Passed on the road today: a midsized sedan driven by a sixtyish white woman. Left side of the bumper: a Trump sticker. Right side of the bumper: a “Just be nice.” sticker. I’m going to bet she doesn’t realize that they are totally contradictory.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Friday, September 21, 2018
This Sign Made Me Laugh So Hard
Seen on the front door of a friend of Petunia's, who legit does have two very weird yippy rat-dogs. I think I need one of those signs. Yes, for this dog.
Such a sweet face. So loving. So smart. She just wants to be with the family, go for hikes in the woods and lie in the sun.
Also, she's needy beyond description these days. She hasn't recovered emotionally from the arrival of the cats a year ago...if she could talk, a lot of what she would say is, "Mom, you still love me, right??????" Even though I absolutely do and she knows it.
Luckily, she gets along with the cats. She never had an issue with them, just with the time and attention that they take away from her by existing. Did I mention that she's needy?
I love pictures like this, where I can capture the three of them interacting. She's seven and they aren't even two yet, but she doesn't act like an old-lady dog (or middle-aged one.) She just wants to play with them.
Just waiting for it to stop freaking raining here so I can take her out with me! That's all she wants. It's so simple. Amazing how much joy she has brought to us over the past almost-seven years. My sweet rescued mutt-girl.
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Speaking Of Beasts...
...it’s been a while since I posted anything about the cats. This is Bingley, aka “Bingbat.” A classic literary name (from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice) spoiled, but the nickname fits him. He's slightly over twelve pounds of goofy part-Maine-coon fluff, as far as we can tell. Yes, both of our current cats are male, but this pink bed originally belonged to our prior female cat, and it makes me very happy to see the boys using it. Bingley in particular loves this bed, which sits on the desk to the right of the big computer in our office.
He’s an interesting critter. Most of his eccentricities stem from the fact that he gets along extremely well with the dog, to the point where we wonder sometimes if he actually understands that he’s a cat. Case in point: he begs for food whenever the dog does, no matter what she’s begging for. Despite the fact that cats are obligate carnivores, he has been known to eat small pieces of goldfish crackers, chips and bread and he absolutely LOVES marshmallows. He materializes underfoot every time the marshmallow bag is opened, yowling his fool head off for a treat. Go figure. Like I said, he’s a weird cat.
He also serves as the the dog’s alarm system, I kid you not! There’s a Christmas bell hanging from the doorknob on the inside of the back door, which she gently rings with her nose when she wants to be let out. (No dumb on her...it took her about thirty seconds to learn that trick.) Bingley, from his favorite cat perch near the door, watches this with interest. When he sees her return to the back door through the glass, he meows persistently and loudly until we let her in. She doesn’t even need to ‘knock’ anymore.
Bingley’s buddy Darcy (and supposed littermate, although they look nothing alike) on the other hand, has absolutely no doubt that he’s a cat. He turns his nose up at everything that isn’t either meat or cat kibble, and peacefully coexists with the dog but that’s about it. Try giving him a bit of marshmallow and he will give you a look of disdain that could curl your eyelashes! All he wants is a warm spot in which to sleep, which often results in his full thirteen pounds of weight landing solidly on my chest at about 4AM.
His new habit is crawling under the quilt on our bed (after he wakes me up) and rolling himself up like a sausage.
He's lucky he's so cute.
We adopted them together from a shelter when they were about three months old. They are close to eighteen months old now, so pretty much full-size. We actually met the shelter volunteer who trapped them in a barn as tiny kittens, and she said she trapped them together on the same day, so maybe they are actually brothers, although for all I know there was more than one litter in the barn at the time. They have been together all their lives, anyway, and get along very well. They certainly provide us with hours of entertainment, too! Lively little critters.
Next up, the dog!!
 |
| Catly bliss |
He’s an interesting critter. Most of his eccentricities stem from the fact that he gets along extremely well with the dog, to the point where we wonder sometimes if he actually understands that he’s a cat. Case in point: he begs for food whenever the dog does, no matter what she’s begging for. Despite the fact that cats are obligate carnivores, he has been known to eat small pieces of goldfish crackers, chips and bread and he absolutely LOVES marshmallows. He materializes underfoot every time the marshmallow bag is opened, yowling his fool head off for a treat. Go figure. Like I said, he’s a weird cat.
 |
| Not a great picture but that white thing is a marshmallow. Now a very ex-marshmallow. |
He also serves as the the dog’s alarm system, I kid you not! There’s a Christmas bell hanging from the doorknob on the inside of the back door, which she gently rings with her nose when she wants to be let out. (No dumb on her...it took her about thirty seconds to learn that trick.) Bingley, from his favorite cat perch near the door, watches this with interest. When he sees her return to the back door through the glass, he meows persistently and loudly until we let her in. She doesn’t even need to ‘knock’ anymore.
 |
| The perch overlooking the door |
Bingley’s buddy Darcy (and supposed littermate, although they look nothing alike) on the other hand, has absolutely no doubt that he’s a cat. He turns his nose up at everything that isn’t either meat or cat kibble, and peacefully coexists with the dog but that’s about it. Try giving him a bit of marshmallow and he will give you a look of disdain that could curl your eyelashes! All he wants is a warm spot in which to sleep, which often results in his full thirteen pounds of weight landing solidly on my chest at about 4AM.
 |
| "Who, me...disturb your sleep??" |
He's lucky he's so cute.
We adopted them together from a shelter when they were about three months old. They are close to eighteen months old now, so pretty much full-size. We actually met the shelter volunteer who trapped them in a barn as tiny kittens, and she said she trapped them together on the same day, so maybe they are actually brothers, although for all I know there was more than one litter in the barn at the time. They have been together all their lives, anyway, and get along very well. They certainly provide us with hours of entertainment, too! Lively little critters.
Next up, the dog!!
Monday, September 17, 2018
Beast Of Burden
I took this picture of Thing One (who is wearing a soccer jersey to school, because of course he is) just before he walked out to the school bus this morning. This is what he carries every day.
 |
| Standard morning load |
Starting from the front, the red pack on his chest is his soccer pack. All his gear for his JV practice after school today: cleats, practice clothes, shinguards, etc. The navy blue pack on his back is all his school gear: binders, Chromebook, textbooks. It's hard to tell, because it's the same color, but he's also carrying a *third* bag over his shoulders, hanging atop the school pack. That's his gym bag. They have to bring a change of clothes for gym class.
When he gets to school, he can drop the soccer pack in a locker room, but the rest he has to carry around with him all day. That would include a coat if it were cold enough to need one. There are lockers, but he doesn't have one: his school is so ridiculously enormous that he wouldn't have time to get to a locker between classes anyway so he told me not to bother getting him one. Very few kids actually use them for that reason. Back to school night is next week and he told me to wear sneakers again! Last year I clocked about three high-speed miles on my FitBit that night just crossing and re-crossing campus between his classrooms. I was tired afterward and all I was carrying was my purse.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Here We Go
Yeah. It’s been a while. I have to admit, the thought of trying to catch up got intimidating! I miss writing though, so I’m back. Thanks to Joan for providing the necessary kick in the butt that got me going again. :)
To summarize the downtime, briefly: several more soccer camps, soccer practice out the ears for everybody, high school soccer tryouts. JV team for Thing One! My parents’ 50th anniversary and a long weekend away with that whole side of the family. A week at the beach with the other side of the family. A quick trip to the San Diego area with Himself for a Change of Command ceremony at Camp Pendleton. We are so very proud of his longtime best friend the Colonel, a Marine pilot, and luckily we got out of there the day before the area caught on fire. It was great to see some dear friends who used to live near us who are now out there, too. Great progress for Thing Two in his annual checkup with the neurodevelopmental pediatrician. Run-up to school: no more elementary schoolers in the house after all these years! Wow. The kids are sixth, seventh and tenth graders this year...we’ve started PSAT prep and serious consideration of colleges with the big one. Oh, and the house water tank needed replaced, also both furnaces (ugh) and on top of that we've been working with an architect and contractor on plans to completely upgrade the backyard. Whew. It’s been a busy summer!!
Deep breath.
Happily for me, the kids are back in school and the year seems to have started well for all three. Petunia is making the biggest adjustment with the transition from elementary to middle school. Her first middle school dance is this Friday, may the gods give her father the strength to accept that. :) I am now teaching two taekwondo classes a week and making every effort to see the friends I don’t see over the summer, including two who are having significant health issues. The one real downside of having friends who are substantially older than I am. If it ever stops raining and cools off, I will be trying to get out hiking with the dog again, too. I passed the 8000 geocache finds mark a couple of months ago, but darned if I’m going back out in the woods around here till they become less of a muggy swamp. Last time I tried I ended up stepping in a tick nest, which was just as much fun as you’d imagine it being. Thank goodness for antibiotics.
How’s that for a CliffsNotes version? I’ll be better going forward, I promise. I’ve learned my lesson on trying to play catch-up!
To summarize the downtime, briefly: several more soccer camps, soccer practice out the ears for everybody, high school soccer tryouts. JV team for Thing One! My parents’ 50th anniversary and a long weekend away with that whole side of the family. A week at the beach with the other side of the family. A quick trip to the San Diego area with Himself for a Change of Command ceremony at Camp Pendleton. We are so very proud of his longtime best friend the Colonel, a Marine pilot, and luckily we got out of there the day before the area caught on fire. It was great to see some dear friends who used to live near us who are now out there, too. Great progress for Thing Two in his annual checkup with the neurodevelopmental pediatrician. Run-up to school: no more elementary schoolers in the house after all these years! Wow. The kids are sixth, seventh and tenth graders this year...we’ve started PSAT prep and serious consideration of colleges with the big one. Oh, and the house water tank needed replaced, also both furnaces (ugh) and on top of that we've been working with an architect and contractor on plans to completely upgrade the backyard. Whew. It’s been a busy summer!!
Deep breath.
Happily for me, the kids are back in school and the year seems to have started well for all three. Petunia is making the biggest adjustment with the transition from elementary to middle school. Her first middle school dance is this Friday, may the gods give her father the strength to accept that. :) I am now teaching two taekwondo classes a week and making every effort to see the friends I don’t see over the summer, including two who are having significant health issues. The one real downside of having friends who are substantially older than I am. If it ever stops raining and cools off, I will be trying to get out hiking with the dog again, too. I passed the 8000 geocache finds mark a couple of months ago, but darned if I’m going back out in the woods around here till they become less of a muggy swamp. Last time I tried I ended up stepping in a tick nest, which was just as much fun as you’d imagine it being. Thank goodness for antibiotics.
How’s that for a CliffsNotes version? I’ll be better going forward, I promise. I’ve learned my lesson on trying to play catch-up!
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Thursday, July 5, 2018
Preview, Part 2
(Or maybe this should have been part 1 since it will happen first.)
We dropped Thing One off at his first sleepaway soccer camp on Saturday. He was gone through yesterday morning, so four full days in total. Unfamiliar university, didn't know a soul, and he had never interacted with college soccer coaches before, so very a steep learning curve. On top of that, he was one of the younger kids there. A few rising freshmen, a few rising sophomores like himself, but the bulk of the 60-odd boys were either a year or two years older. You could see it looking at them, not so much in their height but in the breadth of their shoulders and in how they play the game...quick, explosive and deadly.
Good practice for sending him off to college I guess. For both of us.
Within the first 24 hours, he managed to lock himself out of his dorm room. Rite of passage. He handled the situation, though. Two days into the camp he decided that he needed to do laundry, since he couldn't take the stench of his laundry bag full of dirty clothes. Ha. As I'd suggested, he texted me a picture of the dorm washer and dryer controls, and I walked him through the process. Baby steps, but success. Four days of getting himself up in the morning, to meals, and to whatever facility he needed to be at on campus on time with all the correct stuff, entirely on his own. Life practice, right there.
Early on, when we asked him how the soccer itself was going, he sounded a bit intimidated. For this camp, the boys were divided into four teams, each run by a college coach. The coach of his group runs a Division 1 program. Four of the boys that were on his team play the same position he does and are two years older. I asked if he was able to keep up with them on the field, and his response was "Ish." As in, sort of. The training consisted of various sorts of field exercises plus a round-robin of games between the four teams, three sessions of soccer a day in brutal heat. (Oh, and the dorms had no air-conditioning. That life experience thing again.)
He seemed to be getting quite a bit of playing time in the games, which was cool. Usually three quarters or so. And his team was doing well. Tuesday morning, he texted us that his team had made it to the final, which I would get to see since it was the last thing on the schedule, right before pickup yesterday morning. Then, later that afternoon, another text: "I think I made the All-Star team." He had. The coach who had read out the names laughed when he went over and asked if he could see the list because he thought he'd heard his name but didn't believe it! Talk about a confidence booster.
The temp was in the low 80s and really muggy for the final yesterday morning. It was clear from the warmup that the other team was stronger, and they ended up winning 2-0, but it was still a good game. And Thing One played for 30 of the 40 minutes (I timed it) as the only centerback. This coach only put three defenders in the back line in front of the goal, unlike his club and high school coaches who play four across the back. Thing One was by himself in the middle of the field immediately in front of the goal as the last line of defense for a full 3/4 of the final game. And he played solidly there. If it hadn't been too hot to cry, I would have cried.
I asked him on the way home if he'd learned anything at camp. He thought for a minute, and then told me that he's learned that he can play to the level of his competition, even when that level is very high. Sounds like a good take-home. So proud of that boy.
We dropped Thing One off at his first sleepaway soccer camp on Saturday. He was gone through yesterday morning, so four full days in total. Unfamiliar university, didn't know a soul, and he had never interacted with college soccer coaches before, so very a steep learning curve. On top of that, he was one of the younger kids there. A few rising freshmen, a few rising sophomores like himself, but the bulk of the 60-odd boys were either a year or two years older. You could see it looking at them, not so much in their height but in the breadth of their shoulders and in how they play the game...quick, explosive and deadly.
Good practice for sending him off to college I guess. For both of us.
Within the first 24 hours, he managed to lock himself out of his dorm room. Rite of passage. He handled the situation, though. Two days into the camp he decided that he needed to do laundry, since he couldn't take the stench of his laundry bag full of dirty clothes. Ha. As I'd suggested, he texted me a picture of the dorm washer and dryer controls, and I walked him through the process. Baby steps, but success. Four days of getting himself up in the morning, to meals, and to whatever facility he needed to be at on campus on time with all the correct stuff, entirely on his own. Life practice, right there.
Early on, when we asked him how the soccer itself was going, he sounded a bit intimidated. For this camp, the boys were divided into four teams, each run by a college coach. The coach of his group runs a Division 1 program. Four of the boys that were on his team play the same position he does and are two years older. I asked if he was able to keep up with them on the field, and his response was "Ish." As in, sort of. The training consisted of various sorts of field exercises plus a round-robin of games between the four teams, three sessions of soccer a day in brutal heat. (Oh, and the dorms had no air-conditioning. That life experience thing again.)
He seemed to be getting quite a bit of playing time in the games, which was cool. Usually three quarters or so. And his team was doing well. Tuesday morning, he texted us that his team had made it to the final, which I would get to see since it was the last thing on the schedule, right before pickup yesterday morning. Then, later that afternoon, another text: "I think I made the All-Star team." He had. The coach who had read out the names laughed when he went over and asked if he could see the list because he thought he'd heard his name but didn't believe it! Talk about a confidence booster.
The temp was in the low 80s and really muggy for the final yesterday morning. It was clear from the warmup that the other team was stronger, and they ended up winning 2-0, but it was still a good game. And Thing One played for 30 of the 40 minutes (I timed it) as the only centerback. This coach only put three defenders in the back line in front of the goal, unlike his club and high school coaches who play four across the back. Thing One was by himself in the middle of the field immediately in front of the goal as the last line of defense for a full 3/4 of the final game. And he played solidly there. If it hadn't been too hot to cry, I would have cried.
I asked him on the way home if he'd learned anything at camp. He thought for a minute, and then told me that he's learned that he can play to the level of his competition, even when that level is very high. Sounds like a good take-home. So proud of that boy.
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