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2012-02-06T18:22:01+00:00

Birds of Panama

2012-02-03T16:51:05+00:00

Since there is nothing happening in my own particular little world today and it’s gray outside, I thought I’d take you back to Panama and show you some colorful birds I came across on our visit there last May. One of the first birds I was introduced to was this little guy: a Red-Legged Honey Creeper. I love his black mask and his deep indigo color. Here is a male and female side by side. Of course he gets to be dazzlingly beautiful and she gets to be a rather drab yellow-green! A bird that was pretty hard to get photos of was this Thick-billed Euphonia with his bright yellow and dark blue coloring. You can see a few Red-Legged Honey Creepers in the same tree with him. An unidentified bird. My notes say “Flame Tanager” but it’s not! The beak is too large. All these birds were photographed outside Panama City in the yard of a Bed & Breakfast we had lunch at. I could have cared less about the delicious lunch that she served with all these beautiful birds all around us! The following bird photos were taken at our small boutique hotel in Boquete. Each morning they would put out fruit for the birds. You had to be an early riser to see the birds before the fruit was gone. Here is one of the bird “feeders.” The Blue-Gray Tanagers were plentiful; whether they were by themselves or sharing with a Red-Legged Honey Creeper: or feeding their young: And certainly lots of my already favorite birds: The Red-Legged Honey Creepers again! In this photo you can see more of his gorgeous coloring. Here he is pretty darned intimidated by the much larger bird. I’m pretty sure the other bird is a Streaked Saltador (female?) but I was never certain of the identification. Just look how he’s trying to make himself look bigger by ruffling up the feathers on his head. Mrs. Honey-Creeper: Another Thick-Billed Euphonia with a very curious Streaked Saltador (love its expression!). This Euphonia is very dull in color compared to one at the beginning of this post, so no sure if it is a female or just in a molt. I also loved the Silver Throated Tanagers. These colorful birds with their blue beaks and half-orange breasts I could never identify from the guide at the hotel. (My bird book does not cover the tropics!) Maybe in the Tanager family?? Another unidentified bird. The common robin! A Social Flycatcher. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have these colorful birds in your back yard?

I love my amaryllis

2012-01-30T18:19:28+00:00

I’ve now had an amaryllis in the house for about three years. The first one was given to me by my neighbor Aileen and it bloomed its heart out for three years in a row. She gave me another one and it bloomed for two years in a row. Both of them now I think have bloomed themselves out since there are no signs of any buds coming. So, this year I bought one for myself and potted it back in December. Take a look now! Here it is as taken early Sunday morning. Some people don’t care for lens flare, but I kind of liked it on this photo. I think it adds interest. This shot was taken later in the day. Look how much the second bud has come out in just a few hours. Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s so nice to have something beautiful to look at and enjoy in this rather dull winter we are having.

First snow of the season

2012-01-23T12:40:25+00:00

What do you do with a photo of house finches all with their mouths open? We had the first snow of the season that started in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday and ended after noon. It left behind about 7 inches of fluffy white snow in its wake. Finally! It was lovely to have nowhere to go and to just sit by the fire and watch the flakes softly falling. The birds were very active and we both had great fun watching them and trying to capture them in photos. female cardinal and junco male house finch male cardinal The dogs enjoyed the snow too! Here are Alex and Hailey on the deck. If you look closely you can see Bella down in the yard. Repeating patterns! Our new little electric snow shovel (that acts like a snowblower) made cleaning off the deck an easy task. It worked like a charm! Yesterday it did not get above freezing and cloudy so there was no melting going on. This morning it is already above freezing as I type and we are supposed to have temperatures in the 40’s with rain and fog. Easy come; easy go I guess. It was nice while it lasted! leftover snow on our bathroom skylight

Slight wardrobe change

2012-01-22T14:23:14+00:00

I was able to exchange the three-stranded necklace for the one above. I tried on every necklace in the store I think that was cubic zirconia. The necklace came with the earrings (see three-squared drop ones) as a set but I opted to stay with the other earrings I had already bought. So now I have two! I think I would like the square earrings better if they were just studs or perhaps just two of the drops instead of three. The fitting went well. I had small heart palpitations when she wielded her scissors on the hem of my beautiful dress, but as she told me: “I know-a what I am doing, don’t-a worry!” My next (and hopefully final) fitting is Friday. Rick approved of the dress!

The Dress (aka I said “Yes to the Dress!”)

2012-01-18T22:17:28+00:00

At first I was looking forward to shopping for the “special” dress (or in this case, gown) for our Oscar Award Ceremony. I have to say that I like to shop but I don’t love it. I have curves and many of today’s dresses just aren’t made for a woman that has breasts. Or hips. My body is better suited to the era of the 40’s when it was the fashion to have curves. One look at at the sizes and you have to wonder who wears a size 00? When I hold it up I think to myself that I have a broom that’s wider than it is. Not even Twiggy of the 60’s was that skinny! What are they thinking with the sizing? So if you wear a size 10 or 12 these days you are almost a “plus” size, when years ago it was a completely normal size to wear. Hello Fashion World! Why not make women feel better about the size they wear rather than make them feel horrible? Our society and this penchant for being the size of a broomstick is scary to me. And nothing is true to size. Nothing. Not even shoes. I have worn a size 6 for many years now. After trying on shoes to go with said gown I quickly realized that size 6’s were slipping off my feet. Too big! Now it seems I wear a 5 1/2. I haven’t worn a 5 1/2 since I was in high school. (And, as we all know, that was a very long time ago!) Just a year ago I could barely find anything in size 6, let alone a 5 1/2. But now 5 1/2’s seem to be plentiful. I asked the woman in Macy’s who was waiting on me if it was my imagination or had my feet started to shrink? She laughed and said it was true: they are changing the sizing. Huh? I had to wonder if that was for all those size 00 models with feet like boats so they could feel better about their shoe size. I mean, really. With two friends in tow (neighbor Kim, of course) and Claire who is also going to the Oscars we set out on a mission: find a gown! We started at a small boutique with what looked like plenty of gowns to choose from. The shop owner was very helpful and friendly. Kim acted as personal shopper while Claire and I tried on what she brought us. Many of them in the size I normally wear would not even zip. Some of them were too beaded. Some too “O.L.” (Old Lady). Some too “M.O.B.” (Mother of the Bride). Some just not me. We struck out and went on to the next shop which was mostly bridal. Here the gowns in our normal size were even smaller. I assume to fit the average bridesmaid or junior. Claire and I were feeling pretty low by now. The shop owner could have cared less about us and just left us on our own with no help or support. Forget about that place! The next shop I went to with neighbor Kim was a gown shop. I told the owner what I was looking for and what sizes I had been trying on over the past few days. She looked and me and said “no way you wear that size!” So we pulled some lovely dresses in a lower size. Again, some would not even pull up over my hips, let alone zip. They kept pulling dresses with ruching, saying that it was slimming. However, on my body that ‘slimming’ ruching added about an inch of material to my waist and hips. ACK! Horrible! Some of those dresses weighed at least 7 or 10 pounds with enough material to swallow me whole. Also, as the dress sizes rose, the selection went way down. I was beginning to wonder if my body had exploded in size without my knowledge. When I got home I immediately tried on a dress I had bought last year and was planning on wearing to a party that weekend, thinking my god, maybe it doesn’t fit either. But it did: perfectly. So, not me. Whew, what a relief. I was starting to get worried that I would not find anything. Everything we had seen so far could be sporting a label stating: Prom, Mother-of-the-Bride-Boring, or Old-Lady-Going-on-a-Cruise. Don’t women these days buy gowns for any other reason? And who says Mother-of-the-Bride these days has to be the same boring thing my own mother wore? Besides, I am not anybody’s mother! (The dogs and cats don’t count.) We had plans to go down to Freehold, New Jersey to Diane & Co. that week if we still hadn’t found anything in shops closer to us. Diane & Co. is a unique dress shop that is family-run. In fact, two years ago they had a reality TV show called Jersey Couture that revolved around their dress shop and family. I loved it but sadly they did not return last year. Now I understand that the Oxygen network picked them back up and an all new season starts in February. I was looking forward to going there, but it was not to be. *Watch the new season of Jersey Couture!* Kim had asked around to her various friends where they have bought dresses for either black tie events or weddings. On a whim one afternoon last week we decided to go to one of them in Hawthorne. It was by appointment only. When we arrived the owner sized me up as she asked what I was looking for and what my budget was. She immediately pulled about four dresses off the rack (and one off the mannequin) for me to try. The first dress from the mannequin happened to be a size 6. I told her there was no way it was going to fit. She said “ah, just step into it and shimmy it up over your hips.” So I did. It was up (how did she know I could even get it up over my hips?) but it wasn’t going to zip. No problem! She pulls it in in the back so I can see what it would look like, like they do on Say Yes to the Dress. Not bad. I liked it. On to the second dress: a ball gown. The minute I walked out she told me “no no no!” so we didn’t even bother zipping it up. The third dress looked promising. It zipped. It was my ‘normal’ size. It fit me almost perfectly except for hemming and maybe a few tucks in the back. It got a “wow” from Kim and she’s hard to impress. And here, finally, it is: Lovely shop; lovely service. It made up for all the bad experiences of the past week. I hope that when I go back in on Friday for my fitting that I love it as much as I did when I first tried it on. I also hope that the jewelry I bought (at the same shop as the dress) looks good with it once I have it all on. The jury is still out on the necklace though because the top strand keeps turning on me, so I’ll just have to see. I might exchange it for something else. A few people have said I don’t need a necklace, but the dress is pretty plain with only earrings. Opinions? At this point I don’t think I can just say I don’t want the necklace, but hopefully she will let me exchange it for another if it’s just going to drive me crazy by turning over all the time! And finally, the shoes and the bag. We are lucky enough to be staying at the same hotel as the event: The Beverly Hills Wilshire which is just off Rodeo Drive. I have made an appointment for an “up-do,” makeup and nails in their salon, so we shall see what magic they will make happen! That will occupy my afternoon on Saturday so I don’t have to worry about what other clothes to bring to fit into the posh atmosphere of the hotel. I’m glad this part is over with! P.S. After hearing about my successful gown purchase, Claire and I went back the very next day to the same shop and she bought a gown. In fact, the same style as the first dress I tried on. Success all-around! Now for Kim’s “Mother-of-the-Bride” dress for her son’s wedding in September. And knowing Kim, it’s not going to be “motherly.”

The Big Event

2012-01-16T14:23:15+00:00

My Big Event is indeed the Oscars! But not the Red Carpet star-studded version you are all thinking of. It’s the Scientific & Technical Oscar Awards that we are attending on February 11 at the Beverly Hills Wilshire. As most of you know, the company that Rick works for makes cameras. Remember they were awarded Ms. Emmy last year? Husband Rick worked very hard (it’s his job, after all) to get them nominated for the Emmy and finally the award itself. His next goal was an Oscar which everyone told him it would take at least three years of hard work to even get recognized. He managed the nominations and the award in just one. I’m very proud of his achievements. So, four people in his company are receiving the Scientific and Engineering Award, and we are going because of all his hard work. It’s a shame that the Oscar statuette is only given out to the stars and starlets, but they will all be receiving a beautiful plaque with a tiny replica of the Oscar statue. You can read about the press release from the Academy here. The cameras that Rick works with are called “high-speed” cameras, meaning they take images at high rates. When you play them back at normal film or TV rates, the result is in slow motion. They are called “Phantom” cameras and come in many varieties. If you’ve watched TV lately you’ve seen them used on TV commercials to create dramatic effect. If you’ve watched any sports, you’ve seen the cameras at work on ultra-slow motion replays. (That was what the Emmy was for.) And, if you’ve watched movies like Sherlock Holmes (I & II), Inception, Secretariat, The Green Hornet, Tron Legacy, or many others, you’ve seen slow motion footage taken with the cameras. I know you are all anxious to see the dress, the shoes and the jewelry but you are just going to have to wait another day! I thought I had my jewelry all figured out and was going out today to finally make a decision, but then I watched the Golden Globes last night and completely changed my mind! So you see, I’m not ready for the big reveal ... yet.

Behind

2012-01-14T02:57:35+00:00

I know I’ve been lax in posting this week. I’ve been busy. Shopping for a special dress. Shoes to go with that dress. Every day involves going somewhere and shopping. I am tired of shopping! I am used to being pretty much a homebody. And now I only have one thing left on my list: jewelry. I know you are wondering (or maybe not) why all this frantic shopping. Remember I alluded to something special, a black tie affair? Soon all will be revealed. I just have to sit down long enough to blog about it! But, it’s happening in less than four weeks now, so I need to update you very soon! Hints: Beverly Hills. A Golden Man. Maybe or maybe not a Red Carpet.

Downy vs Hairy

2012-01-08T14:12:04+00:00

Woodpeckers, that is! Remember I talked about how we had hairy woodpeckers now in addition to the downys and that they were considerably larger? The other day I was lucky enough to catch both the downys and the hairys on separate suet feeders at the same time. I think the difference is obvious. Here you have a female downy on one feeder, a male hairy on the other, and a male downy sitting on the clothesline. And the beautiful Red-Bellied Woodpecker visits quite a bit too. (Don’t blame me, I didn’t name him!) Look at the gorgeous red head! I am also it would seem, a bird rescuer. Many times the birds fly into our sliding glass doors on the back of the house and are stunned and cannot get up. I go out with gloves on, pick them up and hold them until they recover enough to stand by themselves. It’s rewarding to go from a bird that is lying on its back with its legs straight in the air to one that flies away. Yesterday it was a little chickadee. Keeping them warm is key so they recover from the concussive shock. I’ve done this many times with a 100% success rate!

Ice globes

2012-01-06T13:28:59+00:00

The day before yesterday when passing Green Turtle Pond I noticed that my favorite ice formations were back. When I returned from my errands I grabbed the camera and walked down in the 17 degree weather to try and capture them. Ice globes as I call them, are simply ice that has formed around the bottom of cattails, but I always find them fascinating. The could be little glass vases too, or paperweights. Each one it’s own work of art. I liked the reflections in these two photos. There has to be a little wind involved as well for them to form, so the conditions have to be just right. And we’ve had both wind and below-freezing temperatures for the past few days. Perfect! However in the process of getting these photos I had to walk over a slippery ice-coated rock. My foot slipped and my boot (I was wearing my leather UGGS at the time .. ugh!) went through the ice and my bottom hit pretty hard. I was trying to hold the camera up at the same time, so it wasn’t a pretty fall. My noisy fall startled a flock of turkeys and they took flight across the lake. I’m still not sure if the photos were worth the bruise on my bottom, but there you have them!