on the integration of the herd

as you all know, we have currently four cats in our house. thankfully our little house comes with a basement, complete with a door. our two little cats are free to roam the main floor and the second floor while the two intruders, aka j's parent's cats, are living in the basement suite. this is working out okay and thankfully isn't a permanent situation.

without central air, our house heats right up. the basement is the coolest place in the house but our cats can't go down there so they're left to melt upstairs while we slink down there after work to hopefully not wake up in the pile of sweat that would be napping on the ground floor or second floor. if both me and j are in the basement our cats sit at the door and howl. it's cute at first but i break down and go back upstairs.

anyways, a minor inconvenience.

but, the bigger problem is that we can't physically spend enough time with each cat. the result? all four are starved for attention and shedding like mad.

it would be awesome if they could all live in harmony, as one big herd, so a couple of nights ago we let our cats into the basement. here's how it went:

- chester (big white male) was on the couch
- sydney (round gray female) was on the floor
- sandy (cute orange female) and rolo (svelt brown male) made their way downstairs

sandy got downstairs, realized something was off and stayed near the stairs, even going back up a couple. rolo made a slow and low to the ground beeline for sydney. a potential mate, we're thinking he's thinking. chester stayed on the couch, not seen by either sandy or rolo. rolo has eyes only for sydney.

rolo makes his way over to syd who is hissing and growling something fierce. rolo just wants to sniff her but she kepps slowly moving away. finally she runs around the couch. rolo chases her and comes face to face with chester who has leapt to the ground.



rolo and chester face off in a screaming match. you should have heard them - they were both emitting this high-pitched growl/howl without opening their mouths. after about 5 minutes of the howl-fest, we scooped up rolo and sandy and brought them back upstairs. seems like the herd mentality will take some time to form. we have just over a week left.

unveiling - the new car

lumi

almost right after i got my license i got my own car. it was a 1984 pontiac parisienne (think huge boat of a car). the way my family worked was that we had three cars, all pieces of crap, but 3. my brother and i had to drive ourselves to all of our sports and my mom was an on-the-road salesman. it worked out. the pontiac lasted a while and was eventually replaced with a 1992 chevrolet lumina, or lumi.

the saturn

shortly after j and i started dating, his parents bought a new car and the old family car was given to him, a 1992 saturn sl1. so, for as long as we've been together, we've each had our own car.

mazda 3

until 2005. at the end of 2004 i was starting to have trouble with lumi so we bought the mazda 3.



r.i.p. lumi

we didn't actually get the mazda until february but by then lumi was no more. the poor car would shut down while i was driving along and would sometimes emit a cloud of black smoke from the steering wheel - try driving with that in your way!

hello turbo

spring 2005 was when j installed the turbo in the 3. you know, zoomzoomzoom! after a solid week he got it working. all of a sudden we had to put 94 octane in the car and fill up almost twice as often.

good bye saturn

the summer of 2005 we decided that we didn't really need two cars, especially with the mazda being new (and therefore reliable) so we shipped the car out to j's sister.

having only one car was mostly okay, we learned to coordinate everything and bum rides when we both had things to do. this was easy once i knew enough people who lived near us.

welcome back saturn

there were times over the next year that having only one car was tricky. i know it caused some tension so we decided to start looking for another car. something good on gas. then j's sister gets a job overseas and gives us back the saturn.

r.i.p. saturn

only problem is that the saturn can't be safetied. we donated it the fire station about a month ago. there were tears in j's eyes as we drove off in the mazda.

goodbye turbo

j decides it's time to get rid of the turbo so him and a friend take a whole saturday in earlier this month and put the car back to stock. back to putting regular gas in the car less often. beautiful!

we drive to hawkesbury to sell it.

rex

we still wanted a second car and j was feeling sad without a turbo so he went on auto trader and found the perfect little car. introducing our new 1987 mazda rx-7:



we bought it before we left for bc but only picked it up this past monday night. it still isn't plated and is sitting in the garage. it is a two door, "2 cylinder" (aka rotary engine), turbo charged sports car. it needs no work to run and will be easy to sell when the time comes.

and there you have it, a short history of the cars we've owned.

trip wrap up

i am incredibly busy at work (it's always this way after spending time away) so this will be short. all of my pictures are up on my flickr site.

we flew to bc.



we saw titanica at the imax.



we surfed in tofino.



we saw colourful sea creatures.



we hugged trees in cathedral grove park.



we napped with kitties.



we* swam in the sooke river.



* j swam. i did not. *

we took a harbour ferry.



we admired the sunset over the clouds from the plane on the way home.



and now we're home. the basement cats are no longer hissing at each other but all four are getting very curious about who's on the other side of the door to the basement.

ah vacations....

we're home

we're home and home is so nice. i can't believe we stopped smelling the new house smell because it's still here. it's so nice to be back. we came home last night (thanks for the ride, s&j!) to a paved driveway and a tree in front of our house. plus the super excited kitties.

we landed just before 11pm, got home just before midnight, dumped our stuff and said hello to our cats, dropped the other cats in the basement suite, and headed out for food. mcdonalds was one of the only things open so we crammed gluteny goodness in our bellies. we were parked in the mcdonalds parking lot, stuffing our faces, when two bike-cops came by. i guess there's been some stuff going on near our old place to warrant having cops on bikes. and i'm talking bicycles here. good thing we weren't drinking or anything.

we got home before 1am and decided it would be good for j's parent's cats if we hung out with them in basement. i didn't mention this earlier, but the new tree meant that we didn't have phone, internet or cable tv. love the tree, hate the incompetent tree installer guys. so with no internet to distract us, a movie sounded good. we sat down, our cats locked OUT of the basement, but didn't get very far because of all the screaming. our babies were obviously lonely. so i went upstairs and hung out with them. it was good because i was able to unpack everything and get the house cleaned up while j was able to stay with the newbies for the transition scary-new-house phase.

and now we're here. the cable guy came while i was out shopping. that's right - i went out and bought clothes for myself!! we have internet and phone and tv again so it will only be a little longer until i can get all the pictures onto my flickr site. sit tight!

home coming

we're heading home tomorrow and i have to say that i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready (spongebob reference). this has been an amazing week. we ended it off with a trip downtown today. we did some shopping and ate lunch then walked along the harbour. we went through the undersea gardens and saw the live show with the diver in the aquarium. then we took a harbour ferry most of the way back home and walked the rest of the way.

i was thinking that this week i've gotten outside more than normal and the air here is less muggy. it's refreshing, but at the same time i can't wait to be back in the hot hot heat of the summer in ottawa. victoria is pleasant and comfortable but just not summer-hot. the sweat-as-soon-as-you-leave-conditioned-air hot. you know, hot hot.

what i'm not looking forward to is going back to work. but you knew that.

wetsuits are actually wet

okay, i never knew that you got wet when wearing a wet suit. now don't laugh, i don't think this is intuitive at all. i thought it was a suit you wore in the wet, which it is. i just didn't realize what kept you warm was the layer of water against your skin. so, if you didn't know that, now you do and now you don't have to feel stupid - i didn't know either.

when surfing in canada, you need a wetsuit. all year long. the water was about 12 degrees but the air was a little warmer. we booked our lessons with surf sister, a little, female-run surf shop out off tofino. the surf was unrelenting but not too big. i was able to stand a bunch of times, but took a weird fall and hurt my back a little, just muscle though. we have a bunch of good pictures, some funny ones of us in our wetsuits.

victoria to tofino is about ottawa to toronto, but with more mountains. on the way out there yesterday, we saw lots of big birds and actually saw a cougar!! it was incredible - the cat was SO huge. in tofino we saw lots of anemones and starfish. i couldn't believe how brightly-coloured the anemones and starfish are - green, blue, purple, pink and orange. and then on the drive home we stopped at cathedral grove and saw a black slug and the biggest tree.. it was huge!

the best part of this vacation is that i feel like we've been here for weeks already. it's been so relaxing and that's exactly what i needed. we have some more things planned for the next couple of days, but nothing too big. i've mostly given up on whale-watching because we're not in the right season and it's super expensive. the cougar mroe than made up for that! so that's the story for now.

the titanic sank

we went downtown today to the museum to see the titanic imax movie. the movie itself wasn't great. it really seemed like they only had so much footage of the wreck so they had to fill the rest of the time - only 45 minutes - with fluff. the exhibit though was good. when you went in they gave you a boarding pass so you were one of the passengers. it made it more real.

there was a lot of walking and my feet are kinda sore but a big dinner and a nap solved that.

i'm finding that i'm really missing my cats. and that is all.

vacation postings

the title of this post just made me realize that i haven't finished telling you about our costa rica trip and for that i am sorry. but now, currently, i am in bc on another vacation. i always wanted to do this: vacation as much as i could while still getting paid for it. you better believe that everytime i get another vacation day credited to me, i promptly book it. i'm even considering taking unpaid leave just to get away from the day-to-day that i'm finding so very draining.

but back to the vacation. we arrived in victoria on time, which is a miracle considering i almost made us miss our flight out of ottawa. we got up on time and were ready to leave when the cabbie rang the doorbell at 5:50 this morning. we got to the airport just after 6am for our 7am flight. we checked in and got through security with no problems. i left j in the terminal to go buy a book and some orange juice. on my way back to him, we passed, apparently he was hungry and in search of food. that's when i realized i no longer had the sweatshirt i had brought. i went and found him and we argued about the orange juice for a while and then i left the orange juice with him and went back to the check in area and found my sweatshirt. this is all very intriguing, i know. i made crankypants j stand in line at the tim hortons to get a muffin hoping that it would make him chill out a little. because we had tons of time. obviously. the line was long and we ended up talking to some strangers for a while and on our way back to the terminal we heard our names being called over the pa system. apparently, boarding had started half an hour earlier and we were the last ones to board the plane.

then j fired me from being the trip planner. the best thing is that he didn't even tell me that i was in charge of getting us on the plane on time in the first place so i maintain that it's half his fault. ah the joys of travelling.

but all that to say that we didn't miss our flight and now we can laugh about my poor organizing skills. or my timing skills. or whatever i'm lacking. at least they pronounced my name properly. that was nice.

we had no problems from ottawa to toronto, no problems in the toronto airport and no problems from toronto to victoria. we both slept for part of the long flight but were still super exhausted when we got in. we ate some food and then napped.

the cats warmed up to us pretty quickly and are now acting as if we never left. chester, the big white male cat, is huge and SO white! sydney, the small but huge gray female, is bristly and sad looking, but friendly.

i've been reading up on some places we might visit but still haven't figured out actual plans for our week here. thankfully, we have free accomodations and food (fully gluten free for a week - watch out cheeseburgers, i'm coming for you when i get home!) so we have some money to play around with. i'm thinking surfing, whale watching and trail hiking. it is cooler here than ottawa but nowhere near as humid. i'm hoping for some beach lounging as well. beach lounging will hopefully lead to tanned skin. here's hoping. so stay tuned - these free accomdations have wireless internet ripe for the picking (who actually says that anyways?) and possibly for the picture downloading. we shall see.

honestly time, where did you go?

the time is flying by. all of a sudden it's the day before we leave and i'm not ready. i'm sitting at my desk, freezing because i forgot a sweater today, blogging instead of working. and there are things to do at home but once i get home i'm so tired that i don't do them. it's awful.

and that, my friends, is why i need a vacation.

so, vacation i will!

j's parents are flying us out to victoria, bc so that we can fly the cats home. his parents are moving back here but are driving across the country and don't want to take the cats with them. we will house the cats.

this is somewhat complicated by the fact that our two cats have food out all the time but the other two are fed twice a day. we will have them separated full-time at first, but will likely have them running as a herd by the end of the two weeks.

but before all that, we get to spend a week in bc. at first i really wanted to see everything i could, but now, in this exhausted state, i really just want to find a nice beach and lie on it for the whole week. is that so wrong?

but i'm guessing, i will spend a day or two lounging around and then be rested enough to want to do some things. i'm hoping so at least.

long (car) weekend

it wasn't supposed to be, but i didn't get out of bed yesterday and made it, a long weekend. i was tired. let me break it down for you.

friday
we went to m&m to meet up with some mazda people. i hadn't been since last year so it was nice seeing some of those people again. i would like to say it was nice meeting the new people, but i really didn't do a whole lot of socializing. we did play with a guy's camera and took some long exposure shots of the car while j ran around it with his blue led flashlight.



saturday
we went to my family's annual cottage party saturday. it was fun like always and j got to break out his windsurfer for the first time this year. the wind wasn't strong enough but he was in the water so he was happy.



sunday
sunday was de-turbo the car day. me, being a smart cookie, decided that we should rent a car before getting started so that we could get to work monday morning if it didn't go well. (this is not me being pessimistic, this is me learning from experience... the putting-the-turbo-in experience.) so j, with the help of d, took the turbo out and put the car back together and had it working in only 9 hours. we were able to take the rental back that night and only paid for the one day.



monday
well, like i said, i slept in and didn't go to work yesterday. work has been charging ahead, day after day, leaving me tired. so i spent the day at home, with my cats, in my pyjamas. beautiful. later on, we were out and about, looking at lawn mowers and patio furniture, when j's cell phone rang. j found a 1987 mazda rx-7 for sale on auto trader and had been emailing the seller. he could finally have us over to see the car. we raced over and ended up buying the car. we can't pick it up until after our holidays (we leave friday for bc) but j's super excited.

and that sums up our weekend. we've had a whole lot going on related to cars but soon enough things will settle. we have the mazda 3 back to stock and we will have the turbo sold and the rx-7 bought. and we've already thought of a name for the new car. i will wait for the official unveiling.

you didn't think they could actually win, did you?

so the sens lost. i can't say i'm all that surprised. i was more surprised that they did well for as long as they did.



and then i did what, i'm guessing, not a whole lot of people do, and took pictures of my tv. but really, let's pretend i was actually at the game. i wasn't. i'm not very good at pretending.

r.i.p. saturn

this little blue car is a 1992 saturn sl1 that j's family bought new. it has been in the family ever since and was the first car j drove and the first car he owned. he bought it from his parents in 2003 and a couple of years later, when we got the mazda, he sold it to his sister. she signed it back over to us right before she left but it can't be safetied (or would be too expensive) so the decision was made to get rid of it. j looked around for options and learned that fire stations accept old cars - we would donate it to our local fire station.

last night, we arrived at the station unannounced and knocked on the back door. the firemen were all very happy and laughed through all the paperwork. i don't think it's often they get cars donated.

i asked what they would be using it for. this particular station has the jaws of life on one of their engines and will be using the car to teach firemen how to use the jaws of life and make them better at rescuing people. the car will go through 5 or 6 different situations and will be unrecognizable by the end of it.

we are both super happy with all this. it's such a nice feeling knowing that the saturn will be used well and j is happy knowing that it was always in his family. r.i.p. little saturn. you were a good car.

finality

you know that feeling when you finally finish something? the sense of accomplishment. a job well done. well, i finally finished the scrapbook i made for my wedding.



in my defense, i've been doing other things... things like watching hockey. unfortunately the sens are down 3-1 in the series. it could all be over in a couple of days. but it could turn around for them and they could play more than one good period of hockey. you never know.



there was a letter at our front door when we got home yesterday. it was notice that they are going to be paving our driveway next week, weather permitting. paving! our driveway! with that done, our house will look complete from the front. well, from the whole outside too, because you wouldn't think of eavestroughing and a deck and a fence and things like that, would you?

i have to admit that i think about them. i even started sketching out deck ideas last night. i think the idea of a deck seems much closer with the sale of the turbo. and the fact that we won't need a new transmission on the mazda (no turbo, no need for a better transmission), and the fact that decks are awesome! so we're at least going to look into it and see, roughly, how much a deck would cost. we'd both rather do it right the first time instead of spending less but settling for something we aren't 100% hapy with.

cause that's just how we roll.

comings and goings

comings

our new barbeque was hooked up saturday. now all we need is somewhere to put it so that we don't have to drag it between the garage and the back of the house everytime we want to use it.

goings

j's sister left saturday evening for afghanistan. she is on a 6-month rotation, providing fitness and leisure programs for the troops. or, possibly, working at the tim hortons.

comings

we got the saturn back. we picked it up sunday evening and dropped it off at canadian tire to get it safetied. as long as it doesn't cost too much. it will be nice to have two cars again.

goings

my brother left sunday. when i'm not sure because he didn't call me. he's gone for a year-ish in prague for work.

comings?

we looked at trees yesterday. we really want to tree-if-y our backyard. did you know that trees, delievered and planted, are expensive? also, in our house contract, there are trees that we are not allowed to plant. none of the ones we like are on the no-no list so we're okay.

goings

late last night, j sold the turbo kit. as soon as we know the saturn works, we (and when i say that, i really mean "j") will take the turbo off the mazda and zoom our way towards 87 octane and a fist full of cash.

(future) comings

a fist full of cash just might become a nice deck in the backyard. or an air conditioner. or a boring extra mortgage payment.

goings

we might have to kick rolo off the island for pooping in the closet. no joke, i went in to hang up some cothes and almost died from the smell. i did some detective work and found two poops in the back of the closet. not his fault, they were locked up saturday morning while the gas guys were over. what IS his fault is the brand new poop that was in there this morning. rolo, you are this close to being voted off the island. THIS close!

running with the pictures

this has been a long week but it's finally friday. friday friday friday. something i ate yesterday or the night before didn't sit well and i was in a world of hurt yesterday afternoon and evening. i got home from work and went straight to bed. it worked out because i got to finish the book i was reading but it was not fun. i was finally feeling better later on and ate something around 10pm.

since i slept and stayed in bed so long i wasn't tired as early as i usually am and found time to upload pictures from the race last weekend. i made a whole set on flickr but here are some of the good ones.

before the race:


during the race:


ending the race:


we also are the proud new owners of a front lawn:


and a new scratching post for sandy, who just loves the carpet on the stairs:


tonight i will take a picture of the new barbeque to show you all how pretty and fancy it is. it's big and shiny and new. i hope everyones weekend plans are coming together. we have a family dinner saturday night after a farewell to j's sister. i still can't believe she's going. isn't this a great picture of us?