songbird's crazy world

 I saw a zebra at the Maryland Zoo.   And now my zoo is complete.

 No, not the coffee thermos (though I do like mine). The Yeti is often described as being a large,  bipedal  ape-like creature that is covered with brown, grey, or white hair, and it is sometimes depicted as having large,  sharp teeth . A creature of folklore, it is said to inhabit the Himalayas. Explorers and mountaineers claim to have found footprints, and some even claim to have seen the beast.   Also called the Abominable Snowman, it has appeared in numerous movies and TV specials. But I think my favorite Yeti is at Walt Disney World, Let’s take a ride on Expedition Everest.  But don’t let the Yeti get you.

 It’s another “your choice” week, so how about some one-hit wonders of the  80’s?                             

 Welcome back to the Late Cretaceous Age.  Let me introduce you to my friend the Xenoceratops. He lived about 80 million years ago. He’s a horned dinosaur, a quadruped herbivore.  He’s about the same size as a modern-day rhinoceros, weighs about two tons. He’s got bony frills on his head and two big horns jutting out from over his eyes. His cousins include triceratops, styracosaurus and judiceratops. The fossils were discovered in Alberta, Canada.  Learn more:   

  Stay (I Missed You) Welcome to Saturday: 9 . What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love to answer the questions, however, and here are today's questions! Saturday 9: Stay (I Missed You) 1994 Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it  here . 1) In this week's song, a woman is accused of only hearing what she wants to. "Selective listening" is when you choose to focus on what's important to you and ignore what isn't. Are you often, sometimes, or never guilty of selective listening? If I’m engrossed in something (a book, an activity on my iPad) I really tune out whatever else may be happening in the room. 2)...

 Don’t cry “wolf”. Don’t wolf down your food. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. We’re going to throw him to the wolves. From  Wikipedia The  wolf  ( Canis lupus ;   pl. :  wolves ), also known as the  gray wolf  or  grey wolf , is a large  canine  native to  Eurasia  and  North America .  Of all members of the  genus  Canis , the wolf is most  specialized  for  cooperative   game hunting  as demonstrated by its physical adaptations to tackling large prey, its more  social nature , and its highly advanced  expressive behaviour  including individual or group  howling . It travels in  nuclear families  consisting of a  mated pair  accompanied by their offspring. Offspring may leave to form their own  packs  on the onset of sexual maturity and in response to competition for food within the pack. Wolves are also  territorial,  and...

Shadow was looking out the window and all of a sudden she was very agitated. Someone was in her yard! Shadow and Duchess are strictly indoor cats, I do not allow them to roam the neighborhood.  But apparently  some of my neighbors feel otherwise about what their cats may do. He’s clearly too well fed to be feral or a stray.   Shadow on guard duty Duchess waited until we took down the winter curtains, but now it’s her turn to guard the house. Window view of the yard = cat TV

  Vampire bats , members of the subfamily  Desmodontinae , are  leaf-nosed bats  currently found in Central and South America. Their food source is the blood of other animals, a dietary trait called hematophagy .  Three extant bat  species  feed solely on blood: the  common vampire bat ( Desmodus rotundus ), the  hairy-legged vampire bat  ( Diphylla ecaudata ), and the  white-winged vampire bat  ( Diaemus youngi ). Two extinct species of the genus  Desmodus  have been found in  North America . They live in dark places, like caves. They hunt at night, sinking their teeth into a victim and drinking their fill. Their saliva contains anticoagulants.  But no, you won’t turn into a vampire if they bite you. Learn more:

  kugel noun ku·​gel   ˈkü-gəl  :  a baked pudding (as of potatoes or noodles) usually served as a side dish ( Definition ) Anyone want a piece of potato kugel?  I’ve got a ton of leftovers… No, I didn’t make it from scratch … I bought potato kugel mix a few weeks before Passover. It’s very simple, you follow the directions on the box — add eggs and oil to the prepackaged mix, pour the batter into the included foil pan, and bake. Easy. Except that I forgot that I purchased the mix. So when I went shopping again and the supermarket had run out of kugel mix, I realized I could make a kugel from potato pancake mix. Add eggs, oil, seasonings, pour it into a pan (I bought a disposable foil pan), and bake.  Almost as easy as the kugel mix. So I made both.  And to be honest I prefer the one I made from pancake mix.  It tasted closer to scratch.

  Unicorns are very frou frou these days, cute and fun, like rainbows and stars and magic. So sparkly. It wasn’t always the case.  Once they were majestic creatures, extensively used in medieval tapestry as a symbol of purity, often used in heraldry.  You can see this tapestry at The cloisters in NYC. Unicorns appear in the Coat of Arms of Scotland. It was said their horns could purify poisoned water, could provide all sorts of healing power. The  King James Version  of the Old Testament contains nine references to unicorns, thanks to a mistranslation of the Hebrew word  re’em . The original word was likely the Assyrian  rimu  (auroch), an extinct species of wild ox. But then again...  Numbers 4:25 describes a covering of animal skins made to drape over the  mishkan , the portable sanctuary that the Israelites built for the duration of their wandering in the wilderness: “They shall bear the curtains of the Tabernacle, and the Tent of Mee...