othersomethings.com

If I didn’t know that cats loudly scream in exactly the same fashion as what I’d imagine a woman being beaten with a hot branding iron sounds like…I would be calling 911 every stinking night to report domestic disturbances.

This neighborhood has a cat problem.

Nice for when Ella has a random sighting and yells out “cat!”

Not so nice when 11pm rolls around and I have to remind myself that we have nice neighbors, and too many cats.

This is about a group of things I’ve noticed. Specifically, birds, in various forms and functions.

I noticed something about the Emerald Coast and decided before I moved I WOULD record the aberrations.

Case #1.

The bird mailbox. Friends of the Martin’s will recognize this, as it was the “landmark” for finding their house in Shalimar. Who wakes up one morning and thinks “I need a new mailbox. Perhaps a metal bird in purples and pinks?”

I don’t think I want to have lunch with that person.

Case #2.

This sucker caught my eye one day while driving HWY 20 home from Freeport. I usually drive that way in the dark, so it’s no wonder it escaped my attention until just several short months before we moved. But once it did…oh my.

First, this thing is HUGE. Those are large palm whatevers in front of it. It’s at least 9, perhaps 10 or even 11 feet tall. And it has girth too. The way it is situated behind the bushes quite literally makes it look like it’s sitting in a giant nest. Clever of the owner, no? The symbolism gets better, because BESIDE this monster, is…get this…

It does INDEED have a baby!!!!!!!

I know, right?

The thought process behind this display is just….wow. I don’t even know. Granted, I know some people wind up with weird things in their yard through no fault of their own *cough GIANT lighthouse cough* but still. This is proudly on display next to a busy highway. It was intentional, and thought out. And you can tell they really, really like it.

More recently I had a day of bird watching. I will illustrate with carefully placed and artfully crafted arrows.

We had a stormy day last week, and while driving home along the river I noted seagulls were taking shelter on the docks. It wasn’t that it was unusual to see some birds on a dock. But that there were millions (my arrows don’t do justice) and they were on EVERY dock for the stretch of a mile was, in fact unusual to me.

Along the same road, on the same day, I stopped for this little gathering several times in the stretch of 20 feet…they couldn’t make up their minds which side of the road was better.

dumb birds.

And to top the week off, tuesday I met “The Flying Penguin.”

Meet Sister Mary.

I can’t make this stuff up. She’s the real deal…full on habit, rosary and crucifix, wimple and all.

She stayed with us for three days, en route  to Haiti. We got to know each other fairly well. She doesn’t like to be called “The Flying Penguin” but accepts the term as an endearment from a select one or two. So we settled on “Sister Mary” and all was well. Of the people I’ve met in the last 5 years, she’s going on the “most interesting” top 10. She’s lived everywhere, gone everywhere, speaks several languages, knows her church history down to the exact dates by heart, thinks the current papal system and pope is a joke, 9/11 was a conspiracy, was friends with Dr. Atkins since the 70′s, loves onion bagels and was born and raised in New York city.

Did I mention she has the gift of gab? And is hard of hearing. Go figure. She’s in Haiti right now, finally found a flight for her. From there she’s going to Argentina or something. She’s a flyer.

Godspeed, sister.

This is a two parter. The first part, I will give you a little history. The second part, I will tie it in with the events of today.

Part 1.

Several years ago, (ok…more like 8-9 years ago) my sister Harmony took part in a little impromptu Q&A on stage at church. Think “Bill Cosby and kids say the you get the picture.” I’m going to guess she was 5. When asked to spell Jesus, she (ironically) blurted out “J-E-L-L-O!!!” And in the next round, was asked to tell a story. Her version of “The Three Bears” went like this:

“Momma bear was outside in the garden, and baby bear came out and asked her ‘what are you doing?’ and mama bear said ‘something else’ and baby bear was like ‘ok’….” story continues in a similar nonsensical fashion.

The fact that Harmony thought “Something Else” was an acceptable answer to the question “what are you doing” was beyond hysterical to me. It made me ponder the phrase at great length.

Shortly thereafter, I received as a gift my first and only pet. A frog. I named him “Something Else.” Something Else had a full life that ended abruptly after a freak “broken arm” incident that may or may not have been my fault and which no vet or pet shop seemed interested in helping with.

In the following years, I used the “Something Else” name as a screenname online. Turned out there weren’t too many online sites where that “name” wasn’t already used, so I morphed it into “othersomethings” and thus…we arrive where we are today.

Part 2.

Today, as a surprise, Shannon took me out to lunch to the new(ish) place on the Corner, T.R. Frogs. We’d gotten a pizza from there before, and decided it was OK enough to try their $5 lunch special. Having a toddler, we received the kids menu with crayons for coloring and what not.

Towards the end of coloring in the frog on the front, I flipped the menu over to see that the back had a list of “Frog Facts.” I was curious. (You’re thinking…”I see what you did there. you were coloring instead of Ella. nice.” I’m thinking back “heck yes.”)

Reading down the facts, I got to this one. I’ve highlighted it in red, you can’t miss it.

WOW.

Just…WOW WOW WOW. How close CAN you be to Cuba without actually BEING in Cuba? Are we talking the line between international waters? Are we talking floating on the tide and just BARELY not touching the sand? Are we talking…HOVERING?!

I need to meet this frog. And is it literally THE smallest frog? Like the 1 individual smallest ever measured? Or is it the entire species of smallest frogs? And if they’re the smallest, how small are they? AND WHERE THE HECK ARE THEY ON THE COAST OF CUBA?!? This would have been on national geographic by now FOR SURE.

This gets better. I continue reading the “fact sheet” and notice that one fact states that the largest frog in the world can be up to 10 pounds. Then the very last fact, on the bottom of the page, says the largest frog in North America can be up 12 pounds. Hmmmmm…

So I made the necessary notes and dropped it off with the blond hostess at the front desk. As I pointed out the whole “distance from Cuba” problem she started laughing. So I hope things get righted. And I hope the print run on those kids menus wasn’t too extravagant.

And so, I have finally talked about frogs on my blog that was in a round-about way named after a beloved frog.

The End.

I knew the answer, but looked it up anyway. The following is from wikianswers.com:

What is the World’s fastest Animal?
It would depend on the race.

If there were a flying race, the Spine- tailed Swift would win (106mph).

If there were a running race, the Cheetah would win (70mph).

If there were a swimming race the Shortfin Mako shark would win. According to the ReefQuest Centre for Shark Research, ‘It has been reliably clocked at 31 miles (50 kilometres) per hour, and there is a claim that one individual of this species achieved a burst speed of 46 miles (74 kilometres) per hour.’

The Peregrine Falcon is the fasted bird that dives head-first down through the sky. They can travel up to 200mph!

OK, so something in that caught my attention. Did it catch yours? In the bit about the shark.

“there is a claim that one individual of this species achieved a burst speed of 46 miles (74 kilometres) per hour.”

Woah there…wait a sec. Did we just find the fastest shark? The Michael Phelps of the animal kingdom? Did the random measurement by an aquatic passerby just HAPPEN to find THE fastest shark among the Makos?!

Honestly, I really doubt it. These measurements of animal speed are making me laugh, because it’s like asking “which blade of grass is the greenest?” well, this blade is pretty green. But then, I haven’t checked out all the other blades not immediately in front of me.

Seriously. Have they tagged every cheetah in existence? How do they know there isn’t a record breaker among them? How do they know cheetahs aren’t just camera shy and hit the breaks when people are watching? Maybe we make them nervous! Maybe the cheetahs gather on the weekends and have friendly races for bragging rights as THE fastest!

I think it’s time we had an animal Olympics. Let’s see what these animals are REALLY made of. Our current gauge of animal speed is so unfair to the animals. It’s completely possible I’d say, that when they were measuring the birds, they just happened to be measuring the third string athletes, the stars were off training in another town that day.

We don’t measure human speed outside of controlled environments. It’s a double standard to expect animals to give us their best in natural conditions, besides…preliminary rounds could really teach us a lot about animal sportsmanship.

If children’s TV has taught me ANYTHING it’s that animals are just itching for equality among the talking species.