Today's Purchases

English Daisies

Tickseeds

Blue Salvia

Marigolds

Brandywine Tomatoes


Cherokee Purple Tomatoes

Old German Tomatoes

Rosemary

Sweet Basil

Thai Basil

Pineapple Sage and Regular Sage

Fire! (Updated)

Last night, I heard a lot of sirens while I was in bed (around and after midnight). They came at multiple intervals, and seemed to stop nearby - as in, the sirens stopped before the sound faded away. I figured it had to be close.

Well, it was. About 1 to 1 1/2 miles away, to be exact. And it was big! Ten houses along the lake were on fire; at least five are completely destroyed. We've had high winds the past could of days, and I imagine that helped the fire spread. At least 7 fire departments were at the scene, which explains why I kept hearing waves of sirens. If I had gone outside and onto the dock, I probably could have seen the flames.

I haven't seen any reports that indicate that anyone was hurt, but it's still early. A lot of the houses around here are vacation homes and it's a little early in the season for people to come to the lake. The water's still pretty cold. Regardless, damages are estimated (so far) at 6 to 8 million dollars. There's a lot of expensive property on this lake. My family is only here because we've had the property since the 1950s, way before the real estate market around here went crazy in more recent decades.

Update: No one was injured, which is a very good thing, although they suspect a cat died. Only two of the homes were occupied at the time. We had wind gusts of 20 to 30 mph last night, so it didn't take much to send the flames from house to house. Plus, a lot of the newer houses on the lake are fairly close together. In some areas, when people bought property, they tore down the older (smaller) homes and built much larger houses, leaving little lawn space between houses. I don't know if this made a difference or not, but it couldn't have helped the situation. Where I am, most of the homes are from before the large house building boom and the newer homes, while a little larger, are still in scale with the rest of the neighborhood. Still, it's all pretty terrible.

The fire was so hot, that homes (that weren't part of the fire) nearby ended up with melted siding. The paint melted off of the fire trucks - their safe parking spot became unsafe and they had to move. There ended up being close to 100 firefighters at the scene. This isn't an easy place to deal with fires. The roads are narrow and winding, its slightly hilly, and those houses are close together.

Random Happenings and Obsessions

This week brought gorgeous sunshine and warmth. It also brought swarms of bloodsucking insects. For about three days, despite the otherwise wonderful nature of, well, nature, I felt trapped inside. Whenever I ventured out, they descended upon me, looking for their next meal. They've mostly disappeared, but there are a few stragglers out there. Miserable beasts!

Hmmmm...what else is going on?

Plum and Sophie love each other, which makes me very happy since I know people who have cats that don't get along quite this well.


I successfully conquered double stuff oreo cravings earlier this week. Today, however, I bought fudgesicles.

I spent too much money on sunscreen today, but I'd like to go outside and enjoy the weather. I'll be starting the season with spf 55 and I'll still need to be careful. I don't tan much at all - I mostly burn - so if I get down to spf 30 this summer I will be shocked. And, with my sensitive skin I can't use a lot of the products out there, so I end up spending more money so that the stuff protecting my skin doesn't irritate it. My sister is a sun worshiper who thinks that spf 8 is a lot and uses those tanning oil products. She always had better skin (mine is hyper-sensitive), but I think that in the long run I'm going to come out on top. Not that it's a contest. No, not at all.

For some reason I've been going back and forth about whether or not I like the color of my eyes. I realize this is weird.


The day I took this picture, I didn't, but today I'm ok with them. It just seems like they were greener when I was younger.

As far as the dissertation goes, it feels like a battle. Is that how it's suppose to be? I know that I set ridiculous standards for myself. I probably shouldn't compare it to books published by top scholars in the field, but I do. I suspect this isn't good in terms of how I value my own writing and research. If I didn't do this, I wonder if I'd be happier about my work?

Detox

It was a weekend of way too much food. That's all there is to it.

Friday: Birthday celebration the day before my actual birthday. BBQ and accompaniments, cake, ice cream, and Easter candy since my sister's kids were at their dad's for Easter. Ate too much.

Saturday: Actual birthday dinner at good restaurant. Really fabulous onion soup, ridiculously large ribeye steak, steak fries, green beans, carrot cake. Not too mention the fact that I had a slice of leftover cake from the night before at lunch. Ate too much.

Sunday: Easter brunch. So many choices, so little space in the digestive track. Ate too much.


This week, it's raisin bran for breakfast, light sandwich for lunch, apple for snack, salad for dinner kinds of days. A sort of detox since I had so much rich, fat-laden food over the weekend. Plus, I had far more meat than normal. And sweets. I love them but this was too much.

k8's Contradictions

For those of you who haven't been blessed enough to see the results of the facebook quizzes I've taken in the past couple of weeks, you get to see them now. While I know that these are completely random, I think the results are a hilariously contradictory.

Here are the quiz titles and here's who I am"

1. What kind of weather am I? Rain

2. What Muppet's character am I? Animal

3. What magical creature am I? A Griffin

4. What cat am I? A Funny Cat

5. Which Norse God am I? Freyja

6. Which great philosopher am I? Hegel

7. What Bible character am I? Elijah

8. Which Greek God am I? Hera

9. Which of the 7 deadly sins am I? Vanity

10. Which punk rock star am I? Patti Smith

11. Which social theorist am I? bell hooks

12. Which House, M.D. character am I? House

13. Which Star Trek NG character am I? Counselor Troi

14. Which Joss Whedon character am I? Willow Rosenberg

15. Which Batman villain am I? Catwoman

16. What is my true age? 22 (um, try almost 36)

17. Which character on Lost am I most like? Sawyer

um...yeah, that all makes sense.

Just Say Yes!

**The following videos are sponsored by the Catnip Growers of America**

The kitties got new collars this week. I thought it was about time to retire the nasty looking things they received at the shelter, so I did a little shopping at Etsy. Sophie is now stylin' in this brown argyle collar


while Plum is pretty in purple and pink


But the real story here is that I purchased some catnip toys for them from the same seller that I got the collars from. Lesson #1 - if the cat collar is shipped with the catnip toys, the cats might want to attack each other's collar. Sadly, I didn't get video of that. I did, however, catch them playing with their new catnip kicksticks (pictured below).


This is Plum engaging in the typical manic drug-seeking behavior we all expect from catnip imbibers.



Sophie takes more of an attack the 'nip approach, which leads her to further strange behavior.





By the end of filming, two catnip kicksticks were soaked in cat drool.