I'm 25 now!!!

Has anyone seen my dentures? I think I lost them along with my glasses and cane when I hobbled outside to yell at those filthy kids to get off my lawn.

What?! It's 10:30?! At night?! Goodness gracious me! I should have been in bed three hours ago! I got sidetracked watching a Laurence Welk marathon while doing my crossword puzzles! I should know better than to multitask like that! I'd better go take my prune juice and hit the hay!

...Wait... What was I going to do again?

This is Not a Zebra Donkey

As I was putting together today’s post for my photography blog I was having a very difficult time keeping my sarcasm in. I want to keep my photography blog fairly professional, so after I finished that post I came right over here to get rid of all my sarcasm.

Today’s post on J. North Photography is about one of my favorite animals, the okapi. The reason I was having such a difficult time holding back the sarcasm was because of all the ridiculous things I heard from the people who came to see the okapi while I was photographing it. Judging from all the remarks I heard, almost no one has any clue what an okapi is. A few people wondered whether or not it was rare variety of zebra. One man marched right up and told his poor, impressionable son matter-of-factly that it WAS a zebra. Other people had no idea what it was and were asking each other if they knew. If they were kids, and their parents hadn't already passed on their ignorance to them, I told them myself. "It's called an okapi. It's related to the giraffe." I had to repeat myself many times that morning.

I heard some strange and ridiculous hypotheses as to what it might be while I was standing there. The most ridiculous of all, was from a person who was sure that it was not a real animal, but was the result of a donkey and a zebra deciding to get to know each other a little better. What do they teach in schools these days? Next they'll be telling me that a tiger is a baby lion who's mother fell in love with a carrot obsessed zebra!

>Sigh.< I suppose it’s understandable that some people don't know what it is. After all, okapis are very rare and few zoos have them. Still, you'd think that they could at least bother to read the sign posted on the fence before deciding that it's some kind of a weird zebra...

Matthew and Me

Matthew and I took a bunch of pictures together at the zoo. I have a camera remote and I just kept clicking the button as we talked, so I would make sure to get a good one. There actually are even more than this, the rest just didn’t have the best expressions. When you’re taking a lot of pictures of people talking, you are bound to get a bunch where you’re making weird faces. These are the least weird. :)

Matthew is currently biking around Europe, so please pray for him as he travels.

Stay safe and have a good time Matthew!

Music, As of Late

Yesterday my cousin blogged about some songs that she had recently been listening to, and wanted responses from people sharing songs that they have recently been listening to. I decided I’d respond through a blog post of my own.

My first one is one that she had in her blog, but I have been pretty obsessed with it lately as well. I first heard this song when a friend posted it to facebook a couple weeks ago. I went and bought the single on iTunes, and it is already at #4 on my top 25 most played on my iPod. I suspect it’ll be #1 in about a week.

Brook Fraser’s “Something in the Water”

I am very tempted to post every single song by Owl City, because I always listen to at least one of his songs every time I use my iPod. However, this post would be way too long if I did that, so I’ll stick to just a few that have official Music videos.

I’ll start off with Alligator Sky, from the upcoming Album “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” This song surprised me because it contains a rap segment. Normally I absolutely DETEST rap, but I did not hate this one! Unlike most rap, angry and rife with swear words, this song sounds cheerful and optimistic. I still would not call it one of my favorite songs, and I look forward to getting the album which contains a second rap-less version, but it shows that in the right hands, rap can be done a lot better than most rap “artists” of today do.

The next song I have had had playing off and on for the last couple of years ever since it was featured on the show Pushing Daisies. (Oh how I miss that show!) There is no official music video so I had to make do with a fan-made one.

They Might be Giants’ “Birdhouse in Your Soul” covered by Kristen Chenoweth and Ellen Green.

I absolutely love the movie, “How to Train Your Dragon,” and ever since I watched it I have had this song playing frequently in my iPod.

Jonsi’s “Sticks and Stones”.

Straight No Chaser is one of the best acappella groups I have ever heard, and while they are most famous for their Christmas albums, they do sing other songs as well. I really love their cover of the song “Africa.” No official music video exists, so I had to get an upload from some random YouTube user. I haven’t actually been playing this particular song myself lately, but I keep hearing the original version over the speakers at work, and every time I hear it I wish they’d be playing this version. It is FAR superior.

Next is another Owl City song, “To the Sky” from Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. I love this movie and I love the fact that they got Owl City to do the song for a movie about Owls. :)

This next song is so random, and so funny. It is definitely not my favorite song, but I really like it and it currently holds the top spot as the most played song on my iPod, due to the fact that I play it at least once every time I go to the Wellness Center to exercise.

Space Unicorn by Parry Gripp

I was introduced to the next song by another one of my cousins. And I now love it. The song is “I’ll Tell Me Ma.” It’s an Irish folk song, so it has been sung by many many different groups. This version is done by The Young Dubliners, but there are lots of great versions out there. Just search YouTube and you’ll be busy for the rest of the day. Again, there’s no music video for this.

And lastly, the song that made me a fan of Owl City, thanks to a free download from iTunes, “Fireflies.” The best word I have to describe this song is the same word I have to describe pretty much any song by Adam Young. Happy. :) That’s the reason I love Owl City so much. It always lifts my spirits.

To the Zoo With Matthew: Part 4

Part 1 HERE.

Part 2 HERE.

Part 3 HERE.

It was about here that we decided that we should be taking pictures of each other. I had my other camera along, so I let Matthew use that one.

We had to do this at least once. :)

I’ve got so many more pictures of giraffes, that they will also get their own post on my photo blog.

We took pictures of each other by the giraffes. There is no better backdrop at the zoo! :)

Before we left we took a bunch of pictures of us together. I used a remote and just kept firing away as we talked. I will make a completely different post about that at a later date. It’s fun to just look through them and see all the different expressions. :)