Never A Dull Moment

The neighbors have a Macaw. It's name is Baby.


Over the weekend, husband said "I think they've also got chickens." I hadn't seen or heard such chickens, but then today I'm in the office with the windows open and I hear this odd strangled sound so I look out the window to make sure my fearless hunters hadn't caught anything they regarded as food/a present, and what did I see? Chickens. A white one and a red one.

This is Fred:

Apparently the eggs are really tasty.

Anyway - this is what my fearless hunters did:



This is Polly. Kipper buried himself in weeds (which will have left burrs all over his coat) and then rushed inside as soon as the danger had passed. I had to coax Polly out from hiding.

Sidenote, I've been using the word "poulet" lately to describe people (or cats) who are being big chickens...because it's French for Chicken and is rather satisfying to say. The irony of calling my cats Big Poulet's regarding their response to actual chickens isn't lost on me.

Back to work, now. (I'm 34,000 words in and in order to be considered for anything aside from the recycling bin I need roughly 50-60 THOUSAND more words.)

We must now own a sailboat

Seriously. Instead of retirement property (which is what we think we'll buy instead of a house...we like renting and I want to live all over the globe before I die at the age of 101 on Halloween - seriously. Deathclock.com told me so.)

Anyway - instead of retirement property, we'll buy a really awesome sailboat....or a starter sailboat and upgrade as the time/income/skills provide...and then it won't matter if the oceans rise up and swallow all of the dry land because we'll be living on our own floating island. Like in Waterworld. But with better hygiene.

So you're wondering what inspired this? Aside from the fact that it's brilliant and I love the water?

We went sailing on Wednesday night.

Fisherman Steve:

Steve Hoists the Mail Sail:

Emily Drives:

Steve Drives:

Pretty racing boats:

And now you want one, too.

Happy Sailing!

Sunday in the City

I tagged along with Husband into San Francisco to meet up with some of his friends from his Intern days. It was fun. Those girls are crazy. Also, knowing Husband like I do and knowing them (though not very well) -- I have no idea how he didn't get intensely crazy when he went with them to Italy. He's a planner and they're not. He's generally not prone to wildness, and they're the girls who yell out of the car at the guys they met in bars the night before (and then we all laughed for the better part of an hour over it.) It was a good afternoon.

Anyway, I didn't take many pictures because there was mostly eating and wandering through a couple of neighborhoods...but when we found ourselves outside of City Lights Bookstore (where I worship at the Alter of Ferlinghetti) I couldn't help myself:

Translation:

The Air was soft,
The stars so fine,
The promise of every cobbled alley
so great...
-Jack Kerouac

(more beat poet information HERE)

(yes, there was picture reuse. I had people waiting...and I took 10 pictures of my toes...not all posted)

Unrelated to San Francisco:

I'm re-writing (which is 90% of writing anyway, right?) my novel. It's making my brain hurt. I do think that I"m not suited for 3rd Person narration. This is reinforced by the fact that all of my favorite books (off the top of my head) are written in 1st person. Harry Potter excepted.

I'm also re-reading Generation X (highly recommend, review forthcoming) and I feel it seeping into my life. Coupland is under-credited for his role in Cult Societal norms. In FACT - you can draw a direct line from Generation X to Fight Club and stupid Palahniuk (whom I actually really like) gets credited for ideas that were clearly evident in Generation X - written five years before Fight Club. What I can't be sure of, though, is whether that's true because Palahniuk read Generation X and was inspired, or if that was just the Zeigeist. And since I was in High School at the time and had pretty much checked out from...everything...I may never know...

Happy Friday!

My poor imitation...inspired by the lovely images at It's Pretty Good.

Happy Weekend!