Monica

The kind and generous browngirl sent me a box of home-made fruitcakes, beautifully decorated. She does wonderful things with baked goods, and I'm savoring them. :-)

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On Sunday I helped a friend paint her house. (Well, priming, actually -- painting commenced today.) Painting isn't hard; why is my body complaining about it? It's as if some key joints woke up and said "hey, we're in our 40s -- the warranty has to have expired by now!". Sheesh.

I've had a loaner cat for a few days, while a friend was out of town dealing with family stuff. The visitor is a very easy-going cat; two of my cats need to learn to chill. :-) But, he's gone home now and all is well. (When I wasn't home I kept him in one room lest there be trouble otherwise, and this had the effect of turning him into something of a puppy-dog when I let him out. Very friendly cat...)

Someone named Darter, who does a lot of photography in the SCA, posted his Pennsic pictures recently. Hey, I recognize that singer. (Seriously, I'm always pleasantly surprised when I see a reasonable picture of myself, because I can't do decent posed pics no matter how important it is, and I'm rarely the subject of candids.)

Speaking of Pennsic, I had to call a number of trailer-repair places before I found someone who would talk to me about the damaged axle on the Pennsic house. About a week and a half ago I talked to someone who promised to go take a look soon. I sure hope he got up there this weekend. (How did I find repair places? After several false starts trying the referral path, I started working my way through the listings here.)

Thursday I got a phone call from the "retention manager" at the Trib, who assured me that they are trying to solve my delivery problem. In the last few days I haven't missed a paper, which is good; I do wonder how long it will last. We've done this before. Well, she asked me to call her Tuesday with an update, so I can ask her about the long-term fix then. This is, by the way, the first time someone has called who has left a return number, so that's progress.

Today Erik and Baldur are 15 years old. I declined to put lit candles in their dinners. :-)

Snow and ice can make for some nifty photos. I'm not very practiced at taking those nifty photos yet, but the fountain outside my office motivated me to try. They haven't turned it off; yesterday it was covered in icicles with flowing water, but by this morning it was all plugged up.

( and one by night )

( gratuitious cat pictures )

Last week I pet-sat for a friend who had once commented that she didn't have any digital pictures of her pets. As long as I had access to the pets and a camera anyway...

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And finally, one of Baldur, who was quite put out by Spud's visit but kept it down to growls and not physical engagement. (Perhaps that growl was "I could put you in your place, but that would be way too much effort".)

I don't cruise YouTube, but in the last few days several funny ones have been posted on blogs I read, so I'm going to share.

But first, a nifty photo of migratory birds posted by spinozany from Reuters:

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Happy Tu B'Shevat, the new year for trees, which sometimes has connotations of spring.

(Tonight's low: 2. Tomorrow's high: 10.)

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Someday, maybe I will be able to use an image as input to Google. In the meantime...

Dear LJ brain trust,

What is this plant?

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My real questions are mostly about care and feeding, but given a name I should be able to find that. Thanks.

Here are some pictures of assorted sights throughout the camp -- just some random, usually-non-representative, things that caught my eye.
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