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.

Berry Bushes

Andrew and I drove to Warwick late this morning to explore the City Park--which despite its baseball diamonds and playgrounds is much more like an arboretum than anything else. It's a small peninsula shaped like a manatee's face (that downward-pointing bulbous nose that also brings to mind a young male elephant seal, you know?) framed by narrow coves and gazing southward toward Greenwich Bay. The flat tip of its nose is a slim beach, accessible by an equally slim road or--as Andrew and I found--the walking trail.

Well, it's really a walking/biking trail, paved and with a white stripe painted down its center. Bikes to the right, pedestrians to the left. One way. Of course half of the (two dozen or so) people we encountered had completely ignored all this, and were walking on whatever side they liked in whatever direction they liked.

It was a three mile walk, and the path was never straight and flat for more than a few steps at a time; it's all low hills and twists and dips. The trees were incredibly green and tall enough to give me a cramp in my neck (because I apparently like to look up at the tops of the trees more than at the not-straight-and-level path I'm walking, like an idiot. Miraculous I didn't pitch over into the bushes at least once).

Through the trees you can gradually see one of the coves widen from streams into real bodies of water, complete with very loud birds and very quiet sailboats. It was gorgeous.

After about two miles, I noticed that some of the bushes we passed were sporting some kind of berry--I think raspberries, though I didn't want to taste them to find out. Just in case.

Another hundred yards along I heard a very cautious crash, crash coming quite close to us on the other side of a very tall and thick wall of bushes--including raspberry(?) bushes. The signs at the beginning of the trail warned us that we're sharing the peninsula with deer, coyotes, and pheasants, and I was determined that we'd see all three of them today. So of course when I heard what had to be something large and four-legged coming toward us, I had to get a look. Except I couldn't. Because of the giant wall of raspberry bush. And whatever thorny bush it was sharing space with. We spent a good five minutes trying to find a hole in the wall to look through, and although we did see a number of cute little birds moving expertly through the thorns, we couldn't figure out what big thing was moving around back there.

So naturally I started imagining all kinds of wonderful nonsense, mostly about mythical creatures and magic and walls between worlds made of raspberry bushes and thorns.

I can't wait to get back there.

First Things First

We bought a very nice little oscillating fan last night, and as a result I feel comfortable doing some more gloating. Here we go:

The sky is currently that flat, lovely shade of grey that indicates we might be getting a bit of rain. If the scent in the air is any indication, it'll be soon. No wonder everything is so green and blooming up here. Water actually falls from the sky.

I was up until a little past five this morning, I suppose, trying to imagine which pieces of furniture we need (oof, wow, there's a skunk outside somewhere), what style we'd choose, and what our color scheme will be. The plotting wasn't going very well. And then, revelation! The first thing we need is a color scheme. And then a rug that fits that scheme. The other decor (including furniture) will fall into place after that.

Because the walls do lean inward, I think we'll go with rather low furniture. Our focal point will be the floor, drawing the eye downward to the largest part of the room, thereby (hopefully?) making the room seem larger. Bright rugs, one in the bedroom and one in the living room.

The bedroom will be soft greens/blues/creams/browns. The living room will be in the red/orange/yellow range. We'll purchase some nice sheer-ish curtains for all the windows.

It feels very nice to have a solid idea of what we'll be doing! It feels a little weird, though, that our first step is rug shopping.

Of course, once this was all figured out, I felt right asleep. And as soon as Andrew's alarm woke us up, I turned to him and said, "I have made a decision," and launched into my Master Plan. Which did indeed include furniture choices and placement as well as color scheme. He, of course, applauded my ideas, and agreed that we'll start rug shopping asap. And then we said good morning to each other, since I'd skipped that step.

We leave the windows open constantly, to let in the cool air. At about six in the morning, the birds start to wake up on the tops of the houses and trees around us--which in turn wakes up the cats, who try very desperately (and in vain) to jump up into the windowsills for some early morning bird-watching. One bird in particular has a very sharp, single-note CHIT. CHIT CHIT. CHITCHITCHIT. Echoing through our bare apartment, it sounds like sneakers squeaking on a basketball court. I think this bird lives in the eaves of the building next door.

No pictures yet. Hopefully this evening!

(P.S. It just started raining! It sounds beautiful.)