Enough bad news

Not mine; people around me.

In the last few weeks, here’s what’s happened:

• My friend Jae’s stage 4 breast cancer has returned.
• My friend Bev’s sister had a serious head injury.
• My friend Andrew died from colon cancer.
• My friend Debbie’s only son died in his sleep at the age of 26.
• My friend Cean learned his wife has been cheating on him for quite a while.

I’m not superstitious in the least but that’s a whole lot of bad news. I’m ready for cream puffs, cartoon bunnies and flowers and maybe a bottle of wine. Who’s with me?

Wine and also a bit of Wally

Sunday we drove to Braintree, MA for the flea market wine sale I mentioned Saturday. Neither of us knew exactly what to expect and really, given the verbiage the owner used, I figured it would be in a warehouse with a few remnants on sale. It was in a warehouse but that’s the only bit I got right.

There were probably 14 large tables set up with representatives from either the vineyard or the distributor on hand to let us taste their wares, and the place was packed. Bin Ends had provided lots of crackers and also dump buckets so no one got entirely sloshed. We limited our tasting to reds, and found some really nice ones at very reasonable prices. I’ll head back down there on Thursday to pick up our order.

We also got a couple of bottles from the stock at hand. Two were inexpensive and one was a bit more than we usually spend, although still under $30. We decided to save that one for a special occasion like our anniversary but realized we needed to mark the bottle so we didn’t inadvertently drink it.

Shortly before we headed to bed, Kent put a wide rubber band on the neck of the bottle and then put it in our wine rack. Not 10 minutes later, Wally’d gotten that rubber band off the bottle and had run off into our bedroom with it so he could chew it to his kitty heart’s content. Kent managed to get the rubber band back and this time he put it around the wide part of the bottle and then put the bottle back on the wine rack.

We went to bed but weren’t yet asleep when we both heard a bottle CLANKING very loudly. Wally had pulled the bottle OUT of the wine rack and was busy pulling that rubber band off the bottle again. Clearly we’ll need to just use a Sharpie or something.

Of fur, flies and wine

First the fur. This picture shows just a small portion of the fur I got off all three kitties Thursday morning. I use my dish washing gloves, put a tiny bit of water on them, and then rub the kitty fur like I'm grooming with a brush. The water on the gloves gets their fur damp and then the gloves can sort of tug at the fur. I think it's probably similar to how cat tongues work--only a lot bigger. All three seem to love this process because when I'm grooming one, the others circle around waiting their turn.

I got this video clip last night, and I do apologize for it being pretty jerky. But Eddie was bound and determined to catch the fly you see at the end. I'm pretty sure it was a fruit fly, and Kent finally squished it if only to keep Eddie from taking a flying leap onto Kent's head.



Finally, we are going to take a trip to Braintree tomorrow to check out this wine sale. I've been following the owner on Twitter and I think we'll be able to get some really good wines at very reasonable prices. Stay tuned, I'll let you know what we find.