Cat Flap resolved

Yay! I no longer have the urge to respond when I hear bells at the back door. K is my kero and the cat flap is once again functional. Even the cats are happier. Henry now gets to play his favourite game: sit-at-the-flap-and-stop-my-sister-from-getting-in. Meanie!

a fish on a bicycle.

K and I both loved the juxtaposition of the Guinness in an old POM glass. It's such a healthy seeming juice, and I know certain people will claim the same of guinness, but that just seems like a stretch. ; >

repeat tragedies

We keep finding ladybirds all over the house. I don't know where they come from but it is like they come inside to die. We find them crawling up the walls and across the ceiling. Each time we find one, we rescue it and put it on our only plant. A Bonsai, which was a housewarming from S&B. It is then only a matter of 12 or so hours before I have to scoop the little carcass up and dispose of it permanently. Our dustbin has become a ladybird graveyard. It just makes me so sad to see each tiny one that didn't make it. Putting them outside doesn't help either. I think they just freeze out there. I am looking forward to real spring when we can let them outside and know they will actually survive.

All Quiet on the Western Front

It has been really quiet here the last few days. I basically do the same thing each day which includes dishes, cooking and sweeping. Oh and reading. Which is really the only thing I have to talk about. I have started re-reading the whole Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. It is just excellent junk reading and I am working my way through it quite quickly.

I am also reading a book called 'The Pink Carnation'. It's loosely based on the timeless 'Scarlet Pimpernel' and has a taint of 'literature' only because the woman writing it is a Harvard student studying the time. Not sure any of it is actually based on the French Revolution but it is also excellent escapism.

What is not escapsim is Margaret Atwood's 'Bluebeard's egg'. Short stories from the heart. I really can't read more than one story a day as she leaves you with a disturbed mind for a while after each story. Really excellent writing though, as much because the content stays with you as because of her prose.

That's it from me. Will save the rest of my books for another day in case the next few days are as still as the last.

The Human Cat Flap

That's me. We haven't rigged up our usual window-box-cat-flap yet as the box is too big or too small or too something that needs to be fixed with wood and a saw. This means that the cats must exit and enter via the back door. It's too cold to just leave the door open a little and this is where I come in. We hung some bells on the outside so the cats can let me know when they want to come in. I let them out, I sit down. Five minutes later, one of them is too cold and rings the bell. I get up and let him/her in. I sit down. five minutes later the other one wants in, I get up... you see the pattern. I do this all morning till I get sick of them and make them come in permanently. WHY you ask, would I do this tedious task? How much have these animals got me wrapped around their little paws. Well... you clean the litterboxes twice a day and see if you don't rather let the little eating/pooing/peeing/crying things outside instead.

Lovely Sunday

We are having one of those excellent Sundays. Lazy and still productive. Perhaps slow is a better word. I called home and had a chat, by which time K had made croisants for breakfast and a big fat cup of tea. Then he fiddled with the blender to see if he could fix it and I played some online scrabble and cleaned up the house a little. Now we are both just sitting at the comps being geeks. All I plan to do for the rest of the day is watch some Roswell and maybe do the grocery shopping. What a wonderful life!

More birds

We think that the bluebird may actually live in our backyard, now that we see him or his mate almost every day. We also could not resist this image of the Turkey Buzzards (Vultures) sitting in a tree waiting for something yummy and dead to come along.

another lucky discovery

Discovered a really deliscious salad dressing last night. 1/3 olive oil, 1/3 balsamic vinegar and 1/3 POM original pomegranate juice and some fresh ground black pepper. It's excellent on a Waldorf salad. Just another reason to have POM in your fridge. Yay.

You won't believe it!

We had ANOTHER power outage! It went out around 9:30 last night and didn't come back on till 6am! It wasn't as cold last night as the last time, thank goodness, but it was still wretched. I just can't believe that in this first world place we could be without electricity twice in a few weeks. On the other hand, it does give us a great excuse for eating all the ice-cream in the freezer.

eina.

Last night we played squash and then fiddled around on the gym machines after. I was on a high from winning a game against K for the first time in... well pretty much since the first game I played with him ever. It was also his first game ever. In order to win last night's game it required K to be daydreaming and me running around the court like a fly in a window. My gym machine of choice is what has fondly been called the gynecological machine. It's the one where you put your knees against it and strengthen your inner thighs or outer. This morning I am paying for my enthusiasm. I can barely walk and if anything falls today it is staying on the floor cos I can't bend. I am going to try and get to the pool when it opens to try and work out the kinks but K may have to carry me there.

Yikes!

There is currently a tornado warning on for C'ville. Which translates to sheets and sheets of torrential rain. K and I did our groceries and when we came out of the store it was starting to pour. By the time we got home, and got out of the car it was like walking into a shower! We actually had to change our clothes when we made it into the house. cray-zy! mmm think I will now go online and research what one is supposed to do in a Tornado or to prepare for one? Hopefully it is make pasta for dinner and watch CSI.

gone

We have eaten all the cookies in the house. At least, all the ones I like. THANK GOODNESS. Now I just have to avoid the little pushers, so we don't get any more.

House Finches

The photo is a little blurred cos I have to stand on our rocking chair and lean left to get past the screen on the window. But aren't they adorable!

Bus musings

I rode the bus a LOT yesterday, had to take three buses to get to my interview and the reverse to get home. SO I had plenty of time to make comparisons to my previously adored bus route straight down Connecticut ave in DC. Firstly, buses here are practically empty and therefore a lot less frequent. I never minded waiting for buses in DC cos the next one would always be along presently. Not so here. If you miss one, you could wait 45 minutes for the next! One of yesterday's observations was that there is a coffee shop near every bus stop I waited at. Smart of the owners. Total niche market.

The biggest difference I found though is the social interaction on the buses. In DC people were mostly quiet, or at most talking gently to the person they were riding with. Of course there was always the occasional boffoon on the phone letting us all know about how much beer he and Brad drank last night. On the buses yesterday, everyone was chatting to everyone. As far as I could tell they were all complete strangers. One particularly long, tedious and loud conversation was between five guys sitting at the front with asides from the driver. It was all about how to get money from your workplace by falling down. Additionally, there was a segway about how one guy was arrested for harrassing his girldfirend and was looking at 6 to 15... also, a segway about how one guy beat up the chef of one of the downtown restaurants where he was a waiter. Charmers the lot of them. Quite the incentive to get my license.

cookies and calories

The squash courts at the gym are longer and narrower. Which puts the T far back on the court. You'd be surprised at how this affects your game. Taking control of the T means you can't reach the drop shots anymore. It took us a good half hour to work out the problem with our game. (and it wasn't that we hadn't played in months!)

Girl Scouts are EVERYWHERE! This is dangerous because it is cookie time. They are ruthless in their little uniforms with their little puppy-dog faces. And if that doesn't get you, their Mothers loom in the background promising flat tires and lipsticked windscrrens if you don't buy some cookies. IF you manage to get into the grocery store through the exit, thereby avoiding scouts and mothers at the entrance then there is always someone you know whose daughter is selling the things. An entire hour of squash down the tubes alongside a handful of Samoas. Let me explain why I can't just say no. Donut shaped goodness, shortbread biscuit topped with toasted coconut, toffee and drizzled with chocolate. erg.

Mostly quiet

Aside from getting an interview, life has been mostly quiet. I do have a few interesting things to note though. Or at least they are interesting to me.

We went and sat in a coffee shop on Sat evening, just to get out of the house. While we were sitting there the girl at the next counter got up and went to the loo. She left, on the counter, her books, papers, laptop, cell phone, blueberry and wallet, amongst her work. Keir and I stared at each other in amazement and fascination. After spending a year in WHK we couldn't believe that she expected it all to be there when she came back from the loo, and more amazing, it WAS still there when she came back. Huh, I guess we really don't have to worry so much about whether the back door is locked.

K wrote a test on Sunday. There is this Honour system at Uni's here. You collect your test paper from your lecturer, due a week from when you collect it. Then you study. At some point you write the test, and it is just trusted that you won't cheat, or take longer than you are supposed to. Wow.

In the grocery store there were 27 different kinds of milk to choose from. Including vitamen A and D added kind. I made K decide as my brain was boggling.

The bird bath was frozen over this morning

It made me glad I was snuggled up in bed all night.

even more ooh, aah than the moon!

JUST saw a HUGE sharp-shinned Hawk sitting at my back door. Literally! I opened the back door and there he was, we gave each other such a fright. It looks amazingly like southern Africa's Rock Kestrel. The book says they like to sit near bird feeders and nab little birds. Shame! Now the birds will never come to my feeder. You should have seen Henry and Oleo scurry inside after he flew off. Don't think he is big enough to actually catch them though, especially with Oleo's retrieved beer belly.

Eclipse last night

Last night was a full eclipse of the moon. We didn't stand outside in the freezing the entire three hours but instead dashed out, oohed, aahed and then dashed back inside. It was really something to watch, very eerie and ghoulish. These are some of K's photos over the eve.

Today at the bird feeder

Two Carolina chickadees, a female red finch and a tufted titmouse. Also something small and adorable and too fast to identify.