she's just saying...

Soft and prickly

Another reason I love my job: cute animals.

(We're not supposed to call them cute. They're wild, dammit!)

Here's a few more if you missed them.

And you know how they say that people look like their pets?

Unfortunate resemblance. I can be prickly...

A smokin' romance

Alright - moving on from the hilarity and anguish of knitters vs. the olympics. I enjoyed it - maybe too much, as I think many readers moved on. Oh well - you're still here!

Meanwhile, we're in the final prep for our yearly pilgrimage to the southeast, so I don't have time to write. Must. Clean. Bathrooms. Cleaning because my friend Chris and her daughter are coming to housesit again for the week, escaping from the burning inferno that is Phoenix. It's a great arrangement - they love to come back and visit their friends here, the dog and cats and fish are happy and at home, and I can leave knowing that all will be well. But I do need to pick up here and there so they can find the beds at least.

In the meantime, I'll share my latest crush with you as you're really a close personal friend, really. He's tall, dark and um, furry. Likes to walk around without a shirt. He doesn't talk much, or at all, actually, but communicates soulfully with his eyes and paws. He can be a bear about matches and fire and that kind of thing, but he has a good heart. We meet daily at the Museum and I sing him the Smokey song and he dances for me. It's true love.

a'howling and a'growling and a'sniffing the air...

Why we love the high desert

This is a Friday frylet freezlet for sure.

Happy Memorial Day weekend! Looks like a great weekend to stay in and knit.

What gall

There is nothing about the gallbladder that's appealing. The name itself, that fact that it holds bile, stones and sludge (yes, it's called sludge), or the pain it causes me at 3 in the morning. So I've decided to get rid of mine. Today.

I've been pretty attached to my gallbladder all my life, but the time has come to part, it seems. As my rather breezy doctor said: "Yeah, if you've got stones and they're bothering you, let's just pull it. You don't need it anyway." I figure Friday the 13th is as good a day as any for abdominal surgery -- at least there should be some good jokes in the operating room.

So, okay! Let's do this thing! I'm going under shortly and will talk to you all on the other side.

I couldn't subject you to disgusting shots of a gallbladder, so here's picture of the High Desert Museum's new baby porcupine instead. Enjoy.

Octo-boring

Sorry to be so silent, but things are pretty dull around here. In an discouraging repeat of last fall, my eye surgery recovery started off great and then suddenly not so much. Without going into detail, I'm healing too fast (?) which is conversely screwing things up. This is all too familiar.

Rather than mess around for weeks trying different approaches to fix things like last year, my man Jason is taking me back into the operating room next week to deal with it. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to lie low, I have a dull headache and my eyesight is half-way blurry due to dilating drops.

Lying around the house is really not as much fun as it sounds. Especially on the heels of that cold/sinus infection where I got my fill of nothing. Baseball is on, but I haven't latched on to a team yet so am kind of "meh" about it.

When I think of something interesting to write about, I'll check back in. In the meantime, I guess I'll keep posting cute animal pics.

porky frylet

TGIF

It's been a rough week.

Another blessed (if prickly) event

No, that's not a hand puppet, that's a baby porky! Spring is here and the porcupines are popping. Thistle and Honeysuckle had their second baby recently, and it's a cutey. There's more info here and the porcupette will be making appearances in June. (Yes, I'm marketing the Museum. It's what I do.)

 

I can't say it any better

From Forbes.com:

What's ironic is that I am an advertiser on NBC. Granted, I don't buy national airtime for a car brand - it's a museum in the Central Oregon market. But hey, I'm paying them money. And even as an advertiser, this total lack of respect for the viewers really pisses me off. I'm close to pulling my media buy but for the fact that I care about my local franchise and my reps. I've let them know how I feel, but I doubt it's going to get back to 30 Rock.

And yes, we're still watching the Olympic prime-time coverage at home - what choice do we have?

Oh wait: I take that back. I could be watching the Olympics right now (Sat. afternoon): NBC is providing live coverage. Up now:

Men's Hockey

Late round-robin action features the Slovakian men versus Latvia.

Coolest. Quit. Ever.

Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz announced his resignation yesterday through a haiku on Twitter.

"Today's my last day at Sun. I'll miss it. Seems only fitting to end on a #haiku. Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more"

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty impressed. It almost makes me want to follow my Twitter timeline again. Of course, if you had to tweet in haiku it would be a hell of a lot more interesting.

What would you write if you were a Twitter quitter? In haiku?

I actually love my job, and believe me, I'm very aware of how lucky I am. So I don't even want to write a hypothetical resignation, in case it jinxes me somehow.

However, I'd just like to point out the following:

*From wikihow: "A haiku is a non-rhymed verse genre, conveying an image or feeling in two parts spread over three lines, usually with a seasonal reference. There are 5 syllables in the first sentence, 7 in the second and 5 again in the last sentence. ...

It is important to distinguish between pseudo-haiku that says whatever it wants in a 5-7-5 syllable pattern and literary haiku that adheres to the use of season words, a two-part juxtapositional structure, and primarily objective sensory imagery."

Sorry, Jonathan. Major points for style, taken away for pseudo-haiku. I'd say you should keep your day job, but I guess you just trashed that option.

Meanwhile, I'm now fired up about attempting to write a haiku, something I haven't done since 4th grade. And of course, I'll share my work with you, dear readers. And I'm challenging you to do the same!

Business trip: knitting opportunity!

The Museum gang is headed to Portland for some work events requiring major wardrobe: cocktail party, business meetings, casual work, formal reception and banquet plus the usual 7 hours round-trip in the car. 

Only a few days, but around here every trip is an event. It all starts with laundry. Then there's homework organization; assigning cats and mail to neighbors; packing for me, dog and child; dog to kennel; child to friends: everything requires a plan. Sometimes I envy neighbor X: when he travels he just waters the plants and locks the door.

Plus, I have to plan my knitting strategy: what presents I can knit that 1. aren't destined for anyone on the trip,  3. can be knit in the car and 3. don't need major pattern concentration. Sounds like socks to me.

Odds of these being done by Christmas: 0-5%.

I do so know what a chicken gizzard is!

The preteen years have started, for reals.

This morning I emerged from my boudoir and heard Henry talking on the phone, at about 7:30 am. Who the heck are you talking to? I asked. Turns out he called in to the radio station he listens to on his clock radio, one of those inane entertaining local morning shows. Seems they were discussing what a gizzard was (scintillating!) and asked people to call in with their answers.

Henry, never shy, immediately picked up the phone and got on air. Here's the rough transcript:

"Hi there, what's your name?"

"Henry."

"So Henry, what's a gizzard?"

"Um, it's that red thing chickens wear, on their chins."

"Oh, is that what it is? How do you know this - are you a chicken farmer?"

"No, my mom's the vice president of the High Desert Museum."

Outed on air! Though it doesn't say much for the Museum that I supposedly called that red thing a gizzard. Sheesh, everyone knows that's a wattle.

today's life-affirming photo

OK, OK, enough with the dead animals. Here's a shot of the cutest little porky ever. Look at those feet!

what's it going to take

Hmmm. Y'all are very sparse on comments lately. (Except for the ever-faithful Kathi D. We bloggers have to stick together, ya'know.) What's up? Bored? Disenfranchised? Suddenly shy?

Maybe I need some more stimulating posts. How about a dead tortoise on an ant hill? That's the ticket!

What, you say you need grosser photos? Well, here you go:  

PS: to all of you lovely cooks who landed here looking for zucchini risotto recipes, I apologize. Quite a shock, I can imagine. Just avert your eyes and scroll down five or six posts. It's worth it, really.

Baby Porky Video

Mom doesn't seem very maternal, but she's just a teenager herself.

It's a little (prickly) baby!

High Desert Museum welcomes baby porcupine

Posted by Terry Richard, The Oregonian July 30, 2009 12:38PM

How do you know whether a porcupine is pregnant?

Wait for her to give birth.

The baby porcupine born at the High Desert Museum south of Bend came as a surprise today because the parent porcupines didn't seem as if they liked each other.

The father porcupine, Thistle, came to the museum when he was less than a year old, in 2004. The museum introduced the mother, Honeysuckle, to him in January.

To the surprise of museum staff, a baby was born this morning, July 30. Museum staff discovered the softball-sized porcupine walking around its outdoor habitat at about 7 a.m., still wet after being born just a few hours prior.

Both parent porcupines came from wildlife rehabilitation facilities. Like all of the wild animals at the museum, the porcupines cannot survive in the wild due to their life history.

The birth of the baby porcupine is evidence that these animals are thriving at their outdoor habitat at the Donald M. Kerr Birds of Prey Center, open to visitors daily, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Female porcupines bear one young after a pregnancy of seven months. Newborns typically weigh 12 to 20 ounces and have all of their quills _30,000 of them _ and four teeth.

When the museum's new porcupine is bigger, it will be sent to a wildlife facility where it will be used for education programs for school children.

In the wild, porcupines leave their mothers when they about 2 months old.

The High Desert Museum is a five-minute drive south of Bend on U.S. 97; 541-382-4754, www.highdesertmuseum.org.

-- Terry Richard; [email protected]

Q: How do porcupines mate?

A: Very carefully.

Batty cuteness

The Live Bat Encounter is at the High Desert Museum through Sunday 7/19.

"I lost half my body weight!"

As told by Bonnie Badger

Get fit for summer with the Badger Diet! 
[Note: not a diet in which you eat badger, a diet for badgers.]

When we last checked in with Bonnie, she was a bit zaftig, tipping the scales at her winter weight of 23+ pounds. The summer show season was coming up, and she could barely fit into her skinny harness. What's a mustelid to do?

Seen today, she's a svelte 14 pounds and is looking sleek and toned. Or at least less like an ottoman with claws.

How did she do it? Let's hear her describe the process:

"I emerged from my winter torpor and got more active. I actually ate more than I did all winter and still lost the weight! I kept to a steady diet of fruits and vegetables, raw meat for protein and dead mice for variety. The pounds just melted away!"

"I upped my digging regimen with daily workouts with my trainer (as well as calisthenics with that popular video, 'Badger, mushroom, snake' ). If I can do it, anyone can!"

Let's hear it for Bonnie and her fabulous new figure. She's showing it off daily at the Desert Dwellers programs at the High Desert Museum.

Top 26 Tuesday: Museum edition

 Random things I've done at work recently:

1. Took closeups of a chorus frog for the local paper
2. Approved a new radio spot after music editing
3. Set up a webpage to sell tickets to our Live Bats show
4. Analyzed the results of our visitor survey
5. Approved the layout of three print ads
6. Toured a photography producer and location scout
7. Wrote exhibit copy for our new Quilts exhibit
8. Ran the cash register in our store
9. Wrote a presentation for the next Board meeting
10. Bussed tables in the cafe
11. Negotiated radio and TV buys for the next quarter
12. Got to know the new pioneers at the Homestead
13. Planned press for the new spotted owl eggs
14. Wrote a positioning statement and new taglines
15. Oversaw video editing of our news coverage
16. Approved merchandise purchases for the store
17. Developed a new blog for the Museum
18. Sold Museum memberships
19. Worked on high-end donors for our Challenge grant
20. Uploaded animal videos to our Youtube page and website
21. Demonstrated how to play "pick-up sticks" to kids
22. Discussed the layout and colors of new signage
23. Attended live animal shows (owl, skunk, hawk, badger)
24. Wrote the creative brief for our new TV commercial
25. Stamped hundreds of toddlers' plump little hands
26. Pet our very gassy goat

Noah the Toggenburg Milch Goat

PS: I'm neither bragging nor complaining - just enjoying the variety!

Eggs of all colors

These beautiful eggs are from the chicken flock at the Museum.

Why do we have chickens at a Museum, you might ask. Well, I'll tell you.

The museum has a "living history" component, in other words, actors who dress up in 1870's clothing and interact in character with the visitors. We have a homestead with a cabin, barn and stable where they hang out. Included are wild mustangs, heirloom goats (not kidding) and chickens. Therefore, the eggs.

Their subtle varied hues are so beautiful that we didn't need to dye eggs this year. We're admiring them til tomorrow, then we'll eat them and appreciate them from the inside.

an armful of badger

an armful of badger, originally uploaded by Meltrier.

Today's OCBP*

This is Clyde, who is coming out of torpor and is a little cranky. The badger-wrangler is the other Melissa here.

*Obligatory Cute Badger Photo