This is a barred owl.  I’ll have a much nicer picture in tomorrow’s edition of Maine Nature News.

We’re on a search for new registers for the heating ducts in the great room floor.  They’re are very old, worn and ugly.  And they’re an odd size at 14″ x 2″.  We can can find 12″ x 2″, 14″ x 4″ but not 14″ x 2″.  As a consolation Steve thought we should have Chinese food for a late lunch.  Well….ok, I guess that’s ok.

Have you ever watched Andrew Zimmerman’s show about bizarre foods?  It’s called Bizarre Foods.  A couple of weeks ago Andrew was eating guinea pig on a stick.  We have a pet guinea pig.  We’re quite attached to Munchkin.  We call her Munchy for short.(I didn’t make that up.) Ironic isn’t it?  Our pig is Munchy and Andrew eats them.

So, we’re in the restaurant, going through the buffet line, and I hear Steve talking.  Taylor’s between us, I’m five feet from him and although I can hear him, I can’t understand what he’s saying.  All of a sudden a large woman in a pink shirt snaps her head up, develops a horrified look on her face then storms away from the buffet.  Good Lord, now what’s Steve said?  “Taylor, what did your father say?  I think he made that woman mad.”

As Steve is using tongs to pick up terriyaki chicken on a stick he’s saying, “One guinea pig.  Two guinea pigs.  Three guinea pigs…”  I don’t care how put off that woman was, THAT’S FUNNY!  I tried hard not to laugh.  Really I did but I didn’t do very well.  It’s a good thing we were there between regular lunch and supper so it wasn’t busy.  We quietly laughed about this half way through lunch.  We finally gained a minor form of respectability and started a decent conversation.  Steve picked up guinea pig on a stick number three, took a bite and I softly said, “wheet! wheet! wheet!”  Any false impressions of respectability we might have given anyone were gone.  We’re so bad.  It’s no wonder we were given our check immediately after this. It is a wonder we weren’t asked to leave.  I don’t think we’ll go back there soon.

Maine Nature News is online.  Look for the very cute (can’t believe I’m saying something I dislike so much is cute) raccoon.

More nervous energy this morning.  Once in a while I get in a mood.  I buy a box of black trashbags and stick it under the cupboard.  When the mood hits me I get out the box and let loose. This is the day.  In an hour I cleaned out three and a half trashbags.  We accumulate stuff like we’re opening a thrift store.  I’ve convinced life is calmer when you are not surrounded by clutter. She’s gotten good at not keeping things for a year or two, or five, before disposing of them in some manner.  I’ll never convince Steve;  I’m convinced it’s genetic.  I missed trash pickup last week.  They aren’t using the regular trash truck so I didn’t hear it go by, put the trash out and had to drag it all back later. They were here a lot earlier than usual.  For that, they get four extra bags, more if the mood strikes again this afternoon.

Once the dish and clothes washers are going I’ll Swiffer the kitchen floor and sit down to do some editing.  I’ve read the first chapters of a great book set in Maine.  Now the fun begins.  I’ll get out the red pen (we do still use red even in modern day editing), mark the mss up and make notes.  I think this book will make it to publication and when it does, I’ll post it here!

I’m watching chickadees, redpolls and bluejays out the diningroom window.  I’ll put out more feed for them in a few minutes. They need to store up today in preparation for tomorrow’s storm.  Pine grosbeaks were back two days ago for a short time, haven’t seen them since.

I have a hair apt at noon.  It’s bugging me and I’m seriously thinking about cutting off 6″.

Taylor went to the foul line at WA last week.

I was 17 when this was taken. An old friend emailed it to me today.