Thursday, March 23, 2006
The latest animal incidents
Blogger's still floundering, although it's working about 1/2 the time now; in addition to its intermittent refusal to load various kinds of pages, it's also having trouble with word verification (when I can get to the comment pages at all)... when it's not functioning, the "word" it gives you to verify is always "smenita," have you noticed that?
My mother WAS able to have her chemo, although no less than SIX of the elements of her blood workup were very marginal; since the tumor could start growing back if she had to delay a chemo session, hopefully she'll be done with the pneumonia before the next round, because otherwise she's probably in trouble.
I talked to her last night, and she asked about the possums; I was feeling pretty bummed about it afterwards, because I miss them so much, so I was extra-excited when I caught sight of an animal on the patio... until I saw it was totally the wrong shape to be a possum, sigh. I thought it must be a cat come to eat the kibble that's been left there in case they come back; it was NOT a cat, though... it was a huge RACCOON, and he was indeed eating the kibble. I crooned "Cooooonie, hi cooooonie" at him, and he looked in at me through the sliding glass door with no sign of fear, although I was only 4 feet away; when he finished the last of the kibble, he sauntered over to one of the patio posts and, to my amazement, climbed up it and onto the patio cover. I was VERY excited, as I'm crazy about raccoons, and haven't been face to face with one for nearly 20 years; they're extremely smart, and he's almost certain to remember where he found food and come back looking for more, so... maybe I'll have a new critter visitor to love soon. :-)
Another exciting animal event is that I've seen several hummingbirds in the past few days. I got my husband to put fresh nectar in the feeder for them, because they've been migrating and are thin and hungry, poor things; I recall seeing one last year that was so gaunt and sunken that I nearly cried, because it didn't seem like he could live much longer, so I was eager to get the feeder refilled as soon as I saw the 1st little form flitting around. If you live in a country that doesn't have hummingbirds, here are some photos
http://www.gregscott.com/rwscott/rwscott.htm
Starting from the 3rd pic in the 4th row, most of them are of hummingbirds; they're all labeled when you bring the full-sized ones up, so there's no confusion. They're exquisitely beautiful, tiny, tiny birds, and magical to watch; they can fly straight up, straight down, and even BACKWARDS, and they have no fear of humans... they know you couldn't catch them no matter how hard you tried, as they're FAST in addition to being maneuverable. Their wings beat 15-80 times per SECOND, depending on species, so that when you see them in flight with the naked eye their wings are just a blur, as you can see in this photo
http://www.camacdonald.com/birding/Rufous-tailedHummingbird(PJ).jpg
Because of this, their metabolisms run VERY fast, the fastest of ANY creatures other than insects, and thus they need to consume more than their own weight in food every single day... and therein lies the problem, as humans have taken over much of the land on whose flowers they've always fed, and more hummingbirds die every year when they have to migrate without having stored up sufficient fat. If you're lucky enough to live somewhere that has hummers during warm weather, please, PLEASE spend a few dollars on a feeder and some nectar and put it where they'll easily be able to find it; WalMart has very inexpensive ones, although you can get much fancier models if your wallet permits. Hummingbirds will pollinate your flowers, eat gnats and other little bugs, and provide you and your family with a great deal of enjoyment; once you've watched one of these iridescent beauties hovering at the feeder, shooting its threadlike tongue out and watching YOU, you'll be hooked.
My final recent interaction with animals was far less pleasant. A few days ago, I'd just gotten up, and noticed that the birds on the patio didn't sound right; I opened the blinds to see that none of them were at the feeder, but instead were in the nearby foliage chirping agitatedly. I moved to where I could see the feeder more completely, and saw, not a cat or hawk as expected, but a shadowy mass INSIDE the feeder; I knew instantly what that mass was... MICE. Mice had their filthy bodies on the seeds meant for my precious tweeties, and were keeping said tweeties from getting any food; the mice couldn't eat the seed because it has hot pepper on it, so they were playing dog in the manger with it and my birds were going hungry as a result. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
In a matter of moments, I was transformed from a mild-mannered blogger into a tower of rage; I yanked open the door and went charging out to the feeder, where I saw that 3 large mice were sleeping in a pile in one corner. I screamed at them; they blinked sleepily at me. I banged on the feeder; they glanced around in puzzlement but didn't budge. I looked in at the arrogant little rodents, with the racket from the starving birds ringing in my ears, and I saw red... I may have even seen beyond it to infrared. The feeder is too high for me to reach, and too heavy for me to move... but somehow, I not only reached it but LIFTED it to get it unhooked, and marched to the gate with it held out in front of me in a manner far beyond the normal ability of my non-muscular upper body. I'm terrified of vermin, and the mice soon had climbed up to where the opening under the "roof" of the feeder is, where they could have jumped out and onto me at any time, but at that moment I felt no fear; I was holding the feeder with ONE HAND while I worked the gate latch, and contemplating whether it'd be bad karma to dump them into the trash to die a slow death... and clearly it was, so I headed down the driveway and out into the street with my loathsome cargo.
We have one of those dopey little islands of landscaping in the middle of the road near our house, and my intention was to release them next to it so that they'd hide there, figuring that, between the hawks, owls, cats and cars they'd probably never get across the street alive. I put the feeder down right by the island and yanked off the "roof"; after a few good whacks on the back end of it, the mice came leaping out. Two of them ran all the way across the street and into a row of bushes, and the other one ran back the way we'd come, but to a neighbor's house rather than mine; figuring that this was still a reasonable end to things, as they'd be unlikely to show up on MY patio again, I returned with the feeder to my back yard. My adrenaline was ebbing fast, but I still had enough to lift the feeder back up onto its beam; as soon as I got inside, the birds came flooding in to eat their belated breakfast. I watched with pride as my little avian friends reaped the fruits of my efforts; when the last of the adrenaline faded away, and my back, neck, shoulders and arms started screaming from the extraordinary effort they'd somehow made, I saw it as a fair trade for all the pleasure I get from the tweeties.
I haven't seen any mice since then, so hopefully they all became dinner for more deserving creatures. I have to wonder, though; if mice have any inkling of spiritual feeling, or even if they don't, what do you suppose they made of their experience?
My mother WAS able to have her chemo, although no less than SIX of the elements of her blood workup were very marginal; since the tumor could start growing back if she had to delay a chemo session, hopefully she'll be done with the pneumonia before the next round, because otherwise she's probably in trouble.
I talked to her last night, and she asked about the possums; I was feeling pretty bummed about it afterwards, because I miss them so much, so I was extra-excited when I caught sight of an animal on the patio... until I saw it was totally the wrong shape to be a possum, sigh. I thought it must be a cat come to eat the kibble that's been left there in case they come back; it was NOT a cat, though... it was a huge RACCOON, and he was indeed eating the kibble. I crooned "Cooooonie, hi cooooonie" at him, and he looked in at me through the sliding glass door with no sign of fear, although I was only 4 feet away; when he finished the last of the kibble, he sauntered over to one of the patio posts and, to my amazement, climbed up it and onto the patio cover. I was VERY excited, as I'm crazy about raccoons, and haven't been face to face with one for nearly 20 years; they're extremely smart, and he's almost certain to remember where he found food and come back looking for more, so... maybe I'll have a new critter visitor to love soon. :-)
Another exciting animal event is that I've seen several hummingbirds in the past few days. I got my husband to put fresh nectar in the feeder for them, because they've been migrating and are thin and hungry, poor things; I recall seeing one last year that was so gaunt and sunken that I nearly cried, because it didn't seem like he could live much longer, so I was eager to get the feeder refilled as soon as I saw the 1st little form flitting around. If you live in a country that doesn't have hummingbirds, here are some photos
http://www.gregscott.com/rwscott/rwscott.htm
Starting from the 3rd pic in the 4th row, most of them are of hummingbirds; they're all labeled when you bring the full-sized ones up, so there's no confusion. They're exquisitely beautiful, tiny, tiny birds, and magical to watch; they can fly straight up, straight down, and even BACKWARDS, and they have no fear of humans... they know you couldn't catch them no matter how hard you tried, as they're FAST in addition to being maneuverable. Their wings beat 15-80 times per SECOND, depending on species, so that when you see them in flight with the naked eye their wings are just a blur, as you can see in this photo
http://www.camacdonald.com/birding/Rufous-tailedHummingbird(PJ).jpg
Because of this, their metabolisms run VERY fast, the fastest of ANY creatures other than insects, and thus they need to consume more than their own weight in food every single day... and therein lies the problem, as humans have taken over much of the land on whose flowers they've always fed, and more hummingbirds die every year when they have to migrate without having stored up sufficient fat. If you're lucky enough to live somewhere that has hummers during warm weather, please, PLEASE spend a few dollars on a feeder and some nectar and put it where they'll easily be able to find it; WalMart has very inexpensive ones, although you can get much fancier models if your wallet permits. Hummingbirds will pollinate your flowers, eat gnats and other little bugs, and provide you and your family with a great deal of enjoyment; once you've watched one of these iridescent beauties hovering at the feeder, shooting its threadlike tongue out and watching YOU, you'll be hooked.
My final recent interaction with animals was far less pleasant. A few days ago, I'd just gotten up, and noticed that the birds on the patio didn't sound right; I opened the blinds to see that none of them were at the feeder, but instead were in the nearby foliage chirping agitatedly. I moved to where I could see the feeder more completely, and saw, not a cat or hawk as expected, but a shadowy mass INSIDE the feeder; I knew instantly what that mass was... MICE. Mice had their filthy bodies on the seeds meant for my precious tweeties, and were keeping said tweeties from getting any food; the mice couldn't eat the seed because it has hot pepper on it, so they were playing dog in the manger with it and my birds were going hungry as a result. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
In a matter of moments, I was transformed from a mild-mannered blogger into a tower of rage; I yanked open the door and went charging out to the feeder, where I saw that 3 large mice were sleeping in a pile in one corner. I screamed at them; they blinked sleepily at me. I banged on the feeder; they glanced around in puzzlement but didn't budge. I looked in at the arrogant little rodents, with the racket from the starving birds ringing in my ears, and I saw red... I may have even seen beyond it to infrared. The feeder is too high for me to reach, and too heavy for me to move... but somehow, I not only reached it but LIFTED it to get it unhooked, and marched to the gate with it held out in front of me in a manner far beyond the normal ability of my non-muscular upper body. I'm terrified of vermin, and the mice soon had climbed up to where the opening under the "roof" of the feeder is, where they could have jumped out and onto me at any time, but at that moment I felt no fear; I was holding the feeder with ONE HAND while I worked the gate latch, and contemplating whether it'd be bad karma to dump them into the trash to die a slow death... and clearly it was, so I headed down the driveway and out into the street with my loathsome cargo.
We have one of those dopey little islands of landscaping in the middle of the road near our house, and my intention was to release them next to it so that they'd hide there, figuring that, between the hawks, owls, cats and cars they'd probably never get across the street alive. I put the feeder down right by the island and yanked off the "roof"; after a few good whacks on the back end of it, the mice came leaping out. Two of them ran all the way across the street and into a row of bushes, and the other one ran back the way we'd come, but to a neighbor's house rather than mine; figuring that this was still a reasonable end to things, as they'd be unlikely to show up on MY patio again, I returned with the feeder to my back yard. My adrenaline was ebbing fast, but I still had enough to lift the feeder back up onto its beam; as soon as I got inside, the birds came flooding in to eat their belated breakfast. I watched with pride as my little avian friends reaped the fruits of my efforts; when the last of the adrenaline faded away, and my back, neck, shoulders and arms started screaming from the extraordinary effort they'd somehow made, I saw it as a fair trade for all the pleasure I get from the tweeties.
I haven't seen any mice since then, so hopefully they all became dinner for more deserving creatures. I have to wonder, though; if mice have any inkling of spiritual feeling, or even if they don't, what do you suppose they made of their experience?
Monday, March 20, 2006
How can you tell if someone's compatible as a friend?
I'm very, VERY tired of this mess with Blogger; I haven't been able to access my account, or leave comments on any blog that uses the Blogger commenting system, with my regular browser for several days now... I'm having to write this post in my inbox, mail it to myself, get the email on another computer in the network with a browser that I don't normally use but that CAN access my account, and then copy it in to publish it. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Things are looking dicey with my mother, too; the antibiotics they gave her for her walking pneumonia worked for a while and then gave her a horrible reaction, so she had to discontinue them... and now we don't know if she'll be able to have her scheduled chemo tomorrow, because her blood workup is very likely to not be within the acceptable range. sigh
On the + side, we seem to have won a major victory over the swarms of rats that have been leaping around our patio for months; they've been gorging at the birdfeeder every night, but we FINALLY found the one store in our city that sells hot pepper seed, and the feeder is suddenly almost deserted... I hope they've all burned their filthy, diseased little mouths thoroughly, the evil creatures. (Don't worry, birds aren't affected by the hot pepper-that's why it can be put on birdseed.) I'm puzzled as to how a few die-hards are still eating the hot seeds, but if they don't give it up we're going to put out bread crusts with ultra-hot sauce on them... one way or the other, they're going to be made to see that they can't eat here any more.
Have you ever seen or listened to something and thought, "I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone who didn't like this"? You can be willing to be friends with people of different cultures, religions, and political beliefs, in fact it's almost necessary that you do, or you'll be missing out on a great deal of learning and spiritual growth opportunities, but would you want to have a serious friendship with anyone who didn't have appreciation for at least most of the things you find particularly amusing or cool? I don't mean the same sitcoms, hit movies and pop songs that most people like, I mean the offbeat things that, if you picked a random person in a Midwestern state, or almost any older person, they probably would NOT like them. The 1st time I thought consciously about this was after hearing a version of "Stairway to Heaven" that... see for yourself:
http://www.smartpunk.com/index.php?mainFrame=http://www.smartpunk.com/product.php?item_id=12649
That's not the entire song, but it's enough to show what's astonishing about it; I'm pleased to say that every friend I've played it for has reacted with shocked delight, just as *I* did when my husband 1st played it for ME... because anyone who didn't think it was brilliant probably couldn't "get" me well enough to be a real friend. Here are some other "friendship tests" that'd work well for me:
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show"; hey, if you can't appreciate a man in lingerie who can bump and grind his entire body, lol... more to the point, either you're titillated by the outrageousness of it or you're not. This is a particularly good test for men, because if a man's threatened by the crossdressing or bisexuality he's too uptight to hang around with me. We had a hilarious moment a few months ago with the couple we're closest to, when my friend offered my husband some hot sauce, warning him that it was very hot; he said "Will it make me a man?" and her husband said "In just 7 days"... you can't do much better than THAT for being compatible. (If you've never seen the movie, I should explain that the punchline is that both comments are references to a song from it.)
"Due South"; the naive Canadian mountie, the streetwise Chicago cop, the deaf, donut-stealing wolf... the series never really caught on in America (it was a huge hit in Canada, however), but my husband and I shriek in laughter at every episode.
Anything by Weird Al Yankovic: his parodies, both musical and video, are utterly dazzling... anyone who could get through his "Like a Surgeon" video (which parodies "Like a Virgin") without cracking up a bunch of times would have to be a serial killer or a pod person.
Anything by Hayao Miyazaki; to say that the man is a genius trivializes him, because what he can do with animation is far beyond what anyone else can manage... and it's all so different than American animated films, which are very simplistic by comparison. As much as Americans love animation these days, I don't suppose this would filter much of anyone out, but what the heck, he should still be a requirement.
Bonus points for loving the Dilbert comic strip; to really get it, you have to be a geek, which, although not totally essential to being my friend, is ALMOST essential, because so much of what I like, how I think, how I LIVE, is geekish. If I had to give someone ONE line as a test of friendship compatibility, it'd be this one that Dilbert tells a date about his workplace:
"No one ever wants to take more than half of what's left of the last doughnut. That's why I call it Xeno's doughnut. Hee hee!"
If you don't get the joke, see my post of 8-14-05; if you're laughing, you've gotta be at least a semi-geek.
Writing this has made me realize something odd; as common as blogging has become, I don't know of any movies, TV shows or songs that focus on blogging... not that I know much about pop culture, but lots of people would have blogged about something like that if it existed, wouldn't they? It wouldn't help ME as a friendship test, as my blog is a secret, but imagine if you could casually mention the title of, say, a movie in which a main character is a blogger, and find out what a new person in your life thinks about blogs before revealing that you have one; that wouldn't necessarily tell you if they were compatible as a friend, but at least you'd be spared from getting involved with them if they were one of those types that's never read a real blog but has contempt for all of them... for all of US.
Anyways; I don't want to go meme-ish on you, but I'd be interested to see what some of my blog buddies would consider must-likes for people to be compatible to be their friends, hint hint... wouldn't it be wild if we picked some of the same things?
Things are looking dicey with my mother, too; the antibiotics they gave her for her walking pneumonia worked for a while and then gave her a horrible reaction, so she had to discontinue them... and now we don't know if she'll be able to have her scheduled chemo tomorrow, because her blood workup is very likely to not be within the acceptable range. sigh
On the + side, we seem to have won a major victory over the swarms of rats that have been leaping around our patio for months; they've been gorging at the birdfeeder every night, but we FINALLY found the one store in our city that sells hot pepper seed, and the feeder is suddenly almost deserted... I hope they've all burned their filthy, diseased little mouths thoroughly, the evil creatures. (Don't worry, birds aren't affected by the hot pepper-that's why it can be put on birdseed.) I'm puzzled as to how a few die-hards are still eating the hot seeds, but if they don't give it up we're going to put out bread crusts with ultra-hot sauce on them... one way or the other, they're going to be made to see that they can't eat here any more.
Have you ever seen or listened to something and thought, "I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone who didn't like this"? You can be willing to be friends with people of different cultures, religions, and political beliefs, in fact it's almost necessary that you do, or you'll be missing out on a great deal of learning and spiritual growth opportunities, but would you want to have a serious friendship with anyone who didn't have appreciation for at least most of the things you find particularly amusing or cool? I don't mean the same sitcoms, hit movies and pop songs that most people like, I mean the offbeat things that, if you picked a random person in a Midwestern state, or almost any older person, they probably would NOT like them. The 1st time I thought consciously about this was after hearing a version of "Stairway to Heaven" that... see for yourself:
http://www.smartpunk.com/index.php?mainFrame=http://www.smartpunk.com/product.php?item_id=12649
That's not the entire song, but it's enough to show what's astonishing about it; I'm pleased to say that every friend I've played it for has reacted with shocked delight, just as *I* did when my husband 1st played it for ME... because anyone who didn't think it was brilliant probably couldn't "get" me well enough to be a real friend. Here are some other "friendship tests" that'd work well for me:
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show"; hey, if you can't appreciate a man in lingerie who can bump and grind his entire body, lol... more to the point, either you're titillated by the outrageousness of it or you're not. This is a particularly good test for men, because if a man's threatened by the crossdressing or bisexuality he's too uptight to hang around with me. We had a hilarious moment a few months ago with the couple we're closest to, when my friend offered my husband some hot sauce, warning him that it was very hot; he said "Will it make me a man?" and her husband said "In just 7 days"... you can't do much better than THAT for being compatible. (If you've never seen the movie, I should explain that the punchline is that both comments are references to a song from it.)
"Due South"; the naive Canadian mountie, the streetwise Chicago cop, the deaf, donut-stealing wolf... the series never really caught on in America (it was a huge hit in Canada, however), but my husband and I shriek in laughter at every episode.
Anything by Weird Al Yankovic: his parodies, both musical and video, are utterly dazzling... anyone who could get through his "Like a Surgeon" video (which parodies "Like a Virgin") without cracking up a bunch of times would have to be a serial killer or a pod person.
Anything by Hayao Miyazaki; to say that the man is a genius trivializes him, because what he can do with animation is far beyond what anyone else can manage... and it's all so different than American animated films, which are very simplistic by comparison. As much as Americans love animation these days, I don't suppose this would filter much of anyone out, but what the heck, he should still be a requirement.
Bonus points for loving the Dilbert comic strip; to really get it, you have to be a geek, which, although not totally essential to being my friend, is ALMOST essential, because so much of what I like, how I think, how I LIVE, is geekish. If I had to give someone ONE line as a test of friendship compatibility, it'd be this one that Dilbert tells a date about his workplace:
"No one ever wants to take more than half of what's left of the last doughnut. That's why I call it Xeno's doughnut. Hee hee!"
If you don't get the joke, see my post of 8-14-05; if you're laughing, you've gotta be at least a semi-geek.
Writing this has made me realize something odd; as common as blogging has become, I don't know of any movies, TV shows or songs that focus on blogging... not that I know much about pop culture, but lots of people would have blogged about something like that if it existed, wouldn't they? It wouldn't help ME as a friendship test, as my blog is a secret, but imagine if you could casually mention the title of, say, a movie in which a main character is a blogger, and find out what a new person in your life thinks about blogs before revealing that you have one; that wouldn't necessarily tell you if they were compatible as a friend, but at least you'd be spared from getting involved with them if they were one of those types that's never read a real blog but has contempt for all of them... for all of US.
Anyways; I don't want to go meme-ish on you, but I'd be interested to see what some of my blog buddies would consider must-likes for people to be compatible to be their friends, hint hint... wouldn't it be wild if we picked some of the same things?
