My baby is getting spayed today. Poor little Julie. Wish I could be home to nurse her back to health (though I'm sure she'll be just fine, she's got her namesake's unwavering spirit).
Tomorrow we head to Cork, Ireland, to visit our friend who is also studying over here for the semester. She came to visit us early in October (with two of our friends from Uni in Northern Ireland), so we've had plans to go and pay her a visit for a while now.
I love my heritage, but let me tell you I thoroughly dislike Ireland. As far as I'm concerned, it's dirty as hell (at least the cities, particularly Dublin), and it's a God-forsaken rock of an island, with nothing but sheep as far as the eye can see.
It'll be great to get some nice fresh air out of London for the weekend though.
Hope everyone has a safe, healthy, wonderful weekend. Happy Guy Fawks day to you Brits, as someone whose ancestors you persecuted, I don't happen to be your biggest fan, but you guys sure do throw a hell of a party.
Showing posts with label Julie Andrews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Julie Andrews. Show all posts
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
At Least I'm Enjoying the Ride
Lots of stuff has been going on since I last blogged. I s'pose I'll begin at the beginning (as Julie Andrews [the human, not the cat] would say: let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start...).
A week ago Monday Hillary and I climbed 98% of Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire. Apparently it's the second most climbed mountain in the world, right behind Mt. Fugi in Japan (totally going there at some point in my life). It was absolutely beautiful and so worth every ounce of sweat and every curse that slipped out of my lips the following day when my knees felt like they were going to give out. We couldn't finish climbing because there is a sheer rock face about, maybe 200 feet from the summit, and I knew I could get up, but getting down is the hard part.
You gotta get up to get down.
So we were content with getting as far as we got (and we made it sooooo far) and then climbing back down. We also didn't have enough water, which was a major concern. I actually ended up filling up my bottle at a stream (despite Hillary's warnings that I would get parasites. It's been a week, still no parasites and that water was darn good).
That's the trail... oi vey
A rock in the shape of a heart :)
Nature
A breathtaking view, even if it's a few hundred feet from the top
Later in the week we had to bring some family members up to upstate New York (we're not talking Albany or Syracuse here, we're talking borderline Canada, where some of the towns speak French) to retrieve their vehicle which had been being serviced for over a month. No one else in the family would do it, and what's family for if not to be there when you need them most? It was an extremely long day though, we started the journey at 8 am from where they were staying in MA and didn't get off the road until close to 11 pm that night. We took breaks for meals and stretches but mainly we just drove and drove... which is entirely too exhausting for my liking.
Over the weekend, Hillary and I went up to Maine to visit with her friend and her friend's boyfriend. It ended up that her friend's boyfriend's family was headed to the family cabin in the woods that weekend, so we tagged along and had a pretty awesome time. The cabin had no electricity or running water, it was mainly a place to sleep. There was an outhouse a bit away from the cabin. The cabin was entirely in the woods, surrounded by trees and a huge beautiful crystal clear lake bordered by mountains and rolling hills. There was no one around, no other campers and no cabins at all, just us, the sound of the water hitting the pebbles on the shore and the loons calling to each other. Hillary and I stayed in a tent in the woods and fell asleep to the loons and the crickets. It was wonderful to be unplugged for a while, to just enjoy being together and being surrounded by new friends and just relaxing for a bit. AND on the way home we stopped at LL Bean in Freeport, which was very cool, though super overwhelming. Still, a very cool store and definitely worth the experience. Give me the catalogue anyday though.
Now I'm mainly in London mode, trying to figure out what I need, what I have, what I can get when I'm there and what I should bring, etc. No big trips this weekend, except up to see my grandmother on Nantucket on Friday (which I'm not very comfortable with at the moment, since the Kennedys will be swarming the place and we'll have to avoid heavy traffic times at all cost) and to see some fireworks with Hill Saturday night. Summer is really starting to wind down now, and I can't say as though that makes me sad, though this is my last real summer of freedom. I'm so excited for adventure and the unknown, London will be a great adventure, I can hardly wait.
A week ago Monday Hillary and I climbed 98% of Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire. Apparently it's the second most climbed mountain in the world, right behind Mt. Fugi in Japan (totally going there at some point in my life). It was absolutely beautiful and so worth every ounce of sweat and every curse that slipped out of my lips the following day when my knees felt like they were going to give out. We couldn't finish climbing because there is a sheer rock face about, maybe 200 feet from the summit, and I knew I could get up, but getting down is the hard part.
You gotta get up to get down.
So we were content with getting as far as we got (and we made it sooooo far) and then climbing back down. We also didn't have enough water, which was a major concern. I actually ended up filling up my bottle at a stream (despite Hillary's warnings that I would get parasites. It's been a week, still no parasites and that water was darn good).
That's the trail... oi vey
A rock in the shape of a heart :)
Nature
A breathtaking view, even if it's a few hundred feet from the top
Later in the week we had to bring some family members up to upstate New York (we're not talking Albany or Syracuse here, we're talking borderline Canada, where some of the towns speak French) to retrieve their vehicle which had been being serviced for over a month. No one else in the family would do it, and what's family for if not to be there when you need them most? It was an extremely long day though, we started the journey at 8 am from where they were staying in MA and didn't get off the road until close to 11 pm that night. We took breaks for meals and stretches but mainly we just drove and drove... which is entirely too exhausting for my liking.
Over the weekend, Hillary and I went up to Maine to visit with her friend and her friend's boyfriend. It ended up that her friend's boyfriend's family was headed to the family cabin in the woods that weekend, so we tagged along and had a pretty awesome time. The cabin had no electricity or running water, it was mainly a place to sleep. There was an outhouse a bit away from the cabin. The cabin was entirely in the woods, surrounded by trees and a huge beautiful crystal clear lake bordered by mountains and rolling hills. There was no one around, no other campers and no cabins at all, just us, the sound of the water hitting the pebbles on the shore and the loons calling to each other. Hillary and I stayed in a tent in the woods and fell asleep to the loons and the crickets. It was wonderful to be unplugged for a while, to just enjoy being together and being surrounded by new friends and just relaxing for a bit. AND on the way home we stopped at LL Bean in Freeport, which was very cool, though super overwhelming. Still, a very cool store and definitely worth the experience. Give me the catalogue anyday though.
Now I'm mainly in London mode, trying to figure out what I need, what I have, what I can get when I'm there and what I should bring, etc. No big trips this weekend, except up to see my grandmother on Nantucket on Friday (which I'm not very comfortable with at the moment, since the Kennedys will be swarming the place and we'll have to avoid heavy traffic times at all cost) and to see some fireworks with Hill Saturday night. Summer is really starting to wind down now, and I can't say as though that makes me sad, though this is my last real summer of freedom. I'm so excited for adventure and the unknown, London will be a great adventure, I can hardly wait.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A Visit From The Stork
The family reunion was this weekend, and it actually went very well. No major issues and everyone put on a happy face and avoided ripping heads off.
So on Friday I was packing my things to get ready for the weekend. We were scheduled to leave my house when Hillary got here from work (a 2 hour drive for her) and then be on our way, taking separate cars because there wasn't enough room in one car for everything. I get a phone call from Hillary half-way through the day saying that one of the feral cats at school (Hillary works at our college now) had kittens and the maintenance staff was giving them away. So I called my mother to see if we could bring one home, if and only if she could look after the kitten until January and we would bring the kitten to the apartment with us when I got back from London. The madre agreed, so Hillary went and got a kitten.
Possibly the worst mistake of our lives, though also the cutest investment ever. This was the tiniest kitten I had ever held. She is a calico, who loves to run around like a banshee and things fingers and toes are the coolest chew toys ever. We took her to the vet on Monday and they determined that she was between 6-8 weeks old, so the bottle we had been feeding her every 2-4 hours since Friday evening was unnecessary (she seemed to really enjoy the bottle though).
We didn't get very much sleep at all the first few nights with her in her pink rubbermade bin complete with blanket and catnip mouse. She wanted to be fed, then she wanted to play, then she wanted to go to the bathroom and then she wanted to sleep, but she wanted to sleep on our chests. So we took her to the vet and they determined her age and told us what we should be feeding her, so we started her on a wet food/formula combo in a bowl and she took to it pretty much right away. I put her in a litterbox that same day and she did her business in the litterbox immediately, she's so damn smart.
Little did we know that when the vets gave her the de-wormer (fearing that, since her mom was a feral cat, she would have worms and fleas and earmites) she would have explosive diarreah for two days straight. She actually didn't have worms, she was just bloated with a big baby belly, and she didn't have fleas or ear mites either. She got a clean bill of health and she is a perfectly healthy and happy little kitten.
At this point, she is eating dry food and loving it, drinking water by itself (finally!) and going in the litterbox to do her business instead of all over the cat carrier where she sleeps. Right now she is attacking my laptop. It'll be sad to leave her in September, just like it will be sad to leave my cat and my dog and my rabbits. Hopefully she will quickly be able to defend herself against my five cats, the dog loves cats and will probably just lick her and annoy the hell out of her.
In January, she can move into the apartment with Hillary and I and we can be a happy little family. The kitten, whose name is Julie Andrews (as my six year old niece exclaimed when I explained who Julie Andrews is: "Fraulein Maria!") will be spayed probably sometime in midwinter, she'll be an indoor cat and she'll never be declawed as long as I have a say in the matter because small animals need a way to defend themselves. Hopefully she'll be a good pest-hunter in the new apartment.
So on Friday I was packing my things to get ready for the weekend. We were scheduled to leave my house when Hillary got here from work (a 2 hour drive for her) and then be on our way, taking separate cars because there wasn't enough room in one car for everything. I get a phone call from Hillary half-way through the day saying that one of the feral cats at school (Hillary works at our college now) had kittens and the maintenance staff was giving them away. So I called my mother to see if we could bring one home, if and only if she could look after the kitten until January and we would bring the kitten to the apartment with us when I got back from London. The madre agreed, so Hillary went and got a kitten.
Possibly the worst mistake of our lives, though also the cutest investment ever. This was the tiniest kitten I had ever held. She is a calico, who loves to run around like a banshee and things fingers and toes are the coolest chew toys ever. We took her to the vet on Monday and they determined that she was between 6-8 weeks old, so the bottle we had been feeding her every 2-4 hours since Friday evening was unnecessary (she seemed to really enjoy the bottle though).
We didn't get very much sleep at all the first few nights with her in her pink rubbermade bin complete with blanket and catnip mouse. She wanted to be fed, then she wanted to play, then she wanted to go to the bathroom and then she wanted to sleep, but she wanted to sleep on our chests. So we took her to the vet and they determined her age and told us what we should be feeding her, so we started her on a wet food/formula combo in a bowl and she took to it pretty much right away. I put her in a litterbox that same day and she did her business in the litterbox immediately, she's so damn smart.
Little did we know that when the vets gave her the de-wormer (fearing that, since her mom was a feral cat, she would have worms and fleas and earmites) she would have explosive diarreah for two days straight. She actually didn't have worms, she was just bloated with a big baby belly, and she didn't have fleas or ear mites either. She got a clean bill of health and she is a perfectly healthy and happy little kitten.
At this point, she is eating dry food and loving it, drinking water by itself (finally!) and going in the litterbox to do her business instead of all over the cat carrier where she sleeps. Right now she is attacking my laptop. It'll be sad to leave her in September, just like it will be sad to leave my cat and my dog and my rabbits. Hopefully she will quickly be able to defend herself against my five cats, the dog loves cats and will probably just lick her and annoy the hell out of her.
In January, she can move into the apartment with Hillary and I and we can be a happy little family. The kitten, whose name is Julie Andrews (as my six year old niece exclaimed when I explained who Julie Andrews is: "Fraulein Maria!") will be spayed probably sometime in midwinter, she'll be an indoor cat and she'll never be declawed as long as I have a say in the matter because small animals need a way to defend themselves. Hopefully she'll be a good pest-hunter in the new apartment.
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