The Apples (and other news)

_MG_7331
Originally uploaded by meatyokra

Our apples are coming along.
The tree in the center of our deck bears apples. A little sour as "eaters," they evidently are very good "bakers." Guess we'll be testing Elizabeth's apple pie skillz this fall...

The tree is full of fruit and every so often one will fall during the night, accounting for that alarming, popping noise we were puzzled by until we discovered it's origin.

As the great meals continue I kind of wish that I'd been documenting some of the finished products, as they've been as good to look at as they've been to eat. For example this entry from a few nights ago – Salmon on a bed of French Green Lentils:


In the "Hey, this wasn't in the brochure!" department, its official: I am now living with a cat that has diabetes and requires constant care. Fortunately it really isn't as bad as it sounds. It does mean two shots a day, of course, but ironically the shots aren't as difficult to administer as the oral antibiotics we gave her when we thought her troubles were caused by a pancreatic infection. And if giving her two injections a day improves her health and well being, then it's well worth it. I have to wonder, though, that if anywhere in the Match.com profile it had read "... also includes old, diabetic cat..." – would I have responded? To be fair I have to admit that I did purposefully omit "... is a chess playing nerd with many smelly pairs of running shoes..." from my profile. (oh, and Elizabeth just added "or a picture of your kitchen and bathroom in your old place!") Uh-oh...


And finally I wanted to recognize some of the other cute creatures in our Mill Valley area. Seems the deer and birds get all of the attention. However there are more spiders here than just about anywhere I've ever been. Almost entirely harmless and mostly out at night, some are quite interesting to observe. (Elizabeth is sure to dispute me on this point.) We don't mind them, so long as they are outside or, if inside, they're nesting quietly in a corner and not prowling quickly about the ceiling. Here's an outdoor guy.

Tree Lights

_MG_7225
Originally uploaded by meatyokra

Went to Smith & Hawken today for a watering can (for the plants I'm in trouble for forgetting to water – but that's another story). In addition we ended up getting some lights for the apple tree on the deck. Copper orbs surrounding Christmas lights, they give off a nice warm, orange glow. We have them on a timer that automatically comes on at dusk.


Also had to include the Nancy photo of the week. Here she climbed into the "delicates" laundry bin...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHNNA!!!

Today's post is devoted to sending my sister the best possible wishes on this, her 44th birthday.
I find it so hard to believe that the cute little girl in this picture is now a grown woman with a wonderful family – a great husband and two beautiful children.

Do you remember the day of this photo, way back in '72? How excited you were leading up to going back stage before the concert? Crying and almost refusing to go into the dressing room at the last minute because of the nervous excitement? Seems a lifetime ago, doesn't it? Michael looks human... way too much hair, chest and polyester...

Well, happy birthday Johnna! I love you!!!!

Great Jobs

Originally uploaded by meatyokra

Elizabeth imagines that this very well might be one of the best gigs in the world: a fireman assigned to the downtown Mill Valley station. I'm inclined to agree. There certainly are a lot worse jobs out there – jobs with longer hours, lower pay and worse retirement benefits. Elizabeth and I can name two of them.

Went down to San Mateo yesterday looking for piece for the dining area. Actually, we stopped at an Indonesian importer on Potrero Hill (SF) first, but Elizabeth already had her sights set on a Chinese antique dealer in San Mateo. Decided on the perfect piece to fill the space and I drove down and picked it up today (could only fit it into the car if no one was in the passenger's seat).

Here it is before and after being decorated:

If you know Elizabeth then you know that a lot of time elapsed between these two photographs. :-o

We went to San Rafael later in the day to check out the annual Street Painting festival – held along Fourth Street just across from the San Rafael Mission. A warm, sunny day... some interesting art... a pleasant time out.

Slow news day

Originally uploaded by meatyokra

Nancy's recovery seems to be going well. She's taking her medication with a bit less drama now – mainly because Elizabeth isn't letting her dash under the bed immediately after the dosage. Seem that holding her and saturating her with love and attention for about 5 consecutive minutes makes her forget about the trauma that just befell her. (she is a cat, though, so I don't doubt that she will remember and hold a grudge for all eternity)

After every home cooked meal now I get asked how it ranks compared with the others we've had. Seems that, for some reason, if you put things in order or preference it means that you really detest the last thing on that list. I wasn't aware of it but evidently that's the case. What that means is this: Although I have truly loved every dinner that we've had since we've been here, someone else seems to think that I absolutely hate her mother's Turkey Chili recipe.

Oh, and the picture headlining this post is one I took tonight of the flowering buds on a succulent that E bought for the deck table.

Cat update.

She hissed at me tonight.

Nancy is all of seven pounds and I was terrified.

She came out when I got home, all calm and friendly. My heart sunk as I knew what I had to do, what was in store. I prepared her dinner and then set about closing doors – to the office, to the bedroom – so she wouldn't have easy avenues for escape. As soon as she sensed the bedroom door close she stopped eating and scooted under the Heywood Wakefield in the living room. At first I didn't worry about it because I felt I could just grab and drag her out from under it. It's pretty accessible and I've seen Elizabeth do it, grabbing her backside and pulling her out.

So I took the food bowl and placed it just under the end of the piece of furniture. In any case I wanted for her to get some food in her. After the dose she'd not want to eat.

After "dinner" I went to get her but instead of being able to pull her out butt first she was staring out at me. Hissing.

As a team, I don't mind playing "bad cop" to E's "good cop" when dealing with people. But with the little creatures... well, it's looking like that's going to have to be her domain.

She's back tomorrow morning and I could not be more relieved.

The Birds of Linden Lane

_MG_6766
Originally uploaded by meatyokra

We have a garden behind the house, just off and below the bedroom balcony. Unfortunately it isn't our garden but we can appreciate the birds that frequent the trees and feeders – all without lifting a finger.

Now I just have to identify them all. I think the first pair are a red finch couple. The humming bird is an Anna's, I'm pretty certain. Not sure about the gray, crested one or the bright yellow guy. Guess that's what the internet is for...

Medicating Nancy

_MG_6975
Originally uploaded by meatyokra

Okay, so Elizabeth went to Kona yesterday leaving me with the nearly impossible task of giving medication orally to a cat – a finicky, standoffish, shy cat.

Nancy spent the entire day under the bed. Didn't even come out to eat or drink. I couldn't even lure her out with treats to administer her evening dose of antibiotics. Eventually I had to disassemble the bed in order to grab her, shove the syringe in her mouth and squirt. The whole operation left her so traumatized that she wouldn't come out again – not even for food (which she hadn't had all day).

Finally I saw her creeping past my office door at around 11PM, on one of her nightly RECONs. Next thing I know she's sprawled out on the bed with me, comfortably snoozing away.

I don't understand cats. But I'm trying...

Long walk to Sausalito

This morning we went for a walk. We took the bike path from Mill Valley to the center of town in Sausalito. It's about a 5 mile walk which, of course, made for a 10 mile urban hike.


The first part of the walk, once you get off of Miller Avenue, is an exposed bike path through a very marshy part of Richardson Bay.































The path passes under the 101 and on into Sausalito, where it runs along the main street through town, Bridgeway.








The north end of Sausalito is home to a great number of house boats – some nicer than others. They generally get nicer the further south you go, as those piers are over better, less mucky water.





... And on to downtown Sausalito. Very pretty but a bit of a tourist haven. The nicer, real Sausalito is a block over on Caledonia.

Last time...

I really don't mean to belabor this point – and I promise this will be last time (for a while, at least) – but tonight was another great meal... pad thai!

Elizabeth wasn't as pleased with the recipe as I was, though. She couldn't get a hold of the exact kind of rice noodle the recipe called for – and perhaps that would have made it better – but it really was delicious.

Birthday Chocolates

The beautiful box of sinfully good Godiva Chocolates that Charlie sent Elizabeth for her birthday! These things are way too good.





(Seems to have come with two missing...)


This little one (lemon something-or-other) is Elizabeth's favorite.

She cooks!

One of the best fringe benefits of cohabitation – in this particular instance, that is – has to be that my diet has improved... dramatically.

Elizabeth is an excellent cook, it turns out, and I had no idea. So far the dinner menus have consisted of turkey chili, chicken tortilla soup, Greek fritatta, thai red curry shrimp and tonight's most excellent cambodian garlic chicken and rice soup! Much more than I had bargained for.

In the less happy news department, Nancy took ill Monday evening. We took her to the Cat Clinic Tuesday morning to find out that she has elevated blood sugar levels and might be suffering from a pancreatic infection. She seems to have recovered from her lows of Monday night, though, which is great. Now we have to administer medicine twice daily for the next couple of weeks. Elizabeth assures me that's going to be fun. As an aside, one of my daily chores has become emptying the litter box first thing in the morning.

I have been learning so much.