No Ball At All

I volunteered to help out with RAPTOR's fundraiser this year.
Instead of a regular auction/dinner, we are doing something a little different.
It's called No Ball At All.
I won't say exactly what we are doing, yet...but it involves pictures like this:

(Original photo by the Fabulous Shila...did anyone know she had a website AND a blog????)

"Of course, I'm French! Why do you think I speak in this ridiculous accent?!"

"Deck the halls with crows and cardinals....fa la la la la, la la la la."

"I'm too sexy for this skirt, too sexy for this skirt,
So sexy it HURTS!"

How to survive in Cincinnati

The girls and I were all over Cincinnati today, and it made me think of all the stuff that makes Cincinnati unique, fun or just weird. I thought about the times I have traveled in different cities, not knowing the layout, or the best restaurants, etc. Trixie will be passing through Cincy this month, so I get to meet another bloggeress! And we will be hitting us some chili parlors, oh yeah.
So here's Susan Gets Native Guide to Cincinnati:

• The circle freeway in Cincinnati is I-275. I think of it as a clock...Tri-County Mall is at 12, Northern Kentucky is at 6, and so on. and I-275 goes through three states: Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.
• The two main "artery" expressways are I-75 and I-71. I-75 travels along the west side of town and I-71 goes along the east. They also merge to become I-75/I-71 in Northern Kentucky.
  
• The two big sports teams are the Reds (Baseball) and the Bengals (football).
  

And some years, they don't suck.

• Food that Cincinnati is famous for: First and foremost, SKYLINE Chili. It's not a Tex-Mex chili...it is a Greek recipe developed by an immigrant who will now go down in history as the Father of Cincinnati Chili. Two of the best ways to have Skyline...with spaghetti and topped with cheese, or a coney: Hot dog, steamed bun, chili and cheese. Another Cincy favorite is Montgomery Inn ribs. And Graeter's Ice Cream. If you come here, I will personally take you out to get all three.
• Cincinnati was founded mostly by German immigrants, and you can tell by some of the traditional foods: One is Goetta. (That's pronounced ged-da) It's basically oatmeal sausage. Don't knock it until you try it. Some smart-ass called it "Cincinnati Caviar".
• Our airport isn't in Cincinnati. It's in Kentucky. I know, I don't understand it either.
• With the northern growth of the metropolitan area, it is theorized that someday Cincinnati and Dayton will be merged. (Like Dallas/Fort Worth)
• You can guess someone's age by what they call State Route 126. If you are over 30, you call it "Cross County Highway". If you are younger, you call it "Ronald Reagan".
• Old timers here don't pronounce Cincinnati the way the rest of us do. I remember my grandmother, who was born in 1900, calling it "Cincinnatah".
• We hold the second largest Oktoberfest in the world. "Eins, zwei, drei....G'SUFFA!" Come enjoy Gemutlichkeit in your Lederhosen!
  
• If you need a hospital while you are here, most of them are near the University of Cincinnati. All of them are sitting on top of what we call "Pill Hill". University (General), Good Samaritan (or Good Sam, as we call it), Deaconess, Christ...all in the same area.
• Unfortunately, the majority of Cincinnatians are Conservatives. But there are small pockets of good ol' pinko liberals....like in Clifton, an area near University of Cincinnati. That's where you go to see (or be) the freaks. Independent films, hemp clothing, forward thinking people...you can get it all in Clifton.

• Famous people who were born in, or lived at one time in Cincinnati:

Benjamin Harrison- 23rd president
William Howard Taft-27th president
Albert Sabin-creator of oral Polio vaccine
Tony Snow-current White House Press Secretary (Yuck)
George Clooney (Oh, yeahhhhhhhh)
Rosemary Clooney
Doris Day
Ted Turner
Carmen Electra
Annie Oakley
Sara Jessica Parker
Tyrone Power
Roy Rogers
Stephen Spielberg
Jerry Springer (he was a news anchor, mayor, and that guy who got caught when he paid a hooker with a check)
Andy Williams
98 Degrees (Boy band from the 90's...lead singer was Nick Lachey, that guy who married Jessica Simpson)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Pete Rose
Charles Guggenheim
*from areas surrounding Cincinnati or just from Ohio, because I like making lists:
Neil Armstrong
John Glenn
Erma Bombeck
Dorothy Dandridge
Clark Gable
Thomas Edison
Dean Martin
Paul Newman
Halle Berry
Drew Carry
Arsenio Hall
Gloria Steinem (Burn those bras, ladies!)
Tecumseh
Warren Harding-29th president
Rutherford Hayes-19th president
George Custer
Ulysses S. Grant-18th president
James A. Garfield-20th president
William McKinley-25th president
*Notice all the presidents from Ohio? Ohio is called the "Mother of Presidents". Eight were from here.

Now, no post of mine would be complete without a bit of humor.
Check out this ad from back in the day:

Are YOU everyone's PAL?

Sometimes it's all about the flowers (but at the end, a bird)

Lorelei update:
Still has a fever. And nothing else. Just hot to the touch and not acting normal.
***
I took a stroll around the yard today, in the daytime, even.
I need some help here.
(Okay, okay. Enough, there.)

Someone tell me that this is an important plant.
Because we have a lot of it. (And more than what I am showing...I DO have standards, damn it.)

I've been praying that it's a beautiful milkweed or something so exquisite that tearing it out would be sacrilege.

I know what this is.
Prickly lettuce.
I don't know about the lettuce part, but the prickly stuff is for real.
And it's a foot taller than the grass. We haven't had to mow, since Mother Nature is spanking us on the bottom with the lack of rain.
Not a native.
Damn it.

I finally know what this is. Now that it's opened up.
Moth mullein.
And not a liatris, just as you said, Laura.
Not a native.
Damn it.

This was one of the freebies I got from the nursery, and I have been waiting for it to open up more so I can ID it.
It's an upright, woody-stemmed plant. With bright pink tubular flowers.
Think it's a native?
Poop.

Oxalis triangularis. Pretty.
Not a native.
!@%*.


A sort-of-a-succulent kind of thing. With pretty orange flowers.
Bet that's not a native, either.
Pbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbpbp......

While pining over the hopefully-valuable plant, I found a cute little leaf hopper that looks like a stained-glass window!

And also while waxing poetic about the big, huge, unkempt weeds behind me, our female hummingbird landed on the pole by the feeder. I was puzzled by the fluffiness on her legs at first. But when I enlarged the photo, I noticed some fluff stuck to the wind chime, and I guess she is "wool-gathering" for her wee sweet nest.
***
When I like something, I tend to keep hold of it, so here's a few more quotes from Our Boys:

*Our experts describe you as an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful. And whereas in most professions these would be considerable drawbacks, in chartered accountancy they are a positive boon.

*Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People's Front?
Reg: F*** off! We're the People's Front of Judea.

*I wave my private parts at your aunties, you cheesy lot of second hand electric
donkey-bottom biters.

We apologize for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have been sacked.

***There was just a bald eagle and a handler on The Colbert Report! Stephen! Ask ME next time!***

You know it's time to put out more suet when...

...a red-bellied woodpecker is hanging from one toe, trying to get a sunflower seed.
That's a position you don't often see a woodpecker in.

Here's a house finch saying, "Wha...?"


Here's same house finch saying, "Wha...?", but POOFIER.



Lorelei had a mystery fever today. She was NOT her usual sunshiny self.

Since our TV is still fried, I have to resort to playing DVDs on the laptop.
What a cute scene...my three kids snuggled on the couch.

I was taking random pictures in the house, and rather liked this one.
On the left is a picture of my parents on my wedding day (and this is the ONLY picture in existence of them kissing), and on the right is a picture of our Great Horned Owl (taken by the Fabulous Shila, aka Zick's buddy)

Don't let the cat out of the bag...er..box!

I put the garden hose on "Mist" yesterday for the hummingbirds. And they appreciated it. Did I get a picture of them appreciating it? Please.

I had a great presentation this afternoon. 150 Girl Scouts who were really into birds of prey.
And Elvis (our Barred Owl)
Stole. The. Show.
He was so...himself. He was named "Elvis" because he thinks he is the King. And barred owls have such a human look about them. Every time I would say something about his attitude, that head would swivel around and he would stare at me, cracking the audience up.
The lady who set up the program said that it was like he was a puppet on my hand, because it looked scripted the way he was interacting with me.
He is such an interesting bird. He is hard to catch in the mew sometimes (I have to wear him out and then sneak up behind him to grab his jesses) but once he is on the glove, he sits there like the royalty he thinks he is.


"My name is Elvis. Worship me and I may let you live."

To continue the goofiness from the other night:
(these are not original....)

Ever wonder what chairs would look like if our knees bent the other way?

From the brilliant comedic stylings of the the Boys of Monty Python:

"...I'm a kike, a Heebie, I'm a Red Sea pedestrian, Mom, and proud of it!"

"I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

"Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of silly persons!"

"Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I'm being repressed! "

“-She turned me into a newt!
-A newt?
-I got better...”

And a few from Dave Barry:
“Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night”

“It is a well-documented fact that guys will not ask for directions. This is a biological thing. This is why it takes several million sperm cells . . . to locate a female egg, despite the fact that the egg is, relative to them, the size of Wisconsin.”