December 26, 2012

Christmas Carnage

Picture it:

We all know how it goes.  You buy "everything" you need for the Christmas Day dinner. You've prepped all the food. You've got the meat in the oven. The house is smelling nice & all is well.

Until you discover that you forgot that one all-important, must-have item. Or, not that you forgot it, but you thought you had it already and discovered you were wrong.

Well, that was my mommy yesterday. Everything was ready to go...until it was time to boil the macaroni for the mac-n-cheese that I am addicted to & that my belly gets excited for every holiday.  I refused to go without it, so off I went in search of macaroni.

I went to Walgreen's. No dice.  Family Dollar: Fresh out. CVS: Jackpot!!! They had three boxes left. Count them, 1-2-3. I bought two, leaving the 3rd, just in case someone like me ended up making a run for them as well.

On the way back to my mom's I decided to go the back way to avoid the traffic lights & the abundance of retarded drivers on the road.  And just what should I come upon in my journey? Four buzzards going to town on a dead deer!!!!

Let me say this, I have this morbid fascination with wild animals and wild elements of nature that happens in my area because, #1, where we live has been densely populated with housing for over 20 years, yet the deer, beavers, huge turtles and other animals have not managed to migrate to safer ground.  I'm pretty sure that they eventually said "screw it" because everywhere they tried to move has been mowed down & built up over the last few years. I mean, in the last 4yrs alone we've had a new school, shopping center and 2 town home complexes come up within a 7 or 8 mile radius, where there used to be tones of forest and trees...all that clean oxygen, gone, as well as living space for such deer, beavers, etc.  But because of that, I get to see them act like their wild animal selves in my area, which I do enjoy.  Its good for me, not so good for them.  Having said that, I have never before in my life seen a buzzard y'all!!!!! I don't even know what they are actually called. I guess I could google it, but I'm not going to do that right now. 

Back to the story, I see the buzzards feasting on their Christmas beast of deer. I'm in shock & awe (poor deer) of the sight, but I have macaroni & bags of ice in my car that have to get to my mom's house. So I run (drive quickly) to her house (did I mention that this was less than a mile from both of our houses????), throw the ice in the kitchen, plop the macaroni on the stove all while yelling out what I saw, grab my camera & run back out of the door to take some pics.

First of all, those damn buzzards are pretty doggone smart. I pulled up by them on the road & rolled down the window to take a pic and they totally stop eating...ruining my photo op. LOL. But I got some pics anyway.  Buzzards are some fugly, huge creatures! OMG! Their wingspan is, I dare say, almost as long as me! But they are UGLY!!!! 

 
OK, so this is how it started. I pulled up, they said they were done eating for a while and decided to mill around...
  

Then one got mad and disappeared from the frame...

Where did it go? It went to tree to watch me (they are predators after all)...


So I kept snapping pictures. They'd stopped eating but were, I guess, playing with each other...I don't know. But that's when I got the first shots of some of their wingspan...


Since they'd stopped eating, which was what wanted to catch on film, I said to myself "Self, maybe if you went across the street to the school, you could get some feasting pics." (You know, this sounds kind of morbid as I type it out, but that's what I said). So across the street I went and with the power of the ZOOM, I got these shots...

Mind you, they still weren't eating like they were when I initially drove by. But I was snapping away. Eventually, the buzzard in the tree must've said "I'm tired of this bitch," so he starting circling ME! Mind you, there wasn't much I could do, I can't outrun a flying bird of prey...so I took pics of that too. LOL.



Coming at me....

Circling out...
.

Eventually I began to feel a lil bit intimidated. I mean, this is a big ass bird! So I walked back to my car. Once I was in the car...he went back to the tree. Seriously...smart predators! And he flew around me with claws extended until I got in my car. As soon as my door closed, his feet/claws went flush against his body. I wish I had gotten a pic of that, but it happened so fast...

So I decided to head back to the house, but I made one more trip (via a U-turn in the street) back around to get a couple more pics and was able to get a good one of one of them that I could zoom in on...

Tell me that isn't once uuuuugly bird!

So, besides for the great gifts I got from my family on yesterday, this was my excitement for the day. I think I had a little too much fun with something that's really kind of morbid, but really, other than on TV westerns & cartoon movies, I've never seen a buzzard before.  Certainly not this close up & LIVE!

I hope you enjoyed your Christmas meal as much as they did theirs!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

LOL

December 21, 2012

Merry Christmas to Me!

OMG its finally here! Christmas vacay! Two weeks, no work, no passwords (maybe I should have written those down), nothing but time to relax & spend w/family & friends. I look forward to this time all year and Thank God its finally here.

You know what isn't here? Armageddon. Suck on that Mayan calendar.

I wonder how many folks skipped on Christmas gifts because they thought the world was going to end. I'd hate to have to share their Christmas tree with them!

I really don't have much to say. I'm just glad I'm done with work for 2012 & I have time to have some fun & bring in 2013 at home for the first time in a while...I have no idea what I'm going to do for New Years Eve. I guess I'll have to see what home has to offer.

I hope it doesn't suck, but time will tell.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FOLKS!

December 10, 2012

The Grinch

I did it. I went to see the musical How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Let me say that I have never been a fan of the cartoon & I only watched the movie once...on TV. And the voice of the man who sings the Grinch has always freaked me out because it just sounds so frigging weird. So, having said that, why did I go see it? For a few reasons. 1. I’ve been a lil slow on the holiday spirit/cheer this year & I figured it would help. 2. I like to support the arts when they come to my city because for so many years, my area was grossly lacking in musicals & operas so I was forced to travel 85 miles away to get my fix. Now that things are coming here again, I try to support at much as possible, even if its just a cheap seat. And 3, I was curious as to what kind of musical it was.

First and foremost, let me say that this was an uber kid-heavy event. As it should have been.  That actually added to my enjoyment because the kids were having a BALL. Some had their hair done like Cindy-Lou Who, some were dressed liked Whos. Some parents had the wrong story & dressed their kids like the kids from the Cat in the Hat..but its still Seuss so that’s ok. LOL.

I thoroughly enjoyed the musical. There were only 2 songs in the musical that have been used in the movie & original cartoon (as far as I could tell) and those were the Who’s song they sing around the Christmas tree &, or course, the Grinch song.  The musical called for audience participation which always brings about hilarious unscripted moments and the man who played the Grinch (who is in the cast of the PBS show Lazytown) was HILARIOUS! He played with the audience, greatly overacted some parts that were perfect for the kids. The show was just fun.  I wish it played for longer so more people got the chance to see it, but I’m glad I got to see it myself.

Oh, another thing about it being a kid’s show…there was no intermission. The show was over & done with in about an hour and a half. It felt short to me, but I’m not a kid, and there were some little kids in there. I mean, parents made frequent trips to the bathroom, babies cried…definitely child packed. But that was good too because there are so many musicals that are not geared towards children and they don’t get to have that musical theater experience until they are older. Much older. For some of them, up to 13 years older. So it was nice to go to a musical and see the little kids there & see them stay for the whole show.

Case in point, when I went to see Beauty & the Beast, which was a full-length musical, there was a mother & daughter in the dress circle (not the cheap seats) a few seats over from me and they left at intermission because the daughter was sleepy. All I kept thinking was that after I spent $60+ on the “good seats,” my kid would have been taking a nap in that good seat until the show was over. So, musical without an intermission, over & done in about 90 minutes…perfect for a kid.  

December 4, 2012

When Worlds Collide

In today’s entertainment the majority of “new” movies are remakes. It’s sad to say, but the truth is the truth.  There are so many movies that come out & they seem new..until you google them and, surprise-surprise, they’ve been done before.  While I would love to look at it on the same level of the revival of Broadway musicals, I just can’t.  Partly because the Broadway musical can only be seen on Broadway. Not VHS, DVD or blu-ray.  In fact, the only thing that is logged for enjoying over & over again from Broadway is the musical soundtrack.  And, I can’t get over the fact that, with all the money that is put into a movie, Hollywood financiers are ready & willing to pour their duckies into a movie that already been done & can, sometimes, be seen for free OnDemand.  Ugh!  What has happened to the imagination in Hollywood? It’s so sad. 

And now, that’s even transferred over to TV where some shows are just retooled shows of yester year. Like the whole new Beauty & the Beast that just pales in comparison (in my opinion) to the one with Linda Hamilton & Ron Pearlman.  For someone who enjoys TV & movies, this whole recycle trend can be a major let down.

But thank God for books!

Now, books more and more books are being made into movies. Not just new books either. You have the Narnia series, the Hobbit & LOTR series too, that are books from many years ago that have been put into movie form. Thank goodness.

Because writers seem to have the bulk of the imagination these days, more & more books that are series, and some that are not, are being optioned for movies. Because of that, there’s more to read and more to watch.  Again…Thank God. I’d be missing out on tons of movie theater popcorn if it wasn’t for books.

And I needs my popcorn.