Summer has arrived in San Francisco and with it comes Karl The Fog. I got all the sunshine I needed after spending more than half my life in the desert. Now I just relax and enjoy the fog. Karl hangs around on Twitter and to quote him:
Summer has officially arrived in San Francisco. Don't leave home without your pea coat, scarf, and memories of sunshine.
— karl the fog (@KarlTheFog) July 15, 2013
Here are some photos from a recent trip to Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park.
For those who may not know, or have forgotten… Lastech came from the land of the baguette, pâté and good wine.
Happy Bastille Day from Rudha-an, Lastech and the pointy eared people.
I can’t help myself. Lastech and I love Catherine Tate. Here’s a clip from her show, thanks to the BBC.
Titanescu has continued to settle in. He rarely yells at the other two to get off his lawn. However he still has a most powerful stink eye and a lightning fast paw strike. He still plays with Miss Jenny every day and plays a bit with Tito. This week brought us this.
It looked so sweet. Titanescu was quite contented. Peace at last. Then he noticed and … Что за черт? Он трогает меня! followed by slappity slappity. Tito was unfazed.
Here is Miss Jenny trying to disguise herself as a prissy little kitty. It’s a fake out. She’s anything but a girly girl. She’s rough and tough and all girl, but she refuses to conform to anyone’s notion of what’s proper.
My Facebook friend Henry shared this LOL with me. I thought it might be one of Titanescu’s followers. Thank you Henry!
It’s that time of year. Personally, I like tourists. Most are pleasant and I’m even guilty of deliberately looking like one on occasion. Tourism helps keep my fair city going.
Lastech is wonderful and patient. The poor guy is used to me yelling I NEED A PICTURE! The last time I yelled, we were near Lombard Street. He patiently dropped me off and waited.
Since Lastech works odd hours and sleeps during the day, I sometimes plug earbuds into the laptop and listen to either the police scanner or EMS scanner online. I was listening to the EMS scanner when the call came in about the crash of Asiana flight 214 at SFO. For the next several hours I listened to emergency teams coordinate their response. I also heard the sirens of ambulances making trip after trip to the hospital with victims. You see, the airport is ten minutes South of us via Interstate 101, which itself runs right behind my building.
There were 307 souls on board that plane. 291 Passengers and 17 crew members. Two 16 year old Chinese students (girls) lost their lives. 182 were injured, 49 of them seriously. The only reason more were not lost is due to the airline crew and the other first responders.
That wasn’t all that happened this week.
Our neighbors to the north have suffered a huge loss. Lac-mégantic in Québec still doesn’t know what the death toll is and won’t for some time. Train cars carrying crude oil broke away from the engine and rolled back into town and derailed. Five of the cars exploded. The destruction is massive and the death toll (now at 5) is expected to climb. Many buildings have burned and the number of missing is fluctuating.
That still isn’t all.
One week ago today, 19 firefighters from Prescott Arizona lost their lives fighting a fire. They were members of a Hot Shot team and made up almost 20% of the Prescott Fire Department. It’s a huge loss for everyone.
This has truly been an awful week for first responders AND for victims. Our heart goes out to all of them. It has also been a week for our first responders to shine. We are proud of all them, here and everywhere.
Pandemonium reigns supreme in the JBoD household. Tito, Jenny and Titanescu go ballistic for a while. Once done, it’s naptime. The manic moments are a wonder though.
Martial acrobatics meet Jenny’s Petomania under Tito’s benevolent gaze. If you remember, Miss Jenny runs on poot poot power. Most people can blame the dog. We blame Miss Jenny. These martial acrobatics bring out the best in her. Hmmmm, maybe that’s the worst.
As for Titanescu, he looks forward to playtime. He’s still a grumpy butt , but he’s a happy grumpy butt. Here’s a little slideshow movie I made of his acrobatics with Jenny. She does most of the acrobatics (and poots), but they have fun. Oh, and please forgive the music’s abrupt ending on the video.
This week has been amazing. Proposition 8 was wiped out by the Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit Court surprised everyone by dropping the stay on marriages early. Now Pride week in San Francisco has taken on a new meaning. Marriages have resumed and the City Hall will remain open this weekend.
San Francisco is expecting record crowds for the Pride Parade tomorrow and I’m sure it’s going to be a fabulous party.
Love? We haz it and now everyone can haz it AND marriage too!
Congratulations to ALL the newlyweds and to those will soon be married!
As for Titanescu…
JBoD is very happy for all of our LGBT brothers and sisters today. 🙂
Equality has won. The Supreme Court of the United States declared DOMA (Defense Of Marriage Act) unconstitutional. According to Scotusblog:
DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.
In addition, SCOTUS has finally ruled on California’s Proposition 8 which restricted marriage to opposite sex couples only. Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Prop 8 in 2010 on the grounds that it violated the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the United States Constitution. Today, the Supreme Court ruled that the supporters of Prop 8 did not have the legal standing to appeal Judge Vaughn’s ruling. Vaughn’s ruling stands and marriage will resume in California soon.
There is more work to be done and more states in which we need to gain marriage equality for our LGBT brothers and sisters. However, Marriage Equality has won today. May there be many more wins in the near future.
I took this picture a couple of weeks ago and I was hoping that I would be able to use it for this.
Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park is home to a vast number of turtles. Most are red-eared sliders. My love for them is mixed. They are not native to the area and quite invasive.
If you have turtles or frogs or any other animal as a pet, do NOT release them into the wild! Non native species can be very destructive.
Now that I’ve said that, enjoy. 🙂
What is it with cats and nip? They go nuts on the stuff. In the case of Titanescu and Miss Jenny it resulted in some awful singing. It also caused us to make a rather interesting discovery about Titanescu.
Miss Jenny has found her theme song. Never mind that she was named after Pirate Jenny from the Three Penny Opera. THIS is her song.
As for Tito, no singing for him. He’s too mellow.
Here’s another cat getting the goofiness going.
In case you wanted to know what Titanescu and Jenny were singing, here they are.
Miss Jenny’s strange obsession with potatoes began here.
