News: Funny Ha Ha

Long time, no post! Anyway, here's some stuff to kill some time.

• Yo Mama jokes are universal!
• For Fluzz:
  

News: Cleverness

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• Stray dogs in Russia commute to work by subway
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News: Maybe I Should Try That...

This dog

must have seen this toy

and was as envious of its rainbow excretion as I was. And it had a plan!

Air Journal: Ole Virginie

I returned this week from a trip to Richmond to visit my aunt and uncle. Some highlights:

• Now that American Airlines no longer flies out of Burbank, all my flight options to Richmond involved at least 2 connections, usually in such "how is that on the way" places like Detroit or San Francisco. Or I could fly out of LAX. I grudgingly chose the latter.
• The TSA checkpoint at the AA terminal at LAX was (badly) retrofitted on a design that harkens back to the days when you could just get on any old plane and *then* buy your ticket. Kind of like trying to retrofit smartphone technology on a rotary phone.
• When I left LAX, it was 72F outside. When I landed at Richmond, it was snowing.
  
• I was surprised by how many birds were still hanging out in Virginia even in the winter, like this downy woodpecker:
  
• Saturday we drove out to a yarn store in Powhatan which my aunt swears said was open on the website. We got there at 2:30 or so. They had closed at 2, after being open all of 3 hours. Why bother to get out of bed at that point?
• Sunday we drove out to a Thai restaurant for lunch. It was closed. The camera store where my aunt was trying to pick up prints was also closed. Do you see a recurring theme? Everything in Richmond and its environs is probably closed when you want to go there.
• This is the type of show that makes me avoid watching Animal Planet anymore. My uncle showed me a picture from one of his and his hunter pal's motion-activated prey cams. They thought it looked squatchy because there was a lot of blurry stuff that looked like hair. I made out a hand and what looked like a jacket cuff. Also, I remembered seeing this:
  
• We drove out to my grandmother's farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
  
  And speaking of rotary phones:
  
  However, even though we saw deer tracks and slightly larger tracks from what may have been a bear, no 'squatch tracks.
• It was below freezing when I left Richmond, but warm when I got back to LAX. On the airport shuttle home, I was getting 1 bar on my cell phone at a dropoff a few blocks from USC. I had been getting 3+ bars in the middle of Blue Ridge. Go figure.
• And the kitties were snuggly and happy to see me!

Knittin' Crap: Rescue Nests

Last fall I sent a dozen of these rescue nests to Valley Wildlife Care in the San Fernando Valley. They take in injured and ill wild animals and nurse them to health with the hopes of releasing them back into the wild. I found the pattern on Ravelry and hoped VWC could get some use out of them. Additionally, since big box acrylic is ideal for the nests both for its durability and washability, I could use up a lot of the stuff I had and hate to death.

I guess they're getting a lot of use of the things, too, because they've asked me for more. I started working on them again, because I still have plenty of that despised acrylic, except I had forgotten how slow-going they are to make. The gauge needs to be really tight so little legs don't poke through and get stuck, and cheap acrylic is painful enough to begin with. Ouch. As long as I break it up into short sessions, though, I can get them done. And it's for the little baby animals!

Anyway, for those who also have acrylic yarn they'd like to use up and to help a good cause (there are plenty of these rescue groups all over; you can find one near you, too), Laurie Bailty has posted the pattern here, free for non-profit use, for both crocheted and knitted versions.

Air Journal: Bird- and Creeper-Watching

I went to Virginia for several days this past week to visit my aunt and uncle before the oppressive summer heat and humidity kicked in. Trip highlights:

• Because I refuse to pay money to check a bag unless absolutely necessary, I didn't check a bag. No one blinked at the metal knitting needles in my suitcase.
• Because no one wants to pay $25 to check a friggin' bag, the overhead bins fill beyond capacity on most flights these days. While we were boarding, they were again announcing the bit about putting your smaller carry-on item under the seat in front of you, etc., but certain rows didn't have that option, so they would have to put it in the overheads. The guy walking in front of me put both his suitcase and his backpack in the overhead bin. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, like maybe he was seated in one of the mentioned rows, but no, he was just a dick who is Special and Above the Rules. Asshole. Good thing I'm not a flight attendant or I would have taken the thing out of the bin and shoved it under his seat with a very brutal smile.
• I almost didn't recognize my aunt Mary at the airport. Her hair had turned completely white. She was still short, though.
• I was her enabler for visiting yarn shops. On Cary St. in the artsy-fartsy area, we were walking from a yarn shop to a Thai restaurant (she had never had Thai food before), when I saw this chalk drawing on one of the ubiquitous brick walls in Richmond:
  
• We drove out to my grandmother's farm near Charlottesville, where everyone and their Beltway brother is now building their ugly "farm-house style" McMansion where there used to be real, working farmhouses. Outside, I dodged a dragonfly trying to divebomb me. Geez, I hate those things! I forgot how many, well, insects there are there. Here's a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from the farm:
  
• My aunt and uncle keep bird feeders in their backyard. While the hummingbirds have been absent this year, perhaps victims of the severe winter, there were still more birds than I see here in artificially-green desert. While the red-headed woodpecker we saw last time didn't show (its tree died and was taken out), we did see:
  • House finches -- by far the most common
  • Cowbirds
  • At least two pairs of cardinals
  • Grackles, with their striking light-colored eyes and brilliant iridescence
  • English (house) sparrows
  • A male red-bellied woodpecker, which actually has no red on its belly, but does have a striking neon-orange stripe on its head, which makes it look like a punk rocker
  • I think the other woodpecker was the downy woodpecker, but we only saw a female and only once or twice.
  • Starlings
  • Doves
  • The ubiquitous robin, which I miss out here. They also love splashing around in the birdbath.
• I somehow managed to avoid smacking my head getting into my seat until the last connecting flight home. I have a nice lump on my forehead.
• I was sitting next to a young woman who could not be not touching her MacBook, and what appeared to be her grandfather. As we were landing, she turned to the elderly man and told him she didn't think it would be a problem at the car rental place, but she just remembered both of them have expired drivers licenses. "But we're still licensed drivers." Um, no, you're not. Hence the "expired" bit. I was sorely tempted to follow them to the car rental place and laugh, but instead...
• I went to catch the Flyaway bus to Union Station (I flew out of BUR but flew into LAX for price and scheduling reasons). $7. Free (well, included in my monthly pass) bus ride from Union Station home. Ok, it took about 2 hours, but it would have taken a little less if I hadn't been waiting at the wrong corner for the connecting bus. And it has often taken that long with a shuttle, because you wait 20 minutes for them to come around, then you wait another 30 minutes while they keep circling the damn airport, then you're inevitably the last one off and all the people getting dropped off first all live 15 miles from the freeway, so it takes at least 2 hours to get home anyway. So I feel smug now :P
• Kitties were happy to see me! Yay! They quickly got over the smell of my aunt's two dogs. Or they're plotting their revenge for later, when it is a dish best served cold...

Travel: My New BFF

This handsome fella is my new BFF. I call him George. I was out in Denver for a no-adequate-superlative-exists needed vacation, and I drove out into the Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday. I stopped at Lake Estes, which is about 7300 feet in elevation. (The bag of chips I had bought in Denver (about 2000 feet lower) had puffed up like a balloon by that point.)

Lake Estes has a visitor center and a golf course. The only creatures on the course yesterday, though, were several (I counted four) elk bulls. A woman who grew up there was nice enough to explain that they had come down for mating season. While their antlers are quite impressive, they're mostly for show for the ladies. The bulls might butt antlers a little bit, but it's just a play for attention. However, since there were no lady elk present, and it was a hot day besides, the guys were just grazing and napping in the shade of trees. (Note that the elk were in no way fenced in. Not only were there periodic openings in the fence, they could easily have jumped it, and there were a few logs knocked off, although I don't know if they were responsible.)

The lady I was talking to went on to explain that the elk can do about $50,000 in damage each year to the course, but they had the run of the place if they wanted it. After mating season is over, they will shed those gorgeous antlers, which look a lot like aged wood close up.

One of the bulls was grazing right next to the fence, and he had quite a fan club gathered around, snapping shots. One guy kept reassuring his friend that the elk wasn't going to bite him. I pointed out that he might get poked by an antler, though. Then I asked someone to snap my picture with George, and I guess I moved too quickly, because George was a little started and stepped back a foot. Hey, most people aren't afraid of me until after I start talking to them! I felt bad, but he calmed down right away. Dude, he has several hundred pounds on me. Plus, you know, antlers.

I heard a brilliant woman say to her husband, "Look at the moose!" I made my way further down the path around the golf course. I saw a few dozen Canadian geese hanging at a water trap on the golf course. I saw some interesting butterflies (my pictures of them didn't turn out well) and walked into a bird sanctuary, although the only birds there were crows or ravens. No, I can't tell the difference.

While the path around the golf course is paved and has signs that leashed pets are fine (but owners must clean up after them), the bird sanctuary trail had a sign saying no pets or loud noise makers (read babies) were allowed. So, as I was coming out, moose woman, her husband, her chihuahua, and her baby stroller were coming down. I politely told them the sign at the head of the trail said dogs weren't allowed, as there were birds on the ground. I'm not sure how they could not see the sign, but... yeah. To their credit, they did turn around.

I stayed about an hour. My lungs are used to sea level, and although I wasn't having much trouble, I didn't want to push it. I was also driving a rental car, and the mountain roads were, well, mountain roads with switchbacks, periodically dotted by signs saying, "Drive Safely. In Memory of [some person who apparently did not drive safely enough.]" I also wanted to get back to Denver before the sun got too low and the forecast late afternoon thunderstorms hit, and as I said, it was hot (90F). Those gorgeous elk made it worth the trip on their own.

Spoonerisms: What Is It With Kittens and Primates?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

This lolcat showed up on icanhascheezburger.com today. It made me think of a few cases of various primate species bonding with kittens. One was Koko, the captive gorilla who was taught sign language. She had her own cat. And I saw a "news" story several years ago from some Mediterranean island. A man's cat had kittens and his pet monkey appointed herself official babysitter. She would hold and groom the kittens and was very protective of them when strangers approached. She let the mother cat nurse them and so forth and the mother cat didn't seem to mind at all. Then there's this cute video from India of a monkey that even appears to be nursing a kitten:


So, what it is with primates and cats? I can understand why kittens wouldn't have a problem, since it's not so different from human socialization, but I wonder what's in it for the monkeys and gorillas?

Riding the Rails: Day 4 Amtrak's Fault

Well, it was time to go home. I checked the train's time and it had been running about an hour late, but of course, I still needed to get there by the scheduled time in case it had somehow made up an hour. I got up and after I had showered and dressed and almost finished packing, I went out to get some of the continental breakfast, and I promptly got drizzled on. It was damp outside. After breakfast, I asked the front desk to have a cab ready for me. I felt a little bad hauling a cab out just to go about ½ mile to the light rail station, but it was wet and I had the big suitcase to manage.

I got to the light rail station but the line I needed only runs every half hour, so I made sure to have enough time to buffer waiting for the cab, and actually had to wait 15 minutes. It has a good roof, though, so I stayed dry.

There were several people further back in the car having an animated conversation. At one point a male voice said he was going to be gone for a week. A female voice asked, "Are you going to jail?" And she said it like it was serious possibility, but without the shock I would express if I got to the point where I had to ask a friend the same question. He said no. A fare inspector also walked through the cars, the first one I had seen. I didn't pay too much attention, but I don't think anyone got busted.

When I got off at the Amtrak station, there were multiple San Jose police on the platform leading two handcuffed people, a young man and a woman, from the platform and through the underground tunnel to the heavy rail station. They weren't dressed like model citizens, exactly, although I'm pretty sure they weren't getting busted for stealing belts. Otherwise their pants wouldn't be hanging halfway down their hips.

The train was still posted as being an hour behind. The station isn't very large, and I'm not sure if it's old or just made to look old-fashioned. It only had one cramped newsstand/coffee-shop for refreshment. The ceiling was incredibly high, maybe 30 feet (I'm terrible at judging these things), which would have gone a long way to explaining why it was really cold in there. Any heat would have risen straight up.

Even half an hour after I had gotten there and though they hadn't "escorted" anyone else out, there were still a few police officers walking back and forth and multiple cars parked in front of the station. I got a cup of coffee because I was so chilled. Then I noticed the two college students sitting on the bench behind me were knitting. I talked to them a minute and found out they hadn't heard of Ravelry. I was too chilled and not awake enough (I hadn't slept well) so I just sipped my coffee and read.

The train finally showed over an hour late. They were rushing us on, but it was hurry-up-and-wait. Stand in the drizzle waiting for seat assignments. Get on the train and then wait for another 15 minutes for a freight train ahead to clear the tracks.

I had a seatmate, but once the conductor had taken tickets, two buddies of his came from the back of the car and they went to sit on the observation car. After it became clear he wasn't heading back anytime soon, I moved into his window seat and got comfortable.

We had a, um, humorous announcer. "On Amtrak, you pay for the transportation. The thrills are free." As we passed by the San Andreas fault near Gilroy, he reminded us to buy land on the east side of the fault, because when half of California falls into the ocean during The Big One, it will become beach-front property. "Just remember, it's the San Andreas fault, not Amtrak's fault."

I finished the book I had started 2 days before, did some knitting while I watched part of a movie until my laptop battery died (I probably would have watched the whole thing if Vista hadn't pissed me off so much they I had to mess with it before watching the DVD), then decided to doze a little. I spread out over both seats since the guy hadn't come back.

I'm not sure if I really napped any, but I sat up about 4:45, as we were getting to San Luis Obispo. I spent most of the time until my 6PM reservation in the dining car staring out the window. This time I was facing east. The region seemed devoid of human life, although there were occasional farmhouses, an old mine, and later, some big farm monsters. Mostly there were just lots and lots of cows. I even saw cattle scampering for no apparent reason. Who knew? Well, maybe people who watch cows a lot more than I do. I also saw a very large, dusky cat walking under a split-rail fence. It was definitely too large to be a housecat, as it was even bigger than Spoon, but I'm not sure if it was a bobcat or a mountain lion. I think the latter.



In the dining car, I got seated with a young woman and her son. They had started in Eugene, OR. I felt for the woman. That's a really long trip with a young boy. He went through the stages of hyperactive, shy, complaining about the food ("My stomach huuuuurts. The chicken's too spicy." It was an herb marinated chicken, which his mother had pulled the skin off.) More complaining, the eye-rubbing, the sneaking peaks to see if he's getting the reaction he wanted. His mother gently but firmly insisted he eat some chicken or he wouldn't get dessert. He feebly tried the "I don't want dessert" line but it didn't last long. Finally, she asked for some ketchup. He insisted on emptying all five packets onto his plate, and then dipped a piece of chicken in and ate it. Two minutes later, I pointed out that he had stopped using the ketchup. "The chicken's not spicy anymore." He got his ice cream, anyway.

Not much happened the rest of the way. We ended up getting to Union Station only about 15 minutes late. After the slow start from San Jose, I don't remember making any unscheduled stops. I got off, went to the front of the station, called the shuttle company like the reservation told me, waited on hold for 12 minutes, then got an incoming call directly from the driver.

Riding the Rails: Day 1 Addendum

A couple things I forgot to mention about the train ride up to San Jose:

• Somewhere past Santa Barbara but still in view of the coast, there was a pen with some grazing horses, and, were those llamas? Alpacas? Or was I just looking at them from an odd angle? Their heads looked too small proportionally to be equine, and their necks a little too long. Either way, they were just hanging out with their horses, neither too disturbed by the other.
• My seatmate Jim told me about an incident on his ride down where the train just stopped in the middle of nowhere. No station, nothing. Apparently some asshole had been trying to put the mack on some woman without either noticing or caring that she would rather eat glass than have anything to do with him. Finally she complained to a conductor (I probably would have kneed him in the groin first, but who knows), and they radioed ahead and the police met them, well, in the middle of nowhere, escorting the asshole off the train.

Metro Journal: People Pooper Scoopers

I was cleaning out my camera phone and came across this picture from almost 1½ years ago, when I was still investigating alternate bus options for work. The sign was posted in the front yard of a house on a residential street about a block from work. Just parse it by prefixing "Dogs" to each line...

Other: Small Fry P.S.

The small fry was born on Christmas Day. I don't know about my mother, but I'm calling him Jesus.

And while I know it's true for at least some fish, I was surprised that these gave birth to live young. The mother was still trailing out the afterbirth, which I had initially taken for colorful excrement. For some reason I assume most fish species lay eggs (or maybe most do).

Then, of course, there's the ancient coelacanth, which is ovoviviparous. I love that word. It means that the young gestate in fish eggs, but the eggs remain inside the mother's body. The eggs hatch internally and the mother gives live birth.

Actually, it looks like platyfish like Jesus are also ovoviviparous. Well, whaddya know.

Other: Small Fry

My mother has had a small (7-gallon?) freshwater fishtank on her kitchen counter for several years now. She currently has two fish in there, although I can't remember the species because she can't remember the exact species. It might be a platy.

Over Christmas, I was sitting at the kitchen table next to the tank when she fed them. I noticed something that seemed like a tiny fish, maybe ⅜" long.

Me: Is there a baby in there?
Mom: No, it's just a piece of food.
Me: Are you sure? It has eyes. Right there.
Mom: Oh, it is! It's a small fry! It's a big one, too!

Apparently she'd had two others in late winter, but they hadn't survived my parents' absence when my grandmother died. My mother had a "small fry" thingie, which is a plastic bin that floats at the top but keeps the small fry in. This one was staying right at the bottom, though, so there was no way to catch it. I asked if it was at risk of getting sucked into the water recirculation intake, and she said she'd get a piece of old pantyhose to put over it. Then I asked if it was at risk of getting eaten by mama and papa. "I don't know." She got out her guidebook and, yes, it looks like mama likes to munch on her babies.

We managed to catch the little guy and get him in the small fry thingie. The parents were really hankering to get in for awhile, but he was safe, darting around.

Other: Things I Really Never Needed To Know

As the couple in my previous post about the Second Life divorce was British, I thought the BBC news site might have more details on the meltdown than a wire story would. This may have been a bad idea on my part.

I now know how Second Life avatars have sex.

Apparently the first step requires purchasing genitals. Apparently male genitalia is available with more options than most luxury cars.

But I really should not have read to the end.

And infidelity is not the only thorny ethical issue thrown up by virtual sexual - some players have had sex with animals.

(Huh, the BBC didn't edit that sentence very well.)

While perusing the BBC site, I also ran across a story about a Burmese python that died while trying to eat an alligator in the Everglades. Apparently many of the non-indigenous snakes have been dumped in the swamps over the years by irresponsible dumbass owners. By the way, the alligator didn't survive either.

Even with that story's photograph of the exploding python, the libidinous avatar story has given me more disturbing mental images.

Red Eye: Worthless Dogs and More

My mother's sister and her husband drove down from Virginia on Wednesday. Because, in spite of knowing all her neighbors and having multiple relatives in the area, Mary couldn't find anyone to take care of her Pomeranian, the dog came with her. They had visited a couple weeks earlier, also with dog, and the cats hadn't wanted to come in the house for days. This time my mother told Mary that the dog was too disruptive, so the dog (and aunt and uncle) stayed in a hotel.

My father hadn't thought that much of that dog. Even though he was a cat person, he didn't dislike all dogs. Just small, loud, annoying dogs. His nickname for this small, loud, annoying dog was "Worthless Dog." Mary took great enjoyment out of relating how, in their previous visit, my father had been staring at the dog for a while. Finally, he managed to get out the words. "Worthless dog."

---

The squirrels in the backyard were really busy. A pair in a tree were tussling. My mother said they usually didn't fight like that unless it was mating season and settled down in the recliner for a nap. I kept watching.

"... Oh, yeah, it's definitely mating season."

---

My father's brother had left for Georgia early that morning. Not having much imagination, my mother and I thought Whitey's sounded like a good idea for the second night in a row. Like I said, they have a huge menu and good food. They had fixed the Lobster Zone machine! Oh, no, I forgot my camera phone! No picture.

---

On the way back, my mother told the story of one of the times she lost her temper with the nurses at the hospital. "Well, your husband is verbally abusive to the nurses." "My husband has a brain tumor. Do you think he would be acting that way otherwise?"

If I had been in the room, I would not have been able to keep a straight face. My father has never been a patient patient, to say the least. Fortunately, this was a new hospital, so my mother could get away with that bald-faced lie.

---

I had both cats waiting on the bed, although when I had to move Coco to pull down the covers, he got huffy and left.

Bandit slept next to the pillow, although when he started his bath I had to rollover to escape the cat food breath fumes.

Red Eye: Lobster Zone

The following night, my mother, uncle and I went to Whitey's Fish Camp for dinner. What used to be in crap-all nowhere is now being chased by suburban sprawl. The drive used to be mainly pine trees and a few homes, but now the trip sports cookie cutter apartment complexes and condominiums and an enormous mega-strip mall, replete with every chain store and restaurant under the sun.

Whitey's has a huge menu, more than half of it fried. It won't increase your life span, but it sure is good. (Want to know where to get frog legs and gator tail? Here's the place!)

Just in front of us in the parking light were two women, one with two towheaded and rather under-controlled young boys. "Let's not sit next to them."

In the entrance, they had one of those mechanical claw "prize" machines. Except instead of stuffed animals, this one sported live lobsters. Unfortunately, it had an "out of order" sign on it. :(

We told stories and lingered after dinner until someone further down the large porch started smoking. Time to go.

---

The medical supply company had removed the hospital bed during the day. Bandit was waiting for me on the guest room bed.

Red Eye: The Jungle

With my father waiting for the funeral home in the family room, my mother in the office/my guest room sending emails, and my uncle keeping his distance in the living room, I didn't really have any place to go to be alone except the backyard. By then it was late afternoon, and even though it was still warm, I was very cold.

My parents had had an escalating war with the backyard squirrels for several years, trying to find a bird-feeder they couldn't get to. Well, the only one that had managed to keep the squirrels out also kept almost every bird bigger than a bumblebee out, including my mother's beloved pair of cardinals. So, my parents caved about a year ago and gave the squirrels their own take-out window.



This doesn't always keep the squirrels out of the bird-feeders, though, particularly if the squirrel feeder is out or the squirrel just has a hankering for bird seed. They each seem to employ their own bizarre methods for accessing the bird feeders, though. This one shimmies down the pole, grabs a handful of seed, then climbs back up and sits on top to eat it. He'll repeat the cycle dozens of times in a row.



The yard also had a bumper crop of anoles this year. They used to be a favorite target for the cats, but the current pair are the "the females are supposed to bring home the bacon" types and so there are some very large anoles, and a zillion little babies. I mean maybe 4 inches long, half of it tail. It is somewhat amusing to walk around and make them all zoom for their home plant or tree.

---

After they took my father away, Bandit once again got on the now-empty hospital bed.

He finally came in and slept against my legs that night.

Other: Welcome to the Whiteboard Jungle (Plus special Knittin' Crap extra!)

For reasons better left unexplained, my group at work somehow ended up with animal versions of ourselves on the giant whiteboard in Mr Bob's cubicle. No one was allowed to choose their own animal, except for Bob, but he chose the animal we would have chosen for him anyway.


For reasons better left unexplained, I ended up drawing most of the animals.

Trust me; I am not very good. For reasons left unexplained to me, I was elected a frog. Dan-the-invisible-giant-rabbit

chose it, then drew a frog which was so bad, a pre-schooler would have been ashamed of it. So I drew my own frog.


Hansen is the only person not in our group who has an official portrait.

(He drew a doubly-aprocryphal animal for someone else; doubly both because we did not sanction it and the person chose her own animal.) Hansen is the meerkat. Hansen is the meerkat always popping up in our cubicles and driving us nuts. Don't get us wrong; we love Hansen. As long as he is bugging someone in some other group. Hansen's alter ego is a gnat; he's also buzzing around, driving you nuts, and it's impossible to swat him away.

I did make a pleasant discovery earlier this week. The incredible limbless ninja

I made from the book Creepy Cute Crochet doubles as Hansen repellent! I was showing it around, realized I hadn't gotten all the Spoon-supplied white cat hairs off, and picked one off. Hansen, ever-present, jumped back.

He's allergic to cat fur.

Ninja pattern from Creepy Cute Crochet by Christen Haden

Pandora's Litter Box: Puppy == Punishment