...Seeking Clarity In A Murky World...

Well, gee… I innocently stop by Theriomorph’s to see how the move to almost paradise is going and I find out that she’s tagged me for a meme. An animeme, no less.

I do not blame her for this, however, knowing what moving house can do to a person’s mind. No - per her instructions, I blame Chris.

[ETA] I almost forgot to pass this on to others, so that they too can do some blaming should they decide to do the meme. So, I am passing it on, with no obligation, to:

Joan Kelly (because I don’t believe commenters should be able to get away with being meme-less)
Kai, - because you just know he has some interesting stories
Nancy, when she gets back from the book thingy
Black Amazon, - for one of these days, someday, even if not today - because sometimes thinking about not much of anything is a good thing
Also Arwen, who I think has a blog, but if not, there is the commenter thing.
And Arcturus, who has returned.

And anyone else who wants to! It’s nice to share.

Animal questions. Okay, then… I’ll see what I can do. My experience with animals these days consists of a cat I am caring for temporarily until I can find her a good home. A neighbor gave her to my daughter when she (the kitten… well, and my daughter too) was really too young to be separated from her mother - and refused to take her back. I had to feed her with an eyedropper until she was old enough to eat normally… but that doesn’t mean I am keeping her! She may have been living with me temporarily for 17 years now, but as soon as I find her a good home, out she goes. Her name is Cat.

Okay, now for the questions:

An interesting animal I had:

Hmmm. When I was young we had all sorts of animals in and outside of our house, at one time or another. I really don’t know how my mother stood it… cats, dogs, rabbits, (pet) mice and rats, hamsters, fish - no birds, that I can remember - but I think the most interesting animal we had was the whippersnapper. The whippersnapper was what we called the wee strange beastie that my brothers found - who knows where - one day. We put it in the garage because we had no idea how big it was going to get. We (raised on Godzilla movies) thought it was quite possible that it would become huge. This creature provided countless hours of scary enjoyment for us.

Almost every day we’d slowly open the garage door, just enough to peek in and make sure the coast was clear - which it always was, to our dismay, as our beastie stayed quite wee no matter what we fed it. Of course, not knowing what it was, we didn’t know what it ate anyway, but we dangled many delicacies in front of it, always avoiding its snapping claws. Or trying to. After much discussion with the neighborhood kids we all decided that it was not a baby monster, but rather a baby lobster and we need not worry that it was going to grow too big for the garage or for the shallow pan of rocks and water we kept it in. I was quite disappointed, though, that it never did grow at all.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I found out what our whippersnapper actually was... and while it turns out to be quite common and mundane (even if a bit odd for Los Angeles), I still look back on it fondly as the animal that most fired our imaginations, and thus, the most interesting.

An interesting animal I ate:

I am not a very adventurous eater… if it’s an “interesting” animal, or if it “tastes like chicken” - but is not chicken - I tend to avoid it. Most of the strange things I have eaten, it’s been by accident. Like the time I was working in the bakery of a restaurant and one of the main cooks came back and asked me if I wanted a fried seafood platter that had gotten a little too well done. It wasn’t burnt or anything, just not up to par for the customers, as it was one of the highest priced menu items - so I said sure. Yum, seafood.

So there I am, noshing away on fried clams, a couple different kids of fish, chicken wings, shrimp and… when I start to notice that the chicken, though delicious, looked um… a bit different - and it occurs to me that chicken is not usually considered a seafood.

And that’s how I came to, accidentally, eat (and thoroughly enjoy, til I realized what they were) frog’s legs. Which, may I just mention, are also not seafood.

An interesting animal in the Museum:

There are so many… but I’ll have to go with dinosaurs (Godzilla effect again, no doubt). I am not fond of dead things, stuffed and displayed… although certainly the look of them has gotten much better over the years.

An interesting thing I did with or to an animal:

I am still thinking about this one. I have had animals that have done interesting things (like one amazing cat which found us after we moved and who also tried to become a wetnurse) and I’ve done interesting things, no doubt sometimes in the presence of animals, but I am not sure what I’ve done actually with or to one that could be considered interesting.

An interesting animal in its natural habitat:

Elephants! Not that I’ve ever seen them in their natural habitats, mind you, but I find them endlessly fascinating. The more I learn about them, the more wonderful they seem. I wish I knew their language.