The Eagles Are Coming, The Eagles Are Coming!

O.K., technically they're already here, and have been for a few years, but I didn't know we could watch them live.

After a few years of watching the Decorah Eagles in their home in Iowa (apparently deserted right now), I was delighted to find out we have our own eagle cams right here in town.

Ozzie and Harriet have been living down here for six or seven years and recently moved across the street. They are currently caring for two eggs which comments from the folks running the site seem to indicate could hatch at any time.

There are, officially, an even dozen eagle nests within the city limits. Fledging season runs through May 15, 2013 and the city has posted notice that any and all building permits in areas close to nests have been suspended until the little ones are out of the nest. This is in addition to the restrictions regarding how close construction can come to a nesting site in the first place.

Visits, Here and There

The niece and her mom stopped by on Saturday. We intended to go mini-golfing but her mom begged off saying she had errands to run and computer stuff to do, my brother warned that he had limited time before having to go off to work, and Caitlin wanted everyone to be there so we put the expedition off until they return to town from their detour to Georgia to spend Christmas with aunts and uncles from the other side of the family. (Mom ended up hanging around and visiting all afternoon anyway. We probably could've managed two rounds.) And, maybe by then it will be a bit warmer, too.

As a result, my trip to St. Petersburg to see vacationing friends from Salt Lake was put off until Sunday. I managed to find them with only one slight detour which brought me to the tip of such a delightful barrier island that I took them on the same detour later. We ate at a diner that (unbeknownst to us beforehand) was having their regular half-off-your-bill-if-you-wear-your-pajamas-to-brunch Sunday. You could tell the regulars from the visitors by who was (over)dressed for the occasion (although most of them were wearing something under their pj's to keep warm on the trip to the restaurant).

After croissants, omelettes and French toast we ended up in downtown St. Pete along gallery row where we examined blown glass made by Chihuly and his disciples, a number of offbeat restaurants, more glass and furnishings galleries, and a couple of really funky boutiques. The sun came out and the day warmed up nicely. I found a handmade present for my sister-in-law at a tiny Moroccan place.

We were saying goodbye as I prepared to return home when we were interrupted by a raucous chorus of a half dozen green parrots on the wires directly overhead. another flock of a dozen or more circled a few yards behind them. It was a perfect send-off.

Friends and Family

This should be a busy and fun week. Not only did the world not end on this solstice, some of it is coming here to visit.

My brave and beautiful niece (the one who just had her third open heart surgery a couple of months ago) and her mom are in town from Connecticut for a few days. They came down right after Caitlin played her harp in a Christmas concert. They're staying at a house owned by her mom's sister's family. When she told me, back in November, she would be visiting she asked if we could go play miniature golf. We'll do a couple of rounds this weekend despite the cold front that just blew in. She also wanted to go swimming but I'm not so confident that's going to happen.

Following right behind said cold front are a couple of friends, now married, from back in Utah. They're going to be up in the Tampa/St. Pete/Orlando area starting this weekend assuming their flights take the southern route and don't get entangled in the winter storm disrupting the rest of the country. We'll be able to catch up on all the stuff our other friends aren't willing to post on Facebook.

I'm making cookies for everyone. Oatmeal raisin now, chocolate chip later.

And, welcome back, Sol Invictus!

How To Hypnotize A Cat

I've hypnotized a few people before, one on purpose, two by accident (it's easier to do than you'd think, especially if you go into a trance state yourself while talking to them). After the first accidental one, a close friend who is a licensed hypnotherapist explained to me what I'd done and put me under to show me how it felt. That was a long time ago.

Never tried it on an animal, though.

Bartleby has trained my brother and me well enough that she is now comfortable coming into the house just to eat* knowing we will jump to let her out again. In fact, although she passes most of the day sunning herself in the driveway where she refuses to move out of the way of the cars, she will, as long as we leave all the doors open so she can see her escape route (something we can do now the weather has cooled off a bit), spend a little time inside with us being adored (as is her due).

Yesterday, I found out, while expressing proper adoration, two fingers repetitively stroking her chest between her front paws will make her go--you should forgive the expression--"catatonic." She rolled three-quarters on her back, closed her eyes and froze . . . except for her front right paw which slowly and rhythmically flexed extending her little pink kitty fingers (but not the claws) as far as they could go and then relaxing again. Over and over.

I got tired of it long before Bartleby did. When I stopped so did the flexing, but it still took a couple of minutes before she came around at which point she suddenly jumped up, looked around and ran out the door.

The experience wasn't traumatic enough to stop her from coming back in for supper a couple hours later.

*We tried putting her food out but something else kept getting into her dish and she's far to much of a wuss to defend her own property.

Decking the Halls

The Christmas tree is now up and (mostly) decorated. It would have been up sooner, i.e., right after Thanksgiving per my brother's borderline obsession with Christmas, except it turns out he'd put his back out a while ago making it painful for him to stretch or bend. Of course, he never mentioned it until the day before yesterday, and I'm perfectly content to leave the house as it is, so now we're scrambling at the last minute.

The tree itself is at least 20 years old but surprisingly realistic. It's a 7.5 foot tall replica balsam. We think Mom & Dad spent maybe $100 for it. Assembly consists of stacking foot long sections of trunk and then attaching individual branches of decreasing length as the layers accumulate. My brother saves time by stringing the lights around each layer before adding the next one. Makes it easier to get the lights into the interior.

During construction, it even realistically shed all over the living room rug. I had to vacuum the whole area  . . . again.

My brother had to go to work after the tree was up and lit so I spent part of the evening decorating it. I went through two large boxes of mostly hand blown glass Radko and Pandora ornaments, most of which I had not seen before. I think, toward the end (and not trusting Mom's failing fine motor skills), my brother may have kept some of the more delicate ornaments out of the mix.

I have not, so far, run across any of the animated or otherwise disturbing ornaments from previous years but, then again, there's at least one more large box that hasn't even been opened yet (and possibly more still in storage).

And, neither we nor Neighbor Dan have put any lights or decorations out on our lawns, yet.

But, Hey, Free Potatoes!

I stopped by the grocery store on my way home yesterday and picked up a few things: onions, scallions, peppers, tomatoes . . . and red potatoes that were on sale. When I got home I realized the cashier had charged me the full price for the potatoes.

Now, this is not a big thing. It's happened before and I just let it go because occasionally they'll make a mistake in my favor and I figure it all balances out in the end. Besides, I'd spend more in gasoline than I'd recoup by going back to the store to fix it.

Today, however, I realized I had to go right past the store on another errand anyway, so I stopped in at the service desk. The young woman behind the counter was very pleasant, checked my receipt, and proceeded to refund the full purchase price of the potatoes. At first I thought she'd misheard me and I explained again that I had indeed bought the spuds in question and was only interested in the difference between the advertised price and the actual charge. And she explained that, yes, she understood but it was company policy: if they screw up the item is free. I was not aware of this policy.

So I got triple back what I expected (or, in my opinion, deserved) plus the potatoes.

I realize someone at corporate made an explicit, hard-nosed calculation and decided the good will and loyalty generated by this policy is worth the expense (and they're right. It works!), but I still feel kind of bad about even bringing it up with them and a little guilty now about the times I never said anything when the mistakes worked to my advantage.

Nicely played, Publix.

The Place Where I Live

A couple in this county but a few towns over recently had a safe stolen from their home. It contained $100,000 in gold and silver bars that they had just removed from a bank safe deposit box in order to buy a house. I'm thinking either first generation immigrants untrusting of banks due to experiences in the old country (although, why then use a bank's safe deposit box?), or drug dealers trying to keep income off the books (although, I can't imagine customers buying with gold and silver so somewhere along the line cash must have been paid for these bars so there's a record somewhere), or--and this seems most likely to me--idiots.

Considering all of the advertising on TV and in the paper pushing gold and silver hedges against a falling dollar, junk mail touting collectible coins and medallions and right-wing ranters extolling the virtues of hoarding hard metal for the end-times, I'm not surprised someone thought this was a good idea.
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On a totally unrelated note, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commissioners remind people that it's not just a bad idea to hunt alligators with a handgun, it's also illegal. Handguns are, apparently, perfectly legal when hunting Burmese pythons, as long as the coup de grace is administered correctly.

But do not share with bears. Or the feral hogs.

First One To Christmas Wins

How to tell the pressures of the Holiday Season are upon us:

Starting the day after Thanksgiving (maybe even Thanksgiving day, I don't know, I refuse to go out then) traffic on the roads not only spikes but speed increases and aggression rises as well.

I've been out and about, to the library mostly and a little shopping, almost every day since the feast and it was very noticeable how many more people were on the road during non-rush-hours. Side roads and residential streets aren't that bad but the main routes are packed with people going at least ten miles an hour faster than usual.

And red light runners. Drivers here in Florida know to wait when the light turns green until they can see the oncoming vehicles slowing or stopped before entering an intersection. I usually see maybe one person every other month trying to sneak through an intersection against the light. I've seen three so far since Thanksgiving.

The best was Saturday. I was approaching a huge crossroad, three lanes in each direction on both roads plus extra dedicated turn lanes both left and right for a total of 22 controlled lanes plus three additional uncontrolled right turn lanes. The signals in my left turn lanes turned yellow and a pick-up truck ahead of me in the rightmost left turn lane sped up although it was obvious he would barely make it into the intersection, with no chance of being through it, before the light turned red. At the last he second the driver suddenly realized the car in front of him had no intention of running the light. He hit his brakes hard, swerved rightward part way into the adjacent leftmost through lane, came to a dead stop inches from the rear of the car in front, pulled hard to the right and gunned it straight through the intersection which was legal because the through signals are on a different timer and were just turning yellow. I half expected to see him pull a U-turn and try a right hand turn coming from the other direction but he kept going.

(Zoom in on the Arrow for the intersection in question)

Catalog shopping is looking more and more appealing. We just received Pendery, full of bulk spices and herbs and sauces and cookbooks and other good things. I think my afternoon is set.