ok, I think I have my new favorite game...

..figure out the internet's priorities by doing image searches in google.

When I looked up a picture of a mouse (of course, thinking of the rodent kind, being the biologist that I am), this is what I get:

...just, wow

I was looking for an image to illustrate how different cultures view particular species differently, and I was going to focus on the very friendly example of dogs (which are adored in the US and despised as unclean in other countries).

And I knew that black dogs were harder to find homes for once they're in the shelter (that's part of the reason we picked Shasta). But holy crap, really???



What do all these puppies have in common? And what does that say about us?

It doesn't seem like much...

...until you count it up. My work email was telling me I was getting close to my quota, so I needed to clean it out, so first stop the send folder. Guess how many emails I've sent since January 1 this year? 493! You don't even want to know how many I've gotten...(I've already cleaned my inbox up twice so far this year).

Great Falls

...is gorgeous. (Ha. I didn't even catch that pun. Jim did.)

Lookin' good Morris

Here's some pics of the Morris chair in it's new and improved cleanliness! It's still pretty comfortable too!

It looks all elegant with the plant, lamp and rug "Pour me a brandy, Jameson-there's a good lad!" :P
I wish I'd taken pictures of what the old under-seat cloth looked like, then you'd really appreciate how much better this is...

The real work was under the hood, though, with new twine for the springs and some reinforcement for the broken one--you can see the piece of copper tube in the upper left of the picture (although even as I write this, Shasta tried to eat an extra piece that had rolled into a corner of the room, so maybe not my best plan).

All in all, a pretty good clean-up.

A cat found us

A cat found us.

We think it's a girl cat (it's harder to tell than you'd think, when it doesn't want you to know). It's very, very friendly. And very, very pointy. And very, very, very vocal. And young - full-grown, but kitten-like.

She's stripey and has yellow eyes and now that she's fed and had a bath, not as scruffy as she looked originally.

Now what? We didn't really want another cat right now...

We're calling her Muse.

Overheard...

Me: "(long, rambling story about what I was thinking about that began with what I'll say in my interview next week and how when Shasta tries to chew on Gemini's head these days, it seems perfunctory, more out of habit than pleasure...)

....SO, what were you thinking about?"

Jim: "uh.................... screensaver?"