cats have many secrets

Anthropomorphic Mail Art Project!

Tentacles!
Hooray!

This one I sent out as a reply to Ann-Marie, who is fantabulous-ness personified.

flapper dress shopping with an owl

Anthropomorphic Mail Art Project!

"After a very successful shopping spree, Cheryl was feeling fine and ready to raise the roof."

This hot little number came from Lynn, who keeps an interesting blog over at Sunny Room Art.

Ahh, fringe-covered, flapper-inspired dresses, and shopping! What's not to love?

I need to remind myself not to go on too many shopping sprees this month, because I tend to use my birthday as an excuse to buy things I've had my eye on for a while.
Ink.
Pens.
Art supplies.
Tea.
Clothes.
The list is nearly the same every year, in terms of categories, although the products change.  This year I want a pair of leggings that are purple and black and yellow and covered in a linear, tribal, triangular pattern.  Shh, don't tell, but I already bought them. The temptation was too great.
(Also, they will look fabulous with boots and dresses!)

Cheers to shopping sprees you can afford!   *clink*

math people

'Nuff said.

I sent this dude off to a friend a few months ago.
The background is a few pretty messed up sudoku puzzles that I did, back when I was on a sudoku kick ... (literally all summer long).

(How is is this anthropomorphic?
Maybe math brings out our inner animal.
I always used a trusty textbook to squish nearby threatening - possibly poisonous - bugs.)

victorian lady kitty

Anthropomorphic Mail Art Project!

I did promise that I would show Marsie's second submission.
Here it is!

Isn't she a lovely Victorian lady?
Look at all that gold! So shiny!
I'm really digging the gold lace doily pieces - it adds a nice texture & shine.
Thanks, Marsie!
(Don't fret, my replies are on the way, now that I'm back home!)

brazilian birds

 Okay, we're hanging out in a city, so we don't see a lot of wildlife.

This is the wildlife that comes to visit me.

But we did go to the zoo!

Don't worry, I took some photos.  (Two or three are even good enough to share!)
I tried to get a photo of the baby ocelot, because it is the cutest thing on Earth, but they all came out blurry.  It's exactly like when you try to take a picture of a kitten - he's always on the move.
Anyway, here are some more feathered friends.

Two black swans having a bit of a chat.

This ostrich wanted to have a chat with us.

I'm pretty sure he wants to be liberated.

This guy's got an impressive beak.

This bird has no head!  The amazing head-less wonder!

It reminds me of those scenes on tv shows where a criminal gets handcuffed and walked to the police car, but tries to duck his head out of sight.
He's a condor, by the way.

jaguar gentleman - in the mail, and at the zoo

This well-dressed dandy was a delight to find in my mailbox from one extra-special Marsie!

Stay tuned, because sometime in early October I will manage to clearly photograph Marsie's other submission to the Anthropomorphic Mail Art Project  - and it is beautiful, I assure you.

Marsie, as a mini-apology for my slowness in posting, please accept this photograph that I took on Saturday at the zoo in Sao Carlos, Brazil.

I really wanted to pet him.  I am pretty sure he wanted me to pet him, too.
Isn't he just gorgeous?
I love jaguars.

brazilian cars

So, we've been here about a week, and I heard that unmistakable crunch of metal...
It was a car accident, of course.
I wasn't surprised though, because the driving style here is to go fast, brake late, and try to ignore the existence of pedestrians.  I'm a bit miffed about that last one, since I am a pedestrian here all the time.

But anyway - from my bird's eye view up on our balcony, I could actually see the aftermath of the accident.
Don't worry, nobody was hurt.  Everybody hopped out of their cars and worked together to roll the disabled vehicles off to the sides of the road.

It's a pretty awkward intersection, so it's not hard to see how this happened.
My favorite part was when some dude - who wasn't involved in the mishap - and who wasn't even wearing shoes - just hopped out into the middle of the road and started directing traffic.  He actually did a pretty good job.  After the police arrived, there were two officers directing traffic, and they weren't facing each other...so they may have both told their oncoming lanes of traffic to go ahead at the same time.  Hmm. They sorted it out, though, after a minute.

Personally, I'd like to know how many flat tires needed to be fixed the next morning.  Hundreds of cars must have rolled through that pile of broken glass.

Across the street from the accident (and directly below the balcony) is this junkyard. 
If their cars are really messed up, they don't have far to go!

There are a TON of Volkswagen Beetles, though.  Actually, most of the cars on the road are pretty compact.  I've seen a few SUVs and minivans, but they certainly don't dominate the road here, like they do at home.

So that was my official concession to my New Jersey heritage - a quick chat about traffic.

If you drive, please be kind to pedestrians.  I get tired when I have to run across every sunbaked street.

Tchau!