Monday

Can you believe it's the last day of June?

It's Friday

~*~

Instead of a homecoming between a soldier and his dog, here's one between a soldier and his cat.

Fascinating Facts About Seahorses

While working on my current WIP I realized I needed to do some research on seahorses. In the process I found them to be fascinating, unique, little creatures. The main thing that sets them apart from us is: it's the male that gives birth. Sweet.

Seahorses eat about forty times a day. Forty time a day! And I've never seen a fat seahorse.


They mate for life. These guys take their vows very seriously.

They change colors regularly. No standard uniform for a seahorse. They like a wide selection to their wardrobe.

Seahorses have excellent eyesight. No cataracts or contacts for these babies.

During courtship they hold tails as they swim side by side. Is that not special? They also dance during courtship. I love to dance.

Dad can have anywhere from 5 to 2500 small fry. And, they really are called fry.

Instead of arm wrestling, male seahorses tail wrestle.

And even though they are considered fish, they're bad swimmers.  Oh well, I guess you can't have everything.

Maybe in my next cycle of life, I should come back as a seahorse. What about you, if you had to pick a creature to come back as, what would it be?

Blowing Rock, Ever Been There?

As I've no doubt mentioned before, we live in a unique area of the country. If we drive four hours east we can get to the ocean, two hours northwest and we're in the mountains. It's nearly perfect.
Saturday we headed for the mountains. Have you ever been to Blowing Rock? Blow Rocking is a little tourist town nestled in the mountains with restaurants, crafts, antique shops, Tanger Outlet Mall, and plenty of scenery. It's also close to Appalachian State University. We always hit the outlet mall. The hh, who hasn't seen the light and come over to the vegetarian side, likes the burger joint they have there and we both love the ice cream shop. Of course, we have our favorite shopping spots. This time I found some plastic shoes, shown at bottom. Even the bow and the flower is plastic. What do you think?

Tuesday's Funny

Monday's Morning Coffee

Have you had your morning coffee yet? If not pull up a chair and have a cup with me. Bring me up to speed on the week I've missed.

Dear Kitten and Offline

I'm going offline again. I've got edits due. Have a great week. Don't do anything you shouldn't, and if you do, don't get caught.

Bear Gets Ready To Attack The Weekend

Now this guy's got the right idea. Did you see this story? If not here's the link: http://mashable.com/2014/05/30/chill-bear/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link.
Enjoy yours, blogster buds. Especially all you fathers out there. You've earned it.

He's Got The Moves

Shameless Self-Promotion

I try not to do this too often.....

“I want to go!” Sittchuk-Seth’s silver plumy tail lashed back and forth. His jaw tightened his expression obstinate.

His father Thut sat upon his throne. His beautiful russet paws rested on the burnished gold arms of the regal chair, his expression both indulgent and annoyed. “What say you, Furrlin, shall we take this whelp of mine?” he asked the soothsayer.

Furrlin padded over to the blue crystal ball that stood in the corner near the throne. Standing on his hind legs, he rested his front paws on the crystal. The interior of the globe began to stir, to roll and flash in a prism of color. Furrlin stared unblinking into the ball as the blinding colors flashed. After a long moment, the storm of colors receded and once more lay dormant.

“Well,” demanded Thut.

Furrlin turned and shrugged. “His destiny is already written. Do what you will.” He dropped to his four paws and padded back to the king.

“What in the name of the Goddess kind of answer is that?”

“The kind you get from a soothsayer, my lord.”  Tiaa, his beautiful queen, put her paw over his and leaned toward him from her throne. “You promised, my lord. He would not accompany you into battle until he was a year of age.” For a moment, her paw tightened on his and anguish shown out of her beautiful amber eyes. “He is our only child. I can bear no other.”

“Mother, other Odin Cats fight at six months, should their future king not be at their side?” Pacing back and forth across the smooth stone floor, Sittchuk-Seth stopped at the window. He rose on his hind legs to stick his head out the stone window embrasure and smell the clean salt air from the sea. He inhaled, drawing air deep into his belly. The massive castle reminded him of a velvet-lined prison. He yearned to fight his first battle against man and dogs, to flirt with pretty Odin Cats and ferals. Instead, he was confined to this dark gray castle that jutted on a scree of boulders, with the ocean singing its siren song far below.

Pre-orders on sale for 2.99 @ http://bit.ly/SandraCox

Maleficent

Have you seen it yet? The hh complained about a sugar spike, but I enjoyed it. I didn't realize when I saw it that the five year old playing Aurora was Angelina's daughter Vivienne. If you like fantasy and sweet with an edge, I recommend it.

usmagazine.com

Monday

May It Pass Quickly
~*~

Yay Weekend and Jenga Cat

This cat is way better at Jenga than I am:)

Shopping For The Clerks

So I was out shopping and found a cute little dress on the clearance rack. I happened to notice, it was marked down even further in a different size. So I took both of the dresses to the counter. The clerk assured me the price would come up correctly. She was right. It did. She studied the dress and decided to buy the spare.  Hmm, maybe I should become a personal shopper. grin.

~*~

Motto for the day: 

My cow died. I don't need your bull.

Do You Know

Got your thinking cap on today?

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquor stores you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter 'S.'

Scroll down for answers

Answers To Quiz:

1. Boxing

2. Niagara Falls (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)

3. Asparagus and rhubarb.

4. Strawberry.

5. It grew inside the bottle. (The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.)

6. Dwarf, dwell, and dwindle.

7. Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.

8. Lettuce.

9. 'S' Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates,

Did you get them all? Congratulations, you're a mental giant.  Did I get them all?  Uh, no.
 

BFF

Looks like we aren't the only ones capable of forming deep attachments.

In Memory

My sister-in-law, Karen Gray passed away Tuesday, May 27, 2014. Karen was a fascinating woman, well-versed and well-spoken. She had many passions which included her family, family history, cats and travel. She was in the library system for most of her working life:  twenty-two years as an assistant executive director in Quincy, IL and a continuing education specialist in the East Peoria library system for the two years before she retired.

She was married for twenty years to a man whose interests ran parallel to her own. They traveled extensively to all corners of the globe. They climbed Mt. Everest and Mt. Kilimanjaro and visited the Peoples Republic of China in the late seventies. When he passed, the light in her eyes dimmed and never glittered with the same brightness again.  Still she traveled, taking her nieces to such exotic countries as Egypt, India and Greece.
From there she threw herself into writing family histories in story form. Her books included: Finding Mettle, The Mystery Friendship Club, Snowfall In Berrian Park, Trekking The Mount Everest Trail, William Martin Davis In Baker Wood, and her last book, From This We Spring, a collection of short stories, the cover designed by my daughter.
Such a stingy number of words to sum up such a full life. Goodbye and Godspeed, Karen. I trust you, Lee and Tadji are trekking among the stars.