Even more babies!

We are desperately seeking GOOD, lifelong homes for these two sweet ladies. The little black one is under two and the mother of the most recently rescued kittens living near the fastfood lot. She is extremely friendly and absolutely loves cuddles and attention. She's tiny but full grown and will be spayed this week. The kitten is a sweet little girl diluted tortoiseshell. She misses her siblings and is very playful. They've both made it through so much and had such a hard start, and they really deserve a loving forever family!

Tonight was the volunteer dinner at M's work. L. and I rode with my parents, as M. has to get there ridiculously early. He gave a very nice and entertaining presentation, as usual, which was very enjoyed by the volunteers. L. had her ticket drawn, so she got to choose a raffle prize. She chose hummingbird food concentrate, and she now wants a shepherd's hook in her gardens so she can move the hummingbird feeder there. She also dropped the plastic bottle on the way out. Fortunately it didn't break the bottle but did crack the top and spill some on the floor. While M. worked on cleaning up the very sticky liquid from the floor, I picked up the very wet sticky bottle and got the pleasure of carrying that home. That resulted in me arriving home to find despite my efforts to limit the stickiness to only my right hand, I somehow ended up having it on both hands, up my arm, on one leg, and on my face. L. licked the stickiness off her own hands and found it sweet and tasty. She offered to lick my hands an arm clean, but I declined.

The dinner itself, well, that was unpleasant, to say it as politely as possible. We had vegetarian meals, which apparently means, to the caterer, that it must be devoid of all flavor. The carnivores received a twice-baked potato, which was totally vegan, but since it had flavor, we were not allowed that option. We got half a plate of gummy plain white rice--no wild rice, not basmati, no flavor and overcooked. The other half of the plate was filled with a couple chunks each of broccoli, cauliflower, baby carrots, and zuchinni. These were boiled. In plain water. No herbs, no margarine, no salt, no flavor. There was no soy sauce to add a little flavor, just plain salt and pepper. Can you tell I'm a bit irritated? I am so tired of receiving crap on a plate from caterers! I feel safe in saying I will avoid any events catered by Elsberry's Edibles in the future! The vegetarian options we've received at various venues have been lacking in most cases, but this was pretty bad. I took a couple of bites and just quit eating. My jaw has been really painful lately (griding my teeth at night probably), and this food wasn't even worth the pain of chewing. It was downright insulting, and they had the nerve to charge $20 a plate for this shit. UGH!

I told L. before the event to get dressed nicely for daddy's work dinner. She came out dressed, well, in that special way that L. does so often. She dug the R.G. t-shirt out of her pajama drawer, put on two necklaces (by herself!), changed her bandana to a red one she picked out today at H.L. She really put some thought into "her look".

She's in a bandana phase--loves to wear them on her head. We ran out to Hobby Lobby today to look for loom loops (we struck gold; she's set on loops for quite a while now!), and she found the bandana aisle. I told her she could pick two out, one of which she felt the need to wear tonight. She felt quite pretty and put together, so this is how she attended the dinner.

Oh, and look how fast these babies have grown! Whenever they aren't being fed, they have their little heads popped up looking for mom and dad and cheeping for food. If you look closely, you'll see three little beaks peeking out at once here.

The alliums are in full bloom, making the front garden look really fun. We've had many people stop by the house to ask what the "Dr. Seuss-looking flowers" are. On the right, front, there are some blue camassia flowers. On the right, back is the threadleaf weeping birch we put in last year.

The small tree in front is our baby magnolia, nearing the end of its bloom cycle. Front left is the first peony blooming this year.