Things I've Seen

Trapt

Caution: Cute cat photo ahead

This photo's for you, father-in-law, who so faithfully reads this blog -- even when I carry on about things like Twitter!

It's gettin' deep

Am I getting lazy or what? Phone pictures, and obvious subjects at that. Well, it's a cold, snowy, lazy weekend ... Spartans beat Iowa, anyhow, 81-49.  Memphis (nation's longest winning streak now with 14 games; Florida got knocked off their winning streak, among others) is trying to beat Gonzaga ... Meg and Suze are in Detroit at a Jack's Mannequin concert ... nothin' else much going on!

Update: Memphis squeaked by Gonzaga in overtime, 78-77.

Blizzard-y

10 a.m., Saturday: Since 6 a.m. at least five inches have fallen, if not six. More is on the way -- maybe up to 10 inches total. Temperature: 9 degrees F.

After the bath

She had to have a bath before her Christmas visit to Grandma and Grandpa. So said Suze. And afterwards? She had to go out, of course. (Even though we made sure she went out before coaxing her into the tub.) The getup was Meg's solution for sending a slightly miffed wet dog into the cold to do her duty.

While I was walking

On the Jupiter Bridge

The dog and me -- we're pretty out of shape.

I'm trying, really I am, to get us both out there for 30 minutes or more every day. But she's got this little routine worked up now where she starts off walking OK, then not far from the house she starts with the sniffing, pulling on the leash, marking places of interest (yes she really is female; it's weird) and generally slowing us down bigtime. Then when she gets to a spot in front of the A&B kitchen place, she stops, plants her feet, and if I'm not careful, pulls right out of the collar, leaving me dangling an empty leash. No amount of coaxing will get her to move forward.

So we head for home -- the long way around on Wabash St., at least -- but these antics cut down considerably on the length of our walk.

Last night I tried something a little different. Now, we live on a 45-mile-an-hour road with no sidewalks. It's like that almost everywhere around here, so there's not many places to walk to. So my "different" route was simply to walk the other way away from the house, taking JDog down to the Jupiter Bridge across the Grand River about 1/2 mile from the house.

By the time we walked there then all the way across the river and back, it might've been close to 2 miles. It worked pretty well -- she only stopped once, and she kept her collar on.

I don't really like all the traffic on the bridge, but I did get a couple of nice photos. Plus we ended up walking more than 40 minutes.

Guess I'll go this route till she figures out some new way to thwart my efforts. Then I'll have to mix it up again.

Only a dog

She can't see me, so I can't see her. Right?

More from the ice palace

JDog and I spent an hour and a half at the park today. For the first time we were able to get past the sheets of ice that had formed at the first spot on othe trail where a rivulet flows in from the river. When the river is high like it's been, the water rises over the banks, into the park and over the trail. In winter, of course, all that turns to one big sheet of ice. As the water starts to recede, the ice cracks and breaks up, leaving remnants of itself behind. 

 

Sometimes a cat

Sometimes a cat is all there is to write about. I mean, I can’t add anything meaningful to the Iraqi voting day other than to say that a blog called “The People Won” hit one of my other blogs two days ago. That was pretty interesting to read something coming right out of Iraq from the point of view of the citizenry. Really, I can’t add to that. The Tsunami is way too weighty for me to comment on. It’s something I can’t even start to comprehend so of course I can’t do it any justice at all with my measly words. The Inauguration? Not worth the time. The State of the Union speech. Well, that’s probably going on right now (and I’m not tuned in; I have a hard time watching our prez.)

So that leaves kids or pets. I happen to have this new photo of the latter. So the cat gets the nod today. Here, she’s trying to blend in with the water bottles. But she’s out of her element in this box, because she actually lives in the bathroom. Not because we keep her there – she’s there because she’s chosen it. She’s set up housekeeping there in the long, spacious room with the plentiful heat and water source. 

The bathroom is what’s called a pass through – it has doors on both ends, one into the hall and one into the master bedroom. Its main quality is that it is long. In fact, with no obstacles in the middle of the long floor, it’s a perfect playing field for a cat’s favorite game. Which is throw the golf ball sized pink foam ball the length of the room and then jump on it when it comes bouncing back.

When she gets tired of that, she’ll hide the ball in the linen closet under a basket of cleaning supplies. Then she’ll hop up on the hamper for a nap. Almost any time of day you can enter this bathroom and the cat will be there on one of the rugs, sprawled out or sitting. Like she’s been waiting for you, a visitor to her place.

Sunday afternoon

Multi-tasking with a cat around ain't easy

I 'm stuck on the idea that I should try to make more of my Sundays. But I feel like I'm plenty busy enough on Sunday mornings and into the afternoon -- I just don't feel like tackling any of those big weekend kinds of tasks after that.

Take today. I was up at 6:30 because Westminster Winds played in the 8:30 and 11 o'clock services (our call was at 8 a.m. in the sanctuary in order to squeeze in that final half-hour of much needed rehearsal time). We played our two numbers during the early service, then joined the congregation for the remainder of the hour. For the hour between services, I sometimes go to an "education hour" if the topic seems interesting, other times a friend and I go up to Kahve House; today I spent the time listening to the newly formed Dixieland band rehearse for our upcoming concert.

The choir's call time was next, so I rehearsed with that group, then rejoined my band buddies in time to play the prelude for the 11:oo service. The idea is that all of us band members who also sing  in choir will leave the band when we're finished, run backstage and don our choir robes, then join the choir in the loft as surreptitiously as possible in time for the rest of the service, especially for the choir's anthem.

Right before the service began, I decided that there were plenty of sopranos on hand in the choir without me and that one-and-a-half services was quite enough for today. So I rehung my choir robe, put my music away, and sped out the side door of the church right after swabbing out my clarinet and putting on my coat.

By the time I got home it was nearly noon. I was hungry and already starting to feel the afternoon droops. Of course, most of the rest of the family was just getting around, since they all had something or other going on last night an opted to sleep in. They were just thinking about breakfast and I was looking to fix lunch. Such is our disconnected family on a Sunday!

By the time I ate my lunch and looked through the Sunday paper, it was nearing 2 o'clock. At 4 I hadto truck the girls down to church for choir rehearsal and youth group, so most of Sunday afternoon just feels like waiting for something. While I should get gung-ho on laundry or straightening a closet, I usually putter at some insignificant task or other. Then I take a delicious  Sunday afternoon nap.

Clay took this photo while I was trying to assuage my guilt -- writing something (not for work, puleeze!) and folding socks that had been sitting in a basket for a few days -- before settling under my down throw for a little snooze.  I tell myself I deserve this little bit of laziness after a long week and heading into another.   See, I'm not really that motivated to add any more busy-ness to my Sundays...

Unimaginative

Jenny-n-Alice : They're not exactly friends ...

In a funk as far as posts go these days, as you can probably tell from the previous two "favorites" posts from my old Tripod site.

Actually I like that site better than this one. Even though I ripped the template off from my friend, Lori. It was way better looking than this and there was more to it. (I was building a collected recipes section for the family.) I stopped updating it originally because I accidently deleted all the code for my sidelinks section and never had the inclination to rebuild it.

See, it doesn't have a wysiwyg interface, which means I did the html myself, making it more labor intensive. (Yes, it is easy just to copy over files and copy and paste code, etc.; still all that just takes too long.) I also built the css style sheets (which was kind of fun, once) and hand-built the archives. In the end I stopped using it because I just couldn't keep up with everything.

I know there are places like MoveableType where I could use my "own" design and have the blogging features I want, but Typepad is easy and cheap. And since I am authoring several different blogs these days (two are for the Corporation where I work -- you wouldn't be interested), it is a good choice for now.

Maybe this winter I'll upgrade my service with Typepad to get some design flexibility for this site and make it a little more eye-pleasing. That would help, since I'm not about to suddenly develop some fantastic photographic skill to help out the aesthetics. This site is more about the writing (woefully weak today), so you'll have to take what you get with the graphics!