My trip to New York

Did you have to write those annoying essays when you first returned to school: What I did on summer vacation? I sure did, and this entry reminds me of those days.

I always enjoy New York, even though I've been there a lot. Mostly though I really loved seeing Kent. He's been gone a lot this month and after living apart for nine moths, I get grumpy when he's not around. One benefit of living in Boston is that the flight to New York is pretty short. I thought about taking the train and may do that another time, and I guess I could have driven but honestly I wouldn't want to pay for hotel parking in New York. We stayed at Club Quarters right by Radio City Hall and he got an amazing rate: $235 a night. Any more that's a good rate no matter where you are but it's really fantastic in Manhattan.

We hooked up with two different sets of friends, one on Friday night and the other Saturday afternoon. That left us plenty of time to enjoy seeing each other. As Kent said, we can aim for the same sort of relaxing, do-nothing weekend at home but the truth is all the various normal household chores call our names and we end up getting busy with mundane tasks that need to be done but aren't particularly relaxing.

Fashion Week was--alas--already over but that meant we could get things on sale at pretty good prices. For example, I got a Kenneth Cole purse for under $100. Yes, that's still a lot of money but it's at least within the realm of consideration. I turned down an even better Cole Haan purse for $245 :-)

I also managed to collect four blisters, three of which ruptured and bled. So I wimped out last night and grabbed a taxi from the airport instead of taking the T. Poor feet.

This morning, I realized that Mr. Wally has learned how to flush the toilet. I wish I'd had my camera because it's pretty funny how he does it: he perches on the back of the toilet and pushes the handle (which is on the side, not the front) down with his paw. He was most intrigued. I was mostly amused.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto

Well it's a good thing I am not driving to the airport today as I head to New York City to spend the weekend with Kent.

Odds and ends part three I think

I do odds and ends because I’ll have a bunch of short things I want to write about but none of them would ever grow up to a full blog entry. Today is an odds and ends day.

First, my husband has been in Kansas City this week. I am SO JEALOUS! He told me last night it was very weird to be there without me being there and no longer owning a home there. I’m sure he felt almost displaced.

Second, I met the Cat Nanny. She is a South End institution—about eight years ago after she could no longer work due to health issues, she began sitting for kitties whose owners were out of town. I knew she would be great with my kitties when she just plopped right down on the floor and began loving all three of them. The boys are pretty indiscriminate, but Chloe is a different story. Guess who sought out the Cat Nanny for lots of petting? So that right there sealed things for me.

Today is my mother’s birthday. When my brother and I were little, she would fix us whatever dinner we wanted on our birthdays. My brother always picked tacos (deep fried), with Orange Crush and if I recall correctly, chocolate cake. I always had short ribs and angel food cake with no icing or anything on it. So today, Mom, I’ll cook you a virtual birthday dinner—just let me know what you want.

Wally is still fierce

While the weather is nice, I've been keeping the living room window without an air conditioner open. All three cats take turns sitting there looking out at our patio. And even though we live in an entirely urban setting, we still have squirrels and unfortunately we have cats. I don't know if they are feral or if their owners are just nuts to let them outside, but I've spotted probably three different ones in just the month we've been here.

This morning the boys were sitting in the window and I kept hearing Wally hiss. He's normally not a hisser so I was puzzled. From where I sat at my desk, I couldn't see anything on the patio that might get him riled. I moved over to the window and there underneath the window was a large white cat. Wally just kept hissing at him but that's as far as he took it. So I dug up this picture from when we first got Wally and Eddie. He's wet from his bath (which he hated but which he sorely needed, smelly little thing) and he's hissing at our German shepherd. Yeah three pound kitty vs 75 pound German shepherd. Pretty sure the dog would have won had she been so inclined.

From Kitties

How Wally attacks things

Kent's camera takes pictures and short video clips so last night he took this movie of Wally attacking my feet. In this session, Wally is actually pretty subdued, normally he just kicks like a maniac on my feet. He bit hard though, you can hear me saying ouch because it hurt.

A small lesson for me

As most of my friends and family know, I work out six days a week. It's a commitment I made to myself and I usually keep it. I recently decided to go to church on Sundays and last Sunday was my first time.

This morning, for no real reason except that it's rainy and humid out, I woke up flat exhausted and thought well I'll just skip working out and church. Then I realized I would keep both of those commitments if they involved someone else. Surely I was worth the same consideration? So I both worked out and went to church. Yes it's still rainy and humid out but I kept my commitment to myself and that makes me feel pretty darn good.

Getting down to the final boxes

Why is it the last few boxes are always full of stuff that doesn't really fit anywhere but you can't really just throw away? It's painful and tedious to go through it all, and the way I'm wired, I'd rather toss everything at this point.



Wally helped though, I guess that's good. And then the boys romped around a lot. They love to get between the side of my desk and the wall--that's the heater you see behind Wally and that's why I have to keep the desk away from the wall. The boys don't know that, of course, they just think it's a great place to hide.

One of the things I found as I unpacked made me glad I hadn't thrown it all away. My mother should remember this, I believe my grandfather gave it to her. You can't see them all in this picture, but the pig has suitcases with exotic destinations placed on its body. As I remember the story, G'Pa X'd out all the other destinations, drew a suitcase on the pig's butt hanging from the tail and wrote "Vermont" on it.