The GEA in action!

This evening I am at a meeting to defend the professionalism of teachers. The GEA has asked us to gather for a meeting to discuss with state senator Osmond why taking away our collective bargaining rights and implementing performance pay with the new legislation. There was great turnout. Please help protect us and write your representatives.

The little moon!

Here is my excuse for not posting for a while.

She is 9 months, wonderful with the cats, housebroken, great on the leash, has yet to chew anything up, and perfect the with three musketeers at the parental unit's house. In other words she's a dream beasty and we've been busy hanging out together.

Photos!

So I never got back on the update everyone on the trip. Instead, here are the photos.

Vacation!

The next few days will sadly be pictureless due to the fact that I have yet to figure out how to get pics on the blog from my iPad. Speaking of which, does anyone else find it vaguely creepy that my spell check just fixed my capitalization of iPad? Hmmm.
I am currently in not-so-sunny-really-more-cloud/foggy California.
We, the famdamily are in Santa Monica. And actually for a few hours last night the famdamily consisted of the full contingent. The littlest sister was still in Cali and magnanimously decided to stick around a bit and have dinner with us. To be fair she did have to suffer through a red eye with a layover in order to pull this off. I really am glad that she decided to spend time with us, it was nice having all of us together on vacation. As we were walking up from the restaurant I was reminded of all the other times we would go out as a family unit. The little sister and I walked in the lead, while the parental units followed behind. That same configuration pretty much described our entire Italian vacation. I would say what I would like to see, the little sister would figure where it was, how to get there, and lead us, and the parental units followed.
We are staying in The Hotel California. When we first arrived we were given a room that was not so good. I was really bummed because I stayed here last year and we had very cool room. The male parental unit double checked and it turned out that they had cancellation and we got to stay in an infinitely better suite.
Now I am hanging on the couch as the daily preparations necessary to face the world outside occur around me. We are going to the Getty today. I haven't been there for a very long time and I am looking forward to the journey.
I hope the wee little cats are doing well. We left all of them, including the wolf, at my house (I need a name for my house...).

Awwww!

It has been a long sort of day, and as I was driving home tonight I found myself preparing a list of things to blog about that bug me. However I am really trying not to focus on the hate, since hate just builds up and makes us start saying nasty things that we don't really even believe. With the goal of happy in mind I decided that rather than things that bug me, I would instead think of ten things that have made me smile today.

So in a somewhat chronological order...

1. Waking up to this thing

2. Reading this book

3. Inspiring my students with intense scratchboard pictures, and then watching them undertake real scratchboard art, and do so well.

4. Watching my athletes get gihugous pr's in the 1600.

5. Finding this

in my bag at the track meet when the cold front slammed us.

6. Hearing exactly what the last lyrics of this song are.

7. Coming home to this

8. Coming home to this

9. Picking this

up and hearing him purr.

10. Realizing I still have some of this left to watch before I go to sleep.

While this all might appear a bit too rain-drop-on-rosey, it has been much more fun recounting this than anything else that may have occurred today.

Hmmm...

This morning I leisurely (leisurely because I am taking today and tomorrow off due to the annualness of tomorrow) opened my door to pick up my paper. And what did I behold?

EEEK! Unidentified cookies!

I know I'm a bit paranoid, but my first instinct when I see unidentified food is to mistrust it. In this case I had to first wonder "how long have they been out here?" I fear they spent the night languishing on my porch. I was watching the Trons last night and may have missed the buzzer like doorbell during one of the more loud and exciting bits of the movies, especially the much louder sequel.

My second thought was "who would want to kill me?" When I find unidentified food on my desk at work I always assume a student is trying to poison me. I don't think any of them actually would, but all of the years of CSI have made their mark (thank you J). I ran through possible suspects and then decided that no students actually know where I live, or are savvy enough to find me.

Well I brought the cookies inside and they do appear very tasty and safe.

They could be an early gift from someone aware of what tomorrow is, but then, why no phone call?

Hmmmm...

I'm currently under the assumption that they are from my neighbors, but again, why no phone call?

Hmmmm...

While I was leisurely (once again note the leisure that even a mystery can't prod me out of today) pondering this, I started hearing a repetitive noise from the kitchen.

I came in to find this thing

licking her lips. I then saw this

I guess the littlest one has deemed the cookies safe. Even while I was trying to get a pic of the licked cookie she came in to ruin the take.

I've hidden them in the microwave now, and I'm still a bit suspicious of them, if only for the possible nut factor. I guess the wee little one is acting as my taster, and she seems fine. If fact she seems overly proud of herself, damned little cat.

Pass-it-along emails

Many of you may have received the email, "why dogs bite people," or perhaps I'm just in the right email atmosphere where I am assumed to be one of those people that will enjoy cute pictures of humans dressing dogs in horrible outfits. The assumption is of course correct. I love a good dog-in-costume picture.

The last one I received included this adorable torture session:


I may just be a sucker, but I can't get over this picture. Maybe it's because it reminds of something like this:

HA!

The Clouseau dog is awesome in it's best Seller's impression of, "What? I'm just sitting here, undercover, minding my own business. Don't mind me. Please feel free to go about your criminal activities unassailed. There are no police officers about, well there's me, but I'm undercover as you can well see, and therefore I am not a police officer. So, please, feel free to complete your criminal transaction in the vicinity of my well placed self. Don't you like my giant feet?"

Sometimes I simply must thank the internet gods!

Thank you, oh gods of the internet, for inspiring people with pets to use their cameras, and then share their images with the mass public.

BTW, you may feed my fish if you are in need of an adorable distraction.

Good Day!

Yesterday was a good day, and I just thought I should try and keep the good feelings rolling, so I'm sending out a universal "Good Day!" to all.

Settling In, Down, or Something...

I first start this post with...

I guess I'm settling with the fact that there will be no more David Tennant, and I wholly embrace the lameness of this particular catchphrase.

On another note...
I am settling in more and more. Yippee!
I've done this by being completely ungreen and purchasing furniture items from such places as ikea and the like. Horrible carbon footprint, I know but look how happy the cats are in their new surroundings.

And here are the items I am claiming that they are being so thrilled about.


To be clear the new items are the love seat and the hutch.
On another note, the day I took these pictures (today, oddly enough) it is finally sunny. Ugh, this has been a gray winter, so it's such a relief when the sun comes out.
The reason I made these disgusting new purchases is because I was forced to drive to Springville in order to drop off artwork for my students. My logic being that I was already in boonyville where ikea is located.
I know it's a rationalization, but it's a very comfy little couch...