My apologies friends. We missed Caturday. It’s a wonder we haven’t had a meltdown. We’ve had a heckuva week. We dealt with dr. appointments and lab vampires with some good news and some not. The not-so-good news isn’t awful. It’s just a PITA and has to be dealt with. In other words, aging sucks. We’re also down to a deadline in regards to our car. The registration expires on the 15 and it won’t pass smog. We went to look at cars and came home with one rather unexpectedly as we weren’t planning to buy that day. In addition, I did NOT manage to get the stupid storage unit emptied. I’ll do that next week. Hopefully they’ll prorate the bill instead of making me pay for the whole month. At least we don’t have the insanity of the city to add to the mess. One good thing. We’ll have some blog posts coming up. 🙂
Soooooo here are the pointy eared people. Miss Jenny wasn’t very cooperative. Titanescu wasn’t either.
Tito being lazyTitanescu (left) and Tito (right) hogging the sunbeamI managed to lure Miss Jenny out from under the couch with treats.
Since our week has been hectic, I felt that some peace would be nice. Here is a very beautiful short film by Erik Wernquist. All the places exist in our solar system. The words and voice are from Carl Sagan.
Yes, it appears that a major-big-huge Godzilla variety El Niño is coming. California needs the rain, I know. However, it appears to be feast or famine and we just don’t do anything halfway. So to get our rain probably means dealing with downpours and mudslides. With all the fires, the mudslides will be nastier than usual. On top of that, it may not even be enough rain to make up for the drought. Anything is better than nothing though.
Our heat is predicted to be in the triple digits this next week. Oh joy! Thank goodness for air conditioning. And on the unpacking front, I’ve won that battle. I have one small load left at the storage unit. Everything else is accounted for and many more things have been dumped. 🙂
Now it’s time for the pointy eared people to shine. They look like druggies this week
Tito looks like he had to much caffeineJenny: The snozzberries taste like snozzberriesTitanescu over did it on the vodka and couldn’t even make it to the sunbeam.
Caturday strikes again and I’m STILL unpacking. I’m also still getting rid of stuff. It’s getting to the point that to bring in one box means unloading and rearranging everything already stowed. I’ll get to the end of it eventually, but it’s a royal PITA. The storage unit will be empty by the end of the month though, or my scream may be audible all the way to Sydney, AU. 🙂
In the meantime, here are the pointy eared people. I decided that they needed to look like paintings this week.
Tito practicing the “dead bug” positionMiss Jenny in blueTitanescu in the window
Another Caturday rolls around and while late, I have a post. Our other replacement computer is here and I spent a couple of days wiping the hard drive on the old ones. I decided to go for more than a mere formatting and opted to wipe the drives by having the data overwritten with gibberish instead. It’s much more secure than reformatting or taking a hammer to it. Now they can go to the e-waste facility.
The kitties are still adjusting, but it’s going well. They have recently taken up the sport of fly trapping. We don’t get a lot of flies, but there are more here in the East Bay than in San Francisco. I’m hoping I can keep them out as much as possible though as the pointy eared people will destroy the trailer in their trapping endeavors.
Tito saw a flyTito missed the fly
Lucky for me, Tito caught the fly before the other two noticed.
Miss Jenny did something quite interesting…for her. In the evenings, I leave the front door open as there’s a screen door and the fresh air is nice. I was working on the budget when I heard a low growl that got louder and turned into quite a snarl. It was our Miss Jenny. She was in full fluffage mode and pissed off. There may have been a dog or raccoon out there. I didn’t see anything. The only thing she ever used to growl at was people in cherry pickers. Yeah, really. Go figure. Anyhow, she recovered and came over near me to chase her tail, ask for pettings, and purr a lot. No fly trapping for her.
Miss Jenny haz a happy
Titanescu was napping near me in the corner. He wasn’t interested in the fly or Miss Jenny’s antics.
Yes, we mithed Caturday thankth to a lithping computer. It was a much loved older laptop that was given to us by a friend. It was still running on Windows XP and couldn’t be upgraded, but it did the job nicely… until the other day when the S quit working. I thought maybe thomething was thtuck under the key, but alath, no. Then an hour later, it was followed by the 2, W, X and caps lock. Damn!
The lithp was cute, but it ceased being cute when the other keys up and quit in protest. We still need a bigger/faster laptop for working on photos, but we managed to get a little one that keep us going until we get the other one in a week or two. It’s an HP Stream 11 and it was less than $200.
It’s small and blue, but it works like a charm
Lastech here:
So this lil’ guy shall be (mostly) mine and I shall call it CASE. The more powerful one which we’re getting for Rudha-an we’ll call TARS.
Yeah. We really did like “Interstellar”. This past week has been a long one, with training on Tuesday which split my days off, before the warm up to the 4th of July celebrations at work and unexpected overtime. We’ve also experienced some internet connectivity issues which should be resolved by next week.
Now, this Caturday, I ought to talk about sharing quarters in the Endurance with the three Catonauts. That means discussing litterboxes, theirs and ours, and the struggle for breathable air.  If it weren’t for potential copyright issues, I might have renamed the Endurance “Cat Shit One”. Every time I have to reach for stuff in storage on the lower bunk, which is danger-close to the cats’ port-a-potty, the smell badgers me like a used car salesman from Fremont (I’ll explain later).  Shallow breaths only help so much before fireflies dance in front of you. Then you’re light headed and the cat crap is still harping on about “hey man, I’m in your nose trying to find your lungs and all, mind if I stop in the back of your throat, just long enough so you can taste it? ”
Meanwhile, your tongue is like a drunken mechanic in the backseat feeling suicidal, thinking he could just open that door and ooze out into 50 miles an hour traffic (again, I’ll explain later).
Well. That’s bad enough, but we have our own septic issues to manage.
See, on a trailer, what they call the black tank is essentially an on board septic tank. And you know, nature’s way of telling you to empty that tank is through what scientists call olfactory assault. Your sinuses texting your brain furiously to point out that if they’re expected to block the stink, the brain best send a hand with tweezers to pluck some nose hairs and stop the nostrils with mucus. The brain, who’s had enough, texting back that he’s already had to deal with the cats’ litter box which is exactly three feet from the humans’ bathroom, and that the stomach is no help whatsoever. None,
I digress. There are enzymes you drop in the black tank to neutralize the oh-dears.There’s also the “trick” of pouring a little diluted bleach down the hatch. So, you know, we can cope. It’s just that when the weather’s hot and you had the half-pounder at Fuddrucker’s, timing becomes critical is all…
Now, time for the mission specialists to shine…
Tito doing “the sexy”Jenny: Are the fireworks over?Titanescu watching from the tower.
This is good advice from Jackson Galaxy (My Cat From Hell). Without cable, we don’t watch his show on the tv. We do follow him on FB and stream some of his shows via Netflix. This one fits our topic of cat poop rather well. 🙂
Yes, the furballs are hiding, at least during the day. I spend several days a week trying to unpack boxes and the furballs are NOT amused. I only do a few boxes at a time and I try to avoid sudden moves. Sadly, I keep having to reorganize constantly. Going from an apartment to a trailer is a challenge. There is plenty of storage here, but not all of it is easy to access. Figuring out what we need easy access to vs. what we can stash away is the tricky part. The poor pointy eared people are getting tired of it already. They remain in hiding until I quit for the day. I do try to work for a couple of hours and then break for a while, so they can feel comfortable using the litterbox and getting a stretch. We avoid doing much unpacking at all on Lastech’s days off. It gives us all a break.
In other news, I’m happy as a pig in erm… stuff! The produce market is just wonderful. It’s too hot to cook indoors, so we eat a lot of salad and cold veggies. The fruit selection is stellar too. While they don’t have beef or pork, they do carry a good selection of fish. We use the grill on Lastech’s days off, so we tried the Mahi Mahi. Yummy!
Now it’s time for the pointy eared people to shine. As they’ve been hiding, getting pics has been awkward. Only Titanescu hangs out with me during the day. He spent so much time in the gulag, he’s not scared of much.
Tito: She’s watching, isn’t she?Titanescu: Da! She’s watchingJenny: Why you do this to me Dimmy? Why?
Yahoo! It’s Caturday yet again and yes, we’re having a heat wave. Of course, this is normal for Concord, but not for us, we’re having to adjust to temps that are 30 degrees warmer than what we’re used to dealing with. Thank Cthulu for air conditioning.
Life in The Endurance is coming along nicely. We are slowly emptying out the storage unit and getting things stowed away. The pointy eared people are adjusting and OMG! there’s parking in Concord!
The Safeway parking lot.
Sorry about that. When one is used to hunting for parking and then making highly technical maneuvers in order to use it, open spaces like that are a wonder. Saving time and gas enables us to accomplish more each day. When we find a way to power The Endurance’s environmental controls with tiny cat farts, we will have it made.
Yes, it’s now time for the pointy eared people.
Tito staking out territory on my pillowTitanescu checking out the new cat tower. Their lair has been moved to the top bunk.Miss Jenny: My God! It’s full of stars!
Ok, I lost them already. When we took a load to storage, I accidentally tilted a game box and there was a major marble spillage. Although I found most of them, the silly little things rolled everywhere and I’m sure I’ll find more when I empty the storage unit.
This may be the last Caturday for a couple of weeks. I’m not sure we’ll have much internet access right away. Tuesday evening we will hand over the keys and head for the hotel. We are scheduled to have our trailer delivered on Thursday, if all goes well. Our goal is to have it set up so we can move in on Friday. I’ve managed to change our address with the bank, the DMV, insurance, voter registration, etc. I have more to do, but it can wait a few days.
With all the changes, the pointy eared people are laying low. We haven’t managed any new pics. Instead, I pulled out a few of my favorites.
Tito
Miss Jenny
Titanescu
Here are three pics of the inside of our new home.
It’s hard to tell, but the colors are a soft olive and tanThese bunks will become the main area for the the pointy eared people and double as storageOur bedroom is nice. The bed is a full standard queen instead of the short ones usually found in RVs. I like the frosted glass too.
With luck, the next time we post we will be living in the city of Concord. 🙂
Someone once told me that online friends weren’t real friends. As a result, we joke about them being “imaginary” friends. I’m sure that’s true of some of them. I’m here to tell you that we have a bunch of friends online that are very real and very dear to us. Without their help, encouragement, and advice, we wouldn’t be moving into our own place. One of those friends will be here later this morning to help us haul some large items to Goodwill. Another is helping us to find a pet friendly hotel to stay in for a few days for the transition. Another will guide us in setting up our trailer and learning how it all works. A bunch of other friends got together to help us in other ways. We appreciate every single one of them.
This is our new home. It shall be called “The Endurance”, shown here with the front cargo bay door open. She’s a beauty, Captain..! Our goal is to have it in place and move in by the 31st. Caturday may or may not happen for a week or so. We’ll see. In spite of all the stuff I’ve gotten rid of, I still need to get rid of more. I’m getting there. 🙂
The Endurance
Now it’s time for the pointy eared people to shine. They are NOT amused by the kerfuffle, but we managed a photo or two.
Tito is passed outTitanescu showing off his nubbie and green eyesMiss Jenny looking a tad nervous, as usual
I don’t have any funny vids this week, but here’s a little fat robin I found at the park.
Yes, Sunday is Mother’s Day. 🙂 My poor mom isn’t getting a card this year. I think she understands. She’ll get a phone call at the very least. We want to wish all the mums a happy day. It doesn’t matter if you’re a mum to a human or a pet. All are worthy.
Last Wednesday, we took a day long road trip and went to the Central Valley to look at trailers. We saw two that we really liked and we’re going back, on Wednesday, to look at them again. I didn’t take many photos because the view was mostly semi trucks on the freeway. Ugh! In the meantime, I’m doing even more packing as I’m taking everything from the kitchen that we can live without and boxing it. The rest of the apartment is 98% done.
Now it’s time for the pointy eared people to shine.
TitoMiss JennyTitanescu
Since tomorrow is Mother’s day, here are two vids about a great surrogate mum.
Here is a bit more about Bobbi and her adopted bobcat kittens.
