Eclipse, dogs, cats, shooting, and pillows

It’s Sunday afternoon, we’re about to head out to watch the annular eclipse. I made a cereal box pin camera, and we’re bringing a welding mask for direct viewing which may or may not blind us, depending on who you believe. We figure short glimpses through the possibly blinding welding glass should be ok. I’m super excited! How lucky we are to live in Albuquerque, one of the prime viewing locations in the US!

Here’s some of the offload from my camera in the past two weeks.

Our matching animals commune.

Tandem cats. They were intently watching a lizard outside.

Klaus’s haircut, as per Mom’s request. It looks MUCH better now than it did.

All three of them look so happy to be picking burs out of Klaus’s fur!

We went to the shooting range yesterday afternoon with Ken’s friend from work. It’s a very nice range.

I’m making new pillow covers for the couch. The old ones (far right) were ugly and had this fringe on the edges which Klaus kept getting his collar stuck on. I’d find him going around woefully dragging a pillow and looking miserable. It was sad. The new ones have the striped fabric on one side and red on the other. I figured out how to make and add piping AND put in a zipper, which turns out to be not too terribly difficult. I think they look great. And Klaus will appreciate them.

Typical evening

Picture of domestic bliss:

Wife in the kitchen making granola bars, lunches, putting away dinner, washing dishes, emptying and filling dishwasher.

Husband sitting on floor of kitchen assembling his new (used) welder.

Wet dog (it rained!) attempting to be a lap-welder-dog.

Cats perched on table supervising.

That was Tuesday night, and you know what? It was pretty good.

Guess the welding torch just needs new fittings to plug into the welder and the grounding clamp needs to be unpacked from wherever it’s hiding, then the welder’s ready to go. It’s very exciting! The granola bars turned out tasty too. The dog even eventually dried out and smelled much better, and it was Ken’s turn to do all the kitchen stuff on Wednesday.

Where’s Tesla?

Can you find the cat?

Becoming New Mexicans.

Back home to pack up all our WA worldly goods for one day.

I know I posted these ones to Facebook, but they’re so cute I had to put them up here.

These were while we were driving to Albuquerque.

She’s such a sweetheart! I don’t know how we lucked out to get such fantastic cats.

Our penthouse suite. They didn’t have anything else available. Hopefully we can still get reimbursed.

Aaand finally. The house we’re in the process of attempting to buy. Perhaps by time this post posts it will be as certain as it can be before closing.

Month of May in review

Evidently it’s been nearly a month. Time flies when you’re having fun and all that. Summary:

Weekend 1: Went bike camping. Rode 35 miles. Camped at charming free campground off of trail. Listened to trains all night. Started raining. Ken blew out his tire. Not tube, tire. Ken and Jason rode to conveniently located bike shop to buy another. Continued to ride through the rain. Were freezing cold, starving, and grouchy. Some participants vowed never to set butt on bike saddle again. Hot food never tasted so good.

Weekend 2-Week 2 – Weekend 3: Parents and sister arrive. Week of revelry and NO WORK commences. Details of the whole trip found here and http://whorse.xanga.com/747982914/ohiony-trip/. Thanks Sara.

Weekend 3: 2:00 Graduate! You may call me Dr. 5:00 Pour tea all over diploma. Rest of life: never hear the end of it from Ken.

Week 3: Much anxiety and loneliness caused by sending cats to WA with family. Set up 2 on-site interviews for early June.

Weekend 4: Hot weather. Took Ken’s new rifle out shooting. Only shot six rounds through it because I’m pansy. Ken developed bruised shoulder after 40ish rounds. Rode the towpath and train Sunday afternoon. Ken’s face swelled up twice it’s normal size. For future reference, bring allergy drugs when contact with outdoors is expected.

Week 4 (that’s this week): Went to Pastor’s house for dinner and bike ride. Instead played Uno and read books to kids as a huge thunderstorm with funnel clouds and hail the size of marbles hit. Finished drafts of 3 papers. Finally had friend from church over for dinner after 3.5 years. Put away laundry for first time since last blog post… Getting very excited about interviews. Hoping all this works out so we’re not homeless.

Maybe someday I’ll get pictures off of the camera and post more details, but since I’m spending the majority of the next two weeks traveling to and from interviews and after that we’re moving, I wouldn’t count on it.

One thing before I leave you again for a month: One of my interviews is in Albuquerque. I think we would REALLY like living there. I have most of an afternoon and evening to explore with a car on my own. Anybody have advice for things I should check out with an eye towards possibly moving there in two weeks? Information about Albuquerque in specific or about things to look for when relocating in general would be appreciated.

Weekend re-cap

I had a very productive weekend. That is what I like in a weekend: productivity.

We:
Made (mostly Ken here, but I helped) and cleaned up from a BBQ for the whole department
Cleaned out (and vacuumed!) the car
Topped off various vehicle fluids
Re-insulated the car’s exhaust hangers
Swept the garage
Stuffed the cats into their carrier for acclimation twice.
Did all the normal weekly stuff: cat boxes, laundry, bathroom, kitchen floors
Returned a non-functioning item to Walmart (on bicycles, so that counts as exercise!)
Fixed my laptop cord by soldering two broken ones together (all by myself!)
Played music for church with friends
Made food – BBQ on Friday, steak and eggs for breakfast Saturday, biscuits and gravy for Easter breakfast at church, angel food cake, mushroom risotto, candied yams, asparagus, fruit salad, ham, and some teensy lamb chops for Easter dinner.
Went for a walk (sorely needed after all that food)
Watched the rest of 30 Rock Season 2 which needed to be returned to the library.
Listened to the tail end of Anne of the Island while looking at pictures taken by sewer/subway explorers. Weird combination of activities, I know.
Talked to Mom on the phone about their trip to come visit (Which is in only 2 weeks!!!!)

Not bad.

Up this week:
Preparing bikes for a bike-camping trip (I got ridiculous new bar-tape for my bike, and I can’t wait to see how silly it looks with it.)
Maybe packing a few boxes?
Dinner with our roommate
Cutting Ken’s hair? It is getting a bit ridiculous…
Orchestra on Thursday (if I get tickets).
Heading to Pittsburgh to go bike-camping!!! Hope it stops raining.

I must post before I leave

School
I took my last final (It was brutal) and wrote my last two term papers. Yay. Then last night I had a dream that my advisor thought my review paper was terrible, was very angry, and gave me a D on it. I looked it up today and he gave me an A. Whew.

Fleas
The cats still have them. I was really hoping we could get rid of them before we left for two and a half weeks and aren’t around to treat them. Guess we’ll have to start ALL over again trying to get rid of them when we get back.

running
I’ve been doing pretty well running. Not stellar, but I’ve put in 44 miles since the turkey trot. The furthest I’ve run is 6 miles, but I shouldn’t have any problem making it the full 10K. The only question is whether I’ll be able to get it under a 9:59 pace on Saturday. I guess we’ll find out!

Wallpaper
I spent 3+ hours last night stripping wallpaper from a friend’s house. There were like five or six layers with a layer of paint on top. Note to self: Inspect houses for wallpaper before buying. Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting from hearing people complain about it. We did basically three walls of a smallish bedroom, so with two of us working on it that comes to two man-hours per wall, which isn’t so bad. My right arm, hand, and wrist are a little sore today though!

Old people
On Wednesday night my friend (the one with the wallpapered house) called me up and asked if I would go to the VA hospital to sing some carols for an elderly gentleman from our church who is in Hospice. So four of us did, and the nurses asked us to sing a couple of songs for the guy in the next room over because he loved music. The man we went to sing for was far enough gone that I don’t know if he heard at all, but the man in the room next door definitely seemed to enjoy it, even though he couldn’t talk. It reminded me how easy it is to make people in hospitals or nursing homes happy. It’s a small sacrifice for me, and they seem to enjoy it so much.

I’m going home tomorrow
I can’t wait. Although I’m going to have to because I still have several loads of laundry to do, a back porch to clean off, various electronic devices to charge, a ton of stuff including running and skiing equipment to pack, vast quantities of dairy products to consume, and a roommate to instruct on the care and feeding of cats and plants. Oh, and Ken’s friend is coming over. And Ken needs to finish his thesis by tomorrow so I can’t imagine he’ll be doing a lot of helping. Staying up late will give me a jump start on Pacific time, right? Family, I’ll see you tomorrow and if I seem a little bit sleepy you’ll know why.

Running, writing, fleas, school

Running
2008 Cleveland Turkey Trot
Time: 48:37:27
Pace: 9:43
Place in Women aged 20-24: 132/207 = 0.634

2009 Cleveland Turkey Trot
Time: 44:28:96
Pace: 8:54
Place in women aged 20-24: 76/255 = 0.298

2010 Cleveland Turkey Trot
Time: 44:22:9 4
Pace: 8:52
Place in women aged 25-39 (I’m old.): 95/382 = 0.248

I’ve improved… barely. Now the goal is to beat my 10K time from last year at the Cable Bridge run. I have three weeks. Last year’s time 55:44, which is a 8:59 pace and 18/44 = 0.409. Beating it is going to be a challenge, since I’m coming down with a cold, and there’s only two and a half weeks for improvement. I shall do my best!

Oh my goodness, soon I’m going to be done with school and now I need a job.
I just realized my last class is tomorrow morning at 9. LAST CLASS. Of 20 years of school, if we assume I started at age 6 and will be done this year. One more hour and fifteen minutes, then it’s over! I will never learn anything ever again!!!!

Heh. Just kidding there. I’ll never stop learning! You cannot make me!

Writing
I may have mentioned I have a whole bunch of big writing projects to do before Dec 17th when I bounce this joint. (New realization: This will hopefully last time I leave Cleveland for vacation with intent of returning for any length of time!!!) As of today one is completely finished. Of the other three one is started, one is not even begun yet, and the last one may be delayed indefinitely because the data doesn’t make as much sense as it ought and it’s difficult to write a paper about nonsensical data when one is an engineer. That one’s a bummer because that was going to be a quick and easy paper to get published (and chapter in my dissertation…). It’ll still go in the dissertation, but unless we get it figured out it’s not really publishable.

My cats have fleas
Sigh. And that’s about all I have to say about that.

Poor me, I have a cold and a paper to write.

I’m at home right now because A. I don’t think anybody at work wants this cold that one of them so kindly shared with me, and B. I MUST write this term paper which is due tomorrow and I can write it just as easily (Writing “easy”? Ha!) from my comfy Ikea chair as I can from my desk at work. Yay for VPN access to the library journals!

I have had several thoughts during this whole writing process, and as it is now 2:00 and I think I’ve earned a break, I shall share them with you.

First, this is the first true cold I’ve had for about a year. Go super immune system!!

Second, ceramists have WAY too many names for things. Each ceramic crystal structure has a mineral name, a ceramic name, two crystal structure names, and the chemical formula can be written in at least two different ways. Oh yeah, and sometimes they’re called by their trade names. Is there any wonder I’m hopelessly confused? Also, the names are usually things like wollastonite and fluorophlogopite. Who comes up with those?!

Third, I don’t think I will ever enjoy writing.

Fourth, then why do I write on this blog? Because it’s good for me! Also, it saves on phone minutes to my parents… Hi, Mom and Dad!

Fifth, the amount of zeal with which Cosmo licks his nether-regions is sort of morbidly inspiring. I’m sitting a good 25 feet away from him and I can hear it. Gross.

Right. Long enough break. Time to go back to writing so that I can spend all day tomorrow (when I will be fully and totally recovered from this cold. Are you listening, body?) running around finishing presentations and getting travel stuff finalized for my trip to Houston.

Open letters on a Monday

This was supposed to be posted on Friday, but I ran out of time at lunch, then I played Risk and ate chips and super anti-oxidant drink that was, as far as I can tell, mostly sugar and not really very good for you all evening, so I never got around to posting it.

—————–
I was going to make a random list of things, but then I remembered that it’s Friday, when Kim does the Open Letters Friday Monday. Why shouldn’t I follow in her footsteps?
—————–
Dear Cosmo,

I’m so glad that you’re getting better! Not having to force feed you is hugely convenient. However, there’s no need to go back to your old obnoxious ways of whining and complaining all the time.

Your owner,
Lisa
—————–
Dear God,

THANK YOU FOR THE COOLER WEATHER!

Gratefully,
Lisa
—————–
Dear Central Labor Union members in 1882,

Thank you for instituting Labor Day. I could not be more thrilled to be going backpacking next weekend with my friends.

Sincerely,
Lisa who wants a break from laboring
—————–
Dear Professor,

Why do you seem to always want me to do something after 5:00 on Friday? Normally I don’t care because I’m the world’s lamest 20 something and it’s not like I do anything on Friday nights aside from the occasional grocery shopping trip, but it’s the principle of the thing!

Yours for only another year,
Lisa
—————–
Dear Machine shop,

Thank you for finally getting my parts made for me. It’s only been nearly two months. Your service is ridiculously slow.

Frustratedly,
Lisa