Yesterday was a good day: To celebrate my mother's 75th birthday, we took her out for a day around Sarasota doing things that appealed to her love of animals. After starting with a big breakfast, we went to a local attraction that we've all been meaning to see for years, the Big Cat Habitat that takes care of exotic animals that were born in captivity but abandoned by their owners. The lions and tigers and liger were the prime attraction, but they also had bears, monkeys, a chimpanzee, parrots, emu, turkeys, goats, koi, and even stranger animals like a kangaroo, kinkajou, and coati. Sarasota is a circus town, so I'm not surprised that something like this was built here. The centerpiece of the visit was an arena demonstration in which the trained animals did tricks for the audience while the habitat owner hammed it up for the kids. It's a good cause and I wish them lots of continued success. After that, we went to the local art-house theater to see a documentary about pelicans being nursed back to health by rescue organizations. It seems to be in exceedingly limited release; the trailer has less than 2000 views. We all enjoyed it, but it was so dreamy that I think we all needed a nap afterwards. After a day out looking at animals, our cat enjoyed the extra hands-on attention when we got home.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

A Pet Peeve That's Actually About My Pet

How come I can't get through the grocery checkout lane without the clerk or the bagger commenting about how many cans of cat food I buy, which inevitably leads to questions about how many cats I own, how much I feed them, and why I need so many cans? Has nobody in this state heard of stocking up? For their information, I have one cat who eats two 3-oz cans of food a day, which is more than a typical cat but not unheard-of. Go »

WLW: Here's What You Do

No kooky doctor stories this week, as I've been left to my own care, or should I say, the care of everyone around me. I don't want to sound ungrateful, because I'm sincerely glad that people care about me enough to offer advice. It's just, there's a LOT of advice, from all directions, at the drop of a hat, and much of it conflicts with other advice. Go »

The News is Furry

I'm glad to see that CNN has continued their crackerjack, no-nonsense news coverage during ratings season: Go »

Spiders on Drugs

Thanks, Aaron. (link) Go »

The Importance of Being Richard

A conversation drifted today into weird shortening of names, like Robert into Bob and William into Bill (how come Michael doesn't become Bike?), and inevitably Richard into Dick came up. How did that even happen, anyway? Go »

Overheard

"Back when I sold real estate, I used to touch up the houses myself. It was a tough market, there wasn't money to pay for it. Anyway, this one house, I have the damnedest time getting the color in the living room right. Go »

Happy anniversary!

Funeratic began today in 1996.