Chicken vagina lies set straight

Below is a classic video of mine titled Chicken Vagina.





But there's something that you need to know. I lied to you. Chickens don't even have vaginas. They have cloacas. And most boy birds don't even have penises either.

This is an amazing article about fowl genitals: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Wild-Animals-705/Birds.htm

Credit: Shane and Michael

Birthday - first halfsies

After a lovely Denny's dinner and sleeping at a truck stop east of Barstow, I woke up early and had a delicious bacon breakfast at Mad Greek Cafe near Baker, CA which boasted the "Best Gyros in the USA." It was too early to find out if that was really true.
Across the street was a popular place that I wish I had known about the night before:
Next I headed into the Mojave to find Cima, Ivanpah, Vanderbilt, and Rose, most of which are abandoned rain stations/mining towns within the natural preserve.
Houses at Cima: Vanderbilt was basically one large foundation and a wall: Looking through a busted main frame at Rose with peeping Joshua trees: Next I went to find Ivanpah. There are actually two Ivanpahs. One is in the Mojave preserve and is an abandoned train station, and the other is off of highway 15 just outside. I followed Varney's instructions very carefully, noting my milage and everything. I ended up winding left and right down these crazy dirt roads and finally landing on a Y and not knowing which way to go. The road up ahead was impassible, so I got out and started walking. I quickly realized that I was on the wrong road because I could see the stone walls of several 100+ year old buildings on the road below. I turned around to go down and that's when I saw many gigantic kitty cat prints in the sand. I know...they might look like dog prints...but these things were massive.

A bag of gummy frogs later, and on my way to a Lake Mead camping spot (where the grocery store cashier sang happy birthday to me and a mean lady with 6 golden retrievers was camping), I found this very interesting desert structure. Funny Varney never mentioned it.

Days 3 through 5 are coming up shortly, and they are better because I am older in them.

My little gma

For the winter holidays I went to Texas (read about insane ordeal and Chinese food airport breakfast here). As most of you might know, my grandmother has Alzheimer's. She was much quieter this year than in the last several years past. She didn't join in the conversation this year or joke as much.

My uncle Jim got my aunt Lesley a baby doll as a Christmas present this year. My grandmother held it for nearly an hour and talked about it constantly. She kept saying things like, "If anyone came in here and they didn't know this was a doll, they would think it was real." And then she would stroke it's hair or examine its hands. And a few minutes later she would say the same thing. Since I didn't know how to interact with her much this visit, just watching her with the doll was nice.

Don't mind the dogs in this video. Lefty is the big one, Annie the small one.



Also, I think I already mentioned the Brownsville Zoo, but the kangaroos and gorillas were something else.

Texas - I made it!

My itinerary to get to Harlingen, TX for Christmas was as follows:

Oakland to George Bush International - the red eye - 12:35AM to 6AM

George Bush Intl to Harlingen - 9ish AM to 10ish AM.

Instead, my red eye out was oversold. No body gave up there seat for me and why would they? The Continental staff couldn't find me anything. Did I want to fly into San Antonio and rent a car to drive to Harlingen in the middle the the following night? No. Did I want to fly on the 23rd and return on the 25th? No.

After waiting with two tearful angry men until 2AM I finally got it sorted out. I would take a shuttle to San Jose airport, take the 9:55AM to Houston and the 6PM to McAllen where the family would get me.

I was compensated $275. And although I would have preferred a hotel to the San Jose airport floor, I did get breakfast and lunch vouchers.

This is me sleeping in the City Shuttle on the way to San Jose from Oakland. Half way to the airport we went BACK to Oakland to pickup two more travelers. I guess the van was more comfortable than the floor was about to be (I used my shoes as a pillow).

I ate fried rice, bacon and eggs with my breakfast voucher at 4:30AM in San Jose.

YUM.

This couple was soo into the Bush History montage in Houston International.


My trip was awesome but way too short. Lesley and I went to the Brownsville zoo on the 24th and saw a baby gorilla, baby kangaroos and baby meercats. OMG.



More soon...I'm back at George Bush Intl right now starting to doubt that I'll be home tonight.

Turkey Days

If you are me on Thanksgiving: You go to your aunt Jean's house to meet up with your mom and your Jean and many dogs (8).



Then you go to the aquarium for dinner.



Then you play poker with your family and some small dogs.




Then a certain small dog sleeps with you.



You also play scrabble and get together with the FolkaDots (these pictures are actually from a previous FolkaDot gathering).




Then you Turkey Trot with a bee.

Heinz 1992 - 2007

My Tiger has gone up with the huge kitty in the sky. She loved her dog Yoda.

They have landed!

Last night I sat for three hours and got my Lunar Landers colored in. :)



Jesse told me to sleep in the plastic wrap stuff. Birdy hated the sound it made when I moved and made big hair and eyes at me.

I call it "Banjindia"

These pictures are a mix of both Madeline's and mine from our travels in India. The banjo of course is yours truly.

Garbagefish and other dirty things

On the way to Rough and Ready many things happened (read more here and here about R and R, Bridgeport and French Corral). First Leggy and w.d. and I couldn't figure out how to get a camp site...and we ran into a nessie-infested yet beautiful reservoir near Dark Day Campground. Then we meandered out an around a huge dam that I didn't even know existed. My truck hung out with other trucks
and then we booked our campsite with some lady on a floating-campsite-booking-office out on the water. Said lady told us we could feed the fish.

Me: "What kind of fish are they, there's some big ones."
Lady: "Oh, those are just garbagefish....they are really loud."




Then, as if that wasn't enough, we had trouble finding firewood, we ate luke warm chili, and it rained on all of us...soaking the tent corners and dripping through the truck onto my head. Don't get me wrong though...we had a great time. The best was the Fruit Jar Pickers, Rough and Ready's one and only weekly concert. Oh yes.

I put some gratuitous ukulele from the ukefest at the end.

Garbagefish on their way / NOPD

So, I've heard that people are sick of my prehistoric palm movie and that they want to hear about garbagefish and see garbagefish footage. Okay okay...coming soon.

I was just in New Orleans for the National Coalition of STD Directors annual conference (hail Kelly), and contrary to popular belief, I didn't just talk about chlamydia the whole time. In between sipping coolaid-lace drinks and feeling full of beignets I went on an informal tour of the ninth ward and south ninth ward. Louisiana's STD director drove us through and told us all about the rebuilding efforts as she's experienced them from the health department stand point.

Many folks down there call the hurricane "Hurricane NOPD" because the police basically took over the main STD clinic in New Orleans, looted it, and denied doing so. Booooo.

What left a lasting impression on me was the way that many gutted homes were being literally eaten by weeds and covered over with green. Homes that still had their facades were marked by a familiar spray painted X with four quadrants. One quadrant specified the date the home was searched, one said who searched it, one said how many people were found and the other specified the number of animals found. Often next to these Xs were sprayed statements like "John and Brenda are okay," or "young dog under house."

Prehistoric palm movie

This palm tree almost died when I went to India. I cut a few of it's fronds off when I got back and it sprung back to life and its babies grew like weeds. My intent was to show them growing over a few weeks. That kind of happens here. Note Birdy.



Oh and that isn't me playing. The only banjo song I could find slow enough was from my beginner's cd, hence the metronome.

Home again home again rat tat tat

In between imagining that I still need to dodge cars in traffic, that every piece of food will poison me, that every skinny animal needs to be saved, and that I can never (ever) eat aloo palak again...I am re-acclimating to being home again.

I can't really process the pictures I took just yet, but stringing together a bunch of boring videos was easy. Here is a completely unedited group of videos (guaranteed to be boring), sans narration. It comprises snips from our trip from Mumbai over to Tamil Nadu, down to Kannyakumari, and up through Kerala back to Mumbai. Note the stack of egg flats on the back of a bicycle and the ferocity of the goats.

More to come.

Arrival in Mumbai!

I made it to Mumbai after 24 hours in transit. Once I got to Madeline's hotel my wallet was totally empty because the cab drivers swindled it all away. I am so gullible. I also want to rescue all of the skinny little bobble-head kittens who like to rub their faces on parked scooters.

Today I learned how to wipe with water, that chocolates melt here, and that Madeline's pants are like Ali baba's pants.

Now we're off to the tailor to pick up Madeline's custom business suit. (Hot!)

Not sick yet...

Little terrors and a perfect cat

My mom and her doggies came to see me this weekend. We lost Spud instantly and later found him on the roof. He really liked to run up the edge. I did not like witnessing this.
Pansy on the other hand recently broke her foot and has a cast/booty that makes her looks like a hairy little ballerina.
The next morning my mom woke me up at six because that's when coffee is supposed to be served. My half and half had soured and I refuse to shop before leaving the country, so we used mint chip ice cream.
Birdy spent most of Friday night and Saturday morning in the kitchen cupboard where she is safe from the daredevil and the ballerina.
Sitting on your food machine does not make it turn sooner!
I'm leaving for India in three days to see Madeline! I am going to try and blog from there, but it probably won't be too easy. Thanks to everyone who kept me company in my lonely summer moments.

The Butte Store and more (PART 1)

There were several minor freakouts before Wild Dani, Legs and I settled into our weekend in and around Amador County. First we couldn't find a campsite...and despite my calm, no-let's-not-plan nature, I got a little nervous. When we finally found "Indian Grinding Rock" camp ground W.dani and Legs realized that we had no stove. Limp finger pointing ensued so I ran off to pee only to return to news that there was also no tent...and no coffee making stuff. 'OMG' you must be thinking...but everything turned out just fine. We slept outside both nights and I never even needed a sweatshirt. The second night however a giant animal ran through our camp. That was scary.

We hit Fiddletown (settled in 1849) in the morning after a brief stop in Volcano (1848). Volcano was a bit too cute for me, but has a lot of firsts including first library, first private law school and first theater.

Fiddletown, named for the 'fiddlin' around' that the people there did, had a giant dinosaur skeleton. Man this town is old.

After seeing a baby fox on the side of the road drag around too run-over legs I was very sad. Not even seeing the dramatic Kennedy Mine in Jackson helped. I am so sensitive.

Although the town of Butte has all but vanished, Butte Store was really cool. There has been some heavy reinforcements put in to help keep the walls from falling.

Near the Mokulemne River was a burned down appliance store. My theory was that this car crashed into it...the driver got out and lifted the hood to try and put the fire out...and poof, up in smoke went all of the shiny appliances. Charred refrigerators and ovens galore.

I really liked these spiny flowers

What trip is complete without almost stepping on a giant snake? Luckily this one was not a rattler. I also got a pretty good video of it that I'll post soon.

Campo Seco was another good find, although mostly off limits to help protect the endangered Valley Elderberry Longhorn Beetle. Three roofless stores, including the Adams Express Agency building, were all in a row with trees growing up from the ground. We didn't see the school which Varney has a great shot of.

Our evenings were similar to most camping evenings I've had this summer. A few beers and more than enough exploding marshmallows. I'll blog day 2 soon!

For the creationists

Cute little baby dinosaurThe kill

Watching it die

Birdy loves and loves

So, in the absence of any dark tunnels to go into, here is some gratuitous Birdy footage. This is also so Madeline can see how much our baby has grown since May.

She loves and loves.

Birdy doesn't realize the bird totally sees her.

Note the snail trail...

Zoo

I went to the San Francisco Zoo for the very first time this Sunday. So while most people were being smothered by rainbow flags at gay pride downtown, I enjoyed the sleepy lions and silly gorillas.

The chimps were mellow. One hid under a blankie.

Just like Bird's Landing, there are peacocks roaming free.

I don't know if this is a kangaroo or a wallaroo.

The polar bears made me feel sleepy.

One of a pair of four year old sister bears

The lions reminded me of Birdy when she's being nice.

The silverback gorilla sat in a plastic bucket and acted tough.

I want to go back when there are no grown men making bad animal sounds at the animals