The Urban Pantheist

I forgot to add that Alexis has decreed that as long as the weather is better in LA than it is in Boston, we will not be spending any unnecessary time indoors. I absolutely loved the Getty and Page museums, but they may be off the table (of course, they both have large outdoor components so...)

We were given the okay to bring our bikes to work to get between different areas of the zoo. I'm all over it, although it could have been timed with better weather.


The "wintry mix" (rain, sleet, snow: Alexis suggested an alternate phrase "bag of shit") resulted in this giraffe skin pattern of bubbles under the slushy icy all over the tarmac.


Christopher the lion stayed on his heated rock, which got steamy.

Friday was marked with dramatic downpours. Our aging building may need some gutter work.

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I feel like I should just update my life, since the snapshots don't show you everything.

Alexis picked us up 3 chickens on Monday, a buff Orpington and two "Easter-eggers." I will continue using scare quotes around "Easter-eggers" until I don't feel like it's an unbearably silly name. These are chickens that contain genes from South American araucana chickens, specifically the genes that lead to variable and unusual egg colors. None of the hens have laid eggs yet but can you blame them? I give them credit for not freezing to death.

Winter weather suddenly arrived this week surprising all including the meteorologists, who I think should be ashamed. Publicly. Italy sentenced their seismologists for manslaughter, we should punish our weather forecasters, maybe make them buy me long underwear or something. I've come to believe that extreme weather is the new norm, and we're all going to start dressing like mountain climbers year round and we'll all own kayaks and generators and fire-powered cell phone chargers.

I'm still working on my podcast--I'm in the writing stage of episode 12 right now. I don't think it's very good yet, but I know it never will be good unless I keep making them. I am in awe of the workaholic maniacs who produce the podcasts I listen to: Marc Maron, Chris Hardwick, Paul F. Tompkins, Dan Savage, John Hodgman, Jesse Thorn, John Moe, John and Andy, Helen and Ollie, and gods love her ursulav and her podcast "Lightweight nerds get drunk and eat bad food." I'm still looking for ways to get the podcast up on iTunes to make it easier for people to listen to, and apparently explicitly asking Alexis for help might be the key. I'll let you know.

We have a new foster puppy whose given name was "Tomato" but has earned the name "Turtle" for his habit of getting stuck on his back for amusingly long periods of time. Friend one or both of us on facebook to get far too many puppy updates, including videos.

Weather is especially unpredictable if you are an ant. Sometimes it's brightly sunny, but it's raining very heavily anyway!


Sometimes it also rains winter moth caterpillars, and these are delicious presents for the queen and the brood.

No snow at the zoo, but enough at home to make the steps slick, and to ice over the cars and fence latches. It was thundering as it came down last night. My little jack-o-lantern looked cute in his hat of snow, but it was still too dark out when I left to get a picture. The prognosticators say Saturday night will be ugly. Wintry mix is the new normal.