I Did It!

Finally! I've been working all weekend on this and it's finally done!

If you're interested in reading about our adventures on the trip, you can click the picture below to read my travel blog.



Or, if you're not really into reading all the silly stories about our goofy antics, feel free to visit the following Tabblo pages of just photos.

And, now I can finally get a good night of sleep again. Whew!

PowWow

In my life, I've been to a few churches, seen a number of traditional ceremonies, and been mostly unmoved by them all. I've never enjoyed the comfort of rituals nor have I found beauty in formal pageantry. Perhaps this is from a life bereft of religion, customs and heritage, being an atheist mutt.

Yet, there is one solitary tradition, completely alien to me, that I find so moving, so beautiful, and so deeply inspiring that it bears my sincerest, heart-felt awe, as no other has ever elicited from me. Just to be allowed to be a witness to these events is a highlight of my life, and as long as they'll let me in, I will always seek to go. This is as close as I get to having a religious experience. I just cannot say how absolutely beautiful the whole thing is to me.

Here are the photos I took at the Potawatomi Trails PowWow, held in Shiloh Park, in Zion, Illinois today.

Potawatomi PowWow

Part of what appeals is the ancient traditions, the connection to nature, the gorgeous languages, and the fascinating people. At the end of the Grand Entry, an elder read aloud a prayer for good things to happen today, and as I listened to this foreign language, a swallowtail butterfly lazily floated right in front of my face. I turned to Ann and smiled, and she smiled back, as if this butterfly gave us both some peace and joy. Somehow, the sun felt better, the air felt cleaner, and my head felt clearer. I don't understand many of the meanings behind what we saw there, but it just felt good.

Sometimes, feeling good is enough.

Why Animals are More Interesting Than People

This is the second time I've found this monkey sitting at the top of his enclosure with a Pooh washcloth on his head. I think he either sits too close to the lights and is trying to prevent scalpburn, or he is a typical prima donna primate looking for some extra attention by putting on a sad show.


The petting zoo has an inhabitant named Elizabeth the cow, and after a rain, she tries really hard to lick the wet spots to try to dry herself out. Some wet spots are hard to reach. Through giggles, I shot this picture and even the zookeeper incredulously demanded, "You're taking a picture of a cow licking her butt?!" To this I answered in the affirmative and laughed so hard that Elizabeth looked at me and then turned around.


I just know that this orangutan was reading The Secret, and even if it was a library book, I can't blame him for his sentiment.


Some of the best people I know are animals.

At It Again

One of my coworkers was kind enough to offer to work for me today, given how damn few Saturdays I ever have off, so I jumped at the opportunity. It wasn't until later that I realized it is the fourth anniversary of my father's death, and I found my mother moping around the house, looking forlorn. After smacking her around and shaking some life back into her (not really, but I wanted to), I decided to take her to the zoo. The zoo was fun, but given that it rained quite a bit last night and this morning, and the humidity was somewhere around 100%, tiny raindrops were still clinging to every surface. BONUS!

This is partially why I love rain so much. Water makes everything prettier.

And I have A-V Boy to thank for it all! Thanks for selling me on the idea of getting a macro lens! And inspiring me to shoot water droplets!

Sacrifices

How long can someone survive with only 3.25 ounces of blood left in her body? That might be a high-end estimate. I think I might have less.

After I put my dinner in the oven, there was some thunder rumbling in the distance, and those of you who have a dog know that as soon as the weather threatens to get bad, the damn dog announces frantically that he must pee. This means you have to put on whatever protective gear you can find to deal not only with the inclement weather, but find the cloth leash (because chains in a lightning storm are unwise), put on shoes that easily slide on and off to protect you from standing on escaping worms, yet will protect your feet from the rain and puddles, and throwing on that rubber parka, even though it's 80º outside, to keep your pajama top and work slacks (because you've only had time to half-change clothes since arriving home) from getting drenched in the downpour. You take the dog out, and though it's not raining quite yet, it will be in a moment, which the dog doesn't understand. He decides this is a grand time to run full-force down the street and go for a high-speed, high-impact run around the subdivision, which almost dislocates your shoulder before you get him back under control. Well, somewhat. Finally he pees, and while his bladder unloads an unbelievably large load of liquid, you notice the lightning is quite dramatic and tell the damn dog to hurry the hell up, perhaps curse him a little bit for saving up his pee all day for this storm.

Yeah, well, all that is quite annoying, but for some reason, despite the danger I thought I was in while the dog was peeing, I actually went inside and grabbed my camera so I could return to the imminent storm and take lightning shots before the deluge began. Uh-huh. With a big metal tripod. And a mostly metal camera. In the middle of a field. With lightning. And I call the dog stupid.

My pictures weren't all that great because there were far too many clouds hiding the lightning, but three of the pics showed little fizzles of lightning. Okay, maybe you'll have to click to embiggen them to see the lightning, but it's there -- I swear!

All artists sacrifice a little of themselves for their art, right?

For me, it was my blood.

At 10 p.m., with an impending storm, every single mosquito in the Tri-State area heard the news that there was a juicy human standing outside taking pictures, and the swarm commenced. They were all over me in a way that I've never experienced before. They were in my ears, on my lips, up my shirt sleeves, between my toes, and in other unmentionable areas that had me wiggling like Jell-o. I even had an Æon Flux moment where I trapped one between my eyelashes, Venus-flytrap-style. It's very hard to hold still for 5- and 10-second shutter speeds when bugs are in your hair, up your nose, and under your arms, biting and sucking your blood. Somehow I managed to take 175 pictures, though. Do the math. I was out there for quite a while, bleeding to death into small siphons of thousands of insects looking to use my life to further their own species. Fuckers! And all I had to show for it was these three photos with tiny little fizzles of lightning.

Even the dog thought I was nuts. When I went back inside, pale and near death, he looked at me as if to say, "You know, if we'd been on that sprint around the subdivision, they never would've caught up to you. Now you're going to bleed to death out of a million microscopic holes and who's going to give me cookies everyday? Oh, wait, yeah, I'm cute so everyone will, but you'll still be dead. Stupid human."

That's me.

He's No Swan!

Hans Christian Anderson was a dildo.

We’re all familiar with the story The Ugly Duckling and the moral it preached about how ugly kids can grow up to be beautiful adults, or some such nonsense. There are some fairy tales that I think are beautiful and timeless, and there are some, like this one, that I think are garbage. This tale is about the equivalent of saying that if you’re flat-chested as a kid, you could grow up and have naturally huge knockers, so don’t fret about being an AA.

C’mon, you self-deprecating, pre-emo dork! Can’t you do better than that? Perhaps teach that there are more important things in the world than being a size 3, having bee-stung lips or a six-pack of abs you could crush a beer can with when you do a sit-up. Gee, maybe it would be nice for a kid to know that being smart and having courage are two traits far rarer and more precious than having big blue eyes and long lashes to bat at your mommy. Maybe it would be nice if the little cygnet got his revenge on the ducklings by saving them from habitat loss or leading them to food during a famine. Maybe it would be better if the entire story recognized that the ugly duckling was not only never a duckling, but he was never ugly, either!

HELLO! Have you seen what a cygnet looks like?! They are the cutest little off-white fuzzballs I’ve ever seen, with pastel-pink bills and big, dark eyes. What a stupid fairy tale that is when you consider how fucking adorable cygnets are!

Okay, Mr. Anderson, let’s look a little closer here. If that was supposed to be semi-autobiographical, with the “ugly” bird representing you and how ugly you thought you were, but it grew up to be the most beautiful bird around, perhaps this self-pity fest needs to be crashed. This “ugly” critter you saw as yourself is actually one of the cutest animals in nature. What’s that about? You want people to think that you’re self-conscious about how ugly you feel, but you really believe you’re a cute, fuzzy cygnet about to grow up into a gorgeous swan? I’m supposed to feel sorry for that? I’m supposed to find comfort in what you perceive as a turn of luck that means you will be stunningly gorgeous, so no one should tell you how ugly they think you are? Oh no, Mr. Anderson. Go cry on someone else’s shoulder! We are not that gullible. And if you think you’re a baby swan, then you’re a shallow braggart anyway.

Dildo.

And to help prove it, here are my pictures of a family of swans I met at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Tell me these things aren’t adorable! Mr. Anderson WISHES he was this cute!!

And, if you’re so inclined, I have more pics of peacocks, mountain goats, bears, lions and pelicans.

I swear I'll write actual posts again now that my vacation is over.

Meerkats!

If you've ever watched the show "Meerkat Manor" on Animal Planet and fell in love with a meerkat only to have your heart broken, allow me to invite you to my newest Tabblo of some meerkat pups at the Racine Zoo, who are all the tiniest bundles of cuteness I've ever seen and there is no bad ending! It's all good!

It is with regret that I cannot add any audio of this encounter, because if you have never encountered meerkats in person, you just don't know how adorable their constant tiny, little moaning noises are. You're just going to have to go see them for yourselves.

Wheeeee! Herons and Ducks!

Vacations are wonderful!

Patio Friends for B.E.

Not too long ago, Boyfriend Extraordinaire told me a story that totally tickled me.

He keeps stuff on his patio that he either intends to sell or that he can’t bring himself to throw away; things like old computer cases that have been gutted of all working parts. With only a tarp for protection from the elements, the patio detritus is a veritable minefield of mysteries.

There is a neighborhood cat who we call Kitty Schwee.



He lives next door to Boyfriend Extraordinaire with a guy who lets him out all day long, so Kitty Schwee hangs out with my Schwee all day. For about a year, Kitty Schwee had fleas so bad that he frequently had to go to the vet for treatment, and even had to have his tail shaved. As soon as he received his treatment, things would start to improve for a few days, and then he’d be infested with fleas again. Something was re-infesting him.

Boyfriend Extraordinaire hangs out on the patio with Kitty Schwee daily, and he’s even dedicated a little area of his garden to growing plants Kitty Schwee likes to roll around in. The cat might sleep in a house next door, but this cat has chosen B.E. as his human.

On the patio, B.E. noticed that there were tons of fleas, so one day he chased off Kitty Schwee and set off a flea bomb on the patio to kill the fleas once and for all. After all the fleas had died, B.E. decided to clean the area of some of the extraneous junk, and he hauled a bunch of old computers to the dumpster behind his house. One felt a little heavy, but he didn’t think much of it.

Well, that computer wasn’t empty. It was someone’s house.

I introduce you to Possum Schwee.



Possum Schwee survived direct exposure to a flea bomb, living in a computer for who-knows-how-long, and seems to have been a good buddy of Kitty Schwee’s for quite some time. So, um, B.E. carried Possum Schwee to the dumpster inside his home, a computer, and never even knew it. On the next trip to the dumpster he saw this cute possum peeking out of the computer he’d just placed there and the reality of it hit him. I would be lying if I said it didn’t freak him out quite a bit. Possum Schwee climbed out and trotted off, accepting his eviction with dignity, newly de-flea’d and perhaps a little disoriented. B.E. fictitiously told stories of Possum Schwee living in a nearby field, but I always worried about him.



A month or so ago, B.E.’s roommate spotted a baby possum in the backyard and B.E. didn’t believe him for a few days until he saw the baby himself. I was convinced Possum Schwee was a girl and she’d had a baby, which she brought back to the patio where she’d lived with her friend Kitty Schwee.

B.E. wasn’t too keen on possums. He said they were not cute and had scary teeth, so I spent lots of time sending him pictures of cute possums. He, in turn, sent me pictures of evil possums with sharp teeth. Let’s just say it was a draw.

Today I received this collection of photos B.E. took on his patio tonight. How cute is this?!



Possum Schwee and Baby Possum Schwee!



And then there was this shot, which I think was a yawn, but it drove home how wildlife has a serious side to it that’s not all cute and fuzzy.



So, now he has a Possum Schwee Family on his patio. I hope they get along with Kitty Schwee.

What I don’t understand is that this is a man who comes all the way here to see wildlife because he doesn’t believe there is much near him, and he has a zoo on his patio.

Babies Make Things Better -- ANIMAL Babies, That is!

Wheee! Baby geese! I made some friends in the woods today, and while I know many people don't like Canada geese, I really am hard pressed to dislike any species of animal, particularly babies. Tell me these little fluffy things aren't adorable!