Darkoshi

I look out the window and see a little gray cat lying comfortably there in the dirt next to the azalea bush. How out of place cats seem, soft and cuddly and clean, in a cold hard world. It rolls over, stretches, gets up and walks on, no speck of dirt visible on it.

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Tuesday night, Qiao's garage floodlight cam sent a "pet detected" notification to my phone. I was very surprised to see a black cat carefully toying with a snake. I went outside; the cat ran off. The snake was crinkled up like I've seen once before with a snake on the back patio, though in a curled position this time. So it was probably a non-dangerous "rat snake":

https://tulsaworld.com/rat-snakes-sometimes-freeze-with-kinked-posture/article_763dea4d-93e5-5e64-ab51-43256048e2fd.html

“When frightened, they often assume a ‘kinked’ posture and remain motionless,” noted the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. The posture makes it appear wrinkled.

https://backyardwildlifeconnection.com/2018/09/29/rat-snake-found-kinking-in-backyard/

The black rat snake is one of several snakes that assume this bizarre posture. When threatened, rat snakes sometimes don this folded or braided pose as a form of camouflage. Supposedly, to a potential predator, a kinked snake looks like nothing more than a stick, and will pass on by without attacking the motionless reptile.

I've been summoned for jury duty already again, barely a year after the last summons. This time it is for a "magistrate" court. The summons mailing indicated I should fill out and return the form, but didn't include a return envelope like last time. The address is written in very small text, and the form was folded on that line, making it even harder to read. The form also says, in slightly larger text, "PERSONS FAILING TO RETURN THESE FORMS AS REQUESTED MAY BE SUBJECT TO CHARGES OF CONTEMPT OF COURT".
I am curious what their actual return rate of forms is, considering all the above. I wonder if they just forgot to include the return envelope.

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This evening I kept hearing noises by the doggy door. At first it sounded like something scratching at it, trying to come inside. That raised my hackles, as our doggy was inside laying on her bed. I locked the doggy door and looked outside, but whatever it was seemed to be gone.

Earlier this evening while outside, I had heard what sounded like a pack of coyotes howling. They must be living down in the undergrowth of the mostly dry lakebed. Surely it couldn't have been a coyote at the door? Maybe a cat?

We've had many toads and frogs sneak inside, but they don't make nose.

Later I heard noises again, now more like thumps against the glass window. I finally discovered a cicada by the bottom edge of the door flap. I moved it away. Later I discovered two cicadas on the nearby screen of the kitchen window, apparently attracted to the kitchen light. I considered leaving the kitchen light on all night. Better to have them at the window than down by the doggy door where they might get inside.

The next time I checked, the two cicadas were still on the window screen, but there was a green katydid down by the bottom of the doggy door flap!

Now I've chased off the katydid at least.

Oh sh*t. Another thump and scratching (that must be their legs or wings skittering on the glass) at the doggy door window even though I closed the blinds and dimmed the lights. What is it tonight?

Between last night and tonight, I've discovered a toad, a bird, and a frog in the house.

Alive and well, I might add. Having entered apparently of their own volition, not in the jaws of a canine.

First sighting of black and white tegu lizard confirmed in Midlands (2020/08/21; since then several more have been sighted and some captured)

"The introduction of any non-native species can have serious negative impacts on native wildlife. Black and white tegus are no exception," said SCDNR herpetologist Andrew Grosse, "Tegus mature and reproduce quickly, though most concerning may be their preference for eggs and the potential impacts to our native ground-nesting birds like turkey and quail, as well as other species such as the state-endangered gopher tortoise."

SCDNR asks people to report any sightings of black and white tegus in the wild to Andrew Grosse, [email protected]. If possible, please submit a photo, location, and time and date the individual was seen.

8:05pm The sun is setting and gray clouds are eating up my blue sky again :(

Later: a few breaks in the clouds; only 2 unidentified stars visible in that direction.

Toads galore. Every night on the back porch. It is the year of the toads.
In the beginning I took photos. Now I just shoo them away.

The Ursa Major stars don't look anything like a bear. For that matter, bears don't even have long tails! What is up with that? ... it says Zeus swung Ursa Major and Ursa Minor around by their tails, which caused their tails to get stretched out. Hmmm. Right. That's rather a stretch, innit?

Tomorrow is forecast to be partly sunny again in the day, and thunderstorms towards evening.
Not a single fully sunny day forecast in the next 2 weeks. But a mostly sunny day on Wednesday.

bah dah dee, bah dah doe. hey, it is Friday. already.

My plan was to simply go for a walk around the neighborhood with my mom, both of us wearing face masks and keeping some distance between us. I did not plan to go inside her house, to avoid bringing germs in or out.

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In between me having ordered cloth face masks, and Qiao having ordered regular surgical style face-masks which were delivered yesterday, we have several now.

The first cloth face masks I got are the rectangular, pleated/fold style. They don't impede my breathing very much as they aren't snug against the face. They tend to ride up and start rubbing the bottom of my eyes, which bothers me. Using a chin movement, I can pull it downwards without touching it with my hands, but then it feels too low on my nose. The elastic ear loops become uncomfortable after a while.

So last week I ordered some of the other kind of face masks which are contoured upwards over the nose, without pleats. Their elastic goes around the back of the head instead of around the ears. I tried one of these on today, after having washed it. It is much snugger against my face than the other ones! One can even see the cloth moving in and out from my breath. It also has a pocket into which one can put an extra filter.

I decided to wear one of the surgical masks for the walk.. it's snugger than the rectangular cloth mask, but easier to breath in than the contoured cloth mask. But I took the contoured cloth mask along too, just in case.

My mom has the N-95 mask which I gave her a couple months ago, and some surgical masks a friend gave her.

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The walk was fine and lovely. A very nice day for a walk. Sunny, not hot, not cool.

The problem was that my mom's internet had stopped working, and she wanted me to fix it. She was bothered that I didn't want to go inside her house to fix it. She needs the internet to work for her census job that's she's doing online training for.

My first approach was to stay outside while instructing her on what to do. She unplugged and plugged the surge protector back in. She took a photo of the cables and surge protectors, which looked fine to me.

I had her bring her laptop outside to help her with another problem (she'd accidentally switched it to high-contrast mode), pointing out to her what to click on to fix it. The laptop showed a wi-fi connection, but it was very slow and disconnected.

My phone was able to connect to the wi-fi, but only when I held it up right by the windows outside of the room with the router.

I finally had to go inside her house to troubleshoot further. I put the snug cloth mask on over my surgical mask, and still tried to avoid touching anything inside the house. But eventually that failed too (my mom couldn't figure out how to insert the ethernet cable into her laptop), and I had to start touching things.

There must be something wrong with the AT&T router, that it's signal strength has dropped such that it doesn't reach my mom's office room anymore. Per the router settings, it's already set to the max signal strength.

There may or may not be something else wrong with the router. I had trouble getting it to work even with a direct ethernet cable connection to the laptop, but after swapping cables around it finally, inexplicably, worked.

In the end, I touched her laptop, mouse, phone, flashlight, router, ethernet cables, doorknob, sink faucet handles...

I eventually lifted the mask in order to blow my nose into my pocket kleenex, because doggonit, by then, why not. It had been several hours since I first put on the mask. I felt bamboozled into having to go inside my mom's house and touch her things. And if she doesn't care... bah. It's no worse than what an AT&T tech would have to do, coming inside to fix it.

For a while I was very frustrated that everything I tried wasn't working, and it felt like I was starting to slowly asphyxiate under the face masks. I had to step outside and take the masks off to breathe. When I went back in, I put the surgical mask away in my backpack, and only wore the cloth face mask.

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My mom had mentioned seeing a fox in her yard before, and we both saw it today. It's a gray fox, grayish on the back, but with reddish legs.

I've started wiping some of the door knobs, fridge handle, etc. with Chlorox wipes once a day. I never did that before. Today it occurred to me that the container is several years old, even though it hadn't been opened previous, and the chloride in it may have decomposed. The wipes don't have a bleachy smell, only a lemony fragrance. Maybe I'd be better off using the Sporicidin wipes I bought 4.5 years ago for cleaning mold off the cabinets, if they haven't dried out yet.

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I filled in my tax forms yesterday, though I still need to review them while clear-headed to make sure I didn't miss anything. I did it in a single session, which took me about 8 hours. Some of that time as usual, due to curiosity, was spent looking up things mentioned in the forms, like generation skipping taxes.

The SC form instructions this year are laid out in a single column per page, making them much easier to read on a computer screen. The federal instructions are still have a 2-column layout, which requires one to scroll down, then up, then down again, to read each page.

I haven't yet attached the forms together, as there's no stapler here, nor any paper clips in the obvious places (though I'm sure there are at least a few clips to be found somewhere). I considered scavenging staples from other papers to unbend and reuse them. Other ideas are to sew a few loops of thread through the paper with a needle, or bend some wire into a paperclip shape (or for that matter into staples), or cut a thin sheet of stiff plastic or cardboard such that it could act as a paperclip.

Then I have to decide whether I should actually mail them now or wait until closer to the extended July 15 deadline. I would normally take them to the mailboxes at the post office, but neither getting them sent nor getting a quick refund is essential to me. So maybe I shouldn't?

Yes, I know I could have avoided both issues by e-Filing.

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I've seen multiple bullfrogs in the yard. There was a report of a coyote in the area; that it attacked a small dog while the dog was out for a walk with its person. I've heard a dog-like howling noise a few times at night, which I now suspect might be the coyote. I've heard other intriguing sounds coming from the lake-bed area at night. Once is a fluttery kind of sound; I wish I knew what it was that makes the various sounds. Although knowing might lessen the charm.

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South Carolina now has 925 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 18 deaths. The rate of increase appears to have slowed down since I started keeping track two weeks ago. The # of deaths is probably the most reliable number to be using in calculations, as the number of confirmed cases can vary depending on how much testing is done.

SC's population is about 5 million. Richland County's is about 400,000.
In Richland County, there are 135 confirmed cases. If one estimates 10 times as many people have actually caught it, that would be about 1350 people in the county... still less than half a percent.

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The doorbell rang this evening. Door Dash. The delivery guy realized it was the wrong house before I could ask Qiao if he'd ordered anything. (We've never yet ordered food to the house, but it's not inconceivable.) It's a good thing the guy didn't just put the food down and leave.

Per this page: How to Buy a Camel, camels need to eat 5oz (140g) of salt per day.

Wow, that is a lot. This paper confirms it: How much, how often and in which form should salt (NaCl) be given to a camel?

The first page suggests providing them with a salt block, but the paper advises against it, as they can't lick well and chewing on the block can hurt their teeth.

Lest anyone think I want to buy a camel, I came across that first link here. I was also curious about the statement "keep them [the camels] away from horses", and posted a comment there on that.

In some photos of camels, it looked to me like a long tongue hanging out of their mouth. But another page I read said they have small tongues. The thing that I thought was a tongue is a "dulla":
The male dromedary camel has an organ called a dulla in its throat, a large, inflatable sac he extrudes from his mouth when in rut to assert dominance and attract females.

More interesting stuff:
10 Amazing Facts About Camels

Camels and some other animals have a Vomeronasal (aka Jacobson's) organ above the hard palate in their mouth.

Flehmen response : that thing cats and other animals do, where they scrunch up their face and inhale when they smell certain things... this is done to get the smell into that vomeronasal organ.

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About humans and salt:
Why Everything We Know About Salt May Be Wrong (from 2017)

https://www.wistv.com/2019/07/26/sumter-man-recreates-iconic-lion-king-intro-with-donkey

I found the original video on YouTube:


Video title: Donkey sings The Lion King for the WIN!
Posted by: Travis Kinley
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeHg9soFgrs
Date posted: July 26, 2019



This one has a short interview with the guy Travis (who it turns out is a pastor*) about the donkey and video:


Video title: A Sumter man and his donkey sing the Lion King
Posted by: News 19 WLTX
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sfuO-nr058
Date posted: July 26, 2019



*It seems like every other person around here turns out to be a pastor.

andrewducker posted a link to this video of a beluga whale returning a phone that had fallen into the water.
This version of the video isn't cropped and includes sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgOxzcQ8TFI

I left the following comment, but may as well post it here too.
..
That beluga whale seems so friendly and sweet. This page says it may have been used for "children's therapy":
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/mystery-beluga-branded-a-russian-spy-whale-may-instead-be-a-wayward-childrens-therapy-animal

Morten Vikeby, a former journalist with Fiskeribladet, told his old newspaper he believes Hvaldimir, the spy whale is really Semion, the therapy whale.
In 2008, Vikeby wrote about the Russian therapy whale for the newspaper.

So I did a search and found this Norwegian page, which includes a video of the (possibly same) whale from 2008:
https://fiskeribladet.no/nyheter/?artikkel=66821&ref=rss

Translated to English:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Ffiskeribladet.no%2Fnyheter%2F%3Fartikkel%3D66821%26ref%3Drss