Sunday Quote

Tell me the story as it lies in your head.

- Rudyard Kipling, The Finest Story in the World

Meerkats really are cute

There was some Meerkat show awhile back that was very popular - I tuned in once and the mommy meerkat was eaten or something and I thought (once again) real nature is way to rugged for me. I like fake nature like gardening books and the botanical garden and looking out the car window at anything bigger than a breadbox, especially if it has teeth.
However, to be sure, they (Meerkats) are cute. I mean top notch cute. Freaking crazy cute. They run around like our faux miniture poodle with his little bichon mix teeth sticking out, very distracted and energetic (like Tucker) cute. How they fit in to a maritime theme is anybody's guess - the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk has an African exhibit of fish - and somehow wangled a bunch of Meerkats in for the big draw (yes, way cuter than fish). To be fair they also had a pet the nurse shark exhibit which was probably a huge drag for the nurse sharks, two of them, who appeared very sulky, and was entertaining for the fact of the Maritime employee standing next to the "Nurse Sharks are Harmless" sign (I kid you not) shouting above the din "touch them only with two fingers, no, NO! NOT THERE! They don't like being touched there. NO NO NO NOT THERE EITHER! He had this ongoing list of warnings that was very entertaining - exhausting for him no doubt. This was a man bound for laryngitis going home to a nice mug of hot tea with honey and lemon. Add to that the woman from my town, a state away, who recognized me as a librarian and wanted me to pony up names of good books for her child standing a foot away. Not just a little request. A several times request and a "you can't think of anything else" after she shot down my initial off the cuff suggestions as the son was uninterested in them. "Not on my day off", I cheerily replied. Cheerily because we were stuck on the shark line and I did not want to have to stand in stony silence watching the shark employee hyperventilate "NO! DON'T TOUCH THE SHARKS THERE!". Anyway that got her to stop. Or maybe the tone of false cheer sounded a bit alarming as false cheer so often does.
So where was I? Oh, yeah. Meerkats are really cute. Even toy ones. Except the big giant balloon one hovering over the entrance to the Maritime Center. That one was just creepy.

Heaven or Hell Cake

Every year the oldest boy gets a special cake, usually with a theme that has some level of mayhem and carnage in it...there has been the Surrender Earthlings! cake, the Evolution cake (featuring earthquakes and weird critters and major chaos), the Sacrificial Virgin to the Volcano cake (a plastic hula skirted native girl faces her end on top of the volcano), the Alien giant caterpillars coming out of a head to half torso cake of said son, and the Island of Doom where a team of oceanographers escape a sea of sharks and giant squid only to encounter man-eating creatures on the desert island...there usually is a lot of red icing and strawberry pie filling carnage as you can imagine. This year's theme more philosophical as our young man considers his life options. Choose Heaven or choose Hell. Scarier than that - our son looks suspiciously like Justin Bieber and if you press the button on his tummy, he sings.

Happy Birthday to Chris

Hard to believe that the young artist who drew this tiger is a college senior turning 22 today. I am making him one of his special cakes (baking now) and resisting the urge to start singing Sunrise, Sunset.

Sunday Quote

Broken windows and empty hallways,
a pale dead moon in a sky streaked with grey.
Human kindness is overflowing,
and I think it's gonna rain today.

- Randy Newman

Shadows study

Sunday Quote

Let down, let go. The world will carry you.

- Mark Nemo, The Book of Awakening

Something to chew on

Awful! I know. I do like lame puns :)
This fantastic work of visual art and prankdom mixed - a winning combination - is a must share: someone crocheted a body cover for the Wall Street Bull - how fabulously inventive! We are especially amused considering the husband's long history with "the Street". (And no, greed is not good, it is far better to use your kindergartner lessons on sharing). Meanwhile am reading a book I tried to stop - I tend to not read books about certain subjects that do not lie easy with me - but this book, The Outlander, by short story writer and poet, Gil Adamson, is so exquisitely written, a poet's language and rhythm matched to a compelling story - that I cannot stop myself. Even away from the book, in conversation with others and such, I am thinking about the book, feeling the landscape and the interior workings of her mind...I am thinking about it now. Gotta book.

even twilight in a parking lot...

or a little past twilight can be beautiful in its own way...but then I am always one for photos of rust and old painted walls and cracked windows. Eye of the beholder, yes.

Sunday Quote

Whatever you are be a good one.

- Abraham Lincoln

Procrastination

I do so like this short film called Procrastination - something of which I am quite the master of ....and today it feels especially apt.

Ice and relative things

I have had enough, especially with our morning black out and slipslide to work, and power lines and tree branches down and a horrible cold...but the power came back, the lines repaired, my no school son came to work with me and he was my charming lunch date...would that I could say good things about the cold except I am grateful for Nyquil and pajamas which is where I am headed...