Amber & Natural Opposites

In some ways, cats and flowers are opposites.

One way is that flowers start out closed.

Then, with sun, time, and a patient blogger walking past them every day even though it's not really on her walking route, they bloom.

Cats actually start the morning in the eastern sun, spread wide, petals made of fur unfurled.

Then, they get overheated and retreat to their corner behind the rocking chair, near the lamp where we keep the sisal that will eventually go around the really hot radiator pipe and where the Internet cable comes out of the wall and drapes over the magazine rack.

A guy has to cool down.  Flowers don't.

Another way they are opposites is that kitties will eat flowers you bring into the house.  Unless you put them up super duper high.

Amber & Be Careful What You Wish For

Often, I wish I could be friends with all the animals.

So, when I saw this little black squirrel guy, I, of course, went over to say hello.

It was like  fantasy! My little squirrel buddy seemed happy to let me near.

He even noticed me and turned to listen to me compliment him on the fluffiness of his tail.

But then, when he decided to take our friendship to the next interspecies level, and started to approach me, I hightailed it out of there.

Back at home, I remembered that I am friends with some pretty special fluffy-tailed animals that don't have rabies or ticks.

But they sure do have flexible spines.

Amber & It Was A Dark and Stormy Night....

How to make a dark and stormy* by Nick.

1. Have friends that go to Bermuda.

2. Ensure those friends are generous and kind enough to bring you back Gosling's Black Seal Rum.

3.  Make drink. Gaze upon your success with surprise and anticipation.

3.  Sip.

4.  Sip again.

5.  Let others know to stop photo documenting and start enjoying their beverage.

6.  Ask Diana to identify this flower in keeping with the theme of the week's blogging.

I call that one "fuzzy pink guys in clusters."

*The official ALH Beverage of 2012, as suggested by Erl.

Amber & Flora and Fauna Week

One of the nicest things about living in Stuytown, only coming in behind not living next door to a recording studio, being within walking distance of Sapporo East, and having an express bus that runs directly from my house to the K&D friends' house, is that we are surrounded by some particularly spectacular landscaping.

The bad thing about this is not having Diana, the detective of nature, around to identify all of our favorite samples of flora.  (We can usually identify the fauna-- black squirrel, gray squirrel, starling, sparrow, red hawk eating a squirrel, cutie doggie.  That's the menu of options.)

Diana, what's this pretty pale green guy?

Here is a close up.

In the meantime, we'll be calling it "those pale green guys over on the way up the hill between Mary's and the Avenue C Loop."