"Ay, Dios Mio! Donde esta???"

Ruby-throated hummingbirds travel hundreds of miles to vacation in Mexico and Central America for the winter. Around this time of the year, late March or so, a partied out hummer scout will arrive at my garden where it expects to see nectar hanging from the same place that they left in early autumn. It never happens! The feeder is never ready for the scout who somehow reconnoiters with the incoming pack of hummers and sends them elsewhere to feed leaving me high and dry until sometimes early summer. Will I get it right this year? Dios mio!

Only in New Orleans...

I read the other day in the local newspaper that a rare blue crawfish was found in the wild and brought to the Audubon Insectorium for display. The chances of finding one in the wild are 1 in every 10,000 crawfish. When visitors come to see the rare mudbug the question they ask the most is,"Does it taste any different than the red ones?"

A whole new twist to the term, "Cabbage Ball"

How many cabbages are we gonna get from the St. Patricks Day Parade? I wonder if any other city throws vegetables off of a moving float to celebrate a saint's holiday? And how many people are gonna actually wear green at Parasol's? And, of course, how many non Irish will call in sick on Thursday? The mind reels!
The first question is very valid. Almost a year after Hurricane Katrina, my mom garnered an entire plastic clothes basket full of cabbage. At the time, she was 81 years old. My brother also received his share of the leafy green projectile. Never tired of eating my mom's cabbage cuisine, but... Anyway, have a Happy and safe St. Paddie's Day, y'all!

Always later than I think...

Well, it is now a couple of days into daylight saving time and I still haven't made the adjustment. It's not so much trying to get back that lost hour of sleep, it's just that I always feel it is later than I think. Now, it is... one hour!

A different kind of guitar hero #2

Well, I started to tell a wonderful tale revolving around my relationship between comp art, art directors, expectations, deadlines and getting to take actual guitars home to draw from. Unfortunately, after more than a hour, the browser crashed and well, it is a sad, frustrating story that I don't wanna write about any more than you wanna read about it. But it does say how much fun an artist can have, no matter the situation, when they are inspired. Oh those happy, happy accidents! This guitar was as much fun to play as it was to design and render.

My next door neighbor!

Sometimes you find the most interesting things lost in a flash drive. My next door neighbor has a horse that she rehabilitated and his name is "Lightning." Though I've have never seen him run, he sure is fast with the ladies. Occasionally, he comes by, unannounced, to visit the two thoroughbred mares next door to our property. Our cocker spaniel is always intrigued by the "big dawgs!" What a beautiful animal Lighning is ... you should have seen him a year ago. Congrats Debra ... Just shows you a little love goes along way!

Just what are we teaching the children?!?

Yesterday, my wife, Therese asked me to help her first grade class put together a booklet that celebrates "Artists Week." The idea was to allow the students to write about their hopes and dreams, which is an awesome task for a first grader, but then, the assignment was to illustrate what they wrote. Well, confusion reigned, and boy, did we get wet!!! As you can imagine, no one knew what draw or how to draw it. The little boys were the worse, because I mentioned drawing ball games for things they like to do. Naturally, football and the Saints became the premier image to draw. Most of the girls in the class drew and colored birds, butterflies, flowers, houses, and self portraits with little help. But a couple of the guys just couldn't or wouldn't draw anything. I had to show some of them how to draw a football spinning, a football player and the Saint's logo, which is a fleur-de-lis. Well, we started to see some strange looking fleur-de-lis, so I attempted to help out one of the guys and as I lightly sketched the logo, I told the student that the word "fleur" was french for flower and that the image is of three lilies tied together. Then he asked me, "Mr. Bensen, what's a lis?" I had to come up with a real, believable answer so I said with much conviction, "It means life. Fleur-de-lis means flower of life!" "Yeh, that's it," I told myself.

Indeed, just what are we teaching the children!