Cat bracelets

We survived it!  The cat-kids and I survived their vet visits for teeth cleaning this last week. Poor babies.  Addy had 4 teeth extracted that were beyond saving.  Zoe had 2 extractions and some gun resections.  It's my fault their teeth were so bad.  It's been over 10 years since I've had any work done on them.  They just get so traumatized by vet visits that I don't like to take them in unless they're obviously sick.  Still, the constant mouth infections is probably one of the things that adds to their overall health issues, including the kidney function issues.  So there's really no excuse.

As expected, the three of us were traumatized by the process.   All day while they were there I kept remembering my old cat Eber, who went in for a minor "routine" bladder surgery, and ended up with heart failure and fluid on her lungs.  She was sick for over a month, and survived but lost half her body weight doing it.  Eber was younger when that happened than both my cats are now, so I kept thinking about it all day while they were at the vet.  I was so glad to get the call that all was well and I could come at get them around 6:30 pm.  You can imagine, I was there at 6:15, doing the paperwork to get them released.

The cats were more traumatized than I was.  It's taken them about 2 1/2 days to get back to eating and drinking normally.  When we get up in the morning, they hide from me instead of following me out to be fed.  So It'll take a while to completely return to normal.  I figure just about the time they relax again, I'll need to take them back for a check-up.   The vet wants to see them in four weeks to see how they're doing.  Damn it!  *sigh*  Can't be helped.  

The pictures of the cat-kids today show you their "bracelets".  The vet place doesn't shave just a patch on their forearms to put the IV in, they shave around a section of the forearm.  So it looks like Addy and Zoe are wearing bracelets until the fur grows back in.  Maybe by then they'll have forgiven me.  Maybe not.

I'm still working on figuring out all the bells and whistles on the new car.    I need to take a picture of it and show off what it's like.  It's such a deep navy blue that it looks black.  I'm working on getting my vanity license plates transferred to it.  I already put regular plates on the old Outback to get it ready to go to my sister.  One thing the new car has is an electronic parking brake.  Well, come to think of it, EVERYTHING in that car is electronic.  But the parking brake thing could be an issue, because if you have the parking brake on and the electrical system dies (battery dies), you can't move the car.  Wheels are locked.   So just about the only major thing the sales guy showed me was how to climb half under the car and attach this long wrench tool to release the electronic barking brake should I ever need to.  I hope I don't ever have to because you have to turn it 300 times.  

Besides the navigation system, the car has satellite radio, which they give you free for the first month, then start billing you if you decide you want to keep it.  It's a nice hook, because you can really get used to it in a month.  I read some of the new car's owner's manual yesterday to start figuring things out.  You can control the radio/phone/sound system from the steering wheel, which is kind of cool.  No reaching for the radio.  Changing volume, changing stations, changing mode (FM/AM/Satellite/i-pod) - all on the steering wheel.  As is my cell phone, which I can now answer when it rings by hitting a button on the steering wheel.  Spoiled much?

Oh, did I mention it has a sun roof?  

It might be easier to list the things the car doesn't have/do.  

Anyway, I've been out this morning, thinning out the mint around my patio again and dead-heading my roses.  It's supposed to be another 100+ degree scorcher today, so I wanted to do a few things early. Then I can essentially relax the rest of the long weekend.  Yay!

That's it for today.


 

Not corn!

I looked out in my back yard the other day and discovered that the two plants growing in my garden are most definitely not corn.  As you can see in this picture, they're sorghum!  I suppose the fact that they weren't growing tall should have clued me, but to me the small corn and sorghum plants are indistinguishable.  I've seen sorghum in fields all my life, but had no idea what it is and what it's used for.  So of course I had to look it up.  It's a type of grass raised for its grain which is used in the US mostly as fodder for livestock, and it's put in things like birdseed.  So I learned something new.

Things have gotten a little less crazy busy in the last week.  I'm mostly caught up at work from being gone.  This coming week I took a vacation week just to do projects around the house finally - a stay-cation.  I'm not taking my usual 3-week August trip, simply because I've been traveling or gone from work a fair amount anyway this summer.  So I decided not to go this year.  Plus my sister who often goes with me is mad at me currently and my friend who goes, can't this year.  I could have gone by myself, as I have many times in the past, but I decided I'd been gone enough for one summer.  

My mint plants have been flowering for the last month or so.  The blossoms are pretty, and pretty unique as you can see.  And the honeybees just love them, so I have a fair number of honeybees out there in the back most of the time these days.    

The birds are figuring out I've re-filled the feeders and are starting to come back, but I haven't yet seen the flock of sparrows who were here.  Mostly I've seen house finches, the cardinal pair and the doves.  

I should mention that I bought a new car yesterday.  A pretty, midnight blue 2014 Subaru Outback with all the bells and whistles.  It's going to take me a while to learn to drive it I think.  Everything's electronic.  Push button ignition (no key!), electronic parking break, back-up cameras for seeing behind you when you're going in reverse, navigation system,  cell phone synced by bluetooth, etc, etc.  It also has forward cameras, which if you leave them on while you're driving, will brake the car before you can if they see an obstruction ahead of you, and will also beep to warn you if you change lanes without signalling (figuring you're falling asleep at the wheel). You can also set the cruise control to drive a specific distance from the car ahead of you, so if that car speeds up, so will yours and if that car stops, so will yours.  Won't be long before cars are driving themselves.


So far I'm driving with all those things turned OFF, although I have tried out the navigation system.  We don't agree with the best route sometimes, so it politely recalculates the route if I go where it didn't intend me to.  It's a pretty nice car, and handles like a dream, so so far I'm pretty pleased.  I promised my sister I'd sell her the 2008 Outback, so that one will go to her whenever she wants to come and get it.

That's about all for today.  I thought I'd end this with a picture of Zoe enjoying both the sunlight and the air-conditioning from the house.   Or maybe she's guarding the door.     

Later.

Sunflower

I'm so behind on posting on this blog.  Busy, busy.  But I'll come back to that.  First of all the pictures on this post are a daily progression.  For the fun of it, I took pictures of the opening sunflower every day.  So day 1 was the first picture in the last post, and then this first picture of this post is day 2, and the rest of the pictures progress through to day 8.  Kind of fun.

The bad news is though that the sunflowers never went to seed.  We had some miserably hot temperatures, including a week in the 100s.  No matter how much water I gave it, the flowers themselves drooped and drooped after these pictures were taken.   The plant is still alive, but none of the blooms lived long enough to go to seed.

The corn plants are doing well.  They're almost waist high on me now, and happily thriving, although I don't see anything resembling ears on them.

Let's see.  I was gone for a week to a convention, which went well.  I almost didn't go because my Mom's been very sick.  Luckily, she turned around and began the long road to recovery just as the convention was starting, so I went to it.  I managed to get in all the schmoozing I was planning on.  The election's not until September, so I'll know October 1st if the schmoozing was helpful.   Then I was home for a week.

This last week I was out in east Texas with my parents and sister and brother-in-law.  My Dad was scheduled to have a pacemaker placed on the same day that Mom was scheduled to be released from the hospital.   I figured my sister and her husband could use some help.  They've been handling the load of both my parent's illnesses since they live out by them.  The pacemaker placement and subsequent recovery has gone like a charm, but Mom's release didn't go smoothly.  She passed out the day after her release and ended up back in the hospital for two and a half more days while they adjusted her medications and ran a billion tests to rule out any other causes.  Looks like it ended up being a drug-related incident.  

Don't ask me why they would send her home with three new medications she hadn't ever taken before, but at least one of them didn't work for her.   Anyway, she's now back home again and doing well this time, gaining strength and adjusting to home life after a month and half in the hospital post aortic valve replacement.   Nothing like having both parents with heart-related issues.  But I'm delighted to say, both seem to be well on the road to recovery now.     

I did spend all week in east Texas, although I had originally planned to spend 3 days.  Luckily my pet sitter is awesome and adjusted her schedule to keep the cat kids covered.  My cat kids are not too happy about me being gone two full weeks so close together, but they seem to be forgiving me.  That'll last until I drag them to the vet to have their teeth cleaned at the end of the month.  No doubt they won't be quite so quick to forgive me for that. 


I'm fighting new car fever.  I want to buy a new car.  Doesn't help that I got the title to my current car in the mail.  Paid off!  Yay!  I'm ready for that new one now.

I refilled the bird feeders, but the birds haven't realized it yet.  The feeders were both completely empty when I got back yesterday, so the birds have been eating elsewhere.  Usually it takes them a day or so to find the full feeders again.  I haven't seen the little rat since before I left to go to the convention, so maybe he's found other food sources, or been found by the cats that roam the neighborhood.  

The last sunflower picture is foggy because it was so humid that day that when I walked out of my air-conditioned house I couldn't keep the camera lens from fogging over.  Oh, well.  You can sort of see it.    

That's it for today.  More later.

Not a weed!

It's a good thing I have a lawn service.  Most of the things that end up blooming in my back yard, I would have pulled out as weeds when they first started coming up.  I've made a pact with myself not to pull up anything the lawn service people leave alone.  Occasionally I see something very weed-looking and I wonder about keeping that pact, but once again it's proved to be a wise way to go.   I have a huge sunflower beginning to bloom along the edge of my patio.  You can see here the stage of blooming where it is currently.   The plant is about chest-high on me right now.

I'm pretty sure this wasn't an intentionally planted sunflower.  I'm guessing it came from the birdseed I put out there.  I periodically hose off the patio, and probably hosed a sunflower seed into the garden at the patio edge.  Still, it's going to be pretty when it blooms fully and probably will attract more birds when it goes to seed.  

I also have two plants that look like corn plants that are not quite knee high on the opposite side of the patio, which I figure came from the same source as the sunflower.  The people who used to own this house and worked so hard to have a beautifully landscaped place would probably be horrified by sunflowers and corn plants, but I like to let things grow.  Although I do have to occasionally pull up a bunch of the mint so that it doesn't take over the world.  It seems to be flowering at the tips right now.  

The cat children are not feeling too well.  We went to the vet yesterday for their annual physicals and vaccinations.  I also had blood work done on both since Addy needs her kidney function monitored and Zoe's old enough to have some baseline labs done.  Addy's recovered from the experience just fine although she's being a very clingy, Momma's girl.  Zoe's off her food.  She obviously doesn't feel well.  But since she is eating, just not as much as usual, I'll just keep an eye on her.   She went outside as soon as I opened the door this morning, and has been laying out there for the last three hours.  I imagine she'll come in when the day starts to heat up.  It's in the mid-70's out there this morning, so pretty nice still.  

We got rain here yesterday afternoon.  They were calling for a 20% chance of spotty afternoon showers and storms so I didn't expect anything, and was lucky enough to be in the right spot.  It probably rained less than an hour, but was a pretty decent rain while it lasted.  And the clouds kept the temps in the low 90's.

Next Saturday I'm going to a convention of one of national organizations.  I'm running for President-elect of this one this year, even though I'm already pres-elect of my other organizations.  It'll work.  If I win this election I'll be Pres-elect of this one the year I'm Pres of the other one.  Anyway, I've been working on sprucing up my wardrobe to do a bunch of schmoozing at the convention.  It's been kind of nice because I've lost weight and am buying dresses 2 to 3 sizes smaller than the last dresses I bought.  The bad new about the loss of weight is that most of my current wardrobe is baggy on me.  I have to work on a lot of my wardrobe - which is good for my shopping alter-ego, bad for my credit cards. 

The weight loss started during the Japan trip.  When I got back my cholesterol was so much lower than it usually runs and I had dropped some weight and the only things I did were to eat better foods, eat smaller portion sizes and get exercise.  So I'm motivated to keep on and continue dropping the weight.  Even if I do have to make the sacrifice of shopping for new clothes.  lol.

You know, if someone would invent a sarcasm font and an irony font, they'd make a fortune.

That's all for today.

Japan Trip 5

I should be able to finish talking about the trip to Japan in this post, although I'm still pushing it to get in all the pictures that I want to post.  Nonetheless, I'm going to try to finish up. 

This day was going to be our only full day in Miyajima and we had decided to spend it climbing Mt. Misen.  This little picture is our room.  We got up and went and had breakfast in the ryokan first.  The breakfast was another awesome Japanese breakfast, which I unfortunately didn't take any pictures of.  The second morning we were there, they fed us an "American" breakfast, although it wasn't what I normally eat for breakfast. There was yogurt and fruit and salad.  Hmmmmm.  I don't recall what else, but I recall wishing we could have had the Japanese breakfast both days.    

Then we walked through the shopping district, most of which was still closed up since it was early.  On the way we came across the little guy and his Mom in the first picture of this post.  We figured he wasn't more than a few hours old and was probably born there in the shopping district.  

When we got to the O-torii it was low tide, so of course we had to walk out to it and be typical tourists.  Without seeing it I never would have believed that torii would be on dry land at low tide.

Then we walked through town to the start of the Daisho-in path and started up it.  Up.  Again I forgot exactly how "up" up is in Japan.  That path is 2.5 kilometers from the start to the top of Mt. Misen.  That's about 1.6 miles.  Or 3.2 miles round trip.  3.2 miles, for two people who routinely hike 6 to 10 miles on a day hike, and I've been known to hike 18 miles on a day hike.  That Mt. Misen hike kicked our collective asses.  My friend was at a bad time of month, and I had that cold, so maybe those things had some effect.  Or maybe we were still jet lagged and recovering.  And I know we had been going pretty non-stop for the whole trip.  And neither of us was used to the amount of humidity that was constantly in the air.  Whatever excuse you want to use, or not use, we just barely had enough energy to make the top.  Then we walked over to the ropeway and took the tram back down.  Probably covered 2 miles total.  Two very vertical miles.    

The hike itself was cool and you'd come to openings in the forest that gave you awesome views like this one looking down at the O-torii and the ferries.  The hike is mostly stone steps (going continuously upward), and it's very pretty.  On the hike up we came across a fair amount of wildlife, including lots of salamanders and lizards.  We also came across the scary looking centipede in the picture below.  This fellow was huge, about 6 inches long.  We also came up on this snake in the picture below that.  This is a mamushi, a viper in the same pit viper family that holds rattlesnakes.  Mamushi are also probably more poisonous than rattlesnakes.  I can tell you they are very aggressive.  My friend tried to convince this one to leave with the end of a very long stick, and he instead attacked the stick and came toward us.  We backed down the trail a bit and waited for him to leave on his own.

After riding the ropeway back down, we found another place to eat.  I had kitsune soba.   My cold didn't really bother me on the hike, but I remember I was dragging this afternoon.  We then spent what was left of the afternoon shopping.  

The next morning after breakfast we took the ferry back to Miyajimaguchi, then caught the Sanyo line back to Hiroshima.  We then caught the Shinkansens in reverse headed back north, Sakura to Shin-Osaka and then Kodama to Shinagawa.  From the Shinagawa Station we walked over to the Shinagawa Prince Hotel, where we stayed our last two nights in Japan.   What I remember of this trip back toward Tokyo is that I was exhausted and I had managed to pull my back out heaving my suitcase.  I slept part of the train trip.  I think the cold caught up to me the worst on this day. 

On the train ride I was about to dump my guardian deities because they failed me fairly badly on this trip, between blisters and the cold.   Usually they look out for me considerably better than that, and I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.  At any rate the last time I was in Japan I missed seeing Mt. Fuji, although I passed it three times.  This trip we missed it on the way south also, so I thought to myself that if I saw Mt. Fuji, I'd give my deities another chance and wouldn't dump them.  We saw it!   Proof is in the final picture.  Guess they're still with me.

We ate curry in one of the hotel restaurants and then spent the evening deciding on our plan of attack on anime stores for the next two days.  

The next morning we got up and took the Yamanote rail line to Akihabara.   The Shinagawa Prince Hotel is right by the train station, so it was essentially convenient to everywhere.  We found the Animate store and did some shopping there.  We also walked around and found another anime store but weren’t that impressed with it.  I think we were both a little overwhelmed by  Akihabara. 

We decided to take the rail over to Nakano Broadway.  We were both starved by then since we'd skipped breakfast.  We stopped and had shabu shabu for lunch, which was fun and excellent.  They put a pot of boiling water in the center of the table and then load you up with thin strips of raw meat and vegetables and multiple sauces and spices.  You drop the meat and vegetables into the boiling pot and then fish them out when they're done, dip them in the sauces and spices and eat them.  Yum.  This is definitely a meal you want to use chopsticks for.  Of course we used them the whole time we were there, but shabu shabu kind of requires it.  We felt re-invigorated after eating and shopped a bunch at Nakano Broadway.  Both my cold and my feet were feeling pretty good this day. 

After shopping we returned to the hotel, stopping for food and beer at Kinokuniya in Shinigawa Station. 

The following morning we again took the Yamanote line, but this time in the opposite direction to Ikebukuro to find largest Animate store in Tokyo (or maybe the world).  It had moved from the location that Google had for it, so we did a bit of walking to get to it.   This puppy is one really big anime store.  We did major shopping there for multiple hours.

We then returned to the hotel and had lunch (shrimp tempura bowl) at the hotel restaurant.  I went back to the room to take a bath and rest, since I was again dragging somewhat.  My friend went back out, this time to a Shibuya Animate store, and came back with more loot and supper snacks for both of us.  Afterward we both packed for the trip home.  I had bought a small, carry-on sized piece of luggage at Nakano Broadway, knowing that we both were going overboard with our shopping and were going to need something to get it all back to the States in.    

The last morning of the trip, we gathered everything, checked out and then took the hotel shuttle bus to Narita. We arrived there about 8:30 am and caught the flight to DFW around 11:00 am.  We arrived at DFW at 8:30 am, essentially the same time and same day we were arriving at Narita.  Pretty cool, although it messes with your head a bit.

And that's the trip.  When I remember it, I don't remember the blisters and cold.  I remember the sights and smells and tastes.  I remember the shopping.  I remember the wonderful places we stayed and the nice people all the way throughout the trip.  It was an awesome trip, and I'm ready to do it again  

Japan Trip 4

Our fourth day in Japan we got up and ate breakfast again at Shimizu.  Then we took everything and checked out.  We walked back to Kyoto Station and caught the Kodama Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka.  Then we switched trains to the Sakura Shinkansen to go to Hiroshima.  In all our JR Rail travel that had trains with green cars we had reserved seats in the green cars because we had Green rail passes.  The green cars are nice.  On the Shinkansens we always had reserved seats. 

In Hiroshima we changed trains to a local JR line, the Sanyo, to go from Hiroshima to Miyajimaguchi.  This train didn’t have green cars, but it was still a nice train ride.  I was feeling my cold somewhat, which caused me to be a little draggy, but was still enjoying myself a lot.

Once we arrived in Miyajimaguchi, we took the Miyajima Ferry from Miyajimaguchi to Miyajima Island.  The first picture in this post was taken from the ferry.  You can see the O-torii with Itsukashima Shrine in the background.   The big O-torii in the bay is the structure that Miyajima Island is most famous for, and actually, this big torii gate can be seen on a lot of advertisements for Japan.  It’s massively huge.  The second picture is taken from the Itsukashima shrine looking back at the O-torii and the mainland behind it.

When the ferry docked we got off and walked to the Kuroyada Iroha Ryokan, which was right on the main shopping street on Miyajima Island.   Again we had a little trouble finding it.  My friend left me with the luggage and went looking while I rested.  Standing there waiting I spotted the landmark they told us to look for, so the ryokan wasn’t that hard to find.  We just forgot to look for the landmark.  We were early for check in so we left our luggage there and went for some lunch.   I had a pork cutlet set at a really nice little local place, sitting in a room with a view of a gorgeous small garden and koi pond

  

After lunch we did some sightseeing.  We walked over to Itsukashima shrine and walked around the area around it, taking pictures of the shrine and pagoda.  We also took lots of picture of the O-Torii from different angles.    We also took pictures of wildlife, including the Miyajima deer.  These little guys almost don't qualify as wildlife.  They are totally unafraid of people and beg handouts from people.  Full grown they come up about mid-thigh on me so they’re not big.  Keeping their population in check is a major problem for Miyajima Island.

 

We also took pictures of crabs as the tide was going out and this little snowy egret.  He was pretty.

We then began checking out some of the souvenir shopping.  I had bought cough drops the day before because Vicks Cough Drops are recognizable everywhere, but I couldn’t  figure out cold capsules, being unable to read Japanese, so I dealt with the cold with just cough drops and Kleenex.

While we were shopping we bought some local fish cakes and ate them.  Mine was a maple-leaf shaped, cheese-flavored fish cake.  Interesting texture but not a bad flavor.  There was also beer in a vending machine!  I didn’t believe it but my friend had seen it and showed me.  We also saw it in vending machines in Tokyo later.  They also have coffee in vending machines.  This time of year they didn’t have much in the way of hot drinks, but usually you can get hot drinks from vending machines here too.

We then returned to Kurayada Iroha and checked in.   The room was really awesome, although we were a little freaked out at first because we thought it didn’t have a private bath.  It did.  We stayed in the Yo Room. It was good sized and gorgeous, and they welcomed us with tea and a small sweet.

 

I don’t remember what we ate for supper.  I imagine snacks from one of the little shops again.  We had gotten maps of the island from the ryokan, so we poured over those and decided on the best route to take to climb Mt. Misen the next day.  There are three possible routes, and we decided on the shortest one the Daisho-in route.   I remember my friend wanted to go out and see the O-torii at low tide (roughly 7:00 pm) when you can walk out to it, but she didn’t.  That worked out as it was low tide the next morning, and we walked out to it then.  This last picture shows the stairs you walk down at low tide to walk out to it.

I wore the new Reebok tennis shoes this day and my feet felt wonderful!  No issues with blisters or with falling off the shoes or having trouble walking or balancing in them.  It was such a relief not to have my feet hurting, but I was dragging somewhat from the effects of the cold.

Summer!

I thought I'd take a short break from the Japan-related posts and write a blog post about what else is going on these days.

For one thing it's summer in Texas.  Hot!  HOT!  I shouldn't complain actually.  I'm not sure we've hit 100 yet.  Or if we have it's been a just barely hit, but the high 90s are still plenty hot.  And the last week there's been a pretty decent wind.  Between the heat and  wind, the moisture is getting sucked out of my lawn and plants.  I increased the watering by the sprinkler system from very 4th day to every 3rd day.  And I'm needing to remember to go out and water plants the sprinkler system doesn't reach.

The cats like the heat in doses.  The first picture here is Zoe, sleeping in her favorite outside spot under the table.  I had to take this picture through the door so I wouldn't wake her up because she was so cute sleeping with her head resting on the chair rail.  Addy will go out there for short periods but here she's stretched out on her favorite spot on the bed.

I have purple blooming in the garden now.  These purple blooms are crepe myrtle down in the garden.  Above them is a fuchsia crepe myrtle tree that's also blooming.  And of course all the roses continue to bloom.  So far I've had something blooming all the time since the flowering quince began blooming last February.  Thanks, previous homeowners!

I'm keeping the bird feeder filled but it's become something of a chore because I have a flock of house sparrows with a few house finches thrown in that go through a feeder full every other day.  There are about 16 sparrows out there right now, vying for 4 open slots on the feeder.  the feeder has 6 places, but as the seed gets low it can only be reached from 4 places, then from 2 places.  The vying gets worse as the level of seed drops.  The sparrows and morning doves are about the only birds that still come around.  Occasionally I'll see the cardinal pair or blue jays will come to the bird bath.  None of them need me to be feeding them now, but I still put seed out.

I have a pair of mockingbirds nesting in one of the tiered trees out back here.  I see them around all the time.  The other day one was foraging by the side of my house, right outside my window as I sat here on the computer.  He was using that typically Mockingbird behavior of flashing his wing patches as he hunted.  I wish I had caught it on camera.  It was very cool.  I like mockingbirds.  

My two little pine trees are still growing although they are tending to grow outward rather than upward.  You can see here that they're surviving quite nicely in the pot I put them in.  And you can also see that the limbs continue to spread, although upward growth has slowed.  I wonder if they need to go through a dormant period - like maybe winter.  Unfortunately, they have at least 4-5 months to go before the weather turns cool.  I wonder if I should put them outside for awhile when it does though.

Anyway so things are pretty normal around the homestead.  I have some family stuff coming up.  My Mother is having a medical procedure next week so I'll be deeper in east Texas to be with family.  I'm confident that everything will go smoothly there, but I want to be around.   Work is busy, but at a somewhat slower pace than it's been for the last several months, so that's nice.  

I'm seriously watching my diet and exercising these days because I had a doctor's appointment when I got back from Japan.  My total cholesterol was 181 after 9 days in Japan, eating fish, vegetables and rice.  My total cholesterol has been running 205 - 219 for the last five years at least.  The last time it was in the 180's was in 2001.  So that cholesterol result motivated me to be more conscious of my diet and try not to be totally sedentary.  

So that's what's going on.  Nothing earth-shattering, just daily life.  Next post, back to Japan!