Given the choice: Choose Monkeys!!!!!!

Today we went shopping. Well, first we paid bills. I should say, She paid the bills and I put stamps on envelopes and wrote the return address. Yes, I am useless when it comes to bills, but it has taken me years to craft this façade! I have yet to convince her I am completely unable to do the laundry, despite the large number of her sweaters that have been mangled and shrunk. Well, I keep telling myself, only one more. It is a pricey practice, but if it works…priceless.

We ended up buying clothes. Yes, I got some, too. Some for teaching, others for Phoenix. Cora got both, too.

OK. Cora is always looking adoption BLOGs. Well, the other day she was surfing and found a blog in which the owner said she liked a particular site. It was of a couple African watering holes. These are live streaming videos. She went to it. Immediately, from my vantage point next to her, I could hear crickets. Well, I went to this sight, too, since the sound of crickets has been absent around here for several months. Well, as the evening wore on, the day broke in Africa. Soon we saw a duck fly onto the scene. The camera eventually turned to color from the infrared that it had been showing.

We watched the duck in awe, knowing it was halfway across the globe from us and we were watching in nearly real-time. Then, pretty soon, the other (we were watching two on our screens by this time) showed some sort of tiny deer coming down to the watering hole. Then Cora noticed some Wildebeests. We were instantly infatuated with this site.

The next morning I turned it on and saw Zebras! Tonight we tuned in about sunrise. There was nothing for the longest time, then some ducks showed up. The camera apparently has some guy on the other side panning it this way and that. Usually he is pretty good. He pans WITH the wildlife and usually stays with it. He is sometimes behind the times, and is slow to react, but most times it is pretty good.

Tonight, Cora was threatening the man’s life. I was not very far behind. We were watching a hawk/eagle (?) for awhile, then the eagle/hawk flew away. Then the camera panned to show the grass land, out of the grass came a grey shape. It turned out to be a Baboon! We were ecstatic. The only thing is one of us is usually a few seconds behind the other. Tonight Cora was ahead of me in the video stream.

She started cussing the person out. I did not understand why, but then I began to see it on my screen. The camera panned to the baboons and watched them. They came up to the watering hole and began to drink. One had a baby on its back. There were several juveniles chasing each other and jumping into and out of the way of the adults. It was fun to watch.

Then, as the camera panned with the movement of a couple of baboons, we saw a crane in the background…wading in the water. Well, it soon became clear that the bastard controlling the damned thing was a bird lover to the worst degree. I uttered threats to this man’s life and basically called into question his lineage and that of his boss. I could not match Cora’s ferocity, but was just as inclined to fly across several continents to find this man and punch him in the face. Clearly, the animal on the screen was your average everyday blue heron. No one cares. If it was a Chinese Streaming Video, yeah, like Cora said, “that would be cool.” But, when you are on the African Savanna or wherever, and you have the choice between putting monkeys on the screen and a crane, well, you should really stick with the monkeys. Don’t go shopping for birds when there are monkeys on the screen! No, this idiot zooms the camera into the crane. We watched it wade, we watched it shake its head, and I am SO glad we didn’t miss it ruffle its feathers. By the time the crane flew away, the monkeys were long gone. Cora and I were displeased. We discussed ways to find this man in his home and stuff a crane down his throat…well, no, we didn’t, but when you’re married as long as we are, you can read each other’s minds. I know she was thinking the same thing I was.

Here is the link: Africam