Camelama

I'm hooked!

There's a neat little free web-based game that I've recently started playing and it's got me hooked. It's not an MMORPG, it's more like CIV and SIM games.

IKARIAM is a nifty little world of ocean, islands, and little tiny people in togas. You start a city on a random island, and grow your population, building, armies, and navies. Expand to other islands, conquer the ocean!

 Really the only thing I don't like about the game is how slowly I'm mining marble (work harder, my minions! work harder!) and that none of the "wise people" in the game are female.  C'mon!  Give me a gal in charge of something. I know, I know, you want big strong MEN in charge of your army. OK, well, then at least throw me the bone of having the person who tells me about my CITIES be a woman. Or the diplomat. Or the researcher.

Library of Congress favorites on Flickr

Check out this fantastic set of FSA/OWI favorites on Flickr!

Rainy day

Last night was frenetic around here .... pounding rain, 1" of hail, thunder, lightning, half-crazed squirrels falling out of trees onto me ... yup, it was a weird wild night.

But at least there were no black bears just two blocks from my house- THAT was two days ago!!!

As I sat and listened to the rain pinging on the stovepipe and rattling on the windows (blown horizontal in the storm), I was reading notes of my trip to England a couple years ago.  The day I randomly picked was Salisbury. That was also a horribly wet day, and I walked through the rain from the trainstation to the Close to meet some Thirkell Society folks for tea and a talk.

Luckily the skies cleared after the meeting, so that we were able to stroll the Close and discuss books and Thirkell even longer. The train ride home that day was interrupted when lightning took out the signals on the rail line ...  it's all connected, isn't it?

Big Happy Funtime Box

While I'm packing up and sorting out belongings (on a big minimizing kick - trust me, the living room is *insane*), I've had a little help from the cat.  And I mean, a little.

She keeps the boxes warm until I pack them:

She keeps me on my toes and alert by attacking me whenever I walk by:

And she keeps me entertained by pretending to be OH so innocent afterwards:

Favorite Things

The Domestic Divas Fancy blog is doing a giveaway - a box full of her favorite things!  You just have to leave a comment with your favorite thing. I chose satsumas for various reasons (if nothing else, because they are the easiest and cleanest peeling oranges!!!).

Other favorite things are my purry cat sleeping on top of me on a cool morning - I don't have to sleepily find the blanket and pull it over me, she keeps me warm and cozy! Then there's the sight of the mountains on either side of me as I walk to the end of my block - Olympics to the west, Cascades to the east. What an incredible view, especially in the winter sunshine.

What's your favorite thing? Go enter her giveaway!

ZOMG PON1ES!!1!!1!!

Today is Syttende Mai, or Norwegian Constitution Day (or "grunnlovsdag").  My neighborhood has one of the largest parades outside of Norway, and has been parading on this day since 1889. 

The Norwegian Fjord horses have been walking in the parade for the past 3 years, and this year they set up in the parking lot of the Nordic Heritage Museum early in the day, and allowed people to pet the horses.

So of course I took advantage of the situation! :) 

This is Ti, a 7 week old foal. SO FUZZY!!!! So soft, and curly little forelock and mane .... I just melted.

I was so intrigued by Mom's ears - the little brown rounded tips that dip over at the top.

Horsey rumps!  Heh. I couldn't resist this photo. Notice all the little kiddies petting the horses - the Fjords are so calm and phlegmatic, they didn't mind anything going on around them.

Doesn't Lana have the most gorgeous forelock?  Notice her mane - they trim the white outer portion below the black inner portion.  Supposedly in Norway right now, some people are trimming actual shapes into the manes!

 Mr Cow got some horse kisses.  :)

This happy little guy was bopping around the horses, very interested in them, the people, and all the bits to eat! He was so glossy in the sunshine, he shone purple and blue and black.

Street Fair!

Today was the 40th University District Street Fair.  Perfect weather - hot, sunny, dry.

The place was PACKED. Massive crowds. I had forgotten how crowded this thing gets - I used to live on one of the Street Fair streets, and the Street Fair weekend was always hellish. I'd hole up in my windowless closet just to get away from the steel drum band outside my windows that played 12 hours a day and only know about 10 songs total.  That and the smell from the food booths, all day and all night, was just insane. I couldn't eat all weekend, it would make me ill to breath that in all day long.

Thank goodness I live on the other side of the city now. I haven't been back for the Fair in about 15 years. So this was a nice stroll - well, shuffling shoving creeping through a mass of hot sweaty crabby humanity stroll - down Memory Lane.

This thing is so big, you need maps!

There are also lots of street performers at the Street Fair. This guy was supposedly some entertainer of some sort, but all I heard/saw him do in all the time I was near him was tell many many very very bad jokes. Very bad.

And while there are the lovely Seattle food booths like fresh salmon, shellfish, wild berries, local restaurants, organic food etc, what's a Street Fair without:

And when you got too hot and tired, you could head off east on a sidestreet, cross 15th, and go sprawl in the shade on the University of Washington campus:

Alas, I had to leave the sun and fun and head down to the sub-basement for work. Only.... why are the officially-named "Basement" and "Sub-basement" floors labeled "C" and "M"??!

Paint your Penguin

I've been selected to be a Penguin artist!  The Woodland Park Zoo recently opened a new penguin habitat, and to help raise money and awareness, the Zoo and neighborhoods are having a "Penguins On The March" event.  Various artists will paint/decorate/etc their penguin, the birds will go on display around town for a month or so, and then they will be auctioned off.

Here's my fella coming home, safety first:

Yup, the Miata was just fine for bringing home the Penguin.  I got to choose him out of a herd of possibilities - he looked like he needed the most care, what with no eyeballs painted on yet!

Here's Phoebe getting acquainted:

And here's the noble head of my artistic subject:

I can't wait to get started!! I have a couple ideas I'm mulling over, unfortunately most of my ideas need accessories, which would have to be waterproof, theft-proof, and yet still look good.  Mull mull mull.

I won!

A while ago I entered a give-away on the My Aim Is True blog, and turns out I was picked as a winner!

I won a lovely Envirosax.  I need some reusable grocery shopping bags, so this was perfectly timed. And I've been lusting after these for quite some time, even entering other giveaways.

The bag rolls up neatly into a cat-approved package (Phoebe was playing with it earlier like she plays with her mice):

And it unfolds into a HUGE bag, I could fit a whole shopping trip into this one bag! It can hold up to 44 pounds, and it can hold a lot of volume, too.
 

Gingko Love

My happy little Gingko tree survived our snowy winter (unlike other items in my yard - goodbye, little wild fuschia plant! sniff!) and is burstin' with leaves today:

So I was pleased to run across this on Etsy today:

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

I was chatting tonight in gmail chat with a friend of mine who has an Etsy shop (Canopic Works). The cards they sell are favorites of botanist friends of mine. She mentioned some of the new card new designs she's working on, including corpse flower cards, and then mentioned they're working on a set of "fantastical" cards featuring old illustrations of things like (supposed) man-eating plants etc.  And something called the "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary".

The who in the what now?!!?

Yes, the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_Lamb_of_Tartary

In that article it mentions that the Garden Museum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Garden_History) has a plant "under glass" that might have been some of the inspiration for the Veggie Lamb. I visited that museum, housed in a de-consecrated church, when I was in London in 2007. Alas, I do not recall that plant. I do remember the graves of the Royal Gardeners at the Museum. Also buried at the church that is now the Garden Museum? William Bligh,
Captain of the Bounty.

I can't stop saying "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary".

"You HAVE to try these donuts!"

I have a friend who's been saying that for months.  Finally she decided to force me to try them by giving me a box of these Kinnikinnick "Vanilla Glazed Donuts", a cake style donut.  These are frozen donuts, meant to be microwaved a few seconds. They are gluten free, wheat free, dairy free, soy free donuts.

I pondered the packaging, thinking, really? what's left? sugar and air?!? Could they be any good - I mean really. *Frozen* donuts?

Well, after 1.5 of these (little) donuts, the verdict is: good.

Nothing I'd hike out in the snow for, or even purchase myself, but definitely good eatin'.  Good flavor, good tooth to the cake, nice texture to the glaze. The glaze is very nice right out of the microwave and even for a minute or so afterwards.  Much longer than that, though, and it starts adhering to whatever surface it's on - but then again, any microwaved sugary product does that, so it's not a fault of their glaze, just a scientific fact.

The timing of the microwaving is a bit iffy, but that could also be my appliance - it's been known to produce, one after the other of the same brand, one unpopped popcorn envelope and one burned to a crisp - all at the same settings.  So to get one good and one pretty decent donut out of 4 attempts is good for my stupid microwave! 

If I had to make a choice, I'd choose getting showered/dressed and driving to The Mighty O for vegan donuts intead of microwaving these, but I wouldn't turn one of these down!  And if you're not lucky enough to be near the Might O, these are a definitely delicious alternative.

Do Re Mi

I know everyone else on the Internet has already seen this, but I only just found it this morning.  It's so wonderful!

Fabric-y goodness

A friend sent me a thank-you gift after I helped her with some home-repair chores - some fabric from Spoonflower!

I got a few yards of this cheery little number- I love the birds perched on the happy little heads.

Plus and minus

One of the bonuses (+) of being unemployed (-) is that I finally have time.  Time to do anything I want (as long as it's cheap!).

Today it's pouring down rain and high winds and a dark gray day. I needed some basic groceries, so added on a whole bunch of other errands and drove gingerly into "downtown" area of my neighborhood - the rain was incredible!

After running the boring time consuming errands, I drove to the grocery store and pulled into a spot. I turned off the wipers, lights, and engine, and sat there with the classical radio station on and decided I would simply sit and think.

At first I felt a bit silly - aren't the other shoppers going to notice?  But really, 10am at the grocery store in the pounding rain on a Tuesday, not many people coming and going. And I'm in a little teensy car between two monstrous SUVs.

So I just sat.

I thought about life, decided to avoid thinking about paying rent, and decided not to panic about finding a full-time job again (I'm working part-time at the moment), and decided also not to panic about ever owning my own home. I thought of the vegetable garden I'd love to have, the flowers I'll plant someday in my own yard, I thought about all the chores to do at home, I thought about what I'll do if the drains are still slow (my neighborhood plumbing is experiencing issues right now, it's just so annoying).

Then I decided to not think (har har, yes, I know, easy for me to do!) and just observe.

I watched the river of water washing down the parking lot, the waves of rain water moving across the curve of the asphalt.  I watched the rain increase, decrease, sputter out, start up again.  It pounded down, the wind rocked the car, and then suddenly it changed to little spitty sprinkles and the starlings were out and about, only to be chased back to shelter when all changed back to stormy weather again.

I watched the raindrops fall slowly on pavement, or rapidly on built-up rainwater - the big SPLOOSH kind of raindrops that leave little rings.  I heard it rattling down on the car or just hissing down softly.

I watched people dash to and from their cars, hating to get a single drop on them, or lazily wandering, not caring one whit if they got soaked (I'm one of those folks, a drip-dry kind of gal).

A man came by walking his two dogs, one miserable and head down, hating to put his feet in the water, drooping and dripping.  The other was jumping around, biting at the leash, careening off in different directions, chasing raindrops, wagging his tail, and just so darn happy!  A Zipcar came by and parked, taking up two spots.

A number of gulls were wheeling and diving in the sky above, playing in the wind and catching currents above the parking lot.

I finally got my belongings together and hopped out, got my one bag of groceries, got back in the car, and drove home through even harder rain, so hard that even the fastest wiper setting couldn't keep up.

It's such a joy to know that you are a) driving home, b) to a dry cozy house, c) where you can peel off the wet clingy jeans and sock and climb into pajamas and slippers, d) able to say "fergit this!" to the rainy windy stress-filled unemployed world and just crawl back in bed with the furry, purry kitty and take a nap.  I love that I have time to enjoy falling asleep to the sound of rain on the roof, the wind rattling the stovepipe, and the cat perched on my hip purring and happy to be napping together.