Can I Keep It?

Go Fish

I know I need to change the water in the fountains, but I can't.  No, I'm not too busy or too lazy.  We have baby fish!

*They were so fast I couldn't get them in the shot.  Maybe when they're bigger.*

In both the front and back fountains!  There is no truth to the fact that I squeed upon the original sightings. 

Okay.  But it was small and heard only by Mouse, the neighborhood stray.  And perhaps Bob and Maryann across the street.  And maybe at the vacation bible school going on next door.  But that's all.

We've had fish in the fountains for years.  I even had crawfish in the back a couple of times.  They were terribly bright.  Big Daddy would come to my dinner call and climb a screen, lean backwards and demand allow me to drop food right in his gullet.

But never have we been blessed with babies.  Ever.  Not in twelve years.  But this year both fountains?  How exciting.  There seem to be five in the front - three golden, one black and a very fashionable white one who has accessorized with black fins.  In the fountain under the New Dawn rose in the back, I have only seen one, but oh! Is he attractive.  White underbelly, pale yellow sides and a black racing stripe from his upper lip to the end of his tail fins.  I named him Earnhart, because he looks like a race car.

But you can call him Dale.

Crest Fallen

The Mississippi has held Memphis hostage for several weeks now.  Built high on a bluff, the downtown was safe from flooding.  Only Riverside Drive and the elegant homes on Mud Island down there risked being submerged.  Neither faired well.  On Mud Island the first floors of many lovely homes became new breeding grounds for catfish.  And snakes.  Riverside Drive was closed as the Big Muddy leaked across its edges.

 

Memphis in May moved the Championship Barbeque Festival down the street from us to the fairgrounds.  It normally resides at Tom Lee Park.  In 1925, an african-american named Tom Lee saved thirty-two people from a sinking steamboat.  He rowed a tiny boat across the strong currents of the Mississippi to get to them.  He could not swim.  A monument to his bravery is the central point of the park.

 

It's nearly been swallowed by the water.  The current came up quickly as I was standing there.  One second, I was dry.  The next, I was enveloped in the thick brown of the river.

 

The waters have begun to receed here in the Bluff City.  The rice fields of Arkasas are coming back into view.  Downtown is drying out.

 

But the barge traffic is still having a rough go of it.  We watched as a fully loaded one barely squeaked under the M Bridge.

He probably would have had an easier time if he had taken Riverside Drive.

*My heart goes out to the people of Mississippi and Louisiana as the River

makes her might known to them.*

Rage Against the Machine

Life in my Animal House is a never ending adventure. 

 

To view the rest, please go to: http://canikeepit.typepad.com/the_/

Whale of a Tale

This was sent in by Nancy in Miami.  It's a heart-warming tale that will drown you in the holiday spirit.

..The Whale...

If you read a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso and a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around as she was thanking them.

Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude. I pass this on to you, my friends, in the same spirit.

  

Life is good.

I am sorry to say that I do not know the author's name.  But thank you, stranger, for this lovely tale of hope and the goodness of human nature.

True and False

There's an email floating about the killing of Calderon dolphins in Denmark.  It's a bloody, savage tale of the brutal slaughter of curious dolphins who swim up and greet young people who then hack at them with hooks until they die.  It is done to mark the passage into manhood.

* The bloody waters of a whale massacre.  Some images were so violent, I refuse to share them.*

There are many misstatements in the letter.  The offenders are actually Faroe Islanders, a province of Denmark with complete autonomy from all but international affairs.  The monarchy has not had the power to change its practices since a declaration in 1948.

The animals in question are pilot whales, not dolphins.  They are not an endangered species.  The Faroe islanders diet largely consists of whale blubber.  The whales are killed in mass in the summers.  They are corralled and gaffed to shore.  Their necks are cut to sever the spinal chord.  It is a horrifying endeavor that has been practiced for 300 years.

The hunts or "grindadráp", are considered to be a part of the Faroese culture.  Many organizations, such as Greenpeace, consider the practice cruel and unnecessary and are actively trying to stop it.  Pressuring Denmark will not work.  Sign the petitions of a larger organization.  This email, aside from causing awareness to the gruesome slaughter, is ineffectual.

You can sign a petition to stop the killing of long finned pilot whales at Care2 .

Swimmingly

My blog buddy, Duffylou, suggested that I take up swimming until my back is better.  Who knew?  Really?  You can use the pool for exercise?  It's not just for sitting beside, drinking Crangelas and reading magazines?

What?

No, Zoe, I deed not know zees eihzur!

Shocking. 

I swam twenty laps this morning as fast as I could.  I was out of breath.  I was sweating.  Yes, sweating.  In the pool.  Shut up.  It happens.

I'm no Michael Phelps, but it was a good workout.  Of course, if  I were Michael Phelps, I could eat 12,000 calories a day and have a perfect physique.  So now I have that unattainable goal...

What?

I do nut know, Zoe.  Go bacque to zee sleepeeng. Ze Muhzur.  She rambles sometimes.

Duffylou is a genius.  But she's had chronic back troubles, so maybe it's expertise.  Because my back?  Feels pretty good. 

My spirits?  Are much better.

Clean up

As I began the long task of cleaning up the Hudarosa, tossing soggy packaging, soaked muddy paint brushes and  picking up shards of flotsam floated from a drawer or behind a file cabinet, my mind drifted off to the plight of the Gulf Coast.  The oil from the blown platform oozes closer to the shore every day.  Each morning the water birds are treading closer to danger.  The shellfish are siphoning its slimy waters.  The marshlands they call home are threatened with suffocation.  Fishermen are losing their livelihoods.

How will they clean up that mess?

Phill McCrory, a stylist from Alabama, has a solution.  He takes the clippings from hair salons, groomers , even spent nylons and fashions them into mats that collect the spilled oil.  We all know that hair collects oil.  That's why we shampoo.  The mats are reconditioned after use.  It's an ecologically friendly way to rectify a disaster like the one created by BP and Halliburton.

It's a really great excuse for me to get out the Furminator and shave Carmen down.  Child!  Her excess fur alone could save half the wildlife on the Gulf Coast! Seriously, if I don't sweep of vacuum every single day, you could fall on the stairs and hurt yourself giggling.  The other day somebody came in and said, "What a soft rug you have!"  And I was all, "Yeah, I haven't had the chance to sweep today."  Phhhtt.

His website for donations is:  www.matteroftrust.com

If you live in a coastal area affect by the spill, you can volunteer to clean the oil soaked animals and Dawn detergent (the most effective researchers have found for rescuing wildlife) has a campaign to raise $500, 000.  Buy a bottle (special edition with the animal on it) and go to their  donation activation page . Anyone living in the areas can be trained to wash the animals by contacting the  National Audubon Society and the Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research.

And who wouldn't want to do that?

Now I better get back to that basement. Because mildew waits for no man.

*For Joann on Florida's Coast.  Good luck, Honey!

Random Acts of Photography

No fishcicles this last week.  Banquo and Casper fared this storm better than the last. 

Despite their fountain home's covering of ice and snow...

Enjoying the weekend yet?  We are...