Post 10 Random Facts About Yourself

[MTL]

7.  It's nice to hear you like the company of women.  Not all men do.

8.  That is wonderful.  Do you have hummingbirds?  Plant honeysuckle to attract hummingbirds.

9.  You are so right about that.

Actually, I've always liked the company of women.  It was hitting on them which I found awkward.  Given my mother, it was hard to believe that there was anything about sex which was appealing to women.

Hummingbirds live here year around.  One Anna's has fledged two pairs of chicks early this year, and probably more in nests I haven't found.  Actually, putting out plants of interest to birds and arranging them in ways to appeal to them is a big part of what my garden is about.  The year-round creek on the edge of our lot is a flyway for birds working their way from the hills above the  UC Berkeley campus to the bay.

These were the first hummer chicks I spied this summer.

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Picture of a night heron sitting above one of my aviaries looking down over the creek.

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One of the more interesting birds I kept, a Mesia.

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That seems to be the maximum number of photos.

Those are wonderful pics!!

I clicked the link to your Flickr page...there's one photo taken from what looks like a mountaintop.
Is that your view?  If Yes, I'm never speaking to you again.

I know hummingbird nests are TINY.  Like a ping-pong ball size.
but while I've seen hummingbirds, I've never personally seen a nest, IRL, first-hand;
(only in documentaries).

your pic of the nest, is that lichen on the sides?  If Yes, how charming is that??

I've never seen nor heard of a Mesia.  Gorgeous.
Do they have a pretty song?

It's nice to live on a flyway.
I live near some major bodies of water, (near Toronto, Great Lakes)
so I get to see lots of birds,
and Night Herons are one of them, as well as Great Blue Herons and White Morph Herons.

Last couple of summers I was pleasantly surprised to even see a couple of Sandhill Cranes.

When I was growing up, you never saw birds like that around here;
but since they've made an effort to clean up the Great Lakes since the 1950s
the bird varieties have been astonishing.

We now get to see Bald Eagles, wild turkeys, Mute Swans, Kingfishers (they are funny little birds),

and in recent years, quite a few Orioles...which are really neat birds with colourful plumage,
who build distinctive "hanging" nests.

we have lots of hawks of course, and Peregrine Falcons, and of course Canada Geese;

and recently I heard a pair of Great Horned Owls late at night, hooting up a storm in a tree in my backyard.
And my window was closed, and the TV was on.  But I still heard them.

I love birdwatching.

I have to tell you, though, I didn't really understand this sentence:

" Given my mother, it was hard to believe that there was anything about sex which was appealing to women. "

[MTL]

Wow, impressive.  It's a lot of work, but people who love it, thrive on it.

And that's a good-sized space, you have, there, too.

AND YOU HAVE A DOG!!!  XD

You saw the black shadow?  That was Sophie.  She was a lab/golden cross and made it to 16 years.  We brought her home at 7 weeks.  She was so pure black as a pup that you almost couldn't photograph her in direct sun.  This was Sophie as an older dog?

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Next came Fletcher, a blue merle Australian Shepherd we inherited at 4 years of age who lived another ten plus years with us.

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And here is a current picture of Heidi, my current dog.

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Okay, I've shown you mine.  How about you show me yours?  (Assuming you have a pooch.)  Or maybe we should take this to area 69?  

They are all lovely, lovely dogs, and nice pictures of them all, too.

I like how you captured Fletcher's reflection in the pool.

Sorry to hear that Sophie and Fletcher are no longer with you.

Heidi is a great-looking dog.

I'm afraid I don't have any pictures immediately handy on this machine of my dog,
but I will try to get some, at some point.

She is a black & white Border Collie mix from the shelter.
I'm pretty sure she has some Husky in her.
Her coat is  short, for a BC, and it's a double coat...not typical of BCs.
Plus, she has webbed feet like a Husky...acts like snowshoes.

She loves the snow, loves the water.
She's obsessive-compulsive and a control-freak.
But she also likes to cuddle, which is nice.
I love her to bits.

Here, I found a pic that looks a great deal like my dog,
this will have to do, for now:



that garden is incredible, btw.

[MTL]

Hey I just remembered another one!

I don't feel the cold nearly as quickly as most people. I can still wear shorts and t-shirt in winter unless it gets bitingly cold.

However, I feel the heat quicker than most. I have to let a cup of tea cool for about 15 minutes longer than my wife's.

CL: Pants in England means underpants! What you call pants, we call trousers.

Rob,

my British grandmother won't drink her tea
unless the temperature is roughly the same as the melting point of Platinum.

And she calls that, "refreshing".

When I visited the UK, years ago,
a guy I had just met there, a friend of my family's,
told me and my sister that he'd come by later to "knock us up".

Now,

For the benefit of any unversed North Americans reading this,
when in the UK,
the phrase "knock you up" means "I will drop by later and call on you"
IE: knock on your door.

But,

For the benefit of any unversed Brits, reading this,
please be advised that in North America,
to "knock someone up" means to get them pregnant.

I was quite electrified the first time I heard that.

[MTL]

1. I once entered a screenwriting competition called Sci-Fi Shorts, the first prize for which was to see your ten-minute script produced for the big screen. Not only did I not win, but one of the judges decided to die shortly before I sent in my entry. His name was Douglas Adams.

NO.  

[brewer]

M.h.Brewer, did your sister survive?

HAH. Sorry that's an inside joke with me and my sister. May make more sense if it's spelled cyst-er. Didn't develop until age 40.

Thanks for letting me have a little fun!

[Cyberman]

Yeah. I came within a gnat's whisker of having something I'd written read by the great man himself. That would have been better than winning. Ah well.

Also: at one time, pre-alarm clocks, there used to be professional knocker-uppers. Their job was to go round to people's houses to knock them up.

[brewer]

We do have an area 69 you two.

Naw, they're just sorting out a language barrier.

Area 69 would be if I asked CL what colour of panties she was wearing, RIGHT NOW???

(that's a joke.  Don't answer, CL.)

I don't get it? Is the joke that she is not wearing panties?

[MTL]

Yeah. I came within a gnat's whisker of having something I'd written read by the great man himself. That would have been better than winning. Ah well.

Also: at one time, pre-alarm clocks, there used to be professional knocker-uppers. Their job was to go round to people's houses to knock them up.

That's hilarious.

The Milkman, The Lamp-Lighters, the Knocker-Uppers, the Town Criers.

It sounds so colourful.

Who woke up the Knocker-Upper, though?

[Cyberman]

Aha. I think they had a knocker-upper's-knocker-upper. After that, it's turtles all the way down.

[MTL]

Naw, they're just sorting out a language barrier.

Area 69 would be if I asked CL what colour of panties she was wearing, RIGHT NOW???

(that's a joke.  Don't answer, CL.)

I don't get it? Is the joke that she is not wearing panties?

lol, no.

you joked that they should take their convo to Area 69, which is obviously for X-rated chat, right?

I said, No, they're not flirting...they're just sorting-out a language barrier.

THEN I (jokingly) gave an example of what WOULD qualify as flirting:

And that would be to ask CL:  "what COLOUR of panties she was wearing?"

(much in the way an creepy, random obscene phone-caller, would
...with the purpose of visualizing it and trying to engage a woman he doesn't know, in phone sex).

But I was joking, just trying to get a laugh.

I didn't want CL to think I was actually asking something inappropriate, lol.