Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.
Category: animals Page 12 of 16
Wonder Boy and I consider ourselves to be pretty green. We recycle religiously, we compost all of our non-dairy food scraps, we’re vegetarian, we’ve taken measures to make out home as energy efficient as a 110-year-old house can be. You get the picture. So when I heard about this year’s Farmers’ Fair in Covington, Kentucky, it piqued my interest. When I found out the keynote speaker was Ed Begley, Jr., I was all “Done deal, no debate – I’m going.”
I don’t have some secret crush on Ed. I’m not that familiar with his show, Living With Ed, though I have seen an episode or two. I just know that he is a man who is dedicated to living in a way that is environmentally friendly. And that is someone I can get behind.
I invited many folks to go to the fair but in the end it was me, my mom and Wonder Boy. Everyone else missed out because we got this close to Ed:
And his message was pretty cool. He basically said he makes okay cash now so he can afford to do crazy things to his house to be greener, but in the beginning he did small things. He encouraged people to only do what they could afford to and to move up the scale as they were able. First a composter, then a solar-powered water heater, then solar panels powering your house. That inspired me to push myself to do more. Maybe we can do an energy audit on our house and see efficient things really are? (We need to repair an obviously leaking front door first because otherwise we’re just setting ourselves up for failure.)
He spoke also about transportation. This is where I felt like I was being spoken to. Ed drives an electric car and has done so since the 1970s. The reality is, most of us have a very small area in which we drive and that area can be covered by an electric car. For Wonder Boy and I, we have made a choice to live very close to where we work (or to work very close to where we live) so that we don’t pollute with fuel. But we are still a two-person household with two cars, a scooter and, soon, a moped. That’s crazy. We also live about three houses down from a bus stop so public transportation is readily available.
I’m ruminating on this. Deciding how I can turn the message I heard into some positive action. I’m glad it got me thinking.
There was one other really great thing about the Farmers’ Fair. Baby animals!!!
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.
In efforts to grow professionally, I’ve been teaching myself more about digital assets, specifically how to make movies. (To be clear, none of this knowledge has been applied professionally.) For now, I’ve been making movies on the terrible iMovie, simply because I have access to it.
Movies are a fun little venture. So far I’ve been making promotional videos for the animal clinic at which I volunteer, Ohio Alleycat Resource & Spay Neuter Clinic. In blatant self-promotion of what I’ve made, you can see all of the videos at the YouTube channel I created for the clinic (I made every video in the channel).
Here are a few of the videos of which I am especially proud.
The video of Elliot helped him get adopted!
This video of portly Maude features Wonder Boy’s music.
The kitten ones are just fun to make.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.
On Saturday we lost Optimus Prime.
The last that Wonder Boy and I and I saw him Wonder Boy was holding him to give him a kiss before running and errand. In a moment of being goofy I ran up to hug them both and give them both a kiss so Optimus was in between us making grouchy old man noises and “putting up” with being loved on. Then we put him down and I threw him a rattle ball and he galloped across the room to play with it.
Sometime in the two hours after that he was gone. For someone who could have had such a bad death in the animal hospital, it was sort of perfect. We are really grateful we got to foster and then adopt Optimus. Yesterday was a very long, very sad day. But he’ll always be one of the sweetest kittens I ever got to snuggle with and I’m happy I was able to.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.
This weekend Wonder Boy and I went to Chicago to visit Mart Girl and has a blast. Mart Girl and I went to high school together and she’s one of the few friends I have that knew me back when I was a socially awkward 14-year-old. Also living up in Chi-Town are some other high school friends : Laquisha and Christy. (I’ll have to think about a fitting nickname to bestow upon Christy.)
Mart Girl lives in Lincoln Park about 2 inches from the train. (Literally, at her apartment all noise is drowned out by the rumbling of the train every couple of minutes and when you lie in bed you often look up to see a train worker about 2 feet away from you.) What’s great about where Mart Girl lives is how much stuff there is to do around her. Saturday’s adventures took us to:
- Scooterworks to buy Wonder Boy a plane fender crest
- Hot Doug’s to buy some hot dogs, although in the end we just gawked at how many people were in line to buy food
- Random stops at a lighting store and an ice cream stand
- The Lincoln Park Zoo
On the way to the zoo I get to pet a puppy. I am aware that when I announce that I sound like I am three-years-old, but who cares.
At the zoo Mart Girl, Wonder Boy and I got to see drama unfold like I have never seen before. In the chimpanzee exhibit the chimps must have been in heat, or something. All of the females’ tingly, private bits were hanging out for everyone to look out. It was like nothing I have ever seen. It was as if all of the parts that should have been discreetly placed within their crotch has been placed on a pink, raw, fleshy box and attached to their behinds. You could see poop smashed all up in their stuff!
While we watch the animals one big guy picked his nose and ATE IT, much to the disgust of the little kids standing next to us. Then a few of the chimps picked their butt holes and smelled it and then ATE IT.
To this point I was thinking, “Okay, if this is what we come from, gross.” And, “Thank god we decided to wear underwear.”
Then one of the males (identifiable by the lack of genitals hanging off his rump) made a pass at one of the ladies (my interpretation) and she went off at him! She was SCREAMING! at him and chasing him around the exhibit to the point that he would balance himself on a tiny ledge where she couldn’t get him and just hang out. When he thought things had died down he would sneak back to the ground and she’d be off SCREAMING! again and chasing him all over.
All of the moms (and Mart Girl, Wonder Boy and I) were hooked, hanging over the rail with our mouths open like, “Damn! I’d bring the kids to the zoo every day if it was this exciting.”
With that much drama, I started to relate to the chimps, even if they are booger and poop eaters.
Then we went inside and saw another chimp exhibit. One of the chimps climbed up on the branches and got really close to the window that we were all looking in. He took all of the POOP that was in his mouth and squished it against the window and then proceeded to play with it.
I now resolutely deny evolution. No way.
At least late. when Mart Girl, Wonder Boy and I met up with Laquisha and some of her friends, we knew when to expect. Covered arses and contained poop and boogers.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.
