Howdy y’all!
Here we are at the beginning of one of the most important months of the year on Ye Olde Blogge! Autism Awareness-Appreciation-Celebration Month. It should be a fun month since Khmer New Year happens next week: plenty of time to write and schedule the posts. Let’s hope my ass ain’t farting checks my fingers can’t tap out.
In addition to completing our report cards this week — Didn’t we just DO this? How is it possible that we have to do it AGAIN!?! How is that even fair? — we had some fun animal encounters, April Fools Day, and started training for the Phnom Penh half marathon!
Animal Fun
- Early in the week, two hornbills visited the school. They are impressively large birds, which always astonish when they fly, but that beak makes it doubly astonishing. They impressed the students and faculty alike as they flew around the courtyard.
- When we were picking up a package, we noticed two cats looking interested in something in the motorcycle parking lot. I decided to check it out and found the scene to the left. Later I saw the cats again. The one was so delighted with her catch that she was playing with it. Either teasing her friend or anticipating the meal.
Animal Encounters
April Fools Day
Pranking sixth graders is always fun. My favorite prank was telling my seventh graders that the vice principal was collecting toothbrushes and a pair of underwear from each of the students in case we had to shelter in place at the school overnight. It was in Kenya and if there were a riot or coup or Mt. Longonot exploded, we might could be better off bedding down at the school. Unfortunately, it was my first month there, so I didn’t actually do it. It would’ve been hysterical, though. Here Mr. Crain. Here’s my spare toothbrush and pair of underwear. I regret it to this day.
This year, we doused all of the student’s water bottles with lemon juice. The looks on their faces when they took a big gulp was priceless! Lemon juice. That was inspired.
Please, tell us about your favorite April Fools Day jokes in the comments.
Half Marathon
I had been running pretty regularly there at the end of the fall and through the December break. I had gotten up to a 10K. Sometime in January, I fell off the running wagon. But, I’m back. I started the training on Saturday with a brisk 6K. Now, I have to get up at 5:00 AM and run three mornings a week. Stop laughing. I’ll do it. I swear I will. I’ve got twelve weeks to reach a distance of 21K. That’s plenty of time.
The Week’s Reading
I have to confess that I didn’t read as extensively in the legacy or paid media as I usually do. I kept up with the headlines and the major stories, but all y’all have done that. You don’t need Ye Olde Blogge to be directing you to those stories, so we’ll skip straight to my favorite blog posts from the week!
Favorite Blog Posts
Here were the blog posts that caught my attention this week:
- REPORT CARD?!? Nobody said there’d be REPORT CARDS! Well, I guess if you’re trying to instill some financial discipline, you might could grade yourself once you’ve set your goals. I swear, I thought that’s why people got married. At least, that’s why I did… just don’t tell Ma Belle Femme! (Chatty Introvert)
- NO FOOLIN’! Raising money for a worthy cause is something that I hope we all do now and again, and more now than again. One of my favorite blogs raised $3,742.00 for muscular dystrophy, a cause near and dear to the blog. (Greater than Gravity)
- WE BELONG TOGETHER ALWAYS! Sentimental Hollywood dramas can really capture a moment and help us understand ourselves, relationships, and the world better. When it comes to thirties black and whites, though, I’m more of a Thin Man type myself, but here’s a reflection on what it means to belong together always. (On Being Gay and Grieving)
- PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE PHONES! That’s the way my sMaRt PhOnE has always treated me, but those crazy kids nowadays are going back to the dumb phones that only make phone calls and send text messages and take lousy pictures because reasonable or something. Smart alecky kids. (bluewater)
- VERTIGO! The thought of getting vertical just makes my head spin, but otherwise, here’s a nifty pictorial essay of a visit to the Wolfsonian Museum’s display of visions of the airborne life from the beginning of the last century. Some really amazing works are pictured there. (Snippets from a Traveling Mind)
- NO FOOLS LIKE A FRENCH FOOL? Or something like that. No matter what you think of the French or France, we’ve got an informative and entertaining compendium of the history of the entertaining French fools, farce, and fanfare. (cas d’interet)
Friends of Ye Olde Blogge
These are the folks who have gone out of their way to support Ye Olde Blogge! We deeply appreciate it, so give ’em a visit and let ’em know we sent you.
- A PAGE-TWO GIRL? Bobcabkings reblogs a much better excuse for being off the blogging schedule than I could ever produce when I’m irregular. (Of Cabbages and Kings).
- TRUMP CIDER tastes like…? Ew, who would ever try it? Luckily, Tengrain is all over it. Apparently, clan Trump is exploring adding cider to their mix of failed business ventures and want you to name it. My choice? Bankrupt Cider… or Pee Hooker. (Mock Paper Scissors)
- BEER, BEER IS THE ANSWER to just about everything, apparently. Ten Bears laments the financial choices the yuppies have made for his hometown after they took over. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, they lay off five cops. (Homeless on the High Desert)
- THE SLAP HEARD ROUND SOCIAL MEDIA! Burr runs down all that’s worth reading on the Interwebs both big and small, important to all or important to someone! Your week isn’t complete without it! (Fair and Unbalanced)
- SEX IS OVER SIMPLISTIC! Whoa! Overrated, maybe, but over simplistic? Come on, man! You’ve got to spice it up, know what I’m saying? Oh, the idea of two sexes is overly simplistic according to science. Gottcha. (Scottie’s Playtime)
- IF THE SHOE FITS CINDERELLA, then it’s probably Cinderella’s, don’t ya think? At least VP Harris thinks so and told Joy Reid that all them GQPs what wears glass slippers shouldn’t be throwing no rocks at no legislation that helps people. Mike’s Blog Roundup is being curated by Tengrain. (Crooks and Liars)
- SOME PRETTY CRAZY SHIT! Infidel has some of the craziest zanniest wackiest pics found on the Interwebs over there. Well worth a gander to just lighten your day. (Infidel 753)
huzzah!
Jack
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Image Attribution
The picture of the cat is mine and is free to be used and abused by whoever can manage to use or abuse it.
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Categories: Cognitive Psychology
The Psy of Life 
Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Calico Jack – Birds, cats, kids, and other critters
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Is that a turtle that the cat found? If so, a serious challenge for the curiosity of the the cat and more an aggravation than a danger for the turtle. Hornbills are amazing birds.
Thanks for the shout out. I am enjoying finding EMJE and her style of art and humor.
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Yeah, good find. I’ve booked marked her blog for future reference and referral.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Autism has few equal or better spokes persons. I found this quote on A to Z Quotes, where I get most of the ones I post. The collection of hers there is a great trove.
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She’s been an amazing advocate for autistic folks.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Howdy Bob!
Somehow I missed the first paragraph of your comment. No, that was a big black mouse. It was an astonishing sight to come around the end of the row of motorcycles and see the cat with a freshly killed mouse in its mouth. I knew they were excited by something, but I’m used to our lazy well-fed house cats who will go play with bugs and things but rarely actually take anything. We used to get lizards and birds from our outdoor cats when I was a kid, but none of my cats when I was an adult were really worth a darn as far as vermin were concerned.
My fun fact about hornbills is that they hop! They hop! They are huge dignified birds until they start hopping and then it is just comical.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I got to watch one of my cats many years ago teach her kittens to hunt. They were all in-and-out cats, and she taught them well.
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Cats are amazingly efficient hunters. Terrible for the songbird population, though.
I adopted a neighbors cat or rather they “suggested” that I take her when we moved because she started hanging around our place. I first met her when I watched her getting dive bombed by four blue jays — nasty birds, really. A few days later, though, she was getting bombed by three, then it was two, one, and none. She got all of ’em eventually.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Sometimes, the bird wins. At one apartment complex where I lived there was an owl that perched on the tall parking lot lights and took several neighborhood cats (It was a big owl.) in addition to rats and mice.
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Those predatory birds can take a lot of small animals. The kites in Kenya were bad about taking cats, small dogs, and your sandwich. One day walking across campus with my lunch — I always bought lunch at the staff canteen because Kenyan food is like downhome cooking — and I heard the fluttering of a bird across my right shoulder. As soon as I heard it, the kite flew over my shoulder. Instinctively, I raised my right shoulder and arm and ducked with my left pulling the tray in towards me. I caught the kite in the back quarter, it’s wing nicked my glasses knocking them to the ground, but I saved my lunch!
Huzzah!
Jack
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Sea Gulls are also famous, even legendary(definitely so in a beach town like Santa Cruz, CA where I lived for a while), lunch thieves.
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Those animals that get habituated to humans and our habits will often find a way to get a free lunch.
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Well, if we are going to dine on critters, it’s only fair that some of them do their best to dine on or off of us.
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Fair is fair. Many urbanites are so divorced from any meaningful contact with nature that contact with “wild” animals just leaves them frightened and confused or being stupid. It’s a shame really.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Indeed, stupid like the ones trying to take selfies with bears and such.
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The Chinese tourist who slapped the bison on its rear because it wouldn’t turn around for his picture. It turned around. It killed him. Jesus.
Jack
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Around here there are reminders every year that it is a very bad idea to get close to elk in mating season. The bulls are quite big and those antlers are wicked. But, somebody always manages to piss one off.
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They do make for good YouTube videos, though.
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True, but it’s a heck of way to get your 15 minutes of fame.
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But, I’m sure for the elk, it is worth it.
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For a bull elk in rut showing any critter or (occasionally) inanimate object who is boss is worth it.
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I’m sure it feels good. It is fulfilling your biological imperative.
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I’m sure it does.
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That was but half the original post, thank you, repurposed to the specific observation “there isn’t enough water to last to the end of May.” They’ll brew beer right down to the last drop.
You know, it’s only half a joke, tongue firmly in cheek, when I point out how accurately the drought monitor maps the Mad Hatters. The blood-red that is the middle of that map and all of my “homeland” has since the nineteen thirties been under Oregon Fish and Wildlife advisement to don’t eat the fish, don’t drink the water.
Mercury …
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Howdy Ten Bears!
Until we were able to purify water reliably and cheaply, most people did drink alcohol.
It is ashame that we’ve so despoiled our wilderness that it is dangerous to even visit. I’ve been backpacking through national parks in West Texas and come across radioactive areas where you weren’t allowed to enter. The folks living in Cancer Alley in Louisiana shouldn’t even be living there, but where else are they going to go?
The person who cuts down the last tree in the Amazon or refuses to curb their carbon emissions or tosses the next piece of trash onto our streets will have a good reason for doing it. Human nature being what it is, we can rationalize any behavior as okay as long as we’re doing it or it benefits us.
Huzzah!
Jack
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