A is for Animal Hybrids

(I have decided to participate in the A to Z blogging challenge for the month of April.  The only thing this means for you, readers, is that all my posts will be titled "___ is for ___" depending on the letter of the day.  If you have any suggestions for any of the letters, leave me your ideas in the comments and I'll see what I can do.)

It's spring!  So today I went outside to enjoy nature and see what is going on in my beautiful town of Duluth, Minnesota!  I love taking every opportunity to go outside into the elements and mingle with strangers and get extra exercise.

First of all, I went on my deck to see the new spring birdies:

Well, this seems strange.  This bird seems to have a bunny head and he's eating the brand new buds on all my trees.  Great.  Bunnies with no limits.  

And look at this one!  Cute!  He doesn't care too much for seeds though.  I offered him some and he got this sad look on his face.  He mostly wants to chew up dirty underwear and eat cat poop.  Those things aren't as delightful in a hanging feeder.  But if I don't do it he barks his stupid little high-pitched, annoying bark.  

I was having so much fun outside, enjoying being away from my TV and computer that I decided to take a trip down to the lake to see lake-nature!  I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one of the rare Lake Superior penguins.  They are coming ashore to nest.  

Raaaarrr.

Just kidding!  I didn't really go outside!  A is also for April Fool.

Miscellaneous

I've been sitting here in a chair by the fireplace dozing like a grandpa, periodically waking myself up with snorts, trying to recover from an injury.  I somehow pulled a muscle in my groin which makes me think that I must sleep walk or have a split personality who thinks she can actually do the splits because there is no way I did anything to cause myself this much pain while I was conscious.  I didn't even know I had a groin.  I thought that was in the realm of hernias and testicles, but I googled it, and women do have groins.  It's basically just your crotch/upper/inner thigh muscles.  Everyone has those.  Bet you didn't know that, did you?

Mitch left me.  For the weekend.  God, I can't believe you thought I meant he "LEFT me" left me.  Why don't you have any faith in our marriage?  Anyway, he took the kids to the cities because Kira has a hockey tournament.  So I'm here all alone and injured.  HEAR THAT, INTERNET PREDATORS!?!

I saw a bear this morning running across the road while I was driving to work.  It was pretty exciting especially because he wasn't in my yard destroying my property.  They are beautiful and majestic when they are in someone else's yard.

I've been spending my convalescing time googling stuff like groin and hernia.  (FYI - make sure that when you want to know about hernias, you're not on Google Images because OMG FOR GROSS.)  Earlier today I was looking at pictures of tigers because of the book I just read, and I saw a picture of a liger, which is a hybrid of a tiger and a lion and they grow to be enormous.  Like 800 pounds of giant scary cat.  So then I got interested in seeing other animal hybrids so I googled "animal hybrids" and I spent about the next twenty minutes laughing.  People are so funny.  I don't know what is real and not real.  Here's one I suspect is real:

A cow/buffalo hybrid.  Yeah, I can see that.  That could happen.  Buffalo are a lot like cattle.  This looks like a reasonable hybrid.  I believe it.

Next, a zebra/horse.  Do I believe this is real?  Yeah, I think I do.  I like it.

But do I really believe that a beagle and a squirrel had a baby with a squirrel body and a beagle head that loves to hold Milk Bones in his tiny squirrel hands?  I don't think I do. I suspect someone has photoshopped this.

Okay, I do not believe this one.  The reason is that if a chicken and a cat had a baby its head would not be that big.  That's just ridiculous.

These two made me laugh.  A tweety-bird and a shark.  Come on.  That's not real. Where does it live?  Apparently it's a walker wherever it lives.  I can tell by the shoes.  And the lion/hamster, I love it.  It's so fierce and adorable and again with the shoes.  Animals in shoes are hilarious.  If my groin didn't hurt so much I would put some shoes on my dog right now.

I think this is supposed to be a camel/eagle/tweety hybrid.  Don't believe it.

This one I DO NOT believe AT ALL.  For one thing, T-rexs are extinct and even if they weren't, a T-rex would NOT like a kangaroo.  If it was real I don't think its arms would just hang out of its neck and what really gives this picture away is that the baby kangaroo doesn't look anything like a T-rex.  In fact, most hybrid animals can't even breed, so, there you go.  REFUTED.  In fact, I don't believe most of the pictures I saw.

No.

No.

No.

I wish.

Ick.

No. (thank god)

Come on.

Mitch's arcane knowledge and also his lies

(I can't post a picture of Mitch or he'll get mad, so I'll post a likeness instead.)

I was talking to Mitch today about something my sister wrote on her blog, and he told me that Englebert Humperdink's real name is not, in fact, Englebert Humperdink. He said he saw Englebert on the Dinah Shore show once and he told Dinah that he took the name on a bet. I don't think that is true. I looked it up, and his given name was Arnold Dorsey and he did change it to Englebert Humperdink, (why why why???) but I don't know if it was on a bet, and I don't know if I believe he ever talked about it on the Dinah Shore show. For one thing, weren't we (Mitch and me) about 6 years old when Dinah Shore was on? How would Mitch remember that? Why would I be so suspicious of my loving husband, you ask? Here's why:

One time I was thinking about getting a new pet. I was looking at maybe raising some rabbits, but I wanted something more tame and domestic, so he suggested cabbits. They are hybrids of cats and rabbits. He was so convincing that I believed it, got excited about it, and started researching them online. Who could make that stuff up? He's a biologist, he should know if there are cabbits. Now it seems ridiculous, but he's very convincing. When I looked it up I found stuff like this:

I was still thinking (hoping!) cabbits were real, and I saw this picture and my first thought was, "Oh gross, they smoke." And then a second later: "Hey! This is just photoshopped!" I was still hoping cabbits were real and some jerk was just trying to be funny so I looked somewhere else and found this:

I was getting tired of people wasting my time with these pictures. Is it too much to ask to learn some genuine knowledge about cabbits? This is obviously a squirrel. So I looked again and found this:

I thought, "Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Yes! This is EXACTLY what I want!" WHERE DO I GET ONE!

My research ultimately ended up with me learning that there is no such thing as cabbits. It is a myth and only the really stupid people believe it. Darn! No cabbit, AND I'm stupid!

He also told me that the Neil Diamond song "Turn on Your Heartlight" was written as an homage to E.T. the extra terrestrial. I laughed and laughed. I wasn't going to fall for that one! Turns out it really is.