I haven't posted a lunch in a while (mostly because they've been fairly boring), so I thought it would be a nice change of pace from animal pictures.
I'm really looking forward to this lunch. Spinach salad with hardboiled egg and red onion; balsamic wax beans with onions; red grapes and orange sections; and a faux burger.
I don't know why, but there was a mystery mini-parade down my street today.
I was just coming back from the farmer's market, so I didn't get a chance to see if there was any sort of banner at the front or anything.
We let the dogs out on the front porch to see, and it was apparently the single most exciting thing they've ever seen. And ever since then, Cordy has been inconsolable. She wants a pony. Just like Mommy. :)
We saw lots of animals at the zoo who aren't normally awake when we're there, even though we almost always go first thing in the morning, as soon as the zoo opens. This time, though, almost everybody was awake! Must have been the nice low-ish temperatures.
One of the animals we're only seen once or twice in five or six years are the grizzly bears. This time, not only were both of them out, but one of them was playing with a toy in the water. He (or she, I suppose) was pushing it under water and trying to get it to stay down, but it would inevitably pop back up.
This photos is a series that I took. He looked like he was having a lot of fun!
The third one is probably my favorite. He was so surprised when it exploded out of the water!
One of the things I like best about the Columbus Zoo is the goats. Yes, the kind in the petting zoo. They have pygmy goats and regular-sized goats, but the regular-sized goats are the friendliest.
I started to pet the goat and he didn't want me to stop.
Jeff made some friends, too. The lorikeet aviary lets you feed nectar to the birds for a dollar.
They approve of this arrangement. There are some who aren't really even in it for the nectar, just the attention.
And then there were those who had better things to do.
Jeff and I headed out to the Columbus Zoo this morning, where we bought a membership and proceeded to see as many animals in an hour and a half as we have in probably all the other times we've been there.
Here's the lion:
We were about four feet from him.
Here's the tiger:
And here's a sunbear:
We saw lots of other animals, too, and even got to pet some of them. Look for more pictures later this week. We've been having a busy few weeks, so this was a nice, fun zoo visit.
The downside to shopping for furniture in antique shops is that there's lots of other fun stuff to look at. And buy.
Like this very cute hippo, who now sits on the windowsill above the kitchen sink.
And Jeff found a good number of tikis, almost all of them vintage.
The little ones are a salt and pepper set from the old Kahiki.
That skull is also from the Kahiki. That's what kamakazis came in. And he found this wonderful candy tin, too:
How could he not buy a tin for a candy named "Zombies"?! I may try to come up with some sort of my version of it when I make candy this year.
As you can see, I was pretty good. Not that I didn't want anything, but I stayed focused on the furniture. With Jeff's tiki stuff, you have to buy it when you see it!
We finally found the rest of the furniture. After a day spent traipsing through antique stores, we now have a sideboard:
I suppose many people will be appalled, but it was a much taller buffet, and we cut the legs off to make it fit under the window. We'll probably repaint it at some point, too.
We also found an old pie safe for storage.
It also needs to be repainted. And it would be nice if we could get the paint off the tin in the doors, too.
We also picked up a new gateleg table. Jeff really liked it. (And after all that looking, in one antique mall, we found at least six of them. :) It's bigger than the blue one, and it has a leaf, too. I'd say it can easily seat six when fully extended.
We hit another couple antique stores today, and found a little credenza for very cheap.
We need to tighten up the hinges to fix the doors. Other than that, the wear is just character. :) It'll probably end up being a side table for Jeff's chair.
We've also been looking for small gateleg table for quite a while now. We found one close to the size we wanted at the same antique store.
It's beat up, but it was cheap, and we'll have it covered with a table cloth for company. It takes up very little space when completely folded up, which is exactly what we were looking for.
Just two more pieces to go now. The biggest two. We're going out looking next weekend.
Those of you who know Cordy know that she's smart. And mostly, that's a good thing.
For those of you who don't know Cordy, she's a chow-chow German shepherd mix, and she's sharper than a box of tacks. She learns commands/tricks so fast that it's hard to keep up. My good guess would be that she knows 50-60 words/commands, and we could probably teach her as many more as we could come up with.
Sometimes, though, it's not a good thing that Cordy is so smart. Because that means she gets bored. And then she decides to check out the drawers and cupboards within her reach. And destroy stuff.
And when that gets dull, she decides to explore the liquor cabinet. I kid you not. She gnawed the top off a bottle of booze and it was empty when I came home to a very happy dog.
So she gets crated. And she hates that. So she gives herself a lick granuloma, basically a self-imposed open sore. Nasty.
We're an open storage house. We use baskets and such to store stuff. But not now. We went to the vet's and Cordy is now on amitriptyline to give her a chance to let whatever is bothering her to subside. We're also trying a new arthritis medicine to see if pain is the problem causing her misbehavior (she can't have most NSAIDs, so her arthritis is a continuing issue).
So. New storage as part of the behavior modification program. With drawers. And doors. And proper cupboards. And latches.
We bought our first piece today from SoBo - an enamel-topped kitchen cupboard for Spike's cage in the living room. It's white now, but we'll probably paint it in the not too distant future. We're still looking for three more pieces, and we have some ideas, but we're not rushing.
Ever since college, I've been slowly adding on the pounds working desk jobs. Well, I'm tired of it. So I traded a coworker for her unused treadmill and had Jeff build me a laptop stand for it.
For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, here's a close up of the stand.
I had been considering doing this for a while, but couldn't find a treadmill to buy for a reasonable price. Mom did it to her treadmill right before I got mine.
I walked for 45 minutes today while I watched a DVD on my laptop. Not a bad start!
I don't often show you the front garden. It's nice, but for some strange reason, I tend to think it's boring, even though it's not.
There was a big sale at Oakland Nursery this weekend, and we loaded up on stuff for the holes in the front, including some hydrangea.
We also picked up a small spirea.
I don't know if I mentioned last year that we replaced our smaller water feature with a 100 gallon water trough (purchased at a farmer supply store for about $50). It makes a wonderful water feature that's deep enough for our water lily to live through the winter. Jacques and Petrolina just went to work in there last week, and we got a new solar fountain, too.
And one patch of Jeff's bananas lived through the winter.
And, of course, we have snapdragons and portulaca, Jeff's and my favorite garden flowers, respectively.
So that's the front garden. Maybe another picture when the lilies bloom.
PS: Hi, Uncle Chuck! (My Uncle Chuck just let me know that he subscribed to my blog. He's my mother's older brother and he lives out in San Diego with my Aunt Terry.)
