Mother of 4 (for awhile!)

On Monday Donna from the shelter called me to talk about Orientation on Saturday. Not sure if you heard in the news, but they found a dead bat in the dog running area and it tested positive for rabies (common in bats). The health department has put most of the dogs on quarantine to make sure nothing was transmitted. Unfortunately to get to the main cat room, you have to walk through a corner of the dog area. So, according to the Health Dept, the cat room is off limits to volunteers. This will be for about three months. Because of this whole thing they're cancelling the dog part of the orientation, but there are other cat areas to volunteer in, so we're still doing the cat part. Donna needed to talk to me about the changes and new rules. As the conversation was finishing up, she said 'hey, want four kittens to foster? We don't have any room for them and Town Lake (the pound) said they're out of room too and would have to put them down.' Uh, ok! I picked them up Monday evening. They're about five weeks old, and just need another three weeks or so to get big enough to get fixed and adopted (need to weigh 2 pounds). It's two girls and two boys.



They loaned me a cage to keep them in. I really have to work on socialization. They are so hissy. At first on Monday and Tuesday anytime I reached my hand in they would all hiss at me. Tonight I was able to reach in a few times to pet them and they didn't hiss, so we're slowly making progress. I wouldn't call them 'friendly' yet, though. They keep massing in the far corner. I'm a little concerned with the black and white cause he won't eat in front of me. I've walked in a couple times and seen him eating, but all the other kittens will eat in front of me, so I know they're getting food. I'm especially trying to get the calico pictured in the back to eat a lot cause she's the runt. I moved my little tv from my bedroom into their room and left it on all day today. I thought leaving the tv on with sound would help them get used to noises. It seems to have worked, cause they were a lot better tonight with getting scared at sudden noises and movement.

Now the big decision is what to name them. Once adopted, the new owners usually change their names, so the names I will give them are more of a marketing tool to get them attention and make people want to visit with them. What I mean is the names have to be cute and eye-catching. I was thinking about Jam and Jelly for the two orange tabbies. My boss suggested Hazelnut for the calico. But, I can't come up with anything for the black and white. I don't want to do Oreo cause that's been done so much. Any suggestions for any or all? Let me know.

Still alive!

Damn, this month has flown by!

Here's a good story - I almost died last week! No joke. Wanna know more? Read on.

Last Tuesday I got my new tree in and also several of my trees were trimmed. I told my boss I'd be a bit late in the morning since I wanted to talk to the guys when they arrived, before they started cutting. It was 9 am when I was heading into work and traffic wasn't that bad. I was in the middle lane on the freeway, going 65. The guy in front of me merged to the right but the car in front of him was going slower. As I moved up, I thought I saw him starting to go back into my lane. Well, not really thinking, I kinda jerked the wheel a bit to the left to get out of his way. Bad idea. I completely lost control of the car, it swerved to the left and then to the right, and somehow I did a 180 turn to end up in the far right lane, facing traffic. My car was completely straight in the lane, just facing the wrong way. I just sat there looking at this car coming at me. Luckily he was able to stop in time and I had enough room to turn around and get going. (Surprisingly, I didn't cry....just went to work, though I was a little shaky.) Somehow, I didn't hit anyone or anything, no one hit me, and it didn't look like anyone else got into an accident. I really want to see video of what happened! I don't know if I hit the brakes or the gas, but I know I steered wrong. Isn't the trick to steer into a swerve? I just wasn't thinking and I know I was steering the opposite way. That probably is what caused the car to turn around. Over the next couple days I felt like a character in Final Destination. You know, that movie where they cheat death in the beginning but as the movie progresses the characters are killed in random but elaborate ways? I really was expecting something to happen. I went to CA for Kim's wedding from Thursday to Monday and I half expected my airplane to explode or something. Well, so far, still alive! Woo Hoo!

Anyways.....My trip to CA was fun. I flew direct into San Jose and stayed with my grandmother in Gilroy for Thursday night and Friday. My cousin just had a baby a couple weeks ago so I was able to see them, and her parents were in from Oregon, so it was also nice to see my Aunt and Uncle. We went to Bingo Friday night but no one won. Saturday morning I drove from Gilroy to Walnut Creek (about an hour) for Kim's wedding. It was in a restaurant courtyard in Walnut Creek (east bay area) and the weather was gorgeous. Jason officiated and did a wonderful job. It was the 10th wedding that he did! I got there a little early and crept into the girl's bathroom where Kim was getting ready. She was already in the dress and makeup, just waiting for everyone else to finish. Her photographer was busy getting shots outside, so I starting taking a bunch of shots of her, her mom, and her maid of honor. Got some good candids. I'll make a couple disks of them all and mail them. I don't think any are frame-worthy, but they'll be cute to have. She and her HUSBAND (!) Jeff are huge SF Giants fans and they had baseball cards made up of the two of them in Giants uniforms with bats and on the back of the card was the 'stats' of their relationship - when the met, were engaged, date of wedding, who was in the party, etc. It was adorable - and really different.

After the wedding I went to Stockton and Heidi, Andrea, David, and I went to the new baseball stadium they just built for the Stockton Ports (minor league baseball). Heidi and I got too scared so we left after an hour - all the balls were flying into the seats! The only previous baseball games I've been to were in St Louis for the Cardinals. That's a real stadium! Our seats were waaaay up. At the Stockton stadium it was just one level, so we were close to the game (good) and close to any fly/foul balls (bad). We were near first base, and there were A LOT of balls flying into the seats! You really had to pay attention. That just freaked us (Heidi and I) out. Also......baseball is kinda boring. So we left after an hour after making plans to go to San Fran with Andrea on Sunday. We were supposed to leave Stockton around 8am to get to Fisherman's Wharf early and get free parking. Thank God Heidi checked the bus schedule in SF cause Sunday was the Bay to Breakers Race (huge marathon that gets 100,000+ people). Uh, yeah, SF got scratched off the list. We ended up going back to Walnut Creek and shopped for a few hours. Andrea had to get back to her house in the Bay Area so we drove in separate cars and I went back to Stkn with Heidi. And yes, we got In&Out burgers on the way home.

Sunday night I just hung out with Heidi and her fiance Bert. They're getting married in August so I'll be going out to CA for that too. Heidi teaches 1st Grade and Bert has his own bailing business. He goes to farms in the area and bales hay, straw, alfalfa, whatever. It's a tough job cause the dew point has to be just right, so it's a lot of working in the early morning and at night. Most farmers pay to have it done cause it takes special equipment and stuff. Right now is his busiest time. Sunday night he had to drop his truck off at the next location he'd be doing. We followed him in Heidi's car and then drove him to where his tractor was (about three miles away on another farm). I took this picture and I think it came out really cute.

Drive bye

well that's just a clever title. Just a quick note to say how much Fox can kiss my ass. They screwed me with Firefly. They screwed me with Wonderfalls, and now after three episodes they screwed me with Drive. It was a new mid-season replacement show created by Tim Minear - one of the old Buffy/Angel guys and starred Nathan Fillion from Firefly. Premise was an illegal cross country car race. I taped the first episodes and watched them all at once on Thursday. It was decent and I was getting into the characters, plot, and motivations. Then when I went to the latest one, it was a House repeat. Huh? I checked online, and yup, even though they made 9 episodes, they only showed three and already cancelled it. Why can't they give shows a chance anymore? Cheers and The Cosby Show and Seinfeld weren't that popular the first season! Sometimes you have to give your audience a chance to get into it! So disappointing.

If you can find it, check out Firefly and Wonderfalls. All created episodes are out on DVD and worth a view.

Oh, Randy...Netflix isn't pay-per-view...well I guess it is kinda....it's an online rental website where they send you DVDs in the mail from your movie queue and you watch them and send them back. It's a flat monthly fee and I get three movies at a time. As soon as I mail them back I get new ones. When I was really on the ball I was getting twenty movies a month. Now I'm down to about 10. I've been on it for a few years and am completely addicted. I've seen a ton of movies I'd never even heard of, and they have an excellent independent and classic selection as well as more mainstream movies and tv shows. I don't think Japan has anything like it.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Now that I have patio furniture for my back patio I wanted to get some potted plants and make it really pretty. Friday right after work I headed over to Garden Ridge using the new 45 Toll Road (love it! saves 20 minutes getting to RR!). On the way there Mike called to say they were meeting at Dominics (awesome local pizza place owned by a brother and sister from Italy) and then his place to play on his Wii. I couldn't make Dominics since I was too focused on getting some flower pots, but I did make it for the Wii. That is one awesome gaming machine. I guess it helps that we played it on his 10ft theater screen so everything was life-sized. We played the basic sports package that it came with. I've got to say - graphics really don't matter as long as the game is FUN. If you aren't familiar with the Wii their big selling point is you hold the remote in your hand and the game recognizes your movement - so it's not just hitting buttons, it's actually your arm/hand movement that plays the game. We played Tennis and Golf, and using an extra second-hand remote we played the boxing game. Jayne and I KICKED ASS on the boxing game. If you strap weights to your wrists you could really get a workout! I kept trying to do an upper-cut but it wouldn't let me. But, you could dodge to the left and right and the game recognized what you were doing and made your screen fighter match your movement. Jayne was so entranced she went and bought one on Sunday.

Saturday after Orientation at the shelter I met up again with Mike and Annette to head over to Pflugerville. We met Jayne at Chuys (didn't even know there was one over there!) and then went back to Jayne's house to help her on some house projects. She had a boo-boo hand due to some ill-advised in-air plane repairs. She said she should have learned her lesson from Snakes on a Plane and always send the co-pilot! Some of the stuff she needed done required more than one person anyways. So, here's what we got done: hung a curtain rod above a large window in her family room, hung two faux-wood blinds up in the kitchen after removing the old ones, installed a ceiling fan, fixed her kitchen faucet which was spraying out water by tieing a baggie full of CLR to the faucet head and dissolving the calcium build-up, and trimming a large hedge in her backyard. While Mike and I did all that Jayne and Annette made very yummy snickerdoodle cookies. I will definitely have to the recipe for those. After that we played a few games of pool and then called it in early around 8:30.

I always have so much more motivation when it's someone else's house! I need someone to motivate me on my front yard work. Any takers? Any one? Any one? chirp chirp silence....ok ok. I met with my tree guy today and the new tree will be in on Monday. I was hoping to have it before I host Party Game Night on Friday, but oh well. He's also going to trim some trees in the back that haven't been done in a couple years. I'm hoping once the tree gets in that will make me want to spruce up the rest of the yard. I still haven't decided if I'm going to put in sprinklers or not.

Sunday I met up with Jayne and Gil at the Alamo and saw Hot Fuzz. Loved it! It's from the same guys as Shaun of the Dead which is one of my favorite movies. I thought it was hilarious. I hope it does well in the theaters. Jayne mentioned that she read my blog. The whole thing all at once. I can't even imagine how long that would take! I felt very special though. That was sweet of her...or maybe she was just hella bored! Hee. Hi Jayne! After that I headed to my neighbor Byron's house and spent five hours putting together a coffee table. I think I mentioned before going to the gem and rock shows and buying a bunch of sliced agates, jasper, and other random rocks. I'm going to inlay it into a table and pour epoxy over it that will make a glass-like surface. The table construction is going well. It's made out of oak and we basically got the thing totally constructed from all the raw pieces of wood. Now we just have to sand it a bit more, stain it, and varnish the hell out of it before we do the center rock piece. I want to take the time to do it right cause hopefully it'll last a long time. And since I'm not very gentle with my furniture it has to withstand feet and whatnot being put on it. I'm kinda nervous about the center rock piece cause if that goes badly the whole project is ruined. We're going to have to do some test runs before the actual table pour. I'll post pictures when I'm done (of course!). I've learned a lot of carpentry tricks from him. Maybe I'll make some other stuff too. I'll think about it.

Oh, for those interested baby Ian is doing well. He's over three pounds and did end up having to have heart surgery, but everything went well. Melanie and Dan bought a house in Pflugerville that I just found out today is really really close to where Jayne lives - same exit, different side.