February 27
[ Taken February 27, 2009 | Still life of two stoned cats, with bathtub of catnip | Dayton, OH ]
Normally, these cats don't get along at all. This tender moment of togetherness and sharing is brought to you by... catnip. Lots and lots of it.
Here is something fun to do... take a big container of dried catnip and pour it all out in a bathtub. (This will somewhat contain the eventual mess and make cleanup a little bit easier.) Add some cat toys. Add some cats. Watch and laugh. And don't forget to take pictures.
Merlin just started to eat the catnip. Percival rolled around and played in it.
The inspiration came from this video on YouTube, which John and I found linked on the Lolcats site.
I am glad that it is Friday!
February 25
[ Taken February 23, 2009 | Festive | Dayton, OH ]
Percival says "Happy Mardi Gras".
Percival does not like mardi gras beads. Playing with them, yes. Wearing them, no. Oddly enough, Merlin does not mind wearing Mardi Gras beads at all.
In honor of the occasion, John and I ate King Cake, which is basically a coffee cake on steroids, and watched cops deal with drunken revelers on tv. King cake is pretty good, but not nearly as good as paczkis. I miss the paczkis that we could get up in Ann Arbor... Dayton does not have very much of a Polish population, though, and we have never been able to find them down here, alas....
If you have the chance, eat a paczki. The custard ones are my favorites.
I am feeling better, and much less oppressed by my sinus/cold/headache/thing today. Possibly this is due to dayquil, the wonder drug. It has come to my attention that dayquil contains large amounts of caffiene, which would explain my slight mania at the moment.
February 23
[ Taken January 28, 2008 | Ice covered pine tree | Dayton, OH ]
I have a bad cold… bad enough that I could barely taste dinner last night… and the recipe that I used called for 20 cloves of garlic. (When we come across a recipe that calls for garlic, John and I regularly put in more then is called for, so you can only imagine how much garlic was actually used for this dish.)
We have also been very busy… this past weekend was the third weekend in a row that we went to a SCA fencing event. So I have a lot of catching up to do…
Thursday, Feb 12
I cut most of my hair off as a surprise for John, since he had been mentioning for a while that it would be nice to see me with shorter hair. I lost over a foot and a half of hair, and it is now just about shoulder length and has layers around my face. It is just long enough for me to pull it back into a ponytail when I go to the gym. The big surprise is how curly my hair is when the weight of having long hair isn’t pulling all of the curl out.
John loves it. I love it.
I have gotten a lot of compliments on the cut from friends and co-workers.
I think that I will be keeping this style for a while.
Lesson learned: John has good taste, and I ought to listen to him more.
Friday-Sunday, Feb 13-15
Since the ValDay tournament is (as always) in Kalamazoo, John and I make a weekend of it. We visit his folks and stab our friends (the fencing at ValDay is always very very good). As usual, it snows and I don’t pack enough warm clothes.
Monday, Feb 16
I know that it is clichéd, but since I had the day off for Presidents Day (and since this particular holiday is known for mattress sales) I went out and bought a new mattress/box spring. We are upgrading from our very old (20+ years?) double-sized inner spring mattress to a queen-sized memory foam mattress.
Tuesday, Feb 17
I wore sunglasses to work. As one co-worker said “Styling shades! I figure that you either just had an eye exam, or you are strung out on coke.”
It was the eye exam. It had been long enough since my last one that I forgot what it is like when they dilate your pupils, and how painful and bright everything is for hours afterward. For me it was painful and bright enough that even with the shades, working at my computer was only just bearable until the eye-drops wore off.
Anyway, it turns out that I need glasses again, which isn’t much of a surprise. I have been having some problems with seeing things that are at a distance – street signs, the clock in the next room, subtitles on the TV while sitting on the couch – for a little while. Even back when I had my eye surgery (twice… on each eye.) I was warned that because my vision problems were so severe that the astigmatism and nearsightedness would eventually come creeping back. Which they did. So I am getting glasses. I won’t need them all of the time, just when I need to see things that are farther away.
At least I am still a couple of years out from needing bifocals.
Wednesday, Feb 18
The new mattress arrives… the new mattress/box spring are more then double the thickness of the old mattress/box spring, so now the top of the bed is just above my waist. I have to climb up to get into bed, and can almost touch the ceiling when I kneel on the bed. I like it though… it is like being on platform.
There have been jokes about me needing a stepstool to get into bed.
The cats manage just fine with the higher bed.
This is probably the best purchase we have made in years… it is so very very very comfortable. That first night after we got it was the best night of sleep that I have had in a very long time.
And now, today
I was able to pick up my new glasses on the way home after work. They rock. I hadn’t quite realized just how used I had gotten to stuff in the distance just fading outinto soft focus. It is not a very strong perscription, but the effect is very noticable.
February 8
[ Taken January 28, 2008 | Beads of ice | Dayton, OH ]
John and I went to "Better War Through Archery" in Indianapolis this weekend because we heard that there was going to be some really good fencing there. And there was good fencing there, and a lot of it. However the fencing portion of the event was held in a 4-H barn, and the fencing took place in a ring that was covered liberally in some kind of mulch/wood-chip mixture. Even with all of the ceiling fans on and the doors wide open, there was still quite a pall of dust hanging in the air and covering everything.
John and I ended up having to leave the event early (for us) because we just couldn't take inhaling that dust any more. A day later, and I am still very congested, have clogged sinuses, and my diaphragm and ribs are sore from all of the coughing.
We actually have the windows open today, since the weather is in the low 50s and all of the snow that we got a couple of weeks ago has finally finished melitng away.
February 4
[ Taken January 28, 2008 | Beads of ice | Dayton, OH ]
Busy. Work and other.
Also cold... and some more snow, but not as much as last week. (Bummer.)
February 2
[ Taken January 30, 2008 | This is not the dress | Dayton, OH ]
This is not the dress that I will be wearing. Why? Well, because it is a "bridal gown", that's why.
Apparently it takes a "bridal gown" anywhere from 4 to 6 months to come in once you order it. I had no idea... no idea at all. I learned this neat little fact on Saturday when I went out to look at and actually try on dresses for the very first time. So needless to say, even if I really really really wanted to, there is no possible way (short of being able to buy something off the rack, ie a "miracle") that I will be wearing a "bridal gown".
For something that takes 4 to 6 months to come in, I pretty much expect that it will have been hand sewn from moonbeams and stardust by blind nuns in Nepal... not mass produced in a factory in Taiwan by 10 year old kids. (which is the more likely scenario)
It takes a "bridesmaid dress" anywhere from 2 to 3 months. This is doable, barely, and only if I make a decision on a dress within this fiscal week. Otherwise I am back to my original notion of buying a nice dress at Macy's (or some similar store) and having it tailored as necessary.
Considering how expensive bridal gowns are and how very fancy and bridal-gown-like some (much more reasonably priced) bridesmaid dresses are, I feel just fine with planning to wear "only" a bridesmaid dress.
Saturday was busy.
Sunday was much better and much more restful.
John made nachos (also known as "the nachos of redemption", which are very extremely delicious) and we puttered around, played chess, played Settlers of Catan, read, and did not watch the SuperBowl.