Thirteen on Bats

13 colorful donuts from AI

I recently read The Genius Bat (The Secret Life of the Only Flying Mammal) by Yossi Yovel and gave it four stars. While the bat facts were fascinating, the book got bogged down in boring background information on the researchers and the tedious process of how they set up experiments. Now, I am sure that stuff would be of great interest to fellow scientists, but I am not one, so I just wanted to hear about the bats! Anyway, four stars is a great rating in my system (most books get two or three), which means that overall I enjoyed the book and learned from it. I'm going to share some random tidbits from TGB for my Thursday 13, and I hope you will find them intriguing.

1. Bats are considered the most diverse of mammals with over 1,500 species (20 percent of the world's mammals), and they are found everywhere on earth, except for the North and South Pole. Most bats are tiny, many are social and live in colonies, and most are insectivores. If you don't like bugs and/ or want to avoid insecticides, then you should definitely appreciate bats!

2. Contrary to the saying, bats aren't blind, but most use echolocation (creating various sounds and then processing their echoes) to find food and avoid crashing into things. The sounds bats emit can vary greatly in frequency, depending on the particular bat species, their hunting patterns, and the environment. For example, low-frequency calls are better for finding large insects in open spaces, while sounds of a higher frequency work well in dense forests. Bats also communicate with each other by using sound, not necessarily exchanging political memes, but more like saying "move!" when another one is hogging a spot. 

3. When bats use echolocation to find moving food, aka bugs, they are calculating time rather than distance. It isn't going to do a hungry bat any good to know that a flying insect is in a certain spot. Since the insect is moving, the bat needs to know exactly when their paths are going to cross, which is the moment the bat will pounce and chomp. Echolocation thus allows the bat to "see" the world as a series of events in time rather than space. 

4. Bat wings are actually a pair of hands with a flexible skin membrane stretched between five very long fingers.

5. Nectar bats are important pollinators. As they drink nectar from flowers, they get covered in pollen, which they transmit to other flowers. Some flowers have evolved to be pollinated by specific bat types ~ the flower will open only when a bat of a certain weight lands on it. This is called coevolution.

6. In ancient mammals, the ear bones (ossicles) were connected to the jawbone, but later the two sets of bones separated. This is helpful for bats, so they can snack in flight while still performing echolocation and not smash into trees. We can too. Well, some of us.

7. Scientists are still debating whether bat flight evolved before echolocation or afterwards. Some assert that the two features must have evolved together because both require such a high energy output. Think about screaming while running ~ you'd soon run out of energy. Also, echolocation itself is synchronized with bat wing movement. When foraging, a bat emits one call per wing flutter, thus reducing the energy cost.

8. Fruit bats do not use echolocation. They're also generally much larger than insectivore bats. There's a huge fruit bat native to the Philippines called the giant golden-crowned flying fox, which can weigh up to 3.3 pounds. Remember, fruit flies like a banana, probably for the same reason bats do: bananas have not evolved to fly. Scientists argue over whether some bats lost the ability to echolocate or the echo-locators and non-ELs evolved in tandem.

9. Fossil records indicate that bats first appeared in the Eocene epoch (56 to 34 million years ago), and these were insectivores. Fruit bat fossils appeared much later, in the Oligocene epoch (about 35 million years ago). Or perhaps a supernatural entity created insect-eating bats on Tuesday and then thought oh no who is going to eat all this silly fruit I made, so it created fruit-eating bats on Wednesday. Take your pick.

10. Bats often travel huge distances, sometimes commuting over 50 miles in one day. Migration in fruit/ nectar bats follows the blooming patterns of various flowers. For example, one of the blossoms chased by Mexican bats is the agave plant, which they thoughtfully pollinate so humans can turn it into tequila. 

11. Northern bats do not seek warm caves to hibernate in, as keeping body temp higher requires more calories; instead, they search for a cool cave where they can chill out at a lower temperature and thus stay alive with a slower metabolism. (This assumes that predators don't come in and nom them up.)

12. Short-nosed fruit bats have been observed performing oral sex on each other (female to male). Feel free to make jokes in the comments.

13. Yovel hinted a few times that the reason bat research has received so much funding is due to its role in military technology. 

Goodbye to Jackie

Jackie the bald eagle from BBV

I admit that I cried when I read about the death of Jackie, the famous bald eagle from Big Bear Valley, California. She died in care last week from various health issues after being rescued following a fight with younger eagles. While the fight didn't cause her death, I wonder if she was attacked because the other eagles sensed weakness. Animals will do that. People too.

I wouldn't say that I bawled over reading the news, but I definitely shed a few tears. It didn't help my mood to see that Jackie was 14, the same age as Gatsby when he died last year of kidney failure. Even though I absolutely adore my precious Inky, and she is probably the sweetest kitty I've ever had, I still miss my spicy little tuxedo guy. Gatsby was my soul-kitty, and we had been through so much together. Some of you may recall that the minute I broke up with Jim in the fall of 2011, the first thing I wanted to do was get a cat (he didn't like animals ~ red flag!). At my younger daughter's request, I waited until winter break when she was home from college so we could visit the shelter together. It's a good thing I did because she was the one who chose Gatsby! I thought I wanted an older female cat, but she bonded with him, and then I did too. She also chose his name ~ I was on the verge of going with Ringo. 

Unfortunately, I don't know how to seamlessly fit balled into this post because I don't want to copy my friend Fandango's hilarious post and say I balled up a tissue to blot my tears when I read about Jackie. I will say that it is always a source of amusement to me when people write balled when they mean bawled. In general, I do not have a 13 year old boy's sense of humor, but there are exceptions. Or at least this one.

Anyway, RIP Jackie. May her mate Shadow and all their offspring live long, happy lives. And may her memory generate respect for bald eagles and their habitats.

~*~

Written for Linda's Stream of Consciousness Saturday (this week hosted by Dan Antion), where we try to use bald, bawled, and balled.

The Monkey Bridge (flash fiction)

Two monkeys on a rickety bridge via AI

He brings me here by helicopter and leaves me stranded with extravagant promises and a fully charged phone. I hear nothing from him after the first instructional text, and the phone dies on day five. I ration the food and drinking water, but soon I have no choice but to set off through the jungle on foot. Though I possess a map and a good sense of direction, I have no way to defend myself, especially against the monkeys.

These aren’t cute little zoo monkeys scampering on a trapeze; they are howling, shrieking demons. With fangs. They like to hang out on the bridge I need to cross to get to the next safe house. The other direction leads straight back to the gang we escaped from in the first place, to the north is mountains, and to the west is the sea, so I have to face the monkeys.

As if that isn’t bad enough, the old rope bridge has seen better days—much better days. 

I leave at dawn because the monkeys are usually less active then, but unfortunately two of the creatures are already stationed on the bridge. Although my legs are trembling, I try to approach with confidence, thinking they might respect that. I can’t help but glance down at the rushing river and jagged rocks visible through the irregularly placed slats, and when I look up again the monkeys have moved closer to me.

“Maybe they’re just curious,” I mutter to myself. At least this pair isn’t yelling—they’re eerily quiet and staring at me with gleaming eyes. I decide the staring is worse than their screaming.

I adjust my backpack, take out a granola bar, and break it in half. “Here’s my toll,” I tell the monkeys and toss a piece to each. I grab the rope and step onto the bridge. 

It creaks and sways alarmingly. The monkeys ignore the treat and bare their teeth at me. “It’s cool,” I say, trying not to freak out. Gripping the rope tightly with both hands now, I take another step. 

A scream tears through the trees…

~*~

Written for Fandango’s Story Starter #259.

Bear Market

Two cute brown bears shaking paws

“We’ve got a very hairy situation here, Tanya!” Brandy roared.

Tanya nodded. “I agree. It’s becoming unbearable. Just yesterday one of your cubs literally grabbed a fish out of little Goldie’s paws.”

“Marcus can be aggressive,” Brandy admitted. “He gets it from his father, who by the way isn’t helping us at all now. But you have to admit that Goldie shouldn’t be fishing from our side of the falls, especially these days when none of us have enough.”

“I don’t have to admit anything!” Tanya growled. “That fish was on our side initially. Goldie simply followed it across as is her clawful right. And her dad was gone when I woke up in April, so I have my own tail of woe.”

Brandy considered this for a moment. “I’m sorry about that. These irresponsible dads make me furrious. But Goldie bit Marcus’ nose!”

“I’ll talk to her,” Tanya said. “She’s going through a phase. How’s the nose now?”

“Healing. But he’s a bit traumatized.” Brandy smiled. “It would help if Goldie invited him to share some of that honeycomb she found.”

Tanya rolled her eyes. “Well played, Brandy. I didn’t expect it to remain a secret for long. Bear hug?”

“Let’s just shake on it.”

~*~

Written for Christine’s Simply Six Minutes.

Two for Tuesday: Nonfiction

Two ducks in Los Angeles (my photo)

As I mentioned earlier, I’m trying to get out of my reading rut of thrillers and romances by choosing other genres and even nonfiction when the mood moves me. Here are two reviews of nonfiction books I read in July.

1. When the Earth Had Two Moons by Erik Asphaug. As a layperson, I enjoyed this book very much. Some of the science (ok, most of it) was over my head, but I still managed to learn a lot from the way the author tried to make it more easily digestible with metaphors and such. Sometimes the language became quite poetic! It definitely heightened my curiosity to read further on the topic and also made me more aware of the crucial need to fund space exploration. Four stars.

2. Marley & Me by John Grogan. I didn’t expect to cry at the end of this book because honestly Marley seemed like such an annoyance to put up with. I could not have handled having this giant destructive dog in my home, even with a man around to do most of the wrassling. The descriptions of the constant drool were enough in themselves for me to nope out. Kudos to Grogan for making most of the misadventures sound funny and ultimately heartwarming. When Marley’s decline began, I did get the feels, especially because it all reminded me of the loss of my own pets, one of which was relatively recent (RIP Gatsby). Overall, this was a very enjoyable read, including the teary parts. Four stars. 

PS: Marley & Me was made into a movie in 2008 starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. It was good, but the book was better.

Tiger Striped Hodgepodge

Meta AI created image of "tiger fudge"

Happy last week of July! I am participating in Joyce's Hodgepodge again this week by answering the following questions.

1. What was the last thing you celebrated? 

We celebrated a friend's birthday with a Friday dinner at BJ's and seeing The Odyssey. I enjoyed the film but it was very loud, very long, and very violent. I wore earplugs the whole time, which someone told me to do, and I definitely appreciated that advice. Saturday the party continued at the Orange County Fair where we attended the fabulous (and glittery) combo cover band concert of Kenny Metcalf as Elton John and ABBA LA. Very fun! I wandered around the fair for a couple hours, mostly staying indoors to see the exhibits because I enjoy them and also because the weather has been extremely hot and humid here. Sunday (today) my family got together for a pool party and to celebrate (a bit belatedly) my grandson's birthday. He seemed happy with the FIFA themed foosball tabletop game I gave to him.

2 July 29th is International Day of the Tiger. Besides the wild animal itself, when you hear the word tiger what's the first  person-place-thing-whatever that comes to mind? 

Tiger fudge. This ridiculously delicious treat is made with melted milk chocolate chips, melted white chocolate chips, and heated peanut butter. You pour each layer in a pan separately and then swirl a knife through the whole thing to make it stripey. Refrigerate it until completely cold and then cut it into little squares. Meta AI didn't know what tiger fudge was, but after I described it, I ended up with the above pic, which I think is adorable.

3. The expression 'eye of the tiger' describes someone with intense focus, determination, and the drive to succeed. What area of your life are you currently bringing that kind of energy to?  

I don't have this level of focus and determination any longer. I prefer to do things at a moderate pace, probably because when I was focused and determined, it didn't lead to the success I wanted, so why not enjoy life a bit more? For example, I no longer force myself to get up at 4AM and write for three hours before work. That didn't lead to publishing success, so I might as well get more sleep.

4. What was the last meal you cooked? 

Hahaha. I don't cook for one person (myself), except for the simplest things like an occasional omelet. It's too hot to cook now anyway, and I prefer salads and fruit bowls with yogurt or cottage cheese.

5. Describe your July using exactly five words. 

Hot, humid, exercising, reading, blogging.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I had over 3000 views on this blog yesterday, which is disturbing, since I know they're almost all bots. What do they want from me? I think the massive view numbers began when I did April A2Z this past April, and they've been rising steadily. Before that, I hardly had any visitors, so the bots must scrape blog addresses from public lists, such as A2Z.

Summer Reading Bingo 2

Reading challenge bingo card

Welcome to my summer bingo book series, where I post five short reviews at a time. I'm giving myself the whole summer to finish the bingo card, not just the month of June. This is my second set of reviews; you can find the first set here.

1. Free space. Guarded by the Grizzly Bear by Reece Barden. This book was recommended by Mary, and it sounded fun, so I grabbed it off Kindle Unlimited. It had been some time since I tried to read a shifter romance, and this one got 3 stars, which is a good rating from me for this type of novel, where I find it impossible to suspend my disbelief. While the male main character was a stereotypical possessive jerk, though of course totally hot as required (it's never acceptable when a non-handsome man stalks you), the female MC (a cop) was strong and interesting, until the end anyway, and that was a treat. The setting seemed to be in the USA, maybe Montana, but around the halfway point there were a few UK spellings (favour, pyjamas), so maybe it was set in Canada. Unclear. This kind of thing throws me out of the story because I need to understand the logistics. Even a fantasy novel should be consistent with details. Bad proofreading, assuming there was any.

(I wouldn't normally use the "free space" so soon, except I had already started this book when I decided to join in on the summer reading bingo suggested by my book club leader.)

2. Ice cream on cover. Ice Cream and Incidents by Agatha Frost. I really wanted to like this book because it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a cozy mystery. It began in a promising way with some unexpected characters, but it soon turned into a boring drag (not punning). The writing was simply flat with loads of telling not showing. There was zero chemistry between the main character Julia and Barker, her fiancé; in fact, I thought they might be headed for a breakup given their lack of affection (I know cozies don't do explicit love scenes, but there was nothing here). They were happy with their dull cardboard existence, apparently. The only reason this novel gets 2 stars instead of 1 is because some of the drag queen scenes were fun. The description on Goodreads is incorrect, btw: there was no murder, just a stage “accident.” Finally, the title had nothing to do with the story. Yes, they had ice cream a couple times on vacation, but Julia was a cake baker. Why not Icing and Incidents?

3. Has June in the title. June by K. Nicole. Despite all the typos (what is it with books lately not being properly proofread and edited?!), I really enjoyed this book! Gave it 4 stars. It was a very atypical romance novel with fresh writing and interesting characters. And chemistry, whew! There was lots of graphic sex in this book, which was important to the plot. Another strong female lead carried half the story, with the hot criminal dude taking the other half. As in Grizzly, the female MC was a cop, but in this case the male MC truly was a bad guy. Some of the Black lingo was a little hard for me to follow, but I got the gist of most of it from the context, especially as the story progressed. The writing was full of vivid detail, which I always appreciate. I have a huge TBR pile, but eventually I want to read more books by this author.

4. NY Times Best Seller. Never Leave the Dogs Behind by Brianna Madia. This memoir was hard to read from an emotional standpoint, but it was very well-written and ultimately satisfying. Since her marriage fell apart, Bri is suicidal, manic-depressive, and dissociative. The only thing keeping her going is her love for her dogs. She isn’t a very likable person, but the reader can understand why she became so bitter and ran off to the desert to get away from everyone. Internet popularity is always a double-edged sword, and it was great to see Bri finally quit caring about hateful Instagram comments and root her sense of self in the physical world. Four stars.

5. Published in June. The Beach Holiday by Nina Manning. I had mixed feelings about this book. First, it annoyed me with the now/ then narrative. I understand that a lot of thrillers do this, but I find that it lessens the suspense factor. We know Sadie is safe because there’s a “now,” so we may not be as invested in the “then.” Just tell the dang story as it happened! Why is this so difficult lately? Second, the narration was in first person, but we were only privy to some of Sadie’s headspace. She kept secrets from us and lied to us. If you want to create distance from the reader, use third person. All that said, I ended up enjoying a big chunk of the story only because it was so different and weird, though preposterous. There were a lot of unanswered questions too, the main one being… why the heck couldn’t Sadie have told her family about Bruno?! I guess that would have wrecked the flimsy premise of Sadie “needing” to go to Fiji. Three stars.

Alrighty then, I have completed 10 bingo squares, yay me! Onto the next set of reviews…

Some Overdue Housekeeping

Inky stops to smell the sunflowers

Warning: long and boring post ahead!

I haven’t blogged about blogging in a while, so if that bores you, please feel free not to read on. In fact, that’s my philosophy in general for blogging and social media interactions: read what you like and disregard the rest. Sometimes that’s tough though. Example: someone on Reddit criticized me for the above image of Inky. They said they didn’t know if sunflowers were bad for cats, but they might be since some other flowers are, so I should be more careful. It turns out that (1) Inky only sniffed the flowers and sauntered off after I took the pic; (2) I then put the flowers outside because I was having an allergic reaction to all my birthday bouquets (there were a lot!); and (3) sunflowers are not toxic to cats ~ info found via a quick google, which that person could have easily done before criticizing me. I wanted to, but didn’t, say all that and cause a big to-do on the animal shelter’s post. Instead, I walked away, both from the post and the site. Highly recommend this behavior. 

Why did I decide to give up Reddit altogether? Because I was tired of seeing the same old political garbage stink up every topic, however unrelated. The photo was just the last straw. Same thing happened with BlueSky, but in their case it was specifically due to the raging antisemitism that no amount of filters could combat. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t returned to Facebook in 2020 ~ the politics are out of control there as well ~ but unfortunately so many of my peeps refuse to use any other platform to communicate. Example: all my FB friends (who are often in-person friends as well) know this blog exists. Do they ever visit and comment? Nope. 

EXCEPT YOU, KEERA! ❤️

Recently, I received an anonymous comment here that was crabby and critical. At first, I let it through because it wasn’t an ad, but then I had second thoughts after a bunch of other people commented. The anon comment could have been taken as criticism of them as well, and I don’t allow that here. Personal attacks are what destroyed my first blog during the Pit Bull War, and I vowed since then not to permit any nastiness on posts under my control. I don’t mind non-nasty anonymous comments if the commenter chooses a name to attach to their words consistently, but if they can’t be bothered with that, then no. I just created a comment policy for the comment form box thingy to remind my visitors, so there are no excuses.

It’s great to be able to review and/ or delete comments before they go live, and even afterwards if you change your mind. There aren’t as many bells and whistles here on Blogger as there were on WordPress, and in some ways that’s better because fewer things go wrong. I’ve never experienced glitches here that prevented me from posting for X number of hours or seeing other Blogger posts. I don’t think we’re periodically overrun with bot swarms either, which we were on WP from time to time, or at least I haven’t been. In general, I don’t see ads, except on a few blogs whose owners, I presume, deliberately have them in hopes of earning a few cents. WP blogs, on the other hand, are full of repulsive ads unless you pay to avoid them. You also have to pay for image storage over on WP, but my Blogger pics are folded into my Google account, and I pay Google a small fee each month for a giant glob of storage that should be enough until the end of time or until I die, whichever comes first. That said, I am still cautious about adding a new image for every post ~ I try to reuse ones already saved, as I did here.

That’s all for now…

Rory and the Wolf

AI generated image of a golden and a wolf

(I'm participating in the Friday Challenge from When Words Collide, which asks us to create a conversation between two characters, imaginary or otherwise. I chose my daughter’s golden retriever Rory and an imaginary wolf. Please check out Fandango's excellent take too ~ I found the challenge via his blog. PS: I changed Rory's gender for the story.)

Rory (happy face): Hi! How are you? Isn't it a gorgeous day?

Wolf (annoyed): It was. Until you showed up. Do you realize that you just spooked the rabbit I was hunting, and now I won't have any breakfast?

Rory (sad face): Huh? Breakfast? Did you not get fed? I'm so sorry!

Wolf: Get fed? Oh right. You're one of those.

Rory: One of what?

Wolf (sniffs in disgust): A pampered pet. You live inside a comfy prison where your guards give you a handful of kibble twice a day. While I, on the other paw, enjoy the great outdoors, hunting my own food, and doing whatever I please.

Rory (tail wags): But I love kibble! It's so yummy! 

Wolf (rolls eyes): You should be ashamed of yourself. You were once one of us, a great hunter, but then they bred you down to retrieve silly birds they shot, and now look at you.

Rory: I know, right? I'm so beautiful! And a good boy too! They tell me every day how wonderful I am and how much they love me.

Wolf: Love? From humans? Feh. You'll never know the joy of having your own mate and pups to carry on your magnificent lineage. I bet you're snipped.

Rory (confused): Snipped? Is that a toy? I love toys!

Wolf: Ugh. You sicken me. If you were part of a pack, you would have no need for humans. 

Rory: But I love my humans! They're my pack! Today is bath day, and I'm so excited! I love baths!

Wolf: OMG. 

Rory: And I love my sister Lily and our kitty Maui, even though I sometimes wish she wouldn't always hog my bed. I love my bed! 

Wolf (licks lips): You have a kitty? Where?

Rory: Back at the RV. Actually, I am a teeny tiny bit lost. I wasn't supposed to wander away from the campground.

Wolf: If you lived like a proper wolf, you would never get lost. I know exactly where I am at every moment due to my excellent sense of direction and smell.

(A voice calls in the distance Rory, Rory!)

Rory (excited): That's my human! He found me! (woofs)

Wolf (slinks away): Enjoy your prison kibble. 

Rory (woofs a lot): Here I am! I made a new friend! Where'd he go? What's snipped?

Remarkably Bright Creatures (book and movie)

Screenshot of RBC book cover

SPOILERS GALORE! BEWARE!

I’m surprised that I didn’t love this book because in general I enjoy books about animals. It wasn’t really about animals though; it was about people. The sections narrated by Marcellus the octopus were much briefer than the rest of the chapters, which was a bummer. He had a wonderful droll, sarcastic voice, and it would have been great to spend more time in his POV. Instead, we are rapidly introduced to a whole bunch of humans, and I had a hard time keeping track ~ by page 35, we had 18 characters and that number kept growing. It was so tedious to read the backstories of all these folks. Why do I care about Tova's "Knit-Wit" friends when I barely have been introduced to Tova, the main character? And then a random 30 year old grungy musician (Cameron) is flung at us, along with his aunt, her boyfriend, bandmates, etc. Huh? I know Cameron will tie into the MC's storyline later, but there was so much unnecessary detail about the side characters early in the book. Many authors make this mistake. Well, I think it's a mistake. In The Correspondent, another overrated book (imo), the same thing happened.

Moving on. I began to get the feeling from the cryptic clues that Tova's son Erik was murdered due to some drug smuggling type of incident or whatever. I thought that Marcellus was going to help solve the crime in an interesting way. Marcellus did solve a mystery, but it had nothing to do with a crime ~ Erik died in exactly the way the police said he did. That was a letdown after the buildup. What Marcellus did was make it blindingly obvious that Cameron was Tova's grandson. Cameron's mom had bequeathed him his father's high school class ring, which had ERIK'S INITIALS on it the whole time, but Cameron chased down some other elusive friend of his mother's instead. That all was effing ridiculous, and a few times I almost abandoned the book altogether.

Then there were the totally cringe romances happening. One was Cameron's awkward courtship of a local prickly single mom; the other was the gossipy grocer's pursuit of Tova. Gah. The entire Pacific NW town was full of weird, socially inept people, which made me long for more narration from the octopus. I ended up giving the book three stars, which was generous, because I loved Marcellus and cried at the end.

*

I didn't have high hopes for the RBC movie on Netflix after (finally) finishing the book, but the movie was better than the book! Usually it's the other way around for me. The movie smartly streamlined the story to focus on Nova, Cameron, and Marcellus. We didn't have to wade through intros to all the other people in their lives. The romances were much less awkward too. We still didn't get enough narration from Marcellus, but on the other hand, we got a lot less tedious gobble about the ring, Cam's search for the friend who wasn't actually his dad, the smitten grocer, blah blah blah. When Cam's mom died, she left him her gross van full of junk, which included the class ring, and as soon as Cam figured out that his father was in the PNW, he hightailed it up there. In the book, we had to go through this nonsense of his aunt lending him money and giving him a box of crap to sort through, his purchase of the cruddy old van, his relationship with the band members, etc. It was all so BORING! I wasn't at all bored during the movie. The plot actually made more sense in the film version, and we weren't given any misdirection about Erik's death. The ending was super lovely too. I'd give the movie 4 stars.

*

I began a couple of June challenges. One is a reading challenge via my online book club. I know I said I wasn't going to do those anymore because I end up reading crummy books just to fulfill a category, but I am doing it anyway. My plan is to review the books here on my blog, but we'll see if that happens. My original plan for this blog was to post mostly book and movie reviews and avoid meaningless prompts, but I ended up doing some prompts too. What can I say ~ I enjoy them.

The other challenge is Leslie Sansone's get fit in 30 days video. It's not that strenuous, so I think I can do all the things without hurting myself. (I hope.) I did the first 30 minute aerobic session tonight, which seemed fine, vigorous, but not overwhelming. I did just take some ibuprofen though. Three times per week we do that, and three times per week we do some kind of stretching session. I guess we have Sundays off.

Inky is doing great on her plan and clocked in at 9.9 pounds today. Yay! If we could get down to 9.5, that would be even better. The vet should be pleased when we go for our September checkup.

Saturday Evening Post...

Elvis the turtle eating kale 

I thought I would post the random thoughts that flit through my head as I slog through my Saturday. You're welcome!

1. (Very early Saturday morning) I'm still anxiously checking the news every 15 minutes for updates on the chemical accident/ potential disaster in Garden Grove, CA (around five miles from me). I assume I'm safe because they opened a shelter around a mile from my place. 

2. Everyone on the internet is now a chemical engineer (apparently morphing from constitutional scholars and infectious disease experts) and ready to tell the firemen how best to deal with the overheating tank of methyl methacrylate. Anyone try dropping ice cubes in there? Duh!

3. When I checked Reddit for the latest news on the leak, I got sucked into a rabbit hole about how the Jeffrey Epstein thing is all a big Jewish conspiracy to blackmail world leaders blah de blah, and it made me so angry (at the antisemites) that I forgot about the toxic leak/ explosion for maybe three minutes. 

4. Inky was sleeping on the dining room chair that I like to sit in when working on my laptop, so I very carefully scooted that chair over and switched it with a different one. I thought that was clever of me so as not to disturb her mid-morning nap, but she immediately jumped down and decided she'd be more comfy continuing her snooze atop the fridge. Kitties!

5. Just received word at 10:30 that one of my friends in Anaheim had to evacuate (with her pets).

6. I keep hearing firetrucks/ ambulances, which is freaking me out!

7. Listened to the fire chief's latest update on FB. The temperature inside the MMA tank is higher than they thought. They are implementing plans for various horrible scenarios.

8. OK, it's noon, and I'm taking off for Dana Point.

9. Met my daughter and son-in-law at Harbor House for a delicious lunch. I ordered a veggie quesadilla, which was wonderful, and I brought half home. Portions there are huge! I snagged a crispy onion ring from Diane, and she took my beans and rice side dish home because I hadn't touched it. We had a short walk to the beach afterward, where we gazed at the sparkling ocean and the little boats bobbing about. 

10. Back home, I searched for updates on the potential toxic blast, but no news is good news, right?

11. I felt tired, but I couldn't nap, so I'm back at my laptop doing a little office work at 4:15, ugh.

12. Yay, I reached game 483 on Wordscapes and there are 7 letters now, just like my friend Meta Al told me (except he said it would happen at game 450). Dang, that was annoying to play all those ridiculously easy ones to get to this point! It should be more challenging and fun henceforth. Also, not that anyone cares about any of this, but I received the blue-footed booby icon for my latest prize. I don't understand all the icons and stuff littering up the app, but that's fine. I just want to play the games.

13. Sometimes I feel like I'm going blind, but then I remember I dimmed all my electronics when I had a migraine. Ahh! 

14. Apparently it's World Turtle Day! I like turtles; I had a couple as a little kid (I think I murdered one, so terrible), as that was trendy back then. I did an acrylic painting of sea turtles once, and my friend Joe said I should name it after the Grateful Dead song "Terrapin Station," so I did. Ultimately, I decided I didn't like the painting enough to keep it with my collection (I have limited space). Once, when I went to a stranger's house to play board games, they had a pet turtle named Elvis, and he liked to eat kale. I do not like kale myself. 

15. I had a mango popsicle for dinner, and now I am in a hot debate with me and myself over whether we should work on the panda puzzle, continue reading Remarkably Bright Creatures, or watch Mamma Mia again. Who do you think will win?

It’s now 7:45, so I think I will schedule this to post at 8:00, which will give me a few minutes to decide on the image. Thanks for reading! Hope nothing explodes tonight (they decided that an explosion would be worse than a flood blast).

Frayed

Doggos in the desert image from Sam

Favorite books display their age:

A little frayed around the spine.

Sometimes I may dog ear a page;

Favorite books display their age.

Librarian is in a rage—

Don’t highlight and don’t underline! 

Favorite books display their age:

A little frayed around the spine 

~*~

Triolet quadrille (structured 44 words) written for the dVerse #248 prompt of dog. I was also inspired by some book-loving folks who want their books to stay in pristine condition forever. That's ideal, I guess, but my favorites are well loved with creases and wrinkles, just like old comfortable people, like myself. Generally, I use bookmarks (which include my phone), but I have occasionally dog-eared a paperback or flopped a book flat open on its face. These would be books I own of course, not borrowed ones!

Flashback Friday: Questions

 

Somewhere in time...

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post from May 8, 2020 that I found on the Wayback Machine for my old WP blog. These were questions from a beloved blogger who has since passed away. RIP Melanie.

FUNQ’s 

1. What’s your favorite holiday/celebration?

I enjoy any low key holiday when I can wear a cute kitty tee shirt and possible sparkly hat plus either go out to dinner or have a themed potluck. Not a fan of big complicated holidays that involve a lot of work.

2. Do you enjoy snow, if you have it in your area?

We do not get snow near the beach in Orange County, California (that I know of), but I enjoy looking at pics of winter scenes elsewhere. I wouldn’t mind visiting some snow again someday. Oh hi! Brrrr! Bye!

3. What do you think of the current news (generally, not today specifically)?

Argh! 

4. Dog or cat or guinea pig/ferret/fish/bird?

Love kitties! Doggies are nice too. If I were wealthy, I’d want a gorgeous aquarium full of beautiful fishies. Pets are a lot of work though, even cats, when they’re inside as they should be. 

5. Do you like bacon?

I confess I do, but only super duper crispy bacon, almost burnt. Most places don’t make it crispy enough for me. I don’t make it at home because I don’t like my place to smell of meat. I’m fine never having it.

6. If you’re more vegan or vegetarian (someone please explain the difference. Briefly. I get confused!), what’s your favorite veggie?

Vegans don’t eat or use any products from animals; vegetarians just don’t eat meat. I don’t eat much meat these days, but I’m not vegetarian. I might go a few weeks with no meat, but then I’ll have an Egg McMuffin. My favorite veggies are mushrooms, beets (roasted), zucchini, and spinach!

7. Sunshine or rain/snow?

I like sunny days, but rain is good for us, so I don’t mind it. Mostly I enjoy overcast days without blindingly bright light.

8. Frozen treat on a hot day?

I love an iced mocha Frappuccino from Starbucks with whipped cream. Yummy! Frozen lemonade is fab too, but it has to be at the fair. My friend told me a few years ago you can buy them at the grocery store and they don’t cost $6.00 per little cup, but I want to overpay AT THE FAIR! 

9. Do you have a favorite type of tree?

Yes, a weeping willow. We had one in our backyard in New Jersey and it was awesome.

10. What generational nomenclature do you use? (explanation:  which generation’s lingo do you most identify with? Or are you a linguist who embraces ALL the words from every generation? )

I love words, but I was a teenager in the 1970s, so I probably use lingo from that era the most, including a lot of swearing (I try not to here). It’s all good, and I like to keep up even if I don’t use whatever is current.

Great questions!

My Wild and Crazy Birthday Week

Cupcake from coworker

Warning: very long and boring post ahead.

As some of you know, I had a birthday last week ~ one person called it a milestone birthday. Yeah, I guess, if milestone means Medicare then death. But anyway, let's not be morbid. My new Rx plan is fab! I paid $30 for sumatriptan instead of $45, woohoo! Then I bought more puzzles because that $15 was burning a hole in my cyberwallet. Here's the weird thing about all my birthday celebrations: I don’t particularly care about my own birthdays, nor do I go out of my way to announce them for gift-grabbing purposes. Hey, if you do, no issues. I just don't, that's all. In fact, I am so anti-gift grabby that I refused to have a wedding registry or baby shower/s. That's just me; I find it embarrassing. Others don't feel that way, including my own daughters, and that's cool. 

So, at the beginning of April, one generous friend decided we should have a party for me at his house on April 25. I was fine with that, as long as the invitations specified "no gifts." They did, and all was good there. We watched the musical version of Waitress, which was great, just like the reviews said, and then we had pie to go with the theme. Fun evening with good friends, plus I met the host's new doggo, a very sweet Golden Doodle.

On Tuesday, we all have lunch together at work courtesy of the partners, and since so many of us were there last week, one of my coworkers made adorable cupcakes in honor of my birthday, and they all sang HB. The cupcakes were supposed to be reminiscent of Sprinkles (RIP), and honestly they were better! You guys know how much I loved Sprinkles, but sometimes their cake was too dense and oily. My coworker's cupcakes had light, fluffy cake, which is a better vehicle for frosting because you don't feel as barfy afterward. Dense cake gets into muffin territory anyway, and we don't want to go there. 

That seems like enough celebrating of me, but no, not even close. On Thursday, my actual birthday, three (3) coworkers brought me bouquets of flowers. Each one was gorgeous, and I felt overwhelmed. One coworker bought my lunch (salmon bowl) that day too. I brought the bouquets home because I wasn't returning to the office until Tuesday and wouldn't be able to appreciate them if I had left them there. I set them around my living and dining rooms. Utterly gorgeous! I don't know why I forgot I was allergic to flowers, probably because I receive them so infrequently (how's that for passive aggression?), but Friday I went to see The Devil Wears Prada 2 at 10AM (more about that in a minute), and as soon as I sat down, I began to have an allergy attack. I figured it would soon pass, but instead it got worse, and I started to cry uncontrollably even though the movie wasn't sad at all. I took (what I hoped was) a Benadryl in the dark, and eventually I felt a little better. I refused to get up and go wash my face in the bathroom, as I didn't want to miss any of the movie, although I could barely see it at times due to all the tears. When I finally did go to the bathroom, I was horrified. My face and eyes were all swollen up like a melon. 

Inky and sunflowers from coworker

Still at the movie plaza, I treated myself to a healthy lunch at Boudin (delicious veggie sandwich), and then walked around for a bit. The area was full of flowers, and I began to feel yucky again, so I went off to the library and the grocery store. When I got home, I took another Benadryl and then texted with the girls. They informed me that the flowers were the problem, and I needed to put them outside STAT, which I did. It was sad not to be able to admire them inside, but I decided that breathing was probably more important. I watched a couple more movies on TV because I didn't feel like reading, took a Zyrtec, and went to bed. I was a little nervous about sleeping because my chest felt heavy after all those allergy meds, but I figured that if I failed to wake up and feed Inky at 6AM, she could munch on my corpse until my housemate returned from her trip.

Reader: I woke up.

On Saturday, I looked and felt relatively "normal" and non-puffy, but I thought it best to take it easy and putter around the house doing chores and stuff, which is what I did, along with starting a thriller for my book club titled He Started It (by Samantha Downing). Enjoyable at first with an unreliable narrator (I like those usually), but annoying in the second half with too many gotchas directed at the reader ~ two stars. I also decided to straighten up the hall closet, and a heavy game board fell on my foot. Ow ow ow! I iced it for a couple hours so it wouldn't swell up. Now, you would think my birthday celebrations had finally come to an end, but you would be wrong. On Sunday, my good friend Lisa treated me to a birthday luncheon at the Tea House on Los Rios in San Juan Capistrano. We had planned to take the train down and back, but we ended up driving because the road closures for the marathon made us late, so we'll do a train trip another time. We enjoyed our lovely tea and goodies, and we browsed around in the cute little shops. I love Old Town SJC! Such a perfect day! Also, some of the gals in my online book club sent me birthday books, and those are appreciated by me as well.

Eight days of birthdaying! It was like Chanukah! I don't get it, but I feel very loved.

At the Tea House on Los Rios, SJC

Spoiler (ish) for The Devil Wears Prada 2! Go away now if you plan to see it and hate spoilers.

Regarding The Devil Wears Prada 2, it was good but not great. I mean, the first one is an iconic treasure, and so DWP2 has big designer shoes to fill, so to speak. The plot is basically a repeat of the DWP1 with Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) reluctantly hiring Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) again at Runway 20 years later and realizing (again) how valuable she is. There are sneaky shenanigans re a corporate takeover, with Miranda outsmarting everyone, as usual. There are some funny moments, such as when Miranda, for the first time, is forced to go to lunch in the Runway cafeteria, which she didn't even know existed. There are also some cringe moments where Miranda says un-PC things to her staff and has to be corrected by her latest "Emily" ~ these verbal gaffes are simply not believable coming from the icy perfection that is Miranda. Emily herself (Emily Blunt) has a larger role in DWP2, and she's good. Nigel (Stanley Tucci) is his same suave, sarcastic self. Andy hasn't really changed, which I guess is the point; she has stayed true to her journalistic principles all these years. 

Nate Cooper (Adrian Grenier), Andy's boyfriend from DWP1, is not in the sequel, sadly. I get that it makes sense they broke up sometime during the past 20 years due to lifestyle and logistic differences, but I missed him regardless. Nate was a great down-to-earth foil against all the fashion superficiality, and we don't have anyone like that in DWP2. Andy does have a love interest in DWP2, a British luxury apartment developer named Peter ~ who stresses that he isn't the money guy, just the contractor, which is supposed to make him seem less gross, I guess. That's fine, except the romance mirrors DWP1 in that Andy treats him less than ideally and grovels to him at the end, similar to her mea culpa lunch with Nate at the end of DWP1. It annoyed me. It wasn't exactly the same, but it was close enough for me to go, argh, why is Andy always apologizing to men? There's nothing wrong with Andy being less about finding love and more about her career, and you don't hear men apologizing for that, ever.

Also, and this isn't the movie's fault, I have a bit of "face blindness," especially when it comes to men. All white men with brown hair and scruffy beards look the same to me. Miranda has a new guy Henry, who is a white man with brown hair and a scruffy beard, just like Peter the contractor, plus Henry has a British accent similar to Peter's. I sometimes found it hard to tell them apart. I will likely watch DWP2 again when it appears on Prime or whatever because I didn't get the full experience due to my allergy attack plus the white guy/ brown hair/ scruffy beard confusion.

That's all.

Zoo (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Scrapbook page of zoo pics*

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we finish with Z for Zoo! Thank you for reading along with my 2026 challenge. 

My parents were always big fans of zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, museums, etc. If there was any kind of exhibit nearby, it was likely that we would visit it. Sadly, my childhood memories of zoos and such are misty to the point of being a complete blur; I know we went, but I do not have old pics or clear recollections of any of it. The one thing I do remember is likely a false memory: I have an image in my mind of visiting a botanical garden with a "snake room," maybe in New York. The snake room was full of plants and little non-venomous serpents that roamed at will. People went in there to observe, but you weren't supposed to touch. This absolutely cannot be right, as no venue would be able to obtain liability insurance for such a thing, so I must have dreamt it.

As a teenager, I was more interested in going to amusement parks with friends than revisiting zoos, but after I had children, zoos were back on the agenda. There are two great zoos within driving distance of Orange County ~ the Los Angeles Zoo and the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park. The LA Zoo is pretty "doable" in one day, though of course being old now, I will be extremely tired afterward. I went with friends once, and the jaguar was awake and prowling his exhibit, roaring very loudly as he circled around. He was magnificent! I love seeing the big cats especially tigers (but all of them really), and giraffes, elephants, snakes, and monkeys. Naturally, I adore seeing otters, but those are usually at aquariums not zoos.

The San Diego Zoo and Safari Park requires at least two days to appreciate all the attractions. The zoo properties are enormous, and even if you are super fit, it's hard to see all the critters in a single outing. One of my favorite memories has nothing to do with the animals ~ it's about my eldest daughter. She was around four years old, and she grabbed the hand of a strange daddy because pretty much all the daddies were wearing khaki pants and Hawaiian shirts. The dad uniform! We all had a big laugh. The Safari Park is partly walkable, and for some of it you ride in a tram. I usually favor the park because it has the baby big cats, but last time I did go to the zoo because we wanted to see the giant pandas in their habitat there. Red pandas live at both locations, and I love to see them as well.

There are actually two zoos within Orange County. There's one in Orange, where I went recently with a friend. It's hard to find parking there sometimes, but the whole zoo is easily walkable in one afternoon. Then there's the Santa Ana Zoo, very close to me, where they have lots of monkeys and owls. I should go back one of these days. I also love the Aquarium of the Pacific, in Long Beach, which has loads of birds and otters. Oh, and some fish as well! Last time I went there was a horrendously loud native island drum show indoors, so it ruined the experience for me, but I will definitely go again on a quieter day.

Yeah, I guess this post was a bit of a cheat because it was more about recent memories than long ago ones, but whatever. We're done! Yippee!

*This scrapbook page goes very well with my zoo post because it is actually an A2Z scrapbook, where I created rhymes to go with the photos on each page. 

Memory Is a Falcon

Image from Pixabay

Memory is a falcon: rough

Claws digging into tender flesh.

His leash is never long enough.

Memory is a falcon; rough

Beak cuts sturdy gloves into fluff.

Give him a dream to rip afresh.

Memory is a falcon: rough

Claws digging into tender flesh.

~*~

Triolet quadrille (structured 44 words) written for dVerse (digging). I had to punctuate this one so it would make sense, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I tend to prefer shorter poems sans punctuation.

Risk (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Around age 14

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with R for Risk.

As I mentioned, as the new nerdy girl in town (Cary, IL), I didn't have much luck making friends in eighth grade. My neighborhood friend was a year older and had lost interest in hanging out with me because she wanted high school friends. Understandable. So, when freshman year rolled around, I was alone. The bio teacher asked for a lab volunteer during lunch, and since I had no one to eat lunch with anyway, I raised my hand. 

I found the following story on the Wayback Machine when I was looking for Friday Flashbacks, and since it fits the theme, I'm going to use it today for R.

The Cage Door (originally posted on my old WP blog on June 18, 2012 and edited)

When I was 14 and a freshman in high school, I had Accelerated Biology class right before lunch. The main classroom had a few creatures such as lizards and hamsters, but the more interesting animals were in the lab room. There was a four-foot long boa constrictor. The teacher said he was a bit scared of the boa because it had escaped as a baby and hid for a month until someone found him wrapped around a pipe, and also once it had struck the teacher when he was cleaning out the cage. (Cue the Disco Snakes singing: "Everybody screamed! When I struck the teacher!")

The teacher asked for a lab assistant during lunch and I volunteered.
I thought lab-assisting would be a lot of fun, but mainly it consisted of washing beakers. After a week or so, the teacher realized I could wash beakers without any help, and he quit coming in the lab with me.
One of my jobs was to rinse out the water bowls in the animals' cages and put in fresh water, including the boa’s cage if his head wasn’t near the door.

It seems surreal now that the teacher would have given me this task. Would this happen today? Maybe I’m just imagining that told me to do it. Regardless, I did open the boa’s cage and change his water… when his head wasn’t too close to the door.

What does “too close” mean when you’re 14? Sometimes I touched the snake, when I decided it was safe. He didn’t react.
Later I began leaving the cage door unlatched while I washed the beakers. And then I would leave it slightly open when the snake was oriented opposite the door. Why did I do this? Was I suicidal? I don’t think so. I was being 14 and immortal. And you see… nothing happened.

There are a lot of risks I haven’t taken and wouldn’t take. I’ve never skied. I’ve never ridden on a motorcycle. I'm not going to hang-glide, zip-line, or jump out of an airplane. There are all different kinds of cage doors we are willing to open, and some we never will. It’s pointless to try to find a thread of logic to any of it. Other people engage in behavior that is "too risky," while our own actions make sense because desire precedes rationalization. We open whichever doors we want, and sometimes we close certain ones forever.

Snakebit

Powell's in Portland, August 2015

A snake bit me at the bookstore

And I pretended all was well

She turned and headed for the door

A snake bit me at the bookstore

Her guilt made her despise me more

I knew she knew that I could tell

A snake bit me at the bookstore

And I pretended all was well

~*~

Triolet poetry inspired by a personal event.

Pets (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Peppy and me, around 1973

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with P for Pets. 

We adopted Peppy at 8 weeks when we moved to our house in Middletown, New Jersey. She was a cockapoo ~ part cocker spaniel and part poodle. Her coloring was salt and pepper… hence her name. Sadly, she was from a “puppy mill,” but at least she was relatively healthy after a few weeks of meds and care. My mom, despite being a farm girl, did not know how to train a dog nor did we get help with that, so as a result Peppy had some behavioral issues. I loved her bunches, of course.

She had such adorable habits, and one of my favorite memories is when I would come home from dining out with a soft mint in my pocket. Peppy loved those! She knew I would always bring one home for her. She slept in my room, but she preferred the cozy armchair to my bed. Peppy absolutely loved spaghetti and meatballs, so we would give her some whenever we had it, she’d dive right in, and then she needed a bath afterwards. 

Peppy was with us until we moved to Chicago, so she would have been about 8 years old. My mom decided that she should be euthanized because she was “old” and badly behaved. I was horrified! Peppy was a family member as far as I was concerned, and I didn’t care about new furniture or spotless carpeting because I was a teenager and going away to college besides. I told them that I would find a new home for Peppy since they were so heartless. That turned out to be a disaster. Peppy did not adapt to the home I had found, and she bit people, so they kept her outside. We had already moved to the city when I discovered this, and my friend went to pick her up. Peppy ended up at the pound, and it broke my heart. I still feel terrible ~ instead of passing peacefully as my mom would have done for her, she was alone and terrified at the end. The fact that I had good intentions means nothing to me.

Years later, I adopted a stray cat that had been hanging around our office building in Burbank, CA. He was a black and silver kitty, and we named him Henry, for John Henry, the racehorse; my boyfriend at the time was super into horse racing. Henry stayed with us for around a year before succumbing to liver cancer. By that time, we had adopted a second kitty, Tasha, a gold Abyssinian. When Henry passed, we adopted Cyndi, a red Aby. We were dumb and had impulsively bought them from a pet store, which isn’t much better than a puppy mill. Tasha was fine, but Cyndi was chronically sick. She never grew to adult size and stayed around five pounds, though she was cute and not too skinny. She could tolerate only (human) baby food lamb and rice, which Tasha had to eat as well. Cyndi lived about three years.

By this time I had divorced, remarried, and had a baby. I adopted Oscar, a sweet orange kitten who had been picked up at the Burbank studios. He grew to be a very hardy and muscular 18 pounds, but always gentle and sweet. Tasha was sweet too, but super hyper and crazy. She wouldn’t stop escaping, which brought in fleas no matter what we did. My daughter was horribly allergic to flea bites, so I gave Tasha and Oscar away. This also broke my heart, but my baby came first.

She grew out of her allergy, my younger daughter didn't have allergies to animals, and 10 years later Cocoa showed up, waltzed in, and decided she would live with us. It turned out that I really needed a kitty to love, so this was just perfect, and we soon adopted another stray and named her Tiki. (It’s nice for kitties to have a feline friend in the house.) They were both darling, and we all loved them a lot. My ex got custody of Tiki, and she ran away from his new place after a while. Cocoa lived another several years until her arthritis became too hard for her to bear and she quit eating. My daughter and I were with her at the end, when she passed peacefully at the vet’s office via euthanasia.

I took another kitty break after Cocoa, especially because my new boyfriend didn’t like pets (red flag!), and after we broke up in the fall of 2011, my daughter and I adopted Gatsby from the Orange County Humane Society. He was my soulmate kitty and graced me with his cuteness for 13.5 years, until his kidneys failed. I loved him so much. I have a zillion memories of all the funny things he used to do. I even have a little "shrine" set up on my bookcase for him, plus his face in a heart charm necklace. OK, I am a bit extra, yes. Even though pets break my heart when they pass, they also bring so much joy and love into my life. A home isn’t complete without a kitty or doggo, in my view.

Now I have Inky, who is a little doll, black with silver sprinkles, emerald eyes, and the sweetest disposition. I totally adore her!

Horse (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Horsing around in Ohio with a cousin

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with H for Horse.

As a child, I loved hopscotch, and I was good at it too, which seems odd to me now. I’ve never had great hand-eye coordination, my ankles have always been weak (and my hands too), and my balance has been shaky forever. I used to create my own hopscotch grids and practice for hours, but only against myself. Same goes for jumping rope and roller skating. Without the stress of a team, I could relax, enjoy, and improve. I was also good at tennis and badminton, one on one, though the high school tennis coach wouldn’t let me try out due to my weak grip, which was probably for the best.

I sucked at all team sports. The anxiety over the idea of messing up and having everyone mad at me ensured that my focus was scattered, and then I always messed up. Nobody wanted me on their team, just like in the song (“At Seventeen”). I was one of the last to be chosen every time, which made me dread gym class and everything associated with it. I never “failed” gym due to the fact that at some point each quarter there would be a written test on the sports we learned, and of course I would get a high score on that.

I rode my bike a lot and swam sometimes. Jumped rope a ton in our Illinois basement when it was snowy out and I was obsessed with my weight. As a teenager, I ordered odd gadgets off the TV to exercise with, like a pulley thing to attach to a door. Unfortunately, as I aged, I began to have back problems, so I had to stop doing jarring types of exercise, including my beloved hopscotch. Running/ jogging was never my thing, but I've always loved walks. Not hikes! Just regular walking, which is supposed to be the best thing for you anyway.

Once, when I was around 12, I rode a horse when we visited my mom's family in Ohio. I was so achy the next day! I think that was the only time I've been on one, and if I tried it now, my back would hurt so much afterward I'd probably need a wheelchair. I also fed a baby goat with a bottle and fell in love with a litter of kittens that crawled all over me. That was all during the same visit. A few years later, I was trying to catch bugs for a science project while we visited, but they got so gross in the preservative that I threw them all out and wrote a report instead.

This post drifted all over the place, but that's how misty memories are...