Another catch-all post, this time full of cats!
Here’s Brian charming multiple cats:
Brian charming a different permutation of cats:
Here’s Walter enjoying his time captaining the fish-ship:
…and Alley doing the same:
Here’s our flounder regurgitating a large feline:
This cat disapproves:
Wally wore this jaunty scarf after I made those homemade draft-dodgers:
Here’s Walter in a sink:
For Brian’s birthday, we went on 3 Behind-The-Scenes tours at the Zoo. Â It was a long day, but very cool. Â The first was of the recently-renovated Aquarium. Â During the Aquarium renovation, the shell of the building was kept, but the inside was completely gutted. Â When they built the Aquarium originally, the water was held in a couple of huge storage tanks, the weight of which was not adequately supported, and the water flowed between exhibits, which is not ideal with regards to quarantining disease. Â The guts of a modern aquarium are pretty complicated-looking:
Here’s a quarantine tank:
It’s all worth it though:
We got to feed the fishies in the huge tank:
(This tank, different view:)
After the Aquarium tour, we had a tour of the Reptile House.  The Reptile House is probably the building that remains the closest to its roots…The only things that are markedly different are that the pit in the middle of the main part of the building, which I believe housed turtles when I was small, has been filled in, and the addition of Baru the Saltwater Crocodile.  We started with a tour of the main part of the building, which amounted to walking around much of the outer loop of the exhibits, where the keepers have access to each exhibit.  A keeper talked to us about their interactions with the AZA, how they have to practice with venom/dangerous animal drills, etc.  She introduced us to this little Galapy, who we saw poop and pee:
Another keeper took us behind the scenes of Baru’s area and talked about the care of Baru, and then we got to go meet this guy, Emerson the Galapy:
We got to pet him and he was like a big, slow dog…very curious and cute. Â We got yelled at by a random Zoo-goer because he thought we were going rogue in entering Emerson’s enclosure.
THEN, we had our Penguin/Cassowary tour. Â First we met the Penguin keepers in the new Penguin building. Â We were excited to learn that there were 2 secret Penguin babies. Â By the time we saw them, they were mostly full grown. Â We recently learned that the girl babby was briefly on exhibit but is now on her way to another zoo, and the boy babby’s leg defect (which they told us they could take care of with a boot made of scuba suit) worsened, and he didn’t make it. Â I took this picture of the girl baby, right before they told me not to take pictures or publish them online. Â I’m not sure why these two babies were such a secret, other than maybe they knew the boy wasn’t going to make it, because just lately they’ve been heavily publicizing a subsequent set of babies.
We were supposed to get to feed the cassowaries fruit, but the normal cassowary keeper wasn’t there, and the guy who filled in stress-fed the cassowaries all the fruit. Â (And/or some sort of bird flu concern):
Nothing particularly notable here…but I kind of like this picture that I took of Tiffin Fireworks from Brian’s parents’ yard:
I went to Keuka Lake with Kim again this year. Â This year, we actually did a few fun things in addition to planting Aunt Jean’s flowers.
We went to Garrett Memorial Chapel, which is at the CROTCH of the Y-shaped lake. Â We didn’t have great weather, but it was still very striking. Â The rhododendron were at their peak:
We missed the window (ha) when we could actually go in the church, but here’s an artsy photo of the chapel through a broken glass pane in the door:
The slate roof was really cool looking:
We also went to Watkins Glen State Park, which connects to the southern end of Seneca Lake. It was bonkers beautiful.
We walked from the lower end to the higher end of the gorge trail. Â At the top end, there was another visitor center, so we used the restroom and turned around to go back down, and actually there was a more direct path that we could take down. Â We saw these Amish dudes a few times on our way up, and then when we got to the top, they were dangerously sitting on this train bridge. Â They saw me taking a picture of their RUMSPRINGA devil-may-care antics and waved (they clearly did not think my camera was stealing their souls…actually I just looked up “Amish Photo Beliefs” and it said that since they can’t stop long distance photography, the moral burden is on me).
After we were done with our walk, we went into the town of Watkins Glen, where we did a little shopping and had some Ben & Jerry’s.
This was part of a mural inside Ben & Jerry’s. Â Cows are cute:
I think we went to Bully Hill two times – mostly centered around buying some sort of wine bottle-related yard ornament for Kim, Aunt Jean stealing that one, and having to buy Kim another one. Â Beautiful view as always:
We got Aunt Jean’s plants in order quickly; we’re pretty good at it after doing it together for a few years now:
We added some new plants in that mulched area against the house. Â It’s a much bigger area than it seems like, so it’s going to take us a while to get it filled in the way Aunt Jean envisions:
I’m always fascinated with the German people’s cottage/house. Â They’re never there yet when I go, but they come and stay for 6 weeks every year. Â It’s such a cute cottage and the people who take care of it the rest of the year do such a good job. Â It makes me wonder about the financials of the whole arrangement…how do they get 6 weeks off every year, how do they afford cross-Atlantic flights every year, how do they afford NY state property taxes, how do they afford the care of this house, etc., etc.
Here was a really pretty twilight:
Kim was excited to show me about Chinese lanterns (I’ve never lit/used one):
Just when the winter got to be too much last year, we went to Spring Alive! at the Zoo and saw green plants and beautiful flowers to warm my heart:
It’s always nice to stop and appreciate how cool the Zoo is:
Anyway, not long after that, the first signs of spring were visible in the yard: crocus poking up through the mulch:
Crocus in bloom:
My most anticipated spring happening was the growth of my allium bulbs. Â I believe I have started quite the fad amongst copycat neighbors who want in on the magic that is allium. Here’s the first appearance of my allium plants:
Around the same time, the daffodils and these cool tulips bloomed:
Soon the allium plants had produced quite a bit of greenery and the flower buds were finally discernible:
As the bud started to open, it was pretty creepy looking:
But then, it started to look a little more acceptable:
I actually planted 3 different varieties of Allium along the side here – two very similar looking purple varieties and a white variety. Â The white flowers were significantly behind the purples in development:
Once the white flowers caught up, the allium flowers were stunning:
The only problem with allium is that the bloom pretty early in May/June and are quickly spent. Â Bossman told me that once the flowers are spent, you can prolong the time you look like a crazy hillbilly by spray-painting the blooms (also note the beautiful Asiatic lilies):
I believe these yellow flowers are technically also allium:
Here’s a cool Zebra Primrose bloom:
Yellow columbine with woodland phlox in the background:
The backyard bed prior to mulching:
The back corner bed looked pretty good:
Cool toad lily:
Awesome multicolor coneflower:
Balloonflowers:
The PeeGee Hydrangea looked awesome for the 3 minutes before the flowers were too heavy for the branches of the plant to hold them up:
We finally got patio furniture. Â It is great! (minus the fact that Kim convinced me that I needed to waterproof the cushions, which basically ruined them):
So lush:
The Jacob Cline monarda (beebalm) was crazy tall, colorful, and unique-looking:
I grew several elephant ears from the corm/tuber/bulb (whatever the appropriate word is), but I did buy this one pre-grown and it was worth it:
This year, I had ONE hydrangea bloom on all of my existing hydrangea plants (for those keeping track at home, this is ONE more than I have the past few years). Â It was on the plant next to the dryer vent, so thank you, dryer, for your heat lost to the environment that kept my one flower bud alive:
More yard stuff soon (I know you’re excited).
So we went to a few more Cavs games last year, and we had some fun times watching the Cavs get to the Finals and then lose painfully while down a couple of superstars…First things first, we did try LeBron Juice, thanks to my friend Jackie. Â It was OK.
We spent a one-time-only amount of money to sit 3 rows back from our favorite Cavs players during the first round of the playoffs vs. Boston. Â It was ridiculous and fun and insightful and crazy and cramped. Â Every player gets heating pads every time they go to the bench, much more than you might think.
Here are the giveaway Nike t-shirts:
Shawn Marion:
Kevin Love (cat with hearts-for-eyes emoji):
This is how close we were to LBJ:
David Blatt (miss you Blatt):
Moondog and his erect tail watching LBJ get interviewed:
Andy talking to Mike Miller (miss you Andy, miss you Mike Miller):
Kyrie shooting a foul shot, the villain, Mozzy (who, by the way, was startlingly tall, even though I knew it ahead of time):
Sloppy Joe Harris (miss you Sloppy Joe Harris:
LBJ, plus fellow Xavierite James Posey in the foreground:
Shump’s hair is something to see, for sure. Â Also, I wish that this picture showed the little girl in front of us’s face – she was a mini-me of her Jewish dad on the left side of the photo:
The Cavs won! Â Then stupid Kelly Olynyk pulled Kevin Love’s arm off in a later game of the series.
Next up was the Bulls…Here’s Walter giving Joakim Noah the business:
I was left at home alone with the cats for one of the games of the Finals. Â Here’s our watch party:
Last season was the last season with our favorite Spaniard (well, both of the Spaniards, really). Â There’s not a lot to say about the season, other than that I wish Inma had a better team and coaching staff around her.
Here’s the team before a game:
We went big on the Pink Game again – here’s all the tickets, in a showy display:
Here’s all the associated t-shirts:
Pink game action from the cheap seats:
We went to BG to their high school gymnasium-type arena, and this misguided young woman thought this sign was OK:
Of note, just this past Wednesday, Toledo beat BGSU for the second time this season, and it was the first time in program history that Toledo won 4 straight against BGSU. Excitement.
It’s important that you know that among the many terrible and/or low-scoring shitshow WBB games we’ve seen, we were there for this game:
There were only two seniors graduating last year, one of whom played no games because of a back injury a couple of years ago:
The other was the good Spaniard, Inma Zanoguera, who plays professionally in Italy now and is the possessor of @InmasArms:
Here she is kissing the court after what could have been her last regular season game at Savage:
One day I went up to school to spend a $20 Fan Plan voucher, and I took the below picture. Â A couple of the main thoroughfares through campus were closed because of water line breaks…so I was backing out of a parking spot near Savage, and a college girl who was surely put out by her revised route around campus and going way too fast hit the ass end of my car with her much newer car. Â I was very, very lucky because the girl let me go without even exchanging information. Â I bought the stuff to try and fix the paint on my bumper myself, but I haven’t done it yet.
We did go to Cleveland for the MAC tournament game:
Spoiler: We lost. Â Somehow, they got an invite to the WNIT. Â They beat Wright State, which was very surprising.
Here’s a picture of Sophie waiting to go into the game with cool WNIT reflections on the court:
Kim and Jamie hosted us the weekend after my birthday last year.  We went down to Indy on a Thursday and had delicious take and bake pizza and also the only birthday cake/ice cream I had last year, and everyone sang Happy Birthday.  On Friday, we went to the Indy Children’s Museum with Kim and Jack.  It was pretty cool.  What I remember the most, perhaps, is the weird planetarium room where we saw on our phones that the mayor of Toledo had died.
I’m always trying to get Kim’s kids to collect pencils too, so I bought Jack and I lots of pencils in the gift shop. Â The tube full of tiny smooth rocks is a common pencils design at childrens/science museums.
We had dinner at a weird divey restaurant in downtown Indy, and then we went to Bankers Life Fieldhouse for the Cavs/Pacers game. Â Here’s Jack:
Our seats were not very good, but we were limited by what Kim wanted to spend on Jack’s Christmas present ticket. Â All I really remember is that the people behind us were drunk, and Jack didn’t feel well by the end of it (and, the Cavs lost).
I’m trying desperately trying to catch up on my blogging…
I had uploaded a lot of pictures in July and never done any of the blogging to go with them, so I’m trying to tackle those before I upload anything else (though to be fair, I’m not sure there’s anything I really want to talk about for a few months there).
At any rate, here’s some pictures that don’t really go with anything else.
I bought some fleece blankets at Kroger, one with owls on it, and I was going to use the blankets to make something for my Australian owl-loving friend…then I realized that I had no idea what I would make that wouldn’t take up more room in an expensive-to-mail package than enjoyment she would get out of it. Â I used the blankets and our old pillows to solve an ever-present problem in our house: cat toys batted under doors and the resultant whining cats.
Brian and I got each other Zoo Pal animal sponsorships for Valentine’s Day – I got him an otter and he got me an octopus:
One thing that’s sometimes nice about working nights is the sunrise:
Sometimes, the same garbage that makes it so hard to send drivers out to make delivers is actually beautiful…Here’s some hoary frost. Â It was very foggy and the fog was crystallizing on everything:
At some point when it was still cold outside last winter, this happened:
