Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

On Being Human and Easter Eggs

I know this blog entry about Easter is a little late...but here goes...

We color eggs each year and each year The Colonel colors one of his eggs with a Sci-Fi theme and one with a creepy theme...observe this year's eggs wrought by the hand (and mind) of The Colonel below.

The Alien and The Exposed Brain Guy. What kid wouldn't like seeing these in their Easter basket?

I usually make deviled eggs with our artful creations the day after coloring. I did again this year.

I used a different recipe than last year and I do not remember where I got this recipe, but I do know I will not use it again. The eggs were edible, just not as delicious as I have made in the past.

Spud and I attended the sunrise mass this Easter. It was held at Ponce de Leon Park in town.

I was sure I had gotten Spud up, packed the lawn chairs and hit the road early enough to beat some of the crowd, but we still had to park some distance away and walk to where the mass was being held. We were able to set up our chairs on the blacktop and not in the grass where we might have had to be watchful of fire ants.

It was dark when we set up our chairs.

The sun slowly rose as Fr. Riley said the mass. (I wish I could have gotten a picture of said sunrise, but it was behind some trees and I thought it would be disrespectful to God and a distraction for the other mass attendees to snap away. The pictures you see here were taken before and after mass.)

It was a beautiful experience celebrating Easter under the canopy of the sky. As the sun rose I was bathed in its warmth and light and I was feeling the beautiful gravity of Easter's meaning. My prayers and spirit slipped the surly bonds of earth as they flew towards Heaven.

They returned to Earth and I contemplated Jesus' human nature and what he did for me and everyone. As I contemplated His humanness my eyes fell upon this...

This result of human error...having a dryer sheet tucked into one's collar and failing to notice it. Then I began to do another very human thing...I become almost singularly distracted by this dryer sheet and try not to laugh and resist the powerful urge to remove it.

I begin thinking to myself, "Can't he feel it there?" or "How come his wife didn't notice it?" and "I wish the lady directly behind him would remove it for him!"

I point it out to Spud (bad mommy, what was I thinking?) He smiles but I can tell he is not consumed by this distraction as I am (thank you Jesus). What is wrong with me? I feel like a kid who cannot stay focused on the task at hand (mass) and is easily distracted (8 years of catholic school and daily masses, out the window. Can you say adult A.D.D.? Yes Mom and the Sisters of Notre Dame, you taught me better than that).

Jesus was human once, I think he will forgive me.

I'm only human after all.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame...

My friend Clover gave The Colonel, Spud and I free tickets to watch The Charlotte Stone Crabs' season opening game. They were playing against The Palm Beach Cardinals. This was my first minor league game (I had seen The Seattle Mariners play twice in the late 1980's when I took The Colonel's grandma to watch them. She was a huge baseball fan. The Seattle Mariners lost both games). Spud had never been to a baseball game and it had been a long time since The Colonel had been to one.

Our seats were near first base so we entered the sports park via this entrance.

Once inside the gate we made our way to the gift shop where we picked up our free Stone Crab ball cap. With caps in hand (or on head), we got in line for some food (hamburgers and fries for the guys and chicken tenders and fries for me). The Colonel also got a bag of peanuts (got to have those at a ballgame). We carried our food into the stadium and found our seats next to Clover's.

This was the view of the baseball diamond from our seats.

The Stone Crabs got three points early in the game, one being a home run. A few foul balls were hit in our general direction. One of the foul balls landed just two rows and two seats behind Spud. We forgot to bring any baseball gloves. We will next time. We all agreed that having seats at first base was great.

Between each inning Stoney, the team mascot, would do some sort of activity involving the crowd or someone from the crowd. In one instance Stoney raced a little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old, from second base to home. The little girl ran like the wind and once looked back over her shoulder at Stoney. It was cute to watch. She won of course.

Clover and I had a ball. We cheered, clapped our hands to the music and shouted encouragement to the Stone Crab players. I noticed and thought it was kind of fun how the Stone Crab players had their own theme music as they stepped up to the plate. An Irish jig was heard when the player named Sweeney was at bat.

The 7th Inning Stretch had us all out of our seats and belting out the song, Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

The Stone Crabs got three more runs in before the game was over for a total of six runs to the Cardinals' three. I am so glad our team won, I did not want this game to end up like the Mariner games I had been to in the past (that would have given me an inferiority complex...like maybe I was an unlucky charm for any home team).

Go Stone Crabs!

Wordless Wednesday

Cows and Cats and Fowl...Oh My!

"Hey, there's a calf in the side yard!", yelled Spud.

" A what?", asked The Colonel and I.

"A calf.", repeated Spud.

By the time The Colonel and I made it outside the calf had hightailed it into the woolly lot next door where it joined its mother.

The Colonel and Spud ventured into the woolly lot in search of the cow and calf. I stayed on the perimeter (being a mother myself, I know how protective we are of our offspring and the cow in the lot was sporting a pair of horns that looked as if they could protect her calf very nicely if called upon to do so. I told The Colonel to be careful and protect our baby, Spud, and himself).

The cow and calf were foraging and grazing on the lot. At one time the cow wandered onto the road, but The Colonel herded her back into the foliage. He was afraid the cow and her baby would be hit.

We had no idea whose cow it was and knew of only one man to call. Maybe it was his (he has some cows in the lots in the area), or he might know whose it was. He is an honest-to-goodness real cowboy. We filled him in on the situation and he said he would be out as soon as possible.

Jimmy and his wife pulled up with his horse and cur (cow hunting dog) in tow.

The Colonel and Jimmy went into the overgrown lot on foot and searched for the cow and calf. They did not find them, they had moved on. Jimmy said he would drive down the road and look for them as he checked on his own cattle.

An hour or so later Jimmy and his wife pulled up again to let us know he had found the cow and calf. They were near the lot where some of his cattle were kept. He said he had lassoed them and put them in with his cattle until he could find out who they belonged to. I sure wish I had been there with my camera (but it had begun to rain and I had dinner on the stove) to document this for the blog. It is not often you get to see a real cowboy at work, roping cattle on horseback.

On a different day The Colonel was driving down the road near our house (making yet another trip to The Home Depot because we have another hardscaping project on the horizon...stayed tuned) and he saw something running on the road ahead of him. He thought it might be a dog but then noticed that it ran more like a cat...a BIG cat. He got a little closer and saw that it was a Bobcat. It looked over its shoulder a couple of times, getting a glimpse of The Colonel, before it veered off the road and into the trees.

The Colonel does not travel with a camera (unlike me, "Rainman") so he was unable to get a picture of the Bobcat. The picture below is from the Internet. Just a little eye-candy for this blog entry.

Yet, another day...

The Colonel and I were watching T.V. when we heard a strange, loud sound outside. It sounded kind of like a bird, a big bird...a very pissed off, big bird.

Riley, our cat, was crouched near a big bird and the bird was telling him to back off in no uncertain terms.

The bird was odd looking. We had never seen one before, especially in our yard. I said to The Colonel, "I think that is some sort of Guinea fowl" (how I knew this I cannot say, perhaps the many hours of PBS and Animal Planet viewing).

I was correct in my bird identification. Thanks to the magic that is the Internet, I discovered that this was a male Guinea fowl and that they a native to Africa....so we gave the bird the moniker of Kunta Kinte.

Kunta Kinte walked around our yard eating bugs (that is what they are famous for) and "yelled" at Riley every once in a while for two or three days (Kunta spent his nights in the same woolly lot next door that the mama cow and her calf were earlier).

We have not seen Kunta in a couple of days now. I was getting used to him and hoping he would stay to help keep my yard bug free. He must have gone back home, wherever that is (we read the neighborhood chat site and found no one had reported a lost Guinea fowl). Maybe he will return one day, maybe not...for we all know that...there's no place like home, right Dorothy?