Cat Fight!!!

Wow, I really have nothing in my brain that is of any interest to write about lately. Sooo, I'll just post this cute little video of Figgy and Chloe wrestling. This is my first attempt at posting a video. I apologize for the darkness. Question: How do you know when cats are just playing and not really fighting? Answer: you won't hear a sound from them when they are just playing. No growling, crying, or hissing. The only sound you do hear is the 10:00 news. I didn't realize it was on so loud!

And just a few minutes later, I found them curled up together

Opps, gotta go. They're playing last year's season ending episode of LOST to get us up to date before the premiere tomorrow night. I can't wait!!!

A Look Back in Time

I've been dealing with a sick kitty lately so I've had no interest or energy to blog.


I've also been keeping up with the uprising in Kenya which makes me incredibly sad. Ten years ago in May I went on my dream vacation--a safari to East Africa. Kenya and Tanzania to be exact. Kenya and Tanzania are right next to each other but worlds apart as third world countries go. Kenya was light years ahead of Tanzania with regards to the infrastructure (roads, electricity, etc) and the education of its people. People of both countries though were incredibly warm, inviting and eager to practice their english. My trip came just a few years after the massacre in Rwanda and I remember talking to my Maasai tour guide (Victor) in Tanzania and my Kikuyu guide (Godrey Mathenge) in Kenya. Both assured me that what happened in Rwanda would never happen in either Kenya or Tanzania since each country had over 20 tribes and there was not one tribe that was dominant. It breaks my heart thinking that some of the most philosophical and gentle people I have ever met may be fearing for their lives right now, or perhaps worse.

So, I took out my photos today to look over the incredible wildlife that exists in those countries. In fact, my signature photo is of me in Tanzania holding a baby goat when we visited a maasai village. I'll post a few photos here. Again, I have to apologize for the quality of the photos. My actual photos turned out better than I ever imagined but trying to take a quick photo of a photo never quite cuts it.

My favorite cat, the cheetah.

Cat on a rock. The Great Rift is in the background.

Peekaboo

Hyenas are incredibly complex animals. Not just the scavenger that many people think it is. I would hear them from my tent "laughing" during the night.



These Rhinos in the Ngorongoro Crater were so endangered that they were under 24 hour watch with armed guards in the park. Poachers would come from Somolia to kill them just for their horn.

Tick birds hitching a ride

"What are YOU looking at?"

You have to trust me that this is one gorgeous bird! A Lilac-breasted Roller.

A Weaver Bird's nest

I'm ashamed to say I can't remember what type of owl this is. I love that I got this shot. It's wings always remind me of the old Delorian cars and how their doors would open.

I'll leave my little photographic safari with a quote that is hanging on a wall next to a group of some of these photos in my tv room--

"I prayed that all this lovely wildness would not forget me, and the answer was always 'It is not I who will forget, it is for you to make your way back"

The people of Kenya are in my thoughts and prayers

A Broken Smile beneath her Whispered Wings

Isn't that a hauntingly beautiful sentence?

I have a confession to make. I suffer from a form of OCD. Sometimes a song, a book, a movie, or a person will lodge itself into my head and I need to either continually listen to a song, watch a movie or read up on someone until the obsession slowly fades away.

The first time I noticed this was when I read the the biography of Zelda Fitzgerald in my mid-20s. I just became fascinated with her and had to go to the library and read everything I could about her and F. Scott. By sheer luck, at the same time there was a one-woman show in DC at the National Portrait Gallery about Zelda Fitzgerald where she read her letters. I saw her every performance. I topped it off by making a field trip out to Rockville, Maryland to the cemetary where F. Scott and Zelda are buried. After that I finally felt sated and went onto something else.

When the movie The Mothman Prophecies came out in 2002 I was really intrigued. The movie was totally panned by almost every movie critic labeling it an X-Files wannabe with a terrible ending because there were no answers and no resolution. I waited until it came out on DVD and saw it. I LOVED it and recommended it to everyone. Fast forward to this December. If you have Comcast Digital cable you know you can rent movies On Demand right off your TV for $3.99. They also have a "library" of free movies that you can watch. Each free movie usually last for a month when they are replaced with another. Toward the end of December I realized The Mothman Prophecies was listed as free but would expire on December 26. I watched it and that something clicked in me. I don't know if it was the eeriness of the movie, the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack (which I've already ordered), the fact that it is based loosely on a true story and filmed partially here in DC, or all of the above. Whatever it was, I watched it every night. When I was off for the holidays I watched it multiple times during the day. It seems that everytime I watched it I learned something new. There is a point in the movie when Richard Gere grabs a book and asked someone/something over the phone what the 3rd line is on page 51 and the voice whispers the line from the paperback "A Broken Smile beneath her Whispered Wings" It still gives me goosebumps.

Look, even the photo of the book didn't come out very clear---spooky!!

I was so intrigued with the line from the book that I googled it and unfortunately it was just scripted for the movie.

My fixation has not stopped yet. I'm going through Mothman withdrawals. But, I should be getting the movie from NetFlix any day now!!

What about you? Is there anything you are obsessed with?

Bartlett or Bosc?