Denis and I went to the Wildlife World Zoo Wednesday. It was a rather quiet day, and we enjoyed our ramble. Due to all the problems with my knees and legs, I have to use an electric scooter when we're out and about. Mine is a four-wheeler I named Esmeralda because she's green. She's got enough zip in her that she'd take me straight up the side of a mountain if I were so inclined, and there are days when Denis wishes he could hitch up a small wagon so Esmeralda and I could take him for a ride around wherever we're at.
Evidently our ramble took place close to lunch time for several of the residents because when they heard Esmeralda's quiet approach and then saw her, they perked up something fierce. It's been a long time since I've gotten that much attention from other living beings. Herds of deer stood up and started coming to the fence. An emu kept pace with me as I motored past. I have to admit that it was a bit unsettling when a young jaguar focused on me to the exclusion of all else. It made me wonder... does he think I'm the food truck, or... the food on the truck? They are such gorgeous creatures!
I'll leave you with a "funny" that holds a lot of truth:
►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄
- Winnie-the-Pooh, Bambi, The Sun Also Rises, and other important works entered the public domain on January 1.
- Victorian knitting manuals collection.
- The great rebus craze of 1937.
- Inside the Rosenwald Schools. (This is the family of The Poisoned Pen Bookstore owner Barbara Peters' husband.)
- The All-American appeal of the bundt cake.
- How many books does it take to make a house feel like home?
- An ode to bookish internet friends.
- Patricia Thang is getting rid of her books.
- Why P.N. Hinton took reading apps off her phone.
►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄
- Scientists in Egypt have digitally unwrapped the 3,500-year-old mummy of Pharaoh Amenhotep I.
- An extraordinary 500-year-old shipwreck is rewriting the history of the Age of Discovery.
- DNA preserved in lice glue reveals South American mummies' secrets.
- The missing continent it took 375 years to find.
- Scientists can determine where and when Dutch masters worked by the white paint they used.
- How volcanic eruptions helped the ancient Puebloan culture flourish.
- New memorials in Berlin honor the Holocaust's overlooked Black victims.
- Found in a candy tin: one of the first coins struck in colonial North America.
►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄
- The symbiotic relationship between elder rescued vervet monkeys and their adopted cats.
- The hardworking dogs of medieval Europe.
- Watch beautiful tropical butterflies take flight in slow motion.
- Millie the dog keeps her town clean by picking up litter left by humans and throwing it away.
- Meng Lan, a giant panda, recently went viral by escaping from his enclosure at the Beijing Zoo.
- Mr. Goodbar, a Mexican gray wolf, paced along 23 miles of the border wall in New Mexico, trying to find a way to cross into Mexico to find a mate, before giving up and heading north.
- Watch this smart dog figure out how to pick up four tires at once.
- Watch a flying fox celebrate her first birthday at the Oregon Zoo.
►Fascinating Folk◄
- Erasing women from science? There's a name for that. Ask Matilda Joslyn Gage.
- Betty White, star of The Golden Girls and Hot in Cleveland, is dead at the age of 99. I was so hoping she'd make it to 100.
- Why Martha Washington's life is so elusive to historians.
- The real ice queens: women who conquered the cold wearing corsets.
- How James Curran, a railroad engineer from Nebraska, invented the world's first ski chairlift.
- Molly Pitcher, the most famous American hero who never existed.
- Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese diplomat who saved thousands from the Nazis.
- How Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, and his wife, Susan, secretly shipped their elephant trophies home.
►The Wanderer◄
- The lost history of Yellowstone.
- Bangalore: crime and mystery in India's wild south.
- The "three-dimensional game-board" of Agatha Christie's country houses.
- Kek lapis Sarawak: the mesmerizing geometry of Malaysia's most complex cakes.
- Caroline Cutter's headstone: a New Hampshire grave with a grudge.
►I ♥ Lists◄
- Thirteen mysteries set in isolated locations.
- Eleven historical fiction novels about women disguised as men.
- Fifty very bad book covers for literary classics.
- Seventeen things we used in the year 2000 but never do today.
- Maternity leave noir.
- Eight mysteries and thrillers based on true events.
- The biggest fiction bestsellers of the past 100 years.
►Gobsmacked◄
- The Rap Sheet is one of the blogs I follow, and it has a feature called Revue of Reviewers in which others' reviews of new crime fiction are listed. I pay attention (but not close attention) to this feature, usually only clicking on the book covers if it's a title I've read or am thinking of reading. Imagine my shock when I clicked on The Hanged Man's Tale to find out what that reviewer thought of it only to discover that it was my review!
That's all for this week! Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll be sharing a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. And don't forget to curl up with a good book!
So glad you and Denis went tot he Wildlife Zoo and glad neither of you were the jaguar's lunch. But sounds like such a great adventure. But maybe Denis should get a scooter, too. Or you could manage to add a sidecar.
ReplyDeleteSee some great links as usual. Time to get busy.
The sidecar sounds like a good idea as long as he doesn't turn into a sideseat driver...
DeleteA friend vacationed in the Poconos in the summer. She met a woman who lives off the grid in a tree house (?) This is an enigma to me. How do you meet your needs? Anyway, she had a motorcycle with a sidecar, and took my friend racing through Pennsylvania's countryside. Looked like so much fun.
DeleteI think it would be.
DeleteIt sounds as though you and Denis had a great time at the zoo, and I'm happy to hear it. And thanks for the great mental picture of those animals thinking you were the lunch truck! Esmeralda sounds like a very useful companion! Now, I'm off to visit that shipwreck; don't think I can use a scooter there...
ReplyDeleteNo, I think your scooter would have to have a couple of extra attachments.
DeleteSounds like you had a wonderful outing to the zoo, although it would be a bit unnerving to have a jaguar staring you down. How fun to find your review listed on another blog! Lots of fun links this week. Have a good weekend!
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, I didn't find the jaguar stare-down nearly as unnerving as the encounter I had with a black jaguar at the San Diego Zoo. Yikes!
DeleteI love the reaction that your soundalike lunch wagon got from all the animals. Seldom are zoo animals so excited about a visitor who wants their picture. LOL
ReplyDeleteWow...those "bad book covers for classics" are even worse than I imagined they would be. I guess that's what happens when anyone can take a book and sell it without having to concern themselves with copyright legalities. A few were so bad that they made me laugh out loud.
Yes indeedy, some of those bad book covers blew my tiny mind. I'd ask "How could they?" but why bother?
DeleteAre all these jaguars roaming free? How are visitors endangered/ Aren't there fences?
ReplyDeleteThey are in well-built enclosures with no way that humans can get to them or they can get to the humans. I was merely having a flight of fancy while that young cat was staring at me.
DeleteThe same goes for the enclosure at the San Diego Zoo. A tourist was right at the wire of the black jaguar's enclosure, determined to get a photo. The jaguar got fed up and hid behind boulders until the tourist gave up and left. When I came over to take a look a few minutes later, the cat was still so agitated that it charged right at me, snarling and with huge fangs bared. Poor thing. I will say that having a large, heavily muscled black jaguar coming right at you, jaws open wide, will definitely get your heart started.
Emerald green is my favorite color, so I love the name for your scooter - glad she's serving you so well! I'm off to follow many of your links, and may have to start following the Rap Sheet myself, since they have such good taste 🙂
ReplyDeleteYou silver-tongued devil, you. You're making me blush!
DeleteThat quote about reading until your 839th birthday is hilarious! :D
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to in order to read everything on my shelves and Kindle! LOL
Delete