NINJAS to the rescue!

A post for little Mr Miggs, who turned three today!

Three Australian thugs began robbing and beating a German medical student in Sydney right outside Ninja Senshi Ryu, a ninja warrior school. "You should have seen their faces when they saw us in ninja gear coming toward them," one of the ninjas said. While fleeing in panic, the thugs were arrested. [from The Week]

So we can tell Miggs that ninjas are real, and perform good deeds!

With Mr Miggs it is important to stress that last part since he is all energy and mischief.

Ben, our little cat, was very brave Friday evening ...

... Our young friend and computer guru Clovis came down for dinner. Dinner was good - beef and cider stew (I made it myself). After dinner we went back into my study so Clovis could play around with my laptop (i.e. he fixed it). We look up into the hallway and there is Ben! Looking at Clovis. And she doesn't go into a fit of fear and flight. Twice. Amazing.

For the rest of the evening Clovis also hooked up our giant TV Murty gave us and then sat down and chatted for some time. He's grown up into what Carmen insists is a nice young man. Well, if Ben is comfortable around him ...

Just for Murty and his son, Mr Miggs ...

... who both may grow up to be soccer players someday. Some ads from the World Cup. First, the one considered brilliant. Then, our favorite. And our second favorite, for Pepsi. It has sumo soccer players (sorry Miggs, no ninjas yet). Carmen found these.

is it just me, or do some of those guys remind you of young Clovis?

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The little lummox is also red in tooth and claw...

... and life here at home is so much wilder than life at the perfectly manufactured Animal Kingdom. The day after Fluffy Pasha ... uh, 'disposed' ... of the injured bird, I was walking with the lummox down by the Yadkin River. He is nosing through some tall grass, gives a snort, and tosses his head my way. Out of his mouth pops a little mole, already dead as a doornail after one titanic shake.

The little lummox is no longer interested. He has performed his ancestral duty. He walks away.

Nature red in tooth and claw...

... or so that old saw goes. We sure did not see it at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Everything was squeaky clean, calm, and very unbloody. In fact the animals out on the 'savanna' seem to think of their existence in the land of Mickey as a job. Every morning they are roused from their comfy straw piles, and sip their morning jo before heading out of their compounds for a day in the hot central Florida sun impersonating wild beasts. Mostly they lay around and sleep a lot, but you know how grueling that can be when thousands of tourists are staring at you from noisy little land rovers and expecting you to be more photogenic. Even the tigers wanted to sleep under the shade.

Then, as it approaches quiting time at 5 o'clock the well trained beasts line up patiently at the entrance of their pens for the whistle to blow so they can punch their time tickets and get their evening meal and, at last, a chance to sleep.

Fun, informative, but not very 'exciting' if you know what I mean. No chase. No kills. No blood.

We had to come home for that.

The first day back I was calmly, not to say comatosely, setting at my kitchen table drinking coffee and reading some Toynbee when I hear a loud ominous THUNK from the front of the house. I go to our great bow window to look. There on the ground right in front of the window is a bird flopping around. Its head is bent at a frightening angle and one side of his body seems paralyzed. With the one leg and wing that works he is trying to get up.

I am beginning to weigh the need and means to put him out of his misery when suddenly their is a flash of white and black fur out of nowhere. It's Fluffy Pasha, the weird cat who lives in the box on the porch next door. He scoops up the bird and mauls it for a fraction of a second. Then he settles down to watch the poor fellow try to get up again.

I suddenly remember something very important to do in my study. When I return 30 minutes later Fluffy Pasha is gone. So is the bird.

btw, Leo the little lummox was out in his room on the other side of the house. A fraction of a second before Fluffy Pasha exploded into my vision Leo started barking at him. That was at least 50 feet away. Fluffy is no mean sprinter for his age (and breeding).

Let's see if this will work. Here I am, with Maeraed and Mulan, our two ballerinas. The Old One wanted to know why Maeraed and I have exactly the same expression. That's simple.


We are plotting to take over the whole world and bend it to Maeraed's will.

HOW TO BAKE A VIETNAMESE CHOCOLATE CAKE!

First, catch one Vietnamese boy ... cover with chocolate cake batter.... pop him in the oven...

.... (results may vary).

Update on Trouble ....

... aka Little Mr Miggs, or, Máeráed's brother. Seems he has been giving his mother a compelling argument for heavy drinking, if not child abuse. Here is the whole ugly story from the Murty and Maire family blog, as told by Maire:

I was making dinner (pasta with spicy Italian sausage + cannellini beans) and Martin was watching the kids. Next thing I know Mickey came running over to me with GREEN GOO pouring out of his mouth. He threw up more green at my feet. As I frantically cleaned up his face and mouth and got him spitting more green out, he dropped the tiny tube of green acrylic pain he'd been clutching. Apparently he stole it from Maggie's art supplies, and bit the friggin' tube just to see what it was.

Two different poison control centers have assured us that as long as he isn't coughing (which would mean he'd aspirated some), acrylic paint is water-based and almost certainly non-toxic.

Almost certainly. Great.

I brushed his teeth, his tounge, the backs of his teeth and the lining of his cheeks. I scrubbed the inside of his mouth with paper towels. I washed his hands multiple times. And I made him spit. A lot. The green seems gone and he ate dinner happily. And he's reassured me he'll never try to eat green paint again. No promises about purple, though.

Well, I guess he decided in this time of climate weirdness to go green.

it apparently is more restful to be a notional uncle than a real mom.

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It's a pleasant evening here in Wilkes ...

... and right outside my window I can hear Steve Martin strumming his banjo as part of the great Merle Fest. Next up, Elvis Costello! And we can here it all up here on the hill from our bedroom window. Wish I were down there though - I could have listened to Scythian again. Instead I spent the entire afternoon grading papers.

Well, except for an hour or so discussing departmental politics with Commandante Cinco over a few beers.

And this morning was spent watching Mulan and Máeráed in their dance recital. That was fun though I just about ODed on cute little munchkins in tutus - there were dozens and dozens of them, all color coded (Máeráed was pink). Mulan was spendid, even though the hip hop, tap and jazz routines are not her natural bent. She is a ballerina - and the classical training shows. She had a lot of numbers in this show.

Well, back to grading. Either that or reading about the grand strategy of the Byzantine Empire.