New post over at the Fur Shark blog

Some pictures about Paco and T.'s special relationship, over at the Fur Shark Blog.

Cute and decidedly not so cute

First off, there is a new post over at the Fur Sharks blog. It's pretty damned cute.

Second off, here is some video from Oregon Field Guide, that arachnophobes really shouldn't click. It shows a totally cool hunting behavior of a Six Eyed Sand Spider.

They are awesome little dudes who hunt in fine sand in both African and South American deserts.

Enjoy your cute, and decidedly not so cute, Monday morning,

Bp

[video via Estu, image credit at Wiki Commons]

New post over at the Fur Shark blog: introducing the new kitties

It's Cat Sunday apparently. Check out the post over at Fursharks.

Enjoy introductions to new furry peoples,

Bp

New post over at the Fur Shark blog

Check out the new post over at the Fur Shark Chronicles. That blog is the repository for all things Cat that I write or post. I didn't want to overwhelm the rigorous and scientific focus and cadence of this blog with such frivolous material.

Stay tuned for more 70's bad hair videos.

Bp

Dog Sighting!!?

Pootie is documented recovering from an In-Home Dog Sighting over at the Fur Shark Chronicles.

News at 11:17,

Bp

Lolcat for the Birder Set

I am posting this for my Ornithological brethren. [To which The Wife says from over my shoulder, "There are no Ornithological bretheren out there" -- oh Ye of little faith.]

Since I've started Ornithology class, the Sibley Guide has taken on somewhat canonical weight.

Lolcats are a guilty pleasure of mine anyhow, might as well be out with it.



Enjoy any humor that comes your way,

Bp

Morning feline safety tip

When climbing stairs in your robe, in the morning, not quite awake -- make sure to note the activity level, or 'hyperness" of any cats you step over in the stairwell. If the cat impeding your progress is "feeling frisky," burning off calories after breakfast with dilated pupils and a kitten-like energy, and you are a man with only a robe on, do not under any circumstances step over said cat.

[No, Pootie didn't get me in the nana's this morning, he attempted and failed. A warning to us all.]

Enjoy your external genitalia, while they last,

Bp

Tigers, the ultimate fur sharks

This footage was taken in Kaziranga National Park, where a tigress was attempting to be darted by rangers after having killed some local cows.

[Technical note: if the embedded video is not loading, just double click on it and it will open the Youtube screen and play just fine]

Enjoy your natural wonders,

Bp

Man Purses, a frog

To my surprise, my two uncles and I all carry Man Purses, or Murses, or as my TV-watching friends call my leather bag, The European Man-Satchel. I had to take a picture of the Murses all together, to which Uncle Terry exclaimed -- "hey, we're Mursenaries!"

The second picture is of a frog near the river at The Luddite's place. [addition: I know know that this little guy is a Hyla Regilla, or Pacific Tree Frog]The Wife and I both love frogs -- she screams like a little girl when she sees one, and I smile, knowing that the environment nearby must be in at least decent shape. Environmentally, frogs are the canary in the coal mine, so seeing them brightens my heart.

Ps: There is an update in The Fur Shark Chronicles.

PpSs: Gamers, note the WoW shaman icon pin on Uncle Terry's black leather Murse. GEEK!

Enjoy randomness,

Bp

Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants come over for dinner and a movie

The proprieters of Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants (tm) came over for dinner tonight -- both of them. I'm trying to conceive of a way to include even a modicum of the humor and surrealist conversation that ensued into a post. We of course got all Tea'd Up on a new Oolong they are going to start carrying, had fantastic stir fry by T. from the garden (string beans, basil, tomato, squash, carrots, & broccoli all home grown), then boysenberries over vanilla ice cream with fresh whipped cream with some nice Gewürztraminer to wash it down.

It was duel of the stimulants and depressants. Bridgeport Pale Ale, Chateau St. Michelle Gewürztraminer, Vietnamese Oolong tea and Ice Cream all duking it out to be the dominant force over our consciousness. In the end, the booze and hypoglycemic coma would win out over the caffiene, which was the plan -- otherwise no one in our house would be able to sleep. We're all caffeine wimps, unlike Chuck The Tea Merchant (tm). He could sleep after chewing and swallowing a 1/4 lb. of prime Japanese Green any day. For the tea wimps however, the alcoholic depressants and well timed hypoglycemic coma will get us into bed on time -- I'm typing fast as I can right now in fact, so I can finish this post before I fall face first onto this keyboard.

Website of the evening was introduced by T. He discovered this weirdo website about colors while he was doing some graphic design research for Jasmine Pearl. What he pointed out to us was the avatars and call signs of the crazy people who are cruising the site, presented on the right hand side of the page. These are the "color people." People so into color and palettes of conjoined colors that they created profiles and a social community on a website dedicated to color, just so they could be in better contact with their brethren. Boggles the mind.

The quote of the evening came out of my head, via The Portable Curmudgeon:

"Nothing in our culture, not even home computers, is more overrated than the epidermal felicity of two featherless bipeds in desperate congress." -- Quetin Crisp

The term "desperate congress" got T. laughing hard enough to go into a fetal position on the floor -- which means the evening was already a success.

Crank call of the evening happened as we chatted about a mutual friend of everyone's -- a man we call Jmichael. He's a yoga stud, and some in our group and outside our group find him quite tantalizing. He's been atrocious about returning phone calls lately, and the tea'd up crew came up with this script to be read by me into his voice mail to entice a response:

"Chuck, Heather, T., Sula, The Wife, and BP are all hanging out naked together in our living room and the topic of you in those leather pants you wore at Thanksgiving a few years back came up. Just wanted to let you know we were thinking about you, talk to you soon."

Other than Sula, we were only naked underneath our clothes of course, but Jmichael doesn't need to know that. I expect I'll get a response early tomorrow morning.

We had great conversation, and a silly but funny movie -- Shaolin Soccer, and now everyone's in bed but me, so off I go. Got to get up early tomorrow.

Enjoy your bizarre and precious friends,

Bp

In totally unrelated news: this cat knows when you're gonna die

This cat has an uncanny ability to know when someone at its hospice is going to travel to the great beyond. Rocking.

(Thanks Shada)

Tea Study -- Sula caught in a Full Monty

T. was studying and tasting for work at the Jasmine Pearl Tea Merchants, and had his whole spread laid out. I've left the image in "humungo" size so if you click on it you can peruse details if you want: reference books, gardening books for when he's on a break, multifarious tea samples, notebook for "keeper" comments, clipboard for on-the-fly tea notes, the largest of the Tea Yachts (drain tray A La Richard Brandt), Gai Wan tea cup, glass tea pot (great for testing since you can see color while brewing) and various cups -- it's a plethora of tea paraphernalia. T. stood up for a moment and Sula was there to take advantage of the warm spot left behind. Despite the weird grayscale lighting, I had to post the picture.

[Tea isn't the only activity that Sula shares with her monkeys, she gets acupuncture too.]

Fur shark update -- acupuncture and cat geriatrics

Jon Schell was kind enough to provide some visual fodder for the blogs while I am getting my stolen camera replaced. Over on the Fur Shark Chronicles I have a picture and some description of the acupuncture treatments Sula is getting now.

At least there's one picture to hold everyone over.

Baan Thai, it's for what ail's ya

OK, so I wasn't feeling so hot last night, for obvious reasons. Woke up sick, what a surprise. Amazing what stress will do to ya.

As predicted, I felt like dog barf today, only amplified. When I had my lunch break, I called my buddy John Schell, who also happens to be my Acupuncturist (Alethea Acupuncture). I wasn't up for street car-ing it to his office (yes I'm that much of a wimp today -- I skipped Meditation for crissakes) so I called and asked him what kind of food would be the most medicinal to help with my symptoms: chills, headache, sore throat, achey, little cough, little nasal, no sweating. He said to sweat it out, get some warming food (sometimes not just "hot" either, warming herbs can be slightly different). So I asked what I should order at a Thai place, he suggested Tom Kha with lots of galanga root. You got it boss -- I'm on it.

I was standing right out side Baan Thai, and just yesterday someone told me it rocked. Went in, ordered a small bowl of Tom Kha off the dinner menu (it was lunch, nice of them) and it did indeed rock. I was going to order "mild +" and the waiter sized me up and suggested mild. I said I needed it to be spicy today -- he asked me what I order at my other Thai restaurant (how did he know?), I said "medium." He held his ground at mild.

Sure enough, the soup had me tearing up just a *little* bit at mild. There was a sludge of chili flakes in the bowl when I slurped the last bit down. Perfect heat for this wimp, and it was fantastic. I already feel tons better, and it was cheap too.

Many of the restaurants around the campus suck, frankly, so this is a very nice surprise.

Thanks for all the emails and text messages I've received re: the robbery. I was surprised at some of those names -- pleasantly surprised.

I wish I could turn the event into something funny or witty, but so far it just ain't happening. The print duster lady was a peach, however, and they did get a couple prints off our change jar (imagine, getting busted for having taking $20 in change, ouch). Maybe something will surface worth writing up about the whole experience... there definitely were some serious characters from Downtown in our house that night.

I'd show you some pictures, but...

I do have some pictures coming soon from when John gave Sula acupuncture last night tho. The arthritis in her hips responds fantastically to the needles -- and she puts up with them amazingly well.

Fur Shark -- enlightened accounting

It is known that when he attained his enlightenment, Buddha touched the ground to acknowledge the necessity of his surroundings in this realization.

Buddhakitty too, it seems, acknowledges his surroundings -- even when he's partaking in tea and helping with the household finances.

We bow to Buddhakitty.

[Couple more of this morning's photos at the Furshark chronicles]

Ahh friends

So one of my friends today relayed that he would prefer "less words, more cat pictures" in my blog. I snapped one picture before I got distracted, and when I looked at it, thought it looked like crud. Then I realized -- Sula's doing a celebrity impersonation!

There ya go Tony, at least one cat picture and considerably less words today -- updated Fur Sharks blogsite.

Got a camera today... testing testing

So I had to run out and get the digital camera I've been procrastinating over for months now. The Wife [her online pseudonym, sly ain't it] has this fantastic and rarely grown orchid, a deciduous orchid, that's blooming furiously right now and I know the blooms don't last long. So, between that and this blog, I just had to get it done. Got a Canon Powershot A710 and took a few photographs before running off to school [know that you can click on the pictures and get slightly bigger versions to pop up].

Here are two test photos that I dinked with, I can just feel the learning curve on this, it's intense how little I know.

First is the deciduous orchid -- a Dendrobium Devonianum, from India. It needs 6 months where it's left completely and utterly dry, not even high humidity, or it won't bloom. The Wife finally got it to it's happy place and here's the result. Note all the righteous wood-fired tea ware on the shelves behind -- it's good to know talented and classy potters, and buy up all their seconds.

The next picture shows some beautiful Phalaenopsis. The Wife is kind enough to grow these -- she's into the weirder ones, the flashier ones -- because she knows I'm so into them. I completely dig them. There's something so simple and direct about them, very regal.

There we go my first few pictures, I'll get all the editing and posting stuff figured out to so they'll be clear and studly in the future.

Enjoy

Ps: Posted another test picture on the Fur Shark blog as well. Pootie doing an imitation a favorite 60's era dessert.

Fur Sharks

So I've started posting some pictures and comments about the Fur Sharks. I will update these as needed, and notify fans here of their presence. They are a huge part of our daily entertainment and deserve shrines of their very own. They also deserve better pictures, but this too shall come.

There is a whole language we use around the house when we talk about, or more specifically *as* the Fur Sharks. We figure they refer to us (in their minds) as Monkeys. Continually chastising us, "God-Dam Monkeys! Use those opposable thumbs for something useful and open up that fridge!" They also disdain our constant use of "The Noisy Part" (I.E. mouth). All the monkeys seem to do is sit around in groups and use the noisy part -- what good are they.

Back to blogospherical musings -- I may start similar links for Garden, as well as Chickens -- we'll see if it's necessary.

Enjoy!