A Fishy Wish

Thought for the day:  My friend told me to blow all the candles out in one breath. What kind of a blowhard does he think I AM, anyway?

I forgot to warn my neighbors, so it's only natural they called 9-1-1 last week when they saw that fiery glow blazing inside our house. Actually, it was rather sweet of them, y'know? Caring. I mean, how were THEY supposed to know it was just my birthday cake?

Oh well, no real harm done. We ended up with a new front door, (The fireman's ax really shredded the old one.) and the carpets aren't nearly as soggy as they were a few days ago. And they needed to be cleaned, anyway.

Yep, last Thursday was my birthday. (yippee)  I'm past the age of getting excited about birthdays, although I've really been enjoying the cakes. (Got TWO of 'em. Hmmm, you think Smarticus had doubts about fitting all those candles onto one...?) By the way, I hope ya know I was just kidding about the firemen coming to the house. After coming the past two years, they knew better...

Anyhow, what I WAS excited about was the article I'd seen in the newspaper a couple months back saying that the Georgia Aquarium gives FREE entrance and dolphin show tickets to people on their birthdays. I mean, woo-HOO, right? You already know what I think about senior discounts so you can just imagine how I feel about FREEBIES. Especially if it involves something as neat as the Aquarium. Our first visit to the Aquarium was in May of 2011, so I was more than ready to go again. Before going, we checked online to see if there was anything we needed to know, like what we could and couldn't bring. No guns, knives, or lighters. Makes perfect sense. But my personal favorite? No fishing rods! That still cracks me up.

Okay, wanta see some pictures?

This is one of the touch tanks, showing a couple of horseshoe crabs, and a bonnethead shark. Last time we went, I touched every critter in every touch tank. This time, I restrained myself. More (ahem) mature, I guess. Nah. I was wearing long sleeves this time.

Isn't this guy too cute? Kinda looks like he needs to pay a visit to the orthodontist. Or not. Obviously, he isn't too self-conscious about his teeth. He smiled for me.

This guy has a lot of personality, too, doesn't he? Looks a tad frantic, like he's late, he's late for a very important date.

Now I ask you... does the fish in front... or does he not... look like Donald Trump? (I had no idea a fish could have a bad toupee, did you?)

This is a garden... of eels. In the wild, some areas are supposedly so densely populated with them, the seabed looks like a wheat field. Um, with stripes.

The seahorses were fascinating to watch...

but not quite as fascinating as the sea dragons. (Sorry about the flash reflection.) These critters are absolutely amazing. And reeeeally fun to watch.

The electric eel is pretty neat, but I've gotta admit, the National Aquarium's display in Baltimore is much better. They have a meter and speaker on their electric eel's tank, so you can actually see the measurements of... and hear... the discharges of electricity.

How about this octopus? Colorful character, isn't he?

In the deep sea portion of the aquarium, you walk through a tunnel, with all kinds of creatures on either side of the path... and above it. I believe this picture shows the underbellies of a couple of guitarfish. Maybe their names are Fender and Gibson? (That's what I'd call 'em, anyway.)

Here's some of the belugas. Really playful critters. So were the otters, both river and sea. But the most amazing animals were the dolphins performing in the Dolphin Tales show.   WOW! The divers working with them have some job! Can you imagine riding on a dolphin's back... or being pushed through the water at high speed by one... or "surfing" on one's back? One guy even stood on two of them... and rode 'em like a pair of skis.

Oh yeah, a group of Weeki Wachee mermaids put on a show right before the Dolphin Tales, too. That was okay, but a little bit of that went a long way for me. What I would have liked more of, though, is the animated 3-D movie... complete with special effects. The movie only lasted about fifteen minutes or so, but I was grinning like an idiot the entire time. I LOVED it! (The first time I felt a little splat of water, I thought it was my overactive imagination...)

Four whale sharks are cruising around in the deep sea exhibit. In spite of their massive size, their tracheas are only about the diameter of a dime, so they don't pose much danger to the other fish in the tank. At feeding time, divers get into the tank in four rafts, and each raft has a different color feeding bucket... a specific color assigned to each shark. The whale sharks have been trained such that each seeks food only from the properly colored bucket. So no feeding frenzy. Quite civilized.

Bottom line? We enjoyed our visit to the Aquarium just as much this time as we did before. Even more.

And look what I found! Sorry y'all couldn't be with us last week, but how'd you like to take a virtual tour? I found quite a few videos on YouTube, but this one was my favorite. There's even a great shot of a sea dragon in it. Check it out:

Pretty neat, huh? And lucky YOU, I even found some videos taken of the Dolphin Tales show. Not sure how those folks got away with it, because no one was supposed to take any pictures or videos in there. But like I said, lucky YOU...

(sigh) It was a wonderful way to spend a birthday... to spend ANY day. I can hardly wait to go back.

                                        Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

          You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.

But Can He Catch a Frisbee?

Thought for the day:  No matter how little money and how few possessions you own, having a dog makes you rich.  [Louis Sabin]

We may not have had the smartest dogs in the world, or the prettiest, but we always managed to share our home with the sweetest and most loving. And yes, being welcomed home by an excited dog can make you feel rich. And important.

Nothing against our cats... we love 'em to pieces... but they aren't exactly over-the-top "Welcome home; I've missed you soooo much!" kinda critters like dogs are. Their attitudes are more like, (yawn) "What? You were gone...?"

It isn't that our dogs didn't know ANY tricks. Not at all. They did. Our Springer spaniel could catch Frisbees. Really well, too. Most of our dogs were pretty good about conducting their, um,  business outside, too. (Most of the time.) And my grandmother had a beautiful boxer whose awe-inspiring farts spurred people to set personal best speed records in their mad dashes to the exit.

I yam what I yam

But our dogs were always gentle. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Or a burglar. Or a butterfly.

Last year, I wrote a post about military working dogs. It is positively amazing what these dogs can do. Like jump out of airplanes. (More than one time, too!)

Today, I'm gonna show you what another kind of service dog can do. You won't believe it until you see it with your own eyes:

That settles it! Clearly, we've been giving our dogs the wrong name. We have to get a Jesse. How about you? Think you could use a dog like him? Or do you already have a dog that astounds? Does he only chew up the shoes that hurt your feet? Does he only bark at people from the other political party? Do tell.

                                    Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

CREDIT Senior Ark, I Can Has Cheezburger, and Manuel J. Martinez, USAF, for the nifty images.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Thought for the day: Some things are too much fun to only do once.

Pick a single post from 2012 to rerun, huh? Not as easy peasy as I thought it would be. I mean, we've only got one shot at making a first impression, and the question is, what kind of impression do I want to make? Should I go with something educational? Inspirational? Silly? Something about writing? About amateur radio? Long? Short?  (Dare I risk offense by blasting y'all with the Blowing in the Wind one about flatulence...?) 

Okay, here we go. Decision made. The following post premiered on January 18 with the title Enjoying the Trip Back Down. To all you wonderful people who stop by on a regular basis, I hope you don't mind reading it again. To any blogfest blog-hoppers stopping by for the first time, welcome aboard. I hope you enjoy it.

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Thought for the day:  A good attitude is contagious, but for Heaven's sake, don't wait to catch it from somebody. Be a carrier.  

still smiling after all these years

Tell me please, dear friends, how can I possibly be over the hill when I don't remember ever making it to the top?

But I own a doll proclaiming it, so it must be true, right? Worse, I've already had that darned doll for decades. Got it from one of my friends when I turned forty. To tell the truth, I didn't feel old then, and I don't feel particularly old now. So what if I'm at an age where the pain under a woman's breast may very well turn out to be a bum knee? Who cares if men my age have long since abandoned wild oats in favor of prunes and high fiber cereal, and consider Happy Hour to be a nice long nap?

Tell ya what. If I really AM over the hill, I plan on enjoying the trip back down. Squeeze as much good stuff out of it as I can. After all, like that famous dude said, I may not pass this way again.

 But you know, there's a lot of good things to say about getting older. Like we generally have the confidence to stand for more convictions, and the moxie to fall for less malarkey. We may still be competitive, but we also realize that being kind is much more important than being right. We've learned it isn't very smart to test the depth of the water with both feet, and we understand that the true art of conversation isn't just about saying the right thing at the right time. Sometimes, it means keeping our mouths shut when it's oh-so-tempting to deliver a verbal shot.

And hey, hey, hey! Looky here! Our Social Security checks are a little higher this year. 

Even though politicians are pontificating about cutting spending, about making changes to social security and medicare, we the people actually got a raise in Social Security benefits this year. See? Congress really DOES love us!  Forget all that nonsense about "death panels." There's absolutely NO TRUTH in the following clip, either. None at all.

Now, I'm not ready to take up sky diving or run off a cliff, but hey! I'm as adventurous as I've always been, doggone it. I believe I'll have me a bowl of full-fat strawberry ice cream for dessert tonight. Heck, I might even eat it FIRST. (What a rebel.)

                           Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.   Mark Twain


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Sincere thanks to D.L. Hammons for hosting this blogfest.