My little chickadee

Frank-n-Goat

Just stick with me on this.

Yes, that is the Goat standing next to a life-size stick figure with a Frank Sinatra head. That wood thingie you see is a would-be palm that folds down. During the month of November, Ol' Blue Eyes gets installed on the exterior walkway of the Cleveland Metroparks' Brecksville Nature Center. The staff then removes the resident bird feeders and fills his wooden palm with sunflower seeds. Eventually, the chickadees, titmice and woodpeckers find Frankie's hand and start feeding from it.

Y'all see where this is going?

Over winter break, Frank gets retired and for scheduled hours, the birdfeeders come down and anyone can mosey into the nature center for a handful of seeds and feed the birds (I wrote about this last week for Freshwater). Despite having lived just a few miles from the Brecksville Reservation for more than 20 years, I did not know about this program until I penned that story. Hence, the Goat, Lil' OB and I went and fed the chickadees earlier this week.

Lil' OB meets a new friend while we warm up by the fire inside
the Brecksville Nature Center

Aw, readership ... it was just about the best thing ever. Those tiny birds check you out a few times, and then land right on your fingers and pluck a seed from your palm.

If you're in the area, get your person over to Brecksville and do this one. It's a short, sweet activity that will be long on memories. Sorry I did not get photos of the feeding, but sometimes your ol' humble hostess likes to simply enjoy the moment instead of recording it.

~tweet tweet~

*  *  *

When all things culminate in one perfect object

Sometimes the fates smile on my tiny corner of the world.

Enter an angel in the form of one Jane Pierce, who did deliver unto me a treasure chest of puzzles she rescued from a garage sale. (How great is that?)

Among them, dear reader, was this beauty.

Country Fair puzzle by artist Lori Schory for White Mountain Puzzles

Would you just get a load of that? I mean COME ON. Anyone who follows me with any regularity knows that I loves me some county fairs. I even have a moo tee shirt.

This puzzle has bunnies and moos and oinks and everything. Plus, it was really really fun and easy to do. The best part? There were little surprises only a puzzler would understand, like a horse nosing around the sno-cone stand and a rooster peeking out from behind a sign heralding candy apples for sale.

Whimsical goat detail, Fair puzzle

Then came something that's never happened before: I discovered a kindred spirit when the pieces came together.

Kindred spirit of Erin O'Brien embodied in Fair Puzzle (no, not the horse)

Photographic proof of previous assertion

Part of me wants to believe that puzzle artist Lori Schory took some liberty with the good looking fella on the "tractor." Part of me wants to believe it is her hubby or dad or some other great guy in her life that loves roaming around a fair as much as I do with my ol' Goat.

Goat and exceptionally long friend at Portage County Fair

I noticed the following on the White Mountain Puzzle website:

Every White Mountain Puzzle includes our HAPPINESS GUARANTEE: If you are not completely delighted with your puzzle experience, we will replace your puzzle with a new one for free. Promise.

Photo of Goat and Lil' OB taken under duress

Well, White Mountain, I can tell you that this puzzle inflated me with pure puzzle-puzzling joy, but I appreciate your faith in your product just the same.

*  *  *

Got GoatMobile?

Originally titled, An open letter to the person I cut off on Rt. 36 in Mt. Vernon, Ohio on June 4, 2011, here is a repost from four years ago to prove that while the whole country is drunk from saying "popemobile" as many times as it collectively can, I've been saying GoatMobile for many years. 

Enjoy, I am back to work. --hh

*  *  *

Hi.

From your point of view, I so deserved to get flipped off.

I tried to mouth I'M SORRY when we were at the stoplight, but you didn't seem to get my meaning. Was that your kid in the backseat? Cute kid.

That was a small car you were driving. You had all the windows open on a hot day, which is my preferred method of travel. I don't like A. C.

Here's the part you don't know: I wasn't in my regular Mini Cooper, which is small like your car. I was in the GoatMobile, which is a lot different and lot bigger than my Mini.

GoatMobile and your humble hostess (see upper left).

I was traveling with my Mom who really likes her A. C. Now I would have happily rode my Mom around in the Mini with the A. C. blasting, but the Mini is eight years old and the A. C. is about kaput: puffing out a feeble stream of barely cool air.

The Mini's A. C. reminds you of an old dog trying hard to get up out of his bed and say hello, which breaks your heart because you remember when he was a puppy jumping and yipping and wagging his tail so hard it hurt plenty when it snapped across your shin.

With Mom and me having a bit of driving to do, the Goat and I decided to switch cars for a day on account of the GoatMobile (being only one year old) still has puppy A. C. Not that I should be saying anything about it, but judging by the dents and rust and your red face in the hot wind, I'm guessing your car's A. C. woofed it's last woof a long time ago.

Does any of this makes sense?

We were headed to a function in Danville that had a start time and an end time and it was about a two-hour drive from home. I'd never been to Danville and I was worried about getting lost and the time and would my hair look okay when I got there and all the stupid crap that fills your brain when you should be paying attention to the road. Don't know if you saw, but that old gal was going so slow in front of me I could have screamed. I swear I checked when I went to pass her but the giant GoatMobile has blind spots I'm not used to. I just didn't see you.

Sorry.

Thank Christ you slammed on the brakes and horn or the rest of the day could have turned out bad all the way around.

Goat and Mini Cooper.

Although I'm much more comfy in my Mini and the Goat is much more comfy in the GoatMobile, sometimes odd combinations work. I don't know anything about you, but I know Mount Vernon is a place with a lot of your God Squad and your Don’t-Tread-on-Me/snake stickers. That said, the Knox County Democrats have their office down at the Square, so the folks around there have clearly learned to tolerate the odd men out.

Well, kind of tolerate.

Maybe that commentary doesn't have anything to do with you. Maybe you're not down with treading snakes or the God Squad. Maybe in another life, we'd get off on better footing, without me about to ram the big GoatMobile into your compact thinger-car (didn't catch the make/model). Until then, I'll try to be more careful. And if you don't mind, maybe you can give the next guy the benefit of the doubt before you flip him the bird.

Apologetically,

Erin

*  *  *

Phone cam round-up

Perhaps in response to Cleveland's ongoing and unprecedented growth, your humble hostess has been hella busy, but presents the readership with an apology for her prolonged absence and this paltry offering. For more frequent updates, she encourages persons to "friend" her on (Evil Overlord) Facebook, although she detests using the noun friend as a verb. She also tweets as evidenced in the sidebar, but with less joie de vivre than she updates her (Evil Overlord) Facebook page.

Photo included based on artistic merit of composition and color

Mystifying advertising assertion

Oddly pornographic wardrobe assertion

Evidence of party to which humble hostess was not invited

Look what they've done to my song, Ma

Actual road pizza

Photo for which there is no caption

Unfortunately named confection

Note: The pink shoes featured in this post are no longer in the possession of humble hostess. After just over 100 miles, the soles of said shoes had worn through to the secondary foam. They have been returned to Skechers and HH awaits a proper alternative replacement.

Lastly, a photo showcasing the Goat's parking skill. When the Goat parks like this, HH says, "So, Starsky, you gonna do a body roll over the hood?"

Goatmobile

The Goat assures the readership that he only employs this alternative parking method when the lot is no where near capacity. Nonetheless, HH remains skeptical.

Love,

HH

*  *  *

You don't see this coming

Goat and new friends

So you're ambling around downtown Bedford, Ohio, and you are intrigued by a shop called Kulis Freeze Dry and so you step in.

Who expects to be greeted by a rhinoceros? No one, that's who. Yet there you are beside a full size stuffed rhino that was killed by a bow and arrow in the mid 70's during the last legal hunt of the animal.

huh.

The charming proprietor entertains your curious questions (when was the shop established? 1967. Is it still owned by the Kulis family? No, Mr. Kulis did not have any children. Do you get a lot of pets? I won't do pets anymore. That dog gave you all he's got to give).

The giant alligator frozen in an open-mouthed snarl in the back of the shop, incidentally, came up from Florida.

"That's as close as I need to get to the likes of him," you say.

Later, you will wish you had asked about the process, the training, the regulation and the emotions that go along with this business and how the hell did they get that rhino over here from Africa all those years ago? but alas, there are too many other things on your mind, so you say your thankyous and step back out into the world.

Passing by the rhino on your way out, however, you feel the  unmistakeable tug of the animal's lingering energy and the fleeting concept of a graveyard washes over you.

yeah, yeah

You pass a tattoo shop. Your stomach growls with hunger. You squint your eyes against the late afternoon sun.

You walk towards infinity.

*  *  *

Walking through the American dream

So the Goat and I are lying in our conjugal bed listening to the rain outside as it washes out our plans to walk.

"Honey," I say.

"Yes?" he says.

"There is another option."

"Oh?"

"We could ...  we could ... ," I stammer, afraid of my own forthcoming words. "We could mall walk."

And there it was. And it had to be gotten through like all the rest of it.

 ##

The inscrutable half-head mannequin

The first mall walking discovery was agreeable enough: We were not alone, although we walked a good deal faster than the other mall walkers. After one or two laps, however, things began to deteriorate, starting with sensory overload. Everything is designed to entice you visually (of course), but smell plays a large part as well. One aroma billows out at you after another. Perfume, candy, soap, popcorn, Sbarro, that money-smell they pump out at casinos.

One of several candy banks and a guy

Ubiquitous headless mannequins confront you with escalating creepiness. Some have heads, but no faces. Macy's had some with faces that were wearing lipstick, which moved that entire establishment up three notches on the Humanity Scale.

Apple Store and headless chicks in evening gowns

At about the 35-minute mark, we found ourselves completely disoriented. The more we repeated our laps, the more we wondered where we had seen the giant woman clad in a bra with the smoky gaze. Did we park by this entrance or that last one? How could we not have noticed that plus-size mannequin before?

We walked through a cloud of something that smelled (ahem) organic. "We just walked through someone's fart," I said to the Goat, and at once, my fellow mall walkers were not quite so endearing.

Yes, really

Athletic shoes are now candy colored and the stores that house them are hellish collages of ... stuff. The Goodyear tire store with a mall entrance filled me with unprecedented joy. Home Spa was by far the most depressing business. A couple of bored looking people in smocks sat on dubious looking couches near the storefont until someone poured themselves into one of the massage chairs. It felt like witnessing sexless prostitution. Not sure which was worse, when they had customers or when they didn't.

Flesh-eating vampire display

Music in a mall is oddly downgraded into sound. Not noise, sound. I may have been listening to songs I knew my whole life. If so, I did not recognize them. It all sounded muted and drunk.

Even though we were walking in circles, it felt like a soul-crushing downward spiral. There is not one store designed to appeal to you intellectually. NOT ONE. No book stores. No music store. There was a convenience store and we stepped in to see if they had any print at all. None. Not even a newspaper. Yeah, I know: maybe everyone has a newstand on their phone. Maybe not.

The only two stores that might have had intellectual appeal were Spencer Gifts and Brookstone. SPENCER GIFTS, people.

No newspaper for you!

After about an hour and 10 minutes, I said, "Let's go." Famished, exhausted and vanquished, we repaired to the cafe at the Mustard Seed Market for de-progamming and a bite of lunch. Relief washed over us, as if we'd been released from prison.

Now then, whether or not a person purchased a bottle of Virgin Mojito Shower Gel for $9 at the Body Shop is entirely beside the point.

You're welcome

 

*  *  *

Mr. and Mrs. Goat

The Goats as photographed by Bob Perkoski

This may be the best photo anyone has ever taken of the Goat and me, and while I love it, I'm also deeply disturbed by it.

We look entirely too much like a couple in a commercial for a cruise. If we were inanely throwing our hands in the air, we could be in an ad for diabetes medication.

Do the walk of life!

We are an affable middle age couple, attractive enough, but no so much so as to be intimidating. These are people you can trust. These are people who know something. By gosh, they are doing something right!

And while I think you probably can trust us (strangers frequently approach me and ask: Do I know where this-or-that road is? Do I know what's going on with that gathering of people? Where can tickets be purchased?), we don't know anything and the ratio of the things we do wrong vs. things we do right is pretty average.

Yeah, yeah. Someone pass the cheap whiskey.

*  *  *

Ten years ago today

Goat and Lil' OB

Lil' OB and humble hostess

* * *

Goat in paradise and other delights

Dearest readership,

As is obvious I am inundated with work, but I offer you these images. Call it a respite from the violence and frigid temperatures and blistering politics.

Goat in paradise

Lil' OB at the lunch counter

Falling down

**sigh**

Entrance Push

Erin is dumb

Hot gumballs

Hey!

Pizza sky ...

... and simplify

Ain't that the truth

* * *

The Goat's Butter Roasted Pecans

A handful of the Goat's Butter Roasted Pecans will make you swoon, but I usually pair them with a piece of fine dark chocolate or a plump medjool date. I love them so much that I have issued an edict: The Pecan Bowl Shall Never Become Empty--and the Goat thankfully abides. 

In lieu of sending each of you a package of these heavenly beauties, here is the Goat's own recipe.

Goat and friends

The Goat's Butter Roasted Pecans

8 ounces raw pecan halves

3 T unsalted butter, melted

Freshly ground sea salt

##

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Toss pecans in melted butter in a small bowl with a generous amount of salt. How much salt you ask?

"I usually do about 10 twists," says the Goat of our salt grinder, "somewhere in that neighborhood."

Spread pecans evenly on a large cookie sheet and salt again. Bake for six or seven minutes.

With a large spatula, turn pecans and salt again. Bake for another six or seven minutes until they are a deep gold/brown.

The aroma that fills the house as these roast will make you crazy. The warm nuts are delicious and irresistible, but these are actually best after they've cooled for several hours. They last for at least a week or two without refrigeration.

If a goat can do it, so can you. What are you waiting for?

Merry merry, happy happy.

*  *  *

At the end of the earth with a loin cloth eating terrorist

Domestic terrorist

The readership might not think that looks like a domestic terrorist, but I promise you, it is.

This animal is essentially trying to eat our entire house, despite being (self-limited) to one room (she will not cross the threshold of the living room, which apparently indicates the end of the earth to the bunny).

Perhaps she's just practicing self-control. Perhaps she won't venture out into other parts of the house until her Work is done here in the living room.

House Protector II surveys
the end of the earth

Sometimes the bunny makes out with the house protectors. We have two in the living room. Thankfully they are positioned such that they cannot see each other so they don't know about the bunny's promiscuity.

She has eaten both of their loincloths and most of the hair on the one that has hair.

I'd call the Humiliation and Sexual Enslaving of the House Protectors the bunny's greatest exploit.

Cuckolded House Protector I

Sometimes the bunny hops onto the couch (the leather of which is dotted with holes courtesy of unfortunate sessions during which were not practicing enough care in the supervision of the bunny) and attacks the Goat's newspaper, tearing it into shreds.

Your humble hostess enjoys those proceedings immensely. 

The bunny's other big project involves the table next to where I usually sit. We have essentially conceded this table to the bunny, which she furiously gnaws at like a pint-sized power tool.

Despite how much wood is associated with said side table, I'm pretty sure one day, whilst the Goat and I lounge in the sweet velvet of the morning sipping coffee, I shall set my mug upon the table in order to type a missive on my laptop and the whole thing will clatter to the ground.

And the bunny will silently glare at us, vindicated.

*  *  *

Phone cam round-up, Canfield Fair edition

Round and round at the Canfield Fair

Honey tree with big bears and little bears

BoozeFighters on the scene

Spoiler alert: Pickle Surpize reportedly contains, pickle, chocolate and peanut butter.
Contents not independently verified by Owner's Manual field staff.

Goat perusing Men's Garden Club Display

Humble hostess, giant pumpkin and friend

Fine Arts, rooster of locks and admirers

Fine Arts, revealed

Entertainment adjacent to Fine Arts

Terrified beasts threatened, but did not attack

Dining option: Cheese-Chili-Loaded-Garbage

Dahlia contest entrants

Parking row recorded on thumb of Goat under duress

Photos admittedly not taken with a phone cam, but your humble hostess will assume that the readership gets the proverbial picture.

* * *