Cooperating with others - D-minus [UPDATE]

Oh boy. Here it is. My third notice from Harris Connect, which has contracted with my high school to compile an alumni directory. They Urgently Need My Help. For my convenience, I may-- in fact, I really should, phone them and give them my data!

There are reasonable arguments as to why getting directory info over a phone is not a great idea. What about those of us with hard-to-pronounce (or spell) names? "It's not Smith anymore, it's Pastafazoola.... no, that's P-A-s-t-a‑‑"

What if my business website address is long and complicated? How many times have I been through this before on the phone?

"Noir-and-more, and don't use ampersands."

"Don't use what?"

"Spell out the word 'and.' It's Noir-and-more-b‑‑"

"Wait. Near and More?"
"Noir. N-WAHR. N-o-i-r."
"OK, n-i-o-r‑‑"
"N-O-I-R!"
"What's that mean anyway?"
"Dark. It means dark. Very dark."

Even with US phone-answerers names get scrambled, and you can bet that the call actually goes to a firm in Elbonia.

But my real, and totally unreasonable objection is that I hate the telephone. It's a great invention for calling emergency services or punching in the refill number on my prescription for later pick-up. But the longer I'm on the phone, the unhappier I get. Having to jabber socially on a phone, even to the people dearest to me, makes me want to shriek. Or pop bubble wrap into the receiver and say, "Darn, losing .. connection! [crackle] Catch you la-" [pop!]

Maybe it's an ADD need for me to see body language and facial expression in order to decode what I hear, or maybe it's just an estrogen deficiency. Women are supposed to l-o-o-o-v-e yapping on a phone. I can't explain it. A disembodied voice coming at me while I look at nearby inanimate objects -- Hey, there's my eyeglass screwdriver under the side table! What's this unpaid bill that's slipped under the chair cushion? 2006?! -- can't tell me much I want to hear by that medium, except that my Lotto numbers came through.

I put each card from Harris Directory through a thorough inspection for small print containing alternatives. When, I wonder, when is the final card going to arrive? The one where they give in and say, "Oh, all right, you win! Here's the [website] [paper questionnaire] [carrier pigeon] you may use instead, since you obviously hate the idea of the phone!"

But no, they never give in.

After the third card arrived on Friday, I did as much giving-in as I am inclined to do, and googled Harris Directory for myself. Navigated their website. Found a page through which directory subjects can submit their particulars, which required that Harris issue me a password. Navigated back to their contact information, went over to my email and, feeling very virtuous -- look how much trouble I'd gone to in order to compensate for their inadequacies! -- sent them this ladylike and softspoken request for a password:

I keep getting cards from you REQUIRING that I get on a TELEPHONE in order to give you information for your directory.

I can't understand why you insist on the telephone and offer NO other options. I despise the telephone. If you'd given a paper questionnaire or a website, I'd have responded WEEKS ago.

I'm willing to do it online. Your site (which I had to google for myself. How many will bother to do this??) requires that you issue me a password.

Ruth Pleistocene '72
Golgotha High School
Harris ID no. PRO27-15

Their reply yesterday surprised me:

Dear Ruth Pleistocene:

Thank you for your communication regarding the Golgotha High School Alumni Directory update. Please accept our apologies.

In respect to our contract with your school, an on-line questionnaire is not offered. Please take a moment to phone the toll free number provided on the postcard we previously mailed to you, to ensure the accuracy of your information, which will be included in the upcoming directory.

Seriously? My school signed a contract that does not allow -- uh -- a more accurate method of data gathering? Now, does this mean it's my school that's to blame? Or do I still blame Harris for -- could it be? -- charging more for using other methods?

Paper questionnaires are labor-intensive to process, but online questionnaires?? Why would it cost them more for me to type in the correctly spelled names and urls, than for the Elbonian operator to type it in from my spelling it over the phone? Can't they outsource online data processing to the same Elbonian firm just as cheaply as they can the toll-free number? And get a more accurate product?

Meanwhile, they now know my address is correct. They even have my email addy. That will have to do.

___
UPDATE 12/20/07 (if anybody scrolls back this far!) : I won! Sort of.

I emailed back:

OK, I guess i need to blame 
my alumni association for this idiotic 
decision not to contract with you to get
my data via any form but the phone.
 
Did they allow any provision for 
hearing-impaired alumni??  Are such 
alumni just out of luck?
 
I am not phoning.  My names and data
are impossible to spell correctly, as 
are the particulars of my web address.
Here is my basic data. Include it, don't
include it, I don't care!

--

I am in receipt of a genuine, authentic snail-mail letter confirming the

biographical  info I had emailed.  But no reply, either there or via email,

in return to my question about how they accommodate the

hearing-impaired.  A simple email address would at least let all

alumni make contact with that or any other question.

How to trap a raccoon

Probably more than you want to know about what we've learned from our animal-trapping experiences, but this all may to uselful to someone who drops by sometime. Brought to you by the Havaheart Trap, a wonderful invention.

Raccoons are particularly gifted at getting the food bait out without entering the trap. Few of us trap them on the first try, but some things will increase your odds.

You can check the Havaheart FAQ for lots of good advice, including ways to prevent trapping neighbor cats. Some might be worth a try. I personally will not recommend using the first suggestion: Havaheart says cats won't be attracted to peanut butter on whole wheat bread. It may depend on the cat -- I live with one who adores peanut butter and harasses me for a fingerful to lick off. Some of the other suggestions they make for baits that are raccoon-friendly but disliked by cats might be better.

Meanwhile, a little can of Fancy Feast [TM] worked for us. It's nicely fragrant and Rocky ought to make a beeline for it. A neighbor with outside cats might want to be notified on Trap Night and might be willing to make other arrangements for his cats for the night. He's motivated to cooperate, or he sure oughta be, because his cats are at risk from this raccoon as well.

So: The critter will work diligently and patiently, showing much more intelligence than do many of our elected officials, to get the food out through the bars and avoid entering the trap.

A huge trap makes that harder but has disadvantages. These traps are well-structured and heavy, even empty, and with an Occupant, they're a job to carry. Plus the Occupant will be scared and angry, and will express himself in rather smelly ways, so you'll be glad if you can fit it in the trunk of even a compact car for transport to Hundred Acre Wood.
Even if the trap is fairly large, the little ba- the critter will pull and shake it, tip it, and patiently jostle the food over to a reachable position. We wire the bait bowl or can in place to thwart that.

We place the trap against a wall and put the bait on that side,














...then block other sides with scrap wood, or whatever you've got. Voila'. An irresistible midnight snack and only one way to get to it.











And when you get him, have something disposable -- scrap cardboard? -- or washable (You will want to take it straight in to the washer) to put under the occupied trap as you transport him to his new home.

You'll then want to hose the trap down or leave it out in the rain!

On being told that we need to go outside and decorate the house today!

They call us The People of the Ding Dong

They say that when the world was new, there were sugar crashes and food spoilage in our ancestral homeland of Hyperinsulinemia. And the people cried out to The Great Refiner, for The Food of Eternity that never rots. The Great Refiner gave our ancestors the formula for the Ding Dong, and gave them the white flour and the sugar and the BHT. In visions he told them, a Land Bridge will form when the Great Sugar Rationing falls upon the land. Take the Food of Eternity and go forth and carry it to all corners of the earth. And they did so, and their civilization was built upon the Foods of Eternity, the Ding Dong, the Twinkie, the Moon Pie and the Convenience Store Honey Bun.

But we are forgetting the Old Ways. Our Traditions are being lost. We eat natural, even whole, foods.

Still, in each generation there is a One Who Remembers the Old Ways. One who eats the foods of our ancestors and Keeps the Traditions. As families gather to give thanks to the Great Refiner, and the holiday embers dwindle down to a warm glow, circles are formed around the fireplace.


And tales of The Old Days are told; and rituals are observed, of sharing the foods of our ancestors. And to the little children some is given, that they may know their place in the Great Chain of Being, and that they may bounce off the walls in their own Sucrose Vision Quests, and that they may someday in turn teach their own children The Old Ways.

November in SC

It really is not endless summer here. In fact we had some nights in the high 30's (fahrenheit) and cold coat-weather days just last week.

What happens here is that weather comes more in spells than in seasons. Single digit nights occur in winter, and days in the 70's are not uncommon any month of the year.

The past couple of days have been in the 70's.

Tomatoes are ripening on our vine. There could be a frost any night now and we have to watch out and go ahead and harvest them, green or not, if frost is due. These 4 (you can't really see the 4th one) will make a nice one-meal batch of fried green tomatoes.


But today, bees were still hanging out in
a sunflower.

Nights are chilly. A housefly takes refuge in a still-blooming rose, and another bud is ready to open. Scooter is more interested in the mice that rustle in the underbrush back there.

We're still seeing butterflies.




AND some fall color. Fall, like everything else southern, ambles slowly through the weeks. No big burst of color, but a flare here and there. This year's drought has affected it too, and has seriously dampened the color, but it's appearing.

All photos taken today, November 20th.

My Unillustrated Robert Goulet Post

One of these days I will blog about life as an unmedicated ADD. It's not self-deprecating humor, it's a real medical diagnosis. I hated the meds I was on and quit them several years ago. They didn't help much anyway, so life is only a little more chaotic without them, but I lose things. I have piles of unsorted junk mail and paper scattered everywhere. I leave tasks unfinished, and I often take something out of its logical location, walk toward another place where I plan to use it, and somewhere along the way get distracted by the inevitable Something Shiny, drop the item randomly and find it years later. An expired check stuck in a pile of magazines. Old photos among recyclable paper on top of the printer.

Every single object I had planned to photograph, to illustrate this post, is missing in action. Photos of myself and my cousin. The Game. The Autograph. Days go by. The news about which I plan to blog gets old. I search the house but no luck yet.

Meanwhile maybe the Wash Your Car And It Rains Law will work for me here. If I give up and post this without them, then they'll show up and I can update it.

This is my very own Robert Goulet story.

In 1968, when we were 14, my mom took my cousin Emily (the same cousin whose dad took us emerald mining) and me to New York City for a wowzer of a week. To give us the full NY experience, she took us by train and we began the the trip by disembarking in Penn Station.

Charlotte, NC, home, was no backwater, and my mom had seen to it that I experienced live theatre by age 8 (a tour company of The Music Man), and good professional stock companies at that. Betty Grable came to town in Hello Dolly. (Dad was in charge of my music education and took me to concerts by Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Goodman.)

But real New York theater was still pretty impressive. We saw You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, The Fantastiks, Hal Holbrook in Man of La Mancha, and Robert Goulet in a little musical called The Happy Time.

Daytime was a wowzer, too. In the Metropolitan Museum I stood right in front of paintings I'd only seen in books. And we saw Central Park, the Automat, Times Square, Lincoln Center! Familiar to Emily and me from our favorite TV shows (That Girl! He and She!).

When I talk about my cousin Emily, it's closer to the truth if you think "sister." Our dads are brothers. She and I were the first members of our generation, were due together. She was a tad early and I was late so she beat me by a month. A few little brothers came along later, but Emily and I remained the only girls. The extended family, and most others with social ties to our grandmother, treated us like twins.

Our other favorite TV show was The Patty Duke Show. Emily and I look nothing alike. We are nothing alike, but we related, partly to Patty and Cathy's radically different personalities. Only a couple years ago she found The Patty Duke (Board) Game for me in an antique shop.

She's quick thinking, scientific (she's now a chemistry professor) and assertive. She walked into Big Name College and told them: "You need the courses I can teach," and they hired her. I'm timid and reclusive. She led, I followed, even in NYC which should have intimidated even her. But not much did.

We never considered getting autographs from the actors in the other musicals that week, but Goulet was Big Time Celebrity to anyone raised as I was, on Broadway musical cast albums, by a theater-buff mom.

To me, Julie Andrews was a star before she ever made a movie. I ran outside one day circa 1963, after reading the showbiz gossip in the Charlotte News and announced to my friend Sally: "Guess what! Julie Andrews is gonna be Mary Poppins in the movie!" Sally gave me a blank look.

And Goulet had been Julie's Lancelot in Camelot!!

So here we are, filing out of the theater after The Happy Time. Emily's got an idea: "Let's go around to the stage door and get his autograph!"

How she even knew this was possible, I can't imagine. To me, celebrities exited their performances by special Celebrity Portals to their Home Worlds and did not exist in ours. But my cousin, at 14, knew where to go and knew autograph hounds hung out there.

The stage door crowd was small. We waited ages. Then actors started wandering out. Lord help me, I ignored Charles Durning and David Wayne (!) I didn't know who they were (Our Finian's Rainbow recording was from a later revival, not the original that won Wayne a Tony). People lined up for signatures from Goulet. Emily was ahead of me. Then I stepped up to him and handed him my program. Overwhelmed. This was the guy in the Camelot record standing right in front of me.

He asked my name. I answered and stared at the ground. He signed my program, handed it back and said,

"Let me see your eyes." He put his hand under my chin and lifted my face and looked me in the eyes with a big smile. If he said anything else, it was lost in the buzzing in my ears. My memory ends at that point.

Did he know how to charm a shy 14-year-old, or what?

The picture stayed on my bulletin board for years. It's still here somewhere. Really.

So is my brain, but that's another story.

Back to church

Oh, like a night in this %&$*ing trap isn't bad enough, now you get flash in my eyes?!

Come the revolution, your species? Servitude City. Count on it.

Another discovery everybody else knew about already

At this time of year, when the garage is neither too hot nor too cold to work in, I have a burst of activity, clearing clutter, weeding out, assembling sets of books to sell.

But I thought I'd take time out to share yet another of my Amazing Discoveries Actually Discovered Long Ago By Others: if you've got a yen for curried chicken salad and you don't have raisins on hand, dried apricots in it are yummo! In fact, I like it better this way.

The Episcopal Church Welcomes You!

Something had moved into our garage. We were keeping the back door of it open so Scooter could come and go at will, by day. Not a good decision. His food, his water, The Lifestyle To Which He Had Become Accustomed, looked fine to what we thought was a raccoon. Much knocking over of shelves full of our stuff. Several smelly messes.

Use of the Havaheart trap revealed that it was a little possum. We have relocated him to the perfect new home - After all, the Episcopal Church Welcomes You! We resisted the urge to name him Dumbledore. I mean, no point in putting up red flags.

The church sits next to a big undeveloped tract of forest.

A trip to the church parking lot.

In the trunk.

Naturally this would be a Sunday. We waited till past noon, but there were still people around. A group of kids enjoyed meeting our possum.

We walked him pretty far back into the woods, opened the cage and persuaded him to make his exit, which took a few minutes, while he got it through his head that he was not about to become our dinner.

GO, already!

OK, it's not real gem mining

I've probably spent too much time and money trying to replace things I lost in Hurricane Hugo, but i was determined to replace one more thing on this NC trip. I wanted to go mining.


When I was 14, my uncle brought my cousin and me to the mountains and, among other things, we went emerald-mining. The area is studded with old mines, whose main product was feldspar used for BonAmi cleanser and Fels Naptha soap. But they also yield various precious and semi-precious stones. On that occasion nearly 40 years ago (OMG) I though I'd hit the jackpot when I found a chunk of granite with a cloudy, rudimentary emerald (worth about 2 bucks) embedded in it. It's now out in the SC marsh, along with most of my childhood artifacts, where it can baffle some future geologist.

So Larry, good sport that he is, took me along a winding, winding road deep into the mountain, as we followed signs toward Little Switzerland and the Emerald Village mine. I'm happy to say he ended up having a fun day too.

Safety and insurance concerns have ended real do-it-yourself mining in most of these tourist tra- I mean, places. So what you actually do is buy a bucket of rubble and sort through it for any valuables. They seed each bucket with enough poor-to-medium quality gems to make it worth your while, and the rest of the rubble sometimes contains a surprise.






The price varies by bucket size. We got the $35 buckets, and each received a bucket full of rocks, a trowel, and a plastic cup to sort the good stuff into.









You trowel out some of it. Sluice it through the water. Examine each big rock on all sides.








Once the big pieces are sorted out, then I pick through the tiny ones. I pull out every item of any color at all, since even the worthless stuff can be pretty.

Trowel, rinse, repeat. It didn't occur to me to bring my reading glasses, so I examined each piece with a Mr. Magoo squint, for about 3 hours of sorting.

Then we bagged it to take home. The mine will also appraise it for you, but somehow we thought we'd get a better deal elsewhere, so now we've got two plastic bags of pretty varicolored rocks.

This was done in the lower mine. The upper mine is set up to tour and we did that, too, after a nice deli lunch which they also offer. Gift shop, displays, the whole tourist tr- I mean, nine yards.


As we walked to the the upper mine I found one of my favorite rocks-of-the-day for free, lying alongside the road. I've taken umpteen pix, but suffice it to say no photo really gets the multicolored and layered, textured, 3D -ness of it.










UPPER MINE SELF-GUIDED TOUR
(3 PHOTOS HERE BY LARRY)


According to the guidebook, the third photo shows a 12-horsepower steam engine, model name the "Eclipse," made by the Frick Company of Waynesboro, PA, "probably in the early 1890's." And it still runs.

This mine closed in the 1950's, as did many, though feldspar is still an economic force of some merit in those hills. The mine exhibit shows various miserable aspects of the job, including child labor, and a lot of original equipment, most from the 1920's and 30's.












And here's my take. (above)







A select array of colorful items from it is in the photo on the right -- and note the clear purple-tinted crystal at the very bottom of the picture. This may be the coolest thing I got, because that back speck in the end is a tiny fossilized ... something. Bit of seed or leaf. Maybe a tiny feather? This thing, I will definitely need an expert to identify, but whatever it is, it's neat!


ENLARGEMENT PHOTO BY LARRY









Overlook view in Little Switzerland











Last but definitely not least, a non-mine-related addition to the general documentation of the trip -- I just got back prints from my one role of conventional film, wherein can be found the Motel Cat. She seems to drift from room to room, visiting all who are amenable.

A week in the mountains

(Pictures should come up in a higher resolution if you click them -- be forewarned, the quilt photos come up extra-large to show detail to anyone who's interested!)



Yancey County, NC, week of Oct 1 2007.

This area is a little to the north of Asheville, NC. We didn't visit Asheville, or much touristy stuff (with one exception, to be covered in a followup post). What we were looking for was to sample everyday life, as a potential place to land. For the rest of our lives, maybe.

A place away from hurricanes,
with a mild climate but real seasons.
A place where our vote might actually count.

So you might as well know, I picked this county by pulling up an election 2004 political map, then looking into amenities and accommodations.



The local coffee shop, where we had tea, bagels with cream cheese, and delightful conversation with locals, each morning. We miss this place! We're now scouring local shops for approximations of the tea flavors we got there.


My best picture - a winding road between Burnsville and Little Switzerland. This one's going to be my desktop wallpaper for awhile. Not much fall color yet, just a hint.




SPRUCE PINE, NC

We were staying in nearby Burnsville, a nice little town that straddles a major highway. It's the county seat, has the chain restaurants and big grocery stores Spruce Pine enchanted us more. This is a view of the "lower town." Just over my right shoulder, the road splits and takes you into upper Spruce Pine, a similar, slightly busier street one step up the mountainside.



Close encounter with a freight train coming through Spruce Pine. According to the local newspaper guy --we stopped in the office and received giveaway maps and tourist info-- the Barnum & Bailey Circus Train also comes through each year, on its way to the circus's overwintering in Florida.




Spruce Pine has nice shops selling exquisite local arts and crafts. The glasswork in the art gallery was fantastic.

I was particularly blown away by this piece (right), about 10-12 inches tall, with what looks like a baobob tree inside it!

Closed! Will reopen at 10:00AM!

Well, darn!

PHOTO BY LARRY

The Mountain Piecemakers Quilt Show

Can't we put this one on the Amex card??

Back in Burnsville, a small but superb quilt show was on. All from local crafters. From the traditional to the very artsy. We were asked to vote for our favorites, and the one to the right got my vote.














On our last evening we had dinner at the Nu-Wray Inn. Built 1908, and pretty famous - Elvis stayed there! Its recipes show up in southern cookbooks. Delicious country-style dinner, which reminded me of Scarlett O'Hara's reminiscences, during the hardship years at Tara, about the opulent meals they used to have in the prewar days. The dishes just kept coming, and I gave in, fell off my sugar-free wagon and sampled the peach cobbler.






Mist in the mountains, as we drove out.



Sunset on our last evening

Since this post is unwieldy enough, I saved our Wednesday excursion for a post of its own!

I tried to resist

I place all blame on bad influences. You know who you are.

AN INTERESTING CONSERVATIVE I HAD AROUND FOR SOME TIME

I dated a Republican for 4 years. In fact, a Republican politician, local level, though his term of office had just ended and he'd decided not to run again, by the time we had our first date. He's definitely one of the good guys, and, while we were ill-suited as a couple, we got past it and he was a truly good friend during my life implosion of 1994.

When we first went out, the Bork nomination had just been rejected, and was still a hot topic. My take on politics was still pretty simpleminded and I was furious with Reagan, but my friend asked me to consider the possibility that Reagan was a shrewd politician who nominated Bork both to play to the anti-abortion voters, and, quite intentionally, to fail the approval process. Equally shrewd liberals, he claimed, would know that it was a political maneuver designed to keep the anti-abortion people placated and the Court centrist.

I still watch the process with his words in mind and wonder how often either party is really trying to get something done, in a system where failure can sometimes score you more points with voters.

AN INTERESTING CONSERVATIVE I ATE

Forget whatever you're thinking. I'm counting the alligator I sampled at the Gator Cookoff. I mean, alligators are the quintessential conservatives. Firm believers in private property, absolute freedom within that property, local control. Surely they believe in Intelligent Design. They consider their design so intelligent that they haven't seen any need to change it in 60 million years. Strong opponents of redistribution of wordly goods. Traditional values.

INTERESTING THING I DID WITH A CONSERVATIVE

With the Republican boyfriend, I attended a Barry McGuire concert. Barry, famous for Eve of Destruction, became a Born Again Christian in the early 70's. This concert, in around 1990, involved a lot of talk about his beliefs and experiences and a few songs. McGuire is skilled with an audience, animated and jocular, but his jokes veer into obnoxious insults of people with different beliefs. It was one of the rare occasions on which we agreed about the whole evening. It was interesting, disturbing, and musically dull.

A CONSERVATIVE IN A MUSEUM

A CONSERVATIVE IN ITS NATURAL HABITAT

Michigan??

All I can tell you is that I have three online conservative friends. They are all in Michigan. And the Republican boyfriend mentioned above? Born and raised in Michigan.

First things first

Chris Clarke, who writes a very nifty natural history blog, started passing around this animeme, and tagged people I know. Next thing I know I get roped in by both Sherwood and Dann. So I'd better get on the job here. I will however, tag no one else, since most of the people I know who blog are already victimi- I mean tagged. Actually, my biologist brother might have some fun tales. I'll have to email him, though he's often on the road doing field work.

AN INTERESTING ANIMAL I HAD

SPARKY, circa 1972
Sparky, like many of my animals, adopted us instead of the other way around. This was around my 7th grade year, 1966-67 or so. He lived several streets away but had a devoted relationship with a girlfriend, Spooky, who lived 2 doors down from us, and he simply bunked at our house so much that his family called up. The kids are grown, they said, he's always at your house, shall we just bring his stuff down? He became our dog. Mine most of all.

He and Spooky were a lifelong couple. When he was injured in a fight with a Saint Bernard (Yeah, really. Brave or stupid. We could never decide), Spooky came down to our house and stayed next to him, while he lay in his basket on the porch fighting a nasty infection from a really big bite.

He looked like a beagle, but his original family said he was actually a dachshund/basset mix. He was kind of an Eeyore dog, looked gloomy most of the time. My mom recalled a kitchen incident in which a mouse sauntered along the wall and disappeared behind the fridge, while she said to Sparky "Catch it!" and he looked at it, then at her like, "Oh please. Must I?"

He vanished a week before Christmas 1973. A week stretched into two. Surely he was gone for good.

New Year's Day, 1973, I went mountain climbing with friends. Sort of. OK, really just a big hill there in the Carolina Piedmont. Came home to find ...

Sparky, thin and exhausted!! He'd staggered back onto the yard and pretty much collapsed against the brick wall. He mostly slept for the next week. And we can never know what happened or where he was. But we've always joked that somebody, as my grandfather had suggested, had make the mistake of catching him to hunt rabbits. And had discovered, as with the mouse, that he looked at the kidnapers as though they were insane, and they either let him go or he escaped.

He was mine. I was his. I spent a lot of time with his head resting on my knee. He was getting quite old by the time I finished college, and had one last burst of energy Dec 23 1977, when he chased and was hit by a delivery truck. We buried him in the damn snow. That Christmas sucked.

I want to see all my animals again in whatever the next life is, but he's the one I want to see run out and meet me first. He appears in my dreams often to this day.

AN INTERESTING ANIMAL I ATE

This would be marinated alligator, at a Gator Cookoff. Chewy.

AN ANIMAL IN A MUSEUM (OR ZOO)

One fun day during our NJ years, Larry and I took the kids to the Philadelphia Zoo and went into the Lorikeet Aviary. These little birds are hilarious. Here's a picture from another aviary, showing someone feeding one. You get a cup of some kind of nectar-y stuff they love and they land all over you and battle each other to get to it. Hard little claws. Pushy, funny little guys.

AN INTERESTING THING I DID WITH AN ANIMAL

Our neighbors had a daughter with birth defects, and built a backyard swimming pool for her. It was a homemade pool, rough concrete walls. She grew up and got married, they sold the house to us. We'd drain the pool for the winter. In spring we'd clean and paint it and try to seal out the water leaks.

One spring a mole got trapped in it. I don't care how destructive moles supposedly are. I'm a bleeding heart. He was adorable. He scrabbled blindly around the concrete walls, lost and helpless outside his environment. I followed him with a bucket trying to catch him. Finally he bumped against the arch of my foot and just ... stopped, too tired and discouraged to move. I remember his hard, weirdly human little hand and the fine velvety texture of his fur. Scooped him into the bucket and tipped him out next to the fence, which he scurried under, and presumably dug his way to happiness.

AN ANIMAL IN ITS NATURAL HABITAT

Meet Betty.

PHOTO BY LARRY, 2007

Our tidal marsh is rather brackish, not an alligator's favorite thing, but once or twice a year, Betty hangs out for a few days to check out the local edibles. She solved the nutria-invasion problem in short order. This picture is from January -- she was around a couple weeks ago, but we couldn't get a picture. And since we fear for both Scooter and our feral cats, it's just as well that she didn't come in too close or stay too long.

My heart's in the highlands

Little Switzerland, NC, October 4, 2007

[date corrected!]

There's something about a vacation.

We didn't need to leave home to see natural beauty. We're surrounded by coastal tidal-marsh beauty. We didn't need to leave home to take a break from work. Leaving home didn't really put any of the stresses we've got on hold. They were all just a cell phone call away, and always are.

But it was delightful. Cooler, drier air. Not much fall color, just a hint, but beautiful mornings with mist cloaking the mountains. Lots of so-so pictures taken by me with my inexpensive camera and my not-real-steady hand, and great ones taken by Larry, but with few exceptions you're gonna get mine, so try to bear up!

More later, as I get my picture act together.