Always look on the bright siiiide of life...

Stuck in my head since we re-watched "The Life of Brian" last week. Monty Python just never gets old!

This is the butterfly mobile that we worked on for several hours over the course of a few nights. It's the labor-intensive craft I was referring to earlier this week. She did much of this on her own, and it was really tough. Every wire had to be twisted/bent into shape. All of the thin hanging wire had to be measured, cut, and strung with beads and butterflies and crimped appropriately. She's very proud of it, and it's hanging in the one spot in her bedroom that we think the cats will not be able to get at it. The butterflies are actually made of feathers, and our cats LOVE feathers and will go to great lengths to get them to play with. They actually made it very difficult to work on the mobile. They were driving us crazy trying to steal the butterflies and bat the beads around!

This morning started out way too early, with a wakeup call from the cats. Ivan was particularly cantankerous and was determined to lie in my bedroom doorway and growl whenever one of the other cats moved. My brain is trained to instantly awaken when I hear a cat growl or hiss, so this woke me up and the fact that he continued to growl every 10 minutes or so all morning, guaranteed that I would stay awake. I had to pick Allegrea up at 9, so we could meet our friend, Les, for breakfast. A. and I noticed a strange phenomenon years ago, in that if the two of us are in a car together, we will run into an animal-crisis, probably 75% of the time (or more?). It's very odd, but we've just accepted it as a fact of life and laugh about it. This morning was no exception.

I was driving down Beloit Ave., when we all noticed something in the road. Because we are who we are, I slowed down to try to identify it. It became clear that it was a baby bird sitting in the road, in the right lane, and we were traveling in the left lane. Just at that moment, a hawk swooped down at the baby. I honked my horn like a crazy woman, and either because the hawk was young or not that hungry, she took off and left the baby mourning dove alone. Hawks are usually much more persistent and less easily distracted from their prey than this one was. I stopped in the road, put my flashers on, and Allegrea and I got out, while Luciana waited in the back seat. We then saw a semi bearing down on us in the right lane. We hoped it would stop/slow down, and it did. We quickly snatched the very wet, frightened baby up, jumped back in the car, and started driving with her sitting in my lap. We pulled into a gas station, and they kindly gave us a small box for her. This adventure ended up with a happy ending, so far anyway. The baby is here, she's okay and eating and drinking. Of course with young birds, they are quite delicate, and she is a long way from being "out of the woods". Her poop looks good, which is one of the main indicators of a bird's internal health. We're optimistic at this point and are working on coming up with a name, so we don't have to refer to her as "the baby".

While I wouldn't have done anything differently with the mourning dove situation, I still had some guilt over depriving the poor hungry hawk of his sustenance. I am great at finding ways to feel bad and feel guilty in any situation.

My tattoo is healing beautifully, and the new balm Austin gave me has made it so much less itchy than tats normally are when they heal. It's wonderful! I've had it scratched open once by Jezebel, who was very excited to see me. That scab was then ripped open and scratched worse when Tica accidentally nailed the same spot. That area is pretty sore and ugly, but it will be fine eventually. Worst case, I may have to have the tip of the starfish touched up later.

On that topic, I've have a mini rant on tattoos. Sometimes I get or hear comments to the effect of, "I would like a tattoo, but worry about how it will look when I'm an old woman." Here's my take. I've never once thought or heard anyone say, "Wow. What a lovely expanse of crepe-paper wrinkly white skin. The age spots form a beautiful pattern." I guess I personally don't care if my old lady skin is pasty and pristine. I'd much rather look at pretty colors!

On our last library visit, L. picked out a video called, "Cat TV". It is a half hour video made specifically for cats to watch. She played it this afternoon for Jasper, who LOVED it. He was completely entranced by it for the entire half hour, except for the little section that showed fish. He was bored by the fish. When the video ended, he kept head butting L. non-stop for five minutes straight. She said, "I think he wants me to put the video back on". So I started it over, he sat up straight and tall, perked his ears back up, the tail started flicking, and he was a happy boy for another half hour. We'll show it to the other cats later. Some of them watch tv and some don't, so I am guessing only the tv watchers will really get into it. It's so cute to watch them get all excited over it!

M & L went to a minor league baseball game tonight. He got tickets for them as a surprise to L., thinking she would enjoy seeing a real baseball game after having played baseball this summer. Because we don't go to or watch any sports games on tv, she has never seen a baseball game other than at her Y league. We've gotten some rain tonight--not too much, and we weren't sure if they would play tonight or not. Looks like they went ahead with the game, as they aren't back yet. I hope she enjoys it!

Today is our wedding anniversary. Yay for us--we made it through another year. :D We're not romantic, mushy people, though, so we don't really do anything special for our anniversary. We're definitely not into spending a buttload of money on a piece of paper that will end up in recycling, so we don't do the greeting card thing at all. We will do something this Saturday for date night, but I'm not yet privy to what we're doing. Only M. knows.

Tattoosday 8

I've been trying to decide whether to post this or wait until I could get a better picture. It will take a couple of weeks for it to heal, and I don't want to wait that long. This pic was taken the day I had it done--before the peeling started. I love this one! It turned out great. I loved Allegrea's design and colors, and loved it even more when Austin finished it. He does such a great job with very detailed shading. I really like the depth it give the tattoo.

This is on my left, outer thigh, with the bottom of the seaweed ending a couple inches above my knee.

Anyway, M. took the pic at night. He's been working such long days, that by the time he can take a pic for me, we're out of natural daylight. Unfortunately the flash reflects off my pasty white thigh and gives the tat a bit of a glare. You get the idea, though. The text reads, "It makes a difference". It's inspired by the starfish story (google it if you're unfamiliar with it) that has kept Les, Allegrea, and I going with AR stuff when we are beyond burned out. I'm the first of the three of us to get the starfish tat. L & A will follow soon.

Melancholy Monday

This is a 'black' daylily from our garden. It's the darkest daylily, although it is clearly not black. It's just stunning, in person, but I haven't been able to get a picture that really does it justice. I'm still hoping to get a better shot, but it may be done blooming this year.

I’m starting week three of my shampoo-free life and am still loving the results! Luciana is starting week two. I notice that her hair is much easier to comb through—fewer rats, which is a great thing! My hair is so much less frizzy. I have more curls and less frizz. I haven’t even bothered to straighten it, as it isn’t as big and frizzy as it used to be, so natural looks much nicer.

L. had Hunter stay overnight on Friday, which was my mom’s birthday. The kids were up late, of course, but got along well. I woke up at 5 and went in to check on them, and found L. asleep in her bed. H. usually sleeps in the lazy-boy recliner that is next to her bed, but he was not in her room. After a brief moment of panic, I went downstairs looking for him and found him asleep on the couch in the living room. I was so relieved to see him! In my brief moment of panic, I was trying to figure out how to tell his father that I “lost” him in the middle of the night.

We had a pretty mellow weekend again and got a lot of odd jobs done. Mark didn’t have to work for a change (or I should say GO IN to work, as he always works from home). I spent several hours trying to plan out the first few months of L's homeschooling. We have a few additional subjects that we are starting this year, and it will take a lot of planning to cover all the material/subjects we need to work on without overwhelming her with work. Learning has to stay fun! We picked out our Latin names, which is the first assignment for our Latin class. She will be Terrentia (Ter-ren-ti-a), and I will be Auralia (Au-ra-li-a). We're excited to get started next week!

We had beautiful weather again tonight, and I had planned to weed and work in the garden after dinner. As it turned out, though, L. really wanted to work on a craft she received in the mail today from her girls' craft club. It's a beautiful butterfly mobile that is much more detailed and labor intensive than I thought at first glance. We will have to finish it up tomorrow or Weds night. We sat at the kitchen table and worked while we watched Mark speak at the city council meeting (on TV). L. is not remotely impressed when her daddy is on tv, radio, newspaper. She had no interest in watching and chatted through most of it.

Well, again, I'm cutting my intended post short. M. just finished talking to his brother on the phone, and this is the first chance we have had today to talk. I'm going to hang out with him for a brief while (until he falls asleep).

Vive la volcano!

About Carrie (our kitty)...She's actually Hunter's cat. His dad didn't want to keep her at their house anymore and was giving her away. I returned home one night to find a message on our machine from Hunter, who was weeping and asking if we could keep his cat, because he had to get rid of her. This little 7-yr old has lost his mother and recently his pet gerbil. He trusted me, that I would not let him lose his kitty, too. She lives here and we take care of her, but he comes to visit her every day. She's a very sweet girl.

L & H were very busy last night. They decided at 7:00 pm on a Weds. night, on our two-block long street, that they were going to set up a stand and sell diamonds. What they call diamonds are rocks that they smash open with a hammer, to reveal the sparkly white inside portion. I should know what this is called, but I don't really remember that much from geology. They made a sign, set up the stand, and even brought out speakers and H's little electric guitar, so they could have music at their stand. One of our neighbors came over and bought two diamonds, so they each had a dollar. They were very happy. L was quite annoyed, however, when she asked me if she had spelled diamond right and I told her no. Words that aren't spelled in a logical (phonetically speaking) way really piss her off! I had them clean everything up and come in once it started getting dark, which was only about a half hour after they got set up.

Then they got the cat collection out. L has this huge collection of plastic Schleich big cats, that she can play with for hours on end--both alone and with friends. These cats go on camping trips and pretty much anywhere else she will be for more than a few hours. I love watching her set up elaborate cat villages and use her wonderful imagination.

I finally was able to get my starfish tattoo today. I love it, but am not going to post pics yet. Soon, though--Tuesday I think .

My dad and my brother and his family have all returned from Africa safely. My dad and most of the people he was with, returned dreadfully ill. He has lost quite a bit of weight already. We were all (my family, brother's family, parents) going to go out for dinner tonight to celebrate my mom's birthday together. Her birthday is actually tomorrow, but since Michael and family were already here from Appleton, tonight worked best. My dad thought he was feeling better but became extremely sick again right before it was time to leave, so he couldn't join us. My mom is taking him to the emergency room. He probably just picked up a little hitch-hiking parasite, but whatever it is needs to be resolved quickly.

Here's Carrie

20 minutes with my crazy cats:

So I’ve mentioned our morning and evening cat treat ritual, which is really quite an ordeal.
Going upstairs anytime after I get home from work (or anytime past 3 or so on non-work days) results in me instantaneously amassing a fan club of at least three (Baxter, Jasper, Oliver), but usually more, cats. They run to catch up and follow so closely that they are usually ramming into the backs of and between my legs as I try to climb the stairs. They will do this as many times a night as I go up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, they race to the bedroom, frequently tripping me in the process. On this particular day, I notice strange bits of things on the floor of the upstairs hallway and bathroom, and a quick peek at the bathroom as I walk by reveals that the soap/shampoo/conditioner etc. on the edge of the tub has all been knocked off onto the floor. I’ll have to address that later, though, so I can get rid of the little gang surrounding me first.

I notice as I enter the bedroom, that Baxter has yet again attempted to help himself to the treats. The basket which contains their various treats and medications sits on top of a jewelry box on my dresser. He knocks this basket down and when all the contents go flying across my bedroom, he mauls his treat containers. He has never been able to break into these containers (and only these containers), yet he persistently tries—frequently in the middle of the night. That’s my favorite. He now has taught Carrie to behave this way. As I try to pick up all the containers and restore the basket, I have several fat, furry heads that keep trying to get between my hands and the treat jar. They apparently don’t understand that this slows, rather than speeds up the process. Once I get the right treat container, Baxter, Jasper, Carrie, Tica, and sometimes Lila, start trilling, grunting, and making a cacophony of desperate noises, as if they haven’t eaten in days.

The distribution process is where the fun really begins. Of the 9 cats, 8 of them come for treats. Ivan is too good for such twaddle, so that’s one less problem child to struggle with. The order of the distribution is of utmost importance, and I haven’t found an order that works smoothly yet. Baxter usually gets first treat, mostly because he stands right up on the dresser so he can more easily headbutt the treat out of my hand. Additionally, he screams “mow mow” from the bottom step to the time the treat hits his greedy little lips, and I just want him to stop with the noise. It’s easiest to hit him first. Also, if I don’t, he tries to head butt and steal treats from each cat until he gets his. The ill-mannered noise makers do tend to get theirs first. You wouldn’t believe what a racket they make! Oliver is a dream. He doesn’t like the crazy cluster around the dresser either, so he politely waits in the hallway for his. He is perfect and easy, although I have to stand guard over him, because Baxter, Jasper, and Lila are vicious little thieves who will steal it from under his nose. Carrie is starting to become a little treat snatcher too. Petey is generally pretty good, although he will steal from others on occasion—especially Hallie. I have to individually guard Carrie, Tica, and Lila, too, as they cannot hoark the treat in one bite like the boys do, and they boys will steal the partially eaten portion from under the girls’ noses, too. Guarding involves me literally using my body as a shield and pushing the fat, furry heads away from the object of their desire. Lila is not innocent, though, as she joins all the others in trying to steal from her mommy. Hallie is the real difficulty. She is cross eyed and doesn’t see well. Like Lila, she also has permanent respiratory damage (not as bad as Lila’s though) and doesn’t smell well either. It makes it an epic chore for her to actually find the treat, despite me continually tapping and scratching the floor near it. Once she does actually find it, she is extremely timid and will back off if one of the pushy ones approaches too near. It takes on average about three minutes of guarding and trying to coral the pushy bastards back, so she can eat her treat in peace.

Once that ordeal is finished, we can move on to the next “treat”. Lila and Hallie each get lysine paste for their respiratory problems/herpes. This is licked off my finger. It is very yummy to them and very expensive. I have to hold one hand out for them to take their lysine, while using my one remaining hand to keep the others back. They are fast and they are ruthless. I’m quite tired at this point.

Then we move on to the hairball paste, which everyone gets. This too is licked from my finger, and hopefully keeps them from noticing that they didn’t all get the expensive, yummy lysine paste. Same process continues, though, with the Petromalt, as I use my free hand to keep the others away from the one who is licking up their paste. Carrie, however, does not like Petromalt. She is long-haired and vomits a lot, so she really needs it. I have to grab her, hold her with one arm, use my other hand to rub the Petromalt into her front paws, while fending off the greedy bastards with whatever body parts I have free. During this whole process, she squeaks indignantly as if I'm torturing here. If I don’t get it rubbed in, in a thin enough layer on her paws, she is really good at flicking her paws and flinging the sticky paste off, leaving me to find it on the wall, bed, curtain--whatever it landed on and clean it up.

At this point, I am finally able to venture back into the bathroom to assess the damage. The lace curtains and rods have NOT been ripped down today (yay!). This is one of their frequent redecorating schemes and I hate having to fix that mess. Oh great, Lila has found the caulk again. She has stripped the caulk bead from all the way around the top of the bath tub, and has strewn debris in the tub, on the bathroom floor, and out into the hallway. Caulk strips are great fun for her. I thought the shower curtains (two—one for each side of the tub) and the product arranged around the ends would hide and protect it. But no. We will add recaulking the bathtub to our huge “to do” list. How do I know who did it, you may ask. I usually have a good guess who the culprit(s) in any situation is/are, because they each have their own interests. They have divvied up the various types of house damage fairly well—allowing every single thing we own to be destroyed without forcing any one cat to cover too much territory. Specialization makes them much more efficient in their destruction. If there was any doubt whatsoever, as to the caulk bandit’s identity, it was dispelled when she ran back into the tub and pulled off the last few inches of caulk that was dangling over the side and proceeded to frolic around the tub with it, while I was cleaning up the bits she left on the floor.

One treat session is done. This will start over again at 5:45 am tomorrow. The morning session is a little easier, as we’re already upstairs, so I get to skip the part where I risk life and limb climbing the stairs with the kamikaze treat bandits. Why are my well-fed and spoiled cats such ill-mannered little thugs?!!

Some scintillating science on a summer Sunday.

Aah, the sweet sounds of alliteration.

Most of the day today was taken up with chores. We finished everything up in time for dinner and had my mom and Elijah come over for a cookout. Mark grilled veggie burgers and we had corn-on-the-cob from our friends' gardens. We ended up eating inside, as it looked pretty dark and ominous outside by the time the food was ready. My mom brought strawberries, so we enjoyed fresh berries for dessert.

The kids played inside for a while and then went outside to play after dinner, each with a pair of binoculars. I'm not totally sure what they were looking for. They then decided to make 'plant people' in our driveway. They pulled leaves and other organic materials--some from the garden, but much of it from the weeds growing in the cracks in our driveway. Mark and I disagree about the weeds growing in the cracks of the driveway. He says they're bad for the concrete and the structural integrity of the driveway. That makes sense. BUT when I try to pull them out, I find that many don't pull and many of those that I am able to pull out with the root intact wreak havoc on ant houses. When I see the hundreds or thousands of panicked little ants come running out of the hole where their destroyed home used to be, I feel HORRIBLE. I just can't do it. Then there's Round-Up, which is really easy, but destructive to all the living beings that share this area. Anyway, it was nice to see my driveway weeds serving a practical purpose tonight. Elijah then wanted to show me his various different smiles, as seen below.

L then decided to climb up on top of my car, so she could decorate it by wrapping a morning glory flower around the antennae.

You may notice in these pictures that my child is all tarted up. Her sister, in a rare and somewhat frightening good mood, felt quite generous today and offered to do L's hair and makeup this afternoon. L was so proud of herself and took such great pleasure in pointing out that her sister did it, I couldn't ask her to wash it off. So glad we didn't have to go anywhere today!

This story has made it to mainstream media by now, but in case you missed it, I have to share: beautiful science. It is breathtaking, and shows the love of a mother and her children that transcends time. This image made me cry, touched me, and intrigued me with many questions that will never be answered. What a heartbreakingly beautiful and curious world we live in!

I'm having a high-pain day, so on this beautiful Saturday, instead of weeding as I should be, I'm stuck on the couch for now. L is working on cleaning her toy table. I have to actually supervise this process, so I can catch her as she tries to stuff things under the table instead of actually putting them in their proper places. M is upstairs in bed napping. D is downstairs becoming one with the television, as she recovers from getting her wisdom teeth removed on Thursday.

She had to have all four removed. They hadn't come in yet, but the dentist was concerned with the angle they were growing, that if they did come in, they would mess up the straight teeth that we spent a lot of money on. She's looking really swollen and is showing some bruising today! Her left side looks a lot worse, and I'm not sure why. She was given vicodin for pain but quit taking it yesterday, as she started vomitting and continued until this morning. This is the most 'major' medical trauma she has experienced so far. Her post-surgical ramblings in the recovery room where entertaining--the kind of moments that the mother of an 18-yr-old with an attitude lives for. She even made a very funny cell phone call to one of her friends.

Yesterday my mom and I took L & Elijah to the Discovery Center in Rockford. It's an outstanding children's science museum. That and the Coronado Theater may be the only nice things about Rockford. The kids had a lot of fun. I was having bad pain issues (not as bad as today though), and was a total idiot, forgetting my camera. I still can't believe we got NO pictures! We spent several hours there and had a very nice day.

Tonight is our date night, so L will be spending the night with Grandma and E. I think my mom will be pretty worn out by tomorrow afternoon after having both kids overnight. We'll probably have E come over tomorrow for a while to give my mom a break.

I'm not speaking to Petey today. He knocked all the plants off the shelf in the kitchen. AGAIN! These plants are there so they can be under the grow light. One of these plants is a bonsai tree that I have worked very hard to keep alive over the last five years (I wasn't so successful with the three bonsai trees that preceeded this one). That means, again, I have to take the stove top apart and clean inside, because soil is all over in there. The kitchen floor was trashed. The plants that weren't killed need to be repotted and will hopefully survive the trauma. I'm going to try to put duct tape (the solution to everything) down all over the shelf with the sticky side up. Maybe that will work. Probably not but I have to try it. Damn that naughty little orange cat!

I have a family again!! :D

M & L arrived home Tuesday evening just a few minutes before I got home from work. It was great to see them, and I still have lots of Luciana cuddles and love to catch up on. After dinner, they showed me the pictures and video from their trip. I had a little private mourning time for my loss of time to myself (goodbye to productivity, relaxation, and a clean, organized house). The critters were SO happy to see them! The dogs were performing full-body wags while simultaneously jumping around and flinging themselves at their long-missed family members. The cats were much more “cool” about the whole thing, but they were pushing in trying to get their loving, too. L. also spent some time visiting with the birds and Scraps, who always love to have her in there with them.

This morning I was finally able to get my high-stress work issues resolved and will be able to make my deadline with no problem. That allowed me to go to the farmer’s market earlier than I usually am able to go, so I scored lots of good produce—most of it organic/pesticide free. I got a lot of good fruit for snacks and smoothies, too. Since Dej will be having all four wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow morning, I got enough to keep her in smoothies for a few days, as I don’t think she’ll be eating anything that requires chewing for a few days.

My cats are making me crazy! They have been SO naughty lately! Ivan, well, he’s just an ass to the other cats about 90% of the time. He likes to lie in the middle of the floor, sprawled out on his back, growling over anything he thinks might be moving. He torments poor Jasper by chasing him, which Jasper doesn’t really like. Then he gets in a weird (for him) pleasant mood, tries to play with the other cats, and when they hiss or walk away, he has the nerve to be upset about it. Petey continues to break things and knock things over--preferably in the middle of the night, to wake me and scare the crap out of me all at once. It would take ages to type in a log of all the damage he did just over the past 11 days that M & L were gone. Baxter, the food addict, follows me around all the time, begging. Not just when I have food. All. The.Time. “Mow mow”. “Mow mow”. No, not “meow”; he just goes with the “mow” portion. He steals food mercilessly from others (although Jasper does this too). All of the cats get treats when I first get up in the morning and before I go to bed at night. The treats are in closed containers that can only be opened with an opposable thumb. They found out how to break into everything else. These treat containers reside in a basket that is kept up on top of my dresser. Several times a day, he jumps up on my dresser, yelling “mow, mow” repeatedly, pulls the basket off, tips it over, making noise and scattering treat containers all over. He likes to do this in the middle of the night also. Baxter and Oliver love to wrestle. This is fine, except that they seem most inspired to have these matches in my bed while I’m trying to sleep. This morning, at around 4:30 , while playing chase, they launched themselves the approximate 10 feet from the hallway to my bed. Ollie landed on the back of my leg, claws extended, and skidded up, ripping my skin. What a special way to wake up. Just to make sure I couldn’t go back to sleep before my alarm went off, Carrie (yeah, if you’ve been paying attention to the cattery, you’ll notice I kind of slipped her in) insisted on parading across my stomach and chest repeatedly, so she could get the best angle at which to knead my midsection. She follows this up with demanding cuddles and love. If I try to pretend I’m sleeping, she puts her face nose-to-nose with me and just stays like that, breathing on my mouth and nose, until I respond with the desired attention. Right around that same time period is when Delila snuggles up to me and demands her morning loving. Do my cats have no respect for those of us who are NOT morning people? I could continue. There is oh so much more. They also work in teams to achieve extra levels of naughtiness. It's frustrating. As much as I love them, they are really driving me nuts, because there is no way to win with cats. With the dogs, the Ceasar (The Dog Whisperer) method has been invaluable, but there is no training cats. I will spend the rest of my life trying to outsmart them and find a way to sleep more than an hour or two without being awakened by my furry little criminals!

Since Mark has copied his vacation pictures onto our network, and I'm too lazy to walk down and grab his laptop, I'm going with some more flower pics that I took at the Olbrich conservatory.

M & L went to Niagara Falls this morning and then started the drive back. They are resting tonight in OH and will be home tomorrow evening some time. I can't wait to see them! Tonight is my last night as a single woman with the luxury of time to myself. The critters and I will be very happy to have them back--the dogs especially, as they've not had the number and quality of walks each day that they're used to. Hunter has been coming over to visit with me and play with the cats. He's so lonely without Luciana.

I started my shampoo-free lifestyle this weekend. I've researched it for a while and was finally ready to jump in. Everything I read said that I should see a big difference in 3-4 weeks. Well, I can't wait to see what 3-4 weeks brings, because I am very impressed so far. Yes, my hair is very clean and smells lovely. I still need to use conditioner. But there's a huge difference already. My hair is much less frizzy and much more shiny than it usually is after I wash it. I will be trying this with Luciana and am hoping Dej will give it a try as well.

I had one of those days at work today that just wore me out. My brain is tired--lots of troubleshooting, urgent problems, meetings, and it was just much too fast paced for a Monday. Given that and the fact that this is my last night of "me time", I'm feeling too lazy to type the rest of my intended post. I'll make up for it later, I'm sure, with a post that is incredibly verbose. I'm off to enjoy my nerdy last night now--Pharyngula and Anderson Cooper, here I come.

Quick and random

1. Elizabeth Edwards is WAY too good for her piece of shit husband John. I'm disappointed that she is standing behind him (at least publically) after such a betrayal, which goes light years beyond simple cheating. Who the fuck is low enough to cheat on the terminally ill mother of his children? Oh yeah, that would be John Edwards.

2. Do not bring up the olympics to me. At all. I am pissed beyond words at the fact that China was rewarded with the olympics after their horrific and repeated human rights violations. I am pissed at anyone who participates in or acknowledges this travesty and slap in the face to the Chinese citizens and the many others who have been oppressed, tortured, and destroyed by the Chinese government.

3. I had a fairly nice day, despite no sleep and starting my morning out with an ultrasound. Not just any old ultrasound though, because filling my bladder to the point of explosion and having cold gel and a wand pushing on me isn't quite fun enough for me. No, we just kept right on going with an internal ultrasound. Vickie (my ultrasound tech.) and I had some really special bonding time. She explored my nether regions with a large wand, as I tried to breath through the pain and focus on our conversation about cats.

4. My naturopathic doctor made me a nice little pain tincture yesterday. I tried it today to mitigate the increased pain caused by the ultrasound probing. It worked! It tasted like ass, but it worked. I'm anxious to see if it continues to be as effective. It's really cool, too, as I can take it as often as I need with no worries of overdose or getting sick from it. Dr. Jill said that I will know I've taken too much if I start to have visual haullucinations. That could prove quite interesting. It's been many years (almost 20!!) since I've experienced anything that entertaining.

5. I am having the perfect 'geek' Friday night! I'm home alone with my critters, watching Anderson Cooper (how I love him) and reading Pharyngula (the science blog I am completely addicted to and devoted to for life).

6. Yet again, I've proven (at least to myself) that I am completely incapable of a brief post or written communication of any kind. Allegrea may be coming by later tonight. She and PK were here with me last night until quite late, so we still need our 'girl' time. Anyway, until she arrives, I'm getting back to my fabulous Friday activities (see #5).

7. Oh yeah, and my dad, brother and his family have all arrived safely at their respective destinations in Africa. Mark and Luciana made it to upstate New York today, where they will stay with M's aunt, uncle, and other family members, until Monday.

Windows Vista is the worst OS in the world.

I've made it through the worst of the week. I'm done with my work week (until next Monday of course), so for the next four days I can try to catch up on chores and give the animals tons more attention. I had a pretty productive day today--wrote lots of stored procedures, so I got to leave this afternoon on a high note.

My dad left last night for Uganda. I was able to get back into town in time to see him off at the bus station. My mom, Elijah, and my uncle Norm and his wife, Ruth, were also there. My brother, his wife, and his older boy also left for Africa today, but they are going to a completely different area. They will have a layover in London the same time as my dad's, so they will be meeting for lunch there. Elijah and their dog, Johnny Cash, are staying at my mom's for the next 2+ weeks. The poor boy is going to have to take the brunt of my mom and I missing Luciana and needing lots of extra cuddles. So far he seems pretty happy with the doting attention of the two of us.

M & L have been assaulted with rain and storms throughout the majority of their tent camping in PA. The tent withstood the first 16 hours of rain and stayed dry, but by the time they left this morning, everything was wet. Putting away a wet tent is the worst part of camping! L looks at everything as an adventure, so she still had fun. She got daddy to herself and lots of time to play their beloved D & D game. They took all of their D & D 'paraphernalia' with them. They arrive at his brother Mike's, in NJ this evening, and L was having a great time with her cousins when I spoke to her. I miss her so much!

When I arrived home from work on Monday, I was so sad to be entering an empty house. I was thinking to myself how much I missed having someone to talk to and share my day with. By the time I came home from work this afternoon, I was thinking how I loved coming home to a quiet, peaceful house. I love to come home and find things where I left them and I very much enjoy having the luxury to schedule my evening however I choose. I'm a quick adjuster, I guess. :D I'm a very organized, orderly person, but I live with three people who are most definitely not. It's frustrating, and this is my little vacation from that. I have plenty of reading material, thanks to PZ and his "Great Desecration" and my recent trip to the library. I've been hanging out at pharyngula trying to catch up on the thousands of very entertaining posts about the great desecration. I will continue to enjoy my next seven days of alone time, but I will be SO HAPPY to give it up when my family returns!
I'm in a very happy mood and feel like sharing some orchid photos (and a cool bromeliad) I took a couple of weeks ago at the Olbrich conservatory. I absolutely love orchids but have not had much luck with getting them to bloom...or keeping them alive, for that matter.

Left behind

Friday I had to go see my doctor/surgeon. I did not receive particularly good news, but I fully expected that when I went in. It looks like I will be having another surgery as soon as I can schedule it. Based on my projects and deadlines at work, though, I don't think I will be able to get in until Nov. at the earliest. I'll hope for the best between now and then. I won't know until my ultrasound next week(maybe not even until I get opened up in surgery though) if the surgery will be bad or devastatingly bad.

I did receive one little bit of absolutely exhilarating news at the doctor, though. I lost eight pounds! I don't have a scale at home, so I was pleasantly shocked and surprised to see the very happy number on the scale. That means I only have 12 pounds left to go! More importantly than weight though, is that I still want to continue my regular workouts (yes, I'm actually doing well and sticking with it so far!), so I can be strong and healthy. I feel SO MUCH better when I workout regularly! Seeing that positive feedback on the weightloss is enough to keep me motivated for a while on my workouts!

Saturday was spent packing and getting ready for M & L's big trip. I took L to get her hair cut. Between the chlorine damage from swim lessons, the fact that M will have to try to keep up with her hair for the next 10 days, it was the logical thing to do. She wanted it cut MUCH shorter than either M or I wanted, but I went along with it, thinking it would be that much easier on her big camping trip. She is very happy with it, and she is exceptionally cute with it. M & I still prefer her hair longer, much longer, and hope she will want to grow it back out. We also feel that her shorter hair makes her look older, and we aren't ready for her to look any older than she already does!

They left at 9:00 this morning, and she was so excited to be going on this adventure with her daddy. I miss her already! It is going to be the longest 10 days in the world! I'm already at a loss with so much time to myself, which is usually a rarity. Dej is never here, so this is as close to being a completely single, unfettered person as I will ever get. The animal care duties, however, are a lot for one person. Keeping up with food, cleaning, potty trips, medication, walks, and individual love and attention for everyone in the household, every day, is a full-time job for one person! Hunter will be coming to visit me and the animals, though, and he will play with and give love and attention to everyone, so that will help a little bit.

Camping at Pattison - wrap up

This post will wrap up our camping trip, finally--just in time for L & M to take off on their next trip. Without me. :( They will leave Sunday, and I will spend the week and a half, while they are gone, lonely, whining and being completely lost without my girl!

During our last camping trip, Mark decided that L was old enough to learn to cook on the propane stove we use. She proved to be quite good and did a great job on the food she cooked. She is still an 'apprentice', rather than a 'master', according to M, though. He said something about her not using small enough turns to evenly cook all surfaces of his veggie italian sausages. They took longer to cook than the burgers, and by the time her burger was done, she was ready to abandon his sausages and eat. It was really funny to watch and listen to their cooking lessons.

He's also passed on his love of fire and burning things to both girls. L is a really good little campfire builder!

I'll wrap up with some shots that show some of the beautiful plant life in Wisconsin's woods.