Whales and the Rest of the Menagerie

So not much has been happening with me, as usual, since the last post. 

Had the first two week follow up appointment after putting on the bottom braces.  As promised he upped the pushing together of the teeth.  The tooth to the left of the space has a much larger gap now between it and the next tooth.  The tooth to the right is moving as well just not as accelerated, I guess he wants the ones to the left to move in more than the ones on the right. 

It's a pain in the ass to eat just about everything.  But does that stop me?  Nope.  

A couple weeks ago I went to do my grocery shopping and as I'm walking into the store I look up into the sky and see a whale there.  Yep, you read that right, a whale.  Look see for yourself.....



Don't know where it was going though.  Maybe to Lake Michigan as it's headed east.  I believe if you click on the picture you'll get a larger version.

So, the following picture is what I put up with most nights, or some version thereof.

My head is that tiny brown spot in the bottom left corner of the picture.  In order from my head up is Merry, Pogo, Pippin and Banderling.  Merry and Pippin are the kittens who are brothers and Pogo and Banderling are 13 year old brothers.

Normally Pogo is the first on the pillow, there sometimes before my own head hits it.  He doesn't quite do what my beloved Tody would do which was race me to bed.  Somehow that cat knew when I was going to bed as opposed to just going to the bedroom for something. He'd actually take off running and jump up and settle on the pillow before I had a chance to climb in.  No, Pogo follows me in and sometimes even waits for me to settle before jumping up.  And other times he's there already.  I guess it just depends on his mood.

So anyway, he settles in and sometimes that's it all night but most of the time at least one of the kittens if not both will follow.  Usually it's Pippin first and he always goes above like he is now, between Pogo and the headboard.   

Merry always plops down in between Pogo and my head/face.  Usually my face.  Just puts his belly right in my face so I can barely breath.  Which is what he did this night.  He was the second one in.

That's usually it because Bander prefers to either be in my face and if he can't because of Merry he'll go to his second favorite spot which is nestled against my stomach.  I'm a side sleeper with my legs bent.  So he's in the lap spot usually.  But for whatever reason this night he decided he wanted up where Pippin usually goes and settled in between Pogo and the headboard.

Then next thing I know up comes Pippin stomping up the side of the bed and with no hesitation plops down on top of Pogo and Bander and slowing because of being so heavy squished them to the sides.  Which of course made Pogo squish Merry just a little more against my face. 

I knew this had to be quite a sight so I reached over to the table and grabbed my phone to take a picture.  It's not the best as Pippin's face is cut off a bit but it's still pretty darn good and definitely represents how I end up with just a tiny patch of pillow for myself.

And this picture of Poydras was one morning after I woke up.  He was all snuggled in against my side where Bander usually goes looking all adorable.



The red comforter just swallows him up.  Ah the joys of having animals.

This morning I woke up to Bander being the only one on the pillow above my head, Pogo stretched out along my back and the kittens at my feet.  One of them was sort of on top of them.  And Poydras was in between me and HDT with his head resting on my arm.  Too bad I couldn't get a picture of that.

No media quote today.  Can't think of anything off the top of my head and don't feel like researching anything that would go with.

Playing catch up on goings on since the last post

So, yeah, it's been awhile again, just about 2 months.  A few things have happened since my last post.  We went to the Saints/Packers game at the end of September.  Then went on vacation for our anniversary in October.  HDiTty's grandma fell and fractured her pelvis bone in September.  She's been in the nursing home recovering ever since.  But we're hoping she'll be home by Thanksgiving.  If so that'll be the best thing to be thankful for. 

Hmmm, what else?  Oh yeah.

The Saints kicked the Falcons asses on Sunday!!!  Damn dirty birds couldn't hang on to an undefeated season, not against the Saints and the Saints Nation.  Woohoo!!

So, let's see, I'll back up to the Packers game.  I forgot to take pictures while there so none to share.  Unless of course you'd like to see one of Clay Matthews.  My niece and Jim's daughter loves him so I took several of him for them.  But other than that no pictures.  The fly over was awesome as always.  I did get video of the fly over though.  Hmm, I wonder if I can get it in here, I've never tried to do a video before.

Hey, looks like I did it.  Heee  By the way that deep voiced singer is NOT HDiTty, it was one of the guys right behind us.  The high pitched wooooo was me though.  As you can see we were in the end zone.  We were only 6 rows off the field, pretty nice actually since most of the scores were done on this side of the field.  Unfortunately the Saints lost but we still had a great time.  The first time that we've gone without having any assholes to deal with.  Normally we have drunk hecklers.  I don't mind some good hearted ribbing but it's usually pretty nasty.  I have to say, everyone we were sitting around were really cool. 

A week later we were on vacation.  We went to Niagara Falls for the 5th - 7th.  The 6th was our anniversary.  It was both our first times there.  We did the Maid of the Mist and the Sky Wheel (a large Ferris wheel).  I got a couple pictures from there.

The second one was when we were sitting at the top for a little bit looking pretty much straight down.  And as you can see the trees were turning quite nicely.  Unfortunately the glass wasn't a true glass and was all scratchy and dingy. 

We also went to the botanical gardens which were nice.  Gotta say I was glad we only paid $5.00 for parking because although it was nice it wasn't worth more than that.  When I was researching all the places to go it was always on the list of top places to see.  Maybe during the height of summer but in the beginning of October it wasn't all that great.  I was expecting these terrific fall colors but none of their trees had even begun to turn.  We're assuming they must water them which kept them greener for much longer than normal.  There were still a lot of flowers in bloom but it just wasn't what I was expecting after all the hype.

Saturday night we went to a comedy club for dinner and a show since that's what we did for first date.  They said there would be door prizes so we filled out our names and put them in the bucket.  Mine ended up being called but it wasn't just for a door prize, oh no, I actually had to get up on stage and be a contestant in the guy's "game show."  He had 3 questions about Thanksgiving.  I got the first two correct so I won.  I got his 20th anniversary DVD.  We watched the first 30 minutes or so of it but it wasn't that great and a lot of it we already saw that night.  He was pretty funny in person though and the food was good so we had a great time anyway.  The video is way too long otherwise I'd put it here as well.

Sunday the 7th we hit the road to head to Ottawa to visit our friends there for the rest of the week.  Sunday night we went to one of the couples houses to watch the Saints game and have dinner.  After it was over we headed over to the other couples house that we were staying with for the rest of the week.  We didn't do much other than hang out having good food, good conversations and good rest. 

We did go bowling one night though.  But not your normal bowling, oh no, it was Canadian bowling.  Instead of 10 pins there were only 5 pins.  And instead of a regular bowling ball you got much smaller balls that fit in your palm with no holes.  And instead of two turns you get three.  There are still strikes and spares but you only get a spare if you knock the remaining pins down on your second turn.  If you knock them all down in your third turn you just get the equivalent of whatever they add up to.  The five pins all total 15 points.  It. Was. Crazy.  Again the video of HDT is too long but suffice it to say it was a trip.  We went with both couples, so we asked them if any had gone "real" bowling and only one on them had and he didn't like it much.  Crazy.

So, what else.  Ah yes.  The kittens are growing up nicely.  They're causing issues just like they're namesakes.  Merry decided he wanted to go behind the tv and in doing so he knocked down a shadowbox that then hit a huge fleur-de-lis that then hit a little Saints gnome.  The fleur-de-lis and gnome both broke beyond repair.  Pippin has knocked things down as well but hasn't broken anything luckily and gotten into food items he shouldn't.  But we love 'em.

This is Pip in his best camouflage outfit. 

And although you can't really see him, that black mass is Merry going after Pip.

What, I'm innocent, innocent I say.....

Yep, I'm innocent too.  See, so innocent I can relax completely.

The two hooligans with Bander keeping watch

And this shows how much they've grown.  Pippin is just as big at 7 months as Pogo who's 12 years, actually he's bigger in the fact that he's a very solid cat.  Pogo is tiny really.

So that's it really.  Other than a UFC fight that the boys came over for and some other family get togethers here and there we really haven't done much. 

Media quotes of the day:

Fool of a Took. Throw yourself in next time, and rid us of your stupidity. - Gandalf to Pippin in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

And in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King:
Why did you look? Why do you always have to look? - Merry
I don't know. I can't help it. - Pippin
You never can. - Merry
I'm sorry, all right? I won't do it again. - Pippin

New family members

So, whirlyball was a lot of fun.  As mentioned in my last post my nephew was in town for a week and one of the things we did was play whirlyball.  Seems to me we were a lot more violent than what we were for work.  I broke my thumb nail.  It actually split down the middle and tore back from the side.  I kept playing with it until we got home and I was able to clip it.  But at least this time I didn't get a bruise on my inner thigh.  There were several injuries spread around the group.  My nephew got his hand all chewed up.  Wayne kept pushing the racket into Dean's side while Dean was trying to get the ball.  Dean kept trying to push the racket away and got his hand all chewed up for the effort.

HDT ended up not playing because he had a headache and the only people that offered to give up their car were me and Wayne.  He didn't want to take me away from playing because he wanted to play with me.  And Wayne is the dad of Dean (the nephew in town) and the one that planned the whole thing so it wouldn't be right to make him leave.  But he had a lot of fun watching and he did help out when the cars would get stuck near him (he'd go over and give a shove) or the ball ended up where no one could get it.

Then later that week on Saturday we all got together at mom's house for some good food and good company for several hours.  Then several of us headed over to my house for the UFC fights.  Good times.
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We've made two new additions to the household.  We debated for awhile, even decided that we weren't going to do it.  Then we both caved.  So now besides Banderling (always known as Cry Baby throughout the years here), his brother Pogo (always knows as Pretty Boy throughout the years) and Poydras we have Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuc and Peregrin "Pippin" Took.  For those who don't know they're two hobbits from The Lord of the Rings who were always getting into trouble.

Merry is the dark brown (so dark looks black) kitty and Pippin is the striped one, they're brothers.  There is a third brother but he'll either be staying with HDT's mom or going with his sister.  Don't think that's been decided as of yet.  The third is a silver tabby, looks a lot like their momma.

Bander and Pogo have accepted them already.  Didn't take long and only a little bit of hissing and swatting of heads took place.  Although sometimes they get a little over zealous with the playing with Bander and he has to take them down a notch.

This picture was right before Pip started in on Bander.  He at first was just smelling and licking on him, giving him love.  But then he decided he wanted to play and started biting Bander's ear so Bander reached up, pushed Pip's head down and gave a love bite to the neck.  Stopped the little pipsqueek in his tracks.

They haven't tried playing much with Pogo yet, at least not that I've seen.  But the little bit they've done has been met with about the same reaction.  Paw of doom with a well placed bite.  Mostly they just try to lie down next to him.

They were like this for a long time.  Pretty much until Pippin jumped up on Merry to have a play fighting session.

When we first brought them home we put them in Poydras' kennel so the residents could have access to them but no fighting could happen.  Poydras had already met them over at HDT's grandma's house where they've been since before they were born.  So we knew there wouldn't be anything to worry about with him.  In fact he's quite scared by them.  They come up where he is and he tries to get away, whining the whole way usually.

When the two older cats came up to them in the kennel the kittens would reach out trying to touch them.  But there was very little hissing, more curiosity than anything on all their parts.  So the next day we let them out and all was well.  We put a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs to keep them in the basement and also to allow Bander and Pogo a place to escape if they needed it. 

After just a couple days Pippin had already climbed over it.  I was at work and HDT had let them out of the kennel when he got up (they were put back in there at night) and they were having a good time in the basement.  But then HDT went upstairs to get some food and next thing he sees when he turns around is Pippin coming into the kitchen. 

At first he only climbed over when one or both of us would go upstairs but then after a day or so he started to do it all the time.  We decided that once Merry followed suit and went over we'd take the gate down.  Took a few days but he finally did it.  I was sitting on the stair right in front of the gate trying to prevent Pip from going over.  Bander was on the other side of it up a stair and they both were fascinated by him. 

Next thing I know as I'm trying to keep Pip from going up the steps I hear to my right the gate move.  I look and it's Merry climbing up.  By the time I got my camera up on the iphone he was already over it which chased Bander away.  But I got this shot, you can see that he's actually dark brown here.

He got up a couple steps and then sat there all "Hmmm, what did I just do?"  By the time I took the picture, got the gate down and took a step towards him he was all "Freeeeedommmm" and took off up to the top after Bander.

So we got them collars with bells so we'd know where they are.  That worked for a couple days until they learned how to get them off, they're breakaways.  Yesterday they both got them off and so far we've only found one of them.  Ah well.

And Sunday night HDT decided to let them loose overnight as well.  When he came to bed at 3:30am he decided to let them run free rather than put them in the kennel.  While he was up they hadn't come into the room at all, or if they did I was so out of it they didn't wake me up.  But when he came up he of course woke me up then they proceeded to keep me awake playing on the bed jingling away.  Took about 15-20 minutes until they finally settled down, on my pillows no less.  Merry curled up in the crook of my arm and Pippin lied on top of the back pillow leaning up against the headboard.

Soooo cute they are.

Media quote of the day:  From The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

You're taller. - Merry
Who? - Pippin
You! - Merry
Than what? - Pippin
Than *me*! -Merry
I've always been taller than you. - Pippin
Pippin, everyone knows *I'm* the tall one. *You're* the short one. - Merry:
Please, Merry. You're what, three-foot-six? At the most? Whereas me, I'm pushing three-seven, three-eight. - Pippin
Three-foot-eight? You did something. - Merry

Now in our kitty world this is actually true.  Pippin is bigger than Merry.  Merry was the runt of the litter.  There's about 6oz difference between the two.  Pip is just over 4lbs as of yesterday.  It's time to get them to the vet for neutering.  Soon, very soon.

Hmmm, not sure about this anymore

So, yeah, I came back to start posting again and sure enough it only lasted that one entry. The job and life just wasn't conducive to blogging anymore. But I quit that job and the new one is a lot more favorable. I only work 8 hours instead of 9 1/2 and I only drive 1.2 miles from home instead of 27. Yeah, definitely much better. Oh yeah, the people are much better too. The bosses leave you alone to do your work, I haven't had that since three companies ago. Boy did I miss that.

So let's see if I can recall anything that's happened since the last post.

Hmmm, oh yeah, THE SAINTS WON THE SUPERBOWL!!!

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm several months behind in posting that but hey, it's still a pretty damn big deal. HDiTty and I are going to try to get down to the opening game in Sept. With the new job and all not sure if it'll happen but we're definitely gonna try.

Ok, what else. It's been over a year, geesh, didn't realize it's been that long. WOW. So anyway, in my last post Whiskers wasn't doing so well and we brought her home so we could have a little more time with her and that's all we had. She let us know it was time so we let her go. So now we're down to the two brothers - Pretty Boy and Cry Baby and the dog Poydras. Poydras and Pretty Boy still have their UFC fights almost every day. We keep saying we're going to film them and use the commentary from the fights and make a video but we just haven't done it yet.

Last year I finally did something about my weight and lost 18 pounds by eating less and better and exercising. The way you're supposed to do it. Then I tapered off on the exercise for whatever reason but still was slowly losing to a total of 23 pounds lost. Then I quit the job from hell and let it all go to pot. Gained almost all of it back, I'm so angry with myself over it. Last night HDiTty and I went to his work and used their workout room. I'm pretty darn sore today but happy. We've agreed we're going to keep going. We'd been talking about doing that for some time now but just never did. When I got home last night I just started to doing different things and when he came home and saw me in the workout gear he said let's go back to his work and I was all gung ho for it. I wasn't doing anything structured enough, I never do when I use weights and not a machine. We just worked on legs, we plan on going back this evening to do the upper body. And from there doing a Mon/Wed/Fri routine. I still plan on doing cardio on the other days. We need to get our elliptical back out of the laundry room so I can use it as well.

Well, that's about all I can think of right now. I'll sign off for now, if I think of anything else I'll add it in or just hit post.
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It's the next day now. I never did get back on to post yesterday's entry so figure I'll write a little more then post.

We didn't get back to the workout room last night. Both of us are still sore, he more so than I. So we're going to go back tonight and start next week on the Mon/Wed/Fri routine.

So pretty big news from last night. Both the Cubs and Sox won their games. But something else pretty big happened, I can't remember what, oh yeah:

THE BLACKHAWKS WON THE STANLEY CUP!!!!!

It's been 49 years since they won it last. Woo to the Hoo! It was a great game too, each team answering the other in points until they finally won in overtime with a goal that no one knew even happened except for the guy who shot it in. He was celebrating and almost to the other side of the rink before the rest of the team even knew what was happening. It was golden.

And I kinda knew they'd give the MVP trophy to the captain of the team but I wanted Niemi, the goalkeeper, to get it. He saved some pretty damn good shots and for a rookie he held his own. When they were all passing around the Stanley Cup I kept saying, "Where's Niemi, where's Niemi?" Finally he got it, was great to see him holding it up.


Media quote of the day:

"I was very confident at the end of the game and I felt very good that they weren't going to score,'' Niemi said. "I wasn't worried. I was just doing my job."

She's Baaak....maybe

We'll see for how long this time. Man have I been gone or what? Not only did I just stop writing I quit going to other peoples sites as well. It was like I just fell off the face of the earth. There's really no reason either other than laziness. I just quit going on the computer other than to pay bills. I've thought about coming back to it from time to time but just never did.

The real test will be on how long it takes me to write this post. Because I'm already stopping to go do something else. It's 3/19/09, maybe I'll come back today, maybe not.
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See, told you, it's now 3/26/09 a whole week later and I'm just now getting back. Yeah, I just don't know about this anymore. I still want to be a journaler but it's just taking the time to actually do it that's the hard thing.
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So, let's see, what's happened in the last few months since I posted last....

Not much really. The holidays happened and they went fine, nothing really to report. Two of my nieces turned another year older and their party was same as always. We had a blast playing Apples to Apples Jr.

HDiTty had his birthday in February and I had mine at the beginning of this month. We didn't do anything for either one.

His oldest sister had a baby boy (her second son) in February. He's cute as button of course. He has a heart murmur but just had another dr appointment the other day and the little hole is already sealing up. The dr said that most holes seal up within three years, every now and then it might take up to five. But basically he's fine and that's all that matters.

Crybaby and Pretty Boy are doing just fine. Whiskers isn't doing so well. She's walking on her hind legs rather than her paws and her tail is dragging. Per her x-rays it looks like she may have had a trauma where the tail meets her back. She's on a steroid to help make her better but so far other than a very slight improvement it doesn't seem to be working. But we're going to finish all the medicine before saying it was a bust.

Poydras is doing wonderful. There was a very bad scare with him several weeks back but he's all fine now. HD has psoriasis and Poydras chewed up one of the topical medicines for it. It's a vitamin D base medicine which is really really bad for dogs. Luckily HD caught it quick enough and induced vomiting and took him to the emergency vet right away. He was there from Friday mid day to the following Tuesday mid day. He had energy and couldn't understand why he was there but they were testing his calcium and phosphate levels every 12 hours. Every time they did one would go up and the other would go down. They needed both down to an acceptable level before they would release him. They also had him on an IV of fluids to make him go pee a lot to help clean out his kidneys. But he seems to be all better now with no lasting effects.


He and Pretty Boy are wonderful friends. The play like crazy. Poydras gets a little over zealous sometimes going after PB's hind legs but for the most part they're just great together.
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So, ok, it's now 4/24/09!!!! See, told you I probably wasn't REALLY back. Since the last time I wrote Whiskers was taken back to the vet. She had a growth on her front fright leg like she did last year that we had removed. The growth last time was a cyst so we just figured that's what this was too and didn't bother to do anything about it. After she was put on the steroid for her hind legs I noticed a huge round lump on the right side of her throat/neck. Turns out that both growths are cancer. Since she's still eating just fine, going to the bath room just fine and still out and around us and not hiding we decided to take her home with us to live out her last days. When we notice her not eating properly or maybe starting to hide we'll take her and have her put to sleep.

She's lived a long and happy life and it would cost soooo much to have the growths removed if the the throat one even could be. Without and MRI they wouldn't be able to tell where it all is into and the MRI alone would cost a shitload of money. So, for us, the best decision is to do what we're doing. Sad, that's for sure. But at least we were able to make the decision this way and still have time with her unlike a couple of the others that we had to put down.
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So that's really about it for updates at this time. I started this at the end of winter and finished it at the beginning of spring. Wow, we'll see how long it takes me to do another one.

Media quote of the day:

Spring, the Sweet Spring by Thomas Nashe

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!

You know?

You know what sucks? What sucks is when you want to pay your credit card online, because it's due in just a day or so, but their damn site is down. Can't take any requests for payment. That sucks!

You know who's hot? Dwayne Johnson, otherwise known as The Rock. He's hot. I think I've brought up this movie before but I'm not sure; even if I have, doesn't matter, The Rundown is a damn fun movie. It's absolutely silly but it's a fun romp and The Rock is hot as all get out. I needed a movie that I've seen a bunch of times that I didn't have to look at while I was paying bills. This one fits the bill very nicely.

You know what's nice? When you have a kitty cat that wants the lovin's so much she's shoving her head on you where ever she can. But what sucks is that her claws are sharp as knives and when she goes to kneed it makes you want to cry out loud. But the head butts more than make up for it.

Media quote of the day: You're threatening me? You're threatening me with pee? - Beck - Dwayne Johnson in The Rundown