Hard to believe it, but today was the first day of school already! After working my butt off all summer trying to get caught up on the computers, I got to relax today by teaching some chemistry and physics. It looks like I’m going to have some fun classes this year. And best of all, once it was time for my tech duties, I got some stuff accomplished. I hope to get done with my summer work by Christmas. 🙂
Happy Birthday, Elsa!
Today marks the birthday of my oldest Internet Friend, elsaf. Happy birthday, Elsa! It’s been great fun being friends with you all these years (going on 11 now) and I hope for many more to come!
Um, I promise to get your birthday present off to you toot sweet!
Books, Cats, Life is Sweet
Edward Gorey is Da Man.
Anyhoo, I’ve been working with my books lately, trying to get them (a) inventoried and (b) packed up so that I can figure out how I want my floor-to-ceiling bookshelves to go in the reading room. Man, I have a LOT of books. So far, I’ve got 427 books into my inventory. That’s over 6 boxes of books. (I use the letter/legal cardboard boxes from Staples – full of books, they can still be lifted, somewhat.) I have 2 more boxes to inventory, and loads more books to pack & inventory.
I’ve noticed that far too many books have a different barcode than their ISBN number. This is very aggravating to someone with a nice barcode reader. I did discover, however, that the New Adventures of Doctor Who and many of the Target Doctor Who books have proper barcodes. That speeds up my inventory considerably. Roald Dahl books also tended to sport the right barcodes. Nice to know my most favorite books are nice to me. 🙂
I’m curious to know how many books I’ll end up with in my inventory. If I were to cross-reference them with the ones I’ve actually read, however… I fear it’s less than 50%. Well, maybe I’ll surprise myself.
One thing this has been doing is showing me some books that I’d forgotten that I had. I have many books now that I want to put on my “To Read’ pile right now. I’m not actually putting them in the pile, because then I’d be killed under a huge tower of books that would fall on me when the kitties rushed into the reading room playing.
The kitties really seem to like the place and me. It’s fun to watch them play. And watch them sleep. And they seem to be putting fewer scratches on me (though I resemble a pin cushion right now). They’ve found interesting resting places in my house. My favorite place is behind the albums. Sometimes when they sleep in the den, they get behind my stack of albums and sleep there. They also like sleeping UNDER the bed. Though at night, they sleep with me part (sometimes most) of the night.
LOL – I just went to check on them. They’d managed to shut themselves up into the bathroom. I saw that the bathroom door was closed, but after a bit, I realized that I hadn’t shut it. Sure enough, I opened it and the two little kitties popped out. Silly kitties!
More Home Improvement
I’ve just realized I haven’t taken a photo of my freshly paved driveway yet. So I shan’t be able to post that tonight (you lucky so&sos!) But in addition to a new driveway, I also got new outdoor carpet for my front porch & back stoop. The green outdoor carpet was looking pretty manky, so it needed to go. I replaced it with a tan/green/maroon mottled carpet which I rather like. Home Depot did the job (well, contracted the job). And, as often happens, they buggered things up. I explained a few times that I wanted both my front porch and my back stoop done (plus steps). For some reason, that never seemed to compute. When their contracted measuring guy came, I explained to him as well, front AND back. He duly measured and gave them the measurements. When the contracted installers arrived, they only had the directions/measurements/carpet for the front porch. ARGH!
He called Home Depot who later called me to apologize. They were able to book the same fellers to install the next week, which apparently was unusual. The fellers arrived the following week & installed the back stoop. And I’ve got tons of carpet left over cuz Home Depot are idiots and didn’t listen to the contractor when he told them he had enough for the stoop and only needed 5′ for the steps. Home Depot = idiots, I’m afraid. Still, the job is done, the cost was reasonable, and my front & back look all the better for it.
The Front Before.
The Front After.
The Back Before.
The Back After.
As you can see (for those of you who peeked), a vast improvement. Oh, and if you looked carefully in the back pictures, you probably saw Linus & Lucy looking out the sliding doors. Heh.
More Cute Overdose
The kitties are finally used to my house, I believe. They’re eating like birds (ie 10 times their own weight in food), they’re doing their business in the litter boxes, and they’re exploring every nook & cranny they can get their claws on. Yesterday was “spend as much time in the reading room as possible” day. The day before was Lucy’s “hide in the pink chair” day. Today seems to be Linus’s “play with the feather/ball toy for 20 minutes at a time” day. It’s been quite entertaining.
Of course, I’ve got a couple more pictures to display. In the course of my home improvements, I intend to put floor to ceiling bookshelves in my reading room, so I’m going to need more bookends. Well, I was certainly surprised when I looked in the reading room yesterday and
Linus & Lucy (or is it Lucy & Linus?) as bookends.
While exploring the reading room, Linus discovered another wonderful place to sleep. On the bottom shelf of one of my bookshelves are my collection of Elmos (except for the life-sized Elmo in the living room).
Linus & the Elmos.
While the kitties were playing in the kitchen yesterday, I used my camera to video them. My camera doesn’t do sound like some of the later models, but they really weren’t making any sounds anyway. So I thought, “Let’s try that YouTube thingy” and created an account.
Tonight, the parental units will get to meet their new grandcats. I think they’ll be delighted by them. They are, after all, delightful! 🙂
And the Vet says…
No Feline Leukemia – yay!
I was afraid to get too attached to the kitties for fear they’d do the feline leukemia test on ’em and test positive. They have to put the kitties down when that happens because it is so infectious to other cats. So when I took the pair to the vet, I was a little leery. But not only did they graciously donate blood (not a peep from either of ’em), they tested negative for leukemia. Phew!
They didn’t pass every test, however. Both suffer from ear mites and ringworm, but they sold me some medicine that should knock both out. He suggested to wait a week to be sure they were older than 6 weeks. Due to them being 1.4lbs apiece, the vet pegged ’em for between 6-8 weeks old, leaning towards the 6-week side of things. So officially, the babies were born on June 15th. Happy belated birthday, kitties! 🙂
I had thought I might wait until after the vet visit to name them, but no, last night while judiang and I were playing City of Heroes, I finally decided on their names. I think Linus and Lucy will work out just fine for them.
Heh – the vet said they might be lethargic after the visit and the booster shot. Lucy’s anything but. First she was picking on Linus, now she’s playing around on the sofa next to me.
I love kitties!
More Kitties
I’m liable to go overboard on kitten cuteness, so I apologize in advance. I’ll try to make judicious use of LJ cuts to spare those not interested (or already OD’ing on cute).
I’m still trying to decide on names for the little ones. I call them Little Boy and Little Girl for now. The girl is the most adventurous, but also scared of noises (she doesn’t like Samurai Jack playing on the TV, for instance, and ran away from the flushing toilet). The boy is a little shier, but isn’t afraid of any noises. Of course, as soon as I started typing this, they came to bug me. 🙂
The little boy is looking at the camera for once. It’s usually his sister.
Here’s the little boy. He’s got more tiger-style stripes on his back and is black with grey.
Here’s the little girl. She’s got darker markings on the back and has bits of brown where he has grey.
They were sleeping in an almost yin yang form earlier, so I had to take a photo of it. That’s the LJ icon for this post.
Awww, I think they’re worn out again. So cute!
Floor & More!
Well, before I left to visit Amy & Rachel, I actually got the carpet all pulled up. So I thought I’d post a couple of pictures with it.
As you can see in this photo, the floor looks lovely for the most part. There are a few places where it’s dark cuz of Leo peeing on the floor. 🙁
Here’s a closer shot for some more detail:
Nice looking, isn’t it?
Oh yeah, about those kitties… They’re here! Yay!
As a matter of fact, they’re laying on my chest now & sleeping while I type. Well, the girl is figiting cuz of the noise of my keyboard, but she’s just purring away.ghyofhooooo5]\9888889// LOL and then she had to investigate the keyboard.
I’ll post another photo later when the kitties let me. 🙂
Back home to the Heat
Ah, it’s good to be home. I really had a great time with Amy & Rachel this weekend – no question about it – but it’s always nice to get back home. I seem to have brought the hellish heat with me, unfortunately.
Yesterday was a pretty easy-going day. Rachel had to go off to work for the morning, so Amy & I had breakfast without her. Cereal, toasted sour dough roll with butter, and a peach was my breakfast. Yummy. (No, not extravagant like the rest of the weekend, but even breakfast gurus like Amy need a break sometimes.) I was very sleepy during the morning and didn’t move around a lot But after my shower, I woke up. Unfortunately, I then got captured by a video game on the BBC site. As Amy said to Rachel when she got home “she just sort of disappeared.” But I successfully completed it, so we all went off to lunch.
We walked out into the near 100°F weather to the New Delhi Bar & Restaurant. Mmmmm, Indian Fud! We had the buffet and enjoyed it. But then we had to walk home in the heat. Gah! Still, we managed it and then crashed. We did get the energy to play Trivial Pursuit, however. Amy whupped our butts. Heh, I came in third. Amy had made us cosmopolitans (easy on the cranberry juice cocktail) and we had those & chips and the last of the sesame sticks. Worked for me for supper. Heh.
Amy drove us to the airport, and I was there by 6:30. Everything went smoothly. So smoothly, we arrived more than half an hour before the scheduled time. Mom & Dad, thus, were a bit late in picking me up. But they arrived & took me home. Yay!
Today was back to work. And eep! There’s only 2 more weeks before the place is inundated with teachers.
ETA: URL for the BBC game.
Swimming in MN
Yesterday, we did indeed head for Crate & Barrel and the Library. Didn’t buy anything at C&B, but the girls spent some time in the library looking for books. The library is a new building and really cool. Very modern. They have a neat Teen section too. I spent most of the time reading more from The Joy Luck Club (which I’d started reading Thursday). They have free wireless in the library too. And lots of PCs around.
On the walk back from the library, we stopped at The Local, the Irish Pub on Nicollet. We had 2 of the Bites for Pints specials. The 5 PK “Wee” Burgers and the corned beef & kraut poppers. The girls had Summit Seasonal beer, Scandia, which they both loved. I had an amaretto sour which I didn’t spill. The so-called “Wee” burgers were practically normal sized, so certainly a filling lunch. The corned beef & kraut poppers were pretty neat – they were wrapped in won-ton skins & fried and served with a side of Thousand Island dressing. The lunch was very nice.
Another quick stop at Target, and then we returned home. We vegged until Melissa arrived. She’s a friend of the girls who lives in the area. I met her when we were preparing for their wedding. Amy & Rachel then started work on the veggie lasagna. A couple of hours later, we had an excellent supper of lasagna and sour dough baguette with an excellent olive & garlic dipping sauce. We played a game of Euchre, which Rachel & I won with a Come from Behind maneuver. Then Melissa headed back home.
This morning, we actually got up a bit earlier than normal in order to head off to A Baker’s Wife’s Bakery. Amy had had one of their cinnamon & sugar donuts earlier this week & swore they were the best donuts she’d had thus far in her 8 years in Minnesota. So the plan was to get one to eat there, one to take back home to eat along with scrambled eggs. So we did just that. I agree, they were very good donuts. I also got a creme brulee danish for eating with the eggs. We had to stop at the co-op on the way back from the bakery to get some eggs & sammich fixin’s.
Amy made us scrambled eggs & I had my danish with it. Alas, there was precious little creme, but plenty of brulee. Still, it was very good. We then vegged by reading the Sunday paper. When lunchtime arrived, I had a smoked chicken & meunster sammich on croissant. More vegging ensued. But when it was 3pm, we put on our swim suits & coverings and headed off to the pet store (as one does). We didn’t have any luck finding a suppliment that Fruvous needs, so we then moved onto Becky & Michelle’s apartment, where church was being held this weekend.
Amy & Rachel are members of the St. Paul Mennonite Fellowship, a small congregation that meets at 4pm on Sundays, usually in the basement of a Lutheran church, except in the summer. Becky & Michelle’s place is air conditioned, so it was an ideal place to gather. The plan for the evening was games & swimming rather than singing & worship. Well, there was some singing. We began by playing some Encore (not seriously) and sang a bit while we played. Then the girls & I went to the complex pool to swim. No one else was in it at the time, so we enjoyed the pool all to ourselves. The water was warm, so it wasn’t as refreshing as it could have been. But it was pleasant all the same.
When we returned to the apartment, we rinsed off in the shower & put on dry clothes. Then it was back to the games. I played TransAmerica for the first time. (I came in second – in terms of losing.) Then Michelle taught us a funny game. We all stood around a table, on which sat a large Hershey chocolate bar, a knife & a fork. We took turns rolling the die and if you rolled a 6, you got to try & use the knife & fork to eat some of the chocolate. Folks kept rolling the die, so the possession of the knife & fork changed often, sometimes JUST when you’d broken off a nice piece of chocolate. We laughed lots & most of us got to have some chocolate. No idea about who wins the game, though I was the last one to get to eat some chocolate. 🙂
We headed home before 8pm and ordered some Galactic Pizza. Superheroes deliver the pizza (except when the weather is so fantastically hot like it was tonight) and they use an electric car to do it. We ordered the Mexicali and the Thailander pizzas and a hemp brownie. When the delivery guy left, he made sure to drive by the apartment so we could see the cute little electric car (the Gizmo). It was so cute!
The pizzas were both excellent. And I really liked the Thailander, which had peanut sauce & crushed peanuts on it. When I had my third of the brownie (which was VERY rich – almost like fudge) I had some ice cream & chocolate sauce on it. Yummy.
Alas, tomorrow is my last day with the girls. I’m going to buy them some Indian Fud for lunch, but that’s the only thing planned for tomorrow thus far. Oh yeah, and delivering me to the airport is in the cards as well. And now back to watching Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.