Here's a an interesting concept from Chuck Westbrook, a twist on the Book Club. A few days ago he had a post on his blog to help create a community of bloggers among those who have a small audience with those who are ever seeking new reading material. All you have to do is subscribe to the feed on his blog and show your interest by signing up in the comments section. Out of this list a blog will be chosen and everyone flocks to the chosen blog and swells their sitemeter and comments. More details will follow as this takes shapes, but hop on over to his October 23th post - already there are 438 blogs signed up to participate.

THE BIG IDEA: Ending the tragedy of underappreciated blogs
This is a problem we can do something about without too much trouble. Here’s what I’m thinking.Gather some nice bloggers who believe in helping good content rise. The more the merrier. This becomes our group for the project. A good, lesser-known blog is chosen. Everyone in the group will read that blog for two weeks.
At the end of the two weeks, the group moves to another blog to read. With scores of bloggers focused on a particular blog, the author should see many nice things happen over those two weeks, especially if the blog really is a hidden gem. This includes discussions, traffic, constructive criticism, encouragement, and connecting to some of the bloggers in the group. That author then joins the group and we move along and do it again.

Halloween Pumpkins

My neighbourhood doesn't appear to have many of these pumpkins on display

Gruesome pumpkin

Witchy pumpkin

Cannibal pumpkin
Cheeky Pumpkin(s)

Drunk pumpkin
Fiery Pumpkin

Fireman Pumpkin

'I am not a pumpkin' pumpkin(s)


Laughing pumpkin

smashing pumpkin

Oh, wait, maybe the last one....

cuteness

little piggy

littly piggy on kitty

little kitty parteh

Sam and Ella are home

Good news folks --- Sam and Ella have been returned!

Hamilton police returned Sam and Ella to HamiltonReptile.com at
noon yesterday. The turtle went missing Monday, leaving owner Marc
Cunningham heartbroken.

Police recovered the turtle Cunningham says is "priceless" after they got a call from the school. A student had taken the turtle and was turned in by others after they read about Sam and Ella's plight in The Spectator.

As a result, Cunningham will give a $300 reward to the Maplewood Avenue school.
"That's very generous of him," principal Kevin Heer said. "We're just really happy the turtle has been recovered and it's back at its rightful place."

Cunningham said he started getting calls at about 6:30 a.m. yesterday. Some said they had seen a young girl with the turtle. Others just called to express their concern.

The turtle is extremely rare and needs to be hand-fed to survive."He's back home now, and folks are welcome to come and see him, but he is in a locked container," Cunningham added.

Now, for your added enjoyment here is a turtlecam I stumbled upon. I was going to post a picture of a regular, boring, old one-headed red eared slider for you, but this is so much better. Maybe.

turtle soup

I have mentioned my cat, Abby, several times in these posts, and now my turtle, Otis, has informed me that he is rather offended at being so ignored. I noticed the other day that he was getting into an adolescent snit and trying to climb out of his home. Considering he is 25 years old, I thought this behaviour a little unseemly. When I got him, he was tiny, about the size of a loonie. (which hadn't even been invented, yet, so how do I know that was how big it was? Interesting thought.) I'd never thought about it before, but turtles need to learn how to swim properly and how to right themselves when they turn over on their backs. As they grow, you realize how amazingly strong their legs are, and their jaws, if you are foolish enough to get too close when feeding them. Bananas are a favourite snack, but can be a bit dangerous what with their mushiness and all. Turtles are also inclined to see fingers as food. And contrary to popular opinion they can move very quickly and will burrow if left out to play in the grass.

In other turtle news:







(found on Criggo)


and then there is the two headed turtle stolen from a local pet shop. Sam and Ella (I know, how droll) was last seen when three teenagers were in the store yesterday afternoon. Police say there is very little they can do, but if the turtles are not found quickly they will not survive.

An entertaining explanation of this can be found here from Jack Hanna.

(and when did youtube stop allowing downloads??)

Monday AMuse

saturday afternoon

The bath is drawn. Hot water filled with foaming, frothy bubbles. Ginger and Lime. Candles create a dance of lace patterned shadows on the wall. The lights are dimmed to just enough for reading. The Saturday Globe & Mail lies on the floor, each section carefully separated. A tray with a glass of juice, pear (with ginger and lime to match the bubbles) and a small box of chocolates is within easy reach. k.d.lang is singing.

She leans back. Sighs into the warmth. Opens the box of Lindor and unwraps the first of the three chocolate balls. She takes the Style section and holds arms aloft to turn the front page back.

Oops. What.....??

The Globe T.O. section has fallen. Thank goodness for the bubbles. It is only half soaked.


Later.... the dried T.O. section is mildly scented. Lovely.

or how I tried to kill a cat

There are two semi detached houses on my route where both halves get a newspaper. The doors are side by side, flanked by sticking-out garages. Every night I go up one of the driveways and toss the papers, sometimes simultaneously using both hands, sometimes one after the other onto each respective porch. Because the porches are set back, they are in deep shadow. More than half the time, I can hear the distinctive bell from a poor startled cat running off one or other of the porches. I have no idea what this cat actually looks like as I have never seen it and I don't know to which side he belongs though he seems to favour the right hand porch, the one with the wicker chair. On more than one occasion I have heard a loud meeeeoowwwwww and know, instinctively, that I accidentally hit my target. And that Saturday paper can be heavy.

~~~~~

When I visit my clients for a massage treatment (my real career), I bring my table and all the necessary accoutrement with me to the client's house. Makes me rather popular. My table has a nice big coat to protect it. There is a large pocket on the front with another handle to make the whole thing easier to carry. I don't usually use the pocket for much other than tossing in my appointment book and maybe my keys. Cats especially find this bag interesting and worthy of inspection, and sometimes for sleeping on. Many times, I've had to rouse a disgruntled cat in order to pack up. Once, I packed everything up and put the bag into the trunk of my car. I have two sets of keys, but only one set works in the ignition. As I sat down in the driver's seat, I realized the ignition key was in the pocket of the bag in the trunk. I go back out, reach into the bag and my hand touches something very warm and soft. I open the pocket a little further and suddenly a tiny marmalade face with blinking green eyes starts mewling. My client's months old kitten had made herself quite at home and put up with all the churning and tossing about without a sound or attempt at escape.

~~~~~

Today, I return from the computer shop with my hard drive after a failed attempt to recover my RSS feeds (sigh, so many lost blogs). I have also a bag of groceries in one hand, the tower balanced on hip and arms, and my keys in the other hand as I manoeuver my way into the living room. My cat is rolling on the floor in a lazy greeting and suddenly jumps up. I trip over her and manage to catch the falling tower, choosing to drop the groceries instead. I bang into the corner of the wall in order to save my precious cargo as the cat sits resolutely on the floor hunkered down, ready to be stepped on again.

unglued

The Weather Network declared the temperature to be -7 with windchill when I got up this morning to head out to work. Welcome back windchill. These first few days of winterish weather are, to me, always the hardest to take. I was just getting into the crispy chill, not the downright cold. Then the dreaded word SNOW. It is too soon, I say. Go away.

I have been wearing my trusty waterproof boots for most of the past year (remember the dew on the grass?) and they have held up well, though each time I tie them up, I wonder if the frayed shoelaces will stay intact until I finally get around to replacing them. Then the glue on the right boot started to come come off which wasn't too bad. It gave my foot a rather squared-toed look and was noisy and made me realize I should probably replace the whole thing never mind the laces. Then, about 10 minutes into my night, the glue on the left boot gave up. It made for a rather awkward silly walk as I tried not to trip over my flopping sole. But, I don't live far away so I was able to come back home and because I had cleared up my closet a few weeks ago, knew exactly where my heavy duty winter boots were (because I've not gotten around to replacing my running shoes...I obviously will be shopping later today). Problem solved.

A day or so ago the latch on my car door broke and I've not gotten that fixed either. It hasn't been too bad, but I do need to keep the window rolled down and open the door from the outside in order to get out. Okay, it is a bit of a problem. I did mention that it was a cold -7 with windchill overnight? So I wore my winter jacket with a warm sweatshirt, turned up the heat, opened the vents, aiming the warm air at my hands and left ear. Keeping my coffee hot would be a problem, what with the warm air vents aimed up at me, not down at my cup holder. So I timed it so that I could sit in the parking lot and label all the papers that needed labelling and had room to stack them in order. Still sipping my coffee, I started to stockpile some pre-elastisized papers for tossing. I reached into the box in the back and pulled out a new bag of elastics. Somewhere around the arc of pulling the bag over the passenger seat and onto my lap, the bottom of the bag bursts open. Size 16 elastics spewed out ALL OVER THE CAR. They got into every nook and cranny, front and back, but especially in that inaccessible space between the front seats. For those of you not familiar, size 16 are the little elastics. A 454g bag holds thousands.

I sipped my coffee, surveyed the scene around me. I may even have said a few words. Yes, I definitely said a few choice words. Eventually I carried on, window open, vents on full. I was tempted to slam the car door a few times, but instead, I got out my frustration by making the necessary noise from rustling through the crunchy dead leaves. Somehow, I found that quite gratifying. I drove through a few piles and scuffed at a few and didn't care about the ones that got caught on the laces of my warm boots.

On the upside, none of the snow reached my area.

Now, I am finishing off the last of the mulled cider and there is about enough for one more glass which I will take to bed with my toast and the papers. The comics had better be funny. I need a laugh.

cider rules

A warming drink for gazing out the window.
Start it now and by the time you've put away the patio furniture you can sit back and enjoy.
MULLED APPLE CIDER
2.89 litres apple cider (canadians) OR
2 quarts apple cider (americans)
6 cups cranberry juice
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
4 cinnamon sticks
1 1/2 teaspoons whole cloves
1 lemon, thinly sliced

Add all to a Crock Pot and simmer slowly for 1-2 hours.
Strain. Pour into your favourite mug. Enjoy.