I’ve been leaving a pan of birdseed out at night, and in the early morning, to sort of atone for the grief my younger, larger dog, Miss Cleo, gives the birds and geckos in our yard.

The first night I put it out, I found footprints in it just a few hours later – not bird-feet, but something obviously mammalian. I’ve suspected that we have a resident possum for a while, because I’ve heard barking, and seen a shadow about the size of my chihuahua, but definitely a rodent, shinnying up the back fence.

Fuzzy was away the first night I put out the seed, and it was nearly dawn when we finally connected via IM, because he’d been in the air, and then had no battery left on his phone.

“I love you,” I said to him in text. “I’m glad you’re on the ground, and I hope you sleep well. I’m going to bed now. There are footprints in the birdseed.”

It’s really cool to have a spouse who doesn’t think you’re completely batty when you make statements like that.

185 kangaroos walk into a bar in one of the best Sydney Hotels… Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke right? Well, maybe I’ve watched too many specials on Animal Planet, but I’ve always wanted to visit Australia, especially after reading about a friend’s vacation there.

Reading actually has spurred a lot of my vacation fantasies, but some of my favorite novels did take place in Australia. The most obvious, of course, is The Thorn Birds (the movie was great, but I prefer the book) but I also loved Spearfield’s Daughter and All the Rivers Run, especially the river boating scenes in the latter.

While it’s true that none of these books talked about the Sydney Opera House, or offered details about Melbourne Hotels or Brisbane Hotels, they did instill within me a fascination for a country that shares a pioneering spirit and rugged outlook with my own.

I confess, I want to see Ayer’s Rock, and even though I’m not a surfer, I’d be willing to try for a taste of Australian waves.

I wouldn’t even mind if the only place I see a kangaroo is in the zoo.

Folks, I’ve just posted my first author interview over at my bookblog, Bibliotica.com.

The author is Patricia Klindienst, the book is The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture & Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans, and part one of the five-part interview is here. (The other five parts are already posted, and links at the bottom of each take you backward or forward. Alternatively, you can go directly to Bibliotica, and work backwards. )

1. What is your favorite American band?
I was going to say Billy Joel, but he’s not a band, just a person.
I’m listening to a lot of Plain White T’s these days.

2. What is your favorite song about America or with America or American in the title?
“American Woman” by the Guess Who. I know people have said it’s chauvinistic, and the band says it’s not, but really, it’s a kicky tune, and parts of it are kind of sexy. Don McLean’s “American Pie” comes in a close second.

3. Do you have any L.P. records? If so, how many and what is your most treasured?
I used to, but we finally got rid of them. I had an original copy of the children’s album “Free to Be You and Me” and I loved it. Recently, I bought the CD, just to have.

4. Name another use for an L.P. record other than playing it.
45’s make excellent coasters, and 33’s make great frisbees. 78’s are too brittle to play with, but look cool with a planter on top of them. Also, several 45’s strung on fishing line hanging from dowels = a kickass mobile.

You, too can mambo, here.

Home improvements come in many sizes, from the small things like replacing washers in sink faucets, to more obvious ones like replacing doors and windows. One of the most expensive variants of the latter is dealing with double-paned windows, when the seal breaks. You can always tell when this happens, because they fog up inside. It isn’t pretty, and if you have wood window frames, it can lead to mildew or rot, as well.

If you’re in the UK, however, you have an excellent resource at your service, especially if double glazing is what you’re after. What resource? It’s Anglian Home Improvements, a company that has been around for roughly 30 years, and specializes in windows.

More than just replacing old windows with new, Anglian also builds lovely conservatories to meld with any style home (I’m suddenly wishing we had space for one, or could replace the deck with one, though anything glass around my house is usually covered in dog-nose prints too soon to be worth it), and handles garage conversions as well.

They offer free quotes, and a 10-year guarantee on their work.

Check them out.

I say… And you think …

1. Rita :: Educating
2. Comedy :: Gold
3. Polar :: Express
4. Idiots :: Summer
5. Perception :: Extra-sensory
6. Infected :: Virus
7. Fake :: and Bake
8. Relating :: Therapy
9. Distraction :: Shiny
10. Gamble :: Risk

Like this meme? Play along here.

My husband and I are not what you would call experts when it comes to home repair. Oh, we’re both good at reading instructions, and can fix things even when we don’t particularly want to, but there are times when my default solution of “lets call a contractor” just isn’t feasible either for financial reasons, or because it would mean corralling the dogs for a long period of time.

We had to repair damaged plaster before we sold our condo, after the shower faucet leaked between the shower wall and our bedroom wall and through the ceiling of the foyer (home warranty covered the fixing of the leak, and restored the ceiling to “rough” condition, but we still had to make it pretty), and we’re facing a similar project with the upstairs hall ceiling (with the added pleasure of having to do it 20 feet up in the air) because of last week’s air conditioning incident, but I know we’ll manage. Most home repairs are not that difficult.

Still I have to admit that I often find myself browsing through the information at Do It Yourself.com, a website full of free forums where you can ask questions like, “How do I measure the inside of a window for shades or blinds” or “exactly what part of my front door am I replacing? Oh, the entire jamb. Fun!” You’ll get answers from contractors and real people alike, and most of them are pretty helpful.

If the answers aren’t enough, they now sell a line of DVDs that teach basic home repair tasks. Think of it as your own personal edition of HomeTime, without the cute acting.

Having lived in houses and condos that ranged in age from 100+ years to five years old, I am always pleased to find Do It Yourself.com addressing all sorts of specific issues. Tongue and groove flooring, and lathe and plaster walls, for example, require completely different techniques than laminate over a cement pad, or stucco and drywall.

I have to confess, though, even though I’m not particularly tool savvy, sometimes I browse the forums just for fun. In my head, I hear the old-guy voices of the contractors, and the younger ones of the people asking questions, and the sort of in-between tones of those who aren’t experts but have had to deal with similar situations.

Also, I learn a lot. And after all, knowledge is power

The thing about hats and shoes is that even when your weight fluctuates, they always fit. I like shoes as much as anyone with fashionista tendencies, but I am a klutz with weak ankles, so much of my shoe lust happens from afar.

Hats though. Hats are my thing.

It takes a special quality to be a hat person. I don’t mean just having the right hair or the right shape to your face, I mean, you have to be willing to be noticed, and you have to have a personal sense of style, even if it’s not a conventional sense of style.

Also, having big eyes helps.

I blame my grandmother and her endless warnings to “put a hat on that baby,” for my love of hats, but my mother certainly never discouraged my appreciation of headgear, and my great-aunt Violet never appeared in public without her “tam.” If fashion is genetic, I get my hat gene from the maternal line.

My collection of hats is diverse. There are berets of course, in many colors (though I still need one in warm mustard gold), and I have a second collection of brooches that I use to dress them up a bit. One is a gold star, another is the planets around the sun and a third is hammered copper with African animal charms dangling from it. The latter two were both presents from my step-father – he has a knack for finding cool things like that for me. I used to have a black velvet beret that was my writing hat, but I set a hot curling iron down and it rolled and the velvet melted, so I had to toss the hat. I miss that hat.

I have two fedoras, one black (of course) and one forest green, I have a brown bowler, and a red hat that is sort of like a bowler but softer, more feminine. I have a traditional straw hat complete with a satin ribbon, and a newer straw hat from earlier this year that is a cross between a pillbox and a flapper hat, and has silk flowers on it.

I like newsboy caps, and have two, one of which is tweed, and the other of which is purple and green plaid iridescent velvet, which I know sounds awful, but trust me, it works (they’re deep jewel-toned versions of these hues). I have another iridescent velvet hat by the same designer, a company called Hatterdashery based in Seattle. That hat is a crushable top hat, the top of which is embossed black on black, and the brim of which is deepest blue.

I have a black “rasta hat” that is adorned with green, red, yellow and orange and looks rather like something Guinan would wear, and I have a leopard print crushable pillbox. I have a denim “Blossom” hat – the round hats with the flowers that were popular in the late eighties and early nineties and I have a velvet version that my mother made. And I have baseball caps, too, not from teams, but that style. One is black velvet and I have a giant dragonfly brooch I often pin to the front.

I don’t have a favorite hat. I love them all, but I wear some more than others. A green knit beret made for me by a friend was my staple this spring, and my indigo beret (with the planet pin) is also a frequent part of my wardrobe.

People often ask where I buy my hats. Some are from accessory stores, while others were gifts. Two were purchased at Scarborough Faire, but not the same year, although they were from the same person. Two were from the same milliner – the afore-mentioned Hatterdashery. My mother made several, and others simply appeared, or were liberated from my grandmother’s closet. (The tween newsboy was my grandfather’s actually.)

Hats are a way I express my moods, hide my hair when I don’t feel like washing it, or just complete my outfit of the moment. The only thing in my house I have more of than hats is books.

For more, see: SundayScribblings.

Working in the mortgage industry, I got to see a lot of credit reports, and I got into the habit of noting which of our clients had which cards. Discover, for example, was usually carried only by older clients, or people who had lived in the Midwest, where Sears was still a major store.

Small Business Credit Card holders were generally the dot-com crowd, the folks who worked for Adobe and Yahoo and Google before they had capital letters or huge amounts of VC.

I never asked how they made their choice of which cards to use – assuming that like most homeowners they had been inundated by offers shortly after moving into their new homes.

It wasn’t until much later that I learned about CreditCardSearchEngine.com, a company that helps you identify and apply for credit cards that fit your needs. Aside from cards specifically designed for small business owners, they also have lists of credit cards for students, or people with dented credit. As well, they’ve been online for a long time, so they have sticking power, which is always good when dealing with an internet company.

Their information on each card includes the apr, any fees, and any specific terms that you should be aware of before applying, and the online response times are generally pretty fast.

I have no need of any more credit cards, but if I did, I’d check out CreditCardSearchEngine.com to see what options were suggested for me.