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You scratch. Well, this charming goat scratches.
The zephyr winds of spring twirled down Blake Street today as MKL and I walked. It was lovely.
Denver, Colorado.
Quote of the day: “Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Daily gratitudes:
The port-a-pottys sailing through the sky this afternoon
Cats on fences
The idea of a pink moon
MKL
Feeling like Sisyphus finally pushing the rock over that hill
Did you know that when geese fly in formation, that they also poop in unison?
Well, neither did I until tonight.
At least I was in the truck.
There I was, driving along, all la-de-da-de-da, and suddenly there was ALL THIS MUD on the windshield and the hood!
But, WAIT!
There’s no mud on this road!
And how can mud get in the middle of the windshield?
(I had just noticed the large formation of geese in flight high above me.)
EWWWWWWWWWW!
It wasn’t like a little goose pooped on the truck.
It was like a herd of flying COWS pooped on the truck.
And it was only on the driver’s side.
It was like my truck and I were walking side by side down the street in Elizabethan England and my truck was being a gentleman and walking on the outside and someone opened their window and dumped the entire contents of ten chamberpots on him.
Using my windshield wipers just moved the poop around.
I could hear the geese laughing.
And now I have to go to the car wash.
And I have a fear of the car wash.
I always feel like the cleaning things are going to break through the windshield and kill me.
Sigh.
They say getting pooped on by a bird is lucky.
Perhaps I should buy a lottery ticket.
I do believe this a badger. Not a honey badger, but a badger nonetheless. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I know badgers are mean critters, but this one is pretty cute.
Denver, Colorado.
Quote of the day: “Sometimes we make love with our eyes. Sometimes we make love with our hands. Sometimes we
make love with our bodies. Always we make love with our hearts.” – Author unknown
Daily gratitudes:
MKL
Nice walks on sunny days
The dream-bombing yellow dog (named Dog)
Iridescence
Touch
Kelsea and I went to Pugs in the Park in City Park (Denver) today. Hundreds of pugs, a costume contest, and if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that Amanda of The Daily Puglet was there shooting with Nikon. (But I think she’s on the right coast.) This not-so-little guy was dressed as “a pirate, but he didn’t like his hat very much.
Denver, Colorado.
Quote of the day: “Wrinkles should only indicate where smiles have been.” – Mark Twain
Daily gratitudes:
Time with Kelsea
Drives with MKL
Beautiful skies
Roses
Rain
These two beauties are from “Horse Day” which happened with my sister-in-law last weekend. MKL and I are just back from a busy, lovely weekend – we need an extra day to recover, but isn’t that so often the way?
Larimer County, Colorado.
Quote of the day: ”No Spring nor Summer has such grace as I have seen in an Autumned face.” – John Donne
Daily gratitudes:
Winding mountain roads
Unexpected Amish people
Small towns
Truck stop coffee
Soaking in hot springs
I have no idea what attracted the attention of this little flock, but they were obviously enraptured. As I seem to be in a phase in which I am totally enamored with poultry, I bid you a good weekend with this image.
Llanhennock, Monmouthshire, Wales.
Quote of the day: ”It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Daily gratitudes:
The big red ball of sun this morning
Realizing that pigeons are, in fact, pigeon-toed
Keeping random hilarious thoughts to myself
My pink orchid earrings
Apples
A weekend respite with MKL
I’m not whining, but I do want to share.
Roscoe’s injury has hit me hard. Not as hard as it has hit him, obviously, since he’s the one who had a nine-inch stick in his body cavity for a week and almost died, not me. But in an emotional way, hard.
I’m at the vet now, sitting on the bed that he’s become attached to here, typing this. He has his upper body curled against my leg, and is sleeping peacefully, breathing normally for the first time that I’ve seen since the injury. He was dreaming a bit, his paws twitching like dogs do when they’re chasing something in their sleep, and he just gave a big contented sigh. Nothing is waking him – not my sneezes, not the barking dogs in the treatment room, or the voices of the staff. He’s peaceful. I cuddled him and sang him all the lullabies I used to sing to Kelsea when she was a baby.
He still has the pump in his side. They upped his antibiotic dosage, and so the incision sites are cooler, and he is much more alert. The shaved spot is the size of many other dogs, so he may have to wear a t-shirt when he gets home, which I always think looks adorable on dogs. But he’s still not eating and not drinking. He did covertly eat the food I brought yesterday sometime in the middle of the night, so I brought some more for him today. They gave him two liters of electrolyte IV solution earlier to help him keep hydrated and his body just soaked it up like a sponge.
Roscoe's Frankenstein incisions
I don’t even want to imagine what the bill will be. I don’t care. I can’t really afford it anyway. But you do what you’ve got to do. The vet – Arapahoe Animal Hospital in Boulder – has been fabulous. All the doctors and all the techs here know Roscoe now and love him. They want him to live here with them and be their vet pet. (Sorry guys, we got him first.) It reminds me of when Kelsea was first born. That first night, they took her away and told me they’d bring her back for me to nurse her. I woke up seven hours later with no baby and no one answering the bell. I wondered if something had happened and I was the last person alive. So I hobbled out to the nurse’s station, and said, “Um, excuse me, do you know where my daughter is?” “Oh, Kelsea?” they said, “She was so sweet that we just decided to keep her here with us at the nurse’s station.” Sweetness must run in the family.
So, Roscoe is getting better and is going to be okay. And that’s all the news that really matters.
But now we come to me. Yes, wussy me. I am so exhausted energetically from caring from him from a distance, emotionally from worrying about him, and physically from not sleeping well at my ex-husband’s house while I care for the other animals that I can hardly tell which way is up. Sitting with my puppy while he sleeps, along with this wiped out feeling, is totally taking me back to taking care of my mom the week before she died. I was up all the time, sleeping in strange places, showering when I had a second, snarfing food when I could, sitting with her all the time because I could. (I haven’t been able to do that with Roscoe all the time.) This zombie-like functional state is so familiar in my bones from that time with my Mother that it’s giving me flashbacks to a most tenderly painful episode in my life – her death. I never thought I would feel that way again. I couldn’t have told you exactly what it felt like until now, when I’m experiencing it again. And now it is flooding back in a strange, disjointed, poignant way.
I will deal with my own feelings, and it will be fine. I will be fine, just like Roscoe will be fine.
But it is strange to wander in this strange land again.
Roscoe in my lap
Photo for January 11, 2012: Nom Nom Nommy Nom
This little Hawaiian guy loved his morning honey.
I know it’s technically January 12, but since I’m still up (just finished working), I felt compelled to post. At least I did one thing today that WASN’T about working.
Quote of the Day: “Remember how great you feel when your life is filled with love and joy and health and creativity? This is how our lives are meant to be lived.” – Louise Hay
Daily gratitudes:
That the snow wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
My morning bus driver who I have secretly nicknamed Eyeore.
Picking up Kelsea after her homework time at Starbucks.
Meatballs.
Bed.
Photo title: Ass Stand-off
Pomato Point, Anegada, British Virgin Islands.
Quote of the day: “Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.” – Alex Tan
Daily gratitudes:
Kelsea
Cashmere
How traffic lights remind me of Christmas
Counting the full moons until I am back on an island
Chuck Testa’s commercial
(Note that this piece was inspired by the above image, which was yesterday’s Visual Prompt #840 from www.easystreetprompts.com. Thanks for the inspiration!)
Crabs. (Not the STD, so get your mind out of the gutter.) They’ve played a role in my life for almost as long as I can remember. Of course, the main reason is because Cancer is my birth sign. My favorite piece of jewelry as a tween was a gold crab pendant – I believe my family secretly thought this was most appropriate, as I was a rather crabby child.
I’ve gone in and out of astrology phases for most of my life. I’m out of one now, though if there are astrology fans out there, I highly recommend Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology (http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/). I don’t know where he gets his stuff, but he’s been amazingly accurate in his more esoteric predictions over the years for me.
The sign of the Crab is supposedly the least clear-cut of all the signs of the Zodiac in terms of defining characteristics. In fact, many of the personality traits displayed by Cancerians are somewhat contradictory. We are solitary, yet sociable; down-to-earth yet psychically intuitive; tough but soft. The description of Cancer being the sign of a homebody has always amused me, but as I contemplate the concept of home more and more in relation to my own sense of wanderlust, there may perhaps be some truth to it. We are imaginative, cautious, creative, moody, loyal, untidy, romantic and difficult. And sometimes clumsy. See what I mean about varied and/or contradictory?
Moving away from the metaphysical, I have memories of numerous crab-related incidents in my life – I’ll share a few choice accounts:
On our very first trip to Topsail, our neighbors invited E-Bro and myself over for a crab boil one night, and our Father wouldn’t let me go. He didn’t want me to have the experience of a live crab boiling to death screaming in a big pot of water. I remember being furious. Clearly, it still rankles. Regardless, for many years, crab burgers were our traditional first night supper at Warren’s Soda Shop when we arrived at Topsail.
The first time I had Blue Crab was with E-Bro and wife #2 (I think) in some shack in Maryland. It was a little old wooden place right on the water, with newspapers on the table and some big grizzled man behind the counter. I was puzzled by the crabs, and made a real mess, but I loved them. Absolutely loved them. Until the middle of that night, when I discovered that they did not love me back. That lack of love lasted through the next day, which was, most unfortunately, a travel day. I’m not sure I’ve had blue crabs since, but I still recall the taste and experience with great fondness.
I ventured into new crab territory one night somewhere in Florida at Joe’s Stone Crab. I had driven to the coast from Orlando, poked around for the day, and thought this sounded like a good spot. It was. I ate at the bar, and the stone crab claws were delicious. Having made friends with the manager, we went off to shoot pool and have cocktails at some alligator-themed bar that could only be reached by boat. And he was a perfect gentleman.
E-Bro introduced me to soft-shell crabs at the Crab Pot in Surf City.
His description of them as “a giant bug in a sandwich” was rather off-putting, but that’s what older brothers do, right? And then they make you eat the thing that sounds so disgusting. (And that’s a whole other post.) But in this case, it was heavenly and is now on my “last meal” list, an evolving project which can be found here.
Further explorations into soft-shell crab preparation followed – Shaw’s Crab House in Chicago does an excellent soft-shell saute. I, on the other hand, do not. I know this because I tried to prepare them myself once. By the time I got through cleaning the buggers, there was almost nothing left, and what was left did not taste very good. Given my history of culinary faux-pas, I expect this was my fault, but I will allow that they might not have been fresh enough, seeing as how I got them in Colorado, which as we know, is over a thousand miles from the ocean. Interesting, as I come to think of it, that my last kitchen disaster also involved crab, only in the leg form. Hmmm.
I have learned a very sweet fact about crabs, one which makes me hesitant to indulge my taste for soft-shells: Before mating, the male ‘cradles’ a soft-shell female in its legs and carries her for up to several days while searching for a private spot, where he guards her during her final molt, at which time they mate. After mating, the male resumes cradling the female for several more days until her new shell has hardened. (Source: www.chesapeakebay.net) Isnt’ that nice? He doesn’t just hit and run, or roll over and snore — there’s foreplay AND cuddling. The female, on the other hand, when in her molting state, will kill and devour any other male crab that comes along. I know there’s a message here, but I’m not quite sure what it is.
The sand crabs at Topsail provide a constant source of amusement. Blending in with the sand (hence the name), they are a favorite plaything of children and dogs. Kelsea and I watched Hanky, an adorable white lab, chase one in and out of its hole for almost an hour.
Kelsea and I also witnessed some kind of bizarre mud crab rave when we were walking on a little pier in Emerald Isle last year. We tried to capture it on film, but it doesn’t really come across. Imagine balancing on a rickety wooden structure above one thousand black crabs, listening to their little claws click in anticipation of their attack upon your toes, and you’ll get the picture.
Caribbean crabs are much more laidback, which I guess is to be expected, given the culture. They chill on the beach with you and watch the sunset.
There are over 6,000 different species of crabs in the world. The smallest is the pea crab, which can be less than 1.5 mm.
The largest is the Japanese spider crab, which can reach 12 feet from leg tip to leg tip.
One of the most unusual is the coconut crab (related to the hermit crab). Found in the tropical islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, they are 3-feet long, weigh up to 40 pounds, climb tress, and eat coconuts, which they break open with their incredibly strong claws. Not what I’d necessarily want to confront on a desert island, but they are considered an endangered delicacy.
Well, I suppose you, like I, have had your fill of crabs now. I sincerely hope that this serving of facts sits well with you. Have a lovely day.
