Reward

After a trip to the dentist I rewarded myself with lunch out and an apple mimosa. I was not the only one drinking mimosas at 10:30 in the morning.

No Room For Humans

There has been a complete feline takeover of the prime places in the house.

Wouldn’t you know it

So we got an extra large novelty cat bed in the hopes that the extra large cat would use it. The medium cats like it.

Wouldn't you know it? Mr. Extra Large prefers the tiny novelty cat bed.

The Gall

A customer who was loudly farting then chose to complain about the smell of our furniture polish. Ours was Lemon Pledge. Hers was not.

See Food: Seafood

Salad with anchovies.

Homemade something with shrimp, musssels, and sausage.

Lobster roll in California!

Ceviche.

Bubba Gump sandwich; butterflied panko crusted shrimp.

Gobbler Cobbler

We made a turkey pot pie with holiday leftovers. Handy named it "Gobbler Cobbler."

Ten Minutes Ago

Sometimes I really think I am crazy for adopting more cats.

But they are so adorable.

Thank you St. Gertrude for bringing me these adorable balls of fluff.

"Ten minutes ago I met you,
And we murmured our how-do-you-do's.
I wanted to ring out the bells
And fling out my arms and
To sing out the news:
I have found them,
I have found them!"

Family Tartan?

We had a visit from Ernest over the holidays. Yay!

He had the most gorgeous flannel shirt.

I think this should be our family tartan.

Bed Poems

My favorite thing is to lie in bed and feel enveloped by warmth. I'd like to get a weighted blanket too.

A few months ago my trusty electric blanket stopped working. I bought a new one, but then the old one started working again. I toyed with returning the new one but I am a procrastinator. Now the old one has stopped again. So I guess my procrastination was a good thing. My task for today is to swith the blankets.

Delivery Style

First photo shows the artistry and dedication of our recent temporary UPS driver, who has now moved on to other routes. Second photo shows the slapdash efforts of the regular driver. And he's left even more disarray at other times. 

I know it's a tough job. But it was a joy to watch someone take pride in it. 

Sent from my iPhone

Ernest

I came across this in a picture book. Doesn't it look like little Ernest? Only his long hair made him happy.

He cut it in high school, though. Now he looks like this.

Rumor has it he might visit at Christmas!

Partners in crime

The babies are all grown. 

A few minutes later they were all busy in the bathroom. I couldn't get a video started soon enough

but they were moving in unison, heads and ears together, back and forth like a coordinated dance.

Time to Feed Fifi

I was getting that look.

Which means...

Or else she will turn into Vlad the Cat

But now for something slightly different, Freddy Purrcury!

It’s that time of year

Halloween yesterday. 

Bee Handling

Actually not bees. I believe we are dealing with yellow jackets, or “predatory social wasps.”

Handy got stung by a hidden nest in our yard during the summer. But I digress.

I wanted to discuss my apparently new position as book store yellow jacket remover.

People freak out. Get rid of the bee!  Um, I don’t think it’s a bee. But I’ll take care of it. So then I deal with it. Yes, there are yellow jackets around the trash right outside the door. Solution: I carefully empty the trash.

Bee (yellow jacket) in the window. But please don’t kill it! Solution: I cover it with a glass, slide some paper between the pane and the glass, carry it out and let it go near the street planter. Also I empty the trash again because that’s where they are congregating.

I thank my years of elementary school playground/lunch duty for the ability to deal with this in a calm manner. Those lunch table yellow jackets loved sandwiches! And the trash. Solution: cover your food. Empty the trash.

I can also deal with spiders, scuttling black bugs (smash ‘em!),  dead or only slightly flapping objects the cats used to drag in, (solution: dustpan) and in a very new twist, bold pigeons walking straight into the store (solution: run them back out the door)! I can’t deal with fully flapping things so if the pigeons take flight inside then we will have a problem.

Co-workers are grateful that I deal with “bees.” I doubt they will deal with the full metal pigeon invasion.

Although work rumors say “solution: falconer!”

Leo Love

Even Naughtier

One of the orange boys (I was told it was Leo) broke the screen!

This is why we can't have nice things.

Seriously, the screen door was 51 years old and pretty frail. We had it rescreened and the boys are back at their sitting spot.  Of course at this time it was too hot to have the slider open.

Leo is evidencing some guilt here and is trying to escape from the scene of his crime. He was lounging happily until he saw me attempting to take a picture;

Basket case

The laundry helper strikes again. Hunter is the most helpful cat.

The Latest Lunches

Sometimes even cheap tacos are delectable.

The guys had burgers but I thought I'd try a steak salad.

My ramen place's beloved spring pea salad is gone, out of season, but the summer heirloom tomato salad is almost as good.

Italian deli sandwich craving.

Technically this was breakfast. Avocado toast. I was not expecting two pieces!

The latest: a divine Tomato Watermelon Gazpacho

and a BLT salad with sharp cheddar.

Summer tomatoes definitely have been a theme here.

The Woodstock Project

We thought about putting a guitar in our August Woodstock window, and I planned to copy the iconic poster. But then I worried about theft issues with a real guitar. So my new combined goal became a 3-D model of the Woodstock poster.

How to build a tiny guitar? Frank reminded me of the Guitar Hero controllers sitting in a donation box. The Gibson Les Paul seemed the closest choice.

I forgot to take a before picture, but this is what I started with. I covered the lumpy bits with cardboard, to make a smooth surface, a more traditional shape,  and also to make the controller salvageable afterwards.



The wet version:



Now the next dilemma, do I paint it to match the poster or to look like a real guitar.

I did both.

Here we are.