Chilly is a Relative Term

Because all my relatives are chilly, back in Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, etc...

In my ongoing effort to get any of them to visit me, here is a picture taken yesterday, January 6th at around 11:30 am. Temp: 75 degrees.

I'm not posting this to do anything other than getcha out here!

PS: Colorado weather this winter is not helping me convince Sean (or myself) to move back. Can you guys get on that?

Conversations between Married People

I find those weirdly intimate conversations, that can only take place between married people, hilarious. Here is one that happened today:

Me - "Honey, what's the temperature outside?"

Sean - "62, Why?"

Me (who is wearing a sundress as it is California and forecast was for 72 degrees today) - "Because I'm trying to decide if I should put pants on when we go out for our walk."

Sean - "Well, I'm not putting on pants. I'm just going out in my underwear."

Me - "---"

Where On Earth?

Where is the best place to take a 1 week vacation. (AND when is the best time to go there?)

It is decided. As a shared News Years Resolution, Seen and I have decided to "go somewhere". We've never actually gone anywhere as tourists. Well, we went to Hawaii once, but shared that vacation with 3 other people, so we didn't get to be as tourist-y as we could. This year, we will get our passports and head out into the world. Do you have any suggestions? What was your fav. vacation (Favcation) and what time of year should we go? April in Paris? August in New Zealand, May in Yellowstone?

There are determining factors here, the first being an influx of income. The unemployment, which we are both on, isn't exactly "traveling money". It does allow for a LOT of time for travel. I am optimistically thinking his new creative venture will explode and we'll have lots of clams for moving around the world.

Secondly is; some guy just put explosive in his underpants and made travel a tad more difficult for the rest of us. Thank goodness nobody got hurt this time. Restrictions and security is now tighter/longer/harder (stop it, this is a family friendly blog.) Since we are not criminals, I think we'll just add an hour here and there to the schedule and should be able to weather that difficulty.

Thirdly is; other commitments/animal care. The year is planned out thusly so far (yes, all events require travel): Friday - Writers Conference on V-Day weekend (San Diego), March - I spend a week with my Mother Dear (CO), May - Niece graduates from grad. school weekend (SFO), June - another niece gets hitched (CO), I have moderate promises from 2 other nieces that they will visit me (come on down!!) So somewhere's in there, we'll sneak in a vacation for the stressed out, newly wealthy (fingers crossed) Robinsons.

Happy New Year friends! May all your travels and adventures this year be safe ones.

The Moment

I shall not start every blog with the note, "It's been awhile since I've written here", though it is so often appropriate.

Also I like to list things. So here are the 2 things I'm here for today:

A. Just checked out pix from Halloween. This year has put a ton of stress on my body and MAN do I look tired and a little old.

2. I haven't been driving. Even though my job is about 18 miles away from my abode, Seen drives me to work in the morning and I've been catching the express bus home every night. (BTW, Seen is a frickin awesome, selfless, wonderful, handsome, talented, intelligent person. I am a lucky wifey.) So I bring the iPod with me to listen to Huck Finn on the way home. Gotta keep me entertained, as I am an American and god forbid I am alone with my thoughts for 2 minutes. Tonight, the iPod died, even though I charged it all night last night. The iPod started up, said "charge me", gave me the finger and RIP'ed it just as I started my ride. So, I looked out the window.

Best thing that happened to me today. Out the west window of a southbound bus on a dark LA freeway was a river of light. The grainy sunshade on the buses giant window was blocking any definition in the cars out there, so all I saw were thousands of lights, gliding past me. It was like walking on stars...I turned it into a meditation and it was awe-some. There is unexpected beauty all around us.

Just thought I'd share that with you.

Curbside Special

I got two stories for you today and they are both about cats. Okay, the second story is a little bit about how Whiskey Tango we are, but mainly, cats...

1. Munchy: Munchy is very spunky and yelly and loved. Seen took this picture when she was yelling at him to pet her. I think it's the most adorabley cute and pathetic picture I've ever seen of anything or anyone, ever.
Munchy is now 17.5 years old. We've been giving her sub-Q fluids, every other morning, for the past 6 months. After a few months of the fluids, Munchy's left eye got glassy and stopped responding to light.The eye thing was due to her high blood pressure, so we got a pill for that. About a month ago, Munchy started yelling for no reason. She would just sit and yell, at the water dish, at thin air. The vet said she had "ropey" intestines and they were probably ulcerated. She gets a compounded pill for that, and a 1/2 a pepcid a day. She's doing fine right now, just funnily pathetic in pictures.

***
Story #2. Curbside shopping - So our downstairs neighbors moved out. They left this fairly nice, dark cherry wood futon with a nice, rust Muslin covered mattress on it just sitting on the curb. I haven't been feeling well (vertigo from all the crappy stress) but when Seen mentioned it was on the front lawn when he'd gone downstairs about 2 hours earlier, I thought, "ok". He mildly suggested maybe we should go get it and sell it. We'd sold our own, space hogging, ugly, Ikea futon about a month ago.

I said, "I'm not proud. We're unemployed. Let's just go check it out" Something you should know; when we lived in Chicago, we was broke. Neither one of us comes from any kind of money, not even the "I'm just comfortable" kind. We furnished our apartments with couches, chairs, bookshelves, tables, etc... found on front lawns and alleys around town on the night after moving day (May 1st for the uninitiated). We actually found some well made antiques that way. A lot of our friends did it too. Of course, most of our friends were actors and musicians. Make what you want to outta that.

Moving on, we went down to check out the futon, it was very nice. The cover was top of the line, there were no scratches on it, no fur shed on it, no cigarette smell, nothin. It was Pottery Barn nice (which is $$ to our kind) So we brought it upstairs and planned to put it up on Craigslist and make $50, what the heck right? Only...

Only Ling Ling thought it was the best present we ever got her. She doesn't scratch at it, she just jumps all over it, rubs her face on it, rolls around on it and has the happiest dang look on her little multi-colored face. So we're keeping it. It has a smaller footprint than our old futon, and it is very nice. Happy Birthday Ling Ling. We got you a 2nd hand futon.



3. KoE: Kitten of Evil doesn't have a story. I just wanted to include a picture of here as equal time for all cutans.

Well Put.

Hey folks,

I follow this blog of a fellow who owns an elderly cat named Munchy. I also own an elderly cat named Munchy. Both cats figure into our blogs in different ways.

Yesterday, after I posted the bit about Dad and the answering machine, Joseph posted a poem about grief. It was spot on, so I figured I'd direct you to it. Click Here to see feeling put into a short bit of words.

Thank you Joseph of Troy Bear for your way with language.

Answering Machine

My Dad passed away one week ago today. I won't go into it, because I don't think I'm ready to just yet. I'll just tell ya, he'd been sick for over a year and had been in the hospital since mid-June. I wrote a little bit about that when I went home to visit in July.

Dad had Mom call all the kids last Monday to come home because he knew he was close to the end. We all got there Monday night, had one last night of laughter, tears and chatter with him and then he slipped into unconsciousness Monday night and passed away at 5:58 am Wednesday, August 26th. He was surrounded by all 5 of his children, his wife and one grandchild (he had 11).

I stayed at home with my family through the funeral and then flew home late Saturday night. It doesn't seem quite real when I'm this far away. I called my Mom today, just to chat, but she wasn't home. She's off shopping for groceries with one of my sisters. So the answering machine picked up the call. It's my Dad's voice. It's weird to think he's not really there.