This is Fierce

I have no idea why, but I am really lovin the haka. It started with my facination of South Pacific culture. The movie Once Were Warriors which was made in New Zealand about a Maori family and featured a scene where the teenage son learned to do a traditional haka. The haka is a tribal dance done by both sexes and all ages is usually performed at important ceremonies. Warriors did a haka before engaging in battle. Those of us in the northern hemisphere may recognize it from rugby games where the teams from Tonga, Samoa and New Zealand do the traditional dance before games as a challenge to the team they are playing. It is great to see the New Zealand All Blacks throw down the gauntlet to the likes of Ireland, Scotland and South Africa, but even better when two south seas teams play each other and both do the haka. The team that begins will end their ceremony with a leap, some slaps, a grimace and of course the traditional sticking out of the tongue. Take that Samoa, you've been served!

If you search You Tube you can find women, Japanese children, Hawaii's football team and a multitude others participating in this type of throwdown. I think that next time some old lady steals my parking spot I will jump out and begin my own haka. These gingerbread guy's haka is pretty fierce too.
For more info check it out here .

The Art of Jack Howe

Here are some intriguing pieces by artist Jack Howe. I just love art that can be done without a trip to our local chain craft store. My posting has been sporadic due to another run in with an insect. This time a Brown Recluse Spider. I can't believe that I once wanted to be an entymologist. Now I am looking for Orkin in the yellowpages. Anyhow, check out more art of Jack Howe's and avoid these:

Never make eye contact...

...with a gorilla. It seems as if a woman in Amsterdam had the daily habit of visiting Bokito, a gorilla at the Rotterdam Zoo, and tapping on the glass making faces and eye contact with him. Zookeepers had warned her not to do this, that eye contact signals aggression to gorillas and the display of teeth is not a smile. Bokito escaped and attacked the face-making woman, biting her over a hundred times and breaking her arm. He was finally corned in a restaurant, sedated and captured. Now visitors at the zoo are encouraged to wear these swell fashion accessories while viewing the gorilla exhibit. I can't decide which is creepier, a grudge-carrying gorilla or bizarre looking zoo visitors. On second thought I think I want my family members to wear these when they are in my presence... I don't like gawking people poking fun at me either.

"They tried to make me go to rehab...

...I said no, no, no."

Today, while my son was jogging, he was joined by this little girl. She jogged along with him all the way home. Her mother had been killed beside the road and she was looking for new friends. As many animals as we already have and as adorable as she was, we knew we were not equipped to raise and rehabilitate a deer. Thank goodness I was able to reach a very nice woman who does wildlife rehabilitation exclusively and this little girl was soon on her way to rehab. Julie Miller of Enid, Oklahoma is a federal and state licensed wildlife rehabilitator. She takes in all kinds of wildlife and after care and rehabilitation returns them to the wild. Julie currently has 4 deer, this one makes 5, raccoons, skunks, foxes, bats, owls, quail and numerous other animals in her care. What a hard, hectic and rewarding job it must be.

I need a new lamp, this could be it. After checking here maybe not.

You Make the Call

Edgy fashion accessory or versatile pet?

Summer Reading

I have been reading a lot this summer. I don't remember reading this much since high school when I would read by the pool while working on a really great tan. (In retrospect, not such a great idea. The tanning I mean, not the reading.) Once I started this book, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, I could hardly put it down. If you like the circus, circus animals or carnivals you will enjoy this. The poor elephant reminded me a little of the one in this post.

"Jacob Jankowski says: "I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other." At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn't always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn't a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn't write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison. Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob's life with this circus." Excerpt from Shelfari

Fireflies

The extraordinarily wet spring and June have meant more fireflies and I LOVE fireflies! I will even endure lots of mosquito bites to sit out and watch the fireflies. I don't chase them down and put them in fruit jars anymore but a jar full of twinkling fairy lights is more than intriguing. So at the risk of falling into the consumerism trap, it would sure be great to have these. I've seen instructions on the web about how to make them but that sounds hard. So for now I'll sit on porch in my rocker and enjoy them in their element.