Birdwalk

"If I have to yak, I'll yak."

Got a huge kick out of this story in my local paper today. This kind of thing is what makes sports interesting to me.

We beat Luxembourg

So a story just came out today that NJ is the wealthiest state in the nation. According to a professor at Rutgers, "The key point would be, if New Jersey seceded from the U.S. and became a separate nation, we would be the wealthiest nation on Earth, just ahead of Luxembourg." Well, whoopee.

The fact of this story is that the median income they're discussing is a mere $55,221. Although that might seem like a lot of money in other parts of the country, I can tell you from personal experience that a family would find it extremely challenging to live on even that amount of money in many parts of New Jersey. We've got the situation here where everything is exhorbitantly expensive, from housing to car insurance to taxes...our low rate of unemployment makes it relatively easy to find work, but the high cost of living makes it very difficult to live close to where you work. So, if you want a reasonable mortgage payment and any property at all, you've got to drive over an hour each way to work every day. It's a sucky trade-off.

It's sad that we're the wealthiest state in the country and yet so many New Jerseyans are just scraping by. This story just makes me want to move somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Horrifying revelation #53

Last night, I'm playing tennis on the public courts near my house. I'm wearing my cute little tennis outfit, the one with the yellow shorts under the black skirt. I'm thinkin' I look real cute and athletic. Suddenly, mid-game, the guy playing on the next court looks at me and exclaims,

"You look like Tonya Harding!"

So much for cute.

Cicadus interruptus

On Sunday afternoon, my husband and I took Mickey out to enjoy the beautiful weather and romp on the campus of a local college. It's really quite bucolic, in a rolling-hills, Olmstead-esque kind of way.

While we were walking around on the lawns, we found a boomerang that someone must have left behind. While Mickey sniffed about for critters, we entertained ourselves by figuring out how to throw the boomerang.

I, apparently, am lacking the boomerang gene. My husband seemed to get the hang of it right away, though, and at one point he threw the thing and it took off in a high, wide arc, eventually crashing through the upper branches of a big old tree and startling a cicada that was perched there.

The cicada seemed kinda cranky about the interruption, and went, "BRAAAA-AAAA-AAAA-AA!" in a very grouchy way. I guess, if you only live for a month or two, and you spend every waking moment looking for a mate, these little interruptions are especially bothersome.

That come-hither look



I swear this dog knows he's having his picture taken.

Yet another dog picture


I can't even come up with a caption for this. He's just so darn cute.