Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happy 85th birthday, dad! Mel is the sister of Aunt Mare, for whom this blog is named. My dad is playing around with his new laptop, but this morning he told me when he turned it on, there was nothing on the screen. I'm not sure what that means, and Will HATES being technical support, so we'll see how that goes. At least he read the book that came with the computer, which is more than I have ever done. I don't read manuals. I am just bummed that the computer didn't come on Saturday so I could have hooked it up and gotten him started while I was there! Timing is everything, but I'm sure it'll work out. UPDATE: Erin helped him set up and he's ONLINE!



CAT STUFF - I love this picture of my niece's cat getting a bath. (It's posted on her blog, so I hope she doesn't mind that I copied it and posted it here).
Cat bath - isn't that an oxymoron? It just seems wrong. They hate baths. But sometimes they need them. Cinders would be a prime example of that - she's matted and a little stinky, but I value my life, so no bath for Cinders. Even the vet or a groomer wouldn't attempt a bath unless she was sedated, and we won't do that to her.

Our cats help Will work.
This time it's Mowry peekimg from behind the monitor, Alex on the DVD player and Cinders in her spot atop the battery backups.




We found old checks from a credit union account we closed. Will started to shred them, but then Cinders came to the rescue. She's got her paws around the check pile.
And speaking of cats, I think as dumb as cats can be, they are often smarter than some humans. Humans have the capacity to think and make decisions. Here are two pictures I saved from the web cam at our local train station. Apparently the ACE train was coming in on the other track, so instead of taking a few minutes to walk around, these stupid people walked across the tracks. How dumb do you have to be to walk across live train tracks?



I wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper about this, and they called to confirm, so it will be published. I'm betting anyone dumb enough to walk across train tracks isn't smart enough to read a newspaper, but if it saves one life, it's worth it. I didn't send them a picture.

I call it natural selection. Survival of the fittest, getting the stupid ones out of the gene pool, etc. If one of these idiots fell and broke an ankle or leg (it happens), they'd be stuck on the track and the train wins this contest every time. I am appalled when I see this. I'm glad I wasn't there because I would have to scream at these people, and it really is not my problem to teach idiots about life. At least if these people don't have enough respect for themselves to value their lives and not do something completely stupid, they should have respect for the train driver who has to live with hitting them if they get hit.

I can't wait until my dad can get online and read my blog!

Monday - Los Angeles, Knitting, Airports, etc.

We were in Los Angeles for the weekend. Virgin American Airlines had a special when they first started flying from San Francisco Airport, so I got $25 fares. Airline math is different, so it wasn't $100 after taxes, security fee, blah blah blah, but it was still an excellent price, and it is my dad's 85th birthday on Wednesday, so the timing was great. We had to fly out of SFO - an airport that has flight delays if someone sneezes in Fremont. OK, I exaggerate, but it is the first airport of SFO, Oakland, and San Jose to have weather problems, and the most major delays at that. Their runways aren't enough, and it's political, but it's the worst. But BART now goes right into the airport, and we're 5 minutes from BART, so we tried it.

We asked our neighbor, Karla, to drive us to BART since it is literally 5 minutes away. While waiting we noticed the sign for the Fremont train in the opposite direction. No train, just a sign for a very long time. Then a train came by moving very slowly. Will noticed a dog on the tracks in front of the slow-moving train. I decided to call the Station Agent, so I picked up the white phone and said "I assume you know there is a dog on the tracks" since I figured the BART driver would have called him, but he didn't. Then our train came, but stopped before the station. The funny part was when the dog stopped running on the tracks to poop. But it wasn't that funny because at any moment the dog would have been fried by electrocution had it touched the electric rail on the BART tracks.

Someone ran out on the tracks (we thought it was the driver, but it was probably the station agent) obviously knowing where he could run and where it was dangerous, and tried to capture the German Shepard that had a collar and tags. The dog ran in a direction away from the tracks, although it's all fenced, so hopefully the man was able to capture the frightened dog; but our train pulled into the station and we left without knowing what happened.

Our flight was excellent. You know I get cranky when I have to simulate cattle when I fly on Southwest, so this is a major complement to Virgin America, who is extremely civilized, particularly compared with Southwest. For one thing, we picked our seats when we bought our tickets online, sSo there isn't any of the frantic lining up early to get a good seat because even though we were the last group to board, our seats were waiting for us. They served Clif Bars instead of peanuts and it was all around a delightful experience. Are you listening, Southwest?

We had a nice visit with the parents, and saw my niece and her boyfriend and my cousin and her husband.

These are two of my loyal blog readers!

You know how parents can annoy their offspring (or is it the other way around... probably both), but all in all we had a lovely visit. I got a lot of knitting done! Unfortunately, I was pressing on the needle tip protector and I broke the circular part of the needle, but I brought a baby blanket and a sock project, so I just switched projects. You can see the piece of needle that broke off, andhow my baby blankiet is coming along. I knitted about half of the pink that you see in the same pattern as the white, but I didn't like it, so I ripped it and did it again in a rib pattern. It looks small, but it's the right size!

We had lunch with my friend, Sandy, and then she drove us to LAX, only to find out our flight was delayed first by 20 minutes and then by a half hour. That gave Will time to watch some of the SuperBowl at the airport bar, but he missed the great deciding play because that happened at the last few minutes of the game.I had to wait awhile to capture a picture without a vehicle!Our pilot thought we might have turbulance due to the winds, but it was pretty smooth and quite pretty.We were very happy to see SFO.

It seems like it takes so long to get from one place to another. Traveling is something I don't particularly enjoy. I'm a homebody and I don't like to schlepp. The BART ride from SFO home wasn't as good as the one getting there - it was dark and it was Sunday evening and there were weirdos on the train. Here is BART at SFO.Ken picked us up at our BART station. It was much later than we had anticipated - partly because our flight was late, and partly due to a miscalculation on my part of the time, but he was not concerned.

Our kitties were in good hands while we were gone, but they were happy to see us.We woke up to a cold morning of 36 degrees, and 48 in our house, with frost on the rooftops and cars, but it isn't nearly as cold as it was this morning in Durango where it's been snowing for days according to my cousin, Traci, who lives there. The town doesn't usually see as much snow as out of town where she lives, but you can see it here - it snowed in town and stuck!

Thank you Mom, Dad, Karla, Sandy, Ken and Diann.

Wait and then hurry up....

Sometimes we have to hurry up and wait, and wait and wait, but for me this week was the opposite. It started out as an easy week with clients - Monday was a new client meeting with billable time and a future date to contract with them for a particular project, Tuesday I was at a client's office where I shared an office with a sick person who should have stayed home (OK, that was bad), at home yesterday preparing dinner for friends, cleaning, doing errands but I got confirmation from a new client in Fremont (!), and today a huge project that had me working 9.75 hours. At least I got to work on it from home.


Yesterday I went to the doctor because when I sit at my desk my arm hurts. As suspected, it's a muscle/tendon. I wanted confirmation that that was the problem (I had it about a month ago and it went away, and Will JUST asked me earlier this week how it was, and the day after I responded "fine" it came back). Short of changing my whole setup, I wanted to know if there are exercises I can do, which there are.


It's been cold here - we even lit a nice big fire and turned the chairs and TV around so we could sit by the fire and see the TV.

Sometimes are cats are smart, and sometimes they are just cats. All three were in the office with us today. Mowry is about to leave but Alex looks pretty happy.

This is actually Alex sleeping in his favorite spot - that's the DVD player digging into his neck (to the right). This looks very uncomfortable.

Cinders prefers to be curled up on the desk near electronics, but not on them.And Mowry is all curled up on the towel behind my monitor. Sometimes I forget he's there, but then he'll meow if I move quickly. We're off to LA tomorrow. Have a nice weekend.

Wet and Windy

It's been raining most of the week, but the workers who were fixing sidewalks lifting from trees were out there yesterday right before it started raining.

It's not as cold as it is in Durango, CO. It doesn't look real, but as you can see from the date stamp, this was yesterday morning in Durango. Cousins Traci and Mike live a bit out of the main town, so I can imagine they had even more snow.

When it rains in California, the hills get beautifully green. This is the back and side of my LYS (local yarn store, for my non-knitting readers).

I promised not to complain about the cold, proclaiming one hot day last summer that I'd rather be cold because you can put on more clothes, blankets, etc., than hot when you can't get cool unless you stand in front of an air conditioner, but I give up. I am officially complaining. It's cold! No higher than 43 yesterday? THIS IS CALIFORNIA - not Colorado or Alaska. The rain doesn't bother me as much as the cold. ONLY the wicked witch will melt in the rain, and based on the behaviors of people rushing for cover in the rain, I suspect there are lots of wicked witches out there. And speaking of the wicked witch...

It's just Mowry resting behind my monitor.

This looks only slightly more comfortable.My second sock of pair #4 is coming along. I'm trying not to work on it too much because it's perfectly portable for our trip to L.A. next weekend.My knit in the round (read: very few seams, yay!) sweater (with sleeve length TBD - as long as I have enough yarn to knit) is coming along. I prefer knitting in the round but I'm on the part where I'm knitting and purling the back half while the front half is on a holder. Diann is right - this is NICE yarn. Someone is selling 18 skeins of black Unger Plantation (this yarn) on eBay, but I really do NOT need any more yarn yet.We're officially hibernating, much to the consternation of our friends who want to go out to dinner with us. It's not that we don't want to go out to dinner, although that is a treat, and something we don't do very often, it's that we don't want to go out at all until summer because it's so darned cold. You should have heard Will yelp when he came back from getting the mail, which is right outside our front door! We're California weather wimps, and proud of it! But we'll see - maybe we will go to dinner this weekend.

Long Post with Cool Pictures

We went to Sahuarita, AZ, which is south of Tucson. This is a trip that was postponed from October when Alex was sick and he needed medication, observation and love, none of which he would accept from anyone but us. We took Southwest Airlines, which is always a pain (see prior posts) but while we left about 5-15 minutes late on each leg, we got in on time! While their new system still isn't assigned seating, it worked! Did I just say that? I may complain when things suck, but I also admit when they work or I am not right.

It was nice to meet Will's childhood friend and his wife. They were very gracious hosts opening their home and weekend to us.

Friday night we went for Mexican food at a place that had been around since 1922. The wait was absurd, but I attribute that to one inept hostess, and one good hostess - they only needed the good one. The food was excellent.

On Saturday we went to the Titan Missile Museum. http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/, the only publicly accessible Titan II missile site in the nation. We toured the underground missile site, saw the 3-ton blast doors, the 8-foot thick silo walls, and an actual Titan II missile in the launch duct.

This is the underground launch control center where the prospective, but never needed launch would have taken place.

Then we went for a drive and walked around the desert. I always thought desert was cactus and sand, but Will loves the desert and I try to see it thru his eyes. While the Phoenix/Scottsdale area seems more like cactus and sand, this area was really quite spectacular.

When cactus turns purple, it needs water. I didn't know that ever happened.

Apparenty there is a spot on my lense that closes when not in use, so hopefully I was able to clean it off today. Who knew it can be colder in AZ than in Fremont, CALIFORNIA? It was in the 30s at night, but it was windy and chilly at Oakland Airport when we got home.

We had lunch at Wisdom's in Tumacacori, AZ (http://www.wisdomscafe.com/) that has been there since 1944. I couldn't pronounce that if I heard it 10 times. Great burger!There was some colorful stuff here outside of the natural beauty.

We even crossed the Santa Cruz River without a bridge in a Chevy Impala. Apparently you can do that in the desert if you know what to do, how deep it is, etc. No pictures, though. I was IN the car. Below is one of the many ways Border Patrol keeps a watch. This pecan orchard is very close to where they live.

Jerry and Jane have an adorable silky poo (part silky terrier and part poodle). Somehow I didn't think of taking her picture! She was really cute for a dog! But we missed our kitties.

Unfortunately for our friends, Ken and Diann, the burglar alarm went off when they came in on Sunday, after all had gone well for them on Saturday. The 91 year old neighbor across the street called the police. I didn't know she could even hear the alarm. Ken and Diann talked to the police and met our neighbor next door. When we came home, I opened the door and the alarm seemed different, but only when I called Diann did I find out what had happened. I called our neighbor to thank her - it's good to know neighbors care enough to watch out for you, and do something if they think there may be a problem. That alarm is VERY loud. I hope they are still willing to check on the kitties when we go to LA in a few weeks.

We missed our kitties, who were VERY bad this morning. At about 5:00 this morning I was dreaming about something work-related when I heard a loud crash that in my dream I thought was an earthquake. Will got up to see what it was - someone (could he be orange, cute and smaller than his brother?) knocked over the kitchen table. The kitchen table isn't particularly strong or sturdy, but that must have been quite a leap to knock it over. I'm just glad I moved the two old 1950s yellow and green bowls I keep on the table before we went away. BAD KITTY. They don't look like they could cause trouble, but take my word for it!

We had a very nice trip. It was fun to see Will and Jerry reminiscing about old times when they were just boys getting into boy kinda trouble, and catching up - meeting two of their kids, the 3 grandkids, etc. But Dorothy was right - there's no place like home! We were glad to get home!

We hope they will come to Niles to see us this summer or next.

Pictures of things

It's Wednesday and I am working from home. And yes, I'm really working, but reports are slow, so I can update this blog while I wait. AND I have an orange cat on my desk. It doesn't get any better than that.

Last night we went to open mic after about a month. It's Tuesdays and one Tuesday was Christmas Eve, one was New Years' Eve and then the restaurant took a vacation. Will played his bongos with guitarist Eddie and they rocked!

While listening to the acts, I worked on sock #2 of pair #4 (Pairs #1 and #2 were successful and I wear them all the time, while pair #3 was a failure with one turning out larger than the other, so it's on hold for now). I don't want to work on this sock too much because it's the perfect portable project for our travels to Tucson this weekend. I've only knitted about an inch or so of sock #2. I'm keeping sock #1 of this pair handy for reference so I can make sure they end up the same size!
Speaking of Tucson, we had to postpone once when Alex was very sick and needed medication, observation and love, which he only accepts from us, and barely at that. I'm just getting over a cold that was pretty much a "no-show" (barely could tell I had a cold) but now Will is getting my cold. I NEVER give him my cold. And you know colds are for guys. I convinced him to suck on zinc lozenges, and his friend said it was okay to come out there even with a cold, so we're bound and determined.


Can you tell how big Alex is? He's on a DVD player. It's not on, so it's not warm, but he still likes sitting on it!

I got up from my recliner and left my blankie. If that isn't an invitation to kitties, I don't know what is. First there were three. Then there were two. (Cinders is there, she's just not in the picture).

And then there was one. Alex is skittish and ran away when I approached. Nothing disturbs Mowry's cat nap.