Happy Pi Day! and Questions about Mergansers

 

Some exciting news today - I finished the Stand with Ukraine virtual challenge!

I also got booted up to the highest league in DuoLingo. For months I have been in the Obsidian League, which is the second highest league, but why I'm in any league at all is beyond me. I never asked to be in one.

Since today is Pi Day, this cartoon Ma Hat sent seems pretty appropriate.

Tonight after dinner, Travalon and I were going to go to a restaurant in another part of town to get a slice of pie, but as we passed the local barbecue joint, I suddenly remembered they sell slices of Key lime pie, so we just went there and each got a slice. So delicious!

Bongo the chocolate Lab is no longer a puppy physically - in fact, he's an enormous dog - but he's still a puppy in his head. He's always there at band practice, sniffing us in rude places and chewing on music stands, but last night he licked my mandolin! Why? Did it smell good? There seems to be no damage to the mandolin, but you can imagine how I felt watching his enormous tongue slurping against it. My antique, family heirloom mandolin! Luckily one slurp was all he needed to decide it wasn't tasty. A guy from Night Prayer says his wife writes icons using egg tempura paint, and sometimes they will catch their dog licking the icons - they call it "venerating the icons." That I can understand, but what would be in the varnish on my old mandolin that would attract a dog?

When I googled hooded mergansers to make sure that's what we saw at the local bird party, one thing that came up was a list of commonly asked questions about mergansers. Some of them made sense, like "Are mergansers endangered?" and "Do mergansers taste good?" but some were really out there. One was: "What's the difference between a merganser and a duck?" That's like asking what the difference is between a chocolate Lab and a dog. Bongo is both, but not all dogs are chocolate Labs. But my very favorite question was: "What do you call a merganser?" Uh... a merganser? That's right up there with "Why a duck?" except that the latter is a joke, and I'm assuming the former was a serious question, which makes you wonder about the people who are asking it. My only question about mergansers is: where do they go later in the spring? I never see them after mid-April. I'm assuming they go further north...

Famous Hat