Hauling out the big guns

First of all - thanks for all the well wishes and support! I'm still struggling with this heinous head cold and while I get a few clear, lucid moments each day - this ain't one of them.  My nefarious plan, (using a basket of kittens to distract you from a lack of any actual content in the post), worked so well I'm tempted to try again.  But this time I think I better get serious and haul out the big guns.

So I give you -- puppies!

Oh and did I say, "ewwwwww..."?

Visitors to Catalina Island are told that the island is home to at least 400 native plants, and 6-9 that are considered endemic - that is, occurring only here on the island.  Catalina is well known for the buffalo (a non-native animal), but visitors to the island can also learn about the birds, mammals, bats, marine mammals, amphibians, and reptiles that inhabit the island and its waters, along the island's endemic varieties of the shrew, deer mouse, and fox.  So while there is a wealth of material on the island's flora and fauna delivered to the tourists that travel to Catalina Island every year, and some of it is even used to promote tourism - no one ever talks about the great big honkin' bugs!

Seriously - I don't know how many times I've heard someone spout off on the theory that certain species grown differently in the contained borders of an island, adapting to their environment, sometimes flourishing and growing larger than elsewhere.  Personally I think that theory can be applied to the bugs here too, 'cause no where else have I seen insects of the incredible variety and size of some of the critters here! (No, I have not forgotten about the kitten-sized cucarachas in Arizona.  I maintain that those are not insects, they are aliens attempting to colonize the planet.) 

Caterpillars bigger than my thumb - either in neon green & orange or covered in black fur, walking sticks darn close to being branches, prehistoric looking grasshoppers, dragonflies the size of hummingbirds, and yellowjackets large & mean enough to steal a hummingbird's lunch and send it packing.  We got 'em all and so much more.  I have learned to accept this and even find them mildly interesting (except for the yellowjackets - they are evil) when in their own environment.  Which is basically any place outside of my own home. That is a crucial point.

So it is completely understandable why I might have been just a tad perturbed to enter a room and find a very large and many-legged creature strolling nonchalantly up my wall.  And when I say "many-legged", I mean just a ridiculous number of appendages, far more than could possibly be needed for locomotion. And by "very large", I mean freakin' humongous, like something out of a low-budget SciFi channel movie.  And "a tad perturbed" could possibly look more like jumping up and down repeating "eww eww eww eww eww eww eww eww" at a high volume.

After the intruder had been dispatched and fortifying beverages had been consumed to aid in recovery, further research identified the culprit.  Be advised - the following is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, do not click the link if you are prone to nightmares or insect-related phobias.  My uninvited and most unwelcome visitor was an unusually ginormous specimen of Scutigera coleoptrata.

As to this creature being an insectivore, (consuming other insects), which could actually be beneficial to me?  I really don't even give a rat's butt!  I have a cat - that is her job, she is good at it and takes pride in her work.  She considers it the perfect combination of toy and snack.  I would have happily directed her attention to the disposal of the hideous critter on the wall if I thought she stood a fighting chance.  But I had my concerns, kitty may need to bench press a few more pounds and add a few more reps before sparring with anything that size. The Shoe of Death seemed like a much safer choice.

Wanna bet Scutigera coleoptrata gigantus isn't making it into any of the tourist brochures?

O is for Olive

I'd like to introduce you to someone special!  Olive is a lovely fluffy black Giant Schnauzer.  She is also the recipient of  a rather unique dog accessory I knitted up at the beginning of the summer.  Here she is looking sort of sad, with her teeny little nekkid ankle and paw:

Look,  all better now, and looking ever so spiffy, sporting her brand new "Faux Paw"!

Can you tell which leg has Fun Fur and which is Original Olive Fur? Shhhh...don't tell, it's a secret!

Olive has taught me a lot about big dog life.  Big dog = big voice, big toys, big walks, big tricks, big enthusiasm, big love!

And at the end of day:

Big sleep!  (Awwww....idn't she cute?)

As wonderful as I think Olive is, I think it's only fair to give someone else a little blog time also.

Meet Pepper!  She's a year younger than Olive and I haven't spent as much time with her, but together she and Olive make quite a pair.

I mean, how would you like to have a set of bookends like this in your living room?

Can you tell which is Olive and which is Pepper? 

Fake Fur Fun

Acting in my capacity as a virtual black hole of disaster, I didn't get much accomplished yesterday. By the end of the day, I thought it might be safe and pulled out some knitting. Size 7 bamboo needles with very dull points, 'cause I'm not a complete idiot. (And when, out of 83 cable channels, the one I wanted to watch was the only one not working, I got a little nervous.) So with stubby little needles in hand, I did this:

  

No, that is not a godawfully large clump of cat hair. (Although I don't rule out the possibility that something similar may be lurking behind the couch.) Crafted from black Fun Fur, this little critter is going to be the latest high-fashion accessory for a very special dog.

Olive is a Giant Schnauzer (emphasis on the "giant") and while that's not the best picture of her by far, as you can see she is verra verra furry!  Recently, in order to investigate a possible problem the area around one foot and lower leg was shaved.  Without the lovely thick fur, her foot actually looks quite tiny and almost dainty, especially on such a big dog. But it also looks a bit sad.  So Olive's people, knowing that I've been knitting people socks, commissioned me to make a sort of footless doggy sock.  I think we're calling it an "anklet" for lack of a more clever name.  (But I'm open to suggestions.)

In Olive's absence, I did find someone else to model the work in progress:

It's coming along quickly so it should be finished in just a few days.  But it just looks awfully plain to me.  I can't help wondering if Olive wouldn't prefer something more stylish?  Perhaps a tasteful string of pearls?  After all, what girl couldn't use a bit more glam in her life?

My dinner guest returns

He's baaaaaacckk!!!


And he's hungry!


And just so darn cute too!

Ummm...hello? Were you speaking to me?

I don't think this kind of vegetarian eats eats Gardenburgers!

Overtown Adventures - part 1

On Saturday I finally went overtown to take my midcourse exam in Art History. While I was waiting to get on the boat this guy was the free entertainment:



He was hanging out where all the fishermen gather, fishing off the backside of the Mole. The bird kept going from one group to the other, begging for fish - it was hilarious. I only wish I'd had a video camera to really capture it.

Driving overtown is usually a bit of mental wrench, I notice things now that I'm sure I just took for granted in the past, they were just part of the background. But while I was stopped at a red light (oh, yeah traffic lights!) I glanced over to the left and saw this:



The blue ad? It's for The Sandbox, a smoke (head?) shop located in the South Bay. The text on the right side of the ad says, "For all your smoking and detox needs." Ummmm, yeah...good to know where to go when the need hits. I'll make a note of that.

When I sat down to take the exam I finally discovered the upside to this crappy course. The problem with the course results from the obvious fact that the instructor basically phoned it in, and apparently delegated the writing of the course materials to a teaching student whose first language was not English. The minimal amount of effort was put into creating it. And the midcourse exam followed the same pattern - minimal effort expended in its creation. So the "80 matching and multiple choice questions taken from the assignments and quizzes" were precisely the same questions. And I do mean precisely the same, not rewritten or rearranged at all, even the answers were exactly the same. So if the correct answer was in position b when the question was used on one of the quizzes, it was in position b on the midcourse exam. And the answers in postion a, c, d, and e, were the same also. So my tactic of preparing for the exam by memorizing all the "matching and multiple choice questions taken from the assignments and quizzes" worked like a charm - I nailed it.

It's getting late now, so I'm going to continue talking about my little day trip in a separate post tomorrow. I'm sure you'll be waiting with bated breath!

Guess who came to dinner?

Earlier this evening I was spending some time with my outside kitty when we both heard something moving around in the brush on the other side of the fence that runs behind the house.



I know the deer are getting desperate when they come visit me!

Making new friends

I called a friend this evening to see if he wanted to get coffee and go for a walk. He wasn't available so I hung out with this guy instead.