all the news that isn't

Not in that order.

Our finished attic – currently used for storage and David practice space – has a window that looks out the side of the house on the adjacent house. For the first time the other day I saw a couple birds just chilling at the crest. I wonder what birds think when they’re just hanging out.

And I know Dudley’s thinking absolutely nothing when he soaks up the sun.

or at least not minding each other.

Not all of you have seen (or maybe wanted to see?) Charlie’s coat that we rigged so she’d leave her stitches alone post-surgery.

Charlie made it until Friday, when somehow she scooted out of it (had no doubt stretched the arm holes) and David wasn’t able to get her back into it in an expedient way before leaving for work. Of course over the next couple days she picked her stitches out, but the vet said this is ok and she seems to be fine, as you can see with her tiger-marked belly!

Her lack of hair (for the moment) on her belly is made up for that on her feet, which gives her significant traction problems on our all-wood floor house.

We’re wondering if we should trim it, but I’m guessing that’s a never-ending battle.

Oh, and bonus pic: when feeding time comes around, normally pretty silent Charlie starts making what Adrienne calls devil sounds in her excitement. I doubted at first, but I think this photo confirms:

Happy Sunday everyone!

Still a furball.

A month ago we took Charlie (then unnamed) to the vet for the normal new-cat checkup stuff. We’d poked (but not prodded – like Martin Q. Blank in Grosse Point Blank, we respect our cat’s privacy), but asked the fill-in doctor to confirm what we thought – that Charlie was a girl. Both the doc and nurse had a good chuckle when they told us Charlie was a boy.

Today Charlie went back for the followup distemper shot, and our normal doc looks and says Charlie is a girl! Can’t say I feel good the first doc and nurse got it wrong, but they also told us Charlie was about three months old. Regular doc today says it’s more like 7 months. Huh. Who to trust? For now we’ll go with regular Doc, I suppose.

Thankfully the name Charlie still works, but I guess we should stop calling her Charles when she’s bad or Chuck when we’re feeling informal. Adrienne is thinking Charlotte for her real name.

p.s. – we also took Dudley for a urinalysis that sadly couldn’t be performed because he didn’t have enough pee in his bladder. Both cats of course get weighed when they come in. Charlie goes first, 4.0 pounds. As we struggle to get Dudley in the basket, I say, “Dudley is probably three Charlies.” Lo and behold, he was, on the dot!

One more photo from Montreal, graffiti/street art (forgot I took this):

And a triple-decker of the furballs trying to beat the heat (thanks to Adrienne for capturing this):

I think it was a week ago or so, I was musing aloud how we’ve gotten into a rut with our cooking, not really trying new things. So we kinda decided to seek out a new recipe to try once a week. Well, Adrienne’s gone overboard and planned for us two very good meals. First was butterflied pork with a chile-honey sauce and old-favorite cowboy beans (from Rick Bayliss).

We’ve still got leftovers, but tonight Adrienne went Indian with some recipes from Madhur Jaffrey. Tandori chicken, rice with spices and peas and David contributed broccoli.

Apologies for the too-shallow DOF.

And some kitten pics:

Thanks for all your name suggestions. After a long two days of work, David came home and ‘Charlie’ popped into his head. Adrienne went along, so there we go. Charlie got nails trimmed tonight and a bath. Has spent some time around the house; Dudley and Celli still not totally accepting. Labwork results should come back tomorrow, so hopefully tonight is the last night Charlie has to sleep in the entryway by himself. At approximately 3 months old, he weighs in at 4.2lbs!

Looks like David has caved on taking in a third cat, as seen in the previous post.  Any ideas for names?  I’m thinking that something that plays on its long hair or small size might be nice but am open to other ideas.

Our mac mini up and died a while back – bad logic board – but David was finally quick enough to snag a refurb from the Apple store. So we’re back up and running thanks to migration assistant. Anyway, the ‘our friend’ doesn’t refer to the mini but one (the runt) of four kittens we’ve discovered in our neighborhood. This very skinny kitten with A LOT of fur (including the ears) is especially friendly since Adrienne fed it a couple times. We were getting ready for bed and Adrienne announced ‘our friend’ was outside. I’m afraid where this is going, but at least you can enjoy some cute cat pics.

Whipped up a batch of lemon bars with lemons from the lemon tree in my boss’s yard (in California):

That’s a lemon leaf sugar pattern from one of the leaves that came with the lemons!

Adrienne also (unknown to David) fed a stray kitten – one of 4 that we just recently discovered – that was trying to stay cool in our yard.

Nothing but trouble there…  David then mowed the yard – not looking too great in the above pic, but the rest of it isn’t too bad!