GeeCee's Not-Entirely-Original Miscellany

For the three people on my f-list who might not have seen it yet:

Live webcam of Pete's Pond in Botswana. (RealPlayer video feed) It's just starting in on prime viewing hours there now, and right this second the camera is focused on an elephant submerged in the pond. [Edit: It's moved on to the ostriches and impala right now, but tends to pan around quite a bit.]

I'm afraid I can see where this might be going.

Two nights ago there was one raccoon at the platform bird feeder on the deck. Last night there were two. Tonight I turned on the deck light and was treated to three little masked faces looking very surprised; two took off quickly, the third shrugged and went on with the stuffing of the face for five more minutes. I suppose it's time to bring the bird feeder in for a couple of nights before we end up coming home from a weekend away to find them parked on the sofa with the remotes, a bag of chips and a couple of beers, watching Animal Planet while Gateway cowers under the bed.

Six hours (roughly five and a half spent behind the wheel), 160 miles, and one mild sunburn later, I've done my first transport for driveforlife, Fredericksburg to Greenbelt.

Mapquest said 48 miles from home to Fredericksburg. It also said 58 minutes, which I knew wouldn't happen. I added 50% to that estimate and left the house a bit before noon. Heh. Heh heh heh. The trip down 123 to 95 was a breeze, but once I hit 95 just past Occoquan the average speed dropped to 13 mph (according to XM traffic). And it stayed that way for a very long time, past where the HOV lanes merge in. Then there were the random near-stops for no apparent reason between Triangle and Fredericksburg, which put me in to the meeting point half an hour late, and just under two hours after I started out. Guh.

The fun was not to end there. Headed back north, there was a several-mile backup because somebody'd managed to jackknife their trailer and block the two left lanes on 95 North at Woodbridge. So we ended up with another two-hour trip back up, although it helped that once the accident was passed, average speed went back up to the normal 80 or so for that stretch of road. Luckily both of the people I was meeting up with were understanding of the traffic delays, and everybody got where they needed to be safely.

You don't really want to hear whining about traffic though, you want puppy pictures. Chance is a total sweetheart, albeit a very stinky sweetheart at the moment. He has a lot of knots in his fur that will probably need to be cut out and he is, shall we say, pungent. But he's out of the shelter and alive and headed for a rescue and hopefully a home. Once he gets a much-needed bath and some grooming, he'll be gorgeous. Chance was a great passenger; once we coaxed him into the car with doggie biscuits (I think he was about done with being in the car, seeing as he'd come up from North Carolina), he spent a few minutes looking out windows and then settled down to relax and nap most of the way.

( On to the pictures )

Today is Prickle-Prickle, day 63 in the season of Confusion, 3271.

Anyone in the West Virginia or Ohio (Cambridge to Cleveland) areas available to help transport some dogs from a kill shelter to a rescue on Sunday?

Allow me once again to plug driveforlife, which is a wonderful bunch of people who volunteer to transport animals from shelters to rescues or permanent homes. If the transport gets filled, I'll be taking a dog from Fredericksburg to DC/Silver Spring on Saturday. gsh, do you know any Shepherd rescue folks in the area of those first four legs that might be able to help out? They may be filled already, the coordinator would know what's still needed.

Why my typing speed at home is much slower than in the office:

( That would be Mr. Gateway )

He is for some reason compelled to flop down on my desk and drape himself over my arm every single time I sit down at the keyboard, and it's hard to type with a 15 pound cat on your forearm.