Can I Keep It?

Random Acts of Photography

Ohhhhh, I have been having fun.  These little cuties are fresh from the fire.

Email me if you would like to adopt one of your very own! 

They're all individuals, but I'll make you a deal on a dozen.  ;D

Nothing But the Best

Whoot!  This morning began with freezing rain.  The roofs and power lines were coated in a shimmering sheet of ice.  Then came the hard crunchy pellets of sleet and NOW?  SNOW!  Glorious, beautiful white blanketing the grounds.  It's going to snow until Saturday morning.  The city dodged a frozen bullet.  The forecasters are predicting three or so inches, a veritable blizzard here in the Midsouth.

More good news?  Hud is home, recuperating from his New York adventure due to a SNOW DAY!  He's out in the studio right now, photographing my new funny chicken eggs on legs.  I'll let you peek at them tomorrow maybe.  We had a late leisurely breakfast.  I scrounged up a thick frittata, fat with potatoes, onion, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and sharp cheddar cheese.

And as if it couldn't get any better, the Memphis Zoo ( http://www.memphiszoo.org/ )announced this morning that a baby giraffe was born yesterday!

It's a sweet little girl.  Memphis has great success in breeding giraffes.  The head of hoofed mammals lives close by.  He walks his dog in front of the house every day. If I can catch him, I'll ask him about her, but with the snow...We'll see.   Isn't she just darling? 

I hope she's enjoying her first full day in the world as much as I am enjoying it.

Prediction Practicality

Yesterday, after I picked up Hud from the airport, we lunched at the Barbecue Shop.  Seriously.  Four days in New York City?  You need some good old fashioned pig served by people who know your name and are happy to see you.  Personally, I think they have the best in town, tender, flavorful and just the right amount of smoke.

Then it was off the to the furthest reaches of the planet -- Germantown -- to visit the Costco.  The weathermen are all in a tizzy, clutching their pearls and flapping hysterically about the possibility of precipitation tomorrow.

I await the falling freeze with baited breath.  The chance of catastrophe is greater because while they are thinking we will have a lovely covering of snow, the likelihood is that we will be coated in a sheet of ice.

Most Memphians still remember February 7, 1994, when the entire city was without power for three weeks.  I clearly recall the noise of it.  All over there was a constant popping and cracking.  No whirring cars or hums from any machines, just the occasional explosion of an electrical line snapping.

Living in a great old apartment on Rembert at the time, I was snuggled in bed. I was dreaming peacefully when my little black kitten, Myshkin, awakened me by shinnying down my body, under the covers, straight to my feet.  As I opened my eyes, I heard a tremendous pop.  The air conditioner in the window leaped up as something giant hit the building.  Timidly, I stepped over to the window and peeled back the curtain to see the broken end of a tree limb level with my second floor view.  It's girth was six or seven feet.  The gravity of the fall had jammed the smaller branches several feet into the ground below.  Mysh and I stood on the balcony and witnessed the scene in silence.

My apartment was one of the several hundred in the city to maintain power the whole time.  Most were without for almost a month.  A few friends never returned to their storm damaged homes.  One, whose pot bellied pig awakened him and dragged him outdoors, watched in awe as a tree sliced his room off of the house. 

Fingers crossed for snow without a chance for ice.  I'm afraid that being on a secondary line at its termination, we would be powerless for the duration and surrounded by aged oaks, would most likely suffer some sort of damage.  Zali and the gang are sleeping soundly now that Hud is home and would not warn us of impending trouble.

The Hudarosa has quite the menagerie, but  we are shy one lucky pig.

 

The Waiting Is Filled

We have been marking time in the sound of Zoe's snores, collections of dog hair in the corner of the stairs, the tugging of toys and the preparation of one solemn meal after the other.  Today, the clock has stopped.  Hud is in the air.  His plane will land any moment.

Zali may have a more difficult time with the absence of a pack member than I.  He stares at the door, waiting for Hud's return.  The slightest noise sends him barking and scrambling for the bar to hop into the picture window so that he can be the first to issue the welcoming howls.  Zali has barely slept these last three nights, a problem for us all.  Even Simone has begun to stare blankly into the distance from sleep deprivation.  The boy misses his Fahzur.

I have missed him, too.  Maybe I'll even get the chance to tell him when the scrum of dogs, wailing and leaping about him have had their due.

It's a joyous cacophony.  Welcome home, Hud.  It's not the same place without you.

Random Acts of Photography

It's oh, so dreary around the Hudarosa since Sunday morning.  And it's not just that the sky is gray outside or that we have been promised more rain.  Like we haven't had enough of that.  Hud is in New York for a convention.  Sigh.

Zali is so jealous.  He loves the streets of New York.  So many faces to kiss.  So many street vendors to beg for.  So much movement.  And the restaurants!  His favorite is a vegan place named "Blossom". (www.blossomnyc.com ).  They were very kind to him the last time we went to the City and served him his own little bowl of vegan ice cream.

He's been inconsolable.  It's casting a pall on the house.  Hurry up Wednesday!  We all need our Hud to come home!

He had beetter breeng ze eyes creem.  Ees what eye'm sayeeng.

Escape

I TOLD YOU SO!

Yesterday, as I was cleaning the Budgies cage, Mozelle flew out, fluttered across the room, into the bathroom, where she perched on the curtain rod.  She looked relieved.  I shut the bathroom doors and repeated the mantra, "Up. Up.  Up."  It's the only command she understands.  It's her instruction to get up on my finger.  She wasn't having it.  "Noooooo!", she cried as I approached her, "I don't wanna' go back!  You can't make me!"

And then she flew into the mirror.  Whack!  Sliiiiiiiddddeee...  I scooped her up out of the sink.  She tried to nip me but gave up, quickly resigned to a life of gift twigs and nuzzling from Nerd Boy Pretty Boy Floyd.  I set her in the clean cage.  She lighted on my finger.  I moved her to a perch.  She flew back to my finger.  Now, normally it is a struggle to get her to come and see me, but ever since the Great Escape of 2010, She won't leave me alone.  Mozelle has been so needy these last twenty four hours that it borders on clingy.

We guess we all need reassurance sometimes.

This is little Oliver.  He lives in South Carolina.  He needs love.

 

Take a clue, Mozelle and Floyd.  This boy knows how to get what he wants.

*More pictures of Oliver snorgling his mom at www.zooborns.typepad.com *

Things and Stuff

I was very relieved to find the ghosts swimming tranquilly around in the front fountain this morning.  The heater we place in the fountain to warm the waters and keep it from freezing both fish and cement, broke.  The fountain was a solid block of ice straight to the bottom.  Banquo and Casper spent over a week trapped in the bowels of a deep freeze.  I had written about my youthful memories of a friend's fish pond earlier as a gris gris  to secure their well being.  It worked!  This morning, the ice had melted and both of their white bodies glided smoothly though the murky water.  It was a poultice for my soul.

This week, I have been immersed in a shipment of clay.  I have whiled away my hours painting goofy Easter chickens on ceramic.  After firing, they will set upon the most delightful metal chicken feet.  I have giggled for hours.  The Pappies and the Budgies think I have lost my mind.

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The budgies have been driving me crazy all week with the chortling and sashaying that has gone on in that cage.  Pretty Boy Floyd has become quite smitten with Mozelle.  Who could blame him with her flashy blue cheeks and Catawba worm colored plumage?  She's a looker that one.  He brings her the stripped millet twigs.  He preens her.  He sings her chirpy songs of love and desire.

She couldn't be bothered.  It's like I have condemned her to a life long blind date with the nerdiest bird on the planet.  "Really?  Another twig, Floyd?  You shouldn't have.  I only have these forty-two hundred you gave me last week."  (eye roll)

Sometimes, when she's sitting on my finger, I can see her looking around for an escape route. She's definitely not looking for love in any of the wrong or right places. The bird is frigid, I tell you.

Frigid.

I wonder what it would take to warm her soul?

 

It's Hammie Time!

The new hammies are here!  The new hammies are here! 

Introducing Parma Ham Ster and Prosciutto Ham Ster.  We're calling the last one, "Prosh" for short.  They've spent the last few weeks redecorating their new digs.  I'm trying to leave them with their creative license in tact, but I felt I had to draw the line when they moved the bed under the water bottle. The bedclothes were drenched by the time I found them in the morning.  I'll patiently wait out the black spray painted walls and black light posters.  I can't allow them to catch a cold, however.  We battled over it for a whole afternoon. Sigh.  These kids today.

The two of them are adorably spotted like a Dalmation.  Parma is black while Prosh is more of a smoke gray hue.

Ohhhhh! I could nibble up dem tiny feets.  Doesn't it look like they are wearing jammies?  The cuteness just doesn't stop!

Welcome to the family, Parma and Prosh.  We've been missing you.  Let's have some fun!

Random Acts of Photography

The Hudarosa is enjoying a fabulous three day weekend.

Yeah.  That about sizes it up.  Thanks www.zooborns.typepad.com .

Eating Disorder

The last few mornings, Simone has refused to eat her breakfast.  Now, Hud gets everybody up at two thirty or three to eat.  I say, the lady's tied and not hungry enough to leave her nice warm bed for a snack.  It's not normal, however, so we started to wonder whether she was not feeling well.  Today, I decided to try a few orts on her after retuning from the gym.  She gobbled them right up.  A few more and a few more until she had finished to entire bowl.  I'm thinking that I was right.  It's bed over bowl.

 

I know how she feels.  The new schedule at Hud's new job has me off my feed as well.  I make a huge meal in the middle of the day. I package up a portion for Hud to take to work the following day so that we can maintain our diet.  Sigh.  Eating the large midday lunch by myself is lonely.  I'm not finishing what I prepare.  

I guess Simone and I will get back to our regular eating patterns next week.  Until then, I'll use it to jump start these last ten pounds I'm trying to shed.

Come on, Simone.  Let's get a snack.