happy all american pet day!
During President Kennedy’s time in office 21 animals lived at the White House.
Their pets included dogs, horses, and an assortment of smaller animals.
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“animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.”
george eliot
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credit: john f. kennedy presidential library and museum
when glenn had to go through painful surgery
and was at last home again
tiny sweet olive
approached him gently
touched her head to his
let him eat their favorite food first
and moved quietly
next to him
at his special place by the window
just lying there
in silence
for hours on end
while he recovered
offering him
the quiet comfort
of their tender friendship.
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“besides love and sympathy,
animals exhibit other qualities
connected with the social instincts
which in us would be called moral.”
― charles darwin
rocket the turtle is the sun in the center of the kinders’ universe.
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“everything in nature contains all the powers of nature.
everything is made of one hidden stuff.”
-ralph waldo emerson
when i was 7 or 8 years old
my father came home
from his job at the ad agency
with a new pet for our family
and it just happened to be a baby alligator.
he was not more than 9 or 10 inches long
in a small box and cute as could be
i was really excited
and pictured myself playing with him and his friends
(just as in the vintage postcard above)
i thought he would just fit right in
with my family
in our colonial house
in the suburbs
though, there were a few ‘glitches’ with this scenario.
i had my alligator for a few days and i was very excited to have my friends in my class meet him. when the big day came for show and tell, i carefully carried him in his little cardboard box, climbed onto the bus, and jerry and i headed off to school. i remember it was a bit chilly that day, but i didn’t know anything about natural alligator habitats, so i didn’t think much of the weather. i was bursting with excitement.
i put my box on my desk and when i was called up for the big reveal, i opened by box, only to find that jerry lewis had passed away on the way to school and was now stiff as a board. i couldn’t believe it and i felt so sad for him. looking back, i’m sure that any baby alligator given away in a promotion, was not long for this world, but i had hoped that we would be together for a long while. my teacher was very nice about it, and helped me wrap up his box and i rode home that day on the bus with jerry, ready to have a funeral for him. i learned so many life lessons from my short time with jerry lewis. – r.i.p.
(not me, or jerry, but how i imagined us at show and tell)
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” i go where the action is.”
-jerry lewis
two of my grandies at the detroit zoo
experiencing the butterfly house
firsthand
and finding
just who exactly
is patiently sitting with them
waiting for his identity to be discovered. 
“wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table.
even a tiny fleck of it stops time.”
― Diane Ackerman
grandies r and v
understand trust
“the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
-ernest hemingway
when we set out on our hike
to see what spring animals
were out there
we thought maybe
we’d see a bear
awakening from a long winter’s nap
though we most likely
scared any creature
who happened to be in our oncoming path
or most anywhere in the vicinity
with our marching and laughing and yelling and jumping
and then
we looked closer
and at last
found an animal
passed over by many
who was not afraid of us
just waiting to to be discovered
a single ant.
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“life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece.”
-nadia boulanger
aviary water ripples
butterfly lands
penguins free swim
ibises play
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all on a sunday picnic at the zoo with the family.
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“color is the fruit of life.”
-guillaume apollinaire
something is lost or wandering.
(*question and response chain on my neighborhood website – mixed in among the recommendations for contractors, giveaways, news and upcoming events)
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*Anyone lose a peacock? peahen?
A. C. from Crest/Washington · 8h ago
Was leaving the house a little after 11 maybe and a large peacock or peahen appeared wandering through the Kenwood backyards heading north.
P. V. from Crest/Washington · 8h ago
are you sure it wasnt a turkey?
C. G. from Dexter-Miller · 7h ago
A wild turkey has been seen on the South West Side in the last couple days.
A. C. from Crest/Washington · 5h ago
A friend and I were at the end of the drive way when we saw it come through the spaces between the garages and at first I thought I was really losing it because it looked like a vulture perching and then for a split second I did think it was a turkey but it was gone. I swear sometimes you never know in this neighborhood.
S. P. from Crest/Washington · 5h ago
Yes, saw the turkeys last year ( or year before ? ) walking up and around Fair Street near Glendale. I thought there used to be three of them.
J. S. from Dicken · 1h ago
Well. I can think of even a few turkeys who think they themselves are peacocks!
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image credits: eric carle, pinterest
I didn't have my glasses on.... 