book 1

Ok, so I just figured out what will get me to post here more often.  Every time I finish reading a book, I’ll write about it here, along with a family update.  Sound good?

I know, it’s only Jan. 2, and I’ve finished a book already?  Don’t worry, it was a v. quick and easy read.  Happens Every Day by Isabel Gillies (she plays Det. Stabler’s wife on L&O: SVU) is the memoir of her marriage’s dissolve, due to her husband’s affair with a colleague.  It was pretty good but seriously depressing for the most part.  It made me grateful for Timon, for my only guess at his reaction if a co-worker tried to entice him would be that he would be extremely embarrassed and speechless.  (Not to mention that this would be also highly, highly unlikely, since he has mostly straight male co-workers.)

Today we went to the zoo for the first time in a very long time – it was wonderful!  The baby siamang gibbon has turned into the most adorable toddler of all time.  Maria really liked the budgies (Australian birds) and nearly had one in her hot little hand before it flew away.  Henry’s favorite of the day was the white tiger.  I love our zoo – and I especially love having a membership (thanks, Mimi & Papa!!!) because we don’t feel like we have to spend a very long time there to justify the ticket price.  And next week, they’re no longer going to charge for the rides, which is SO nice.  Maria can ride the carousel and Henry can go on the flying bananas to their hearts’ content.

sweet babies

We went to the zoo when the girls were here… we’d seen a photo in the paper of my favorite primates and their new teensy baby and I was so excited to see what the mama would be doing with baby (the zoo hasn’t announced the gender yet) – would she still do her swinging display during their song? Turns out, she DOES! With the baby clutching onto her! Can you STAND IT?!?

Mama was very nurturing and hands on with the baby after they finished their song. It was so sweet. If that’s not rotting-your-teeth-out sweet enough, we saw this little girl, just 14 months old, nursing on her mama right in front of everyone! LOVE IT!

She is so cute and mischievous… after she finished her meal she was wandering away from her mother and climbing all over the place.

The old dude seemed less than thrilled with our presence.

There were other little ones hanging around, and others possibly being created (those turtles are “enjoying each other’s company” nearly EVERY time we go there). And the best part is we got to take the four cutest ones home.

aquarium

Well, like they’ve already posted, Maria and I went to the aquarium with Farah, MT, and Armadillo (currently in-utero); Jen and Elizabeth, and Barb with her yet-to-be-born son last Friday. Of course we were going just to have fun, but we also decided to have a mini-shower (a sprinkle, if you will) for Farah & Armadillo, due Dec. 3. Jen made this hilarious onesie for them:

We saw these gorgeous, deadly jellies:

The kids made some kind of club pact, signified by their hand slaps:

Maria walked all over the place:

We found Nemo:

And we saw some super cool sea dragons (the one on the left is one inch long!):

A lovely, lovely day, with lovely, lovely ladies and our children…

Jesus, save me (or, keepin' it real) *updated*

I just saw an article titled "Officials Fear Python Invasion" and subtitled "20 Foot Long Snakes Travel 1.6 Miles Per Day."

If you're looking for me, I'll be sitting on my roof.

*update: I have approximately 187 days before they get here at that rate of travel. I have now resumed breathing normally.

just about to break the streak

I've referred before to my intense refusal to vomit. I almost was forced to during my trip to the grocery store about an hour ago. No, it wasn't the two dead possums on the road that I twittered about (see the sidebar - I'll occasionally post whatever's going on or on my mind in the moment). I entered the store and there were a few people by the carts - one family that had just gotten there and a woman who was leaving. They obviously knew each other, and the man in the family was showing the woman A SMALL BUT DEFINITELY DISGUSTING LIVE RAT HE HAD IN HIS HAND. I was so, so grossed out. I quickly got my cart and left that area, hoping that would be the last time I'd have to see them. But NO. Seems they felt like shadowing my every move. I even shopped out of order to try to escape, and even that failed. I was so close to getting sick.

If not for that, I might have had more patience for the cashier who looked at the 6 ears of corn in the clear produce bag and asked, "How many corns do you have?"; and then took my check out of my hand, looked at it and then asked me, "Did you write it for the exact amount?" You know, there's no telling. I may have taken off the $10 discount for being followed around the store by an animal for which you sell snap traps in the housewares section.

5 until 30

I am officially in Christmas mode! Kat and I decorated her house today, and I'll be doing ours when we get home tomorrow afternoon. We're flying back to 80 degree Florida heat from 30 degree Indiana loveliness and I will sure miss this seasonal weather. It's been a wonderful visit and Henry has had a blast. We had plates full of leftovers for dinner tonight (Christmas plates, of course) and it was just like Thanksgiving but without all the work! We just watched Elf and had some great laughs, and right now Timon is telling Kat & Phil all my terrifying snake encounters. Yuck. That's not Christmasy at all. What snake encounters, you ask? Well, look here tomorrow for the true horrible details.

25 until 30

We had a blast at the zoo yesterday - Henry loved the giraffes, meerkats, tree frogs, and penguins. I got to see my favorites too, the baby chimp and baby orangutan - but I'm telling you, there is one pair there that stole my heart from the first time I laid eyes and ears on them... the siamang gibbons. These apes are monogamous, mating for life, and through the years develop a song that they use to bond with each other and also to establish their territory. That's all well and great, but the best part is that the song and their swinging abilities are HILARIOUS to witness. I wasn't able to video the pair of siamang gibbons at our zoo, but I found a reasonably close example of some for you to enjoy. It's hard to see, but when they are calling to each other, their necks are puffed out in this huge round ball. Enjoy!

weekend(s) update(s)

Two weekends ago, I sat here, with this view:

... to see her:

Now, Kathy Griffin isn't for everyone. If you're easily offended, don't go to her show. But if you like to hear her stories about everyone in Hollywood and don't mind having to wash your ears out later, then give her a chance next time she has a show near you. I laughed SO hard.

This last weekend we went to a going-away party for Timon's co-worker, A. They are soulmates in the way they work together and also in their music tastes. Both of them work hard and don't stop till the job is done. In the photo below, A. is holding my soulmate, the Nikon D50. Isn't it gorgeous? This photo wouldn't have been out of focus had I taken it with the D50. But A. (and his camera) is(are) off to better things, most importantly to his woman. I can get behind that purpose.

Here's Timon, looking wistfully off into a corner, contemplating work without A. He was the first person Timon had the opportunity to hire. Timon handpicked A., not even knowing the full extent of their cosmic connection until he arrived and started working in the shop. Then Timon played his Bob Dylan CDs (he makes me gag, personally) and the rest is history.

Here's another co-worker, J. She runs the education department and is also a fine, fine actor. Her sense of style is one I admire. I also enjoy her shish-ka-bobs.

And, this little guy was there, too. Isn't he gorgeous? You should have seen the photo that my soulmate took. It was 10,000,000x better. It was a lovely party, but we will miss A. a whole lot.

Now, will someone please give me one of these for Christmas? Yeah, right.

odds and ends

Here's a roundup of some cool pictures that haven't made it onto the blog before now. First, we have a lovely barn on the resort property up in Wisconsin where we took our vacation. I just liked the look of it.

Here's a cute kid in a lifejacket. Look at that glee!



Here's a nice family on a bridge. They look friendly.

This is on the shuffleboard court in our city. I wonder if they all chipped in, or did some people just act like they contributed so they could sign the card without putting in any money.

Isn't this a cool chrysalis? It was just hanging on the bridge you see in the photo above. It took about 50 tries to get this shot. I hope it hasn't fallen or gotten knocked off and that the butterfly within is happy, wherever she is.

mason lake

Before you sink your teeth into this long blog post, please please please click here and go vote for my friends in the John Kelly Band to move on to the final round in the CBS Early Show "Living Room... LIVE!" contest. Vote a LOT, then come on back here and take a gander at the photos from our vacation. I'll wait right here.

Okay, on with the show.


This is the first photo I took on our trip. It made me laugh at first, and then I became sad to realize that even toilet handles need to be held sometimes, too.

Here's Henry with his auntie Amy and his Mimi on the dock.


We took Henry out on the motorboat a lot, usually to take him to the lodge for meals. This time we went out to go fishing. I promise that he wore a life-jacket 98% of the time, and we only took it off here so that he could use his arms better to fish with Timon.


See? Life-jacket on.


Even the boat captain wears a life-jacket.


Here's all the cousins, their spouses, and children. We are a growing group - one of Timon's cousins announced her 3rd pregnancy last week!


Mason Lake is full of gorgeous natural sights, including this view of one of the several lakes on the resort property...


... and these deer, whom the resort owners will feed all fall and winter, along with their many hundreds of friends.


We finished up our trip with a visit to Henry's godfather and our friend, Chad. He took us to this cool park where Henry had a blast doing this:


And I think we all enjoyed this too:


It was a lovely trip, as always. This place is my idea of paradise. Only 51 more weeks until we go back!

home sweet home

We're back, after a trip up to the north country for the most lovely wedding celebration I've been to in a good while. My gorgeous, intelligent and gifted cousin Amy got married to the handsome, brilliant, and talented Mike. Sounds like a good match, eh? Mike and I have always participated in some good-natured ribbing, but we have buried the hatchet and have since become teammates for my new favorite outdoor game (or is it a "way of life?"), Ladderball. I won't speak our team name here - but it's a good one. Mike and I even have uniforms. Take that, Team Godzilla! Mike is a good egg. If you have any questions about Ladderball, or the U.S. Tax Code, he's the fella to ask.

Anyhow, my parents, siblings and their spouses, aunts, uncles, gram, cousins, nieces, nephew, godsons, and I had some super-high quality family time. We also had some wildlife encounters requiring no trip to the zoo or nature park. On Wednesday afternoon, Henry had just awakened from his nap in my old bedroom at my folks' house when we heard a sound and we looked out the window to see a medium size black bear sauntering past the mailbox, about 20 feet away from the house. At my gram's house we saw a large turkey in her yard. We heard the whipporwill that drives my parents nuts every night with its non-stop calling. One night we saw some young foxes running across the road. And then on Friday night, we discovered one of these on Henry's hip:


Yep, that's a deer tick right there. This isn't the one that bit Henry - just an internet photo I grabbed. It hadn't been on him for more than a few hours. On Thursday night I had one crawling on me, so we checked him very carefully that night and found nothing. So sometime during the day Friday, he got bitten. If you don't already know, these are the ticks that carry Lyme Disease, which can be very serious. Not every tick carries it, and he was also not bitten for very long. We'll be keeping an eye on the site and pray for the best!

So the trip was amazing. New England is beautiful this time of year - green, green forests, cool nights and warm days (mostly!), and flowers blooming. The maple tree Timon gave me when we got married that we planted in my parents' yard is flourishing and growing well. Hopefully the 50-inch plasma Hi-def tv that Amy and Mike got for each other for their wedding will be as nice as the years go by. Love is a beautiful thing.