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.

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.

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!)

Abusing Sophie

A very shaky and poorly-lit video for you:



Clearly she (wrongly) believes that naptime is sacred.

Also, the river that I posted pictures of yesterday is the Woonasquatucket river, which is pronounced rather like One-ah-sqwa-tuck-it, but said very quickly.

Furniture!

We received our furniture yesterday! Hurray! Finally!

Andrew's mess art stuff has been carefully deposited in front of the living room's radiator, within easy reach of his new workstation:

(Andrew's nook as seen from my wicker chair.)

(And as seen from the doorway between the living room and the bedroom. Also, this is Andrew's last week of classes! Hurray! Finally!)

As well as Andrew's desk and chair, we also received another bookshelf, which I immediately put to use:

Now that my books are in the living room, I can use that open shelving space in the bedroom to store more clothes! Which is going to be perfect when it starts getting cooler and I need my sweaters and scarves and things.

Our wireless internet stuff is now craftily hidden behind the framed picture on the bookshelf. No, those are not tentacles hanging from the doorknob, those are old shoe laces that have been repurposed for Augustine's batting pleasure. (Even Sophie made a few attempts at hitting them! Failed, though.)

Also, our new futon is set up! How exciting to see a new bed that looks exactly like the old bed, huh? Still, here you go:

In other news, Augustine has realized that my wicker chair is extraordinarily comfy. I now have to pry him out of it whenever I want to sit down.

Do you know, I haven't had to take allergy medicine since we moved up here? None.

However, we've traded my allergies for really outrageous humidity. I'd thrown some thin cotton shorts over a chair last night, and when I picked them up to put them away this morning, they were damp. They weren't damp when I'd put them there. That's how humid it is. Yuck.

A long-time friend of mine, Kaly, whom I've visited once or twice during Christmas trips to Albuquerque, is in Providence right now--in fact, the friend she's staying with lives about three or four blocks down the street from me. Small world! We're going to meet at the Starbucks tomorrow morning and spend a couple of hours catching up. Looking forward to it. =)

People-Meeting, Place-Seeing

Friday night (I think?) I took my notebook down to the Starbucks a block east of home, settled down on one of the little round metal tables outside, and proceeded to . . . not write. Mostly because the two late-sixties or early-seventies men sitting at the table beside mine were speaking French to each other. Both were American; it was clearly a lesson. The one was reading out of a novel (in French), and after his pronunciation was adjusted here and there, they'd discuss (in French) what was going on in the book. Their conversations kept wandering away from the book to current politics, the area around us, and places to visit in France. Their vocabulary was more advanced than mine, but they were speaking very slowly and clearly, so I actually understood maybe seventy-five percent of what was said. I haven't heard French in years, and it was incredibly enjoyable to eavesdrop!

At around 10:00, two more men came along and sat down on my other side. One of them immediately turned to me and asked how long the giant eighteen wheeler had been idling in front of the coffee shop; it had been there for maybe twenty minutes. He went on to describe how lovely it was, and ask if I was writing my memoirs. (I still had my notebook and pencil in hand.) I laughed and said Sure, and he guessed that I was currently detailing how the noise of the eighteen wheeler--which, according to him and I had to agree, looked like a combination of Darth Vader and a Transformer--was whittling away my will to live.

He chatted with his companion for a little while before turning back to me and asking what I was really writing; it turns out he used to be a professor of English and a keen people-watcher. We wound up talking--wait, no. He wound up talking, and I almost entirely wound up listening, for the next two hours. His companion went home pretty early on, and Richard was incredibly happy to fill me in on the history of the area, his experience as an English professor in the midwest, various family stories, and a lot of random history tidbits. (He has two PhDs: one in Renaissance Literature and the other in History. Mostly Jewish history, he said, but most of the history things he told me were Renaissance Europe related.)

I learned that H.P. Lovecraft, he of Cthulhu fame, was born less than a block from our apartment. And when he was fourteen he moved another block further away. And I live within walking distance of his other homes. I am so incredibly excited, you have no idea.

We also talked about Flannery O'Connor, one of my (our) favorite authors. That was really about the extent of my contribution to the conversation, though!

Today I finally went out for a walk! Here's a map, since I'm adding a bunch of photos I took while walking. Started off on the red track, heading east on Angell until I hit River Road, then started going north.

(I probably no longer need to remind you to click on the pictures to see them full size, huh?)

There were a good number of cars parked along the road, and some people relaxing by the river or on park benches facing it. But the quality of people wasn't the greatest, if you get my meaning. Didn't see any families down there, mostly adult men.

Still, York Pond turned out to be really picturesque! Lots of lily pads and green trees and such. As you can see:

I'm just starting to figure out the new camera's outdoor settings. Not too shabby for my first attempts, unless you don't like sunbursts discoloring the image. *Wince.*

Anyway, that's York Pond. If you turn around and look at the river, you'll see, well, river. The far bank is green, but pretty well populated with not-very-pretty buildings. I did manage to get this, though:

Not bad looking at all!

After leaving the water, I met a very kindly man in his seventies who warned me that the area isn't very safe for someone walking alone, especially after dark. We talked for a few minutes, and I promised him never to come around after dusk by myself.

And then, if you look at the map again, I hit Blackstone Boulevard. That's the wide boulevard that was designed by the same man who built Central Park (something else Richard told me!), which explains why I got such a Central Park vibe from it when Andrew and I first saw it two months ago. Large, expensive, gorgeous houses line the boulevard on both sides. Down the middle is a green belt with a walking/jogging trail, dotted frequently with park benches. I wanted to take pictures of some of the houses, but a lot of people were out, and I didn't want to look like a thief scoping out her next target, you know? I'll be braver if I go really early in the morning, I think.

Also, it took me a long time to get decent shots without fellow walkers/joggers in them. Didn't want anyone yelling at me for taking pictures of them exercising or whatever. So here are just a few Blackstone Boulevard photos:

In this last one you can see the roads on either side of the jogging path.

After leaving Blackstone Boulevard, I met Andrew at the CVS, where we loaded up on ice cream and Dr. Pepper. Like true Texans. By then, my feet were very glad to take a break while he drove us home.

And here are a few other pictures for you.

Above is the vet that's about half a block from our apartment--a three minute walk, if that. I bought the cats their low-allergen food there a few days ago, and they seem both nice and competent.

This is how we get to Target. Massachusetts. (It's a ten or twelve minute drive, no big deal. But I just love passing under these "Welcome To" and "Leaving" signs.)

On Thursday, our car informed us that it was a tad bit warm outside. (We had already noticed.)

When Augustine mews and looks up at you a certain way, he's asking to be picked up. And this is his favorite way to be held. No kidding. He'll just relax into a little fuzzy puddle, eyes closed or--at most--half open and back toes pointing straight up. Cutest thing in the world.

Sophie decided to help Andrew with his self-portrait by, you know. Fuzzing it properly. And making sure his headphones were properly inserted into his phone, for prime audio book listening. (Augustine is stalking her from behind a giant pile of Sophie Fluff that I managed to get off her with the Furminator. No joke, that fuzzpile is half the size of the cat it came off of.)

She also recently found out that some centuries ago, cats were believed to get onto the chests of sleeping children and suck out their souls. She found this information inspiring.

And yes, she will fall asleep on our chests if we let her. We almost never do.

But don't pity her too much; she knows how to make herself comfortable elsewhere.