Gretchen Woods

Photo of a shoebill stork in Mabamba swamp near Entebbe, Uganda. It’s a prehistoric-looking bird, grey with a huge hooked bill and eyes that look almost human. Reeds and swamp grass in the background.

#Uganda
#GretchenGoesGorillas
#Shoebill

Bucket list sighting!

First bird ID of the trip:
Common Bulbul at the hotel in Entebbe
#GretchenGoesGorillas
#Merlin
#Uganda

Breakfast on the patio in Entebbe, trying to ID which noises are birds and which might be monkeys. Merlin only has sound IDs for 15% of the birds in Uganda, so I think I’m going to be screwed on IDs for this trip.
#GretchenGoesGorillas
#Uganda
#NatHab

I like getting the culture shock out of the way early in the trip :)
#gretchengoesgorillas

Waiting at the gate for my connection to Doha, and at first glance at my fellow travelers, my pasty, unseasoned ass is going to be a distinct minority on the flight. Excellent!

I’m headed for Uganda tomorrow and will end up taking a bunch of bird photos. Wanna help me ID the birds when I get back? Because I can Merlin things, but I’m not good at spotting the subtle differences between similar species.

I can ID a shoebill stork; everything else is just birbs.

Cursed, because usually it happens the other way around.

“I registered because fuck you is why, fuck your opsec, everyone already knows I’m that bitch”

Well, now I want to have your babies.

Madame Defarge had the right idea

Making it as a hat should be fairly easy if you have any amigurumi experience.

Dammit, now I have to go make one quick tomorrow…

I guess years of passing colds back and forth between me and the kid because the kid’s classmates came into school sick with “just a cold” never impacted him, since he never got it.

But no. Absolutely not. We keep our germs to ourselves because THAT’S WHAT CIVILIZED PEOPLE DO.

Like, in no world will I subject random strangers to potentially experiencing a week of discomfort and illness THAT WOULD BE MY FAULT, just so we can play trivia at a bar.

It annoys me more when I tell my husband I cannot go to trivia night, and he balks because “it’s just a cold, it’s not like you’re going to kill anyone.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Going out in crowded public spaces while shedding virus like a faucet is fucking rude, regardless of which virus it is.

It annoys me when I make plans while significantly recovered from a cold, assuming that the symptoms will continue to improve, and the day of the plans arrives and I have a copiously runny nose and cough. No trivia night at a crowded bar for me, regardless of masking by me or anyone else.

Also, who’s a widdle cutie? The jumping spider is! Yes it is!

Giving the squeamish newcomers some motivation to learn how to mute key words … such philanthropy!

Me, scrolling through endless doom on my feed:
“Come on, come on, where’s a Truckstop Vigilante repost when I need one???”

I think #2 should include the Amelia Bedelia exemption, wherein Muppets may only obey human orders if they do so literally, in such a way that it is 90 degrees away from whatever result the human intended. “Drawing the drapes” requires charcoal and a sketch pad, for example.

Pics or it didn’t happen

Agent: “It’s not for us.”

Lost needle in recliner.

Kinda want to go as her for Halloween

In focus: metal floor grating Out of focus: polar bear snout sniffing my snow boot

Up close photo of a polar bear peeking over the back railing of our tundra rover.

Last year on my birthday I got to see polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba. One sniffed my feet through the floor grating, then popped up to say hello. It was so close I could have booped its nose (if I wanted to lose an arm).

My husband’s response: “That wasn’t a Charlie Kirk reference, was it?”

I howled.

There’s a whole system here that includes people to ferry them to jobs in vans. I think the folks who do the construction work are more loosely interpreting the Amish rules, because there are still plenty of power tools around. Still lots of beards and straw hats, though.

That does not look like a rat. Looks like some sort of chipmunk/rabbit hybrid. Also looks like it’s gonna be a mess to clean up.

Around here a lot of the construction workers for new homes are Amish, so a majority-Jacob crew is not uncommon.

let the gourd times roll

1. Identify a need in the marketplace.
2. Fill that need.
3. Profit.

I originally read this as “gluing balls to shinies,” and my first instinct was - wait, did I miss that section of the shop?!?