A trip to the zoo...

I had planned on posting a scan of my very cute little tablet made of elephant dung (yes, elephant dung), but I seem to have misplaced my flash drive on my way from my bedroom to living room. Anyone that has seen my apartment, knows that this trip is all of about a 10 feet in distance, but I've done it yet again. It will show up, but right now I am just going to sit down and blog. If I locate my flash drive tonight, I will add the photo, otherwise, I will just have to stick with these from my trip to the zoo today. And these photos certainly aren't great as they were taken with my phone, but they will have to do...


Let me begin with the wolverine. This guy (or girl) was putting on quite a show for us. I never before realized that wolverines could be charming. When I was a kid we had an illustrated animal reference book that had a very scary looking tooth baring drawing of a wolverine. The one today was, at first rolling around playfully and then sitting upright, engaging in some grooming. He did not seem at all angry (he certainly never showed his teeth)like the one in the book. Unfortunately, the picture is very small. I sure wish I would have brought my actual camera that can zoom in on objects. The phone camera is useless unless the subject is right in front of me.


I might add that wolverines look nothing like the X-Men character of the same name.


Next I have another very poor photo, but it is the grizzlies (along with a child's head,I'm afraid)and they are new in town, so I need to include them. They were, like many of the animals today, snoozing in the sun. Everyone, including the humans, seemed to be enjoying the sun today after a long, very dark, and very cold winter. I would call these guys (and girl) the three not so little bears. They had no porridge or chairs or beds, but they had each other and they certainly seemed to be enjoying their little snuggle. Very sweet, as long as they were on their side of the glass.



Next I have a camel sunning himself in the snow. It is in the distance and again, not the greatest photo, but it is a camel in the snow. How could I not include it?




And now for the kitties. First, a sleepy leopard working on his tan:



Next, two very sleepy tigers. These two reminded me very much of my two cats when they're sleeping in the sun, except for the fact that mine are black and their heads aren't the size of a basketball and a half and their teeth aren't quite so menacing. Otherwise, exactly the same... I did feel the urge to rub the one tiger's tummy, but fortunately the glass was between us, so I was unable to give into that urge.



And finally this little lynx was either having a great time or was wanting to maul all the children touching him through the glass. He kept jumping up on the glass and pawing it. He seemed like he was playing, but sometimes with cats, you just aren't quite sure... Anyway, he was a very charismatic kitty and quite photogenic too. Doesn't he have fabulous paws? Full of star quality, I think.



So, there you have it: just a few of the many animals that I saw today. Tomorrow, if I find my flash drive, you can see my elephant dung tablet. It's very very cute.

Billy Goats Gruff Free Zone

I hardly think that these trolls would scare goats away, or anyone for that matter. They don't look very malicious. This is all I managed to do this weekend. And it got me wondering about the troll figure that I had as a kid and what ever happened to him. Must have gotten tossed in the garbage at some point...

Is this all I'm going to manage? One post per week? Get cracking, Anne. That's not enough. And this one is going to be short as well. I'm trying to track down my care-taker. The landlords told me that he could re-install my smoke detector. I removed it awhile ago when it kept beeping all night long.

Today it's a gorilla...

So, after not drawing hardly at all in about a month (yes,I know I did that quick portrait last week and the dog sketches, but they almost don't count), I finally went to work last night and continued to work this morning. This guy (or girl) was the result. I think it was a good way to get myself back into the swing of things. My gorilla looks gentle, doesn't he (or she)?

What did I do before I worked on the drawing this morning? Well, I started cleaning the closet, of course. Loud noise from upstairs woke me up early and I couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up and started tackling the closet. I threw away two garbage bags full of clothes and junk and filled another garbage bag with donations for ARC. My bed is now covered with an even larger mountain than it had before, but at least I've made some progress in the closet itself. This is the job of jobs (the one I've been putting off all winter), so I'm glad I was finally motivated to begin. It may have been the anger resulting from having to deal with noisy neighbors that gave me the energy. I may do a bit more today, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take a nap. I'm feeling a bit sleep deprived. I also made progress in another area this morning. I was finally able to talk to the debt collectors that keep calling for Alvia Dominguez. They usually call early when I'm too groggy to answer the phone or they leave messages when I'm not at home. I told them I am not Alvia Dominguez nor do I have any idea who she is. I hope they believed me and this morning's call will be the last.

It's still snowing, I think...

No babies woke me up at 4:30 AM this morning, but I think it's still snowing (I haven't actually looked out the window yet, so I'm not sure). I can handle the snow much better when I'm not so sleep deprived. I did hear a baby at about 8:00, but that was fine. When they were leaving the apartment he was chattering about the door. This particular little guy is a talking baby. I think talking babies are a bit easier to deal with because they don't cry quite as much. And I have nothing against babies, I just don't like when random babies that I have no connection with, wake me up at 4:30 AM and cause me to have a miserable day, especially when the woman that lives where the baby was staying couldn't even bother to thank me for the envelope. That's all...

As promised, I do have a drawing to post. It's funny that my drawing is of a little girl that is barely past babyhood. This was for the weekend drawing event, but I didn't post it at wetcanvas, so I will at least post it here. It's kind of a funny pose as she's being carried, but I haven't spent much time on it, so I haven't added the shoulder that she is resting on. I probably won't spend more time on the drawing as I used a bad eraser by the eye and now the paper is a bit flawed. Beware of bad erasers. They will always mess something up. If you want to erase, you should always get up and search for a good eraser, rather than taking the easy way out and hoping for the best with the bad eraser. That's my advice for the day.

Two sleepy kitties and one sleepy person in a pear tree

Yes, my cats are sleepy and so am I. Unlike my cats, I don't get to do anything about it because I have to start getting ready for work and then I will be working all day long, while they will probably still be snuggling on the couch. That's o.k.--they're awfully cute when they snuggle, so I can't be too upset at them.

Once again, I will have to apologize for being such a bad blogger and blog buddy. Sometimes I just disappear, don't I? I was away from home for a couple of days last week and wasn't at a computer very much, so that will account for some of it. The rest I'm afraid may be due to plain laziness. I do hope to post a drawing by tomorrow. We'll see...

As I said in my title and opening paragraph, I am very sleepy. Why am I so sleepy on a Monday morning when I didn't have to get up early you may ask? Well, the baby that visits upstairs periodically was again crying and woke me up at an hour that was much too early for someone that went to bed at 1:30 AM. Am I cranky about it? Yes, I am. I'm especially annoyed that the baby woke me up and then the woman that lives in that very apartment came knocking at my door an hour or so ago, asking for an envelope. Now, I certainly don't mind sharing an envelope and that's not what annoyed me, but do you think she could say "thank you"? No, she couldn't. I can't imagine knocking on someone's door in the morning (or any time for that matter) and asking for an envelope and not saying "thank you." Not even a smile. She just grabbed it. Am I overreacting? I don't think so... What do you think? Would you go knocking on someone's door, ask for an envelope and then just grab it without saying anything. Just curious...

Edited to add that I did finish Cherry Ames, Jungle Nurse and I'm just as baffled as I was before I read it. It has no place in the teen section of our library. As Julia said, it would do much better in the adult fiction section as it would most likely appeal to those feeling a bit nostalgic. And did I enjoy reading the book? Well, it really was just there. I didn't loathe it, but I certainly could have spent my time reading something better. At least it didn't take that much of my time. Boy, that Cherry Ames sure knows how to solve a mystery while she's nursing (not the baby feeding kind, the other kind), doesn't she?

What do you expect? It's only Feb. 2...

Yes, good ol' Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow. But we really can't blame him, can we? After all, it is only Feb 2nd, so I would say we have more like 8 weeks of winter left, not the 6 that I keep hearing. It is not Punxsutawney's fault. And no, I don't think our beloved groundhog should be replaced with a robot. I'm sure he's treated just fine and that he recovers pretty quickly from his annual appearance. I started drawing a groundhog this morning that I was going to post, but he didn't work out to my liking, so I will just re-post this woodchuck (I think they're basically the same thing) in honor of the day. Happy Groundhog Day everyone! Remember that spring is just around the corner...

Bonjour

Here is another pup to start the day. I wish I had more time in the morning before work. It always seems to go so quickly, despite the fact that I don't have to be there until 12:45. It's just that I don't usually have time for everything that I want to do.

Yesterday, despite the fact that I am reading many other books, at the moment. I picked up one of the Cherry Ames books at the library. These books appeared in our teen area about a year ago, and I have been curious as to why the library thought these books would be a good investment. I just thought I'd read one out of curiosity...



I don't even remember seeing these books when I was a kid. They must have fallen out of fashion in the 70's. We seem to have the whole series and they just sit there on the shelf gathering dust. I did read the forward and the woman that re-published these books in 2008 is a nurse and got the publishing rights from the author, Helen Wells' brother. She said that these books inspired her to become a nurse and was hoping that she could reach a whole new generation of teens and inspire them to become nurses. I don't know. Cherry is a bit wide-eyed and innocent for teens of today (even for teens of my day), and if they want to reach a new generation of teen readers, I'm afraid they would have to update the covers, at least. Teens do judge books by their covers. Now, these books might appeal to the nostalgia market, but I don't think they're going to be read by very many teens. I think the publisher may have been a bit naive. And the library? Well, their decisions often baffle me, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Anyway, hope everyone has a good day.