why? why why why why why WHY?

ps - yes, the car should be wearing underwear. really, can this guy get any women with a car like this?? coochie crook, shaa.   ¶ 4:02 PM 1 comments

  Baha! It's my kitten! But as a big, fat boy cat! Catster :: A Walk Through The Cat Den

Kitten weighs 6 lbs now. Let's hope this whole 16-meals-a-day thing wears off and she doesn't reach.. 14! But hey, this looks a lot like her! Little white neckerchief(?), gloves, and knee socks. :)  ¶ 3:05 PM 1 comments

  So I may be crazy and a cat person, but... Catster :: A Walk Through The Cat Den

At no time will you EVER see me writing a diary from any of my cats' pov. Lordy.  ¶ 4:57 PM 0 comments

  my digital camera/binoculars experiment these are some anhingas in the lake by ed's. on the weekends, when the sun is shining, you often see an anhinga.. or two, or three.. resting on this fountain base in the middle of the water. they're typically accompanied by one or two mystery lumps, which i assumed to be turtles. with the use of ed's handy-dandy binoculars, i proved my assumption to be correct.
then i used my camera to get pictures.

ok, so i'm still not going to be able to take nat'l-geographic worthy pics with my 3x zoom, but i still think it's kinda cool. trust me - without the binoculars, those turtles are truly just lumps.

those are some big turtles, huh? and not soft-shelled ones, as i thought they'd be!  ¶ 5:28 PM 0 comments

  we went for a bike ride sunday

it was a pretty day out. and now my back is pink.  ¶ 1:54 PM 0 comments

  my kitten loves me. someone believe me, please. the other night when i got home from work, look who went out on the balcony to greet me!

i stood under the balcony and engaged the kitten in routine post-work talk and she got so excited that she was trying to squeeze under the bars of the railing. she may not be so smart, but she is sweet. :)

  ¶ 11:22 AM 0 comments

  i'm pathetic yeah, so i'm making reservations for my boss to go to berlin next month.
reviewing his flight selections, he had possible layovers in paris, amsterdam, milan...

i realized that i'd be happy just to have a LAYOVER in one of those cities to see them from the air. "look, the eiffel tower! now i get to go eat a €4 cinnabon at charles de gaulle! this rocks!"
that's kinda, ya know, sad, isn't it?

happy news today, tho: mi nueva amiga boliviana said that i'm welcome to stay in her empty tel aviv apartment if i ever wanted to go diving in the red sea, which is a mere 2.5 hours through the desert away. just as soon as i have an extra $900 for airfare laying around, i'm there.  ¶ 5:52 PM 0 comments

  fishy fishy this is my new betta. he, of course, has so far been named "fishy" and variations thereof, e.g. fishyfishy, little fishy, little fishyfishy, etc.

sorry it's blurry.

the cats were disappointingly not interested in the fish at all when i brought him home. i offered up the cup o' betta for inspection and sniffing to each of the cats and all did a quick once-over and walked away. however, the next morning, this is how i found lucy:

now, the funny thing is that she is completely amazed by the birds, but if i see her inspecting the cage a little too closely, or notice that she is licking her lips with a little too much enthusiasm, making my presence in the room known (ahem) is usually enough to break the spell. at that point, she either runs away, as if she's ashamed, or runs under the bed, presumably so i can't get her out of the room and the birds will be left at her mercy when i leave. muahaha!

with the fish, however, she seems hypnotized. which is good, because it allows me to get pictures and stand back and laugh at the scene without her darting away before i can even turn my camera on.  ¶ 12:20 PM 0 comments

  This is what happens when I try to cook. What was my lofty goal when this happened?

  ¶ 8:58 AM 0 comments

  the birds As I am relocating my home base to Eddie's, (sorry, useless link; it's just that Google maps is cool), all my stuff waiting in storage at the Coconut Creek place are joining me at Ed's place. Inventory is as follows: aquarium w/ turtle & a dwindling number of really scared fish; books; shoes; futon mattress; two cagefuls of birds; and one really good back scrubber.

So far, only the birds have made the cross-county trip. The cats were surprisingly uninterested, except for the kitten, whose stalking of the parakeet cage was captured with the digicam. This picture seems to illustrate a mutual fascination.

Lucy has taken to smelling their cage in a way that would seem perverted if she weren't a cat. This morning, I put the two cages out on the balcony and shut the sliding glass door so that Lucy can stare at them through the glass all day long. Yes, I'm a mean person.

Last night, we almost had our first Bird Emergency. One of the two yellow parakeets disappeared from the guest bathroom, where they were being housed as I scrubbed their cages. Ed and I searched the house from the tops of the cabinets to under the beds and in the toilet. Nothing. I could've sworn on a stack of holy bibles (religious affiliation aside) that I was too careful for the little yellow guy to get past me, but he was nowhere to be found.. I gave up the search and resigned myself to a future view of Lucy, looking content and peppered with delicate yellow feathers.

An hour or so later, I went back to the bathroom to begin the putting-the-birds-back-in-the-cage Hour of Frustration and.... the missing yellow parakeet was back, preening its little yellow girlfriend like nothing had ever happened. Hmm.  ¶ 4:53 PM 0 comments

  i got home last night while the sun was still out and it was beautiful.

i grabbed my camera and took some pictures of the pretty everywhere-green with the setting sun. unfortunately, they all look much, much darker on my monitor than they were in person.

also, the sky was totally grey. like, english looking. it doesn't look it in this picture. it's almost as if someone was BORED OUT OF HER SKULL at work and photoshopped the sky to death. hmm, weird!

  ¶ 4:31 PM 0 comments

  $470 parakeet looks like a pretty normal little parakeet, right?

she was given to byron by a neighbor a couple of years back whose boyfriend wanted her to "throw it in the canal." so byron named her reject, a name which was shortened to "reege" so that i didn't have to feel evil when i said the name. ("you named your bird WHAT?") having a turtle named turty is bad enough. and a cat named kitten.

anyway, so this little girl has a big, nasty lump above her tail, apparently a tumor of the gland from where she would get the preening oil. i took her to the vet's last night and he advised me i had two options: medicate her, which would basically just prevent an infection in the tumor but wouldn't stop it from bothering her or getting bigger ($200), or surgery, to remove it ($400).

anyone who knows how i've been suffering financially as of late can imagine how i reacted to my options - at the vet's, i had to try hard to stifle the full-on crying and limit my reaction to watery eyes. but, when it comes down to it, there's only one right thing to do.

so reege's surgery is scheduled for march 3. she'll need x-rays, which may detect more tumors inside (in which case, surgery won't proceed).. will have laser surgery.. then require a hospital cage as she is wearing ONE OF THOSE CONES on her head so she'll leave the healing area alone. i'll make sure to get pictures.
  ¶ 10:30 AM 0 comments

 

what a nice surprise! i was looking up aquarium pics and got a pic of a baby trunkfish! :)  ¶ 9:13 PM 0 comments

  baby! this is the first i've seen of my nephew, kyle, since thanksgiving. this because i have relatives who have digital cameras, but who are very, very bad.

even with the bald little head, he's a pretty little guy, huh? takes after my sister, i guess.
  ¶ 2:40 PM 0 comments

  pretty one-handed sunset pictures (I was driving.)

I took these pictures last week on my way home.

Now, what's cool is that under the lovely-colored clouds are what appear to be hills. But no - South Florida has no hills save for the rolling landfills of Pompano Beach! They're clouds!

damn you, 5-95!

  ¶ 7:22 PM 0 comments

  Ed ran a 5k this weekend This is him (L) and his friend, Dan (R) crossing the finish line.


They did very well. Somewhere in the 24: area. Congrats!

I may be joining him in future races, so look forward to pictures of a huffing-puffing, bright-red me.

By the way, I was told today by a reliable source that my niece, Amanda, looks at my this blog. How nice! Hi Amanda! Love you! I'll send the book SOON, I promise! XOXO
  ¶ 4:36 PM 0 comments

  what happens when you leave a drawer open in our house

it seems that we woke her up. sorry, sukigirl!

  ¶ 12:09 AM 0 comments

  my new office yes, i DO have the most boring blog on earth.


and i take crooked pics. oh well.

this is my office. can't you just hear the echo? and yes, that is a ping-pong table.
with my bosses gone this week, it's been so looonely.


and this is MY desk.

some things i like about my new office:
1) they take the trash out EVERY DAY.
2) i get to listen to music.

what can i say, i'm easily pleased. :)
  ¶ 10:55 PM 0 comments

  lucy has brought both a rat and a mouse inside in the past week it's just about as charming as it sounds.



this is ed's reconnaissance picture of the nightstand's underside as we tried to locate the rat in the guest bedroom. we never did catch him, although it was certainly fun trying.
  ¶ 4:20 PM 0 comments