Woman in the Middle

A few photos of Cloud, the front yard cat, from a few days ago. He is doing well right now, and looks pretty good for a long haired white cat who lives outside. Keep in mind he has his summer coat right now. In the winter his fur is much longer.

A close up of his squinty look.

Isn’t he pretty?

Asleep in the front planter on the mulch. He looks like a creature from the deep when he gets up and mulch is stuck to him everywhere. It looks like seaweed dangling from him. As a white cat with light eyes, he always seeks out the shade, even in winter.

We had been in bed about 25 minutes when what sounded like an explosion or, god forbid, someone bursting into our home in a home invasion, suddenly happened. “What was THAT?” I asked. Hubby replied, “I don’t know, but we better find out. ” The noise sounded like it was centered at or above our bedroom door.

I crept out of the bedroom and asked Eldest if she heard it, Yes she did. Her assumption was the cats had toppled something over. I opened the garage door and they both gave me a “What the HELL was that?” look, so I figured it wasn’t them. Hubby grabbed a flashlight and started looking around outside and up on the roof. I kept looking at the ceiling, expecting to see cracks or holes or SOMETHING that would explain the big bang followed by what sounded like a spray of glass or ceiling bits.

I finally looked in the master bedroom closet and there it was. The clothes rod on my side of the closet had fallen off the wall, yanking the brace out of the wall with it. The sound of things shattering or scattering afterwards was the metal hooks on my hangers hitting each other after the rod fell at an angle.  I went outside and told Hubby I had found the problem. He came in, looked at the situation, and told me I had too many clothes. Well, I would like to dispute that. I may have had too many clothes on the rod, but I in no way have too many clothes!

FYI, a downward angled clothes rod is not a great  plan for clothes storage.

As Eldest said, after we figured out what had happened, “Why do these things always happen at night?”

I don’t think I have mentioned, but after years and years of thinking about it, we are finally going to Disney World! The plans are in place, the reservations made, and the plane tickets bought. Now we just have to wait until November for it to happen…or so I thought.

I had a phone call yesterday with a lovely woman with a southern accent at the Big D who made me realize I was totally not prepared! I am beginning to feel like a trip to Disneyworld is a bit like Patton planning the assault of North Africa. Details…so many details!

First she wanted to know if I had gone on and registered at My Disney Experience. Ummmm….no I had not. Well, I will have you know, our vacation is within the 60 day pre-vacation window and we need to get on it!!! We need to pick the color of our magic wristbands or we will be stuck with gray when we get to Orlando and they won’t have our names on them!!!!! Yuck! And we needed to tell them when our plane flight is arriving and leaving, which would in some magic way cause them to send us special luggage tags which will get our luggage picked up and delivered to our room, no muss no fuss. Whew! I did both of those pronto.

We also needed to get our fast passes figured out. We have three each for each of the five days we are going to be there. Oh my! That means we need to know NOW where we are going to be each of those five days. Good grief! We also need to be making our dining reservations! DO IT NOW!!!!!

Eldest Daughter is working the next two days, but I told her that on Friday, we are going to get this Fastpass thing figured out! I have no idea what rides we want fastpasses for. I have no idea where we will be each day. Hopefully she can help me figure that out.

Man, that big mouse is a demanding guy to vacation with! LOL!

First we had the nine broiling days days from H-E-Double Hockey Sticks. Then we had a few days of normal September weather. Then the temperature plunged into autumn, even before autumn got here! People around here were dancing the pumpkin spice tango.  Everyone was so excited fall had arrived! I, however, had a hard time getting excited. I have lived here all my life and I knew it was nothing but a cruel hoax.

Summer in inland So Cal lasts at least until mid October. Last year it was around until mid November. (FYI – No one was doing the pumpkin spice tango then!) I tried to enjoy the cool fall air, but it was so hard, even as I pulled out a pair of long pants. I knew Mother Nature was just messing with us all. Sure enough. Summer is back. And this time, along with high 90s temps, it brought a friend. A Santa Ana wind. Nothing like a hot hard wind to remind you that fall isn’t here yet. Like I said, it was a cruel hoax.

Yep, this guy is still hanging around. He shook off his cold and is and back to feeling hot, hot, hot!

Sun image courtesy clipartsign.com

I was going back through my draft posts and found I had started a post about a visit we made back in June to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, but had never finished and posted. So, here it is!

For Father’s Day the girls and I took Hubby to the Japanese American National Museum. Hubby likes most any museum, but we took him to that particular one because it was having a special exhibit featuring items from George Takei, who played Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek TV series, as well as in a number of Star Trek movies. Hubby loves all things Star Trek, so we decided that would be a good day out for Father’s Day. (FYI – we saw the exhibit at the very end of its run, so it is no longer at the museum.)

I am not going to get in to the drive, because I already discussed that in a previous post. But, being Sunday, traffic really wasn’t bad, and we were able to zip in and out of Los Angeles with a minimum of time, which was nice. The museum itself does not have a parking lot or garage. However, their website directed me to another site which had a map of all the local parking garages, rates, addresses, etc….  I picked the closest one, which turned out to be just across the street from the museum. Nice!

Unfortunately, the museum was having air conditioning problems the day were were there, which did not encourage us to linger at any displays other than the George Takei exhibit. We did look at some displays, we just didn’t spend as much time as we otherwise would have. There was an actual building from a relocation camp. There was also the Common Ground exhibit, which chronicled over 130 years of the Japanese American experience though hundreds of objects.The museum had a good sized gift shop with an extensive book selection.

Just across the mall from the museum is a vintage building, built in 1902, which holds the “Go For Broke” National Education Center. You can buy a duel ticket, which saves you a little money and lets you in to both museums. “Go For Broke” was the nickname of the 442nd infantry regiment who fought during World War II. It was comprised almost entirely of men of Japanese ancestry. It was the  most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of American warfare. We did not visit it that day, as we had other plans for Father’s Day, but it would definitely be a good addition to a day out in that area.

We parked in the parking garage for the Japanese Village Plaza. After our warm walk though the museum, we decided to stroll around this open air shopping area, enjoy the breeze on our sweaty faces, and gt a cool drink. Since it is just across the street from the museum, it was a convenient addition to our plans for the day. The Japanese American National Museum is located in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles, so you can definitely make a day of it  when visiting that area.

The other night, Hubby and I were watching TV and I heard the tell tale sound of a cat bowl being moved around on concrete outside the front door. Cloud gets fed out there, but he does not make noise with the bowl. Last time I heard it I got to watch a skunk do a dance with the bowl, so I jumped up immediately to see what was messing around out there.

It wasn’t a skunk this time. It was a ‘possum!  I would guess it is a teenager as it wasn’t fully grown yet.  As I have mentioned before, our front door is actually on the side of our house. Just passed the front door the house juts out a few feet, and on that wall is a skinny window, which is a perfect place to observe the walkway to the door and what is going on all the way out to the street. I stood at the window watching the ‘possum, and I could see down at the end of the walkway Cloud was loafed there, watching the ‘possum be silly and nose around along with me. .

Very soon, the ‘possum decided to go back up the walkway towards Cloud.  Uh oh, I thought. What will happen when he gets down by the cat? The ‘possum had to pass within a couple of feet of Cloud to go along his merry way. Well, what happened was …nothing. The ‘possum ambled passed Cloud. Cloud watched it go by with no change in body posture. Both Cloud and the ‘possum were obviously not concerned. Hubby said he was sure they had met before as permanent occupants of our front yard.

A night or two later Youngest Daughter was over for dinner. Of course I had to tell her about the ‘possum and Cloud. She laughed, and called them “unlikely friends.” and immediately that was what I knew I would call this post. The feral cat and the possum. Unlikely friends indeed.

I just unfriended someone on Facebook. I don’t do that very often. But I know I am not the first to unfriend this person. Why? The constant, and I do mean constant,  bragging posts. It was the Facebook equivalent of a bad Christmas newsletter, but this newsletter came every day, 365 days a year. Happily, I knew what to do about it. Whew…that felt so good!

I am looking at carpet samples for Eldest and Youngest’s rooms. As usual, trends moved on without me. And the trend right now is gray, blue, green, and yellow tints, at least when it comes to carpet. Even most of the beige samples have one of those colors as a base. All I want is beige, not a gray beige, or a yellow beige, or a green beige. Just beige.   And, if I was opting for a gray, I wouldn’t want a green or blue gray. Oh boy, I see fun times ahead….

I left a city council meeting that was running late last night. As I cruised home, I past a self wash car wash place. It has been there since I was a kid. But, even a community institution like that can still surprise me. There, at almost eleven o’cock at night, several people were washing cars. It wasn’t like it was a hot night either, as the temperature at that time was 61 degrees. FYI, I have never and will never want my car clean so badly that I would wash it at that time of night! LOL!

Hope you have a great weekend!

I treated myself to a pineapple infused black tea (which I recommend) and a chocolate croissant at Starbucks the other day. I carefully looked in the case before I ordered. so I didn’t ask for something they didn’t have, which is just one big disappointment, isn’t it? Happily, they had three of the croissants, so I knew I was good. I told the young woman taking my order what I wanted. I was pretty sure she was new, but I am not in Starbucks every day so “new” might have been relative. When I asked for the croissant, she said she would have to look and see if they had any. I told her there were some in the case, and she got a deer in the headlights look.

She went to the case, but pulled out a drawer underneath it and poked around. Then she came back and said they didn’t have any. OK, now I was getting annoyed. I explained, “There are three in the case, I know you have some.” I kid you not, she then had to go ask if she was allowed to sell what was in the case. Uh, yes, that is not just wasted inventory, sweetie. There must have been at least $100 of product just sitting there, many with more than one on display. Did you think you were going to throw all those out tonight and start over tomorrow?

When I got home, Eldest Daughter, who is a much more regular customer at that particular Starbucks, explained that a whole bunch of new folks had been hired, in anticipation of our Starbucks move to new quarters, with a drive thru. I guess the young woman helping me only got the part of the memo about selling out of the drawer, not the part about selling out of the case after the drawer was empty.  Oh well, in the end no big deal. I got my pastry. The new employee got some clarification. And our new Starbucks is open now. Yay!

You just never know where a cat will decide to be. What spot will they make their own today, this week, or this month?

A couple of weeks ago (or so) Hubby did a big load of rags, old towels, and a blanket I had purchased at a thrift store for Honey. Yes, I admit that blanket had been waiting around to be washed for quite a while. What can I say, it was not a priority. But it finally got its turn in the washing machine. After being washed and dried, Hubby folded it up and left it on the love seat in the den. At some point, someone, probably me, wanted to lay down on the love seat and the blanket got put on the back of the love seat.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the blanket, It was still perfectly good, but it had been a dog bed, after all. Just as I realized it could be donated to Room 8, Nox discovered it. It became a favorite place for him to perch, especially at night when we are watching TV. We didn’t have the heart to remove it, because he looked so comfy when he was snoozing away on his blanket perch. It goes so well with my decor! LOL!

One night, Lumos got jealous.

He finally managed to wedge himself in next to the blanket, but he was not a happy camper.

Now I often see either cat up on the blue blanket, although Lumos looks a little too big and a little awkward when he is perched up there. But, you know, if one brother has it, the other one has to have it too! It is like having two four year olds! LOL!

Every cat has a story and on September 1st I learned dear drooling Joey’s story. First of all, Joey is a girl! I totally need to work on calling “him” a “her” now. Joey was living with an elderly couple. The husband had Alzheimer’s and the family was placing him in a facility. Happily, the wife could go live there as well, and still be with her husband. Unhappily, they couldn’t take their pet cat. They found Room 8, who agreed to take the cat who, they said, was 25 years old. Well, two years later we are very sure Joey was not 25. But this story explains why Joey so dislikes the cattery and so likes to roam the hallways and find a nice office chair to sleep in. It feels more like a home that way. Sigh…..

It was hot at the cattery on the first day of September, because we were still in the middle of our heat wave. The fans were going, however, and I think the cats were more comfortable than the humans. Given how many of the older kittens wanted to pile on Eldest Daughter, I would say they didn’t mind the heat at all, or the heat generated from her and so many cat bodies all piled together.

The little white kitty with the unique ringed tail was my friend today. It started purring the minute I picked it up and it wanted to stay with me always. Double sigh. Such a lovable cutie!

Here are some more photos of the older kittens today.