Some of my friends celebrated the solstice, while others are celebrating Hanukkah and Christmas. We want to wish all of you the best and happiest of holidays. Lastech will be working the holidays, but we’ll have a bit of celebration on his days off. I have some Cornish game hens to bbq.
It has been cold (for CA, mind you) and we’ve been getting quite a bit of rain. You won’t hear us complaining about the rain. We haven’t gotten out as much as we like, but that’s because we were both fighting the flu. I caught it back in November and Lastech caught it this month. Mine took forever to go away and then decided to start a secondary infection in my ears and sinuses. I’m hoping that it’s finally going away now. Once my ears open up again, we can go play on Mt. Diablo.
And now, here are the furry ones.
I was looking for a vid when I came across this one. I follow Angry Ram and I’m glad to see this update. Angry Ram lives on a mountain in New Zealand and they’ve had some awful earthquakes. And no, it’s not sad. 🙂
Until next time, have a wonderful and safe holiday season
Fear and loathing of garbage bags, check. Fear and loathing of hollow tree trunks, check.
Pepi’s neuroses are her own, just as Titanescu’s taste for water from a dish placed in the tub is his own. He will not drink from the communal bowl, he will have his own dish, and he needs it available whether a human is in the bathroom or not. Maybe especially if a human’s in there.
After this latest round of rains, the temperature has dropped to near freezing. Tonight, we sleep in cats. The furrbutts will be clawing to get under covers and fight epic battles for territory in there. In her crate, Pepi will burrow under her blankets with her squeaky chicken toy. At some point, Tito is bound to go apeshit and run all over the furniture, although hopefully not because a turd is chasing him. He and Jenny might fight over real estate at the foot of the bed, but Jenny’ll find a spot to curl up. It’s gonna be so cold, I’d almost wish she’d fart to warm things up.
Meanwhile, Titan will sleep undisturbed. Or else.
Rudha-an here: Lastech and I (but mostly Lastech) managed to get some pretty pics of the colors at the arboretum.
Dingle balls, also known as dingle berries, thankfully are not our daily bread, else we’d all go fruitcake. But two instances this past week’s a bit much. First, during our walk through the autumnal glory of the Markham arboretum, Pepi indulged in her ritual pee and poo, in that order. Given that she hoovers anything she can*, I’m surprised she doesn’t ingest the occasional long hair more often.
Anyway, after she was done burying an elf, she began darting and squatting, darting and squatting. On closer inspection, I noticed a broken off turd swinging off her chocolate starfish like Tarzan at the end of his vine (“I COMING, JANE!”). Did we ever mention I’m borderline OCD when it comes to such matters? I went to my happy place, a German pop tune from ’82 playing in a loop somewhere.
Naturally, Rudha-an remained functional, retrieving a paper napkin from the car and proceeded to remove that attacking nugget from Pepi’s butt. That’s what we get for having opposable thumbs, I guess. “Oh. I ate another of your hairs. Take care of it, won’t you, Jeeves?”
By the way, not pointing fingers, but I’m bald as a cue-ball.
Later this same week, at oh-dark-whatever, a ruckus. It sounded like furniture crashing. Pepi was in her crate, Jenny and Titan were both on the bed… Even in the fog of sleep I suspected something horrendous, involving crap. Not puke, they do that on the low-low. But Tito has priors when it comes to ingesting and “passing” human hair (“that ain’t no mine..!”). Jenny’s half his age, so perhaps she’ll catch up in time, but there she was brutally awakened on the bed like the rest of us.
The fracas lasted maybe five seconds, then silence. We didn’t speak, it wasn’t necessary to spell out what we already sensed. As Tito dropped butt burritos in the litter box (which Pepi would treat as a buffet if we let her), the worst “knock-knock” joke played out against his arse. “Bad touch! Bad touch!” And Tito went-a-racing with the stranger-danger tethered to his poop chute until escape velocity threw the turd back near the litter box.
Or so we think. That is where Rudha-an’s forensic exploration located the morsel, but there’s no telling where that thing had been. Tito raced from the box to the dinette, down to the floor, through the kitchen, into the bedroom where he bounced against the wall before running across the bed and back to the rear of the Endurance where the litter box is.
Da-da-da..! Ich liebe dich nicht, do liebst mich nicht Da-Da-Da..!
Ye gods.
Heard this morning,during Pepi’s early pee walk: “Pepi stop licking the car!?!”
I awoke this Caturday to see news about a tragic and terrible fire in nearby Oakland. At this point there are 9 confirmed dead and approximately 25 missing. If there’s one thing I truly fear, it’s fire. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims as they wait for news.
The fur people have been enjoying the windows more these days. The mulberry trees that gave us so much summer shade have been pruned heavily for winter. That makes the windows sunnier to the delight of the pointy eared people who soak up every sunbeam they can find.
Our weather has turned rather cold (for us) and the heaters are working hard at night. No rain for a while, but soon we hope. We didn’t make any day trips this last week as other chores got in the way. However, Lastech has been taking a few pics here and there.
… Enough with my brains, we have more rain this week! We started with an excursion to the top of Mount Diablo Monday to watch clouds go by. We now finish it with another system moving through, giving everything a good soak. The hills and island have returned to a beautiful green and the Force is strong with the Galindo creek running through Markham arboretum.
We’ve really been regular Stormtroopers, hiking our butts off (and Pepita’s).
A couple days ago, Rudha-an had a Mexican stand off with Titanescu after he slapped miss Jenny, who walked too close. Danger close.. Rudha-an had her hand up ready to shield Jenny, which Titanescu took as a threat. Did he move, of course not. He raised his paw, waiving it a bit, ready to hit anything that moved.
When he realized it wasn’t anything serious (we were giggling) he finally settled down.
Yes, I missed Caturday. On a happy note, it’s rainy. The pointy eared people have been glued to the windows watching the drops fall. My favorite weather is rainy weather, so I’m thrilled. Hopefully tomorrow, we’ll take a run up Mt. Diablo.
Before I post the cloud pics, I better let the stars of the show have the spotlight.
Before the rain arrived, we went out to see the birds. However, the clouds were far more interesting. It was very late afternoon and the sun had dropped behind the hills. That made the sky a pretty darker blue.
That was our week in a nutshell. Hopefully we’ll have more for next week.
I won’t discuss the election as I cannot come close to being polite. On the other hand, I can provide an update to Lastech’s rotten brain and seizure episode. Last Monday we went off to Kaiser where he had an EEG and an MRI. Lastech said that during the EEG they worked really hard trying to trigger a seizure but were unsuccessful. From there, he went off to have his MRI. Both tests came out negative. The EEG showed normal activity and the MRI showed nothing but the original injury. His brain is still rotten, but apparently it wasn’t the culprit. The most likely cause was very low blood sugar. His diabetes med works by increasing his production of insulin. This can cause a drop in blood glucose levels. Getting too low can trigger a seizure. Lastech will now check his blood sugar far more often and will also increase his carb intake as he had cut it too much.
I think that was pretty good news. Now it’s time for the pointy eared people and the floppy eared one to shine.
Along with the awful election, the world has lost yet another treasure. Leonard Cohen, the Canadian poet, singer and song writer passed away at 82 yrs of age. He will be greatly missed.
Here is a piece of music from his final album.
And here is my favorite cover of his wonderful song, Hallelujah.
Yes, rotten brains… As in Abby Normal. This past week had a definite Halloween theme, with my waking up from dreams of epileptic sheep in the back of an ambulance early Monday morning, my brain not firing on all cylinders. All day at work on Sunday, I’d complained of a headache. Got home, wolfed down a cheeseburger, still felt weird, popped a couple glucose tablets and the lights went out before I finished the second one. We got home at 4:20 a.m., I emailed work to let them know I would need a few days off.
Rudha-an here: The fur people will have their moment before Lastech continues with his story. I’m going to add though, that it scared the living crap out of me. Lucky for me, my friend came and hauled me to the hospital and “held my hand” as it were. And now for the furry stars of the show…
Now back to Lastech’s Halloween story
It’s at times like these you find reasons to feel fortunate, strange as it may seem. For instance, I learned the reason why someone working in my department has been out for the past two weeks: seizures revealed a tumor, which returned after surgery. Stage 3 brain cancer. Then one of the kids we newly hired had to take emergency bereavement leave after his father committed suicide.
So I’m thankful my passing out pales by comparison, even with a 6 months driving license suspension due to the risk of recurrence.
Also, thanks to modern technology, I now have this nice photo of my rotten brain showing dead tissue from 40 years ago. They had to take a drill and relieve the pressure after a nasty motorcycle crash, and it must have been a little like this: NSFW
As for that rotten brain? Here ya go
Rudha-an here: Lastech goes back for more tests on Monday. We’ll keep you posted.
Yes! It’s raining! We’re now well above average for the month. That doesn’t mean the drought is over and we may still be very short of our needed rainfall for the season. Still, it’s giving the hills a good boost and they’re greening up already. We missed last Caturday due to performing our bi-yearly move-out-move-back-in thing. It’s a royal pain in the posterior, but at least the weather was nice and no rain.
Anyhow, the move thing was relatively uneventful, though Murphy’s Law did manage to kick in though as poor Lastech went to go to work and the car wouldn’t start. Lucky for us, we have AAA membership and they came and changed out the battery and made sure the starter and alternator were working correctly.
In the midst of everything, we took a trip up Mt. Diablo. I’m still sorting those pictures, but Lastech used some different settings on his phone with Halloween in mind. Here are the pointy eared people and the floppy eared one mixed in with some creepy pics. Happy Halloween everyone!
We do hope that everyone has a wonderful and safe Halloween this year.
Well, summer went with a bang and now we have storms. Hooray! Ok, I’m hoping for no flooding or wind damage, but I love the storms. I’m not sure the pointy eared people are all that thrilled, but as long as the air conditioner isn’t on, they’re happy.
Anyhow, earlier in the week we made a rare trip to the city to see the succulent exhibit at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. Before we get to that however, it’s time for the stars of this show to make their appearance.
Here is miss Pepi doing her pirate imitation again.