Coping With Noisy Neighbors Monthly: hot off the press soon! Except I bet that saying is really out of date because of all the internets these days.

My Sweet Pea turned sweet 16 in Prague recently.

My understanding is that it is every little girl's hope and dream to spend her 16th birthday in Prague.


So while she's been gone, I've been reading this really great book about parenting teenagers (The Blessing of a B Minus by Wendy Mogel). When she gets back, I'm going to be all prepared to parent the heck out of her.

But really even before reading the book, I think I scored one on the independence thing by sending her to Prague for her birthday, don't you?

Meanwhile, I am totally not even obsessed with chickens. I DID request (and find) a man who enjoys songs about chickens when I tried online dating for the first and only time. But that was because I figured you don't hear all that many depressing songs about chickens, and I wanted to find a man who wasn't prone to despair.

And also, my next door neighbor growing up used to raise chickens. But that's the sum of my experience, chicken-wise.

I would never have guessed that there were entire magazines devoted to chickens:

In the regular magazine section of the grocery store in the fourth biggest city in the United States no less! I mean, there must be more to those birds than meets the eye, because the ratio of apartment dwellers to chicken farmers has to be kind of high at that store.

Surely "Coping with Noisy Upstairs Neighbors Monthly" would have a wider audience, at least within the city limits.

On a totally related note and in the interest of keeping on keeping on, here are some more Israel pictures:

Here's his head. The focus is lousy, but the color kind of makes up for it a little. Maybe.


Here's a kid I don't know chasing a bird:


Maybe he can be featured in that chicken magazine. "Chicken chasing children of Israel, page 28!"

What can I say? It was cute.

Here's a sign:

I seem to still have a lot of pictures, but that's all the staring at the computer I have in me for now.

Have a great weekend everyone and happy sweet 16 to the pea!

Pretty birds and flowers and tanks and bomb shelters. I'm more scattered than usual. And usual is pretty scattered.

My cousins found this free air while we were out last weekend:
It's such a relief not to have to pay to breath when you're out and about.

Ever on the lookout for people who drive worse than I do, My Sweet Pea spotted the driver of this truck talking on the cell phone while smoking:
You can't see them but the big containers the truck is carrying have all kinds of flammable and danger signs all over them. So it seems there are plenty of death opportunities right here in Houston.

But since I have a seemingly never ending supply of Israel photos, let's go back to Israeli danger:
Maybe the Hebrew or Arabic explains how this poor guy is going to die. He seems to be climbing where he shouldn't be climbing, but whether he's going fall and break his neck or maybe be electrocuted is an English speaker's best guess.

At least he's bound to die amongst the beautiful palms and flowers:

See how pretty Israel is? Look, here's a bird:

And a flower:


This looks like cactus on the top and tree on the bottom. I'd never seen a cactus tree before:


My Sweet Pea on a tank:



And another bomb shelter:

Yeah. That's about all I got for today. Have a great weekend!

Living in Texas Means Every Now & Then Someone Throws a Dead Alligator Head in the Back of your Stepdaughter's Truck. Apparently.

Living in Texas means that every now and then someone throws (or gently places - who can really tell about these things?) the head of a dead alligator into your stepdaughter's truck.

Unfortunately, being me means that you accidentally delete all the dead alligator head pictures and then accidentally drop your debit card down inside the door of your mother-in-law's car...oh wait...that would be ME that does all that! Not you.

In any case, this week I took pictures of a dead alligator head, accidentally deleted the pictures AND dropped my debit card down into the door of my mother-in-law's car. So I feel like I've accomplished quite a bit on my first full week of summer break, if I do say so myself.

With all that going on, I didn't even have time to call Chuck Schumer:
Or any of the hundreds upon hundreds of other people who insult Houston each day. I mean, I'm sure there are more than you can shake a stick at. Houston's just not that popular.
I'm just going to save my calories for better beer.

OK! I admit it! I don't remember ever having tried Miller Genuine Draft! But I'm sure it's fantastic. It says so right on this truck!
And also, I'm not a beer snob. Well, at least, not that much.

Anyway, here are some more Israel pictures. All of these are from when we stayed with our cousins at the Deganya kibbutz.

The entrance to Deganya Bet:

Deganya Alef zoo:


I forgot I did take pictures of a death sign or two. This time it's death by fertilizer:


There were a bunch of bomb shelters:

And, of course, a chocolate factory:

More later - have a great weekend!

Don't worry, I haven't run out of pictures of Israel

It was suggested to me recently that although the Israel pictures are very pretty, the signs are really the main draw around here.

Unfortunately, I didn't take so very many sign pictures in Israel this past visit. I took a bunch on our other visit, but I noticed that most of my older Israeli sign pictures had a common theme:

"Warning! Death!"

They don't always give a detailed description of HOW you're going to die, just y'know, try and be on the lookout for the grim reaper*

I did get a couple of signs this time though. I took this out a hotel window. Obviously, this is for all those people walking around Jerusalem in midair:



This one speaks for itself, doesn't it?



I'm not sure what this one is all about, but it's certainly emphatic:



Here's another sign at Deganya Alef. It's not funny, but I still liked it:



And with that, we'll go back to a couple "pretty" Israel pictures and then call it a day.

Guy on a little side street off Ben Yehuda street in Jerusalem:



I had to take a picture of this church. I think it's the rule:



And since I'm taking a stab at "pretty", a flower in Jerusalem:



That's it for now! But don't worry, I still have like 600 pictures to wade through.

I know, you were all terrified that I was going to run out of vacation pictures.




*post from a few years ago with some danger/death signs