Baubles the Meerkat

Baubles the Meerkat is proof that there is a god and he is hilarious.

A few weeks ago some friends and I went to the Honolulu Zoo. When we walked up to the meerkat exhibit, there was a big sign from the zookeeper to the side explaining that one of the meerkats, Baubles, was "a bit challenged" but noted that he is okay and not to worry about him. "If you see Baubles looking a bit unsteady on his feet, nothing's wrong it's just his way."

So we're thinking, okay, a meerkat that maybe falls over if he tries to do that standy thing that they do? That's not a big deal. Which one is Baubles? But at that moment it became extremely clear which one was Baubles, as he came a-baubling around the corner at just that moment and baubled all around the enclosure while we were there.

This meerkat has some kind of neurological disorder that apparently makes him think he is a pirate with peg legs on a ship in very unsteady seas. He rocks back and forth and constantly wobbles and falls over. He also can't stop very quickly and runs into things a lot.

Think that's sad? It was not sad. It was hilarious. He obviously doesn't seem to mind at all, and apparently he can still be a normal, happy meerkat. He just looks like he's really drunk and takes a little longer to do things. The thing that makes it really hilarious, though, is how everything the zoo says about him sounds like the way you talk about the one jerk in your group of friends. "Oh yeah, Baubles? Yeah Baubles is kinda... Like, you know. He's just Baubles. Nothing you can do about that guy." It somehow takes this poor handicapped animal from kind of sad level to I'm-going-to-hell-for-laughing-but-I-can't-stop level.

Please enjoy this KHON video of Baubles baubling about. My favorite note from this, "They think that like maybe he is sick or something or you know but he is just like that." HAH-HAAAAAAA! (Note: if the wrong video is displayed for you, you can view the correct one here!)

Things-o-rama

I finally turned in my Guam application yesterday and he said he would get back to me today or tomorrow. I haven't heard back yet so I'm nervous. I imagine him sifting through all the work I turned in last semester, shaking his head and tsk-ing quietly to himself as he decides not to let me in.

By the way I'm still spending most of my time hunched over a computer writing about domestic abuse. I have a short paper due this weekend that involves critiquing and attempting to create a feminist ethic for interpreting and responding to sexual abuse, then next Wednesday (YES RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY SPRING BREAK) I have a 3000 word research project on the use of the idea of mental health as a form of gendered control. So if in the next week you find yourself thinking "hot crackers, I sure am having a shitty time!" I want you to picture the eleven books about systemic abuse I have sitting on my desk, and I want you to picture me reading each one of them and stuffing them with post-it notes instead of relaxing over the only break I will get for the rest of the semester during the only chance I'll have to see my dad in almost a year. Then I want you to think "WELL GOD DAMN I guess my time is not as shitty as it could be!" Because gals and pals this is SHIT-O-RAMA right here, yes it is.

In somewhat related news, pick a monkey and then try to find its family, subfamily, superfamily, suborder, & binomial nomenclature in less than fifteen minutes. YOU CAN'T DO IT, I TRIED. Now do this for every primate at the Honolulu Zoo one after the other. Have fun, kids.

Lizard kitten

There is a wee baby gecko that has taken up residence on my window sill. He's been there for days now. At first I thought it was awesome because I thought he was eating the tiny flies that come in my window at night sometimes but after more observation he seems to just like stalking them. He acts like a cat and will crouch close to the ground and creeep up on one super slow but then just stare at it. If one walks near him he'll step away from it like he's all surprised and offended. I'm not sure what he's eating, but anyway we named him Little Dude and he's my new pet. One of these days I'll try to get some photos of the hilarious bugger as he stares incredulously at his dinner.

Makapu'u tide pools

How was my day, you ask?










How was yours?

Promises of photos

Okay so all those photos I promised before I put this thing online will be coming shortly. I mostly haven't taken any photos because I don't want to look like too much of a haole taking photos of everything until I have enough of a tan to claim I'm local. Anywhoo.

I'm going tide pooling with another anthropology major this weekend (could it be I have finally found another outdoorsy type??) which promises lots of photos of, I donno, barnacles and stuff*. I went to the beach finally last weekend and took my camera with the intention of taking new Facebook photos... I'll wait while you laugh. Done yet? No? Okay I can wait...

...

... Alright that's enough. Anyway I decided against it because I went by myself and as the beach was crowded I knew at least half a dozen people would notice me setting a timer and then running away and then running back again. I didn't feel like looking like a loon that particular day, so there are no photos. And I wasn't going to just hold the camera out to get just my face and a smidge of background because this is FACEBOOK, guys, not MYSPACE. Sheesh.

I have temporarily satiated my desire for a full back koi tattoo by getting a tank top from T&C Surf that has an almost identical design on the back. I also got a tank with wings on the back from Papaya but that didn't affect my desire for wing tattoos, so I'll have to come up with something more creative. Like henna.

*Stuff is the technical term for limpets and algae and mussels and starfish and sea urchins and little fishes and crustaceans and a whole assortment of other little sea animals. Would I say I have a plethora of sea animals? ... Yes I would.

I am now "that neighbor"

Oh well this is just peachy.

Gateway House (the name of my dorm that sounds not at all unlike the name of a halfway house or a rehab center) has a little bee problem. I've heard there are always bees in the lounges and earlier this week I had to kill one that was in my room. I was never afraid of bees or wasps until I got stung by one after it flew into my hair and my hand felt like it was being stabbed for two days solid. Then I learned that bees can call other bees to attack if you threaten them. LOVELY. The whole building is apparently covered in beeeees so tonight there was another bee bonking itself on my overhead light.

Now the last time there was a bee in here, after I ran shrieking, I got my sponge mop and smushed him when he landed on the floor. Then I dragged the thing all the way out the front door and threw him out as quickly as possible since he was actually still alive. This time the bee wouldn't stop moving long enough for me to swat him and I couldn't reach him on the ceiling, so after twenty minutes of trying to trick him into going outside by playing an elaborate prank with the lights I went downstairs to elicit help. It was 12:30am.

So I'm standing in the lobby with wet hair in a sweatshirt and baggy pants waiting for someone to come in. After a couple minutes some guy comes in with groceries and I ask if he can help me reach a bee on the ceiling. The guy is obviously pretty confused but says he'll come help me after he puts his groceries away. So I go to my room and the bee is still there, smacking the light. I open the door and wait and at some point the bugger disappears. He doesn't fly past me to go out, he just disappears. So then the guy gets there and there's no bee. We look around for a minute and I swear that there WAS a bee, it's just not here now. Eventually I thank him and he goes back to his room upstairs.

Ten minutes later I notice the little bastard crawling around on my desk and I NAIL HIM WITH MY NOTEBOOK.

So now I'm trying to figure out if leaving a note in the elevator addressed to "the nice guy who tried to help me kill the bee" letting him know that I found it and killed it after he left won't actually seem crazy by comparison to me standing around in my pajamas asking strange men to help me kill things in my bedroom.

Om nom snail?

After the four inch slugs that came out after the rain I knew I was in for some weird bugs. That did not prepare me for the giant African land snail I saw zipping along a manhole cover a few days ago. Look at the size of these things. The one I saw was probably about that big, only way longer because he was all stretched out as he oozed along. I mean his head was at one end of this manhole and his tail was at the other. Again, I didn't know they were here because they're another purposefully introduced invasive species. The story behind these is that they were kept in the Pacific as possible reserve food for US military. Who the crap gets these half baked ideas? Mongoose eat rats and soldiers eat giant snails? Really guys?

For extra fun, one place I looked said that their mucous can transmit meningitis. DIG IN BOYS.

I go to school with Rikki Tikki Tavi

If you want a closer look, just skip to 2:19.

I had no idea some clown had introduced the Indian mongoose to Hawaii. Apparently he wanted to get rid of the rats in his cane fields. Long story short they ended up with both rats and mongooses. If you want to see more of these anerable little badasses, check out this one taking down a cobra in India. They're so cool cats don't even mess with them. In fact, here's a group of them chasing a lion. Here's a less badass vid of one attempting to steal someone's lunch.