Dinosaurs + Stooges = Dinooges

Welcome to May 2015!

Welcome to May 2015! Sure, May is known for Maypoles and such. But, let me help orient you to several other key highlights of this super-spectacular month:

1) Hooray! May is National Brain Tumor Awareness Month. By the laws and traditions of Brain Tumor Awareness Month, this means that it is time to take a brain tumor out to lunch, buy it flowers, and/or send it candy. It is not appropriate to express awareness by giving gold or diamond jewelry to a brain tumor. That's "fawning"--not "awareness."

2) May 12 is International Nurses Day. Do NOT celebrate nurses within the U.S. on this day. Furthermore, if a U.S. nurse attempts to give you soup or medication on this day, demand to see an International Nurse. (Sometimes U.S. nurses pretend to be International Nurses by adopting fake accents--do not let them fool you.)

3) May 15 marks the beginning of Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month. Tourette Syndrome Awareness Month extends through June 15. WHA? First: Why is Tourette Syndrome encroaching upon Brain Tumor's turf? There's going to be a rumble between the Tourette and Tumor gangs! Second: How can I be aware of both things from May 15-May 31? I can only be aware of one health-related thing at a time. Third: Why must Tourette Syndrome get the butt end of the month? Okay, this is all too troubling. I have to move on.

4) May is National Moving Month, in recognition of "the official start of the household goods industry's peak moving season." In celebration, I suggest you pick up an object, any object, in front of you and move it five inches. If you like, you can just spin your cursor around in little circles. That counts. Enjoy the small, yet vital role you are playing in celebrating the household goods industry's peak moving season.

RUMBLE!

So, I'm supposed to be working this morning and/or taking care of vital life-related errand stuff. To blow out all the cobwebs and prepare to focus, I got up bright and early, cleaned up the kitchen, weed-whacked the yard until the battery ran out (okay, maybe the weed whacker isn't perfect, but I STILL like it!), poured myself a nice, big cup of coffee, and sat down at the computer with several documents open, ready to go. I flexed my hands, preparing the muscles of my freakishly small fingers to fly across the keyboard and make me some much-needed moola.

Then I got up, went out on the back deck, stuck a plastic dinosaur on the hummingbird feeder, and started taking photographs of it. As I have noted, I am VERY bad at catching the perfect picture. However, I did get a quick shot of a hummingbird (visible on the left side of the feeder, studiously bent to its task of sipping nectar) with the dinosaur.* It pleased me for no particularly good reason. And, somehow having done that will make it easier to do my work today.

Here are some other photographs I took this morning, with brief explanatory captions hither and yon.

Two of my four front windowboxes. I had a vision of the windowboxes packed with lots and lots of pretty plants and colored glass bottles. As you will see, I haven't quite realized my vision. But, it's a start!
Butterfly slumming in the dirt: It had really pretty blue markings on its wings which I, of course, was unable to capture.
Last week, I was walking Lily back from an exciting walk in which we viewed a smushed frog and a smushed snake in which she did not roll and I saw these baskets sitting outside the farm up the road from me. They were with the recycling stuff and some worn-out equipment. They were out with the trash! My eyes gleamed. "Maybe I'll just take one, I thought," and I ended up taking all eight. As you might imagine, it was tricky to hold on to Lily, the baskets, and Lily's bag of poop.

I feel very guilty to admit that I left the bag of poop hidden behind a tree in front of an extremely multi-million dollar housing development called "Rustic Acres" or something. There used to be a farm there, as well as the one that is still across the street, and I must admit that somewhere not so deep inside I wish a farm was still there. I promised myself that I'd scoot right up the road and reclaim Lily's poop bag. I have yet to do so. I promise I will. I will do it today. I always scoop and never leave it behind. Just this once. In front of the multi-million dollar housing development known as "Rustic Acres."

Uh, yes. Anyway, here are the baskets. I scrubbed them out very well, and yesterday and today I applied Thompson's water seal so I can use them as plant podiums outside and/or whatnot. My particular favorite is the tiger stripey looking one towards the far right. (Look, I KNOW this is boring stuff, it's just either this or write about my work right now and trust me--nooooooobody wants that.)
*When I was working in the yard yesterday, I wrote a tight series of 4 dinosaur-related posts in my head. No, it does not really count that they are merely head-posts and not posted-posts. Yet, I must say that they flowed well and demonstrated a certain pleasing sinew of plot and character.

Breaking the Fourth Wall and Old Ad Thursday!

"Shhhhh! Don't tell! We're still in extreme, edge-of-your-seat danger. We're just briefly sidling through the fourth wall (if they leave that big hole in it, why not) to heartily thank The Queens and King of Prehistoric Hilarity (and Elegant Voles) Her Royal Cakiness, Ace Reporter Lois Lane, and the Boy King of All Robots for their outstanding dinosaur hijinks. Rock on, we say, ROCK ON! Psst! Do we have time to run and grab a latte and small vertebrate animal before we head back into dire peril? Eh, just ignore us and check out these prehistoric ads."

If you look closely, you will note that these dames are on their union-authorized "make-up break."

Hey, kids! Don't swoon! It's "model couple" Don and Eloise Phillips from glamorous Great Neck, New York! They are a "model couple" because they are both models. Neat, huh? Okay, shhhhhh let's sneak up and see if we can hear what they're saying!
Don: "Ah, isn't this romantic, Eloise? Just a quiet evening at home, me making a stalker collage of your photos...you shredding your rival's photo into confetti. Isn't it good to be a model couple? Let us smile together!"
Eloise: "Get out of my light, Don."
Don: "Eloise! Look! I have a new bathrobe! You can tell because I have my hand on my hip in that adorable "new bathrobe modeling" way that I have. Let us smile together!"
Eloise: Get out of my light, Don."


You know what bugs me about this ad? It's the little arrows that point to the prunes. They thought I would MISS the picture of the prunes. I get it, I get it, already.