It's not funny....

but listening to Will's reaction when he discovered it was funny. " Poop in my pants, not my own." Will keeps his pants like the firemen at the fire station, and apparently Ziggy got confused and thought it was his litter box. BAD ZIGGY.

It's not a great thing to post, but I couldn't help myself. BAD ZIGGY. The GOOD thing is that Ziggy is peeing in his litter box. Good thing because that would be a dealbreaker.

I was at a client's office in South San Francisco yesterday and I forgot how windy it is there.

PINK on Sunday

This blog is brought to you today by 'pink in nature'. But more about that later.

Every night we usually do a cat check by me asking the question.... "All cats accounted for?" I guess we didn't do that last night. I recall hearing something, and Will assured me two cats were playing. That would be Mowry and Alex.

This morning Will went to open everything (shades, curtains, sunroom) and he noticed Alex had been locked in the sunroom. But it gets better - apparently Alex and Mowry were both locked in the sunroom. Ziggy had an only cat night, and yet he still left us a surprise on the kitchen floor! ZIGGY, good thing we love you, and that you pee in the box.

Today Alex decided to check out the top of the Crow's Nest. Mowry is usually the only one who goes up there!

We took a walk into town today. The weather was beautiful, although it was cooler and windier than yesterday. I noticed a lot of pink (thus 'pink in nature' referenced above) so I took pictures.

1. Geraniums in a pot on Niles Boulevard:

2. Cyclamen in a pot by a brick wall on one of the side streets:3. Rose next to a white picket fence on Second Street:4. Dark pink daisies that look almost purple.

5. And my favorite, pink butterfly bush in front of really cool, old house. These too, look purple in the picture, but they are pink: Mowry wasn't sure what to do when Alex was on the top of the Crow's Nest, but I couldn't get both in the picture because Al had already jumped down.

Mowry was tired after being in the sunroom all night.

Actually, it was nap time for both! I did not pose Alex's foot - he did that by himself!

Will found this small version of the lamp from "A Christmas Story" at a garage sale on Saturday.I am almost done with the front of the summer shirt. I am working on the back, and then the neck and then they will get sewed together. I guess I'll have to sew it together. Not my favorite part! This is the cotton yarn I got last year from someone giving away the big white bag of yarn in San Jose. Thank you, nice lady.

Spring Saturday

It's spring and it's magnificent here today! Right now at 1:45 PM it's 75 degrees. It's a little bit of a fluke for Northern California, but we're enjoying it!

The apple tree is coming back after its massive pruning. The freesias have obviously split - there are many more this year. They smell delicious!

This is from the webcam in Castle Rock, CO. It looks pretty, but MUCH colder than where we live! We are California weather wimps and proud of it!

OK, this is tacky, but it's important! It's Ziggy using his box. He pees in it, but still poops in specially chosen places - NOT in the box.
Today we waited for a VERY long time to get our two bags of free compost given away by the city. It's made from the green bin waste (yard waste and food scraps) that we recycle each week. I've heard it is easy and organized. We had to show our last trash bill, and for each bill we get two bags of compost.

I called the non-emergency number of the police while waiting since it was a bit of a mess with people trying to cut in line, etc., and they told me there was someone directing traffic. It must have been the Southwest Airlines customer service method - tell them what YOU think they want to know. There was no police directing traffic. They lied to me, imagine that.

The giveaway took place at the NUUMI plant (New United Motors - Toyota and GM). Once we got onto NUUMI property and there wasn't any more merging of cars from many lanes, it was fast and interesting. These wild mustard plants were along the two-lane road we took.It's almost our turn.We're glad we had a towel in Peety's trunk. They actually gave us 3 bags. Now I have to figure out where I want to put it. I'm thinking the lime tree, tomatoes, avocado tree.... we'll see!

Random Pictures on Thursday updated 5:15 pm

Today I went to the periodontist to have my teeth cleaned. I was afraid it would hurt, but it was okay.


I made this scarf in one night from fuzzy yarn my friend Holly gave me. She got it in a bag of yarn I claimed for her that a woman in San Jose was giving away. This picture from a few months ago shows how white Alex was. The vest wasn't concerned, and even thought it might be a layer of fur that needed to come off.We were skeptical, but today I snapped this picture, and he doesn't look white!

This picture was taken by the Montrose, CO webcam. It looks like a bird was either caught (I hope not!) or flying by when it was taken. It's kind of creepy! Notice how green everything is. It was taken on August 9th.

Today there was snow in Montrose, and lots of it! Jackson Hole, WY got snow today, too.It was snowing in Castle Rock, CO, too. It was in the 70s a few days ago in Castle Rock. It's so weird to me that the temp changes that quickly! It's spring, it's summer, it's winter, it's spring. Make up your mind!

It's beautiful here today. I have the office window open a few inches! It's 63 here right now, and 66 in Los Angeles.

On our trip to LA we drove by the reservoir in Pacheco Pass on the way to Highway 5. You can see how low the water is. The brown between the hills and water is the level where the water once was.

I'm knitting a summer sleeveless top in cotton. I tried taking pictures of it, but it just won't photograph very well. It's orange and yellow yarn I got from a woman in San Jose last April. I won't give up trying to take a good picture of it!

UPDATED at 5:15 pm:

I was able to take a picture of the summer top I am knitting.

I got a tip about the BEST snail deterrent that is NOT toxic and easy to find! It's those annoying balls that fall from the trees. They are spikey and snails don't like to climb over them so if you make a barrier, as I have in the new beefstake tomato plant that was planted today, I should not have snails! I HATE poision, and I'm tired of finding snails eating my plants, so I think I found the solution I was looking for! And to think we had these annoying balls all over the front yard when we lived in the townhouse, and didn't realize we had non-poisonous, organic, wholistic snail deterrent the whole time.

Updates on the progress of the tomato plant will follow regularly.

I started seedlings of herbs, tomatoes, and flowers, but I may have left them too long while we were away for 4 days without water. We'll see how it goes.I also put the spikey tree balls around the artichoke plant. It's looking good, but those snails love the leaves!

NOTE ABOUT COMMENTS: I appreciate that this blog is open to all, but I expect only those I know will actually read it. Feel free to read it, but if you make a comment and I don't know you, I'm sorry but I will only post comments from people I know. It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to. It's my blog and I'll do what I want to!

Monday

The rain is gone, and now it is cold. It was 39 degrees this morning, with frost on the rooftops! I'm scheduled at home today, which is my favorite way to start the week, but that doesn't always work out.

I need to open a new SEP-IRA account for my 2008 catch-up contributions, and with the stock market going down (it's up today, but these days that's a fluke) I'm thinking CD at a bank with guaranteed interest, albeit LOW interest). Only Wells Fargo seems to know what a SEP-IRA is - the others require that I go thru their investment arm, which means not FDIC insured.

Today's newspaper had an article about how clipping coupons is 'back in vogue'. All the things I do to live a frugal and fulfilling lifestyle are suddenly cool because the economy is down. I always clip coupons - why not save $$ all the time?

I finished knitting my first baby sweater! Of course I found one without seams since I do not like piecing things together. I ran out of pink yarn, but I found some that was VERY close. I put the mixed yarn in to separate the two colors, and I like it better than I would have had it been all pink. It's hard to see, but the top button is a heart. The others match. I probably should have put all the same buttons on this, but I never do anything symmetrical, so there you go!
Since I knit socks, I decided to find a pattern for baby socks. I found a pattern for kids' socks and just halved everything. It's hard to tell if the sweater and socks will fit, but I certainly hope they will.


And for purposes of seeing the "size differential" in socks for me and the baby socks....

OK, I've stalled long enough. I have things to do, people to see, and places to go. Errands Errands Errands.

It's raining hard one minute, and then sunny the next. The one thing that is consistent today is the wind.

We did a serious, long-overdue cleaning of our bathroom today.

We are in the office now, paying bills, keeping records, etc. etc. Alex is very comfortable on his window perch, keeping us company. Sort of.

Closer. He's all curled up, but his eyes opened to see what I was doing. He's not as gray as he was, but this picture isn't a good indicator due to the lighting.Here's cute shot of our evil cat, aka "OC" for "Orange Cat". He really is a cute one, and I love those green eyes.

Random Things on Saturday

Mmmmm, I must smell good. Both Mowry and Alex were sniffing me. It must be the jacket. Or not - apparently Mowry was smelling Will, too. I was outside clipping things, but I don't know what it was that attracted my otherwise aloof cat. Here he is standing on his hind legs to reach me in the desk chair so he could sniff my sleeve!I finished the baby sweater for my colleague/friend who just had a baby girl, but you would have guessed it is a girl! I need to sew on buttons and finish the socks I decided to make using half of a medium children's sock pattern. Speaking of socks, I just found this picture saved in the wrong place. They are still my favorites.

Looking outside the office window from the view Alex gets on his window perch, I can see lovely pink flowers and in the distance, the green hills and Niles sign.

The freesia in the yard is beautiful. Some are bright yellow, some pale yellow, as this one is, and some have lavender on them. They smell as pretty as they look. If only this was a scratch n' sniff. But then again, based on Alex sniffing me, maybe not! I think I'll go wash my jean jacket!

Busy Busy Busy

We left Saturday morning to drive to LA for my Mom's 80th birthday! It took us 6.5 hours - we stopped for lunch and it took and hour, instead of the 1/2 hour we expected. We drive faster than the posted 70 mph speed limit, but only about 75, and not 95 like the people who passed us.


We had dinner at a lovely restaurant, although reservations at 8:00 pm were far later than 90% of the 15 people would have ever eaten, especially us, after driving down that day.


Sunday we met my sister and her family for dinner at Mimi's in Orange County.

Then we stopped by her house and saw the new kitties. Here's one of them. They are so cute. They are littermates, and they do everything together, including using the litter box at the same time. I got some knitting done. I even knitted on one of the socks I'm knitting on I-5 (while Will was driving). I drove a few hours after lunch at Red Robin. Most people stop at Harris Ranch, but we weren't thrilled the last time we stopped there, so now we go to Red Robin. Harris Ranch put mayo on my burger when I specifically asked for "no mayo", among other things.

The back of the green vest I made my mother was riding up a little when she wore it, so I added a few inches of crochet along the bottom.

I forgot how nice this yarn is!Mom wore the vest on Monday when we went to see a taping of The Bonnie Hunt Show in Culver City. It was a fun time! We got lots of toys from the segment about a 5 year old boy who invents toys that was cut and not aired! You might be able to see us if you know what we look like! (If you're reading this you should, but I don't like to post real pictures on my blog!). We're at the very back to the left.

We went to visit Aunt Mary (for whom this blog is named) on Monday morning! Will had to go to Starbucks because his clients apparently forgot that he was unavailable and sent him email messages Monday morning needing this and that. We dropped him at a Starbucks in West Hollywood because it was the closest Wi-Fi place to Aunt Mare's. No fewer than 5 homeless people went in to use the bathroom to wash up while he was there, he kept getting knocked off the internet, which he needed to do his work, the glare from the windows made it hard to read the computer screen, and the last straw was when a prostitute in high red boots kept staring at him, and then finally went outside and tapped on the window to get his attention! That's when he called Aunt Mary's yelling "get me out of here. Come pick me up!". Not exactly a good advertisement for Starbucks!!!

We drove home Tuesday. There was a stretch of fog just at the Grapevine, but we were warned by freeway signs 10 miles ahead, and it didn't last long. Visibility was actually okay in the fog, so that was good.
There was a lot of traffic going southbound toward LA up near Castaic. If you build it, they will come.At one point there wasn't anyone behind us, as you can see in the rearview mirror. Pink blossoms along I-5.
There's no place like home. Look at the blooming flowers on the side of the house. The freesia smell delightful!

Dark pink and light pink cyclamen, and baby tears.
The freesias have multiplied and smell so nice. I cut a few and brought them inside to put in a vase, but I think the little flies I had in the house were from the flowers.Mouse update (I'm being optimistic - it could be a rat)...The Clarke Pest guy was scheduled to come Tuesday so we left early to be home for him. Unfortunately, he showed up Monday. That was never an option since we were still out of town. He came back Wednesday, and smelled the dead rodent in the garage (as I had, but Will did not ... lucky guy can't smell much of anything) but he didn't find him. He's coming back on Monday to check the new trap he set Wednesday. YUCK.

Then since we got home Tuesday night, I've been busy with clients. I had some work Tuesday afternoon, then at a client's office Wednesday, today and tomorrow, and also some work for whom I work remotely. In fact, it's 9:30 pm Thursday and I'm still working, but I had to update my blog in between! I swear it's feast or famine. I'm not complaining, I'm just tired tonight!!!!