nekosensei

"Oh oh Power Line...give me some time...I'm living in twilight.
Doowop dooby doo doowop doowah doolang
Blue days..black nights...doowah doolang."

These past two weeks, the city has been working on installing new water mains on our street so it's been noisy and sometimes dusty here during the day. This morning, doomsey woke me up to tell me that he had found a flyer outside our door saying that they were shutting the water off during the day today. I had...oh...five minutes to take a shower before they cut the water. The city must have put the flyers out last night, but between all the confusion with me staying at my parents house until late and doomsey meeting me out there for dinner, we missed it. Also, doomsey and I usually go out back door so occasionally we miss flyers placed on our front door.

So...I scramble out of bed to take a shower. And was it a close call! The water ran out while I was brushing my teeth, which turned out to be not that big of a deal.

After feeding the cats and eating breakfast, I decided that I should get out of the house for awhile since the water being off was going to get annoying fast. I decided to go to the zoo because I wanted to pick up my member t-shirt (the coupon expires after a certain date, and I wanted one goddammit). I was also considering buying an over-sized t-shirt to use as a night shirt. The one I use now is holy. And by holy, I don't mean that it was blessed by the pope. It's full of holes.

A little before ten o'clock, I packed up my camera and headed out. I got my membership t-shirt and managed to find a cheap, oversized t-shirt to use as a nightshirt. Seriously, with the discount from the membership, it was only eight bucks: I would have paid more at Kohl's, which was where I was originally planning to go.

When I got what I came for, I ambled around the zoo for a couple of hours. The new Great Bear Wilderness is awesome! My sister and I are taking my nieces there in two weeks, and let me tell you that they're going to love it. They have this cool area where you can watch grizzly bears and polar bears under water. I snapped a couple of pictures of a polar bear diving under water. I'm going to sort through them and see if any of them turn out any good. If they do, I'll post them. Also, the wolves were active so I'm sure I got some good shots of them.

And here's a random conversation overheard at the zoo:

Father: (sees a male seal on top of a female one) Hey! That's what Hunter does!
Mother: No, that's not what Hunter does. They're wrestling.
Me: (thinking to myself) Yeah. Uh...huh.

What can I say? I guess they were just feeling frisky....

I also ended up chewing out some random kid today. The zoo usually have geese and sea gulls ambling about the park, and today I caught a couple of kids chasing a goose and her goslings. One of the kids managed to separate one of the goslings from the group and start chasing it. The poor thing was clearly terrified so I told the kid to knock it off. Dang...too bad none of those kids got bitten. They would have deserved it.

Towards the end of my stay there, I had a hot dog for lunch and then, because it was warm, I grabbed a smoothie. Then, I made my way back to the car. The annoying thing was that, as I was driving home, my eyes got irritated and they started to water. I had no idea what set that off. I must have been allergic to something. I was afraid that I'd have to pull over for a few minutes (that's how bad it was getting), but I managed to stick it out. I wonder if it was something in that neighborhood that was bothering me.

Finally, I made it back home and the water was back on. So, thanks to the water being turned off, I got out of the house and had a nice day for myself.

* In New York City, people walk past a man dying from a stab wound. One person even stops to take a picture with his cell phone before moving on. No one comes to his aid until it's too late. Seriously? What's the matter with people? (Via rm)

* And driving while Hispanic becomes a new crime in Arizona. In this case, an Hispanic man born in the United States was detained by police until his wife shows up with his birth certificate. According to the guy's wife, he supposedly answered their questions wrong. I guess saying that your mom lives in Mexico is a big no-no in the state of Arizona now.

Um...Ihre Papiere, bitte? Now really, guys, how many of you keep your birth certificate on you at all times? And how many of you even know where it is? My answers to those questions: I don't keep a copy of my birth certificate on me and I don't know where I've put it. This new law in Arizona is a very bad idea. Once it goes in effect, we're going to see a lot more racial profiling and harassment of people who are in this country legally. (Via doomsey)

* Armed man spotted at North Carolina airport just as President Obama, Air Force One took off -- Are you kidding me? They only charged him with a misdemeanor? The guy just threatened the president. And he had a gun on him. Slap him with a felony and make an example of him!

Oh...and blame Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin for getting the crazies all worked up. If someone gets killed, it's going to be all their fault. (Story via ginmar)

* And related news: Facebook page prays for Obama's death -- Trying really hard to not make any nasty remarks about "Christians" or about beating some of them over the head with their good book. (Link via petzipellepingo)

* When I stepped out of my house for a nice, relaxing hour long-walk this afternoon, I saw my bird feeder lying on the ground. Next to it was a little yellow bat. I suspect my next-door neighbor's kids might have been involved in this. What did they think it was, a piñata? Talk about the dumbing down of American education! Maybe I should have a little conversation with them that goes something like this, um...hello, kids...this is a...um...bird-feeder for, you know, um...feeding birds?"

Thankfully, it wasn't broken. I picked it up, tied back on the post, and re-filled it with bird-seed. No harm done. Maybe, the next time I see them, I should tell them to be more careful next time because I don't want to have to replace it.

* I'm beat. Time for bed methinks. Night all!

* This video, called "Epilepsy Dancing," is based on temporal lobe epilepsy in which suffers have a kind of daydream during the episode. I think it's visually stunning. Unfortunately, you have to have a YouTube account to see it; some idiots flagged it because it has OMG BOOBIES! (Link swiped from willowing)

* Someone on my friend's list is in the middle of a study abroad program in Spain and for one of her Spanish classes, she had to watch a movie based on the novel, La familia de Pascual Duarte by Camilo José Cela. In the movie, the protagonist snaps, killing a dog and horse during his break with reality. And it's not a special effect either. The director had the actor shoot a dog and stab a horse to death on screen. Let me repeat that. They killed a dog and a horse to make this movie. Now, I'm okay with people going hunting to feed themselves and their family, as long as they're using that animal's life to sustain their own, but I don't at all approve of killing animals merely to make an artistic statement. If I had been in this person's place, I would have told the professor that there was no way I could watch the movie without getting upset and, therefore, I wouldn't be coming to class that day. This is one of the rare cases where I would have taken a hit on my grade. I'm just too much of an animal lover to watch something like that. Which brings me to a poll...

[Poll #1542764]

* Raked up some of the snow mold...thatch...whatever you want to call it. And now I've got a nasty blister on one of my hands from all that raking.

* And it looks like my crocuses that I thought were M.I.A this year have finally re-appeared. Going to have to get pictures of them before the flowers fade.

* I wanted to work on turning over my garden this week, but that might get put off so I can start studying for my German midterm.

* Wow...the right-wing in this country has gone completely and utterly bat-shit insane: Sarah Palin posts about not retreating but reloading on her Facebook page and Democratic congressmen who voted for the bill are receiving more threats. I know many of us liberals were ticked off when George W. Bush was president, but were we ever this bad? *shakes head* After this, there is no way in hell you can convince me to vote a Republican for office. If I don't like the Democratic candidate, I'd rather vote Green. (Links swiped from ginmar and gehayi)

* And look what we have here. One of the douchebags who is advocating stone throwing. (Link snagged from ambitious_wench)

* California voters to decide in November whether to legalize pot -- I wonder what the chances are of this actually passing... (Many thanks to ladyfox7oaks for originally posting this)

* In Stephenville, college play featuring gay Jesus stirring emotions -- More douchebaggery. At least one of the actors in this play was disowned by his family after refusing to quit the production. So sad. (Link swiped from tx_cronopio)

* Okay...now I'm honked off by all the crap that's going down in the news. Time to call it quits and go to bed.

Busy day today. And I couldn't have picked a better day to do outside work. It's gorgeous outside!

* Irish cheddar cheese acquired!

* This afternoon, I cleaned some of the first floor windows both inside and out. The ones that got done the best were the living room ones as they were easier to reach. The dining room and kitchen ones got the insides washed, but not much of the outsides because I couldn't reach them as well and I was terrified to going too high up on the ladder. I have a tendency to klutz out and fall off.

* I also washed my car, which was *covered* in salt. While I was working, I got buzzed by a yellow jacket. Yep...it must be spring if those little fuckers those guys are back. I'm probably going to have a hard time with them again this year. Next time I get dive bombed, I'm going to have to watch and see where they disappear to. Then, I can go out and nuke the shit out of their nest spray the nest with wasp killer after sunset.

* Yay! My car is clean!

* Last summer and fall, we had trouble with our rosebush. We had a fungus that left little black spots on the leaves attack it. We had this same problem the year before. The culprit is most likely the wet summers we've been having lately. Last year, forestdruid told us to remove all the old leaves and clear away any fallen leaves from around the base of the rosebush. Between that and spraying, that should help keep the rosebush from getting reinfected. Well, today I removed all the old leaves and raked around the base. I couldn't reach some of the leaves at the center of the rosebush. I used a shovel and a stick to poke at them and get out what I could. I still got a couple of nasty scratches from my efforts even with gardening gloves on. Later this spring, I'm going to spray more fungicide. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can get rid of it for good this time.

* And while I'm on the topic of pests, our pine trees have some kind of borer in back. I think this year doomsey and I are going to call an arborist to have a look at them and some of our other trees. We're due for that soon.

* Trulawn came by again. They said that we have snow mold on part of the lawn, which requires raking. Too tired to do it today. And it's also not a good idea because they put granules down this afternoon. Maybe sometime next week if the weather is decent.

* I wore a better brace on my ankle, so it's not hurting as badly as yesterday. The only problem is that this one is cutting into my heel. *sigh*

* Oh...I also cleaned my fish tank earlier. The algae is taking over! Maybe I need to invest in another snail to replace the old one that died...

Hey! I've been neglecting LJ a bit over the past couple of days because I was busy playing on Twitter and doing real life stuff. (By the way, I love whoever made this feed. It makes things so much easier to keep track of...And I still think it's hysterical that they posted about us on Wired). I finally caught up on LJ this evening.

Yesterday, we had the sewer line re-lined, and had to stay elsewhere overnight while it set. Yesterday afternoon, doomsey found out that the plumbers we hired laid twenty-two feet of the liner under the patio and only two feet under the tree. We bought thirty feet of liner, but they only used twenty-six. This was not what we had agreed upon when we signed the contract. The contract states that they would put fifteen feet of liner under the patio and another fifteen feet by the tree. doomsey was uncomfortable with the fact that they only put two feet of liner by the tree. He's afraid that the tree roots can get in around the section they reinforced and create more havoc with the sewer line. doomsey talked with the person organizing everything, and he agreed to knock a couple hundred dollars of the price and give us a ten year warranty on the work back there.

And last, but not least, I wandered over to Dragon Cave and picked up new eggs. Please click!

As I mentioned in my last post, doomsey and I had someone come out and jet our sewer line to remove any blockages and to get a better view of what's wrong with the line. The good news is that our sewer line was not collapsed. It was merely being blocked by lots and lots of roots. We don't have to replace the entire line, but there is a section towards the back of our property that is either going to have to be relined or replaced. The previous owner of our house, in his infinite wisdom, had decided that it would be a good idea to plant a pine tree by his sewer line, and that was causing the line to shift. That's why said pine looks healthier and is taller than the other trees: it has access to the water from the sewer. While the plumbers were out, doomsey and I talked to one of our neighbors, who is a gardening geek. He said that he told the previous owner that putting a tree right over his sewer line was a bad idea. Previous owner obviously didn't listen. It's a shame he didn't because my neighbor is usually right when it comes to gardening. His yard always looks nice with all the stuff he plants, and the guy clearly knows what he's doing. During my experiment with gardening last year, I followed said neighbor's advice, and it always turned out to be good. (Note: Last year, doomsey predicted that my gardening experiment was going to fail because I had no clue what I was doing. He threatened to reseed the area when-- not if-- it did fail. I surprised him and managed to get a good yield out of that vegetable garden. Well, part of the reason it didn't fail was because I wasn't stubborn and I listened to my neighbor when he gave advice).

Anyhow, I digress. Back to the sewer line. doomsey and I have two options:

Option #1: We can dig up the roots and replace the sewer line. This means that the pine tree in the back will die, and that we will eventually have to cut it down. Cutting it down will be a real bitch because it's dangerously close to the power lines running along the back of our property.

Option #2: We can reline the sewer line in the back, which will save the tree. Once it's relined, that tree will no longer interfere with the sewer line. On the other hand, it's about $1,500 more than Option #1.

Personally, I'd rather go with Option #2. Now, the company that gave us the estimate will only come out for a minimum of 30 feet of lining, and the job we require calls for less than that. On the other hand, we do have a part of the sewer line running underneath the patio that isn't doing so hot, and is eventually going to need to be replaced. The company will split up the 30 feet between the two areas so it kind of makes sense to go with Option #2 and have both areas relined. I guess we might as well spend the money now, and have them replace that section so that we don't have to have them come out again in five or ten years and repeat the whole process again. I guess, what I'm saying, is that it will be cheaper in the long run to kill two birds with one stone.

Lastly, Cosette was once again being barfy again Thursday through Friday. The vet so happened to call my in-laws while I was at their house doing laundry on Friday, and I was able to tell her about it and get a recommendation on what we should do. The doctor seems to think that Cosette might be getting so gassy because she's becoming intolerant to the grains in regular cat food. As emygination said, cats, after all, are obligatory carnivores. So now we're switching her food again from Purina Pro Plan to a prescription food that doesn't contain any grains. I gave her her first can today, and so far she hasn't had a problem. Fortunately, Cosette isn't a picky eater and will eat almost anything you put in front of her. She ate the new food with gusto. I hope this works because I'm getting tired of cleaning up cat barf in random places.

( Click here for pictures )