Broken promises -- It's raining cats and dogs

We once assured you that there would never do a dog-or-cat post on this blog. Well, there you have it (the third one is the best):

Afternoon picnic

...just back from an afternoon picnic in the park, the "forêt domaniale de l'Estérel":

Portugal (22) -- this afternoon

The walk to the Praia do Norte  (the northern beach -- that's where the big waves happen) takes us past a deer sanctuary:

Hitlist

https://joselito28.tumblr.com/post/190209137652

How we feel today

(not quite true, but anyhow:)

(Hat tip: Glenn)

No, we don't post cat and dog pictures (3) --- Happy New Year

No, we don't post cat & dog pictures (2)

Sunday matinée

Yes, it's a fox. We met him/her a few days ago in the Esterel park nearby, perhaps one klick from the house. The picture was taken by Seong-gon, our friend from Jeju, Korea. 

Sunday Mornning matinée (Reblogged)

Cathy Ulrich writes on her famous blog Hollywood hates me:

This morning, I saw a baby llama. At first, I was going to gloat about it, all "I saw a baby llama and you didn't," but then I decided that everybody deserves to have a nice day, so here's a picture of a baby llama to cheer you up.

 Unless you don't like baby llamas, you monster. 

_____________________________________

Update:

It's only a matter of time and Cathy will be the hero of a forthcoming novel, titled FAC, about a girl, named Ann, who's running this brilliant blog, Hollywood hates me, which is famous for its captions. One fine day a fellow blogger, a certain Michael, suggests she "monetarizes" her talent by starting a consultancy, FAC, which is alphabet soup for "Find a caption." Her business takes off immediately, everybody needs her help, but her sudden fame attracts the attention of various agencies that have infiltrated the infamous terrorist organization Famala' al Cqaada based in Cairo, Egypt. Yes, you guessed right, Famal al Cqaada is known in the trade as FAC. Confusion reigns until Ann is abducted by said Famala' al Cqaada to serve as a bargaining chip in the war against (or for) terrorism. Ann's goose seems cooked, but the washed-up scriptwriter thought up a romantic interest, just in time, whose (a) nom de guerre is Raoul, who's (b) a quintuple agent (or some such, we all lost count), and  who (c) is really handsome. Raoul can't even speak proper Arabic, but that doesn't matter since he's really handsome and all his co-terrorist can't speak proper Arabic either --- the terrorist cell consists of nothing but counter-agents. Ann is becoming increasingly aware of this and communicates her findings per email to her kin back home. The NSA intercepts the communication and decides to protect its sources and "take her out." So everybody is after her. Ann, in the meantime, continues to build her business per internet from her cell in the basement of the Cairo dungeon. Consultancy money piles in and up (Condé Nast pays a million per caption), but the funds are misappropriated by evil Wall-Steet types. Ann is elected business woman of the month, quarter, and year, she wins the Emmy and the Oscar for captions, and the American security forces create a fake stand-in ("Ann") who will collect the awards and give speeches in Ann's stead. The plot thickens unpredictably. Sheer serendipity leads to the untimely death of many Wall-Street types, secret agents, middle-men, and Tea Party members. Lot's of Tea Party members; it will be fairly graphic ("Uuurghh"). Good will triumph over Evil, and there's a dog also called "Ann" which will  survive. Raoul, in the meantime, who looks like Benedict Cumberbatch, will fall more and more in love with Ann until she saves his life and they live happily ever after. Stay tuned.

It's cold outside

A tiny reptile (I think it's a salamander, not a lizard (Jacki, what's your take on this?)) on the inside of the widow pane of the bedroom, before sunrise. Real tiny, tinier than it looks on the picture, with large, bulgy peepers, eying me suspiciously as I take the shot. Coldest morning so far this autumn.

Update: I's a gecko, Jacki and Muad write in unison! (Thanks, Ladies!) And then Maud adds ominously in her email: "You're lucky, you don't have cats." It's a Hobbesian world out there, folks, even on a Sunday morning (at least higher up the hill, where Maud lives).

Poolside visit

Not a walking stick (around 15:30 today)

Update: we sent the link of this post to a few friends with a mistaken allsion to walking sticks. Our friend Jacki (last post) from Arizona reacted vividly, pointing out in various ways, eg. by sending the pictures below, that ours is really, really, a praying mantis, and nothing else.

praying mantis

walking stick

You see how the walking stick looks much more like a walking stick than a praying mantis (could ever look like a walking stick)?

We apologize for any offense caused, or taken.

Invariant under rotation?

(A friend from the East Coast sent this picture:)

(He didn't actually, he sent this one:)

(Well, you know us.)

Bürchen in Switzerland (reposted)

Milka milk chocolate, with the milk from happy cows---that was the slogan of a chocolate commercial during my youth in Germany. And there we are, in Bürchen, Switzerland, and it's true.

Near Bürchen, Bietschhorn in the background (peak in the clouds)

Bürchen is located on the southern side of the Valais valley, near the side valleys of Zermatt and Saas Fee, at 1600m altitude. The ski lift begins right in front of our settlement, the Chalet zone.

What would Freud say?

On the cover of the Rolling Stones --- no, wrong, the New Yorker

You get it? It's about Seamus, Romney's wonderdog, the dog that was driven by the future President on the top of the family car to Canada (a country with universal health care). After that, Seamus ran away. Want to know more about Seamus? Click here.


In her NYT column, Gail Collins remarks that "Neil Swidey, the Boston Globe reporter who first broke the Seamus story in 2007, wrote recently that he had been avoiding a return to the topic for fear that some day the dog would wind up in the lead of his obituary." Haha (means: "lol").

Raisa

So let’s get this straight. David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, has not been riding this horse, or so his speaker affirmed yesterday. But today, at the EURO summit about the End of the World, Cameron gives another press conference to rectify his overworked speaker and to confirm that he, in fact, did ride said horse, whose name is, or more precisely was Raisa.

David Cameron, British Prime Minister

Raisa, the horse

Yes, really?

Well he got the horse from Charlie Brooks. And "Charlie is a friend since 30 years," "more than 30 years." And "Charlie is a good friend," and furthermore a "neighbor in the constituency," they "live only a few miles apart". Aahpaaht. But he hasn't "been riding the horse since the elections of 2010." Before the elections, however, yes he did go riding with Charlie. Charlie "has a number of different horses" (who hasn't), and one of them is, or was, Raisa, a former police horse, which he did ride, and "we are all very sorry to hear" "that Raisa is no longer with us," and he doesn't think "he'll be getting back into the saddle anytime soon," because his life "as a prime minister is so busy."

"Mon amour" -- Goats on the loose

We are on our morning walk, striding past Alain's house, as he stops us and asks for help. "Les chèvres." As you possibly know, Le Trayas employs goats to control the brush growth around the hill to protect us from forest fires. And the goats are on the loose again. During previous outings (using openings that wild boars had helpfully created in the fences), they had already devastated well-tended gardens, and climbed on neighbors' roofs, dislocating roof tiles and provoking costly leaks.

Fences have been mended, and electric fencing put into place two rows deep, but the goats have learned to jump over said fencing now to seek out the greener pastures on the other side.

Alain packs me into his car. We cannot see through the icy windshield. Alain divines us up the hill to meet the goats, but we survive. The goats are on the road, one step away from the no-longer-so-well-tended gardens of our neighbors. Alain brings out a plastic box with goat feed that he shakes rhythmically to attract their attention. The animals are unimpressed.

Goats, Alain. Note the snowy top of the Pic d'Aurelle (323 m) in the background. The yellow shadow is a blossoming Mimosa

The goats are everywhere, in particular in Josie's garden, grazing on the terraced meadows below her infinity pool. Max (Annie's husband --- Annie, our neighbor, the famous cook) and I are charged to chase the goats back to where they belong, wherever that may be.

Josie's infinity pool	Josie's villa
Josie	Max

Josie is famous for her crie de coeur, "mon amour, mon amour," which she extends to her husband Gianni when he is in sight, but Gianni is not in sight, so Josie restricts herself to friendly gestures gracefully delivered from her balcony.

We learn that the idea is to lure the goats back into their shed and lock them up there until le bureau can reach a decision on their uncertain future. This is easier said than done. Some give-and-take ensues, involving Jojo, (le réproducteur) the only male element of the herd and a necessary condition for the numerous offspring that causes the herd to seek more food on the greener side of the fence. Jojo is stubborn ("balls").

Jojo, réproducteur	goats, unwilling to enter shed
kerfuffle, involving Alain and goats	Pasha

The goats are quite unwilling to enter the shed, seeking all sorts of flimsy excuses despite our well-meaning efforts. Finally, Pasha, the wonderdog, arrives on Annie's leach. The goats are quite impressed by Pasha and do what he wants. A happy ending ensues.

Max, rasender reporter, Alain, Annie (note the leach, Pasha in off), picture taken by Josie