Friday, June 5, 2015

STRICTLY POSITIVE

Friday can never get here soon enough, can it? This week seems to have been a particularly negative one media-wise. I am so not looking forward to this race to the election. It's starting way too soon and with way too many negative messages. But this is a positive post, so here are a few good things that have come my way recently that I hope make the end of your week a little better as well.

Exhibit A:  Tatiana lost her sight at 17. When she went in for an ultrasound of her soon-to-be-born son, Murilo, her doctors surprised her with a 3D printing of the results so she could feel her baby's face. Pretty cool. If you want to see a whole video, it's here (it is an ad for Huggies, apparently, but what the hell). A much better use for 3D printing than firearms, in my book.


Exhibit B:  After watching a caretaker bottle-feed and care for three baby tigers, a male orangutan has taken over, cuddling with them and feeding them their bottles of milk. The entire photo gallery is here, along with a video. I tried to attach "a few favorites" and finally had to stop downloading. They're all so precious.




This one just does me in:


Exhibit C:  In an effort to highlight more people doing nice things (it's easy to find animals doing nice things), here is a whole senior class doing it right. Their principal, Courtney Vashaw, is battling a rare form of cancer. Her students think so much of her (no mean feat for a principal) they have cancelled their senior class trip and surprised her with the funds, all $8,000 of it, to use for her medical bills. Says Vashaw: "I feel like this has been a beautiful experience as an educator,..You work so hard to try and help cultivate not only academically astute young people but kids who care. I am just so impressed and so proud of these kids for being the embodiment of that." Me, too, Principal Vashaw, me, too. (Thanks to Elizabeth for passing this great story on for the post.)


Exhibit D:  I love this video of two baby foxes playing with a ball they found in a backyard:



Exhibit E: Then there's this video of JD (grandson of Secretariat!) blowing out his birthday candles:



Thanks to Twisted Sifter for sending these my way.

Exhibit F:  This is some creative artwork done with only nails and thread. Ukrainian artist Zenyk Palagniuk used 15 miles of thread wrapped about 13,000 nails to create this portrait, which took over 200 hours. I'm a jerk, but I had to laugh (just a teensy bit) because I had no clue this was supposed to be Justin Timberlake, It's amazing nonetheless. (Is it just me, though? Did anyone see JT in there before I mentioned him? Or after?):



Exhibit G (for Goat, get it? Actually, this was purely accidental this week) : Goat vine. I think we've seen this baby goat before, but this is a different part of the clip (at least to me, and who can get tired of re-watching goat vines anyway?):



Oligatories: B's cousin B (Beckett, 5 months old) came for a visit this past weekend. Little B has a shit-ton of energy and can jump and run like the wind. They had a blast and were hysterical to watch. I made the mistake of getting on the floor with them and immediately became home base. Don't worry, it's just a flesh wound:



Stand-off:


This is Big B as Little B got ready to go home:


This is Big B two minutes after the door hit Little B on the way out:




TGIF, y'all.

8 comments:

Emily said...

Wonderful post, as always Lauren. I love the foxes! And the goat is a wonderful delight, of course. I did NOT see JT either. Still impressive, regardless.


I'm also bothered by how early our election fuss begins. I wish we could put rules like England's in place, where there is a set amount of time elections & campaigning are allowed to take place. I'm going to try to ignore it as best I can for the next year, but it's hard when it's all over the news. (It helps that I get most of my news from the BBC World News Podcast, which doesn't cover the election much yet, and also talks about world happenings that our new largely ignores.)

Katie McD @ Bookish Tendencies said...

THOSE FOXES! I can't even handle the cuteness 😀

Malcolm Avenue Review said...

I am leaving balls in my yard, but thus far it's been in vain.

Malcolm Avenue Review said...

Thank you, AprEmily! I had no idea England had such rules and I am ALL FOR IT. It is hard to ignore and it seems to be getting worse all the time. I may have to check out the BBC Podcast.

Monika @ Lovely Bookshelf said...

I always love what you include in these posts, but pictures of B are the highlight for me, every time! :)

Malcolm Avenue Review said...

Thank you, Monika, that warms the cockles of my cold, hardened heart. :) She is pretty amazing, especially for a dog who got off a plane from Taiwan only 4.5 months ago. Feels like we've been together forever.

Marisa @The Daily Dosage said...

Yep, had no clue that was JT but cool nonetheless.I was reading the other comments and didn't know you've had B for such a short time because you seem like old pals. Why was she in Taiwan?

Malcolm Avenue Review said...

If forced to guess it was someone I would know, I would have said a better-looking Quentin Tarantino.


Taiwan has a horrible golden retriever problem. Apparently they are status symbols because of the word "gold," but are dumped, abandoned and mistreated quite often. A rescue group over there works with group here (affiliated with NorCal GR Rescue) to bring them to the states. B was abandoned in the mountains, found very malnourished and underweight, existing on sticks and leaves. She feels like an old pal, she came out of her crate at San Francisco International Airport on January 16 and we just bonded instantly.

About Malcolm Avenue Review

I was lucky enough to be born and raised in a nifty, oak-shaded ranch house on Malcolm Avenue, a wide-laned residential street with little through traffic, located amid the foothills of Northern California. It was on that street and in that house I learned most of my adolescent life lessons, and many grown-up ones to boot. Malcolm Avenue was "home" for more than thirty years.

It was on Malcolm Avenue, through and with my family and the other families that made up our neighborhood of characters, that I first learned about and gained an appreciation for the things I continue to love the most to this day: music, animals, photography, sports, television/movies and, of course, books.

I owe a debt of gratitude to that life on Malcolm Avenue. It gave me a sense of community and friendship, support and adventure. For better and worse, life on that street likely had the biggest impact on the person I've become. So this blog, and the things I write here, are all, at their base level, a little bit of a love letter to Malcolm Avenue.

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