John Prine, Black Beauty and Elvis

Man, did I sleep last night. I don't understand why I was so tired, since practically all I did yesterday was walk the dog and read. Seems like a lot of us are sleeping or napping more these days. I think the persistent anxiety of the age of coronavirus saps more of our energy than we know.

I bought John Prine's first album on iTunes yesterday and listened to it in the morning. I used to own it on CD, years ago, but I must have sold it back at some point. (Remember how we used to be able to buy and sell used CD's? Whole stores -- in fact, whole retail chains -- were devoted to them! I spent hours browsing used CD racks, not to mention used vinyl. Now you can't give a CD away.)

Anyway, it was nice to catch up with that album again. Prine remained a force in the music world for years, but to my ears he was never better than on that first record, singing "Sam Stone" and "Hello in There" and "Angel From Montgomery."

Then I took Olga to the cemetery.

Here were my cemetery clean-up items for the day -- a tubular metal frame of some sort (a chair, maybe) and a broken keyboard. Into the bin they went.

And since I have not much else to tell you about yesterday, let's catch up with some more iPhone photos!

You may remember the tree-in-a-bag that I occasionally pass on our dog walks. It has now leafed out and it's even blooming. Is it going to remain in that bag forever? Can it survive like that?

Here's another blooming tree. I took this just before our lockdown started -- hence all the traffic. But it seems very illustrative of our crazy time, with the masked bicyclist carrying a Union Jack bag. (To be fair, the bicyclist may have been masked against exhaust fumes rather than coronavirus -- hard to tell.)

The wood anemones are blooming in the cemetery.

This sign is posted at Fortune Green. People obey it to varying degrees.

I had to go to the pharmacy to pick up some of Dave's medication, and this was the front door.

On the bright side, though, people are celebrating spring! Here are some martenitsi I found on a bush on the high street.

I always thought Black Beauty was a horse. This made me wonder, though -- seriously -- how coronavirus is affecting sex workers. Surely their business must be down, and they can't easily fall back on unemployment, I imagine.

Then again, people have a lot more spare time at the moment.

A couple of trays set out on a bench on the high street, free for the taking. Again, I took this picture weeks ago -- I imagine now people are pretty wary about picking up objects. (I'm sure they'd be fine as long as they were washed.)

And finally, a box I saw in someone's recycling bag. I had no idea there's a brand of beer called "Elvis Juice." Here's the description on the box: "An American IPA with a bitter edge that will push your citrus tolerance to the brink and back. A caramel malt base supports a full frontal citrus overload: grapefruit peel piled on top of intense American aroma hops, rounded out with waves of crashing pine, orange and more grapefruit."

Even if Elvis loved grapefruit, which seems like a big if, I'm pretty sure he would not want waves of crashing pine in his beer. Waves of crashing peanut butter, maybe!