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.

Conversation overheard outside my bedroom window in the wee hours of the morning

Raccoon:  Hey Bear, how's it going?  Nice place huh?

Bear:  Yeah, I've been living here for a couple years.  I'm thinking about making the move inside.

Raccoon:  Did you know that the stupid bitch who lives here keeps whole garbage cans full of dog food and bird seed?  Right up there next to the house!

Bear:  Oh yeah?  I think I heard her husband tell her that was a stupid idea about a million times but I never checked it out.

Raccoon:  She is a stupid bitch.  I was taking the lids off last night, you know, with my fully functioning opposeable thumbs, and stealing food and she kept trying to catch me at it and finally I thought, you know what?  I'm tired of hiding in the shadows every time she clumps into the kitchen and turns on the lights so I just stayed there and stared her down.

Bear:  No kidding! What did she think of that?

Raccoon:  She almost shit her pants.  It was hilarious!  She waved a broom in the air.  Why do they do that?  It's so weird.

Bear:  I think they think it makes them look bigger.  Idiots.

Raccoon:  So then she let that chicken shit dog out so I had to take off.  Have a look at those cans.  They are still there but now they have cases of Diet Coke on the lids.  I can't lift them off.  Think you could help me out?

Bear:  Nah, not right now.  I'm busy.  I see she got a new hummingbird feeder.  I have to get it down.

Raccoon:  You eat nectar?

Bear:  No, I just want to break it.

Raccoon:  I hear you there!  I wish I was as big as you but still, these tiny hands can do a lot of damage.  See those flowers and veggies she has planted in pots?  I dug them all up.  For no reason at all!

Squirrel:  Hey MothaFuckers!  How's it going?  Did you notice the lady hung the good bird feeder super high? Kind of putting a cramp in my style, but I can still get it.  Stupid bitch.  I started to feel sorry for her but then yesterday when I was puzzling out how to get way the hell up there, she watched and laughed at me every time I missed.

Raccoon:  Yeah, she really thinks she's something.

Squirrel:  I heard from the mice that there's a way to get inside and run through the ceiling.  It really freaks her out.  I think I'm going to do that.  Wanna come with?

Raccoon:  Maybe.  But for now I'm going to continue keeping her up nights by making noise on the deck and wrecking everything.

Bear:  Me too.

Rabbit:  Hey guys, Did you see those pea plants?  Well, they are gone now, but they were fucking delicious!

Raccoon:  Yeah, she planted more, but I dug them all up.

Rabbit:  Asshole, you're interfering with my livelihood!

Bear:  Hey, we should all come here together and freak her out, it would be so hilarious!

Raccoon:  Yeah, that would.  I heard the mosquitoes have been cooking up some West Nile for her too.

Rabbit:  Oh great, here comes that stupid dog.  See you guys later!

Raccoon, Bear, Squirrel:  Yeah, later tonite!

The Bear is Back

Well, the bear is back.  I was wandering around the house late last night with a turkey baster, watering all my terrariums and I heard a loud banging that sounded suspiciously like the bird feeder I've brought back from total destruction about five times.  I quickly turned on the outside light and saw... nothing.  But the bird feeder was gone so I knew I wasn't crazy.  So I continued with the terrariums and then when I looked out the window again I saw the little bastard pluck my carefully placed hummingbird feeder from the hook in the eave and then decide he wanted nothing to do with it.  He just broke it to be mean and get sticky.  I yelled to the family to come and see the bear and we all kneeled on the couch and gawked at him out the big front window.  He saw us.  He didn't care.

Then the bear sat down and ate the sunflower seeds he spilled from the bird feeder.  He was kind of cute.  I'd say he was about the equivalent bear-size of a ten year old kid.  Mitch said, "He's not a cub, he's probably a year old." God, he bugs me sometimes, with his biology know-it-allness.  I cherish the memory of the time I told him about the book Beast I read by Peter Benchley about a gigantic octopus (or maybe it was a squid?  (Same diff!)) and the octopus kept attacking boats and people and terrorizing them with his giant beak and Mitch scoffed, as if what I was reading was somehow silly and unrealistic and a total waste of time.  Mitch said that octopuses don't have beaks and even if they did, they wouldn't peck boats to pieces with them.  Okay, Mitch is a fresh-water limnologist  (I don't know) so why would he even pretend to know what a giant octopus would do or wouldn't do with his giant beak?  So I looked up octopuses and it turns out they DO have beaks!  HA! SUCK ON THAT, MITCH!

Money shot

And also, most octopuses (octopods?) don't get big enough to attack ships and they are smart enough to accept their limitations so they stick to small things in shells, but I, along with Peter Benchley, have no doubt in my mind that if they found themselves growing big enough to handle a boat with some delicious humans in it, they wouldn't hesitate.

See?

Anyway, back to the bear. We watched him gorge himself on seeds and molest my lilac bush which is now leaning and broken, and then he sat up like a person and looked so cute that it struck me how much I would like to see him ride a bike and now I understand why people train bears to ride bikes.

Then he ran around a little bit and we noticed his front paw was hurt, and then he shook like a dog and so much water came off of him!  He was really wet.  Kira wanted to lure him into the house and I had to remind her of the utter destruction one single wild pigeon can do, imagine what a bear would do? and she didn't really care.  Then he ran off on three legs.  I still have not gone outside to retrieve the remnants of my bird feeders because a) it's raining and b) THERE'S A BEAR OUT THERE!

Thanks for contributing to my nightmares, Jane!

My internet friend, Jane, sent me some pictures the other day (thanks, Jane!)  She said she thought of me when she saw them.  They are amazing pictures in more ways than one.  First of all, kudos to the photographer for not freaking out like I did when I tried taking a picture of bears devouring my birdfeeder.

This person seemed much calmer although clearly their bear is deadly dangerous (like all bears are, just ask the Grizzly Man.  Oh, sorry, you can't.  His precious bear-friends killed him and ate him.)  The pictures are also amazing because of the way the photographer has captured the total disregard bears have for anything you might like. 

Here's the first picture: 

Okay, these people are dedicated to their birds.  They have strung up a line across the trees.  Just like you are supposed to do with your food when you are camping to keep the bears away.  You did everything right, people, but that doesn't stop a bear.  Hey, he can climb trees!  Problem #1 solved.  Then I assume he tried to rip the cord down with his freakish bear strength, but he had no luck.  He's looking right at the photographer!  OMG, it makes me freak out a little just to look at a picture of a bear looking at a camera.

LOOK AT THIS ASSHOLE! As you can tell, the people aren't the only ones dedicated to this bird feeder.  What is this rope made out of?  It must be a cable of some sort because bears are about 2000 pounds of hate and rage and destruction.  He's hanging on with his creepy hands and his teeth.  Again, great job to the photographer who didn't drop the camera and lay on the floor in the fetal position and cry, because if he can cross that rope to the birdfeeder, I bet he wouldn't have any problem climbing all the way to your bedroom window to eat your sweet, sweet face when you think you are safe and sound and snug as a bug.  

Now the big jerk has managed to somehow hoist his back end up so he's holding the cable with his front hands as well as his back hands, which frees up his bloodthirsty jaws for destruction.  You can tell from this picture that he's pretty high off the ground.  And there's no net.  He's pretty confident he won't fall.  (I wish he would fall.)

Now his back legs are swinging free, his mouth is free and he's doing an ACTUAL PULL-UP (when's the last time you did a pull-up? [a real one]) so he can get to the birdfeeder. 

If he is willing to go through all that just for some dry old birdseed, imagine what he would do to eat your children.

H.B. to me!

Hello!  Guess what day it is!  My birthday!  Happy birthday to me!  I went for a little walk this morning because it was so beautiful outside.  I took some pictures:

First of all, I looked in my garden.  We've had a few nights of frost, so almost everything is dead and I couldn't hold off any longer on picking my pumpkins.  Impressed?  This spring when I was feeling very Martha Stewart-y I thought it would be a good idea to plant my own pumpkins for the kids for Halloween.  I pampered those stupid pumpkin vines all summer and this is all I got.  They are going to be a BITCH to carve, I can just tell.

Next I headed down the hill to the way-back yard.  Pretty huh?

Aside from the whole potential-early-death-by-bear-attack, we are very lucky to live here.

Now I'm in the woods. Beautiful!  Part of me is a little afraid of running into the bears, but the mature part of me says, "Grow up!  They are more afraid of you than you are of them!"

Then I looked down on the path and happened to notice bear tracks.  Can you see the claw marks?  At this point I'm getting a little freaked out.  But the dog was with me, and bears are afraid of dogs, right?  All is fine.  Move along.

Beautiful!  I love nature!

Right about here I was thinking how great it was to be alive, and how happy I am.  Then I looked over at my dog as she stopped short and pricked her ears up and listened intently to something ahead of us.  Then she turned around and BOLTED in the opposite direction.  Panic time!  I didn't know I could run that fast.  I caught up to the little jerk on the deck. 

It looks like she's yawning, but she's actually laughing at her hilarious joke, and saying, 

"You should have seen your face!"  

I KNEW IT!

You remember that post I wrote about how a bear is terrorizing me?  My dad read that and told me that I was over-reacting and I probably have raccoons.  I didn't think raccoons could break a tree branch to get at a bird feeder, but he had me doubting the identity of my terrorist.  Well, last night I got PROOF!  It isn't A bear, it is TWO bears!!! 

I heard something bang against the grill on the deck  in the middle of the night, so I jumped up and turned on the deck lights to see what was out there.  Nothing.  Then I heard something on the front deck so I opened the front door and goddammit, it was TWO BEARS!  A big one and a little one!  I almost pooped my jammies!  Luckily I had taken the top to bottom screen out of that door yesterday and put the glass in or else all that would have been separating me from TWO BEARS would have been a thin screen.  Unfortunately all that was separating me from two bears was a nice piece of thick glass that I purposely don't secure very well in the door because it's kind of hard to do, and it's kind of hard to get out again in the spring, so I just do it "good enough."  One decent pawing would have sent the glass crashing in on me. 

They didn't seem to see me through the glass because of the light glaring on them and they were too busy demolishing my last and favorite bird feeder.  I ran around like a fool for a few minutes not sure what to do, and then I found my camera.  Here's my picture:

I know, it's an awful picture because I was totally freaking out and the door was all steamed up by the time I got myself together enough to find the camera.  I tried to take another one after I wiped off the door, but the stupid batteries ran out and I was too scared to keep the door open any longer.  I let my brave, wonderful dog out for about a minute and she chased them off.

GOOD DOG!

I'm being terrorized in my own home

No, Mitch is not beating me (much), I'm being terrorized by a BEAR!  If you didn't know it, bears are on my list of things I'm afraid of.  Yesterday I washed the hummingbird feeders and filled up the rest of my feeders with fresh super-deluxe black oil sunflower seeds.  (nothing but the best for my birds!)  I woke up this morning to bird-feeder carnage:

Look, teeth marks! From teeth like this: 

And the giant asshole didn't even eat the thistle seeds that were in that feeder.  It was just senseless violence.  Thanks a lot, asshole!  Thistle seed isn't exactly cheap, you know!

Then I looked around the yard and saw more carnage:

Bird World never had a chance.  It was hanging in a tree on a cute little iron hanger that I got from the dollar store.  I can't find the hanger anywhere, but does the bear care about that?  Nooooooooo!

This cheap plastic feeder never saw it coming.  It was already brittle from the sun.  The stupid bear shattered it into a million pieces.  I hope he got little cuts in his mouth like I get when I eat Doritos. 
 

For some reason he missed this one.  It's my favorite one because the stupid squirrels can't get any seeds from it.  Ha Ha, you stupid bear!  (and a continuing "ha ha" for you too, you stupid squirrels!)

Unfortunately I can't go outside anymore because now that the bear knows there is food around here, I know he's out there waiting, like this:

He might look sophisticated, but given the chance, he would eat my head. 

I'm not even kidding.  They go after the head presumably because they like brains.  Like zombies.  Still think they are adorable? 

Well, let's not forget what a dick Winnie the Pooh really is.  And he's fictional!  Even fictional bears are jerks.  Hey, how's this for adorable:

Horrifying bloody gore and oh, look who happens to be responsible for it!  A BEAR! Surprise, surprise!  People don't take bears seriously enough.  Bear attacks are nothing to make light of.

Oh, lady, you're so funny pretending a giant grizzly bear is eating YOUR BABY.  You wouldn't be laughing so hard if there really was a bear around because he really would eat your baby's delicious chubby little legs.  He'd make you watch and then he'd chew on your head for a while which would be perfectly seasoned from your salty tears.  Still laughing?!

Holy shit, he's looking at me now!  Somebody call animal control!

I wish the pandas would all just die already

I know this seems to be coming out of nowhere, but it's something that's been on my mind a lot lately. I'm really sick of pandas. I guess it all started when I went to the San Diego Zoo a few years ago and I wanted to see the pandas because everyone always makes such a huge deal about pandas so I wanted to see what the fuss was about. There was a line that was about a mile long of people waiting to see a panda in its den sleeping. What? Why? I didn't stand in the line, but I was intrigued and decided to learn more about pandas.

They live in China, obviously, everyone knows that, but what I didn't know was that they live in a very specific spot in the mountains and only live at specific elevations. Not too high, not too low. (picky picky) Of course, their historical habitat has been taken over by more ambitious and adaptive species, so I guess that's not one of my major beefs with the pandas.

What really drives me nuts about them is this:

Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore, as well as carnivore-specific genes, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. (from Wikipedia)

They will only eat bamboo. And bamboo is not even that good for the stupid pandas. And they are defined by their very genes to be carnivores but don't eat any meat. They won't even eat other plants that might be a little more nutritious. Idiots.

They are mostly sedentary because they derive so little energy from their diet, yet they have to be constantly eating so they can get the tiny bit of nutritional value from the bamboo. They have developed their giant (some say "cute," I say "freakish") heads as adaptations to their ridiculous diets because they had to have stronger jaw muscles to chew the bamboo. You'd think that instead, they'd adapt the digestive system of something that thrives on bamboo if they're so insistent on eating nothing but bamboo, but no, in another example of why intelligent design is such a stupid theory, they have instead developed giant jaws for chewing their worthless food. I'd love to eat nothing but chocolate cake and pita chips but if I did that, I would be malnutritioned and fat, (like a panda) but nobody would think it was cute if I did it.

My last problem with the pandas is the fact that they won't reproduce to save their own species. So humans have tried to get them to mate in captivity by showing them panda porn. (I'm not even kidding. Look it up.) Zookeepers show the pandas videos of other pandas doing it hoping it will get them in the mood. They won't get in the mood because they are too tired from eating nothing but bamboo. They don't have the energy to do it. They'd rather just go to bed and read their book. Then on the off-chance that they do mate, and a baby panda is born, it is teeny and helpless and it's not easy to get the mother to look after it. The fathers have nothing to do with them. If there are two cubs born the mother will let one die so she only has to take care of one. Nice parents!

You need to re-think why you're so in love with pandas.

If this panda would spend more time planning a healthy diet of a variety of foods, and less time playing the flute, I might have more sympathy for the entire species. 

**********************************

A few weeks after writing this post, I learned about a blog called Animal Review on NPR.  They review animals and give them letter grades.  I think they gave the panda an F-.  Their blog is hysterical and I highly recommend reading it.  The review of the porcupine is one of my favorites. 

Irrational Fears

I think I may have a touch of OCD and it manifests itself in irrational fears that I worry about and fret over. I have lots of rational fears too, but they aren't very fun to talk about so this is just a list of the most ridiculous things I'm afraid of. Maybe if I shed some light on them, they will stop bothering me.

1. Dropping my iPod into the toilet. I don't even bring it in the bathroom, but I'm pretty sure someday, somehow, it will meet its fate in a toilet.

2. Going bald

3. Becoming a quadriplegic. This would be a rational fear if I ever did anything dangerous, but I don't so it's irrational. And it's also a fear because Mitch asked me one day if I'd ever wear a shirt that said "Jam Out with your Clam Out" on it. I said no, obviously, gross. And he said, "If you're ever a quadriplegic you'll wear that shirt every day."

4. Bears. I watched a documentary about Yellowstone the other day and it re-awakened my irrational fear of bears. They are so fast and bloodthirsty!

yikes!

5. Spiders crawling in my mouth when I sleep.

6. Flesh eating bacteria.

7. Nuclear winter.

8. Sharks.

9. This crab:

So, what are your irrational fears? Public speaking? Dying alone? Peeing your pants at work? (been there, done that; not that scary) Tell me in the comments!