Blue Mustang

Vrooooooooooooom!

Wrigley

The BRD has been out of town for a few days so SWMBO has been house sitting her cats and her dog.  Today, after I went over and took SWMBO and myself to breakfast, I agreed to take the effusive Wrigley to the dog park.  He was thrilled.

 So we got there but most of the other dogs weren't paying much attention to him.  He sort of had the look of "Hey, guys, can't I play?"

But he didn't let that get him down for long and besides those guys looked kind of big and sprightly.  So he just began exploring the park by himself for awhile.

Until a newcomer discovered him.

That seemed to make him happy so his trip to the dog park was a success!

The moon is full

Couldn't resist it.

My name is Blackwell

Here's a bit of a better photo of our new addition.

O.K. He's ours!

Some time back regular readers of my postings here may recall I talked about a stray cat that seemed attracted to us. (Probably because we started feeding him.) Since he was black, I called him Blackie. Then I was talking to a neighbor who said he wasn't her cat, he just sort of came around. She said she called him Detroit. So I began calling him Blackie Detroit. There's even a short video of him on You Tube.

Well, he was becoming more and more interested in coming into the house (wherein reside two female cats). Blackie Detroit is a male, unfixed. So we let him come into the garage to eat and sleep but no further. Finally, I said "Oh, hell" or something like that and took him to the Humane Society to be neutered. Then we brought him inside.

Blackie Detroit, whom I now officially call "Blackwell", showed his thanks by eating everything in sight.

About that ear. The nice young lady said since he was a feral cat and I hadn't decided at that point whether he should come in or not they could notch one of his ears. That way, if someone else picked up the cat and brought him to the Humane Society to be neutered, they would know by the notch that he had already been there. I anticipated a small "notch". What I got was a cat with the tip cut off his left ear! Neither SWMBO nor I were pleased about that but what can you do?

Anyway, in spite of criticism by the other two cats (Muggles and Jazz), Blackwell has been making himself at home. The other day he curled up for a nap . . . in a box Jazz had taken for her own! She glared from a distance.

Jazz expresses her dismay, disdain, perhaps outright hatred of this little imposer by growling, moaning and occasionally spitting when he comes too close. She is, as the British royals are said to say, "not amused."

But the outbursts seem to be coming less and less and it appears, in time, that she will learn to live with him. In the meantime, SWMBO and I have been policing the occasional set-to's and saying to ourselves "why have we brought this on ourselves."

I guess it's "cat love".

More clouds

Yesterday . . .

Today . . .

Wanna buy a car?

The BRD and her beau have decided to sell the Mercedes. It's just what everyone needs: a bright red classic. Take a look.

If you're drooling now, call Beau Jack. The area code is 928. Each of the photos will get bigger if you click on them. (Tell him you learned about it on Oddball Observations!)

Studies of Muggles

I vant to be alone!

Can't you do something about my eyes?

I'm trying to tell you something . .

I'm HUNGRY! GIVE. ME. FOOD!

I feel better!

I feel much better today, possibly thanks to this video sent by a friend.

Oh, those years

I don't know why. But every once in awhile I have a day where I feel every one of my years. That's about a month shy of 70-and-a-half right now. No particular reason. Oh, I didn't sleep very well last night. And my morning paper wasn't in the driveway when I went out to get it. (That's the Sunday New York Times - the only paper we take and SWMBO is never happy when we don't get one.) But we went out for breakfast, which as it turned out, neither one of us really wanted. And I picked up a copy of the Times at a grocery store. So, no loss there.

But, I just felt kind of off all day. Creaky in the joints, sort of tired. A short afternoon nap didn't seem to help. I took a picture of myself a few minutes ago and it seems to tell the story.

That kisser ain't very young anymore. Lines in the forehead, bags under the eyes. The beard is nearly all white, though the gray in my hair still is fairly well disguised by the brown. I was in to see an eye doctor a week or so ago and asked her what color my eyes were. She looked and said they were hazel. Well, I always thought they were blue but I'd noticed recently that they didn't look a bit like Paul Newman's always did. I guess that's just one more part of me that's blanding down as I age.

This could get real depressing if I didn't remember what an old friend of mine used to say.

I'd say, "Aw, this old age is for the birds." He'd say "Yeah, but it beats the alternative." That always got a laugh. Up until the alternative caught up with him.

SEX!!!

I was out in the back yard checking on my tomatoes yesterday when I spotted a praying mantis and went to grab the camera.

I noticed what I thought to be a grasshopper clinging to her back and tried to remove it with a blade of grass. That didn't work so I continued snapping pictures.

The mantis maneuvered around the grasses and plant stems and finally got to the fence, where she continued to climb. When I got the photos uploaded to my computer I discovered, to my embarrassment, that the passenger was . . . er . . . rather firmly attached and that the twosome apparently had been caught in flagrante delicto.

All I can say by apology is "Oops!" Sorry, I'm a city boy.

For your holiday weekend?

A friend in California sent me this photo from Morro Bay.

I guess it's lucky I quit drinking before I got there!

New arrival

Many years ago, before e-mail, there was something called a "telegram". When I was born in North Dakota in 1940, my father sent a telegram to his brother in San Francisco to make the announcement. Like with another long past mode of communication . . "cablegrams" . . apparently the price of the "gram" was based on the number of words in it. Therefore, brevity was valued.

I was going through a file today and ran across the telegram my father sent about my birth. Brevity, yes, but wit too.

Rose of Sharon

My girls

Everyone knows that a cat will adopt a box. Any box. And the cat will adapt to the size and the shape of the box. Jazz has adopted this shallow box.

She has fallen in love with this box and spends hours every day curled up in it.

Then, there's another thing about cats. They seem to inherently know . . . what they look best on. They seek out a fabric, a color, a texture and seem most comfortable posing on it. Muggles has taken to this chair.

Does she look happy or not?

I think you can see why I love my girls.

More monsoon clouds . . and a surprise!

I just can't resist photographing these wonderful clouds.

(They're more impressive if you click on the photos)

But I didn't notice the visitor in this scene until after I looked at the photos on my computer.

Here's a closer look.

It's a helicopter!

If he noticed me, he probably think's I'M a spy!

Brilliant!

I'll leave a light on for ya'!

Baking Day!

Mmmmm, look what I discovered when I came home!

SWMBO has been busy in the kitchen. That's an apple tart and mini-blueberry muffins. Yummy!

She's taking a nap right now and I could sneak a taste but I won't.

Someone already has!

Monsoon clouds

(They're bigger and better if you click on them)

The beginning

I received some unexpected photographs this week from a friend of my family. I hadn't seen anyone from that family since they moved to California back in 1953. That was the year my mother died at an early age. I decided to post several of the photos.

This is my mother. SWMBO says her hair was probably done with a "finger wave."

A little later . . . 1940 . . . I came on the scene.

At the age of 2, I was a plump young boy. Now I'm 70 and after decades of skinniness I'm . . . more than a little plump again.

I was interested to see that I had an affection for the feline, even way back then.

Mag 27

The esteemed Willow, of Willow Manor, tweaks our minds every week with a photo prompt. She invites her readers to write a poem, an essay or a story based on the photo. Here is this week's photo.

They had been married nearly 60 years. Walter and Agnes had been young at heart when they wed. It was 1952.

Many things happened that year of their marriage.

A pretty young English woman became Queen Elizabeth II when her father died.

In the United States a former general, Dwight Eisenhower, was elected president.

"The Diary of Anne Frank" was published.

In Argentina, Eva Peron died of cancer at the age of 33.

Television debuted in Canada.

Jimmy Boyd’s recording of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" was released.

During the many years of their marriage, history continued to be made as well as the passage of thousands of sillier events.

Walter and Agnes had their losses over the years. They had never had children but had suffered the loss of their parents.

Walter thought of all these things as he struggled to turn the wrench on the old water pipes in the basement. He stopped for a moment, staring at the rust around the pipe fittings.

"That’s what I am," he thought. "Full of rust."

He put the wrench down and walked slowly up the stairs, feeling the aches in his joints with every step. He went into the living room, where Agnes sat reading a book. He bent over and kissed her cheek.

She looked up, surprised, and asked "what was that for?"

Walter smiled and said "for the rust."

============================

I invite you to visit Magpie Tales to read the submissions of other writers.

A-way out west . . .

A-way out West . . . where only the power lines interrupt the landscape.

Who do I write like?

I was reading one of my favorite bloggers this morning - Jerry at Gently Said and he intrigued me with an exercise to determine who one writes like. He got the tip from another blogger who mentioned a site called "I Write Like". You can find it here. You submit a piece of your writing and hit the "Analyze" button and in seconds the program tells you who your writing resembles. Jerry's experiments produced Isaac Asimov and James Joyce. Not a bad couple of scribblers.

Well! What egotist in his garret could resist this?

So I submitted my latest Magpie Tale. I expected it would tell me my writing resembled some English writer - Chesterton or Conan Doyle or someone of that ilk. But the program said it was Raymond Chandler! Still not so bad. Hmmmm (sez I), let me try another piece. This time it came up with Harry Harrison. Now I'm not a sci-fi or fantasy enthusiast so I've never read any of his work but I knew the name. Well, let's try a third piece. This time I got Stephen King.

Now I didn't . . . like many other submitters . . . draw a James Joyce but still, those aren't bad writers to be compared with. (I wonder how many of them perpetually end sentences with prepositions!)

Hey! I've got an idea. I'm going to try submitting this blog post and see what the program says. Hang on.

Well . . . I'll be darned. Cory Doctorow. The Canadian blogger, journalist and science fiction writer. (I had to go to Google to learn this.)

It seems everyone writes like someone famous. I like this program.

Mag 26

"Drowned? Drowned, you say"

"Yes, inspector, we found 'im lyin' there dead. Blue as one of 'em Blue Men from Las Vegas, over in the colonies."

"And since it hasn't rained for a fortnight and the swimming pool is bone dry, how do you suppose he drowned?"

"Well, see, inspector, we figures he was held down on his back and water was poured into his mouth while his nose was held until . . well, until he drowned."

"And the water came from where? I don't see a hose anywhere."

"Inspector, we suspect they used that 'ere waterin' can."

"Ah, I see. And this happened when?"

"The fellow was seen at his pub last night at closin' time so it was after that."

"Yes, and the pub closed at an hour before midnight and it is now half past eight in the morning. So it was within the last 8 hours, correct?"

"That's right, inspector. Pretty smart of us to figger it out, wa'nt it?"

"Except for one thing, Dee-tect-ive."

"What's 'at, sir?"

"The plants growing through the handle of the watering can. And IT HASN'T RAINED FOR A FORTNIGHT!!! I think you'd better do some more investigating."

==========================

Oh, that damned Poirot, he's always so smart. Or it could have been Holmes. Or Dalgliesh. Well, anyway, this was only an exercise, prompted by the fiendish Willow with her photo prompt (obviously from some place where it actually rains.) You can read more offerings at Magpie Tales. Meantime, the inspector will try to figure this one out.

Dog Days?????

Who ever said they had to be called the DOG days???