month of trying new things; here are the highlights:

• Lichen grows on everything down South!

Lichen Growing on an Evergreen

• Trash compactors aren’t just aboard moons space stations where dianoga live.

An IRL Trash Compactor

(Yeah, I’ve lived under a rock my whole life, apparently.)

• The blue GT kombucha looks like it should be served in Quark’s bar, but is not one of my favorites.

• Some cats are of the shoulder-parrot variety.

Exhibits A and B of Kitty of Shoulder-Parrot Variety

• If you hear a hissing sound that is akin to hundreds of snakes suddenly surrounding you while walking in the dark in a Florida neighborhood, it’s probably a stealth sprinkler system and nothing to jump hysterically in great alarm about. (Sharing for a friend.)
• Snake plants (Haha, you thought I was finished with snake plants, didn’t you? “Just wait ’til I get going!”) have these creepy stinger-looking things at the tips of their shoots:

Creepy Stinger-Looking Shoot Growing Inside of a Snake Plant

• I can walk 12 miles in one day and not die. 💀
• There’s a thing called a Disney Tree House. It is an actual house you can stay at on a Walt Disney World Resort that is up on stilts, has 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, en suite laundry…and the very-reassuring welcome sign pictured below on the left:

• It costs at least $75 to get a copy of yourself looking like a goofus on a roller coaster at Disney, but you can snap a picture of the picture on your phone and still get the laugh factor:

Goofy Roller Coaster Picture with Colleagues

at Closing Reception of the Work Conference

Photo of the Month

I’m not sure what this meteorological phenomena is called, and you may have to squint to see it, but if you look closely in the sky there’s a very faint “rainbow” of sorts but without any rain.

It was very clear that day, and not particularly humid, and–yet–there was this strange…skybow?

Anyway, it was too cool and bizarre not to share:

February Stats

Animals Pet

Dogs – 12 / Cats – 3

Books Finished

None

Library Cards Collected

0

975

Miles Walked

97.72

Song of the Month