Snooty Hooty

We made a new addition to our burgeoning owl family over the weekend, and it wasn't entirely my fault.

Mostly, but not entirely.

I had dragged Handsome into Pier One to show him some really swell, wicker, clearance priced rocking chairs that I thought ROCKED. He took one look and gave them the big, old, thumbs-down-raspberry in seconds flat. What is it about men and wicker? Or rather, men and their zero-tolerance for wicker?

So sad.

Here I had been pining for those rockers for days, imagining them on our balcony and myself flopped into one with a good book - pausing only to sigh deeply, soak in the scenery, and then beginning to gracefully rock, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, once again.

But alas, that will never be (in wicker) and the hunt for deep and perfectly balanced rocking chairs continues. Let me know if you have any hot tips for finding two beauties.

Still, we did not leave the store empty handed. 

I had seen this guy the day I had brought home our owl salt and pepper shakers, but using restraint ... and tears ... and the gnashing of teeth, I left him behind. Poor little owl - he just wanted a good home, and I left him!

Still feeling guilty about our last parting, I introduced him to Handsome after the wicker rocking chair debacle.

It is a funny thing about collecting owls. For whatever reason, maybe it is their whimsy? Their coloring? Something about them makes both Handsome and me think of our grandmothers. Did everyone's grandma collect something like this? I wonder. But don't you think that there is something about this sort of thing that is familiar and comforting and makes everything feel more homey?

Me too. Kinda like a good rocking chair.

And each one of these new characters seems to have a personality and charm all their own.

I don't know his name yet, and so far, he is not telling.

I can't decide if his expression is snooty or sleepy.

Snooty sounds more like hoot-hoot-hooty - which is what one should expect from an owl, so I suppose that must be it.

But then, he will never make friends being all snooty like that.

Still, kinda cute isn't he? Awfully shiny. I wonder how often I will have to dust him? Eesh.

The funny thing about introducing new members into the family is that it is sometimes a bit difficult for the older members to adjust.

Can you see the owl salt and pepper shakers over there on the far right?
That is how they were standing when I came into the kitchen this morning.

A very sort of "talk to the tail-feathers" sort of an attitude, don't you think?

Ehm, guys?

Hey, Feathers!

There was some mumbling, I think. I didn't really catch what they were saying until...

Their eyeballs said, "We've just been reading over this very interesting recipe, really!"

Maybe they really were reading over a recipe, but it looked like a case of the cold shoulder to me.

As far as I know, they still have not said one civil word to the new guy.