Star Wars at City Hall

Star Wars at City Hall
Originally uploaded by gordyt

Had Gordy scan and post this fer my little Star Wars fiend... Hoot

:-)

Man oh man! Never realized what hard work painting a house could be! I've painted houses before, but I was much younger and I suppose that makes a lot of difference. Along with all my other aches and pains due to going up and down a ladder I'm experiencing some crazy numbness and tingling in my right hand. I did some web-searching and it would seem carpal tunnel syndrome is the culprit. In the last week I've been waking up numerous times with my hand completely asleep, so I twist and turn and try to position myself in such a way to prevent it from reoccurring. Nothing seems to be working. I can't help but feel a twinge of bitterness about getting older - lets just say I am not feeling graceful.

On the other hand, the house is coming along ever so slowly and it is starting to look good. Yesterday I had a couple people stop on the street to tell me how nice the new paint looks as I was painting the porch posts white.

From my vantage point on the small ladder on the front porch I saw the stray tortoiseshell momma cat at the day care down the street with her kittens. Momma is looking pretty hungry these days and her six kittens aren't helping. As she was attempting to lead her entourage across the street a truck hauling down the road hit and killed one of the kittens as I watched. The remaining family has relocated under my back porch, which is yet another bad choice made by the young mother cat. Old Beaux doesn't pay much attention to small critters, but Noodle and Chi are cat killers... Noodle for the most part will mind me when I shout NO! but my trying to stop Chi only seems to fuel her little fierce schnauzer kill mode.

I'm afraid old Beaux is on his final lap of life. He wants to drink water non-stop and then has to pee a river every hour on the hour. This can be a sign of kidney failure or diabetes, as well as Cushing's disease. I love the old dawg, but don't have the patience to happily spend all my time with him letting him in and out of the house all day. I've been trying to limit his water drinking to a normal amount and it has been frustrating because he is pretty determined. Yesterday morning just to see how long he would drink if left unattended, he drank for almost 10 minutes straight... then threw it all up in a sudden blow-out. Oddly enough, it seemed to curb his desire to drink so much the rest of the day.

So this is pretty much my entire update.

On news that is not mine, but I have to share it... both Chelsea and Jamie finished their last semester with flying colors! I am so proud of the two of them. They have worked real hard toward their educational goals. Looks like our family is going to have both a public health/sex-ed genius and a biochemist to boot.

Gordy Jr.'s birthday was this past Thursday. They have been keeping him real busy changing up their work schedules quite a bit trying to work around the heat they are experiencing in the desert right now. He has not had a chance to call us since he went back from the last leave.

Okay, that is EVERY thing I have to tell you about. Off to go do my chores now!

Still painting the house!

*OMG* This is day five, and gastrocnemius muscles (Didn't know that, I had to look up the scientific name for calf muscles) are screaming. The right one actually feels as if I pulled it. I am so tired of lugging around that big huge ladder and crawling in an out of the bushes with it. What the hell was I thinking when I decided to paint dark paint over light and nearly white over dark?!! As I paint the fascia and soffit dripping in sweat, all I can think of is that I have to come back again to lay down the second coat.

I do like how the new paint job has changed "the feel" of the place.

Gonna try to get pictures today in the afternoon when the light is good so you can hopefully make out the actual color. It is basically a dijon mustard kinda color. As the light changes throughout the day it can look almost beige, yellow, or even a light orange.

Today...

...we are going to an estate sale at the old Lambrecht house. This is a beautiful old house that belonged to the old mayor and his wife. The place looks like it was plucked straight out of New Orleans. I'm guessing that Mrs. Lambrecht must have passed away, she had survived her husband by a few years. Don't really want to buy anything, just want to see the inside of the old house.

Here's a photo I took of the house about a year or so ago:

Tonight, G, Michelle and I have a date to go see Ironman 2 @ 5pm. I really enjoyed the first movie and am excited to see the second, the previews look great.

Hope everyone out there in the world who happens by here has a wonderful Saturday!

The backyard animal kingdom...

...is acting wacked.

As I approached the lil' pond to feed the goldfish this morning I noticed one fish out of water, motionless, hanging against the side. I thought "great. the raccoons have discovered a new food source." Visions of the rampant death and destruction I discovered one morning at the other pond flashed through my head.

Then I realized that the fairly large white goldfish seemed to be attached to some kind of stick. Moving cautiously closer, I realize it is the water snake on the bank who has caught a fish by the head and is possibly in the process of contemplating HOW it is going to swallow this thing that is at least 5x the size of it's own head.

About this time, Chi the rasta-schnauzer (aka luvmuffin or stinkycheeze) has taken notice of the snake on its fishing expedition, and dodges toward the snake, who freaks, as I freak calling to Chi to get away. The snake drops the fish back into the pond and the fish swam away. I did not get a look at the injuries it may now be sporting on its face.

Then as I sat down on the front porch to check out the neighborhood blogs and have my coffee, suddenly, a blast of machine gun-like noise makes me jump out of my chair. I look up and it is a Red-bellied woodpecker pecking/pounding away on an aluminum rafter. The rafter is part of an unfinished cover-structure G made for his little sail boat. The bird continued to peck well beyond the point of realizing the thing is not wood and looked up at me as I laughed at him, as if to say "What?!!"