More Zoe...

Grand-niece Zoe is 9 days old today. Here she is with Einstein, one of the world's coolest dogs!

Zoe revisited...

Here's a more flattering picture of Zoe - all cleaned up and awake. Such a doll!

PIQF 2009

I'm all signed up for this year's PIQF (Pacific International Quilt Festival), have my hotel reservations made, and am already plowing through my stash, looking for fabric to take! I'll be taking three classes with Barbara Olson, and can hardly wait. I can't legally post any pictures of her quilts here (damn!), but go here to view her gallery. Her work is eye-popping and just knocks my socks off! Her classes are described as, "techniques for quilters who are ready to break out of the box and experience a playful way of quilting, by getting their brains out of the way and jump-starting their creativity". Sounds good to me! I've had her book for a couple of years, and never get tired of looking at it...


I always thought work like hers was beyond me, but I should know better than to think like that! It's time to get fearless!!

2009 Garden up and running...

Yay!! The back yard containers are finally planted... well, most of them, at least. This year we're looking forward to potatoes, lemon cucumbers, six different kinds of Heirloom tomatoes, green peppers, strawberries, green beans, chives, parsley, basil, lemon thyme, sage and oregano, plus a bunch of flowers I chunked into the pots to add a dash of color. Lettuce is yet to come, as soon as I get a couple more barrels ready. As usual, the rest of the yard looks like hell... especially that bloody, damned hill, but John, my trusty gardner, is working to eliminate that problem.

Welcome, Zoe!

Zoe Alana Proctor, born this day at 6:05 a.m.
It's a hellofa messed up world you've found yourself in, little girl, but you're your mama's child. That, along with that crazy set of initials they gave you, means you're gonna do just fine.
May you live long and prosper!

Faces only a mother could love...?

Gettin' loose and having fun with the camera on my new iPhone...

The Love of My Life
My "Sistah"
One very cool Old Fart
Yoda... a thug among cats
Lucia (Chi-Chi) The most adorable cat on the planet

Meditation

Today, in an attempt to give Dmitri a break from the cage in which he's been confined since he experienced his "stroke" two weeks ago, I let him sit on a window sill in the sunlight for half an hour. At the same time, I pulled up a chair and sat next to him so I could keep an eye (and a restraining hand) on him. He quickly dozed off while I zoned in the sun. This industrious little guy was just outside the window, and I watched in pure delight while he chomped his way through a couple of inches of an enormous fennel plant. I was reminded of a song Frank Sinatra recorded back in 1959, called "High Hopes", with a verse about an ant bringing down a rubber tree plant. Even if this caterpillar can't bring down this fennel bush, he'll have the freshest breath in all caterpillar-dom, and that's gotta be worth something... right??

I'm happy to report Dmitri is doing pretty well... he's eating okay, though he insists on being "finger fed", he can walk a little, though his right hind leg doesn't work very well, and he's tolerating his daily regimen of four different meds and two doses of subcutaneous fluids very well. He's alert and responsive and definitely seems to enjoy all the attention he's getting, and, I have to admit, I'm enjoying showering him with said attention. I'm just so grateful I have the time to supply it. So what if I don't have time to do a whole lot else in my life? In the end, pampering a sick companion animal is, to me, more worthwhile than just about anything else I can do.

Tax Break

I'm trying so hard to get our taxes done before the extension runs out... and with my track record with taxes, the August 15 extension running out is a real possibility. I was making some decent progress, until I took a potty break and came back to find Nikolai had jumped in to help me out. Oh well, I needed a break anyway. I hate doing taxes as much as I hate doing housework. If Nikky wants to help, I'll back off and let him help! Tomorrow is always another day. Maybe tomorrow will be the day the taxes get done.
Maybe not.

More orchid-children

I recently added two new orchids to my Greenhouse in the Loo. Now that the warmer weather is finally here, I've noticed some of the older plants sprouting new leaves and shoots, so I hope to have more blooms before too long. As usual, I don't know the names of these beauties, but that never stops me from buying them!

Life and Time march on...

While we're waiting for Dmitri to choose his path of recovery, life goes on around us. Last week, our niece, Kristen, was feted with a baby shower by her grandmother in Diablo. We're definitely not baby shower enthusiasts, in fact we're not even baby enthusiasts, but we went to this shower because the family has all moved away, and we never see them any more. We had a good time - it was fun to see everyone, including some old family friends we hadn't seen in ages. Zoe, the newcomer, received a ton of goods - she's definitely going to be the best dressed baby in Carson City. It was a beautiful day, Grandma Betty's drop-dead gawgeous house (high on a hill overlooking the Diablo Valley golf course) was, as always, a delicious place to hang out, the yummy food and wine kept coming, and there was only one baby shower game, which actually turned out to be rather fun! Kristen says Zoe has to "marinate" for another 6-8 weeks before making her appearance, so we'll officially be grand-uncle and aunt pretty soon. Such an honour!


Kristen and Einstein admire one of Zoe's new outfits. That's Kristen's sister, Tracy, and her husband, Eric, in the wedding picture in the background. Maybe they're next in the baby game...???


Einstein, obviously bored with the whole baby shower thing, decides his pig foot is muuuuuch more interesting!

One M.F. of a week...

This week has been a bitch. I mean, a total, fucking bust. Dmitri, one of our beautiful boys, suffered the kitty equivalent of a stroke a few days ago, and we've spent hours at one veterinarian or cat emergency clinic or another, and hours more worrying about him and wondering if he's going to get through this. About a decade ago, Josef suffered a similar problem, and the only advice we got at that time was euthanasia. Times have changed and medical technology has progressed, and this time around we've been cautiously advised to "wait and see", as all of the vets we've seen claim they've known a cat or two who survived this kind of crisis. We're waiting, and going bonkers in the process. One day he looks like he's better, the next day things look totally bleak. His hind legs were paralyzed the first day or two, but now he can maneuver them enough to move about a little. The biggest problem is that he isn't eating, and cats know best about that kind of stuff. I think he knows he's going to die, so he's allowing himself to shut down. The entire episode revolves around a quality of life issue, and he's definitely not experiencing any huge amount of quality in his life as it is right now. Martin and I are totally committed to caring for him, no matter what his condition, but we're trusting him to write the script. In the meantime, were discovering waiting is one of the most difficult things to do in life.