The Royal Zebras

It's ridiculously warm here for practically January -- about 60º F yesterday. I took Olga for a walk along the high street in the morning and wore shorts! And then I ate lunch on our garden bench in shorts and a t-shirt. It's bizarre.

Olga literally ran rings around me on her walk. She has the attention span of a gnat, and she zigzags down the sidewalk from one smell to another. I ran into an acquaintance from work and was trying to talk to her and her two kids and manage the dog at the same time, and as a result wasn't paying attention when Olga stopped to pee on a tray of cyclamens on display in front of the florist. Argh! Fortunately she only hit one plant. I bought it out of a sense of obligation.

The rapacious parakeets were back on our bird feeder, and in fact we were running so low on suet balls that I walked to Homebase to buy another tub. God forbid we should run out over the holiday weekend.

You can see once again how blue that front ringneck's feathers are. He really stands out in a crowd.

Homebase still had stacks of Christmas trees out front. I counted 35 in this area alone. They were giving them away, but who wants a Christmas tree for any purpose after Christmas? Maybe for mulch?

A man walked past me as I was taking this picture and said, "Kind of sad, isn't it?"

He then proceeded to ask me all about my camera, which always makes me a little nervous because I'm afraid it might be a prelude to being hit over the head and robbed. But I suppose a robber wouldn't ask questions, would they? "Hand it over -- but first, how many megapixels is it?" Besides, this guy didn't look very threatening.

The garden center at Homebase was just as sad as the exterior, with dozens of live Christmas trees in pots  waiting to be sold. I'd say Homebase severely overstocked on trees this year.

I could have bought a vase shaped like a zebra with a crown. Weirdly, I kind of like them.

The afternoon was spent lolling around the house. I'm mired in "The High King" by Lloyd Alexander, another Newbery book, and I'm not enjoying it. It's the fifth book in a series and I haven't read the others, and as I've said before, fantasy novels with kings and swords and magic are not really my thing. Maybe my Newbery patience is just running thin. I'm more than a third of the way in and I'm seriously considering quitting it entirely, but then I couldn't say I've read all the Newbery winners, could I? So I suppose I'll suck it up and keep going.

We also watched a laughable '70s horror movie called "Ants!" that I remember from my childhood -- specifically, the scene where a licentious Suzanne Somers gets bitten to death in bed while in post-coital slumber. Dave just rolled his eyes. It's on YouTube so feel free to share in the horror and mirth.