Even the orchestra is beautiful!
As I already told Laura, I am having an all-choked-up sort of day and these 2 fellows patiently waiting their master inside the grocery store really captured my mood.
The lighter coloured dog has a funny sort of lumpy head that at first I thought was snow piling up. It’s -6C here, pretty chilly. They were gone by the time I was done inside.
My new hat kept my head warm, so that’s something.
I love that I got all three of the girls in one picture. They were all chilling out together last night and the camera flash didn’t seem to bother them at all. Unlike the red laser pointer that makes them all go crazy. Sorry about that.
I told the women at my (last) quilting class about them. I sound like a proud mother. I just wish there was something I could do for Donna’s lumps. Poor old girl. She’s been doing a lot of resting lately and I know she’s an old fish…
Dog owners. You know, the main reason I don’t have a dog is because there’s no way in HELL I would ever pick up dog crap. I know that somehow it would get on me, under my nails or a skid down my sleeve that would go unnoticed. And I think that a lot of dog owners also feel this way and either don’t bother picking up after their dogs or they dispose of the dog completely, like a Brita filter. Look at petfinder, you’ll see.
Anyway, I think winter must be seen as both a blessing and a curse for dog owners, a curse because it’s cold and sometimes dogs take a long time to find the right spot to squat, and a blessing because deep snow means they can’t find the poop and just don’t bother. Seriously, look in the parks in spring time, it’s revolting. This winter-and I use that term only in the technical sense-we’ve had virtually no snow but I think that because the calendar says it’s January, that means that some people think that it’s their time of the year not to stoop and scoop. Between here and the subway station, a 3 block walk, I believe there are at least a dozen smeared piles of dog shit. I mean, I hope it’s dog shit, you never know in this ‘hood. There was also a giant splat of vomit outside the subway station on Thursday, but that’s a different issue.
I took this picture today. It defies explanation. I call it “Still Life of Dog Shit and Underwear”.
I got a new phone the other day. My old, crappy phone was no longer holding a charge so it felt like time to trade up for something half decent. Half decent, she says? Ok, I got an iphone. And guess what! I LOVE IT!!! It takes great pictures on top of everything. And while I haven’t documented my haircut (yesterday) I did take a picture of Bill Baker doing what he does best: gossiping. I mean, tattooing. He’s opening a real shop soon, I can’t wait.
I got to tease him about getting old-he’s almost ready for that senior’s discount.
Then on my way home today from grocery shopping, there were 2 pictures propped up in the doorway of the Salvation Army store, someone’s generous donation. I tell you what, I am heading back there tomorrow for the bigger of the 2, the photograph of the big orange pussy cat. I’m thinking I’ll give it to Bill to decorate his new shop, lovely!
I like the kittens too. How to chose?
Shannon and Ari were watching some documentary about animals on the verge (as in, the last one in the world) of exctinction and paused it at this screen shot. Lord. I stared at this for half an hour while he made dinner. Never has the name Turdy been more appropriate.
It’s not a caption, it’s a subtitle. I wasn’t listening, so I don’t actually know what was being said about this gruesome beautiful anus turtle.
The gravlax I mentioned the other day was unwrapped, rinsed, sliced and eaten. Not entirely, no, that would be crazy, but we ate about a quarter of it. A lot. The only thing I would do differently-next time I make it and there will be a next time-is to use actual Kosher salt rather than regular table salt. And maybe use brown sugar instead of white.
Try not to drool on your keyboard.
And because I was feeling culinarily ambitious, I made latkes to eat the salmon with. Oh, latkes are good eating, right?
Yeah, really good eating. With sour cream. Oh.
Speaking of fish, big white fish Donna has a bruise on her shoulder and I wonder if there was a fight during the night or if she just got scraped on a rock. She’s pretty fussy about letting me look closely (and her fin blobs are getting worse too) and I’m guessing she’s not long for this world. Ah, 14+ years is a pretty good run for a regular, old fashioned feeder fish I guess.
I’m really hoping we hear from Ari today-she’s in California for xmas. Video chat is armed and ready!
She’s grey, she’s fat, she meows!
1. Pigeon! This one, again at Bathurst Station, was too pretty to ignore so I snapped her picture. She looked like she might be offering Lotto advice.
This was across from the Jamaican patty bakery downstairs.
2. For Joanie:
One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish pants. On Queen West, outside of CityTV. It’s hard to take a decent picture when you’re trying to be discrete.
No pictures, sorry, he’s shy. But I rescued the World’s Smartest Turtle from certain death earlier today. Or yesterday, I guess, same thing. When I woke up and walked past the pond there was no water squizzling out of the squirter and I was all, DANG IT! because I’d just cleaned the filter and it had been pumping really well just the day before. So I yoinked the intake tube out of the water, and lo and behold, there’s Turdy suctioned to it by his shell.
AGH!
Poor little bugger, who knows how long he’d been stuck under water. So I shook him off and he floated up to the surface of the water and was so still I thought he was dead. But he wasn’t-he was gasping. Seriously, I had tears in my eyes, it was scary and sad and he was so pathetic, floating and huffing for about 3 minutes. Then he sunk down and sat on a ledge for another minute, contemplating, I’m sure, what had just happened to him. Then he went back to being his usual super genius self and scrambled for safety under a rock.
And I haven’t seen him since. And now I’ve decided that while we call him Turdy day to day, that’s just his nickname. Following the Bev Hills naming scheme (the fish are Brenda Walsh, Kelly Taylor and Donna Martin), I’m renaming him Steve Saunders. Hahaaa!
Check out the attitude on the fellow in the back. This was a pack of junior pigeons that had silly feathers and didn’t really know what to do when a giant, zombie chasin’ truck was bearing down on them.