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Archive for the ‘Photographs’ Category

KENNY! tees land in practical joke hall of fame

Posted in Photographs, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I don’t know who impresses me more: Kenny, the guy who had his portrait taken with a Jack Russell terrier clad in a T-shirt, as if he somehow knew that a website featuring hilarious photos of people and their pets would make its mark on the Internet in several years, or Les, the guy behind an epic practical joke involving this portrait of a man and his well-dressed dog.

It’s close, but I’m going to have to go with Les.

Several years ago, Les spotted this photograph on Kenny’s refrigerator. Knowing that, like revenge, mockery is a dish best served cold, Les swiped the photo two years ago and hung it up in his garage. Neither Kenny nor his wife noticed it hanging there, apparently. For two years.

This weekend, Kenny found himself at a party surrounded by more than 20 friends wearing T-shirts emblazoned with this image:

This is an exceptional practical joke for two reasons:

  1. Les was able to hold on to the purloined photograph for two whole years without giving himself away. This requires an almost unimaginable amount of patience.
  2. The party where the surprise T-shirts made their debut wasn’t even for Kenny. It was a welcome-home party for one of his friends returning from a four-month tour of duty in Kuwait. Luckily, the celebration also acknowledged Kenny’s wife’s birthday, and she was the surprised recipient of the first T-shirt.

Kenny's the one in the middle, not wearing a KENNY! shirt.

Les is an evil genius. Most of us will never see a successful practical joke so epic and well-planned. Several of us do have a KENNY! T-shirt that is a great reminder that such possibilities exist, however.

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Now serving: disappointment cake

Posted in CSA, Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

We don’t eat a lot of cake in the Haggerty household. It’s just the two of us, and we don’t particularly eat a lot of anything, especially sweets. Which is too bad, because I love to bake and can be quite good at it.

So when I DO decide that a cake is forthcoming, it needs to be out of this world.

This cake, alas, was not that memorable.

I found myself with zucchini remaining in the fridge last week, despite the fact that the CSA ended a few weeks ago. (I actually found more zucchini in the fridge yesterday. I fear it has become sentient and is reproducing at will.) I decided to end the season with a bang after I found a recipe for Zucchini Cake With Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting at Seriouseats.com. The recipe promised me a “triple-threat of complementary flavors,” including zucchini, chocolate and cream cheese.

It was … OK. The cake itself was kind of dry, and the chocolate frosting couldn’t make up for it no matter how rich it was. I would have been better off making plain old zucchini bread and wrapping it for the freezer while I made a more fabulous cake.

The cream cheese frosting is pretty delicious by itself, however. After I took the photo above I scraped it off, ate it and threw the cake away. Baker’s prerogative.

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As Pictured Below: That Smell

Posted in As Pictured Below, Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Freshly toasted pine nuts: I don’t believe anything else makes the kitchen smell better, except maybe cookies baking in the oven. Cookies that someone ELSE is baking in the oven. Right before they wash their own dishes.

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Yang lands on his feet

Posted in Cats, Photographs, tagged , , , , on September 14, 2010| 1 Comment »

A lot of people have asked me how Yang, Yin’s brother, is doing now that he’s by himself. I have to admit that he’s been practicing being a solo cat for a couple of years, hanging out with his brother only for meals and the occasional fight or stair chase.

My mom says that animals know what’s going on in the household probably more than we do. I suspect that he knew his brother was very sick; a couple of times in the week before Yin died, I saw Yang sniff his brother and give him a quizzical look. I think he was also giving food to Yin. For the past few weeks he had been leaving food on his plate that Yin quickly scarfed up; once Yin was gone, he began eating every bite.

He’s been a little snugglier, and he’s slowly learning to ask for meals and snacks (Yin was always the town crier when it was food time). He hasn’t gone around the house looking for his brother; I think he knows Yin is gone for good. So, in a word, Yang is OK. And the rest of the household is well on the way to OK, too.

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As Pictured Below: Curtain maintenance

Posted in As Pictured Below, Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I FINALLY hemmed the IKEA curtains that I’ve owned for nearly five years. I had to, because they were puddling on the spice cabinet that I inherited earlier this summer when my grandmother died. And not puddling in an HGTV kind of way, but more in a slovenly truTV kind of way.

By hemmed, of course, I mean that I ironed on the strip of fusion tape that came with the curtains. I bought red curtains at IKEA. You think I’m going to sew?

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The last days of Yin: snacks, adventure and love. Also, more snacks.

Posted in Cats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 6, 2010| 9 Comments »

I received tons of kind, helpful advice from a lot of people recently regarding some difficult decisions my husband and I had to make about our cat, Yin. The statement that stayed with me day and night, though, was one that a fellow Alabama blogger, Bo, shared. Bo’s 15-year-old dog had died in her sleep not even a week before my original post, and his comment struck home: “I really wish I would have controlled her last moment with us.”

Thursday, September 2, was Yin’s final day with us. I gave him a tour of the garage, a spot off-limits to cats for a number of reasons, and spent literally hours rubbing his belly and his soft, silky ears whenever he would put up with it. I baked a piece of chicken so he could enjoy the smell and the anticipation of one of his favorite treats.

As I was putting a few pieces of soft, too-sweet cantaloupe down the garbage disposal, I heard the distinct ka-chunk of Yin jumping down from the refrigerator; he had always loved melon and was sniffing the air, wondering where his share was. I panicked, realizing I had just thrown away the last bit of melon in the house on the last day the biggest melon lover in the family was going to be around. I quickly grabbed a container of homemade coconut-cantaloupe ice cream out of the freezer and patiently sucked the ice cream off of a few cat-sized pieces of melon. Yin enjoyed every mushy bite.

My husband seared a piece of ahi tuna for dinner so that Yin and his brother, Yang, could enjoy their fair share of what has turned out to be their favorite food ever.

It was an epic last day.

I spent the night on the couch downstairs because I didn’t want Yin to wake up alone during his final few hours. I fed him chicken at 1:30 a.m. when he got up to find the litter box, and rubbed his ears until he decided to go back to sleep on the fridge at 3.

Yin died at around 8:30 a.m. on Friday, September 3, as my husband stroked his side and I rubbed his head and left ear.

Not wanting to leave his body to the care of strangers, we drove him to the crematorium ourselves. We wrapped him in a pillowcase that my grandmother had embroidered before she died in June, and outfitted him with two toys, five Greenies and a tablespoon of catnip for the cremation.

A little over an hour later, we left with a small metal tin containing his ashes.

Thus ends the saga of Yin, who we cared for from the time he and his brother showed up on the carport of our rental house in Mobile, Ala., to the moment we left his tiny body in the cremation room.

It was a fun 13 years. I miss him like crazy, but I also feel honored that we were able to help him have a dignified end to a wonderful life.

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A good death for a good cat

Posted in Cats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 1, 2010| 5 Comments »

At 8 a.m. on Friday, what was going to be a return checkup for Yin will instead be our peaceful goodbye to him. He’s been putting up with treatment for his chronic renal failure, but he’s tired. So tired. He doesn’t feel good, and he doesn’t know why.

I think he would keep taking pills and subcutaneous fluids for as long as his little body would hold out, but those treatments just don’t seem right anymore. He hasn’t gained any weight. He spends his days and nights on the refrigerator, coming down only to eat and seek out the litter box. He eats like a champ, but then tucks himself back into his spot on the fridge, displaying varying stages of discomfort or, mercifully, falling into a deep sleep.

I’m tired, too. I lie awake at night, terrified when I hear a noise downstairs, even more terrified when I don’t.

This is the bravest, kindest and most difficult decision I’ve ever been a part of.

A couple of times a day, he’ll perk up and almost resemble his old self, meowing at the top of his lungs for tuna or climbing onto my shoulders pirate cat-style for a ride around the first floor. These episodes give me pause, but I can’t make him go on just for the sake of an occasional glimmer of hope.

His work is done here. To paraphrase one of my favorite professor’s favorite quotes, there will soon be a Yin-shaped hole in the universe. I can never fill it, but at least I’ll always know that I let him go with dignity.

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As Pictured Below: Bowlful of Melon

Posted in CSA, Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , on August 28, 2010| 3 Comments »

Banana melon, some 15 inches long. It tasted like a really sweet cantaloupe. I am SO tired of melons that taste like cantaloupe. What ever happened to old-fashioned watermelons that were sweet, juicy and red inside?

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As Pictured Below: The lemur abides

Posted in As Pictured Below, Family, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »

What manner of beastie is this? A lemur, perhaps? I remember being quite fond of him when I was a child. Specifically, I remember chewing his long, rubbery tail (you can see it’s a bit stubby at the end).

My mom was kind enough to ferry him home from my grandmother’s house. She was also kind enough to keep the old plastic dolls that would have been entirely too creepy to have in my house.

The lemur, however, abides.

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As Pictured Below: Fair Trade Find

Posted in As Pictured Below, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2010| 1 Comment »


A former co-worker told me about Huntsville’s Trade-Fair Marketplace months ago, and I finally wandered in today. The non-profit store, run by volunteers, offers an eclectic array of handcrafted jewelry, baskets, rugs, pottery and toys, along with an assortment of coffee and chocolate. The goal of the store, and other fair-trade organizations, is to ensure that the artisans and farmers producing the goods earn between 15 and 20 percent of the retail price.

It’s certainly the place to go if you’re looking for gifts and accessories you won’t find anywhere else. I found this resin ring for only $5 — all their prices seem very reasonable.

Trade-Fair Marketplace is located at 817 Regal Drive in the shopping center next to Parkway Place Mall.

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