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To get to my yard, of course. [Click picture to play video.]

There is a nightly visitor to the garden here, and the cats do not seem to mind.  I do wonder what Bela is thinking.  Does she understand that this other animal is a bird, and that cats are supposed to want to eat birds?  Does she think it is perhaps another large and very ugly cat?  Does she know it is a chicken, but realize that even if she did attack it, it could easily fend her off?  Or does she think she could defeat it, but has no interest, since she receives her meals everyday with no effort on her part?  Some time ago we had an armadillo in the back yard and she seems to look on it with pity.  We had a raccoon as well, but never witnessed their interaction.

Did I mention I live in a city, and not on a farm?

HILTON HEAD ISLAND – I am in South Carolina for a few days while Miriam is at a conference.

The trip here, in a rented Hyundai Sonata, was surprisingly comfortable.  That’s a good little car.  It has every luxury, and appears to get incredibly good mileage.  We made a brief stop in Savannah for lunch, then arrived in South Carolina around 4:30.  This area differs from coastal Florida in a number of ways, though the most immediately obvious is the presence of trees, which is striking, considering how many hurricanes come through here.  Every shopping center and parking lot is wooded, and, in fact, the shopping areas are set back from the road, so you see unobtrusive signs along the street, in front of a wall of pine and oak.

The hotel is nice, if sprawling.  The hallways are long and the pool area covers a giant swath of land in the middle of the complex.  The balcony of our room looks over a pond with a fountain, and at night the frogs are very active.  The lobby is handsome, with elaborate wood paneling and millwork, and as I write people are enjoying complimentary lemonade and some other drink with whole strawberries in it.  This morning I attempted to get started reading Robinson Crusoe, but the splashing and cavorting of the guests at the pool, and the sound of the waves was too distracting for me.  I have been watching the swimming events from the Olympics on television.

Last night we went for a lovely walk along the beach, and it took us quite a distance north from our hotel.  The shore in front of the hotel had a goodly number of bathers, but a short distance up the coast it was practically deserted, and there were all manner of birds and bivalves and crabs.

The weather today is surprisingly cool, in the mid 70s, I’d say. It feels like Florida in the winter, since it’s also a bit overcast at the moment.  In a few minutes we’re going into town to have lunch and look at some old antebellum houses.

I foolishly forgot the power supply to my laptop, so I can only use this computer for as long as I have charge.  If  I don’t write again until Wednesday that is why.  The most unfortunate aspect of my absent-mindedness is that I won’t get to edit the photographs from the wedding I shot in St. Augustine last month.  That will be my top priority when I return to Gainesville.

An op-ed in today’s New York Times regarding this afternoon’s Belmont Stakes got me thinking about another crime perpetrated by the horse racing community, namely the names.

If Big Brown wins today he’ll be the first horse since Affirmed in 1978 to win the Triple Crown. “Affirmed”? What kind of name is that for an animal? “Big Brown” at least makes some sense, but “Funny Cide”, “Casino Drive”, “Touch Gold”, “Empire Maker”? Those aren’t names. They’re just words strung together, some vaguely related to gambling. When they’re brushing these animals in the stable do they actually use these absurd monikers? I hope not.

Maybe I’ll call my cat “Window Dressing” or “Furball Dancer”.

UPDATE: Big Brown loses.

I just watched a chicken chase a cat from my yard, across the street to my neighbor Elke’s house. Even if I’d had my camera in my hand at the time it wouldn’t have done any good; you had to see it motion to appreciate the absurdity of it.

UPDATE: Moments ago the same chicken chased after a blue-jay that landed on the lawn briefly.  Blue-jays are typically tough birds, but I guess the lesson here is that chickens have an undeserved reputation for cowardice.

I once asked a sassy black lady how she was doing and she answered, “I’m too blessed to be stressed.” Perhaps it is a testament to my generally placid existence that I sleep the sleep of the untroubled. But last night I had a dream, I had an awesome dream.

I went to a carwash staffed by cats. They were all black, and several of them had headsets with built-in microphones which they used to communicate with the others. They dipped their paws in buckets of sudsy water and washed the cars, and when they were finished they used their tails to guide the cars out of their parking spaces. Those cats did good work.