Up until about a year ago I had never had a cat of my own. I have lived in houses that had cats. The cats tolerated us in Their Space because we Humans had the knowledge needed to run the can opener (as well as the necessary the opposable thumbs). But, none of these were My Cat ( Read more... )

I've always had problems sleeping, so in February I took myself of the the HMO and said: "Waugh! Snerf. Choke and sneeze. My head is full of cement. Fix it, Please"; and so we started a long march ( Read more... )

A little over 13 months, actually, since the last entry. Sigh. There were such good intentions when I started. But then, there have been these little distractions like Work and my Mother dying over the course of the last six weeks ( Read more... )

Well, I suppose Interstate 5 doesn't really qualify as 'narrow', but I was going North on it.

There was this convention in Portland, Oregon, last week (7/24-28), and I rode the bike up and back. Some observations:

• I-505 just before noon - the temperature is in the mid 100's, I waved at some fifteen motorcyclists going the opposite direction, and ( Read more... )

This is a long weekend. For reasons known only to the Founders, Yahoo! decided that both Monday and Tuesday were holidays (Tuesday is the actual Fourth of July). As a result of the extra time, we made three trips to the storage unit and now it is a storage space. Where it once was a wall to wall and seven foot high monolithic block of boxes and ( Read more... )

A couple of weeks ago, it got warm for few days and all of the "Summer Cyclists" came out. These are the ones that don't ride unless the temperature is over 70 degrees and dry. Under 70, they freeze; and in the rain they must melt ( Read more... )

I have been down with a Grand-Mother's cold for a week. I started feeling ache-y last Monday, and woke up on Tuesday with a sore-ish throat and an inability to make much volume. I did the reasonable thing, I called work and told them that I was not feeling in a sharing mood. By Tuesday night I was a basso and sinking fast, and starting to ( Read more... )

Yesterday we took advantage of a break between storms and took Chance to the Dog park ( Read more... )

Chance got a new toy last week, a squeaky-toy soccer ball about six inches in diameter. He has learned how to boot it across the kitchen floor so that it caroms off the cabinets. He intercepts it on the rebound and boots it again. Bemused cats sit on the stools, safely out of the way ( Read more... )

One of the "benefits" of packing up and moving is that you have to unpack on the opposite end. When you are moving from 4000 sq. ft. to 1900, you do NOT get the luxury of stacking boxes in the lumber-room and ignoring them for years, You need all the floor space you can find, so you open and unpack everything and decide whether you really need it ( Read more... )