Part of my chores today was to help this woman move her dogs. I won’t say how many and I won’t say where they ended up, but my adventure was indeed one of legend… a very boring legend, mind you, but nonetheless, a remarkable experience. So, here I am, sitting in the calm before tomorrow’s storm, my wife at my side, wondering what I can do next.

Remembering I had taken a few pictures today at the place where I was helping the crazy lady evacuate her farm, I opened up the camera files…

and found this guy staring at me. Well, not so much staring, but certainly looking lonely.
Oops. That’s a female.

Emo Emu

Anyway, she looks scary close up. Apparently, she’s not, but it’s definitely strange to have an animal stride up to you with a facial expression that never really changes. Kind of like the wife of one of our candidates for president…

One morning a woman comes downstairs and sees her husband sitting at the kitchen table in his pajamas, crying. The woman comes over to her husband to comfort him.

“What’s the matter, Honey?” She asks.

“We got married 20 years ago, today,” He sniffed.

The wife tears up realizing that her husband is emotional about their marriage, and is actually surprised that he is, because he normally isn’t like this.

“Do you remember the day we got married?” he asked.

“Yes,“ she replied, ”we were both 17 and my father caught us nearly naked, making out in the back of your car.”

The Husband continued, saying, “he told me that if I didn’t marry you he’d send me to jail for 20 years. Well, if I went to jail, I’d be getting out today!”

While I didn’t get caught in the car by my Father-in-Law, today I too would be getting out of jail.

Happy Anniversary Shelly.

The Pefessor

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you already know that former Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards no longer has a political career. Now I’m not saying that simply because he had an extra-marital affair that he is no longer worthy of holding public office (after all, according to legend former President Kennedy was something of a lady’s man himself), I’m saying that after running for the highest office in the land, all the while espousing family values, and attempting to proclaim himself something of a common man he was sewing the seeds of his own distruction.

Bet the Republicans are crying that he didn’t turn out to be the nominee, eh?

Let’s not forget that not only was he campaigning for President, but his wife was battling cancer during this affair. Oh yeah, I suppose that it is also important to note that it has been reported that he had hired his mistress, Rielle Hunter, to produce a series of Internet films about Edwards even though she had no previous film making experience. Plus, news is now coming out that their affair began before, not after she was hired.

As a side note, former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson has come out to opine that if information about Edward’s affair had come out ealier in the campaign, Hilary, not Barack would have been the Democratic nominee, as it would have dramaticilly altered the outcome of the Iowa Caucaus.

“I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee,” former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com.

You seriously have to wonder about the hubris that surround our politicians.

The Perfessor

Does anyone remember the musical Paint Your Wagon? it was a 1960s musical that became a film (staring Clint Eastwood, of all people). Well, there was a song in that film called Talk to the Trees. Well, after watching this vid — entitled Forest Love — which is part of a very Racy Greenpeace Video Campaign against illegal logging, you’ll think that simply talking to trees is just foreplay.

Now you know why they call them “Tree Huggers” eh?

The Perfessor

Nothing like being out in the field with your handheld GPS device trying to take some measurements in the tall briars when you step on a bee. Okay, a lot of bees. The bees probably started going after my legs and worked their way up, because the first sting was on my high inner thigh. I had some boots and some snakeproof leggings on, so the inner thigh was my first vital spot unprotected.

I yelped. Dropped my handheld GPS, having failed at adding a makeshift lanyard only an hour earlier.

The bees now own my GPS device. I hope they got as frustrated working with it as I did.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, running from the asshole bees. These bastards were big ones. I can now say they were bumblebees for reasons I’ll go into in a moment.

At first I thought it was a stinging nettle, a type of plant. It was on the second sting I realized it was something flying around me, because this one was on my wrist. My right wrist. My left would get stung later. Sometime after my left index finger (twice there) and after my skull stung behind my left ear.

After I ran a bit, still not seeing my attackers, I turned, still in the high grass, rapidly turning this way and that to see what got me. Large, and ponderous, most of them hovering around the ground nest I must have disturbed. My stings were smarting now, but I had dropped my GPS device, and was curious how close the drop was to their base of operations. One or two of them charged at me, but I had on hand an umbrella because a) it was getting ready to rain and was already spattering some drops in a decent breeze, and b) even though I had snake proof leggings, I know to use an umbrella to form a temporary shield between angry snake and self. I opened the umbrella and shook it about, hoping to — well, almost immediately a gust of wind flipped my umbrella inside out. I shook the limp umbrella about anyway, thinking that might confuse them, and they’d get back to minding the obviously excited bee nest…

I took the time to call my lovely wife, to tell her I had been attacked, and was waiting the bees to calm down so I could get my GPS device back and

– then all she heard was my screams.

Not only were the bees NOT fooled by my umbrella, they flew around it, and around me, and attacked me from the rear. It was a joint attack, and I felt like I had been stalked like the prey of some much smarter pack of animals than simple bees.

It was then I fled the field for good, and bidding my GPS a fond fairwell, made it out of the tall grass and weeds and quickly walked back to the car, a good 75 yards away from the original site of the attack and — OWW!!

Yeah, vindictive trackers. Nailed again, right before the car. I hop in the car with my recently flipped back to normal umbrella and realize that HE. COULD. BEE. IN. THE. CAR. HIDING. IN. THE. UMBRELLA!!!

I opened the door and threw the umbrella out, and whether he was in the umbrella or not, he was right there, about to sting me again.

I thought these bees only could sting once or something? Well, bumblebees don’t have barbs, so they keep their stingers and they can let you have it multiple times. So, I wasn’t looking at scores of bees sacrificing themselves… Just three or so from the initial attack… and one punk ass bee who followed me. I was still smarting, sitting in the car at this point, and there the bee was… lying low… I just knew it. Waiting for me to get out of the car.

And ya know what? He was.

I wanted my umbrella back, at least. It had been some five minutes or so since I threw out the thing, surely even the most stalwart bee would have gotten the message and gone home. I opened my door and, sensing a trap, quickly closed it up again. Yes. He was RIGHT. THERE. Nearly trapped him in my car door jam. He knew the jig was up, and flew up and then straight at me — and hitting the driver’s side window in the process. He flew around, and tried flying through my windshield next, with the same results. I had my camera out by this time, trying to take his picture. As slow as they seem to fly, between the breeze from the nearby storm (it never did rain hard) and him trying to angle in another attack, I’m sure all I have in my camera’s memory are panic shots of the inside of my car.

UPDATE: One of the shots did capture his image. He looks scary even through glass, made worse by the blur caused by the autofocus trying to decide what I wanted to take a picture of.

He’s prolly 1 inch from wingtip to wingtip. And you’re looking at the business end of the bee, trying to sting me right through the glass window…

– — –

One day, when I least expect it, I’ll hear the doorbell…

“Who is it?”

“Candygram”

“I didn’t order a Candygram”

“Uh, UPS guy delivering your new GPS unit”

“Oh! In that case let me open the door and …”

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

“Aaaaaaieeeeeeeee!!!”

[cue the horror movie music]

I’m a cat person.

To be sure, I like dogs, but I’m a cat person. Never owned a Dog, but have lived around, and with cats much of my life. Had one when I was a kid, my girlfriend had one which came to live with us when we got married, and then we acquired a couple of more when her cat passed, and we had kids.

I love cats, they are affectionate, you don’t have to train them were to poop, and they don’t sit at the foot of the table and watch you eat. A cat will let you know that it loves you by allowing you to sit under it while it sleeps. For the record, cats used to be worshiped as gods, and they will never let us forget that. I was once told that our place in heaven is determined by how we treat cats here on Earth,and I have seen nothing to dispute that kernel of truth.

Currently, we have two cats, both female. Peanut (which “belongs” to my son — you don’t actually own cats, they own you), and Zazu which is my daughter’s.

I bring all of this up because today, after years of cat “ownership” I finally had one of the cats earn its keep. I came downstairs this morning, and discovered one of the cats (Zazu, the younger of the two) crouched down by the coffee table in the living room and staring intently at something. From the way she was perched, I could tell that she was stalking something. I figured that there was either a crumb of food under the table or a bug. So I moved the table.

Well you can imagine how surprised I was by the sight of a tiny gray field mouse scurrying across the floor towards the lounge chair. True to her nature, Zazu scampered after her quarry. Unable to hide under the chair, the mouse rushed back for the coffee table. I moved the table once again, and watch the mouse rush for a new hiding place. Then I went to get something in which I could trap the mouse, so I could toss it out of the house.

By the time I got back, Zazu had already dispensed with the pesky rodent. So I scooped it up into a container and tossed it out back into the woods behind my house. 30 years (give ot take) living with cats, and I finally had one catch a mouse in the house, rather than catch one outside and then bring it to me as tribute.

Remind me to give Zazu an extra treat later. She’s a good girl.

The Perfessor

mentally, anyway.

I’ve been busy trying to make a buck, and things got away from me, and for that, I apologize.

News wise, it’s been fairly slow, so there’s not a whole lot to talk about. I have several thoughts to put to paper/blog, but none of them have much in the way of well researched links behind them, so they’ll end up coming across as mere subjective opinions, and I’m not sure you want to see me use this space to idly spew up random chatter.

Since it’s mostly my space here, you’ll have to learn to live with my spew.

And lack thereof.