Pepi – jellybeansofdoom.com

December 17, 2017

Holidays, La Posada, Kitties, and a Doggie

Yes friends, we’re still alive. We might just survive the season. The smoke was better for a while, then the stuff from So. California moved in. It has been a busy month with La Posada, holidays, and busy work hours. Here’s a bit of holiday cheer. Lastech took this pic at night.

We took advantage of a lull in Lastech’s training schedule to enjoy the La Posada celebration at the Martinez Adobe which is located at the John Muir National Historical Site.

The adobe was built by Don Francisco Martinez in 1849. Later, John Muir’s daugter, Wanda lived there.

La Posada is a 400 year old Christmas tradition and has an interesting history which you can read about here.
They had a procession and music. Traditionally, it takes place over 9 days, but this one just had the one day. There were piñatas, snacks, and music. It was delightful

This is a traditional nine-pointed star.

Here is a slide show with the rest of the pics.

[Show picture list]

No we haven’t forgotten the critters. While we don’t really celebrate the season, we still get into the groove a wee bit. We got a hammock style car seat cover and seatbelt for Pepi to ride in the back seat where she can look out at the world. The hammock style prevents her from falling into the gap between the front seats and the back. She seems to like it.

Titanescu has been posing for us lately. The others have been napping.

Here’s Miss Jenny looking out from her favorite spot.

September 4, 2017

Bleeping weather, fecking smoke, and Pepi

The smoke from the fires has blown in and is awful. Back to that in a minute. First, the weather

A very odd thing happened Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It was hotter in Concord, CA than in El Centro, CA. El Centro sits near the Mexican border in the Sonoran desert and is below sea level. These temps are normal there. Not so much here. San Francisco broke an all-time record with 106 degrees on Friday and we topped out at 109. Blech! We did the same on Saturday. In plain English, the weather is hotter than hell.

The fecking smoke was almost worse than the heat. It was blowing in from the fires up North. Then it blew in from the fires to the East. I couldn’t get two feet away from the inhaler, but I was ok. I used it when I needed it.

Lastech took this photo of the smoky sunrise

Continue reading “Bleeping weather, fecking smoke, and Pepi”

July 23, 2017July 23, 2017

Kitty cats, goofy mutt, and a sunset

Maybe it’s goofy cats, mutt and a sunset. Meh, they’re all goofy. Even the sunset was pretty, but with clouds going in some pretty goofy directions. I imagine my friend Dennis (aka Weatherdude) could explain them well.

Everything is going well, though it’s a bit too warm to get out as much as we would like. I’m finally really getting the hang of using my Instant Pot and rarely bother with recipes anymore except to get ideas. Last night we had stew, which would normally take hours. It took an hour and that included prep time. Being able to brown the meat and sauté the vegetables in the same pan is wonderful and I have fewer dishes to wash later. 🙂 It’s also insulated well enough that I can cook without adding to the heat in our little trailer. Win win

The pointy eared people have been any goofier than usual except that in this trailer, there is NO SNOOZE BUTTON! That’s right. No snoozing here. My alarm goes off and Tito lands in the middle of my chest and starts bonking madly. He weighs about 20 lbs, so he can’t be ignored. It can be a tad painful at times, but it’s hard to get annoyed with such a happy lovey guy.

About three seconds after getting this pic, Tito woke up and with a loud MEE! and a bunch of chirrups. He wakes up happy

The lovely Miss Jenny ignores the alarm. She doesn’t care and will keep right on sleeping…unless she’s hungry and then she’ll give me a baleful look and try to look sad.

Titanescu doesn’t care about the alarm either unless he’s hungry and then he’s more likely to stick a claw in my eye or nostril.

Part of Tito’s morning exhuberance is because he wants me to get up and let his girlfriend out of her crate. Seriously. It’s part of his routine.

One nice thing about living in the East Bay. We can see the sunsets more often. In the city we had buildings in the way. These are from last night.

In this one you can see that the air currents were taking the clouds in goofy directions

That’s it for this week. This should have been Caturday, but I forgot what day of the week I was on until it was too late. It’s just as well as that sunset was last night. See ya!

June 4, 2017

The Gardens at Heather Farm and the Fur Kids

Our weather has finally become a bit more normal. For a while it got up to the 90’s, then down to the 50’s, and then hot again. Now it’s settled into warm, at times breezy. Since the weather finally cooperated, we set the Endurance’s life support systems to stand by for the crew and headed off to the Gardens at Heather Farm. As I had hoped, the roses were blooming madly. The last time we were there, the roses were just beginning to put out buds.

Mystery bug. I’m not sure if this is a Mexican bean beetle or something else. Photo by Lastech

There are more pics, but now it’s time for the fur kids to shine.

Now for the rest of the Heather Farm pics. There aren’t a lot, but I put them in a slideshow to make it easier. There are non rose pics along with a couple of critters.

[Show picture list]

March 25, 2017August 15, 2021

Caturday: is it Tuesday yet? and what is that racket?

Is it Tuesday? It must have been when the doc prescribed Cipro to counter Rudha-an’s (aka Julie-the-nose) sinus infection. I was nodding off in the waiting room, since I’m now back to working nights, drifting off to a scene of the doc plunging swabs painfully up nostrils, expressing a professional opinion summed up as “ewwww!” and listening to faint gurglings and wheezings from whence he plunged his apparatus.

“Is that you?”, he asked her. I’m not sure what he expected. Amoxycillin’s for amateur night, we were talking New York City in 2020, on Tuesday, Soylent Green day, when there’s no damn Soylent Green to be had.

Up that nose, the crushing masses of microbes (the most common first name for male microbes is Mike, Becky for females, as in Bacteria) could not even get out of the swab’s way. In truth, some were already dead, but those sinuses being standing room only, who would know? In came the swabs, like the sanitation trucks brought in by the riot Police, punching through starving crowds of Mikes and Beckys in the sweltering heat.

Cipro might be our only hope, our “Charlton Heston for the truth” shooting Mikes with his .38. Swabs… No wonder Joseph Cotten (no pun intended) couldn’t take the guilt….

Rudha-an here. Lastech is currently sleeping, so I’m going to add the bonus bits. He’s on graveyard shift, but he had to go in early on Thursday. On his walk from the train station to work, he came across a bunch of people taking pictures of a tree.

When he got a closer look, this is what he saw.

Yes, it was a whole bunch of parrots. While both of us have seen the parrots, it’s only been in very small numbers. I’m envious of his luck in seeing so many at once. For anyone who doesn’t know, back in 2003, there was a documentary and book released called The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. The author of the book agrees that the title is a misnomer as the parrots range as far away as Brisbane. Still, the bulk of them hang around Telegraph Hill where Coit Tower is located. No one is quite certain how they came to be there. As for the type of parrot? This is what KQED (our local PBS station) had to say.

The wild parrots in and around San Francisco are called cherry-headed conures. At one point, a mitred conure joined the flock and bred with the cherry heads. Now the flock is dotted with hybrids.

Here is a video he took that afternoon and you’ll notice that in the middle of the vid, one of those parrots told him to FECK OFF!

This is a vid he took the next morning. It’s mostly to show how many there are and how loud they can be. All those dark spots high in the trees are parrots.

March 4, 2017March 4, 2017

Caturday: More rain, with kitties and a dog

Yes, more rain. It’s not a deluge this time, I don’t think. The storm isn’t really here yet though, so the cloud watching has been fabulous. We honestly don’t need more rain, but as long as we’re not talking floods, I don’t mind.

Ear report. I’m on day 22 of antibiotics. 5 more days to go. The doc gave a stronger one on Monday and so I think I’m making some good progress now.

A week ago, we made a trek to the lake down at Heather Farms. I posted the pics on Caturday last week. After we were there, it happened that three of the geese got into a bit of a pissy match with some poor guy. He fell and injured his knee escaping them. Maybe one of the culprits was my “lonely goose” from last week. You can see and read the story here. While geese can be very dangerous, they don’t normally go on the attack unless you startle them. Right now, they’re rather territorial as they’re getting ready to lay eggs soon. We heard several goosey spats when were were at the lake. Obviously, keep children well supervised. Oh, the vid is great. I totally lost it with giggles at the end, though I feel bad about the guy’s injury and I hope it heals quickly. 🙂

Anyhow, here are the stars of the show.

Titanescu in the pike position for maximum sunbeam soaking

Since I’m still fighting an ear infection and Lastech is still fighting the flu, we haven’t gotten out much. Still, the arboretum showing signs of spring and bird watching from the trailer is still fine.

Yellow sneezy tree. I love them, but I honk and sneeze. Photo by Lastech

Arboretum kitty. Lastech detoured around with Pepi while I got a pic. Kitty wanted scritchies, so I provided some.

This is how the pic came out of the camera. The only thing I did was resize it. The sky is crazy blue

That’s it for this week. I’m hoping we’ll get out next week, but Lastech needs to be feeling better.

February 11, 2017

Caturday: Floods and blinding sunlight

I feel like a vampire. I stepped out into the sunlight and expected to burst into flame at any second. Added to that is the fact that I couldn’t get my eyes open and the sunlight made me sneeze. Yes, I’m one of those who sneeze repeatedly in strong sunlight. I can’t complain too much though. We’re way over our normal rainfall amounts and I needed time to air out the trailer. It reeks of humidity and wet dog. Especially the wet dog part. Ewwwwwwww

Here’s a pic that Lastech took of the Walnut Creek flood channel. The creek is normally only about 12 to 15 feet wide. This isn’t the highest it’s been. It’s been at its highest late at night, so we’ve missed it.

I’m sure you’ve all seen the news coming out of the state with roads washed out and the Oroville Dam spillway FUBAR. It’s a mess out here. We survived fine, but many didn’t. I’m hoping the next round of storms won’t be so messy. Here’s a vid of the problem at the dam for anyone who may have missed it.

Now it’s time for the pointy-eared people and the floppy-eared one to shine.

Miss Pepi watching Titanescu in his sunbeam

The other day I was sitting at the laptop and heard a very loud ruckus in the shrub. It was the sparrows. The male sparrows are wife hunting. There were two of them trying to get her attention. The one on her left started to do his dance, but she wasn’t having it and ran him off. The one on her right was more persistent, but she still wasn’t having it. He wouldn’t go away, so she took matters into her own beak, so to speak. This all happened very fast and I barely got the two pics below. Miss birdy reached out with a claw and grabbed Mr. hotshot by the leg, dangled him upside down, and proceeded to peck the crap out of him.

Mr hotshot managed to get his leg free, but as you can see, she’s dangling him by a feather. Her beak is barely visible at the top.

And don’t come back! She dropped him and his fall was anything but graceful.

Today, the Towhee came to flap and preen on the fence. I love the soft brown and rust tones.

See you next week