I am happy to report that our peacock, Peeks, is secretly a genius. Maybe it hasn't been a secret, but we've been too stupid to notice until a few weeks ago. He has always tried to fight with the goats by antagonizing them through the fence, and at times he has flown around chasing them -- both behaviors which piss us off since he's acting like a bully. However, we recently observed that when the goats and Sheepy are out and about, Peeks doesn't just randomly chase them... he herds them.
That's right, our peacock is like the piglet in Babe. I first recognized the behavior when I realized that Peeks was bunching the goats together then chasing them away from the chicken hens. I don't know if he thinks he's protecting his harem (yes, he's always trying to woo the chickens by shaking his fanned out tail feathers), his territory, or is helping us, but there is certainly a method to his madness.
While we don't have an exact video of him rounding up and moving out with the goats, here's a glimpse of how he works:
And here's Tumnus coming to say hi!
Hi Tum Tum!
And here is Sparrow's eye.
And here is Sparrow decorated for the Memorial Day Parade.
And here are two marvelous dogs I met at the festival following the parade.
I'm glad Michelle Obama is promoting the idea of growing your own produce in a little backyard garden. If everyone did that, not only would America be healthier, but people would be saving money. Here's just a glimpse of our chard harvest from a few weeks back. It made a delicious side dish and is full of blood-building goodness.
And here is a very strange video. While sitting out on the deck, petting Comanche and Black, Black became very... friendly with Cheech. See for yourself.
Black has been losing weight and slowing down for nearly a decade now, but this past week or so he's been less annoying than usual and has been spending a lot of his time curled up and napping. I know that he's 16 and has lived a long, good life, but I really hope that he isn't preparing to leave us yet. Life without that black communist would be terrible.
Mackenzie's Momma -- Poor Chee Chee! I love the dejected groan he emits at the end of the clip. And I totally understand not wanting to get rid of a special blanket. Years ago, I tried to stuff mine in a ziplock then put it in the garage, but felt guilty and pulled it out, so now I have a dusty old rag of a baby blanket hidden away in my room. I don't know what I'll ever do with it, but for now it can stick around!
the other amanda -- Let me know when you get the chance to watch it! I know you'll enjoy Keller's scenes. ;)
Blogger now has more options for layouts... what do you think of this one? Let me know if you like it or prefer the old one. What I like about this one is that the sidebar on the right doesn't take over half the blog and cut the YouTube video embeds off.
I've been a lazy blogger again and haven't posted about the recent goings on. Alex rode Sparrow in our local Memorial Day parade on Memorial Day weekend and and... um, I guess a lot of other stuff happened but I forget. It's part of being old.
Our big graduation bash was really cool. My aunt borrowed a chocolate fountain and a soda fountain so we got to pig out on chocolate fondue with strawberries, angel food cake, bananas, etc. Here's a shot from the party. Since I don't have a camera anymore, I don't have pictures of the chocolate fountain in action, but my sister does, so if I ever stop being lazy, I could always get those from her.
The graduates. I was going insane at this point, though I don't know why.
This clip is kind of old, but I keep forgetting to post it. Comanche and Teyla sleep in the garage together (Cheech in his bed, Toot in her crate), and Comanche comes inside to eat dinner (around 9pm or so) and stays in the rest of the night for two reasons: 1) he will bark his head off and annoy everyone every time he hears a deer and, 2) there have been plenty of local mountain lion confrontations lately, and in one, the cat waited under a deck until the owners let their little dog out to go potty then nabbed the dog. The cougar had observed this at the same time every night and calculated it. It was pre-meditated murder! So we don't want our dogs out late or anywhere in danger of being eaten or attacked.
Yet these precautions still don't protect Comanche from cats inside the garage. Look at what happened one night when the Commie decided to try out Chee Chee's bed for himself. The poor dog was traumatized.
Here he is with Teyla on Father's Day, waiting for the mail. The mail is the highlight of their day in many respects. They hear the squeaky breaks, bolt down the driveway barking, then the mailman makes them sit before he gives them each a big dog bone. They then trot off to eat their respective treats in privacy while the mailman sticks the mail in the mailbox. Unfortunately, the dogs don't understand that there's no mail on Sundays, so they waited anyway.
Hope springs eternal
Teyla is allowed in the kitchen, and since she is sometimes inside in the afternoon, she misses the mail. On those occasions, we try to reenact the mail delivery by running around the coffee table making car sounds, stopping by the kitchen, and throwing her a little treat.
Recently I decided to go through my stuffed animals and weed out the ones that I don't have a strong emotional attachment to. I have so many stuffies in my closet that my dresses can't properly hang. I've been putting off going through my stuffies for about 10 years now, so it was time. Among those I said goodbye to were two of my oldest friends who have literally begun to fall apart with age.
Goodbye, Elephant Helephant. I used to hug your cool body on summer nights.
Bye, tub ducky. I still remember chewing on your beak when I was a baby.
In the end, I kept far more than I intended, but at least it's a start. I got in touch with a friend who has two little girls and she said she'd allow her girls to keep one or two stuffies each, which made me feel better about getting rid of them because I knew they'd go to a good home. It's silly to personify fabric and stuffing and plastic eyes, but I do it all the time and don't think I'll stop any time soon. I still share my bed with a bear named Ben!
Bye, guys!
Anyone else remember Puppy Surprise?!
This one didn't come with any puppies because I got her at the Goodwill when I was little, but I had a dalmatian Puppy Surprise and a... pink cat Kitty Surprise. And am now puzzled over the fact that the gender-obsessed marketing of childrens' toys saw it fit to make a stuffed cat PINK. Like when I got Barbie's horse and it had eyeshadow on. I was appalled, even as a kid. Good thing there were always Breyer horses, of which I still have many and will keep if I can!
Actually, Puppy Surprise reminds me of how demented I was, even as a kid. So was my best friend, Katie. Kitty Surprise had three kittens, 2 girls (pink) and a boy (blue) and one of the girls was small like a runt. So when we played with them, the runt was always the annoying little sister who would tag along and try to look cool -- a role we both played in real life with our older brothers. Only the big difference between us and the kitten was the fact that the kitten wasn't actually a little sister, she was the big sister. 21, to be exact (ancient to us back then) and every once in a while she'd have a tantrum and reveal that she was secretly old and the other cats would laugh and call her a deform. I think her name was Beano. Yeah, like the stuff that keeps you from farting. Wait, nevermind. Beano was a dog. Her name was Demento. Actually, she might have been the runt dog, not the runt cat. That doesn't really matter, but I owe Beano and Demento some accuracy.
There are many more bizarre stories... like the mentally insane My Little Pony I named "Mr. Parasol" who went everywhere with a tube of toothpaste that he thought was his BFF. Mr. Parasol could do anything in the world because he was insane and therefore didn't know that there were things he "couldn't" do, like fly. Since he never had any self-doubt, he could fly and pull a million tons and break down walls, etc. Now that I think about it, Mr. Parasol was rather existential...
So anyway, that was a lot to say for being lazy and not having the discipline to write.
Oh yeah. The World Cup. Having played soccer as a child and a teen and growing up in a soccer family, the World Cup is always fun. This year it was a source of passion and pride. The US played amazingly and that 90th minute goal by Donovan against Algeria was rapturous. I'm still bummed that we lost to Ghana (with the Ghana team being such poor sports that they didn't fight to hold their lead but instead laid on the ground to eat up OT) but am still so proud of our boys.
Check out the world's reaction to Donovan's goal last Wednesday.
My sister and I went out to celebrate in our red, white and blue by having lunch downtown but all we got were remarks from panhandlers. No matter how much support soccer has in the US, it's nothing compared to what it has in the rest of the world, and it's frustrating to have so few to celebrate with.
Awkward
After watching Germany whoop England's ass yesterday, I hope Germany wins. Their control of the ball is amazing and they played clean. They're one of the few teams I've seen thus far who blatantly deserve their advancement, as they've proved every world cup since 1954. I could go off about soccer for a long time, including the fact that I'm sad that our national team was practicing at my school and eating at restaurants I drove by every day to get to class yet I lived my life obliviously unaware, and that I love our lads, but I'll resist. For the moment, anyway.
I didn't have this ready for my last post, but here's a video clip of the introduction of the MFA degree and my little moment as I graduated. Enjoy!
Graduation
After a year and a half, we finally have a new Stargate Atlantis fan film for you to enjoy! We'll hopefully have more free time over the summer to create even more fan films/parodies, but for those who haven't checked it out yet, here's the description:
A year and a half after the disastrous Halloween party, half of Atlantis is missing. Can Weir find the help she needs to find John? Will the Vs destroy the city? Watch and find out!
Spoilers for the finale of LOST.
Several characters from other shows make guest appearances, including:
Anna the evil V from V
Jack Shepherd and Vincent from LOST
Agent Lisbon and Patrick Jane from The Mentalist
Agent Rigsby and Agent Cho from The Mentalist
The entire movie is 45 minutes long, so here it is in 5 parts. I put the video up on Friday, but it was only today that I realized that it has the same title as another one of our SGA parodies... I'm not sure what to do about that!
Oh, and Mackenzie's Momma -- I think you're gonna like our portrayal of Ty Evans.
Stargate Atlantis: Missing
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Actually, in case the site keeps being lame and not properly formatting the video embeds, here are the links to it on YouTube:
Thursday afternoon was my department's graduation ceremony. It had been raining torrents earlier in the day, then calmed down for the afternoon, which was wonderful because my housebound grandma was planning on attending and didn't want to get wet. The venue was supposed to be outside on a lawn, however the location was changed to the auditorium in the music building. A setting which made things feel much more formal.
The stage
The gathering crowd
When receiving a Master's or a Master of Fine Arts, you have to wear a specific hood for graduation. Well, my graduation sack or whatever you call the robe is either left over from when I graduated high school or from the year I was Harry Potter for Halloween and bought one at the Good Will. I bought the silly hood and think I ruined it when I started trying to figure out how the heck it went. I wound up darting across the room to some friends to plead with them to help me fix it, but one of their responses was, "I have no idea how it goes. I was just gonna hand it to the teacher and hope that they knew what to do with it!"
Trying to sort out the darn hood
Waiting for the ceremony to begin
The professors file in
The Master's students went first, followed by us MFAs. There were only three of us at the ceremony so our section went by quickly and we each said a few words of gratitude after getting "hooded" by the professor of our choice.
Professor Taylor putting on my hood
Giving my thanks
Hugging Professor Douglass
Jarred attended despite recently having surgery on his arm after an incident with his ripstik
With my thesis director, Nick Taylor
The rain paused for the afternoon
Helping one of my professors who wished to remain anonymous. Not really, but the angle of the shot works perfect for that.
With my wonderful siblings
My beautiful family
Beautiful Alex
Peter Parker, Harry Osborn, and Norman Osborn showed up
Grammie! She was so proud and I was so happy to make her proud
My amazing mom and dad
After posing for many pictures, we made our way over to the reception.
An artistic shot of red and white reversed!
Matt!
I don't know what was happening, but we appear amused
Poor Vince burned his hand in a cooking accident then fell and broke his nose on the way to the car to go to the hospital!
We all first met at the orientation three years ago. How time flies!
Beautiful Charanya is built like a model.
Gorgeous Mary and Professor Cox
Under the rainbow!
After the festivities on campus, we all headed over to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner.
Heading out
Opening a lovely gift from my aunts and uncle
Yummy half Mizithra and browned butter and marinara sauce
The girls
My big brother
Mmm. Yes. Indeed. Art.
Tracie -- I love your dream of the meadow full of butterflies. You could watch them for hours. You must see the film Bright Star -- there are some amazing butterfly scenes in it!
the other amanda -- Whoo! But actually, having AB- blood means you're the universal recipient, so we're set. And Rachel's doing much better! ;)
Hi Tum Tum!
And here is Sparrow decorated for the Memorial Day Parade.
And here are two marvelous dogs I met at the festival following the parade.
