The Face of Success

It's this:

He's been doing so well in all his classes. His work is singled out! When his professors ask a question and no one else in class is piping up, they look to him as the guy with the answers! (Well, that's primarily in the Typography class, because he's both a history nerd and a language nerd, and the prof was asking history-and-language-related questions. But still!)

I'm just so proud of him. =D

Fall!

So! The temperature's been in the upper sixties, and dropping down to the lower forties at night. I am overjoyed. Sweater season! Jacket season! Boot season! Scarf season! (I would add "Chai season!" except that I'll drink hot chai in the middle of the Texas summer. At night, of course--I'm not crazy--but Texas summer nonetheless.) (That said, I've been drinking twice the chai now that autumn's settling in.)

I'm trying to make it to City Park three to four times a week. Failed completely this weekend, but after I've digested this delicious baked potato soup I plan to get out there. Last time I went was Thursday morning. It was gorgeous, of course, and I managed to make two laps around the walking trail, though my hips were pretty sore toward the end there. It was a six-mile walk, so I think the soreness is understandable. Nonetheless, I'll probably only do three miles today.

Anyway, I have a bunch of photos to share. Starting off with a few from my Labor Day trip down to Texas! I took hundreds of photos, but most of them involve my family, and I don't want to post those without permission. I do mean to send the whole lot over to my parents, but it's several gigs and . . . I need to get some blank discs to burn them on to. Who's been super lazy these last few weeks? That'd be me.

As always, click an image to see it at full size!

Here's a lovely view of the landscape. The greenest things around are the mesquite.

Spunky is a camera hog.

Nana decidedly is not. But she made for several quite excellent still life shots.

I have no idea who this dude is, but he appears to have a lion's mane.

The Texas trip was amazing, and I was glad that the kitties and Andrew were waiting for me when I got back home--otherwise leaving Texas would have been much more depressing. But who could be depressed with these around?

Sophie took to sleeping in Andrew's sock drawer, by the way.

Probably because whenever she sleeps on the bed, Augustine jumps up, streeeetches, and settles down to nap in positions specially designed to annoy her.

They've worked out a good system for sharing me when I'm in bed with them, though.

Andrew and I went to Water Fire again recently! I won't bore you with more shots of the bonfires themselves, but here. Have some more building pictures.

In preparation for our trip to New York in October, we went suit-hunting for Andrew. Found one! Let me show you Andrew's hotness.

The blazer is a little too wide in the shoulders, but they didn't carry a smaller size in store; he's going to order one from the website to see how that fits. But oh my goodness he looks amazing. =D

His classes started last Wednesday, by the way, and they're going really well. He even managed to get both a desk and a drawer in one of the studios! Desks and drawers are given out on a first-come, first-serve basis, by seniority. Andrew was in the last group to have access, so it's wonderful that he managed to get them. They aren't strictly necessary for underclassmen, but it'll be helpful for Andrew when he has stuff to work on that Sophie and Augustine shouldn't, ah, help out with. They like to help.

Here's another random photo for you; it's some graffiti on the wall of the CVS down the street. Andrew and I grabbed some sandwiches at the creamery next door and were headed home when we walked right by it. I stopped several yards away, then backtracked to actually read it.

In other news Sophie peed on my chair early last week, then spent the rest of the day sleeping under the bed. It was all red flags: she never has litter box problems, she never hides, and although she is even lazier than I am, she's never been lethargic like this. So, being the kitty parent I am, I dragged her to the vet asap. She'd rather hide until the vet leaves, thanks.

Poor kitten got her blood and urine tested, but was (of course!) very well behaved. When the vet and vet tech carried her back to me in the private room, both of them were grinning. "This is the best cat in the world," the vet said. I replied with: "I know." The vet tech added that she'd always thought that her cat was the best in the world, but she was wrong. Sophie's the best. Do you know, every single vet she has ever been to has said that? Who's surprised.

Anyway, the vet called yesterday afternoon to give me the lab results. Sophie has a bladder infection. No wonder she hasn't been feeling well. She's on antibiotics for the next two weeks, and lets me know that she hates her liquid medicine by curling up next to me and purring when I've finished washing the syringe. It's a very unhappy purr, of course.

The infection doesn't prevent Sophie from enjoying her daily nap by the window.

Oh, in other news, I almost got skunked while leaving the apartment the other night. Looked up just in time to see the skunk--a measly two yards in front of me--turn around and lift its tail at me. There must be something wrong with my reflexes, because all I did was freeze. Took me a while to register that getting out of there was the smarter idea. Maybe only a second or two, but still. That was a very kind skunk.

Printer o' Death

Have I mentioned how wonderful the sunlight is up here? It seems more golden here than in Texas, where it was just a blinding white heat. Here, the gold quality of it makes the colors of things seem more vibrant. Plants in particular seem to be made of jewels instead of leaves and stems and petals and stamens. It makes Texas seem so dreary in comparison.

It's 1:45 Sunday morning, and the rain is just setting in. A drizzle, really. When the wind picks up--which it does briefly every few minutes--it makes the rain hiss as it hits the ground. I know this because the windows are open. Mostly, anyway. The south-facing windows are closed, except for this one by me which is open just six or eight inches. Just enough for the wind to come in and nudge the curtain about. When the hiss-inducing gusts come, the curtains bell out like sails, which I love to see. That, and the hissing, are why I don't want to close the windows yet. So pretty!

Also: when I get a migraine, Andrew hums national anthems to me--and it actually helps a bit. My favorite is the Russian anthem.

We keep the printer on the floor by Andrew's desk, and whenever we print something up Augustine jumps up and goes to monitor the thing. Just to make sure it stays docilely in place spitting out paper and doesn't, you know, get any ideas. Last night, it started to get those ideas. Click the pictures to make them larger!

He didn't seem too concerned, but nevertheless spent the rest of the evening well out of its reach.

Floof

In the midst of our Hurricane of Doom preparations, I've managed to take some cute pictures of the cats. Who's surprised?

Sophie spends a lot of time on the little chair throne next to me in the living room. When she's not in my lap, I mean.

 

These pictures of Augustine were actually taken on two different days. He loves the printer box now that it's been toppled onto its side. Sophie won't go near the thing, though. She prefers it upright.

Our cats are kind of weird.

I put two more wide but short boxes down side-by-side in the living room, and the cats are beside themselves with happiness. Sophie will nap in one for a few hours, stand up, streeeetch, hop into the other, curl up, and nap for a few hours. Repeat this until dinner time. After dinner she moves to the bed. Hard life!

It's especially hard when Augustine has the audacity to claim the other box, forcing Sophie to try to salvage her ruined napping cycle by (gasp!) finding another comfy spot. (Not the printer box in the bedroom, though! It's on its side, not upright! Horror of horrors.)

I finally took some pictures of the little . . . shed-like thing that perches on the roof of the apartment complex directly behind our house. It's visible from our bathroom and one of our bedroom windows. I've been fascinated by it since we moved in; it looks like some deserted shed, but clearly is just the stairwell up onto the roof. Its door (which has paint visibly peeling off of it) never fully closes or locks, so on windy days it swings open and bumps closed.

It made me think of Skellig, to be honest. If I climbed onto the roof and poked my head in the broken door, there'd be an ancient man with wings lying under piles of junk who'd hint that I should run down to Haruki East and pick up a maki roll special. Or something.

The shed-thing is creepy, but I kind of love it.

More Photos of Apology!

Lots of photos for you!

The Starbucks down the street closes early, but leaves its patio furniture out all night. When we're I'm really antsy to get out, I drag Andrew down there with me.

Here's Warwick City Park, the gorgeous arboretum-like place with the long walking/biking trails.

 

That's the slim beginning of the cove you can see through the trees, below.

Last Saturday I went to Colt State Park, which is about a 40 minute drive away and absolutely gorgeous. The day was slightly blue when I arrived, but the clouds took over pretty quickly. Nonetheless, lots of photos were taken. Below, I'm standing on the sidewalk along the "seawall" that separates the park from Narragansett Bay. Took this picture with my back to the water, obviously. Those itty-bitty little white spots you see at the base of the trees are picnickers. Those trees are so incredibly tall.

Somewhere off in the distance was a bell on a buoy. As the waves rocked it, you could hear it ringing even on the seawall. So peaceful.

All of the seabirds I saw were white--and then suddenly, off in the distance, I saw a small black dragon spreading its wings at the bay. Of course it was a bird, not a dragon, but my first thought was in fact there are dragons in Rhode Island with very wide eyes and all kinds of joy going on inside. If you click on the picture below, you'll see why I thought that. I took a dozen photos of this guy. He was preening his wings occasionally, but mostly just holding them open and facing the water. It made me want to write.

And then there's this bit of the park, facing Mill Gut (pond?). I swear I wasn't pretending to be touring Pemberley. You need to click on these to see them large, too.

I took two videos of this scene, but I didn't pan slowly enough. I'll retake them the next time I get over there! Which will definitely be soon. So pretty.

Trees

I know it's silly. I've been telling myself it's silly for a while, now.

Remember the video I posted of the apartment a few weeks ago? Remember seeing an enormous maple from the bathroom window, and from one of the bedroom windows? I kind of got attached to that tree. Whenever I looked out of either of those windows--or whenever I walked under it on my way to the car--I'd imagine what it'd look like in the upcoming season. Being so far away from everything that I'm used to, it was really comforting to imagine that this gorgeous tree would be here with me for the next several years. I imagined what it looked like as a sapling, too, and how it got progressively bigger. I made up a bunch of stories about the people who had also looked at it, or walked under it, or played around it. I'd sit in the little chair next to the bedroom window, or lean against the bathroom sink, and watch it, and fantasize, and feel wonderful about life.

Over the last two weeks there has been a lot of noisy construction going on in the neighborhood, usually starting around 8:30 am. So when a very, very loud machine woke me up last week, I just covered my head and went back to sleep. And then when I left the apartment to run errands that evening, I saw that they had cut down the tree.

I'll admit, I've cried off and on about it since then. That's the silly part. I don't have any friends here, and the way I'd envisioned that tree being here was steadying and comforting and uplifting the way a friend is. There's now this hideous empty space behind the house where the tree was.

(This is also annoying because it blocked my view of the apartment building caddy-corner to ours. Now I can see it, and the people who live there can see me when I stand at the windows. Which isn't often, anymore.)

Ugh. This last week has been hard.

But Andrew, Augustine, and Sophie have been as wonderful as ever. =)

We finally have our new drivers licenses, license plates, inspection sticker, etc. The plates are white with a soft blue ocean wave cresting across it--the kind of wave that a kid draws, like one big C rolling into the next. Across the bottom it reads The Ocean State. The drivers licenses are mostly blue, with an ocean cliff scene in the bottom corner.

I wandered around a new park last Saturday, and took a lot of pictures. I'll resize them and post them tomorrow. Or maybe later tonight!

Tomorrow we're going to go to the public library and get cards--and a giant cookbook for my rice cooker. I can't wait to make real food! We tried to go to the library this afternoon, but just after we pulled out of the neighborhood the rear view mirror fell off the windshield. (The day after we got the car inspected. Good timing, at least!) So we spent the entire afternoon trying to--and finally, successfully--reattach the mirror.

I really, really miss having a piano around. Even my electric piano. My fingers itch.

My next post will be more cheerful, I promise! Until then, have some cute cats. Please please view these pictures at their full size; it's worth it. =)

(Also, I keep the original sizes for all these pictures. And the original sizes are huge. If anyone--Mom--wants a giant kitty photo, just let me know!)