Animals
Is Barnie's face more like a barn owl's or a snowy owl's, really? I've been wondering...both typically have white faces with huge dark eyes, dark beaks, and little caps on top. Barnie has an emphatic dark gray stripe down her nose that gives her a very owly-looking face. Maybe it's more like some snowy owl faces than like this barn owl's. Barnie is not really answering to any name yet. She is living in the barn, so "Barnie" still seems like her name. If she ever learns to trust me enough to answer to a name (or demonstrate that she doesn't hear enough words to answer to a name) and she's still with me at that point, she'll have an opportunity to change her name.
http://thevagabondtabby.tumblr.com/post/151886979704/gobe-last-night-i-photographed-a-barn-owl
This is rare, although I've seen it happen: a formerly feral cat not only bonded with a human, but accepted that human's house as her home. (At the Cat Sanctuary, partly because I don't force these things on the cats, it's been a generational progression: Patchnose let me pet her but not carry her; Polly let me carry her, and once spent a cold night indoors, but never really relaxed indoors; Bisquit was a pet who lived on the porch; Candice was not a real pet but brought up her kittens indoors; Heather and Irene think the mud room belongs to them, and last spring Heather lobbied unsuccessfully, but with determination, for complete control of the office as well.)
http://www.mochasmysteriesmeows.com/2016/10/mudpie-interviews-former-feral-oona.html
This cat was a rescued stray, not from a shelter. This type of animal rescue is by far the most ethical and humane! Cute pictures, too.
https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=126553
This cute cat is letting its human know that it wants to play the classic kitten game, where if the human tickles that soft inviting underside the cat is going to grab and nip the human's hand.
https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=105753
For the dog people, here's a cute photo essay from Barkley
, who really does help other animals and whose book I'm waiting to receive in the mail...http://thebookofbarkley.blogspot.com/2016/10/say-cheese.html
Time for a rescued animal feature? Here's a cat who needs to be rescued from (I think) a relatively decent local shelter. I don't like looking up local animals on Petfinder, though, because they post so many links to the Johnson City animal shelter, a horrible place where the "rescued" (or stolen) animals aren't kept in physical cages but in more permanent mental cages formed by keeping the animals doped out of their minds. I walked in there once, saw twenty different cats lolling around in a mock-up of a home with a couch and armchairs, petted a cat who woozed over to me, and thought "Will this wretched animal ever, as long as she lives, even see that I'm not the person she's remembering on her drug trip? Coming off a trip like that is an appalling experience for a human who's chosen to get stoned and more or less deserves it--what's it like for a poor dumb animal?" I would have serious doubts about whether any animal rescued from that shelter would ever become a pet worth feeding. However, Kingsport and Blountville have shared a shelter that uses physical cages, from which I have rescued at least one cat who eventually became a great pet for someone else (she was in the shelter only a few hours); this more yuppified "no-kill" shelter claims that Flame is living in relatively normal conditions in a temporary home, although they won't let people check up on that claim, and I have doubts.
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| Adopt "Flame" of Kingsport from Petfinder at https://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/34544350 |
My experience has been that these pale orange and white "biscuit-colored" cats seem to share a unique sort of personality, maybe similar to Siamese cats--I've not lived with a purebred Siamese, so don't know. They can seem hostile at first. Young kittens of this color will dodge, hiss, spit and sometimes even bite, even when their mother presents them to her human. This is a test. If you persist in being friendly, they bond with you and become very affectionate pets, possessive, maybe even jealous or clingy. I lived with our late lamented Bisquit for years (not enough years, and I blame Monsanto's "Roundup"); maybe because I avoided petting her because it went to her head and made her jealous, I don't remember her ever pulling away or ignoring a single possible crumb of attention. If you feel that most cats are too aloof, taking the time to bond with a biscuit-colored cat might be ideal for you.
Flame is female, as was Bisquit. A majority of either bright or pale orange cats are male, but normal healthy females occasionally inherit two copies of the gene for orange fur. Can we find a biscuit-colored male, in case anyone out there wants to rescue a male cat? Maybe in Washington, D.C...though I warn you that D.C. shelters may be "rescuing" pets stolen from loving homes in places like Kingsport. If you like "Mojo," please investigate his history carefully...
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| Adopt "Mojo" of D.C. from Petfinder at https://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/36486686 |
Books
For those who get into Halloween and "gorey" things...Edward Gorey's work wasn't usually gory or gross, but weird in an amusing way. (A fellow I dated during my post-mononucleosis ace phase appealed to me because he looked like a Gorey illustration. Somehow that seemed to indicate that he'd be nice, funny, and a good asexual friend--which he was.) Gorey was the illustrator of choice for all kinds of quirky-funny books, and also wrote several picture books of his own; today's Featured Amazon Book Link is an omnibus edition.
http://acesareroyaltytoo.tumblr.com/post/151842967286/famous-asexuals-edward-gorey
That writing job could be considered publicity for a certain forthcoming Second Edition of a certain book for which misleadingly low sales figures were initially reported. Hmm. Aunts certainly don't endorse books that feature nude pictures of "Worst Actress" award winners, but Amazon suggested this related book, which is funny...unfortunately Amazon won't let me see the recipes without buying a copy!
Christian
From Penny Nance:
"
Pray for the salvation and complete life change of radical extremists.
God, you are the Creator of all men,
No one is too far from your reach.
We ask that in your incredible power,
You bring radical terrorists to their knees
To repent and turn from their wicked ways.
Isaiah 55:6-7 – “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”
"
Food (Your Call)
Chocolate...chili...quesadilla? Definitely the strangest recipe I've seen today. Well, there's no actual cheese involved and the chocolate is a dark chocolate flavored with chili instead of milk and sugar, so maybe, depending on your taste, you'd actually eat it.
https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=120654
Food (Yum)
Need I mention that if you have a reliable source of GMO-free corn tortillas and glyphosate-free rice, this would be gluten-free?
http://mausersandmuffins.blogspot.com/2016/10/diy-time-buying-tips-and-burritoes.html
Here's a nice frugal fry-up:
https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=126540
If you use rice, or rice-based pasta, it may not be Hungarian but it'll be a cheap gluten-free one-pot meal:
http://thesavvyage.com/grandmas-hungarian-goulash-recipe/
Venison anyone? (About this time last year I saw a poacher spot a big buck deer in a neighbor's woodlot, leap out of a truck, and hit the deer with one lucky shot. It was out of season. Maybe if the deer had suffered I would have reported the poacher. Since the deer never knew what hit him, and the neighbor didn't particularly want to breed more nuisance deer in the woodlot, what was there to say but "Great shot, man!" However, there's a reason why hunting season is in winter. In warm weather there's some risk of catching undulant fever from eating wild game. So, save these recipe for later if you live in Virginia, please.)
https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=126972
Fun
How hard is it to walk a straight line, and why?
http://nowiknow.com/dire-straights/
Music
I don't post audio clips here, but +Martha DeMeo can and does. If you're an Alabama fan, you'll enjoy the two audio links in her blog post:
http://themarthareview.com/listening-to-music/
Btw, during yesterday's shoe blog writing I remembered that Jimmy Buffett's greatest hit features shoes...I can't listen to it on the computer, but that's not a problem. I listened to it enough as a teenager that it replays flawlessly in my mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue2-ZVxpVjc
Phenology
Some more beautiful autumn roses.
https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=128258
Hurricane survivor story.
https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=127004
Pictures
Minnesota:
https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=79704
New Zealand:
https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=114267
More New Zealand:
https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=119299
Poetry
Celebrating Northern California:
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4144109.html
This poem brings to mind probably the oddest couple of e-friends in my blog feed, Elizabeth Barrette and Norb Leahy (our main source of Georgia updates). Will they ever like or read each other? I have no idea, but I manage to like them both...so here, NTL, is EB's peachy Georgia poem:
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4143652.html
Now, wouldn't you like to see what EB wrote about Virginia? I have, and it's cool. Fund it to read the free-verse poem "Tunneling Through Virginia."
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/4138471.html?thread=17352679#t17354983
+Sandy KS wrote a cute poem about a pumpkin:
http://rusty2rustyschatter.blogspot.com/2016/10/if-i-were-pumpkin-poem.html
Politics (Election 2016)
Scott Adams considers Trump's alleged (and Bill Clinton's confirmed) sexual sins from SA's inside view as a male celebrity. My comment: They have a point. Feminists also have a point that male celebrities tend to let the self-serving bias run away with them, to such an extent that I still believe today that, if I had taken the opportunity to meet President and Mrs. Clinton when I was researching their history in the 1990s, and had spoken to Bill Clinton with the same don't-support-but-don't-hate bare courtesy I would have directed to Hillary Rodham Clinton, BC would have read that plus my body shape as a nonverbal invitation. If any male celebrities happen to be reading this, I don't care whether you know firsthand that a woman once wrote something about how attractive you were--that was then, this is now. Unless she's confirmed within the past five minutes that she seriously wants your body now, you should assume that that past comment was intended as a joke. (If it didn't read like a joke, you should assume that that's because she's not a very witty writer. And you might enjoy SA's book because he's a very witty writer.)
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151933602961/lie-detection-and-scandals
Documentation of fraud? I can't watch the videos, so I don't know:
http://fauquierfreecitizen.com/smoking-gun-democrat-operatives-admit-voter-fraud-and-inciting-violence/
Travel
Bing's irregular e-mail asked what Alaska is the home of half of the world's supply of. I didn't know. Here's what. (Warning: pretty pictures hosted by commercial travel site; high cookie potential.)
http://www.alaska.org/advice/glaciers-in-alaska
This one's not commercial, anyway:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_McKinley
Writing
Have any of you readers used this site yet? Your thoughts?
https://bayart.org/2016/08/31/updated-what-makes-a-strong-blog-post-why-contribute-to-bayart/
What about this site? The post asks for comments. I typed in a few. They did not show up right away, nor did a message about their being moderated show up. That says to me "Your comments are not welcome at this site. You are not welcome at this site." I know this message is coming from something in Wordpress's over-ambitious programming, but why would I ever want to subject myself to it again? My tip for all writers: Don't use Wordpress or any Wordpress-hosted site unless you're being well paid for using it, and don't expect anyone who's not being paid, also, to read what you post at a Wordpress-hosted site if you are being paid.
https://twodropsofinkat.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/chirping-crickets-and-comments/
Problogger is worth following--for the writing gig advertisements if nothing more--and this podcast is worth watching/listening/reading. (I never listen to podcasts; if the full text is available, as it is at Problogger, I'll read it, and if I think it needs sharing I'll share it.)
http://problogger.com/podcast/160/
Though I've signed out of Linked In forever, some people still post some good things there:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140723171956-15919267-the-top-10-reasons-most-books-don-t-attract-publishers
Yougov
If you've not joined this survey group, there's still time. When you join (and take a few surveys) both you and I get bonus points toward free stuff...and I already have a short list of people waiting for me to make things with the free stuff I get from Michaels via Yougov. I could almost do my knitting-as-a-hobby-that-pays with Yougov/Michaels alone. This is a legitimate survey site; the (mostly boring, shopping-related, but short) surveys work on small, cheap, or old devices, and the site does not send out spam. If you are not a crafty person, you're not limited to free stuff from Michaels. Several stores and restaurants, including Amazon, offer giftcards in exchange for Yougov points. Big-chain stores currently participating include Lowes, Sears, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Macy's, and many more. You can sign up without using a referral link, but both you and I get points if you use this one.
https://today.yougov.com/refer/brglBv6yISldXGeAQbYXBg/
Zazzle
The sale was supposed to be on "Wall Art." Is a plaque "Wall Art"? Anyway, here's Valentino:
Here's a patriotic police dog.
Here's a poster advocating general mental health...
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