Gone Swimmin'

It's just about that time, my friends. At some ungodly hour tomorrow, the beau and I will crawl on to a plane heading to Texas, where everything is bigger--even the hangovers (trust me). This year my goals are not to drink with my uncles (see previously parenthesed comment), to practice doing handstands in the ocean (last year I was hampered by pneumonia) and to feed Zak vegetarian hot dogs until he barfs. I think they're attainable.

To give you a flavor of what's ahead, here are some haiku interspersed with pictures of the beach from previous years. I hope you enjoy--see you all in August!

killer fire ants face

asian tiger mosquito swarm

we watch from indoors

get up. get up now.
get up off the sofa, dork,
it's time for ice cream.

shrimp don't stand a chance
de-suit 'em and marinate
aaaah, garam marsala

ice-creamless children
fully illustrate the term
“deprecating moue”

Baby's Back!

Hi, cutie. Welcome home.

I missed you.

How've you been? Did they treat you all right?

Don't be scared, you're safe now.

Come on out. It's okay.

Yes, there we are. Doesn't that feel better? Now you can finally get out of that cramped bag and stretch your legs. Ahhhhhh...sweet freedom!

What's that you say? You've missed hanging out on the bed with me? You're eager to get back to our late night web perusing for e-Bay bargains on pink camo jammies and night vision goggles?

I know. Me, too.

Oh-ho-ho, silly, you know I never take you into the bathroom! Stop it or you'll have people believing I camp out in there with my computer and a copy of Easy Does It crossword puzzles! Now, now...

Ah, much better--now I know you're really home.

You and me on the sofa, baby--just like old times.

Welcome home, sweetheart. It's good to have you back.

Question du Jour

Is it wrong to clean your shower walls with a mop? I don't mean wrong in a Miss Manners sort of way, I mean fundamentally wrong as a human being.

I'm only asking for a friend.

Your Educational Crap For Today

Today I woke up feeling like this:

Except I was supine and didn't have a nifty grasshopper snack to fortify me for the trip to the bathroom. But you know what I mean.

I found that picture on msn.com, thank yew very much to them, along with a slew of others. In lieu of something intelligent or pithy or at least mildly funny, I thought I'd shamelessly yank those pictures from msn and put them together with random, faintly stupid comments and call it my blog. And suggest that it's educational because I am going to give you facts. Facts that I stole from another source, but if I had taken them straight from my head then they would no longer be facts anymore, but rather just opinions, and if you spent any time at all with me yesterday you will have had just enough of that.

So let's see what there is to find:

This little imp is the cotton-top tamarin. Tamarin--sounds like a spice, doesn't it? And she looks like she could be one of the Spice Girls, so see how nicely I tied all that together. And let's face it, who can't relate to waking up with hair like this?? Although it looks festive on her, the little tamarin bee-yotch.

This is a bird of paradise. I never wake up looking like this. I'm including this picture only as a way to mention that...ahem...I didn't know that the bird of paradise was actually a bird. I thought it was just a plant. I am duh.




WHALE SHARK! WHALE SHARK IN THE WATER!! Not a whale, mind you, but the largest fish ever. I once had a chance to go look for a whale shark in the ocean. Spotting one was not guaranteed, but yorking into the roiling, 8-foot tall waves was. I declined and got to swim all by myself with a sea turtle instead. The elusive whale shark was never spotted by the yorkers, ha ha HAAAA!!



Continuing with the underwater theme, this is the wolf eel. Doesn't it look a little nervous? It's not dangerous unless provoked, but I do wonder how it defines the word "provoked."

You looking at me? You looking at me?!

The Vietnamese mossy frog is as wide across as it is long, effectively giving it the shape of a...square, I guess. Or a symmetrical green blob. Some days I wish I could camouflage myself like this so that no one could find me. Wonder Wicked, take the form of a.....desk!





Oh, look, here we are underwater again! This is the bonnethead shark, also known as the shovelhead shark. Personally, I would find it rather undignified to be named after a garden implement, but who am I to say? BTW, this is the only shark to have sexual dimorphism, which means that the males and females actually look different. Maybe the girls have smaller heads, in which case they could be called hoehead sharks. Ha! I made a funny.



This poor thing is called a harpy eagle. It just looks like its got attitude, doesn't it? I guess that anything that eats monkeys and sloths can have all the attitude it wants. Death by harpy eagle sounds particularly...disturbing.

Nice hair, dude.

I'll confess that this little guy is my favorite. Mr. woolly monkey up there is kind of a scaredy cat; he doesn't like deep water and will not cross it unless its widdle feet can touch the bottom. He looks very serious about his veggie intake.



These are fossa, which I include only as a lead in to these cute widdle behbies who are not found on msn (yet) but rather on my brother Rob's bed every morning:

Aaaaaawwwwww.

There. That's today's edumacation.

No tests, all grades will be based on participation.

Good day.

Shake Your Groove Thing, Babies

Good morning.

I feel rampant funness in my bones today.

It's going to be a very, very good day.

See??

Moth in the 'Hood

Sometimes when you take your camera out with you at night--just on a whim--you are rewarded with something special like this:

This is a hummingbird hawk-moth. I got to see one prancing about last week while sitting on the side of the road waiting for a fireworks show to begin. I was delighted with it. They are clever little things that will fool you but good into thinking you're looking at a little hummer buzzing around.

But you're not.

The little guy above was just hanging around my neighborhood tonight, and since I happened to be wandering around outside, with my camera tucked into my pocket, and remembering that I had said camera on me, I snapped a random shot into the darkness and just...got...lucky.

It was sooooooo much better than having a sun spider crawl up my shorts.

Early Morning Delight

Waking up before 6:00 a.m. is not unusual for me. Getting my ass out of bed at that time without some really compelling reason is. I love the luxuriousness of lounging in bed--it's one of the many things I find to be sincerely spiritual--and since I have conveniently not had kids or dogs who are demanding at all hours of the day and night, I can pretty much do this if I wish...at least during the summer. Nine months out of the year, of course, I'm a slave to the alarm clock. But we're not dwelling on that right now, la la la la.

This morning I was out of bed, tea brewing, before the sun came up. The thought of watching the sun rise over the mountains--on my balcony and not in the car on the way to work, thank you very much--appealed to that hazy romantic part of me that you all know I like so much. Sunrises make me think of the beach, and the beach is my all-time ultimate forever happy place, so it seemed a definite win-win all the way around. So tea in one hand, book on contemplative prayer in the other (God and I have simply got to get this thing worked out), I padded out to the patio to Be At Peace. I even put on pants, which was not strictly necessary but seemed in good taste. Wanting to share the joy, I took los gatos Fifi, Max, and foster boy Shadow "Fang" Poofalicious, plus the wabbit, out with me. The family that plays together stays together, you know.

Aside from Fifi's intermittent hissing at Fang because he existed in her world, it was beautifully quiet. (Well, and there was my Loud Neighbor's Very Loud Alarm Clock at 6:15 but he eventually turned it off and what I learned about him is that alarm clocks mean nothing because it's almost an hour later and there are still no signs of life over there. Huh, maybe he was up too late last night harassing his girlfriend and making loud, unidentifiable noises for the whole neighborhood to hear and now he's exhausted. Poor thing. Maybe I should throw a rock or something.) The birds are quite daring at that hour. They circle and buzz the houses like mad things and seemed to have a fine time taunting the cats with their inaccessibility. Fifi sat on the balcony wall and stared at them, occasionally making a jumping movement as if she might actually catch one. As if. (Although it must be noted that last year she did catch a bird that was kind of slow and 'tarded but her mother made her release it, which is probably is a contributing factor to all this grumpyass mood of hers.) I do think that I inadvertently swallowed a small spider with my tea while being At Peace, which was okay for me but probably not so much for the spider.

It was a quiet and fabulous way to start the day, despite the reprimanding I had to give Bugs for eating my plants. (He is a wabbit, after all, so he does get some special dispensation there.) After his scoldings, he ran behind all the plants to his secret place and nibbled loudly on a plastic plant tray. He really showed me, he did, because that was not at all conducive to my Peace.

Since my voyage south to the coast is a mere week and a half away, I'll consider this morning as training for impending sunrises over the ocean. The really lovely thing about getting up early there is that I can sit on the porch with my brother Jack, who is the ultimate early riser and who is very pleasant to just sit with and be. The other lovely thing there is that if you get up early you get first dibs on leftover noshies, which, believe me, becomes important in a house with 25+ people. Do not swanker in at 10:30, rubbing your eyes, and expect to get some cheese toast.

Thanks for sharing my early morning with me. I'm curious--what gets you out of bed in the morning (and work doesn't count because, well...duh)?? Feel free to answer in haiku if you like, or just regular prose. Or single syllables. Or grunts, especially if getting up early just does not work for you.

And now, it's time for cheese toast.

*Truth in advertising: this picture was actually taken at sunset, but it was all I had. Sorry. Still, isn't the big boy handsome?

Wicked? Hello??

Urg, I seem to have fallen off the blogging bandwagon. I had lots of witty thoughts to share with you, oh, sometime last week, but I have since gone to Slothland and can’t recall any of them now. I wish I could get a printout from my brain of all the thoughts I have when I’m driving or sleeping. They’re spot on every time, and yet—somehow—I never can seem to remember them when I put fingers to keyboard. Funny that.

So, despite the fact that I’m up, dressed, face washed, tummy fed, and feeling slightly task-oriented, I can’t think of a durn thing to say to you. Fortunately, I’ve been holding little something back in anticipation of this moment, something that can fill in the blanks for me when my pungy little brain goes MIA. So, without further ado, please enjoy Leonid, as I’m sure so many have before you. Ah-one, ah-two, ah-one, ah-two, ah-three, ah-four…

Leonid the Magnificent!

Gone Fishin'

Not really--I don't fish. But I am going to the mountains in search of cooler temperatures and fewer bugs. Fat chance on the latter. See you in a few days!

Ew, Ew, EEEEEWWW!!

Can anyone tell me what in the frick this thing is??

Oh, wait, not that. This:

I found this evil thing just as it was getting ready to crawl up my shorts last night. It was spotted by Eagle Eye Max (lower level above), who was on Snack Patrol and identified it by staring straight at it from the safety of the bed. I was sitting on the floor crocheting and suddenly noticed Max's unblinking fascination with my shorts. Looking down, I found this 14-FOOT THING WITH 4-INCH FANGS...oh, no, wait, that was the snake. Okay, I found this tiny but oh-so-weird thing about to get personal with my nether regions. As you can imagine, shrieking and flinging ensued, but through some magic I was able to capture the little bugger. And I put him in a jar. And I laughed. Because although I love almost all of God's creatures, not this one. He is OOKY, for heaven's sakes, and I think we're given a special dispensation for not loving the ooky ones. I did identify eight legs, rendering him an arachnoid, but he also had those weird antennae things and I became fascinated despite my revulsion. So he sat in that jar all night until this morning when I could decide what to do with him.

You may be happy to know I decided on relocation. I took him down to the berm (birm? burm? booooorm??) this morning and set him free while playing George Michael's "Freedom" on my iPod. The little bugger then did the oddest thing--he got in a wrestling match with what I will call a goathead, even though it wasn't a goathead but I can't remember its real name. It was a little wheaty looking thing. Anyhoo, he grappled and grappled with it, even turning over on his back in his attempt to wrest it from the ground. I, of course, laughed and called him a pussy* for not being able to lift a goathead. Hey, don't try to crawl into Wicked's pants unless she invites you; she doesn't like that. So he finally got the thing up and guess what he did?? He crawled down into the hole created by the missing goathead and then pulled it in behind him!! Somewhat clever, I must say despite my offense at his overall behavior.

Sometimes nature is just too weird for me. If there is anyone out there who can explain any of this to me, please do.

*I know, it's not a nice word, but I think it sets a tone here. And he was being a weenie.

Sunday Goin' to Chu'ch

Today we're going to go on a short guided visualization. A Sunday visualization. Please make yourself comfortable for the experience; take a few deep breaths and just settle in.

All right. Close your eyes. Aw, durn it, you can't read this with your eyes closed, so open 'em back up. How 'bout you read first, then follow the instructions. I'll keep them short and uncomplicated.

Imagine sitting in a gospel tent in N'Awlins or in a small whitewashed church out in the country. The weather is warm and the ladies--all of whom are wearing very large, very bright, very feathered hats--are fanning themselves to try and cool the humid air. This place is neither fancy nor snobbish, despite the headgear; people stand and sit at will, often with arms raised and with a loud, "Amen!" at the end of an especially favorable point made by the preacher. It feels, more like anything, like home. As the sermon comes to a close, the organist readies herself to play. The chords rise up along with the congregation, and suddenly you are on your feet, swaying to the beat. With great gusto and sincerity, the words to "Amazing Grace" fill the church.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me...

Forget a staid presentation of this traditional tune; this is a spiritual and here it is sung like one. You join in with complete and utter freedom of the soul, knowing every word and with hands raised to join the crowd! Joined in brother- and sisterhood with those around you, all feels right in the world and you know, you just know, that God is smiling.

Amen.