Saturday, March 31, 2012

Guard Bees!

A Texas farmer is trying using bees as guards to deter would-be thieves bent on purloining equipment on his farm for scrap metal. Apparently, the bees don't like the racket of the metal and will wreak havoc on the source of the noise. I suppose the farmer had better bag the bee boxes and move his own equipment at night.

Still, it's a neat idea. I've been dismayed by the recent years' news reports of honey bee populations in decline throughout the world, which I think may spell something ominous for agriculture.

I do hope one day to have a little place in the country with a proper kitchen garden and an apiary. Bees are so adorable.

It seemed I got stung by honey bees a hideous number of times as a child, and I hated them. I was, after all, a typical Southern child in the summer, barefoot in a clover-filled yard. Stings were inevitable. As I began to dabble in flowers and herbs as an adult, however, I was quite taken with the industrious charm of bees, some of them impossibly tiny varieties. They go about their business, workmanlike and undeterred by bothersome humans, heavy-laden with waxy saddlebags of pollen festooning their thighs. What furry little marvels they are.

And bumble-bees? The ones scientists declare should technically not be able to fly? Bless the fierce little contrarians!

Today is the 280th birthday of Franz Josef Haydn

Friday, March 30, 2012

Praline just LOVES eating Mayflies.

I have no complaint with this, seeing as the little buggers came two months early.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

little in this world can excel the effect of properly deployed fringe.



...particularly on a day when you had to dissect a cat.

Formula for recovery:

1 part dry Italian red wine
1 part the Cramps
1 part ass-shaking dancery


Shake well, swallow, repeat.

Along with Buck the Singing Deer, I want a talking Moose

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Busy times

Things have been unbelievably hectic of late, but they've been good, too.

The Fates conspired to keep me and Himself away from the Schutenfest last weekend, but FarmMom and FarmDad came by to see us on Monday and we all went out for some delicious quail at a local eatery. They are dear friends so it's always good to see them. The puppies were ever-so-happy to see them, too. :)

Tuesday after class I stopped by to see the advisor at my university. She pulled up my GPA and said with my high average, that I could easily get into the nursing program for Fall '13 if I just have a B average in all my nursing prerequisite classes. I'm poised to get a B in A&P I, but I'm still hoping for an A and working very hard to that end. There's only 6 weeks left in the semester, after all, and this seems doable to me. I'll be applying for the nursing program in February next year. Plenty of time to wrap myself around the axle before then.

I was going to yoga quite regularly about a year ago and absolutely loving it. Yoga is the only exercise (other than long walks) where I don't feel like I've been beaten with a sock-full of rocks at the end of it. I'm just not an athlete, I must admit. Things happened last summer and schedule changed and my instructor flaked out and I slacked off on it, and picked it up again late summer/fall when I found another studio, and then I got sick for about 6 weeks and just never went back. Then I got sick again. Then I re-sprained my ankle. Anyway, went back for the first time Tuesday and it felt great. It was a little harder to get through on Wednesday, but I'm looking forward to going regularly from here on out. Have been on more walks, too.

This old sprain, though-- have any of you had ongoing complications from an old sprained ankle? The left ankle is visibly thicker than the right, and sometimes it swells. I think there's inflammation there that's just never really gone away, but I'm not sure going to the dr is merited-- I'm not sure they can do anything? Having it firmly massaged feels good, and when I was doing yoga regularly, the size of the whole joint seemed almost as small as the right one, so I'm sure that all that stretching has a good affect. Anyone have any advice to offer on the old sprain?

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Charming web design

I want to share here a website I've come across recently called Miss L Fire. You may have guessed they feature shoes, but they generally are retro-styled, with quite a few which would look quite at period-correct bopping to Glenn Miller on a dancefloor. I love the radio buttons and all the graphics, the gingham and the pattern on the front of the site.

Gorgeous shoes. Love the overall style and design sensibility of the site. Good stuff. Check it out!

Monday, March 26, 2012

I'm a WINNER!

I don't go there very often, but when I do, I love to play the Time Waster over at The Smoking Gun wherein you match the mug shot to the occupation, the weapon of choice, the crime or the article that was stolen. Anyway, I successfully matched all 5 suspects to their nicknames.

I'm a winner! Yay!
Uh, there is no prize for getting them all right, so all I can do is toot my own horn.

*toot* *toot*

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: nasocentric

My view of the puptart upon waking. Feeds me!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hang the blessed dj because the music that they constantly play says nothing to me about my life.

A few weeks back I posted about how I think entertainers have a right to say what they want, however unfortunate or crass their choice of words. I pointed out that I think it's silly for someone to call up advertisers on those programs and protest, even though the callers don't normally listen to said program and don't patronize said advertisers BECAUSE of their patronage of said programs. Behind that I stand.

From the tone of what I said, I think (to my chagrin) that someone may have concluded that I felt there should be no consequences to people for what they say, and that was not my intention. I certainly think it is within the rights of everyone to say what they think about content of a program, and to tell the advertisers of that program their views accordingly. Yes. Freedom of speech should go all ways, and yet people have to be responsible for what they say.

To recap, though, what was at issue (my own mind's shorthand version here) was that a woman had assumed role of activist at a Catholic university in protest of its denial of birth control meds to employees who needed them for birth control methods, rather than for needs not related to reproduction prevention. The waters were much-muddied by the ensuing hullabaloo surrounding Rush Limbaugh having leveled rude personal slurs against the protesting female in this instance, for which he later apologized. My feeling was that Rush Limbaugh is someone who- like Howard Stern or Opie & Anthony- makes a habit of saying outrageous things to illustrate a point and should be taken with an according degree of salt.

Little did I realize that the protests of the woman might be of more wide-sweeping validity. On the Nerds' blog, I saw a post Saturday that filled me with dismay. Apparently, the Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee has proposed a bill that would allow employers to demand the medical records of female employees who are prescribed birth control, so the employers may determine if they approve of the reason for the use of these medications.

In other words if this is passed in Arizona or any other state, the federal mandates there regarding HIPAA which are all about a spectacular degree of admonition on behalf of your privacy on everyone from the receptionist at your doctor's office to any of the random folks who will handle your claims at your insurance company's office mean exactly jack shit when it comes to your employer wanting to access your medical records if you happen to be female and prescribed birth control medicines.

Pardon me if I balk at this, but I balk at this. When I was bitching at people bitching about Rush Limbaugh, I sort of did not envision the whole argument as possibly bloating out accordion-style into this invasive style of bizarre invasion of privacy and assorted other bullshitlery. I am reeling, to say the least. Yes, I still think anyone can say what they want to say about it, but why should privacy fly out the window for one specific class of citizens?

What upsets me is that the fact that anyone with ovaries is part of a class of people who are equal, but less equal than some other animals on the farm. HIPAA decrees that personal information is not for use for any reason other than medical, and yet it seems not to apply in this case.

The logical conclusion from all this is that to individuals doomed to be fertile adult females, the rules of privacy don't exist.

What.
The.
Hell???

I am outraged. Maybe you don't get it. Let me put it to you this way: if you are female or if you have a wife, a sister or a mother, she, too, is denied exactly those rights. Your daughters, too. No privacy to their medical information wherein their employers are concerned.

Wow. Just wow.

I am reeling. This feels like a spreading stain to me. What seemed like more of an intellectual exercise and harmless lark a few weeks ago seems now to me to be much more sinister. Please tell me how I am wrong in concluding this, because from this vantage, things seem rather bleak, indeed.




Could life ever be sane again?

What the hell is this place and how does it relate to the place where I was born? I thought (or hoped) we could never get here from there. :(

Friday, March 23, 2012

The dissection has commenced.

I must admit it is not my favorite thing ever, but I found I wasn't as shaky or nervous as I thought I would be when it came time to cut open the cat. It's actually rather large, but I'd judge by her teeth that she wasn't very old. I suppose I'll get to know her a lot better through the remainder of the semester.

I suppose it's a necessary evil that we need carcasses upon which to practice, but it still seems a shame, nonetheless.

I'll spare you any more detail on that score.
*******************

After a week off from work and school, it's been a hectic week with work and getting back into the swing of studying. Add to that the time change and the fact that I stayed up until 3, 4 or 5 in the morning pretty much every night of spring break and it's been difficult to study at all.

I have a test due by midnight tonight. Depending on completion of that, I may go see some of my friends from the muscial I was in earlier who are appearing in another show in town. Would be nice to see them, and to go to the theatre without the pressure of having to perform.

It's good to do something spontaneous, too, isn't it?

Have a great weekend!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Photoshop? Boo! Hiss!

I get it. I really do. The gripping besotment with photoshopped beauties. If what you want in life is a partner devoid of character and experience. If you want a blank with no frame of reference which you will have to regard. But I don't know why anyone would want that. How could someone devoid of evidence of having weathered even a tiny bit of life put up with you and all your flaws? Seriously. The blank little thing would run screaming, because she'd lack the depth to think there's anything worthwhile beneath your surface either, thank you very much. The thing I don't get is-- what is the point of images of a woman or man where all the lines of age and experience are ironed out with chemicals and vaselined pixels?


Boring.






Great heroines and heroes of literature and film and real life are not blanks. They've generally got a few miles under the hood-- which makes their heroic journeys all the more heartening and stirring. Why would you want something cartoonish and not-found-in-nature? So much more fetching to consider falling in love with the one, the only, the original and all of his or her flaws and human failings and the laugh lines and the silver at the temples. The lived-in look is always more comfortable and much more sexy, if you have the backbone to recognize it.












Brava, Cate.
Bravo, The Economist.






Helen Mirren looks amazing. Judy Dench does not shrink from the occasional dowdy role (and never has), yet is still a beautiful woman and sexy in the Bond films, don't you think? Joan Plowright at 80-something is still kicking it and manages to be quite the fetching lady. One can easily imagine an august gentleman being smitten to a school-boyish degree. Charming!



Rita Moreno? She's about 80, and she is still smoking hot. Doubt me? This photo of her was taken in January. If you don't see that she's still incredibly beautiful, you are either blind or too stupid to be regarded.

Anyway, all of this is by way of saying it's nice to see a real beauty like La Blanchett being real and represented on a magazine cover.



Bravo, again. : )

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Spring is the year's pleasant King.







I am besotted with Lobelia - the small cornflower-blue blossoms next to the orangey-yellow show-offs in the basket below.

To the left is a Bachelor's Button.


I do so love the showy blossoms of the Spring. There is little else to excel the lush beauty of vivid colors which invite butterflies and bees to drink deep.















I do love it so.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

First day back at work was a rodeo

But it wasn't too bad. I feel a lot less stressed out today than I did before I had the week off, so it's obviously done me some good.

Made a 81.5 on written portion of A&P midterm exam and 86.5 on the lab portion, so I'm holding with a good solid B in that class.

My psych class average is right at about 89.6, so I think an A is eminently doable, so I'm hopeful for that. :)

I didn't do much around the house in all that time off, but I did manage to get through all my laundry, which is no small feat. :) The tough thing about laundry is that you're always making more dirty laundry, right? I'm particularly unfond of the Sisyphean task.

My plants are looking nice, so far, but it's been easy because it's been rainy with lots of moisture in the air. We shall see how long that lasts when it gets blisteringly hot with no new rain.

Saw a little woodpecker in the pecan tree out back. The leaves are not all on yet, so I could easily see where he was busy, thumping away. Cute!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: movie hound


I was watching a DVD Saturday morning when I noticed the wee crazy girl looking particularly fetching. See how cute she is? I admit I have a bias, but that little bandit face has a heart-melting affect on me. And she's mostly a very good girl. Mostly. :)

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Wherein one studiously dodges the trajectory of any airborne bouquets...


Me at a wedding reception tonight, having danced more than perhaps is tasteful, but I won't have to regret not having danced enough tonight, will I? :)

Friday, March 16, 2012

Never underestimate the restorative power of flowers

I got a few nice flowers potted on my vacation. Came out this morning for a nice cup of tea and an apple. This is a nice end to my vacation. :)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This will recharge my batteries: Xizi She Knows by Imogen Heap

Yay! A new Imogen Heap album will be along soon.

The video below was shot December 9 in Hangzhou as she was in China for 6 weeks for a British cultural exchange.



The tonality and percussiveness of Chinese music weaves seamlessly into the warp and the weft of Imogen's own complex layering of ethereal sounds that makes me love her so much. Can a tour be far behind? I hope not. Be assured I'll be clearing my calendar for that. :)

Thursday, March 15, 2012

I'm not a big fan of Handel

but I would definitely check out this production of Deidamia if I were in Amseterdam anytime soon. The staging and costumes seem much less staid and tedious than the usual Handel production. Looks quite tongue in cheek, too, and I like that. :)

This, perhaps, bodes ill...

It's been beautiful and springlike for weeks now in this area of Texas, but today, I woke up early because the house was so hot. Recent days and for the next 4 or 5, highs in the 80s are the norm. I had to turn on the air conditioner.

Last year, the first 100 degree day was May 10, I think, and there was a spate of more than 100 consecutive 100 degree days. I hope to goodness that is not what is coming again. At least the house is more airtight with the new windows and the insulation in the attic.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Hermit crab in glass shell - fun with surgical tubing

I'm guessing the artist who made the glass shell used surgical tubing for the shell. This is fascinating, because you get to see how the crab's fiddly bits fit up into the coils of the shell.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Vacation, and the world slips sideways.

Yay. vacation. All I ever wanted, when coupled with spring break. Sun is shining, the weather is sweet. Makes me want to move my dancing feet.

Paloma Faith is rocking some sweet purple shoes at the end of this video:



I'm soaking up the magic in the air. There may be wine involved.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Blissed-out Saturday morning in Dallas


Spent Friday night at my parents' house and drove into Dallas Saturday morning for a hair appointment in Lakewood. Got there early enough that I needed to kill about 30 minutes, so I went to one of my old favorite gardening stores, Walton's Garden Center on Garland Road.

I was very happy already, because the weather was dreary/drippy (my favorite!) and the local classical station was playing Mozart's Don Giovanni (my favorite!) and garden places just do something wonderful for my heart. They had some wonderful pear tree espaliers that were delightful, and they had some trained wisteria trees where the wood had been formed into an umbrella shape. These were about $600, so there was no question of one coming home with me, but it was still lovely to be there.

They also had a great selection of candles from Votivo, and I found and remembered an old favorite, St. Germain-en-Laye Lavender, which is the ultimate rendering of the best parts of lavender (pretty!) and none of the worst (old lady!). I used to burn this candle in my house a long time ago, but I'd quite forgotten about this favorite. Yum. I bought one of these candles and a lovely pencil plant, and I feel ready to tackle getting some flower beds worked up this week while I'm off school and work.

Nice to have unexpectedly restorative moments, innit?
I hope you have a great week. :)

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: bedtime!


Chuy would be the first to own that he is a colossal tart, but we really can't fault him for that, can we? He's only human!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Happy 263rd birthday to supreme librettist Lorenzo da Ponte

The libretto (dimunutive Italian term for story or book) is the text of the opera to which the music is set. The great composers of 17th and 18th century opera rarely wrote their own libretti, but instead set existing texts to music.

Lorenzo da Ponte (10 March 1749 - 17 August 1838) was in my opinion the supreme librettist of all. Three of Mozart's most popular operas were settings of texts by da Ponte, including The Marriage of Figaro(1786), Cosi fan Tutte(1789) and perhaps my alltime favorite opera Don Giovanni(1787).

Interesting side note is that The Marriage of Figaro is a libretto based on a play by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais which was considered quite incendiary in a France which was primed for revolution. If you saw the marvelous film Amadeus, you saw a hint of that disonnance which colored the Austrian emperor's reception of an opera based on text that was giving his dear sister Antoinette some teeny bit of discomfort. Incidentally, the play showed the aristocracy to be entitled idiots unworthy of such privelege, while the servant class were quite put-upon and morally and in all other ways in fact superior to the aristocrats. Touchy subject matter!

Also worthy of note-- Mozart was Austrian, but he and the popular da Ponte were most celebrated in their lifetime in the Czech capital of Prague, which was and remains a great cultural center for the arts. Mozart was the original rock star, truly. Well deserved, in my humble opinion.

Another interesting note on The Marriage of Figaro is that this story is one of a series of three, the first installment being The Barber of Seville which was penned later(1816) by the inimitable Rossini and the final installment, The Ghosts of Versailles (1991) being composed and completed late in the last century.

from Don Giovanni - for tenor Placido Domingo 's 70th birthday gala concert, Uruguayan baritone Erwin Schrott masterfully delivers a delightful rendering of the Catalog Aria, in which the Don's servant Leporello itemizes the magnificent degree of DG's bastardy:



Below, the Commendatore's statue has come to live to call debts due on a still-defiant Don Giovanni. The scene concludes with Don Giovanni being spirited to hell by fiery demons.
Good shit!

Spitting images. Or licking.

Every once in a while when watching films or cartoons, a snippet of one character or another will make me and/or Himself shout "that's CHUY!" or "that's PRALINE!" We recently watched Tangled and lo and behold, they had representations of both in one film, and to cardinal degrees. In fact, we shouted "That's ___________" simulatenously several times, and often throughout the movie. The chameleon tongue in the ear is a classic rendering of Chuy's patented Stealth Brain Squeegee™ maneuver.

To wit, here's the Chooch made over:


And here's sweet little death-to-sqwirlz Praline:


Seriously, the physicality of the horse is eerily like Praline's. Also the determined degree of focus is her in the flesh, and the toad-stomping out on the limb, well, it looks like the animators watched her stomping toads.

Love it! I loved the movie, in general. Highly recommended.

Friday, March 09, 2012

I deserve a break today.

A couple of hours ago, I completed my General Pscyhology essay and quiz. The subject this week was Intelligence, about which I had several thoughts, you may well imagine. I composed the document and attached it on the email to the professor with this message:


My submission this week is either brilliant or a steaming pile. Still, it's my baby and I'm not fit to judge it. My heart will not be broken if I score 100%.

I have to say, though, that I'm actually very pleased with the paper I composed. I generally try to cast ahead by at least a week and ruminate the subject of the essay for days and days before I am pressed to submit my labors to for assessment. This one was relatively difficult, though,
because I think there are many ways of manifesting intelligence in this world. As a person will do, I tend to look to the example of my parents. Dad has the most sophisticated mechanical sense of anyone I've ever met. He's a brilliant man.

I remember when I was about 3 or 4, Dad sat with my brother and me while Mom took her driver's test in Memphis. Many years later, Dad told me that Mom asked him soon after if she could take the car and go to the store. He said of course, and that she didn't need to ask. Dad made a great point to me that he didn't want a robot for a wife, and he wanted his children to have an intelligent mother. What could be more evolved than that? This also set a very high bar, and when my (soon-to-be ex-) husband started manifesting the chest-thumping stripe of a cultlike clicque at his church, I ran like hell.

In that subtle way, Dad was letting me know that he sees Mom as his partner, and not his subordinate. He respects her independence of thought, and he can relish that just as he has with her, she has chosen to walk her path in life at his side.

I wish I had total recall and could relate to you the Nick&Nora-worthy banter I've heard between those two over the years, but suffice it to say, it's a very high bar, indeed. I'm glad I've had such great examples of intelligence, so I'd be able to contrast real idiocy when I encounter same. :)

*********
I think I fared fairly well in my written and lab portions of the A&P mid-term exam. In any case, that's done with for now. As of 4:00PM this afternoon, I'm off school and work until a week and a half from now, and that's a very good thing.

Thursday, March 08, 2012

a touch of burnout

Spring break is almost here. I have the second portion of my A&PI midterm in the lab this evening. I'm SOOOO tired. I have an assignment and quiz to complete for Gen Psych by Friday night. I'm right at a low A in that class and I'm not too worried about it. Still anxious about A&P, but I think I fared quite well on the written portion on Tuesday. So long as I do well in indentification of specimens tonight, I'll be alright. I think I have a very high B in that class, so far, and that'll do.

I still have a bit of a cough. I took the week off work next week and I've got to go to Dallas and then if I feel up to it, I may mosey out to the Santa Fe area to visit friends. We'll see. Or maybe, just maybe, a heifer could clean her house?

Maybe not. I need a wife!

I'm just glad this semester is halfway over. Amazing that it's been two whole months already, though. *whew*

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Behind the musical...

If you remember the delectable Conan The Barbarian Musical, you'll be interested in the behind the scenes studio work that made on-screen magic.

Enjoy!

Monday, March 05, 2012

In defense of entertainers and freedom of speech

I admit I really like Howard Stern. I don't listen to him these days because because my morning drive to work involves me padding from the dogfood bowl to my desk in the dining area, plus I'm too cheap to pay for satellite radio. I also understand Stern going to paid subscriber radio so he doesn't have to deal with the same FCC cavalcade of bullcorn that is attendant with the fickle wiles of the listening public on open airwaves.

That said, Howard Stern used to, on occasion, (and I'm sure now does on a daily basis) say things I find repugnant, but I also knew I could turn my melon-farming radio off if he grew tiresome. Occasionally, I'd hear some flap about some group who was offended by something he said, and I thought they were pretty much full of shit for protesting, because I knew bloody well they were not in his listening audience anyway. Hullo. He's an entertainer, and you can turn off your radio or not listen.

Same goes for Rush Limbaugh. I don't agree with everything he's ever said, and I don't listen to him these days, but used to listen to him frequently. In fact, other than my girlfriend who was on the radio Saturday and Pandora, I'm not radio-listening public these days at all.

Rush Limbaugh is not a politician-- he is an entertainer. He has a right to say what he wants, however questionable the taste of his commentary.

I cringed when Gilbert Gottfried made crappy jokes about the Japanese tsunami last year, but nearly un-hinged my eyeballs from rolling them so hard when AFLAC canceled his endorsement contract. Gilbert was an asshole comedian BEFORE they hired him and BEFORE the tsunami, and they HAD to know this. It was therefore asinine to drop him as a commercial announcer because he suddenly said the wrong jerky thing. I spit on the spinelessness of a commercial entity who whiplashes themselvesin a 180 degree turn to distance themselves from someone based on political correctness.

Same goes for Rush Limbaugh and the current flap about birth-control, video sex, whatever. I used to listen fairly regularly, and I find him entertaining, thought-provoking and -- yes-- occasionally exasperating. But again, I can exercise my ability to turn off the radio. I'm really too intercoursing busy to waste a lot of energy reading the whole story, but I can say unequivocally that I'm sure what he said was in very poor taste and I'm sure he regrets it. I can also say that in this election year, there MUST be more important things we need to decide and discuss (or is that only a valid point when the person on the hot seat is a Democrat?).

The huge public outcry of a bunch of people who don't even listen to his show, is therefore, pretty weak, in my opinion. What about when James Carrville said "if you drag a $100 bill through a trailer park..."??? I found that offensive to the core of my being and he is involved in our political process and was at that time. Sexism and offensive comments are not unique to one side of the political aisle or the other. I just know that we're not going to solve or resolve it, ever, and this looks like an opportunistic swipe at freedom of speech, to me.

Do I want to pay for the birth control for millions of horny coeds whose annual college tuition costs more than I earn in a year? F*** no.

Do I want to see videos of them using the birth control I paid for? Certainly not.

Playing the hypocrite card here-- I can think of many of my fellow Americans to whose sterilization I will happily contribute.

If I wait for an entertainment forum that will be 100% in lockstep with my own views and tastes, then there will be no one to entertain me but myself, and that would get old. I require amusement. I realize on a daily basis that things I've said here or there may have cast me in the light of the most inveterate jerk. When appropriate, I try to apologize and/or explain myself. Other times, my jerkiness is just like the bellybutton thing and we all need to accept that we don't always agree.

As for the hue and cry from an outraged public regarding what pretty much any entertainer ever says, well, get over it, darlings. Don't listen to him. But don't try to shut someone down because you disagree. Build a better mousetrap. Bring a better argument. Win on the battlefield of ideas rather than bringing the censorship.

And if you suddenly find yourself involved in a letter-writing campaign to sponsors of a show to which you did not listen anyway, you really need to think about your own sense of balance and fair play, or maybe you -- like myself-- are comfortable with a certain degree of contradiction. Or hypocrisy.

I have to go study now.

Sunday, March 04, 2012

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: Nostrildamus lives!




Amazingly, we are many weeks down the road and Nostrildamus abides, squeaker intact. So obsessed is Miss Praline with her Sacred Piggie that Chuy has taken over the beloved ball-ball. Of course, ball-ball doesn't squeak, nor does it feature the universe-swallowing nostrils, so it hardly merits notice for my fur-girlie. No matter to Chuy-- he's tucked into larking about with ball-ball with great abandon. He will haul tail to fetch the ball-ball, but he jauntily saunters back with it in an unhurried gait that will allow him to smell the roses along the way, occasionally stopping to investigate spots where merited, and to mark when necessary.

I have to say that when I wake up-- as I did this morning-- with a little furball glued to each side of me, I find myself in the most felicitous of imaginable states. No amount of wealth, success or status exists on this planet to excel the pure joy I feel with my little doggies. They are my heaven on earth.

Bless 'em! Bliss me.

Saturday, March 03, 2012

GO HERE NOW to hear an angelic singer!

Click on this link to go to WRR radio station and listen to a live brodcast of The Metropolitan Opera.

My friend Latonia Moore is making her Metropolitan Opera debut in the title role of the opera Aida. She is filling in for the Soprano who was cast in that role, but was ill. Latonia has performed Aida at Covent Garden and is a favorite in opera houses in Dresden, Hamburg and Bilbao. Why she has not been featured at Metropolitan Opera before now is baffling, frankly.

We became friends when we trained with the same voice teacher at UNT. Latonia is a vibrant and exciting person to be around offstage, but onstage, her voice is absolutely electrifying. I think the Met will be hounded to cast her in more roles. She will be a favorite Butterfly, too. She's also a superb actress. Her technique is impeccable, and the house just went absolute bonkers during the first act after her first aria. For friends of Latonia, this is a red-letter day. SO incredibly happy for her. :)

Bravissima, Bella Voce!

Thursday, March 01, 2012

This is not my bunny nest, but it is one like it.



The bunnies seem to be doing fine. One rogue baby has crawled out of the nest several times, and we've scooped it up and popped it back into the nest. I found it about 8 inches from the nest about 7AM as I was leaving for school on Tuesday morning. I picked him up and he was all stiff and cool and I worried he'd died in the night, but he started wiggling so I popped him back in the nest and I haven't seen him crawling off since.

Mama bunny has made a nice new downy plug of her underfur to cover over the nest, and then she's covered that over with the coconut fiber, which came from the lining of a plant basket.

Trying to kind of keep an eye on them without being too present. I figure the bunnies, like the ones in this video, were around a week old when the lawnmower first exposed them. I also figure the less used they are to being around people, the better for the bunnies.

Sweet little things, though. They are incredibly lovely. :)

BUNNY UPDATE:
The nest is empty this morning, the cover pulled away. I'm hoping Mama Bunny moved them, but I'll never know. :(