drebbles

They say you can't judge a book by it's cover, but what about a title? Sometimes I buy a book just because of the title. Today I couldn't pass this one up: Mr. Darcy, Vampyre.

Current Mood: amused

I woke up this morning to find that a huge part of the tree in my yard had fallen off and was now covering part of the yard. After getting over the shock, I realized just how lucky we were that it didn't hurt anyone, hit the house, or damage the retaining wall. Then, we go to do laundry only to have the washing machine die towards the end of a load (I think it's a belt that needs to be replaced). Since the clothes were soaking wet and it was a nice day for a change, I decided to put them out in the sun to dry off before being put in the hamper to be washed again since they're still soapy. So the clothes are out in the sun, I'm enjoying the weather and I look over at the clothes - and there's a bird sitting on a pair of my jeans. Yep - the bird shit on my pants. At that point I just laughed - it truly was one of those days.

Current Mood: complacent

Last spring, an enterprising robin built a nest on top of the porch light next to my back door. It was the perfect location – under the edge of the roof so the nest was sheltered from the elements and high enough off the ground to keep it away from predators, a necessity since we have a plethora of cats wandering through the yard. After the robin family left, I kept the nest, not sure if another bird would use it (I’ve since heard that it’s illegal to take down nests – not that I think the bird police would come knocking at my door.) No other bird used the nest last year, but now that spring is here again another robin is using it. (Perhaps the same one? I really need to study up on robins.) She's added more layers to the nest, so it’s impossible for me to see inside to see how many eggs there are. I’m hoping that once the eggs are hatched, I’ll be able to at least watch her feed them (from a distance of course).

I love being able to watch nature happening in my own back yard!

Current Mood: content

On my way home from work, I drove by a school and noticed that there was a sign on the sidewalk that read "Honk". I looked again and there was a boy around ten years old with a notebook, so of course I had to honk to see if he marked it in the notebook. He did. I smiled at him, he smiled at me and I drove on. I have no idea why he was doing it (I'm assuming for a school project) but he made my day.

Current Mood: amused

I came home from work today to find an author had sent me a handwritten thank you note for a review I had written of her book. She made my day!

Current Mood: happy

While I appreciate spam filters for email, sometimes they go too far. I sent my brother an email about a local weatherman retiring. The message was simple: “Dick Albert is retiring” but it went straight to spam. Gee, I wonder what word triggered the spam filter!

Current Mood: amused

For whatever reason, neighborhood cats love to roam through my back yard. Most of them I know who owns them, but I was always worried about one, whom I named Silver, for a number of reasons. I tried to befriend him, but he was skittish around me. I was right to worry, I just found his body in my back yard. Poor thing, I hope he wasn't trying to get into our house during the snowstorm last weekend. We'll call the animal control officer in the morning.

Current Mood: sad

We took La Princess back to the Vet to check her blood pressure since she started taking the blood pressure meds. The pills are working - her blood pressure was just a tad higher than normal, but the Vet seemed to think that her nerves were what caused that (she drooled on the way home from the Vet, poor thing). The other good news is that she lost two ounces under her new stricter diet (translation: I no longer sneak food into her dish at night if it's empty), which might not seem like a lot, but any little bit counts for a cat her size.

Current Mood: happy

The vet called this morning with the results of her blood work. For the most part everything is fine, although her kidney values are a bit off. The vet said it's probably because of the high blood pressure and the medication should take of care of it. We're to take her back in two weeks to have her blood pressure rechecked.

Luckily there's been no problem giving her the meds. Our cousin gave us a pill cutter (she's to take half a pill once a day) and what I think are called pill pockets - you put the pill inside of what looks like a kitty treat - and we gave that to her with a handful of regular treats and she gobbles them all up.

I think we caught this early. She's acting perfectly normal - normal for a cat that is.

Current Mood: optimistic

We took the cat to the vet today for her annual physical. Usually it's a struggle to cat her in the cat carrier, but she cooperated nicely today, crying only a bit on the way to the vet. Once we got her there, she didn't want to come out of the carrier (I don't think she liked the way the nurse kept saying she was overweight. She knows she's overweight, is on diet food, and hasn't gained any weight. She just isn't losing weight.) After that, however, she was much better with the doctor, cooperated for the most part (except she really didn't like having her teeth cleaned) and it was a routine visit. Or so we thought.

The vet took her into the back to do some blood work and apparently checked her blood pressure because he came out and said she has high blood pressure and gave us some meds to give her. We're to give her half a pill each day and come back in two weeks to have the blood pressure checked. I've looked up the symptoms for cats with high blood pressure, and she doesn't have any of them. Perhaps we caught it in time. Or is it possible for cats to have White Coat Syndrome?

Current Mood: worried

I've wanted to try letterboxing ever since I read an article about it in Games Magazine. It's right up my alley - "treasure" hunting mixed in with puzzle solving and a bit of arts and crafts thrown in. I did a ton of research on it, joined an email group for beginners, decided on a trail name and finally decided that I was ready to try it.

I picked an easy letterbox for my first attempt. It's an indoor letterbox and the clues to find it were very easy. The letterbox is hidden (in plain sight, one of the many things I love about letterboxing) in a small museum and I thought it would be a simple matter of walking in, finding the letterbox, exchanging stamp impressions and leaving. I wasn't expecting to be greeted at the door and being taken on a very informative tour of the museum. I ended up enjoying the tour as much as the hunt for the letterbox, as I learned quite a bit and even asked what I hope were somewhat intelligent questions.

While I enjoyed the tour, I was beginning to wonder how I would get to the letterbox. Part of the fun of letterboxing is the secrecy of it and you aren't supposed to have people see what you are doing. I was wondering how I could get away to exchange stamps and was beginning to think I would have to tell the guy what I was doing. Fortunately, towards the end of the tour, a father came in with this two sons and I was able to get to the letterbox as the tour director turned his attention towards them. Of course, I was trying to exchange stamps as quickly as possible and almost walked off with the stamp pad belonging in the letterbox!

As for the stamps, since I was trying to rush, I didn't really get a chance to look at other people's stamps. However, most of them looked hand carved. While it's okay to use a store bought stamp like I did, I can see the appeal of hand carved stamps I have a design in mind, but I can't draw. At all. I'm going to have my brother draw what I want on to an eraser and carve it myself.

All in all I really enjoyed my first letterboxing experience. If we ever get a day when it doesn't rain, I'll try and find an outdoor letterbox.

Current Mood: excited

A local radio station was playing Christmas/Holiday music all day long. I love Christmas music to begin with, but I loved hearing it today without all the stress of the holidays - no shopping, no cards to send, no house to decorate, no stress that inevitably happens when you get together with relatives no matter how much you love them. Christmas in July is now one of my favorite holidays.

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Happy Holidays

My cat was sleeping soundly on my bed, with her head on the foot of the bed. Every so often her head would slip off the end, hang over the end of the bed and wake her up. She'd wake up, go back to sleep, and the same thing would happen. Being the concerned mother that I am, I rushed to move her into a more comfortable position grab the video camera. However, I was laughing too hard and woke her, at which point she moved herself into a more comfortable position. I'm keeping the camera closer by just in case she does it again.

Current Mood: amused

It looks like the baby robins have left their nest. I wish I had been home to see them fly for the first time, but maybe next time. I'm leaving the nest there just in case another robin (or even the same one) needs to use it.

Current Location: Back Yard
Current Mood: peaceful
Current Music: Bye Bye Birdie

A robin has built a nest on the lamp next to my back door. Judging by the way she's been sitting on the nest, the eggs are about to hatch. The nest is too high for me to see, I'd love to take a look but I don't want to bother her. We've been able to go in and out the back door with no problem, she flies to a nearby branch to watch us, but doesn't bother us. The only time she scolded me was when I took a picture of the nest. Outside of putting flowers out in the yard yesterday, we've stayed away since birth seems imminent.

A couple of things amaze me about this - one is that she was able to build the nest in such a small space. It's in a perfect location, up high and away from predators, but so small. The second thing is that my yard is a mecca for cats - there's one sleeping in my yard as I type this, yet they haven't bothered her at all. One funny thing happened when I put some leftover bread out in the yard for the robin - she didn't eat the bread, but one of the cats did! First time I ever saw a cat eat bread.

Current Mood: mellow

I was out and about today with my cousin when the car in front of her stopped suddenly and the driver got out of the car - he had seen an elderly woman fall and hit her head on the sidewalk. Every single car that went by stopped to see if they could help. My cousin called 911 and while we were waiting for the ambulance, a nurse came by to see if she could help. The woman was able to talk and seemed coherent, but shaken up (she wasn't bleeding, but had a nice sized lump on the back of her head). She wanted someone to drive her home, but we all said she needed to wait for professional help. Once the police and ambulance came, they told us all to leave, so I don't know they took her to the hospital (I'm guessing they did). But it was amazing, not one person drove by without stopping.

Current Mood: hopeful

So, the Red Sox have started another season. Early - both because it's still March and because they are playing in Japan and the game started at 6:00 a.m. our time. I managed to catch about 10 minutes of the first inning (when Dice-K was stinking things up) before having to leave for work. I listened to the game while driving to work, which felt really odd, and heard the rest of the game while working. And I get to do it all over again tomorrow - yay!

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Sweet Caroline

I've pretty much given up on watching local news except to check the weather. I'd say sports, except if there's a major sports story happening, they'll have it during the regular news. The thing is there's no real news on the news any more. They do a pretty good job of election coverage, but that's it. The major news story tonight? Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus is shown in her new movie not wearing a seat belt. Apparently this may be a bad influence on her young fans (who probably didn't even notice).

Current Mood: grumpy

My cat has become obsessed with getting into my closet. Of course, this obsession hits hurt around 3:00 in the morning, meaning she wakes me up trying to open the closet door. It's actually sliding doors, and one night she somehow managed to squeeze all 16 pounds of herself into a gap in the doors and get inside the closet, with the doors still closed! However, once inside, she couldn't figure out how to get back out, so I had to let her out.

So what triggers this obsession? At first I thought it was because I had a plastic bag in there and she wanted to chew on it. I removed the bag, but she's still trying to get in the closet. Then, I thought it was because she ran out of food (she's on a diet, not that it's helping) and was trying to annoy me enough so I would feed her. But she did it again early this morning and I checked and she had plenty of food.

So, now I'm thinking she's just trying to drive me crazy!

Current Mood: crazy
Current Music: She Drives Me Crazy

By my cousin. Yesterday, she sent over homemade chicken soup, today she sent over homemade chicken pot pie. I love chicken pot pie and she told me a simple way to make it. The thing is, she's made it for so long that she doesn't have a specific way to cook it, she throws it together and puts it into the oven "until it's done". Me, I need the recipe written down, the oven temperature and the amount of time to cook it (which I follow to the exact second). So, I don't know if I'll ever make my own homemade chicken pie, but I'll feast on hers instead.

Current Mood: satisfied