Damn, Nature, You itchy!

Category: dribblings

poisonivy, a photo by fleegan.com on Flickr.

In the battle between me and poison ivy, the ivy is winning.
My arms, they are rashy.

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Tags: nature

Damn, Nature, You scary! part VI

Category: dribblings

snake53, a photo by fleegan.com on Flickr.

Oh snap! A baby moc at the park! It was not that close, so I wasn’t worried about it. I did make fun of it’s giant head though. Maybe the huge kingsnake I saw on the other side of the path (like, 15 feet away) will eat it.

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Tags: nature, snakes

Snake Royalty part 2

Category: dribblings

snake41, a photo by fleegan.com on Flickr.

After we saw the black kingsnake, we headed to the creek to look for water snakes. I found one but couldn’t see it’s head. Jimmy got down in the creek and found the head and managed to get this shot of it. This is the same snake I got a pic of the other day, and I noticed it was different than the usual water snakes I see. I looked it up and turns out it’s a queen snake!

How cool is that? We got a kingsnake and queen snake on the same day!

According to the Outdoor Alabama website, the queen snake is of a moderate conservation concern. All of the other animals I’ve photographed have been low on the conservation list.

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Tags: mr. fleegan, nature, snakes

Snake Royalty

Category: dribblings

snake46, a photo by fleegan.com on Flickr.

This afternoon we went to Snake Bite Pond to walk Roxie and look for snakes. Jimmy went with me so that he could hold on to Rox while I took pictures because I don’t know if you know this, but when I’m walking the dog at the park and I see a snake or lizard or bunny or whathaveyou, the dog goes bananas and it’s hard for me to hold her leash as she tugs it AND take a picture of the critter IN FOCUS. So Jimmy went along and he spotted this giant snake first. We thought it was some kind of garter snake, because it looked dark green and yellow, but I looked it up and it’s a black kingsnake.

Kingsnakes rule because they eat poisonous snakes. That is pretty badass.

But this snake would not stop moving. I mean, it was constantly slithering, moving it’s head, going in and out of rock tunnels and dead leaves. And it was fast too. And long! It was probably 30 inches long. I named him Long-y.

I pretty much name all snakes Long-y.

Snake Show!

Category: dribblings

snake40, a photo by fleegan.com on Flickr.

The park has been a snake show lately. I’m not complaining. Look at that thing!
Right after I got this picture rain started pouring. I had to hoof it to a pavillion so’s my camera wouldn’t get wet.

The Baseball Show!

Category: dribblings

ZOMG it’s almost here!

I’ve been watching some spring training games because

1. I miss baseball and
2. I’m lonely and the drone of the commentators gives me something to bitch at.

I was watching a Mets/Braves game on Monday and was thinking that I’m such a dork and loser for watching spring training games on purpose on my lunch break. It didn’t help that I was eating a bowl of cereal either. For some reason I always feel like a loser when I eat cereal. Like it’s not real food. Like I should be eating something more adult. Because I’m not eating Total, okay? I’m not chomping down Fiber Plus or Super Colon Blow; I was eating Fruity Pebbles WITH MARSHMALLOWS. Basically I was eating candy for lunch. And watching baseball.

So I was feeling gross and dumb and said out loud to the dog, “Am I an idiot for watching this?”

And right then a super hot guy came up to bat and I was all, “No. I’m a fucking GENIUS.”

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Tags: baseball

5. The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits

Category: 50 Books

I don’t know how to describe this book. There were so many twist and turns and odd characters and I’m not even sure what the main plot was about. In fact, I don’t think there was a main plot; everything was a subplot. Here’s what the book jacket said it was about:

Julia Severn is a student at an elite institute for psychics. Her mentor, the legendary Madame Ackermann, afflicted by jealousy, refuses to pass the torch to her young disciple. Instead, she subjects Julia to the humiliation of reliving her mother’s suicide when Julia was an infant. As the two lock horns, and Julia gains power, Madame Ackermann launches a desperate psychic attack that leaves Julia the victim of a crippling ailment.

Julia retreats to a faceless job in Manhattan. But others have noted Julia’s emerging gifts, and soon she’s recruited to track down an elusive missing person—a controversial artist who might have a connection to her mother. As Julia sifts through ghosts and astral clues, everything she thought she knew of her mother is called into question, and she discovers that her ability to know the minds of others—including her own—goes far deeper than she ever imagined.

Now, when I read that I thought, “Meh, another paranormal thriller.” or something like that. But on the back part of the jacket there was this sentence:

As powerful and gripping as all of Julavits’s acclaimed novels, The Vanishers is a stunning meditation on grief, female rivalry, and the furious power of a daughter’s love.

And it was “female rivalry” that got me. I am fascinated by female rivalry (in the same way I am fascinated by the 99% vs 1% here in the US and that we 99% do not riot.) I had to give the book a try. I am so glad I did. First off, the whole paranormal part of the story is told in a very matter of fact way, nothing spooky. It’s more psychological lit-fic than paranormal thriller.

The way Julavits writes is really refreshing (or maybe it’s that I’ve been reading too much nonfiction lately), her prose is just so precise and often had a very cool (as in temperature) sarcasm to it, which I ate up in giant spoonfuls as though my life depended on it. There was a part very early in the book where the main character, Julia, is trying to figure out how to locate a particular safe in France and what it’s serial number might be. She thinks, “I’d never been gifted at probability calculations, but I estimated that my chances of guessing the correct safe number were in the vicinity of ten to the seventh power multiplied by thirty-six twice, or something equivalently shitty.” I loved that. That’s where the book got me. I loved how specific the number was, and yet the specificity was totally meaningless, ridiculous, even.

I say Julavits writing is precise because the book is a very good length, less than 300 pages, and she tells her story without rambling. I never skimmed, I never skipped ahead, I was never bored, and I never, ever knew where the story was going. The dialogue was snappy and to the point while also being so vague at times I had no idea what was going on, which is exactly how Julia is in the book. She’s very passive and is being led or dragged around by many different women who are trying to “help” her. Some of the women are trying to help her, others not so much. The more Julia pieces together what’s going on the more whole she herself becomes.

I enjoyed this book the way I enjoy Paul Auster and Bradford Morrow. It’s well-written, perfect in length, and I keep going back and thinking about it from time to time.

Five Roxy heads means you should put this book in your face!

snake38

Category: dribblings

snake38, a photo by fleegan.com on Flickr.

Saw this little guy at Snake Bite Pond.

When I came home from church today Mister Biscuits was sleeping on the sidewalk. I came home long enough to get some things together to take to a lunch party so I was in the house probably 10 minutes. When I went out to load the car Mister Biscuits was in the flower bed next to the stairs where my teenage mutant ninja hastas grow every year, and he was meowing to beat the band. I was all, “What is your problem?” and when I looked at him I saw what the problem was. He had killed a good sized garter snake.
I was kinda bummed because I had just mentioned to someone like, two weeks ago, that I hadn’t seen a garter snake in over 20 years. The cat was so proud. I was grossed out and didn’t want to mess with it because like I said, I was going to a party. So I figured I’d get rid of it when I got home later.

Only, when I got home later, the dead snake was gone. I think Biscuits ate it. Gross.

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Tags: Mister Biscuits, nature, snakes

Crow eatin’ time.

Category: dribblings

Someone found the treasure today.

It was in the damn library. Son of a…

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Damn, Nature, you filthy!

Category: dribblings

muskrat02, a photo by fleegan.com on Flickr.

I was on a creek bank (at Snake Bite Pond) trying to take a picture of a snake and out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving, my brain said, “Dang, there’s a giant pine cone swimming towards me.” But you guys, it was NOT a pine cone.

Muskrat!

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Tags: nature

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