Sunsets

I'm sitting up in bed with the laptop and the cats. Bob is away this weekend, goose hunting with John and Craig.

I woke up WAY too early, of course -- it seems like any time that I actually have the opportunity to sleep late, I can't. I woke up at 6:30, but forced myself to stay in bed. I can't get up at 6:30 on Saturday! (Although last weekend I got up at 7:30 on Saturday because I had to take Dinah to the vet. I hated having to set the alarm on a Saturday!) I did go back to sleep, but woke up again at 8:30 because Pyewacket was banging on the window screen to get my attention.

I yelled at her, and consisdered throwing a pillow at her, but figured I'd knock the lamp off the table . . . So I got up and went downstairs to get the laptop, and saw that their food bowl was empty, so maybe that was the cause of the tantrum.

I've talked to the vet a few times about limiting their food intake, and last weekend I talked to him about it again (I had to take Dinah in for the quarterly (now bi-monthly) anal gland thing). He said that the right amount of dry food is a half cup per cat per 24 hours, so a cup for both of them. They've been doing pretty well, and it hasn't seemed to be a problem at all, but I guess maybe since it was Friday night they lived it up and ate it all . . .

We feed them Eukanuba weight control formula and they seem to like it fine. It's only available at the pet stores, of course, and it's sort of expensive, but they're doing well on it and (fingers crossed) no one seems to be having any food-related problems at the moment. The vet has said he thinks it's important to find one food and stick with it and not change it, so we've done that for a few years now, and they don't seem to be throwing up as much as they used to, at least.

I stopped at PetSmart to buy food last night, because there was only about a cup left in the container, and when I stepped out into the parking lot, there was the most amazing sunset. I took a cameraphone picture before I remembered that I had the other camera in my bag. I took it out and took about 50 pictures standing in the parking lot. I'm sure people thought I was nuts, but I couldn't let the opportunity go by.

I even had plenty of time to experiment with the settings on the camera.

Kurt--he's a photographer--has been helping me figure out some of the settings, but there's a lot to learn. It needs to become second-nature, I guess, because right now I have to think too much about it--or actually, forget to think about it--and most of the time I just want to snap a picture. But it was kind of fun to be out there with no place that I really needed to be, and to have nature cooperate with the beautiful sunset that lasted long enough that I could play around with it. Looking at the pictures now, I guess it was only about ten minutes; I took 40 pictures in that ten minutes, though, and I left them on the camera so I can analyze what I actually did to take them.

iPhoto shows a little info, but not everything. I wonder if there's some setting in my camera that is preventing all the detail from being transferred?? I'll have to look into that.

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5 Things

I like lists.

Five movies:

• Grosse Pointe Blank
• Star Wars Episode II: The Phantom Menace
• Love Actually
• Guarding Tess
• Serenity

Five television shows:

• House
• Monk
• Law & Order: SVU
• Stargate
• What Not to Wear

Five cancelled television shows:

• Joan of Arcadia
• West Wing
• Touching Evil
• Nash Bridges
• Firefly

Five albums:

• Marc Cohn - Marc Cohn
• Wishbones - David Knopfler
• Solo Acoustic - Jackson Browne
• Our Eternal Ghosts - Deadman
• Pilgrim - Eric Clapton

Five songs:

• Too Many Angels - Jackson Browne
• If God Could Make the Angels - David Knopfler
• From Galway to Graceland - Richard Thompson
• When the Music's Not Forgotten - Deadman
• Silver Thunderbird - Marc Cohn

Five books:

• Ladder of Years - Anne Tyler
• American Gods - Neil Gaiman
• Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
• Timeline - Michael Crichton
• The Glass Harmonica - Louise Marley

Next five random songs on my iPod:

• Barricades of Heaven - Jackson Browne
• Overture Redux (Le Nozze Di Figaro) - East Village Opera Company
• 4U (Rabbit Song) - David Knopfler
• When You Come Back Down - Nickel Creek
• La Contestacion - Los Lonely Boys

Five food items:

• Guacamole
• Olives
• Hummus
• Banana peppers
• Chocolate

Five alcoholic beverages:

• Bloody Mary
• Margarita
• Kir
• Daquiri
• Asti Spumanti

Five scents:

• Peppermint
• Pine
• Lemon
• Sandalwood
• Rosemary

Five scented products:

• Indigo Wild Confetti Zum Bar
• Clinique Aromatics Elixir
• Aveeno Stress Relief Body Lotion
• Bath & Body Works White Tea & Ginger Anti-Bacterial Moisturizing Hand Soap
• Bath & Body Works Mango Mandarin Creamy Body Wash

Five skin care products:

• Clinique Rinse-Off Foaming Cleanser
• Clinique Facial Soap
• Clinique Clarifying Lotion
• Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturing Lotion
• Clinique Moisture On-Call

Five Clinique lipstick shades:

• Colour Surge Bare Brilliance Pink Beach
• Colour Surge Bare Brilliance Waterviolet
• Colour Surge Bare Brilliance Blushing Coral
• Glosswear for Lips Air Kiss
• Almost Lipstick Black Honey

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Grace

If there was ever a quality that I wished I had, and don't, it would be grace. I try to live my life with grace, and I guess I mean that in the larger sense, as in, I don't know, being gentle and quiet and dignified . . . accepting disappointments with grace, not being loud or obnoxious or crude . . . but physical grace? Not so much.

This afternoon I was leaning over to pick something up off the floor--I think it was a squashed cashew--and my chair tipped over, and I ended up on the floor. I was hoping that it had happened quietly enough that no one heard, but of course, Dave called from the next office, "Are you okay?" and I was laughing, and couldn't say anything, so he rushed over. And Kurt came over, too, and Stephanie . . . I just sat there on the floor, picking up the cashew bits and trying to look like, "Hey, I meant to do that!"

No dice, though. I guess the overturned chair gave me away. Dave picked me up off the floor, and then picked up my chair, and he said, "I liked the way you were trying to be all nonchalant." And that made me laugh again, and Bob called right at that instant, and I was laughing so hard that I couldn't speak.

Laughter like that is good for you, I just wish I didn't have to fall out of my chair to achieve it.

One night last week I was walking out to the parking lot with Jeff, and talking, and not really paying attention to what my feet were doing, and I fell over my own feet. And Dave reminded me of the time I few months ago when I was walking out of his office and fell over Simon and crashed into the opposite wall.

I tend to try to look at these things as warning signals that I should be paying more attention to what I'm doing. It usually does work--I'm very aware every time I walk down the stairs at home--it only took falling down them twice to make an impression. And I try to be aware of where Simon is when I'm walking out of Dave's office, and in the parking lot, I try to be aware of all these round seedpods about the size of a walnut--when you step on one, it's like stepping on a marble.

And I guess now I need to be aware that my chair isn't exactly stable, and I can fall right out of it. Somebody said, "Did you lean over too far?" Now that would have been even more embarrassing.

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Meltdown

I really enjoyed my two weeks with the Olympics. I didn't really watch a lot--certainly not anywhere near the amount of coverage that was actually broadcast--probably only about two hours a night. I did enjoy it, though. There were a couple of people who remarked in the comments that they had started watching the Olympics this year to see what I was talking about, and ended up enjoying them, too.

As I said earlier, I probably enjoy the side stories about the athletes as much as, or more than, the actual competitions. I enjoyed watching Apolo Anton Ohno. He's a cute guy, of course, and easy to watch, but he seems pretty down-to-earth and normal, and while confident, doesn't seem to have the swelled head that so many of the athletes tend to get.

I hated to see the downhill skiing crashes, and I gasped when the female skiier's newly-operated-on knee blew out on her run; and I agree with Picabo Street in her article about the Ski Team--Julia Mancuso's tiara and Resi Stiegler's pearls and tiger ears--what's up with that? I'm sure that there is lots of stuff that goes on in the Olympic Village that we wouldn't care to know about, but for the most part, the athletes comport themselves with dignity and professionalism during their events.

I have to admit that I did enjoy the snowboarding "kids," though -- their sport seems to lend itself more to showing off rather than true professionalism--although I know that they are obviously professionals and athletes. Lindsey Jacobellis's unfortunate fall while she was seemingly on her way to a gold medal is hard to criticize--hotdogging is part of the sport, more so than the (mostly) serious downhill skiers.

Anyway, in a couple of years I'll have the Summer Olympics to look forward to. Beijing should be interesting.

John sent me a CD with his Mexico pictures, and there were a few more that I thought I'd share. Bob at the Marina either before or after their fishing trip:

Another photo from the restaurant downtown:

And Bob and Craig at the little outdoor bar in the middle of a group of shops in downtown PV:

I had a little meltdown when we were shopping that day. The only one of the trip, I think, so I suppose that's not bad. I had made the rounds of the little shops, and found a bracelet in one of them that I wanted. But I wanted to look at everything else first before I decided, then I couldn't remember which shop it was in, and couldn't find it again. And Bob was bored, and ready to leave, and tired of waiting for me. Of course, it's impossible to shop when you know someone is waiting for you, and I got a little bit upset.

But we went and had a snack and drinks, and I found a bracelet later in a different shop--not like the one I'd seen earlier, but actually probably more suited to me--and Bob bought me the terracotta sun ornament that I showed earlier, and everything was fine.

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Trapped

During a normal week, I generally only watch television on Friday night. That's my tv night. Monk, House, and one or more episodes of Law & Order, SVU. Except for that one night, I might catch an episode or two of Stargate while Bob's watching, or something like that, but for the most part, I don't pay any attention.

But this is an Olympics year! So every night for two weeks I'm sitting in front of the television, watching speed skating and figure skating and ski jumping, and I couldn't honestly tell you why. I don't care anything about sports at any other time, and I don't really care about these sports, either. I think it's more that I feel like I should participate in the event, or honor it in some way. And as Bob pointed out, I enjoy the soap opera quality of learning about the athletes' lives as much as anything, probably.

Anyway, whatever the reason, I've been in the living room watching television every night this week, and the kitties are right there with me.

I love the one little white paw.

Sometime late in the evening Bob came down and sat with me for a few minutes, and Dinah took advantage of him and climbed up into his arms, settled down, and went to sleep, effectively trapping him there for about a half hour.

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