Peek A Boo-I See You

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

"You can observe a lot by just watching."

Yogi Berra

  The other day as the sun was setting my daughter and I decided to get take out from Sushi House in Palo Alto. It's become a mother-daughter & MaggieMoose ritual for us to pick up a take out order. Then we head home to watch our recorded, brainless reality TV. My feeling is reality TV is kind of like brain candy, but like candy it's probably not good us-or is it? It's people watching of a different kind. None the less we love it. Of course, Maggie is all over this. Who can resist Jeff Probst and Survivor? Maggie knows a cute guy when she sees one. She also loves to smell our food; tempura, sushi, chicken teriyaki .... Maggie gets a treat for herself before snuggling with us while our brains go into a TV coma. We arrived early for the pick up so, we parked the car and just sat waiting while we talked. Maggie was busy in the back of the car people watching. Quietly she scanned the busy parking lot by Trader Joe's-a local hot spot. Not a peep out of her. I wondered what she was thinking as she saw people come and go. Julie went to pick up the food. I looked at Maggie and said Peek A Boo. This interruption caused her to look my way. Now she's looking at me like what the heck. I laughed.

Quickly she turned her head back to people watch. A Julie sighting by Maggie. Springer Spaniel animation at its best as she wiggled her wiggle butt full throttle. Time to head home and go into a deep, brainless coma. Maggie's deep sleep came after her treat as she cuddled up close to us. My daughter and I gasped at all the happenings on reality TV. We watched Maggie sleep with her paws running. Ahhhh.... We love watching her.

The Tribe Has Spoken: Junco Wins Immunity!

Maggie's pawsability thought for the day:

"For me, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, or flowers or beast or bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly and perfectly alive."

Al Purdy

Male, Dark-eyed Junco "Oregon"

  A few weeks ago Maggie and I were trying to identify a mysterious blue bird's nest in our yard. We wrote about it in our posting The Elusive And Mysterious Two Birds Blue. Yesterday we discovered it was a Stellar's Jay! Maggie and I finally were able to see its crown and body a little closer up. It was because of our curiosity on Google that we stumbled upon the ProjectFeederWatch. This project counts birds that feed at one's bird feeder during the winter months (November-April). We purchased a bird feeder, filled it with some good wild bird seed and waited. The Dark-eyed Junco "Oregon" bird (male) was the first to come try it out. He brought along a buddy. Yeah, two birds! We continued to watch our feeder before officially counting to get an idea how often do birds come to a bird feeder? Maggie would see the bird(s) at the feeder from the living room. She'd stroll over and look through the floor length window at the birds. We started taking photos. Little did we know that our favorite television show Survivor would play out in our yard! The competition for immunity took place at the bird feeder. First, two Purple finches or Cassin's Finches arrived at the bird feeder (we are still working on our bird identification skills). We were thrilled! I was going to take their photos, but before I could go click, the Junco darted out of nowhere, gave them a screech and scared them away. He looked pretty smug on that landing.

I said to Maggie "We are a tribe." We had to announce him as the winner in the bird feeder immunity challenge- that we didn't know we were holding. JUNCO WINS IMMUNITY! The tribe has spoken..... Junco flew the scene of the immunity challenge supremely triumphant.