Throwback Thursday

Back story: My former housemate, Anne, ended up adopting an adorable family of kittens and during my fly-by visit back to Chicago in Spring of 2012 I got to stop by and see how they were growing up. Here are few more:

Random photo Sunday

I hope you all had enjoyable weekends! I did too, however now it is almost Monday and I think I might be coming down with a cold. So instead of a blog post, you get this cute cat photo, enjoy!

A Saturday my parents would be proud of

So this morning I woke up for breakfast with the house at 8am and instead of heading back to bed afterwards, I changed into my grubby jeans and helped Penny sweep and clean the back porch and patio.  Then I swept the front porch and took pictures of Lina (the cat) getting a taste of the backyard (in the case of certain grasses, I mean this rather literally).  After lunch, I did indulge in a nap (and not my Dad’s 30 minute nap either, mine was closer to 1.5 hours), but eventually roused myself and dug my bike out of cold storage, filled its tires and rode it down to the Recyclery Collective.  There a friendly bike volunteer helped me replace my shifting cable and part of the housing, oil my chain and generally give my poor 13 year old bike a rub down.  Our efforts weren’t in vain because now my bike works smoothly and doesn’t slip as I bike.  Now time for a shower and then off to take photos at a 50th wedding anniversary.

Good things

1. Spring Break was so lovely – I could probably write more, but right now I will just say it was a solidly good time as evidenced by these pictures.

Visits with good friends!

Being goofy on sunny afternoons

Baking super sugary butter filled rolls of yum

Catching up with old friends in new apartments

Ferry rides at sunset

And last but not least spending time with this handsome fellow!

2. I have a cat again – Well, not a particularly new cat, but I am once again living with Lina (formerly known as biscuit/kitty/thumps/cleo/etc) who couldn’t move right away with Jess into her new digs.  So far it is kind of fun to have a cat to snuggle with again, however as I learned last night it is less fun with said snuggle beast decides to noisily investigate one’s closet at midnight.

This also means a chance to re-introduce the "pissed kitty" category on this blog.

3. I am talking to Alex tonight – Yay for Skype (or more specifically Google Video Chat)

4. My job interview went well – I know I am going up against at least 20 candidates and have absolutely no idea how the interviewer felt about me (at least in comparison to others), so I am keeping my expectations very very low.  But on the good side, I should know one way or another by next week.

5. Downton Abbey is my new favorite thing – My favorite character is a tie between the dowager countess (Maggie Smith, of course) and the valet with a limp. If you have Netflix or Amazon Prime, you should be able to view this BBC mini-series online. If not rent it, you won’t be disappointed.

Basic plot line is the dual story of an rich aristocracy family and the servants who care for them living in Britain during the early 1900s. The season opens with the sinking of the Titanic and closes with the start of World War I, unfortunately season 2 isn't showing for at least another year.

6. Spring, or at least the sun seems to be here – There is something down right giddifying (and yes I just made that word up) about fresh green shoots.  I always forget how much I love spring, right up until it turns every thing green and all of a sudden my mood improves by at least 50 aesthetic points.

7. Anticipating baking chocolate raspberry birthday cake – Conveniently my housemates have birthdays every once in while, which I tend to see as excuse to whip up butter, flour and sugar into cake form.  So fun!

I won't be baking a cake this size (and I won't have Becca to help 😦 ) but I am going to use this same amazing instant fudge frosting.

Brief selection of recent Flickr uploads

So on Memorial Day, a friend hosted another awesome Murder Mystery Dinner and this time it was set in 1943 – Great Britain.  Which of course meant lots of fun trying to dig up a vintage outift.  With some help from Jess (thanks for letting me borrow your awesome hat!) I was able to put together this outfit from just the random clothes I had in my closet.  This of course is both kind of awesome and kind of weird.  If you want to see more pictures (in which I actually capture the entire outfit) click on the photo above to see the complete set.

I never got around to posting these pictures from my walk down to the lake that I took with Tim and my parents two weekends ago.  So here is probably the best one taken by the genius Tim.  I didn’t do anything to this one in Photoshop, which also means you can see living proof of how bad I need to clean my lens if you look at the photo close-up.

Last but not least my 50mm lens finally arrived Thursday and I celebrated by taking pictures of cats!  I have a lot of learning to do with this lens, I miss the zoom, but I love how it is forcing me to learn more about my aperture setting and narrow depths of field.  Stay tuned for lots more practice shots!

events of a speculative nature

Last evening while walking to a meeting, I was crossing the road and looked down there was our blue silicone heating pad, which I hadn’t even realized we were missing.  Although it had been run over a few times, its rubbery existence was unfazed by the event.

Upon arriving home from work yesterday the cat was very insistent on cuddling with me.  Except once I she was on my lap she managed to produce a fart so noxious in smell I almost fell out of my chair.

Today I didn’t check my email at all until right before lunch, the effort needed to accomplish this far exceeded my expectations.

Yes, we know our cat is fat

Kitty plots the death of her owners, originally uploaded by AbbyN.

Here is a picture of our lovely cat basking in the love and tummy rubs her owners shower on her. Note the look of death/defeat she is giving the room.

a frustrating dilema

My age old recipe for dealing with “lady issues” has been caffeine (preferably intake methods include black tea and chocolate), sleep and comfy pants.  However I am discovering that the first and the third ingredients clash slightly with each other.

In other news my cat officially drinks out of the toilet (she also does laps around the apartment during the hours of 10pm to midnight and enjoys pouncing on and under the carpet.

I also love the fact that it seems the entire country experienced the same snow storm over this past weekend.  And via various internet forms I have enjoyed its progress the whole way from the west coast through the midwest to east coast.

Post Thanksgiving round-up

I have half started several posts these past few days, but like most things that one is unwilling to really commit too, they have not grown into much. Sometimes I feel like I have so many different things to write or talk about, but simultaneously nothing interesting to say. In order to attempt to guard against this scatterbrainedness I am going to write in complete paragraphs (I define paragraphs as 3 sentences minimum that tie together one thought) instead of a list, which let me tell you folks is a pretty incredible goal.

The cat threw up this morning. It was chunky, not too smelly, but highly annoying. I cleaned it up with paper towels and biodegradable cleaner.

I discovered that a pair of recently purchased jeans owe their smell not to gear oil, but to the dye used to achieve their dark wash. So I returned them to the store and was given a refund, which I promptly spent on a pair of lighter wash jeans. My personal stylist also persuaded me to buy a blazer, tunic and black knit jumper. I can now successfully impersonate either a business woman or a kindergarten teacher on command.

I have been watching a lot of The War documentary by Ken Burns recently. The episode I watched tonight was called FUBAR (fuck*d up beyond all reason) and tells several stores of generals who through ambition, stupidity, or just plain incompetence resulted in huge needless lose of life (although the documentary does a pretty good job of emphasizing the absolute randomness of death in war). What I find so fascinating in the series is how different our world seemed a mere 60 years ago.

My family came to Chicago for half a week over thanksgiving and a good time ensued. Games of Tichu were won and lost, much food was eaten, a badly done movie was watched, snow was frolicked in and several photos were taken. We also went to Brookfield Zoo where we got in touch with our inner primate, I saw lions that weren’t wild and a hippo grunted at us. I leave you with this brief pictorial representation of the main event of turkey feast.

stretching is good

Thoughts from this weekend:

1. It is not a good idea to do a zumba exercise class barefoot.

2. Brown rice cooked in apple juice makes a marvelous stuffing for roast chicken (especially if you add some cut up apples and onions).

3. I need to find some real motivation/time to work on my room, I still have clutter on the floor that awaits a proper desk/drawer space and it is beginning to drive me slightly mental.

4. Lightening looks magnificent when viewed through clouds across the lake at night.

5. Taking the time to listen to other people’s stories from the week, followed by meaningful prayer can be a wonderful way to hear your own issues and concerns echoed back to you.

6.  No stage of life is without waiting, even if it feels like the one I am in has more of it than necessary.

7. My current attention span is too short for most movies (this may be due to the obscene amount of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel, that I have watched over the past few months).

8. I got home from my summer travels 2 months and a week ago, which is longer than the time I was away.

9. While not a bad experience, it is always slightly weird to have someone that I know in real life tell me that they stumbled across my blog.  I don’t mind it at all, I mean I am not stupid enough to think that blogs are in anyway private (and beside my very insistence on publishing this indicates that I do want people to read it).  I just never know what to say in response, um, thank you?

10. While not nearly similar to make it worthy of complaint, I am guessing there are similarities between a crying baby that wakes you up at 6am and a meowing stubborn hungry cat in the morning.