California Dreamin’ – a picture essay

Recently I visited California in order to celebrate Mini’s birthday in person with her

Nana chipped in these BEAUTIFUL flowers & various wonderful presents! I got to take a “in front of the fireplace and mantel” prom style picture of Mini with these but we won’t show you cos we be real shy
Here’s her back instead. We drove to Redondo Beach (24 hour parking right by the sand!) so this real true blooded California girl could put her feet in the sand for the countdown to her birthday
one caveat is that the bathrooms are closed from 11p to 6a as we found out rather painfully
I also had the opportunity to pot Mini’s backup 😛 “Graduation Pineapple” that Corinne is graciously helping us raise
In other plant news, Mini suggested we visit a favorite plant nursery of ours in town and it was REALLY hard to part with this beauty but I knew I couldn’t take it home. I still miss you :'(
Mini, however, enjoys PLANTY of room in her spacious abode and snagged this gorgeous milky nephthytis
We also visited Amanda/mom/sis/OG Dr. Wise Money and jointly chose a CA native (Mexican Star) to give away in her name
my mom made us these delicious foods
I also tried my hands at dinner on 3 separate nights, this one being probably the most successful
a close up of my oven baked chawanmushi that ended up overdone so she was a bit dry and salty, oops
my garlicky oven baked eggplants. I ended up baking about half the dishes because I needed everything ready in a relatively short amount of time to make my flight! (Wise Money Grandpa was a STAR being a tireless sous chef that washed and chopped most everything)
this was also the trip we found out that Mini is TALLER than Wise Money Grandpa! (don’t let the hair fool you)
I asked Mini a hilarious question in comic form when she took a birthday nap but weirdly she didn’t find it funny at all
Mini helped me steal dog bestie from my human bestie for a day too
And I met her new kitty friend, who was the catalyst in Heller & Wallace joining our family recently
I got some pictures of dogs sleeping on pillows. This one is of my favorite fur niece.
And bestie is a pro!

Cat Updates and Last Week in General

When we last left Heller & Wallace they’d just started getting out from under the bed & showing me love.

In fact I thought they would always lovingly embrace & groom each other for all of time
But on day three it became clear they were Spicy Bois. Other spicy behavior include biting for attention and trying to eat directly out of the kibble container.
Seeing as they were fully out of their shells, we began the process to introduce the dogs. Here Wallace the Brave is looking at Abbie.
Lizzie stares into the transitional cat room at nothing because the cats did not wish to be looked at & she is coming on too strong.
Wallace gets closer within the day.

Then as of this morning we had a successful escape in which we found out these Slender Bois can in fact slip through the gate! Wallace the Escapee was roundly sniffed by Abbie & then escorted back to his temporary accommodations in my arms.

In the afternoon I built their new poop palace & of course it was thoroughly inspected before it even met completion.

In other, much less exciting news. My first foray into reselling was a resounding failure. The only sale I made turned out to be to a scammer so I had to cancel. I’m leaving town tomorrow to visit our Mini so shelving the resell project once again for hopefully not long, at least not as long as 5 years!

Buddy, I wasn’t born yesterday.

I’m Trying! – My Hands at eBay!

Alright, friends. It’s happening. After talking about it for literally over five years (yikes!), and moving my resell pile from our apartment to our home, and from our Battery Park apartment… to storage… to our home, I’m going for it. I’m determined to never move again with this shameful pile of things I’ll never actually use.

Check out my inaugural eBay listings below by clicking on the pictures & good luck to us all???

A Thing That Happened at Home the Other Day

In June we’d lost our old boy, Beta.

He almost made it to 16.
He was extremely handsome and poised.
And quite the accomplished horticulturalist.

We thought we were done with cats because we had already had the best one ever.

Finally, last Saturday the boy and I stopped by Morris Animal Refuge to inquire about donating pet beds.

On a whim we also asked if we could look at their cats.

That’s when we met “Eeyore” (back) & “Pooh Bear” (front)
We pet “Pooh Bear” while “Eeyore” pretended he wasn’t looking.

We eventually left and immediately started talking about how we couldn’t possibly… right now… and… what would we even name them?!

I also started worrying that there were likely cats in our area who were sitting at “kill shelters” that might be more urgently in need of a home.

I ended up cruising the ACCT (Animal Care & Control Team) Philly‘s website, and, there he was. (He even looks a little like Beta.)

“Merlie”, a depressed boy who was on the chopping block due to his withdrawn behavior & refusal to take meds for an upper respiratory infection.

He’d been time stamped & sentenced to die this Monday the 13th. It was already late Saturday when I found him so we raced down to the shelter on Sunday. ((If you’re in the area & looking to adopt, they are open 7 days a week.) Good news, we were too late only in that he’d already gone with a rescue group.

Which left us… still thinking about “Eeyore” & “Pooh Bear”. We ran right back to Morris but they weren’t allowing visitors. (They accept walk-ins Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.) So we filled out the application online, geared up first thing on Monday and were waiting outside their doors minutes before open.

Once we got them home the boys went straight for under the guest bed. Classic cat maneuver. Here is “Pooh Bear”, now (Joseph) Heller.
“Eeyore”, (David Foster) Wallace still hiding behind his slightly more courageous brother.
Soon Heller became quite the explorer.
Wallace preferred just the cat bed, thank you.
Last night Heller decided it was time to get close.
And this morning Wallace thought I wasn’t too bad, either.
Not to be outdone, Heller then shows me his best cuddle roll.
They do everything together.
And this house has been made more wonderful with them two in it.

So that’s a thing that happened in the house the other day. Turns out, there’s really no replacement for the best cat ever, so you just gotta get two.

Dispatches from Camping # 1

The young woman who had seen the wind in my hair is dead

She had been driving a car we shared

a lifetime ago

And she was just crazy enough to

let me hang part way out of the front passenger seat

(But who had taken the picture that I can still see?)

She’s never been in the car I drive now

She’s never seen my fields of corn

my lakes

the few cows standing apart in the rain

My coast to coast

My sister who saw the wind in my hair & laughed

is dead

Sometimes I can’t believe almost everything is still allowed to happen

I will never again have another day like the ones we used to have