I was over at Confessions of a Random Chick just now – a blog I found recently and added to my newsfeed because it’s both fun and thought-provoking – and I found a post there with this very title (only without the exclamation mark).

It was a great post, because it didn’t have words, she just posted pictures of what she loved. You should pop over and take a look.

OK, time’s up. Get back here!

Anyway, I thought it was such a great idea that I stole it. Obsessions are such fun things to have. So, here we go … now, what’s first, I wonder?

Oh, look! It’s Mr Depp! What a surprise, eh? I met him, you know, and I took those two photos with my own fair (and slightly shaky) hands!

Also, those of you who read my blog regularly, or get to it through Blogger’s back door will know about the other love of my life*, which is dogs. Specifically, greyhounds. This picture is made up of images of the dogs we have owned since 1994.

Aren’t they beautiful? The little chap with the hat on at the bottom left isn’t a greyhound, of course. He just happened to be giving Sid a very sweet hug at a local show where we were helping to man (dog?) a stand.

What’s next? Well, I’ve always loved to read, and this is a part of one of our bookshelves.

The fact that it’s only a part confirms the ‘obsession’ part, probably .. but anyway. One author I’ve been guilty of being a little obsessive about is this one -

Luckily OH shares my obsession, which is why we have them all in hardback. As well as in paperback.

What have we here, above yet another bookshelf?

Well, well.  It’s Johnny Depp in his role as Captain Jack Sparrow, in all three of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  Pretty, ain’t he?  Even OH thinks he makes fine wall art – but then he has always loved cinema posters.

And talking of tasty -

Chocolate.  I do love chocolate.  In particular I love good, dark, quality chocolate.  And all these were bought on a single shopping trip to a new supermarket which had clearly decided to lead the field in chocolate for the discriminating.  Oh, it was fun, trying them all out!  Except that one in the white and blue wrapper. That one is flavoured with cinnamon and I can’t stand the stuff.  OH had that one all to himself and he was welcome to it.  Of the rest, I think probably the Peruvian 70 was my favourite. Rich, dark, earthy, and yet not bitter.  Excuse me while I drool.

Oh, are you still here?   Um.   I think I mentioned Mr Depp already, didn’t I?  And reading, come to that.  OK.  I’ll stop drooling and move along.

Here’s a hobby which I find absorbing and relaxing.

Every so often my bank account takes a beating when I go on an Ebay binge, or Etsy, or just random jewellery supply shops. You see, I can’t help myself buying up those cute little findings …

Oh well. At least it leads to something constructive.  These I made as Christmas gifts for my Depp friends one year.

Then there are movies!  I haven’t watched many lately, but I do love a good movie.  And I’ll watch them over and over again, especially from this drawer -

Aah, there’s some good stuff in there!  There are also some that aren’t that good, like Before Night Falls, and Private Resort, and I didn’t much like The Brave, but I have to have them because … well, they’re part of the Depp collection, aren’t they, so they do have Johnny in them. And that’s always a good thing.

You might also notice that I appear to have more Pirates of the Caribbean movies than they’ve actually made, and also that I have three four copies of From Hell.  So?  What can I say. I refer you to the title of this post.

Oops! I nearly forgot one of my lifelong obsessions!

Insects and bugs!  And, of course, taking pictures of them.  I love taking photos and I love macro photography in particular.  That’s two obsessions in one, right?

Did I remember to mention this one?

I did?  Oh, right. Okay then.

Before I go, there is one obsession that I have neglected to mention.  I know what it is, OH knows what it is, my boys know what it is, and I suspect that you do, too.

No pictures! We don’t want any incriminating evidence, do we?  Someone might feel they have to DO something about it, and we can’t have that.

*OH is, of course the original love of my life.

You know, I love Las Vegas, I really do.  I didn’t expect to when we first had a stop-over there. It was simply that our airline of choice didn’t fly all the way to the West Coast where we were headed, but into McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas, and we were so convinced we wouldn’t like it that we chose a hotel in nearby Boulder City.

Well, it didn’t take long to enchant us, once we’d set foot in the place.  We’re not gamblers and never will be (although I did lose twenty or so bucks in the slots, just because …) but the whole place is just so bizarre, so over-the-top, so full of itself*, that you can’t help falling in love.  The free shows on the strip are all very good, but the Bellagio fountains had us from the first millisecond … so now we stay on the strip.

We chose The Venetian this time, and I have to say it’s a very beautiful hotel, even if they can’t process a simple request like ‘no feathers in the room’. Yes, it took them four goes at that one, bringing successive armfuls of pillows containing down or feathers until I was gasping for breath before I’d even laid down.  But anyway.

Where else can you take a ride in a gondola indoors? Oh yes, that is a ceiling up there, painted blue, with clouds.  Clever, ain’t it?

But Vegas is also an excellent place for people-watching.  Here’s another shot from inside the Venetian Hotel.

I love the accordian player, don’t you?  But I can’t help wondering what’s going on with those two people standing there.  Are they arguing?  Or is she propositioning him?

I guess that might possibly lead to the obligatory Vegas wedding

It all looks very grand, but what you can’t see, just down the hall (in the direction they’re headed) is the casino, which is full of tourists in shorts and sandals with socks and serving wenches dressed like hookers and everything.

I don’t have a picture of the casino to show you, but here are some wenches, and they certainly look like hookers to me.

Interestingly, the young lady on the left (the one NOT dressed like a hooker) is selling cigarettes! Where else would you see that these days?  It’s because smoking is permitted inside the casinos, you know.

So, moving on outside the Venetian, there are plenty of people to watch on the streets.  Like this guy, determined to get that great shot of the Bellagio fountains.

Or this family wearing their best balloon hats

And then there are these guys, who are trying to sell the services of girls.  The services are unspecified, but they can have one inside your room within twenty minutes, apparently.

You know, it seems that they aren’t allowed to actually speak, so they thrust their little leaflets and business cards right across your chest as you walk by, snapping them loudly to get your attention.  And you know what?  I find it insulting that they’re trying to give my man one of these damn ads, when he is clearly with a woman already!  What am I – chopped liver??  I was actually moved to tell one of them to ‘fuck off’ at one point, which is not something I’m in the habit of doing, let me tell you.

Anyway. After being in Las Vegas for a day or so, I find it necessary to get out of town and find somewhere soothing.  Somewhere good for the soul. And to this end, we made our way to the Valley of Fire and took a short hike to Mouse’s Tank.

It’s beautiful.

It’s soothing**

And there are petroglyphs!  Enlarge this next photo and look right there on that dark bit of rock, towards the bottom.

Finding these things out there in the desert, still attached to the very rocks they were pecked into thousands of years ago … well, it’s a bit like OH walking into the Kennedy Space Centre.  And yes, I shed a few tears of my own.  It’s humbling, is what it is.

We stayed until it was nearly dark, and the moon came out, and so did the bats. It was magical.

It was only later that I found out that we were in exactly the right conditions (soft, deep sand among rocks), at exactly the right time of day (dusk), to tread on a sidewinder and get bitten, so I guess we were lucky.  But we returned to Vegas refreshed and ready for another day of tackiness and indulgence.

*Just for the record, yes I do realise there is much more to Vegas than the Strip, and that not all of it is tacky.  We saw a great performance of Jersey Boys, which wasn’t tacky in the least – although OH was warned about the ‘Jersey language’ that it contained, which made him laugh.

**Mostly.  If you enlarge that picture, you’ll see a tiny figure, right at the top of that rock. It’s OH. He’s not a mountain climber, he had no equipment, he just scrambled up.  Luckily, he scrambled down again safely.

Fun, holidays, aren’t they?

I’m still wandering across the States on our holiday, so this is another pre-prepared post.  Our internet access has been pretty patchy so far, but hopefully will improve so that I can get around to your blogs this time!  Fingers crossed on that one.

This week’s ABC Wednesday is on to the middle part of the alphabet – we’re at the letter ‘M‘.  I had a little trouble finding ‘M’s for you, but then I came across a lot of pictures I’d taken of starlings on our bird-table earlier this year. Did you know that the collective noun for a group of starlings is ‘murmuration’?

If you’ve ever played host to a group of these highly social but incredibly noisy birds, you’ll know why that is.

When we began to feed the birds in the spring this year, the starlings were one of the first to arrive.  And because they are highly social birds, they have a method.

One bird will turn up to scout for food – and by the way, they love mealworms – and if he finds some, another will arrive within minutes.

The murmuration begins with a few squawks and twitters, and this is the signal for a few more birds to come and see what the fuss is about.

In a very short time, you have a whole bunch of starlings squabbling among themselves over the available resources.

By this time, the murmuration is loud enough to remind you of a bunch of teenagers outside the local youth club trying to impress the girls, and it looks as if World War Three has broken out among the starling population, but in fact, if you watch them carefully, it’s just pushing and shoving.   And they never attack other species of birds, just each other.

So there you have it.  ‘M‘ for murmuration.  And as you may have guessed, I’m really rather fond of starlings!

The other day, OH looked out of the window and saw this collared dove on the bird feeder.

Well, it’s not unusual.  There are three collared doves that feed here on a daily basis, but this one looked a bit ruffled so he called me over and asked me if it was alright.

Clearly, the poor thing is not alright at all.

In fact, he seems to have been involved in an accident.

I thought at first perhaps he’d flown into the window and broken a few feathers (these doves are not the brightest birds on the planet and quite regularly clunk into our windows), but it’s worse than that.

He’s not only bent a few feathers, but he’s broken his beak, poor thing.   What’s more, he has a bald patch on his head and his eyes look a bit wonky, so I’m guessing he hit a car, or vice versa.

I tried to catch him to take him up to the Exotic Pet Refuge because they will take wildlife too, but he wasn’t having any, so I had no option but to put more food out and watch.  He’s managing, for now, because he can clearly fly, and he can also eat, and he’s now been hanging around doing both for several days.

But I’m wondering how he’ll fare this winter.

Good luck, little bird!