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Caor decided that as sorry sights went, a wet phoenix ranked pretty high. The specimen on his windowsill was soaked so badly its feathers had turned black, and puffed up to wait out the rain. The metal capsule on one long leg identified it as a messenger bird, and the fact that it had been employed during the rainy season identified its owner as someone with more pride than sense.

After spilling a handful of grains next to his uninvited guest, Caor went to the serious business of speculating who might have sent this bird to whom, and what it might be carrying. Deciding that it might be profitable to know, he caught the bird – who twisted its neck to continue eating, must have been underway a while – and removed the capsule. Deciding that trapping the bird in a basket was a bad idea, since, once dry, it might set the reed on fire to escape, he turned his full attention to the scroll. It was blank on both sides. Puzzling.

It could be an error. Or a very, very bad sign.

Caor put it back exactly as he thought it had been and performed a simple ritual that he hoped would erase any soul-trace of him opening the capsule.

The phoenix, now fuller and more happily tired, nipped him in protest about being grabbed again, but the capsule went back without issue. He left the bird to fluff up and preen indignantly. It showed some bright, dry down between the still dark contour feathers.

Caor left it alone as it steamed and slowly turned orange, hoping the rain would end soon.

Six months’ worth. I keep putting off sending them to the zoo to ask if I may upload them.

Birdwatching turned out a lot more interesting than he had expected, when Eric noticed a thrush with an aviator helmet and goggles. He watched it attack a model plane that was being flown on the nearby “miniature airfield”. Getting the attention of his parents took so long that the bird brought the plane down meanwhile.
Eric was sorely disappointed they did not even consider going to find the owner of the model plane and ask what they had seen, but dismissed what he said out of hand. As a result, he resolved to save up for a really good camera.

The girl had been puring her heart out to the cat for a week when her mother found out.
“Don’t touch that useless beast, it has fleas!”
“No, he doesn’t! And he’s not useless, he’ll find Daddy, he said!”
Her mother sighed. “Your Daddy is gone and won’t come back, no matter how much you wish it. And cats can’t understand what you say, let alone talk.”
The girl took refuge in sullen silence, and her mother shooed the cat out of the window.
The small ginger tom met up with a bigger grey cat who had been waiting nearby. Instead of a greeting, he said, “My, humans are so silly. She didn’t even think to ask me if I could talk.”
“The girl believing your promises isn’t exactly clever, either.”
“Well, no.” He stretched. “I have better things to do than chasing some guy. Nothing, for example.”

I did (and posted, here) the first page back in October, but now that I finally completed it, I decided to upload both as one file. Since it’s pretty big, click below to view it:
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Another year’s over. I don’t feel like writing up a detailed look back on my year. I feel like I’m growing, but slowly. I think during the last month I did a lot to get out of my chronic habit of putting things off, at least as far as housework is concerned, but I need to get that to grow and include all aspects of my life. One other thing I need to work on is deciding what to pursue and what to let drop.

Right now I feel more focused ont he future than the past, and I think that’d be a good thing to keep up.

Have some links instead:
Celebrate what’s right with the world, a video that might make you feel all warm and fuzzy. I loved the last story.

Some images found on deviantart:

Incidentally, this is the 100th post published on this blog. Nice timing, entirely unplanned.

Octopus wants to be a clam. Tool use hasn’t been an exclusively human thing for a while.

There’s a new Simon’s Cat video up at youtube. It has a birdee. ^_^

There had been a great version of Bohemian Rhapsody on the Muppets Studio youtube channel, but now it’s gone due to copyright kerfuffle. Ehwell, it still has The Blue Danube (performed by chickens), Ode to Joy (performed by Beaker), and Ringing of the Bells (featuring Animal, see post title)

The Badger’s Den had had a strict “no fights” policy for longer than anybody could remember, not even the turtle who had never introduced itself, but dropped in on occasion in the summertime, watching generations of voles, foxes, and even badgers pass. The current owner and barkeeper, Bartholomew, had served a lot of different guests. Owls were not that common, but one of them stood out. He had come to the Den with the air of someone who wanted to get drunk. It took little prompting from Bartholomew for him to unload his troubles.

“See, there’s this woman,” – owl, naturally – “Ignatia.” Judging from his sigh, even her name alone was better than a life supply of fresh mice, and Bartholomew suffered through some disjointed, lovestruck praise of her looks, prowess and character. “So, well, I had a chance with her, but of course what was needed was a nest. I’d found a nice hollow, and she was inside inspecting it, when a squirrel started throwing nuts at us. It was so quick I couldn’t catch it, completely fearless, and it ruined everything.”

“You can’t have given up that soon, right?”

“Oh, that monster wasn’t the only one. The first day at the second nest, a mouse showed up. It hooted and acted as if it was an owl and our child.”

After a pause, Bartholomew asked, “Couldn’t you have eaten it?”

“Are you crazy? It clearly was, and we didn’t want to catch whatever made it so.”

“That makes sense.” What the badger did not say was that they sounded like a pair of complete pushovers.

“See. Well, anyway, now Ignatia is looking for someone who doesn’t attract lunatics, and I’m all alone.”

“Don’t worry too much; I’m sure someone will fall for you.” It’s all part of the job.

There was a thump followed by shuffling noises at the entrance, as a bat awkwardly crawled in. “Yoo-Hoo, Orville,” he called.

“Already has. That’s the problem.” Orville downed the rest of his drink in one go and tried to ignore the newcomer. The evening went downhill from there.

In case you didn’t know yet, I like insects, spiders and the like. So, bit of a themed post.

A short video I captured of an ant dragging a rather hefty lunch home:

Bits of my stuff:

Links:
Moths Use Sonar-Jamming Defense to Fend Off Hunting Bats
Dancing caterpillars put off predators (cute photo, found via neatorama)
a bug sculptures photoset on flickr

Origami arthropods found on deviantart, different creators:

That artist of the last one has a lot of other great models in his gallery, only with the thumbnail links disabled.

Just some stuff I thought was interesting.

Amazing Earth Photos: Solar Eclipses from Space – The “Field of Science” site linked from that page has bigger photos, but not all, in particular the one of Central America is missing.

The Root Bridges of Cherrapungee – The greenest architecture I have seen yet. (Link via Neatorama)

Giant Pterosaurs and how they lift off – I may have linked that before, but in case I haven’t, well, I just think everybody should see the image of a pterosaur the size of a giraffe at least once.

Ninja-Pirate-Zombie Cupcakes Flickr set. Braaainssss!

Dark Roasted Blend: Jet Engines on Trucks (For Fun and Profit) – Blog entry with quite a few photos. I particularly like the fire-engine on steroids built from military leftovers.

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity – 20 minute video speech on creativity, how people think about it/creators, and how said creators might deal with problems brought by those attitudes. Gets a bit very spiritual at the end, but all in all interesting and funny. She gets plus points for not using any slides. (Link via Jessica Douglas’ DA gallery)