The bad news is that I had to go to yet another lecture at work today. The good news is twofold: this lecturer actually spoke decent English (unlike the Tuesday at 4pm lecturer, who absolutely did NOT), and the department bought the attendees lunch from Doc Shey's - yummmmmmmm. My lunch came with a fortune cookie that happened to contain two fortunes. Not a bad thing, I say.
The first said that I should remember this date (hard to forget on Leap Day) because in "exactly three months" I can expect something wonderful to happen. The second said to expect a terrific vacation soon. I can't help but think that on May 29 (which happens to be my birthday), PDM is going to give me a kick-ass vacation as a present. Cool!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Zzzzzzzzzz.
Ahhh, cat naps. Some of what I hope to do this weekend. Zima has had nearly 14 years of practice and she is very good at it.
There is still a lot of real life stuff going down that is not the greatest. Some of it downright sucks. I will write about it later, but for now prefer to keep it private. We will be fine and it is not anything that was unexpected. Just sad. More to come...
Monday, February 25, 2008
Wild, Wild Life
When life gets a little too exciting, it is nice to chill out and commune with nature. And sometimes there is no better place to do that than from your own yard. (There is a lot of stuff going on lately that I haven't disclosed in the blog. Maybe later, or maybe never. Some family stuff and lots of drama at work, among other things. Thus, the lack of posts other than photoblogging lately.)
I spent some time outside in my yard at dusk this evening after a draining day at work. Moxy was entertaining as she hunted squirrels from tree to tree. Zima followed me around as we watched Moxy's exploits. Moxy's becoming quite the climber. Getting back down is still the hardest part, but eventually she figures out that she can't go down head first and it all works out.
Standing at the edge of the woods with the cats, I heard a familiar call - "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?" It was a barred owl (strix varia), perched in a nearby tree. The owl was watching Moxy, too. I fetched my binoculars for a better look and the owl obliged by sticking around for a while. It was too dark to get a decent photograph, but not too dark to observe the owl with binocs. There are a pair of them who have claimed our neighborhood as their territory. These owls are frequent visitors to our yard, which has lots of hardwood trees and a creek running through the back. We hear them more often than we see them, but both owls made appearances tonight. If we are lucky, there will be some owlets to watch later in the spring and early summer.
If you find owls as fascinating as I do, you may enjoy exploring the OwlCam website. Some folks in Eastern Massachusetts built an owl house, and a pair of barred owls took residence and raised families there over multiple years. They have a lot of information and some spectacular photo and video footage of the owls and owlets, as the owl house was wired for audio and video. There is a nifty library of owl sounds, so you can figure out if the hoots in your own yard are from barred owls.
I spent some time outside in my yard at dusk this evening after a draining day at work. Moxy was entertaining as she hunted squirrels from tree to tree. Zima followed me around as we watched Moxy's exploits. Moxy's becoming quite the climber. Getting back down is still the hardest part, but eventually she figures out that she can't go down head first and it all works out.
Standing at the edge of the woods with the cats, I heard a familiar call - "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?" It was a barred owl (strix varia), perched in a nearby tree. The owl was watching Moxy, too. I fetched my binoculars for a better look and the owl obliged by sticking around for a while. It was too dark to get a decent photograph, but not too dark to observe the owl with binocs. There are a pair of them who have claimed our neighborhood as their territory. These owls are frequent visitors to our yard, which has lots of hardwood trees and a creek running through the back. We hear them more often than we see them, but both owls made appearances tonight. If we are lucky, there will be some owlets to watch later in the spring and early summer.
If you find owls as fascinating as I do, you may enjoy exploring the OwlCam website. Some folks in Eastern Massachusetts built an owl house, and a pair of barred owls took residence and raised families there over multiple years. They have a lot of information and some spectacular photo and video footage of the owls and owlets, as the owl house was wired for audio and video. There is a nifty library of owl sounds, so you can figure out if the hoots in your own yard are from barred owls.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
In Case You Missed It...
Here is what the eclipse looked like from my neck of the woods. The clouds kindly dispersed right when things got interesting. We had a great view of the red moon at totality. Regulus and Saturn are also visible in the first photo.
I held my little digital camera up to the eyepiece of my binoculars to get this next shot. I was unable to hold the combo very steady for the long exposure, so I posted the least blurry of the bunch.
I held my little digital camera up to the eyepiece of my binoculars to get this next shot. I was unable to hold the combo very steady for the long exposure, so I posted the least blurry of the bunch.
A Blood Red Moon
Don't miss tonight's total eclipse of the moon!
Partial Eclipse Begins 8:43 pm EST
Total Eclipse Begins 10:00 pm EST
Mid-Eclipse 10:26 pm EST
Total Eclipse Ends 10:52 pm EST
Partial Eclipse Ends 12:09 am EST
Partial Eclipse Begins 8:43 pm EST
Total Eclipse Begins 10:00 pm EST
Mid-Eclipse 10:26 pm EST
Total Eclipse Ends 10:52 pm EST
Partial Eclipse Ends 12:09 am EST
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Non-Standard
It was another "fun filled" weekend of home repairs not going as planned in the Cosmic Cat household. But you knew that already... because if things had gone smoothly I wouldn't be writing a blog post bitching about it.
It was a simple enough repair - fix a leaky tub faucet. It doesn't get much more mundane than that. Except when you get your vintage 1965 plumbing halfway taken apart and find out that it is a not a standard size. After going to the big hardware store that has every tool known to man, PDM found out that they no longer make the tool he needs in the size he needs. That scuttled the repair.
We (mostly PDM) are still fixing the damaged wallboard in the half bath. This was the project that I started in October, and was going to take two weekends to complete. Yeah, right. We're coming up on four months and those walls are still not ready to paint.
Old houses tend to be more solidly built than newer ones. But the tradeoff is that more stuff will fail due to age, and fixing it can be terribly frustrating. The non-standard size thing crops up all over the house - not just the plumbing. The new front door was also a special order due to a non-standard opening.
Some days we like our home better than others...
It was a simple enough repair - fix a leaky tub faucet. It doesn't get much more mundane than that. Except when you get your vintage 1965 plumbing halfway taken apart and find out that it is a not a standard size. After going to the big hardware store that has every tool known to man, PDM found out that they no longer make the tool he needs in the size he needs. That scuttled the repair.
We (mostly PDM) are still fixing the damaged wallboard in the half bath. This was the project that I started in October, and was going to take two weekends to complete. Yeah, right. We're coming up on four months and those walls are still not ready to paint.
Old houses tend to be more solidly built than newer ones. But the tradeoff is that more stuff will fail due to age, and fixing it can be terribly frustrating. The non-standard size thing crops up all over the house - not just the plumbing. The new front door was also a special order due to a non-standard opening.
Some days we like our home better than others...
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Playboy Bun-Cat?
Happy Valentine's Day from Silvio. This is him doing his best imitation of the iconic playboy bunny logo. He's got the ear position just right. All he needs is a tiny bow tie.I shudder to think what this post is gonna do to my search terms...
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