Salutations and Welcome!
Let me know how you found me, where you're from, why you're here, a little about yourself, recommend a book, recommend a movie, tell me a secret, tell me something, ask me a question, etc. =)
Ad Astra,
The Bride of the First House.
bride (at) livejournal (dot) com
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| outside | : |  | 16.5°C |
| mood | : |  | ... |
胖胖 Pong-Pong is a bobtail orange tabby currently living with 
Husband Guy's Aunt & Uncle 3. "Pong-Pong" means "fat fat" in Chinese. As her name suggests, she has a big butt. Pong-Pong is a little over 5 years old and is already spayed.
She is ever so sweet, mellow and easy-going. I find bobtails are usually very sweet. She doesn't know me at all, so she was a little shy, but she did let me approach her; she let me pet and scritch her all over her head and she didn't mind me playing with her paws. I thought she was declawed at first because I was pinching her foot and I couldn't feel any claws at all. But, apparently, she's not declawed. She's just that mellow... and probably thinking, "what is this nutbar doing with my paw?"
Auntie & Uncle 3 are looking for a new home for her because they already have two dogs in the house. They want to give her to a friend or a friend of a friend.
跳跳 Tiao-Tiao, the Shiba Inu, gets along with her just fine. In fact, Pong-Pong is above him in the pecking order =D 소기 Soki, the Shih Tzu-Poodle loves cats and was raised with cats as a puppy, but is way too loud, rambunctious and playful in a way that Pong-Pong doesn't understand... and ends up freaking her out.
She used to belong to the Husband's cousins' girl-cousin in Singapore.
The Singapore cousin moved back to Taiwan, but Taiwan animal import regulations wouldn't allow her to import an animal directly from Singapore without a horrendous quarantine time period and questionable conditions. She tried to get around this by sending the cat to Aunt & Uncle 3 here in Canada and getting a battery of tests done in the US to prove a clean bill of health to satisfy Taiwan animal import regulations. Apparently, this is okay, even though it's the same animal.
But the Singapore cousin also became pregnant while this was happening and somehow also discovered that she is allergic to cats. I'm not entirely sure how that works either, I have never heard of pregnancy making someone suddenly allergic to cat hair or dander, but she now can't take Pong-Pong back at all.
I'm getting this fourth/fifth-hand, so it's all muddled and strange.
Pong-Pong has about 800 sqft. gated off to her away from the dogs. I think she'd be okay if she stayed with Aunt J. and Uncle R. in the long term. But she could use a loving, devoted family to herself. I would love to take her, but we can't have cats and dogs in the apartment and we have two birds already.
They've asked me to ask around and see if I know anyone who would like a cat.
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| outside | : | | 18.1°C |
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If you find [what you think is] abandoned baby animals somewhere, leave it alone. Unless they're in traffic or something equally dangerous, leave it right where you found it.
Leave it alone.
Did I mention to leave it the fuck alone?
Yes, I know baby animals are adorable and look like they're about to die. It's a survival technique. They do that so that they get taken care of. This is also why human babies are fat, have heads that are proportionally way too big for their bodies and eyes that are way too big for their faces.
Mother animals transport their brood in small steps sometimes and can leave some of their young unattended at some point in time. But they have a system and they know what they're doing. And if they don't know what they're doing, if they're too stupid to know what they're doing, then they really should die.
If you remove the baby, the mother will come back, find the babies missing and move on.
In fact, don't even pick it up and then put it back.
Even if you put it back, there is a risk that the mother will come back and not recognize the babies as their own. They will smell different now that you've put your stinky paws all over it. Then the babies are really screwed.
*sigh* RIP two baby birds who actually might have lived. I sincerely apologize on behalf of MY RETARDED SPECIES OF GIANT SMELLY LUMBERING MORONS. Gaaaaaaah.....
[Update - Sunday, July 29, 2007: 1200h]
I stand corrected. The parents wouldn't abandon their nest because of the smell of humans on their offspring. They could abandon their nest because of signs of disturbance.
| weather | : |  | light drizzle |
| outside | : | | 9.6°C |
| mood | : |  | relaxed |
two 
birds.
So, hopefully, we'll be moving very soon... ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
shashin, will you be available for an afternoon one weekend in the next month or two? I'd like to talk to you about a photo session of the house just before we sell =)
We've started looking for a place to rent/lease for about a year, maybe slightly more. We've contacted a few places on Craig's List, but there have been no responses so far. It's a bit odd.
We've been leaving e-mail or voice messages that say something like: "Hello, we're interested in the suite you posted on Craig's List [reference number]. We're looking to rent a place for three adult occupants (my husband, my mother-in-law and myself) for a year and possibly slightly over a year. We can be reached at [...]. Please let us know if the suite is still available. Look forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks."
I would have thought that was okay for a first ping. Is there anything else I need to be saying? Any magic words I'm missing?
One of the first things we were going to mention in a returned phone call or face-to-face meeting was our two birds. Some of the ads say "No Pets", but I'm not sure if people realize that avian pets aren't like dogs and cats. Cockatiels weigh at most 100g (3.5oz) which is really not enough to be capable of property damage. Our two stay in their cages and are only let out when we're with them. They might chirp when they hear someone, but generally don't make a whole lot of noise. They don't smell much. At their dirtiest, they smell like a dusty cardboard box. Their poop doesn't smell unless you don't clean it for months and months and we clean their cages almost every week.
Our original plan was to only rent for a few months, until we can do a few things to this house, sell it, buy another one, renovate it to our liking and move in to stay.
But now, a long time family friend has gotten my Mother-in-Law interested in house flipping. Now we want to buy a property with a really old house, tear it down and completely rebuild, live in it for a year, then sell it. Living in it for a year makes it a residential home, which is then GST exempt. From my point of view, that gives us a chance to see the workmanship and make sure the thing isn't falling apart before someone else takes it. But that's the QA in me talking. =}
We're really excited and supportive of Mom doing this... (why yes, as a matter of fact, I have been watching too much HGTV). =D The General Contractor she'd be going through is Uncle Ma, the family friend that told her about the properties that he's been working on. They all had one or two unique features, I guess, but they were all mostly boring and cookie-cutter to me. I think it's an excellent opportunity for her to get out there, learn things, do stuff and meet people.
I've always thought that only being a housewife was a waste of her life and her brain. She's well educated and very intelligent. She might be a little naïve sometimes, in certain aspects, but she learns fast and I'd be completely comfortable with her doing house flipping as long as Uncle Ma is in on it as well.
I'm not sure how I will feel to be out of this house. It's been my primary residence for a long time, so there are memories here, but I'm also looking forward to moving on, for various reasons.
We also saw the Brother-in-Law's new place this weekend. It looks bright, clean and new. It's a good size for him. It's close to work for him, it's in a pretty happenin' area and close to a lot of stuff. The current owners just put in hardwood floors and repainted. They have a cat that has the softest fur I have ever felt. I thought he was a girl at first because he was so soft. The couple was home for the inspection, so we chatted. The cat was a black domestic long hair with the silhouette of some maine coon, some ragdoll and in the sunlight, I thought I saw a ghosting of tortie in the hind quarters. He was shy for a four year old, but intensely curious too and, like most kitties, he was not going to pass up a head/ear/neck scritching, even from a stranger like me. =)
In any case, I would have preferred having the Brother-in-Law live with us over living somewhere else. But I can understand that when you get to a certain age, you want a place to call your own. I think when we finally find a permanent home, we'll try to get something that he can move into with us (like a semi-separate suite or something) but can be used for something else if he chooses not to live with us.
| weather | : |  | mostly sunny |
| outside | : |  | 17.6°C |
| mood | : |  | ... |
The dark curly-haired, spoiled rotten, territorial, snorty little bag of mostly coffee and Red Bull wrapped in fur, Shih Tzu-Poodle cross is 소기 (So-ki; I'm told it means "quickly" in Korean). He doesn't stop charging around. It's like he was born permanently jammed in fast forward. 소기 pretty much named himself, in that regard. =)
You'd think he'd knock himself unconscious once in a while from banging his head so many times on walls and furniture corners and things. But the little dude is still alive. We've even stopped wincing anymore. XD
The Red Sesame Shiba Inu is 跳跳 (Tiào-Tiào; Jump-Jump). He is quiet, shy, observant and just altogether an incredible dog.
跳跳 is so very very perceptive of voice inflections and the tonality of human speech. This creates the effect that he understands human speech. But if you think about it, that can't be true. Uncle R. and Aunt J. speak Mandarin. My Mother-in-Law speaks Mandarin to him. The cousins all speak English to him. He "understands" everyone just fine. It can't be the language that he's understanding, per se. He's perceiving something that's common to the way language is spoken.
跳跳 has been through a few owners before finding his way to Uncle R. and Aunt J. from their In-Law family who got him from a friend moving back to Asia who adopted him through some animal rescue organization. He might have been abused as a puppy. If he thinks you're mad at him, he lays down as flat as he can against the ground, presumably because it's less uncomfortable than being knocked off his feet. If you speak sharply to him or make a rattling sound with metal (like jingle your keys), he reflexively squints, blinks and shirks his head as if he's expecting to get pummelled in the head at any moment.
Sad, but he's very much loved and well taken care of now. And he's well-behaved enough that I think we could even take him if he needed another home.
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| outside | : | | 9.7°C |
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Someone shimmied up a tree over on Hornby Island, BC and pointed a webcam at a Bald Eagle nest! Here's the live webcam feed: http://www.infotecbusinesssystems.com/wi
It's a Mama Eagle sitting on a pile of eggs. =D I'm told that the Papa Eagle sometimes comes back with food and home improvement supplies for the nest, but I haven't actually seen that yet.
You get full sound with the feed, so yes, that is the Pacific Northwest wind whooshing, Canadian geese honking overhead and other random buggers around the nest occasionally twipping and thweeping. There's nothing wrong with your machine. =)
Lil'peeping eaglets are expected to hatch in the third week of April. This thing is available 24x7 until the little guys (and/or guyettes) are ready to leave the nest.
[Update - 1617h]
Oh! She got up to stretch and push the eggs around a little! There are two of them... *hee* =D
[Update - Saturday, April 29, 2006]
I hear one of the eaglets hatched this week. Aaaawwww... that's fantastic news. I haven't seen it. I go back once in a while, but I'd stopped looking at it regularly because they inserted some huge sponsorship segment before it loaded. It took forever for the sponsorship ad to finish and it really wasn't worth my while to put up with it.
The Husband and I were talking about how much to donate to Hancock House for the cause, but I was too turned off by all the blinking and jumping ads plus the half hour infomercial before the actual cam feed started. We might still... dunno yet.
[Update - Friday, May 5, 2006]
Oh, so I heard that nothing has hatched. That's rather unfortunate, but as I also heard, this pair of eagles has been nesting in the area for over 17 years. They're getting on in years, so not all their eggs will actually produce young.
I don't understand how people can have the gall to be upset at this. As if nature is a big peep show put on to entertain _you_. These things happen.
| weather | : |  | gorgeously sunny |
| outside | : | | 6.9°C |
| mood | : |  | *teeheehee* |
We've had The Puppy-Face™ for a while actually, I just haven't said anything about it yet. I'm not sure how it happened, really. She just cYOOted her way into our lives. She's a red and white Beagle (like the one on the far right).
There were three of them in the pen. They were a little more than a month old at the time. We were actually playing with her brother at first. She marches right up to us and just nosed her brother aside XD She looks up at us and gives us this sharp "HEY!" They say to choose the most active one in the litter and one with the most personality because that means they were one of the first ones born and therefore, least likely to have health problems later in life.
Her name is Sandy. We figured that's a clear and unmistakable name which will be easy for her to distinguish, even from my Mother-In-Law.
She's ridiculously adorable. =) Here she is doing a variety of things:
- Just wandering around by herself.
- She comes when I call her and will sit on command.
- She does "shake a paw".
- Watch, I can grab her tail and twiddle it at her, she'll chase it XD
- She can lay down.
- She's a HUGE sucker for tummy rubs.
Wow, talking from behind the camera, a Canon S300 makes me sound like an 8 year old boy with a lisp. XD
| weather | : |  | light showers |
| outside | : | | 11.3°C |
| mood | : |  | aaaw... |
I saw a squirrel at Oakridge once when I was in highschool. You feel really bad for the poor little buggers. They're all scared and confused. The trees, grass and the outside-ness just suddenly vanish. They're surrounded by a lot of cold, hard, flat surfaces and lots of big smelly two-legged animals lumbering around all over the place.
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| Photo by Davide Troise |
It was really adorable =)
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| outside | : |  | 13.1°C |
| mood | : | | cheerful |
- Animal Terms — The Indiana University Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior
- Male, female and baby animal names — Christchurch City Libraries
- Animal Group Names — Christchurch City Libraries
- Males, Females, Babies, and Groups — Enchanted Learning
The proper terminology for the young of any species of fowl is a chick. But, I find some of the more uncommon ones fascinating. A baby hare is a leveret. A baby hawk is an eyas. A baby quail is a cheeper or a squealer =) A baby jellyfish is an ephyna.
Animal group names are also very interesting. An exaltation of larks. A murder of crows. A richness of martens. A covey of grouse. An array of hedgehogs. A parliament of owls. A cete of badgers. A siege of heron. A bale of turtles. A bloat of hippopotami =D
| weather | : |  | partly sunny |
| outside | : | | 23.5°C |
| mood | : |  | happy |
So, I'm finally being more random about what I read. I'm always taking recommendations here. And I have a link to this post in my sidebar so anyone can toss me a title whenever. I still have to compile a few titles I got from some people over IM... =)
It's mostly in the Kid Lit That I Missed Out On Because I Read Nothing But Star Trek Novels Back Then genre. I did make a small foray into the AD&D (one Ravenloft and a failed attempt at a Dragonlance) books for a bit.
I haven't decided what to do with my book reviews. I'd like to make some mention of them, just as a time marker and a matter of record but I don't want to spam everyone. I'll post some, but I may set them to not appear in peoples' Friends lists. If anyone's really interested, there's always a list of all my tags on my main journal view.
This is one section of my public library online account:
Requests
Number of free requests: 50
Free requests remaining: 50
Requested items ready for pick up: 0
Requested items not yet available: 2
!! ... Uh, okay, this thing has synchronization issues. I just requested another item and it's now displaying 48 remaining with 3 requests. *sigh* I don't mean to be testing everybody else's software while I'm at work, but... it's just... so loopy... >K{ Maybe they're so thrilled that anyone even uses the bloody thing that they don't care how many you request. 50 items in Library terms is virtually unlimited anyway.
So, yeah. It takes a public library with several branches near my home and en route to and from Work, open until 9pm, having an online circulation portal that lets me request books to be delivered to a branch of my choice then e-mail notification sent to me, to get me back into librarying again. I pay enough taxes, this is the least they can do.
The organic food store next door to the library was an added bonus =) I'd never been inside, so I wandered in. I saw a box of Baby Bars (now discontinued) from the Endangered Species Chocolate Company and I couldn't resist getting the baaaaaby Stelmaria (snow leopard). =) Husband Guy is going to give me hell for buying shit just for the wrapper/box/container again...
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| outside | : | | 15.3°C |
| mood | : | | verklempt |
It's a White Eyed Vireo hatchling that I found here.
( Chance, the Baby Muskox (+2) )
Look at his fat little knees and clubby feet!! =D =D Here's the update article from last week: Yukon ready to take a Chance.
I'm glad there's a requirement in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
baaaaabyanimals to say what animal you're posting. This way, I can skip the kitten, puppy and bunny posts. Uncommon animal babies are so much cuter, especially animals that I've never heard of before. =)
| weather | : | | cloudy |
| outside | : | | 16°C |
| mood | : |  | aaaaaaawww... |
baaaaabyanimals
Oh. No.
I've seen this community mentioned before, but I had the good sense to resist clicking.
Until now.
I caved. I'm not going to survive this cuteness. I may as well claim long term disability now.
Speaking of a-nee-eenie-meenie-mals, 
The Chubby Chicken is now 82g. Her face even LOOKS a lot like the A&W Chubby Chicken. =D
| weather | : |  | clear |
| outside | : | | 12°C |
| mood | : |  | amused |
rosequoll's little am-nee-melle icons =) She's added more since the last time I've looked. magicwoman and kat_box: there's a Tuxedo Cat! And, K, there's a White Tiger too. =)
pne
magicwoman
kat_box
yueni
lordandrei
bride
I would have taken the Silver Dragon, but it looks like a goat.
母老虎 — "Mama Tiger".
I was born a Wood Tiger. "Mama Tiger" doesn't sound that bad in English. In fact, it sounds pretty darn cool in English and has positive connotations of fiercely protecting those we love. But it means "shrew", "vixen", "bitch" in Chinese. This is what Husband Guy's family called me.
| weather | : |  | rain |
| outside | : | | 11°C |
| mood | : |  | aaaww... |
About five or six years ago, we found this baby robin outside near our house. It was on the ground. Someone said it was probably a runt and actually pushed or thrown out of the nest by the mother robin because she knew he wouldn't live anyway.
He didn't look hurt when we found him, he wasn't limping or bleeding or doing anything strange. We took him in as a pet, kept him in an open cardboard box, fed him and played with him. Mother-in-Law dug up earthworms from the back yard. We cut them up into little pieces and gave them to him. He ate them all, no complaints. No one said anything about a vet and it didn't occur to me at the time.
I taught him to fly, sort of.
No, I didn't demonstrate XD I'd have him standing on one finger and I'd reach up as high as I could, then bring my hand down slowly. He'd flap both wings on the way down. I'd bring my hand down faster and faster, he'd flap faster and faster.
After a few weeks, I'd snap my hand away and I had him doing soft landings a few feet from where I was standing. I took him outside on sunny days and did that on the grass. Mother-in-Law loved to laugh that I was his Flight Coach. =D
He didn't last too long, he died after a few months. But he was a cutie while we had him. =)
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