The Union Suit

Every morning, I have to decide what to wear if I'm going to go out into the world. If I'm staying home, of course, I don't have to decide. I just stay in my pajamas until about four o'clock, and then I take a shower and put on the clean pajamas I'm going to sleep in that night. That's called comfort and efficiency, friends. But sometimes I have to make myself reasonably presentable, and that's when I want a Union Suit. Not the old-timey Union Suit, but a new Union Suit for a New Millenium. My vision would be reminiscent of the burqa, but with the sensible comfort and freedom of movement of Hammer pants. It would also have proper sleeves, so that I could wear a backpack if I needed to. The sleeves would have gloves attached that could be tucked into the wrist when not in use, and the fingers of the gloves would be removable. Rather than covering head-to-toe like the burqa, however, the Union Suit would have a bee-keeper-helmet-inspiried hat/hood. The hat would have a collapsable spring-form frame, and there would be a mesh veil that could be lowered from the brim and attached to the collar with velcro. The suit would be made of a very breathable but opaque fabric, light enough for summer and available in heavier weights for winter. I want it in five colors: black, navy, gray, burgundy, and seafoam green. The seafoam would be the dressy one, and would have metallic gold threads woven into it.

The New Union Suit could be worn with steel-toed boots or sensible flats.

Updated to Add: Looks like someone in the fashion world is already on the case. Wrong shoes, though.

Yeah, I read the Fug Girls. Sue me.

Baby Hummingbird!

We rescued a baby hummingbird yesterday! This is what it looked like. The photo is a female, and ours was a male, but it was a juvenile, so it wasn't gaudy yet. Sweetie found it when he took Tink out for her walk. It was on the sidewalk, and it could only get about a foot into the air before having to land again. We took a piece of really light fabric and gently placed it over the little birdy, then very carefully scooped it up. It wasn't hurt or anything, it was just too young to be out of the nest. The nest is way, way up in a high tree, so there was no way to get it back there. It turns out that hummingbirds are protected under federal law (who knew?), so you're not really allowed to try to keep one. Which is good, because you'd totally kill it anyway.

Hummingbirds, I want you to know, are jerks. We have this huge feeder, and we keep it full, and there are no fewer than four feeding stations where they could all sit together in amity, but do they? No. No, they don't. We've had the feeder for a year, and only once have we every seen four birds on it. Most often, there will be one bird, and then another bird will pull a kamikaze maneuver, and then they fly off fighting. No camaradarie, and no common sense.

We ended up taking it to the Los Angeles Hummingbird Rescue in West Hollywood. Boy, were those people nice. Terry and Frank have a whole setup in their home, with an incubator and lots of different cages for various birds, and a lovely aviary. It was almost nine o'clock when I got there, but they showed me all around and talked to me about the birds and everything. They said that little Sweetie (they named it after Sweetie because it was a boy and Sweetie found it--they would have called it Bitey if it had been a girl) was an Allen's Hummingbird, like this one:



I'd have taken pictures, but I kinda destroyed my camera. See, I was at Fair and someone (possibly myself) got drunk and spilled beer on it. It might have been okay--the camera's manual says that if it gets wet, to just let it dry out for a day or so--but because I was really drunk, I kinda forgot that I wasn't supposed to turn it on, and I guess I fried it. So.

Breathing Life into Stone

So yeah. Took a break there. I read somewhere that in Japan, they call abandonded blogs "pebbles"; thus today's title. I've made a few changes, and I guess I'll start inviting people. So. Hello again.