ER and CATS and things

Last night at around 9 pm I got this weird, sharp pain in my lower left back, and around the front. It was similar to a pain I woke up with one morning 15 years ago that turned out being a kidney stone. I called the Kaiser Advice Nurse, who thought I should come into the emergency room even though the pain had stopped. I chose to go to sleep, but when I laid down in bed, it started again.

Long story short - 11:00 pm - almost 2:00 am in the ER - blood, urine, CT scan, and it's a kidney stone and infection. I'm floating away with the amount of water I've been drinking, but the pain stopped this afternoon, so I'm hoping it passed even if I missed the blessed event. I hear it's worse for men, but I also hear it's worse than labor. I vow to drink more water every day no matter how many times it makes me pee.

When I clipped off the hospital bracelet it dropped on the floor, but at 2:15 am I didn't care. Apparently it is a VERY cool cat toy, especially in the middle of the night. I got a great pair of GAP jeans and khaki capris at a garage sale last weekend. I get my best jeans at garage sales. I hope we can do some G-sales tomorrow. We'll see.

Ziggy was blocking the bathroom door the other day. This is HIS territory!

Alex was sitting on top of the bookcase that we got from Gale. The photo was a giveaway from a neighbor a few months ago. He's WAY too big for this.

Speaking of BIG Alex, we always said if he got out, there would be reports of mountain lion sightings in Fremont. In today's paper the headline reads "It's not a mountain lion, it's just a really big cat" with the subtitle "Feline roaming around in Hayward determined by state to be a Maine coon". Our private joke became someone's reality. That cat was reported to be 45 lbs, but I find that hard to believe. Al is HUGE and is "only" about 20 lbs.

Mowry was happy that I left the blanket I crocheted MANY years ago on the bed for him.

This CAN'T be a comfortable position to sleep in, can it? Forget "sleeping like a baby", how about "sleeping like a kitty cat"????

Mother Nature at Her Best!

This morning Will was driving me to the train station, and on a road that is surrounded by undeveloped land near a farm, we noticed the car in front of us and the car coming in the opposite direction were stopped so three geese could cross the road. The Canada Geese hang out at Lake Elizabeth in Central Fremont, and the Quarry Lakes near where we saw them, so they aren't a rare sight. Geese crossing the street, and drivers stopping for them was the rare sight! I didn't have my camera, so this is a stock photo, but it kind of looked like this!

Will looked up and said "Why don't they fly? They're geese - they can just fly across the street. If I was a goose, I'd fly." As he finished saying that, and we were laughing at how cool it was to be stopping to wait for geese to cross the road, the remaining three geese did indeed fly across!

We decided that for at least the rest of the day that any time we saw someone who annoyed us (and it didn't take long) we'd think of the geese!

Right after we passed the geese we saw a peacock strutting by on the farm land. It didn't need to impress us, so its feathers were not spread, but it was still awesome.

Plants and Animals (CATS, of course!)

Another picture from The Late Late Show that I finally got off my camera! Unfortunately, the flash flashed on the TV screen. Can you see us? Bottom right corner.

Fresh basil growing from seed.

Look at it from just two weeks ago!
Peppers from seed. The taller plants are garlic that I thought I pulled out. I finally yanked out the artichoke plant and used the pot here. This tomato plant was in the ground (not in a pot) next to the huge lavender bush, but it is looking pathetic, so I replanted it in a pot and put it where it will get more sun.

The plant looks pathetic, but it's producing nice tomatoes.

Remember the pathetic brown fountain grass plant I bought on the clearance rack at Target (because it looked pretty bad)? It looked better here, but .....look at it today!
I'm Alex, king of the Crow's Nest!

The kittens next door are growing. They were wrestling when I went to see them today. The neighbors keep the slider open for their dog and cats to access, so I'm guessing the kittens have ventured out, too. Pretty soon we'll see them in our backyard! Maybe they have been in our yard and that's why Mow has reacted from the windowsill, even when we didn't see anything.

The gray tabby has beautiful spots on his belly, but I didn't get a picture of them.

Pictures from Los Angeles

Before we left for our whirlwind tour of Los Angeles, I captured this picture of Ziggy. I emptied the box that had contained the items from under the sink during the faucet replacement process, but I hadn't yet put away the box.


We left Saturday morning to drive down I-5. There was more traffic than the last time we did this, which was in March, which is why. It's summer and people are on the road.


The one landmark on I-5 that anyone who has ever driven down I-5 knows about is Harris Ranch and the gazillions of cows near Harris Ranch. You can't miss it. Or can you? Between the sight of all of these cows, and the smell, even when your windows are closed, it seems impossible to miss. For the record, my cranky camera wouldn't take this picture for Will, so I just held it up and clicked because I was also driving at the time. I am amazed at how good it came out. Sometimes I try so hard to make sure a picture is right, and it doesn't come out as good as this did!
We decided after once stopping for lunch at Harris Ranch when after a long wait they put mayo on our burgers, even though we clearly asked for them without, that we actually preferred Red Robin on the other side of I-5, same exit. I was making notes for about 45 minutes on a project I am thinking of doing, and talking my list over with Will, when I realized it was about 11:30 am and we should be near the Harris Ranch exit for our Red Robin lunch. I just looked this up on Google Maps (even though I try to avoid Google, sometimes it's the quickest and best) and apparently we (we being Will) drove 56 miles past Harris Ranch to Lost Hills where we had lunch at Denny's!!!!!


Before that, we went thru Pacheco Pass. While this picture is beautiful, it unfortunately shows the low level of the lake because of the drought.
The picture below is from our drive in March, 2009, and while it's a different perspective, the lake sure looks lower now than it did back in March.

We saw many full tomato trucks going north on I-5. During one 20 minute interval I counted 65 double tomato trucks like the one below. That's a lot of tomatoes! You can't believe how hard it was to get a good picture of moving trucks going northbound from the passenger seat on southbound I-5. It took several tries and several pictures of road, with no trucks because the trucks had passed my frame before the camera operator (that's me!) clicked!
And here are empty trucks going southbound on I-5 to pick up more tomatoes.


Rehearsal dinner at Loew's Hotel in Santa Monica was fabulous, as was the view of the Santa Monica Pier at dusk. The appetizers (because I don't want to look up the french "h" word) were the best I've ever had.
The ferris wheel is lit up with solar powered lighting on the Santa Monica Pier.
The wedding in the garden area of the Ritz Carlton in Marina del Rey was lovely.

Congratulations and best wishes to Michele and Justin.

We had a nice visit seeing relatives and friends, and staying with the parents! Thanks, Mom and Dad, as always, for your gracious hospitality as we left piles of our stuff all over while we were there! We cleaned up and like magic, it was gone when we left!

We went to a taping of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. We ran into traffic on the way there, so the drive was stressful (reminder: that's why I don't live in LA any more), but we made it! The instructions said no purses, bags, cell phones, cameras, so we left it all home, but of course some people had purses and they let them in! I tried to take a close up picture from our recorded version on our TV from another time we were both on screen (if you count our backs) but my camera decided not to cooperate, so this is what you get!

Mom made us delicious tri-tip sandwiches for the drive home, so we made only a few quick stops - one for gas and potty, one at a rest stop to eat our lunch, and another at Casa de Fruta (more on that later) and we were home by 1:30 pm.

We saw MANY of these signs that say "Congress Created Dust Bowl" because of the irrigation issues farmers are facing.
We saw more tomato trucks, though not as many as we saw on Saturday, and a few cotton trucks. I wanted to reach out and catch some of the flying cotton, but of course that wasn't possible!
Thank you to Ken and Diann for checking on the kitties to make sure they hadn't eaten all the food or drank all the water we put out for them, hadn't tipped over their boxes, or filled them completely, and most of all, hadn't killed each other. They only saw Ziggy - who was on the bed. Since he was the one we were most concerned with since the other two bully him, that was good! It's funny because he never goes on the bed.

We stopped at Casa de Fruta near Gilroy on the way home. Most of their stuff is overpriced, but we found something unique and funky for Diann and Ken. Last time we bought garlic flavored pistachios for them, and about a week later pistachios went on the recall list, but Casa de Fruta assured me theirs were not affected. We decided to get something else this time. It turns out that our local farm now sells garlic flavored pistachios, and we didn't realize that, but why get them at Casa de F, especially when they cost less at our farm, and we like to shop at our local farm, but I digress. Last time we went here there was a fancy store, and I asked what happened to the fruit stand-like building, and they said it wasn't there, but it WAS there - a few buildings down. It drives me nuts when employees have no clue what they are talking about, but there I go digressing again.
Dorothy was right, there's no place like home. That's Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" if you missed that! From the side passenger mirror I see no cars directly behind us for a long time, and Mission Peak. What a beautiful sight! We are almost home driving down Mission Blvd.

The cats must have been on top of the plastic storage bin because that's where these shirts were on Saturday when we left!

This morning Mowry was very glad we were back. No, you're not seeing double. That's OC (orange cat, as he is affectionately known by my cousin, Barbara) on a scratching post in the office reflected by the mirror!

Very random photos - updated 11:15 am

This week has gone fast! I'm glad we started preparing last weekend for our drive to LA this upcoming weekend so we're not rushing around at the last minute, although there always seems to be some of that. We have to water and finalize packing with things we use daily on Saturday before we head out.

I'm going thru old pictures and found some to post here. Yes, Mowry does occasionally play with a cat toy, but it's rare. The banana came with Ziggy, and it's Alex's favorite. Alex has been known to drool on the banana, but this time it was Mow who had it in his paws.
This is my favorite picture of Ziggy.
Ziggy and Alex eating together. It's a rare site! I think that's Alex in the foreground because I see some white in the ears.
I'm still amazed at how fast this plant has grown. This picture was taken a few days ago.
This picture was taken in May. That's NOT that long ago!

UPDATE - 11:15 am: PLEASE READ!

EUUUUUUUUUUUUUU - we (make that "I") found the dead rodent from several months ago. I went out back to water the tomatoes and noticed poop (from the racoons?) and several bird feathers. I went in to get Will, and apparently when I did, a huge box in the garage came tumbling down and so did others. Stuck to a plastic bag in the garage was the dead rodent. Is that disgusting?

I had collected empty discarded Marlboro boxes because it seemed that wherever I went, some Marlboro smoker had just inconsiderately dumped their box as if it wasn't litter. I had a bag full of them, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, so it was in the garage. The rodent was stuck to the bag, so now the bag and the rodent and bag of Marlboro boxes are appropriately going to the dump together.

The good news... (yes, there's good news in this story) is that today is trash pickup day, and the trash truck was LITERALLY next door as Will rescued me and with gloved hands put the dead rodent into a bag, so Will ran down the driveway (there's a visual for you) with the bag and made the trash pickup. The rodent was decomposed (yuck again) and was probably a rat like the Clarke pest control guy thought. I knew one day I'd find it, but I thought I'd be rummaging thru a box, so this was better.

And on the lighter side of life, I took this picture of the bad cat on the table in the sunroom. We still love him, even when he's bad!

I had collected

Monday Pictures

I'm trying to figure out why companies are so bureaucratic, love so much paper and are just so inefficient. It's a wonder how some of them can do their core business.



The other day all three cats were on a perch. NOT together, of course, but on their own perch. It's a good thing we have three perches!!!! Two were free, and one was $1 at a garage sale! These things can be expensive.



Ziggy was on the window perch, which someone gave away and I claimed on our local Freecycle email group. He likes the window view.Mowry is on the top of the cat tree that we got at a garage sale for $1 - it's ripped in the middle level, but who cares! It's a cat scratching tree! Alex was on the top of his Crow's Nest, a gift from a friend who decided that even though she rescues cats and has MANY, she didn't want this in her house any more! It was in perfect condition. Mowry used to hang out up here, but a few months ago Alex discovered it, and now he's here all the time. Notice his white paws, and especially the fur on this hind paw! This is classic Maine Coon breed.

Look at the look on Mow's face. He's pretty intense, and yet goofy, as he sits on the middle level of the cat tree.

Alex was looking at something in the yard from the sun room. He is BIG. For size comparison, that's a stereo turntable he's sitting on, and a backrest pillow next to him. A lot of it is fur, but a lot is not. He's long, tall, and wide, and very furry!

The new faucet looks great and is working. I'm embarrassed to say that I usually try to lift it like the old unit instead of turning the handles! I guess I AM a creature of habit after all!

Below is basil that I'm growing from seeds. The tree balls are supposed to keep the snails away since snails supposedly won't climb over them, but I see a chewed leaf. Imagine what it would be like if I didn't have those snail deterrents.

I actually grew this cilantro plant from seeds. When I remember, I like to pick cilantro and put it in my salad.

The plant out front seems to grow so fast, I think I could probably see it grow if I was willing to sit out there in the sun and watch it! Notice the boat down the street.

Today Wrigley field would be quiet because it's the All Star Break, but yesterday it was rockin'!