The Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and the honey bear

(The honey bear was my idea because, at this point, why not?)

The allergist, in a last ditch-attempt to solve my coughing fits which have not abated since, oh, MARCH, now has me on three different meds.  At once.  Flonase, Zyrtec, and Dextometh-something.  Now if I could stop nodding off in front of my spreadsheets I'd be all set. 

The weird thing is, I only go through this in the summertime.  And yet the things I'm allergic to are not seasonal in nature.  GO FIGURE.

She had me do a breath test yesterday, one of those "take a giant breath and then breathe into this tube thing" type of tests, and it only confirmed what we all already knew, i.e., I am absolutely FULL of hot air and have NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER dispelling it.

The next step is to go through the injections, and I swear, I would have shots in my EYEBALLS right now if it would stop this constant, nagging, m8therf8cking COUGHING.

Send help.  And cough drops.

Vacation, the rest of it, really I mean it this time

Let's see.  I taught a friend how to paddle:

 Did some hiking:

 Took lots of wildlife pics:

 OMG look!  The heron is eating the goose's head!:

paddled and paddled and paddled some more:

Took yet more pics:

 And, of course, spent a lot of time with these guys:

There was also a lot of beer drinking and soft-serve eating mixed in with all that.  A very good week, overall!

Vacation, the rest of it, mostly

Yeah, okay, I'm not going to bore you guys forever.  I'll try to get this wrapped up in the next couple of days. 

On one day I decided to paddle to Hiawatha Island in Owego.  This is how me and the kayak travel:

What?  It fits.  IT FITS!

Heading across the river to the island:

At one time back in the 1800s there was a big hotel on the island.  After that it was farmed for many years.  The remains of some of the old buildings are still there.

Along with old farm equipment.

I wonder whatever happened to Ann O'Rourke and Lorrie Glosick?:

Bald eagles nest on the island:

and there's lots of other wildlife:

The Hiawatha muck monster slimed me, but it was worth it.

Give me the lights

Not sure if I posted here before about the weird lights that sometimes show up in my gamecam pics.  Oh wait, here we are.

Now they're showing up in the daytime:

oooOOOOoooo

Ponyboy's watching:

help help they're after me!

haha well at least they're pretty. Too bad only the gamecam can see 'em.

More vaca pics

Let's see ... one day I went for a creek walk, except it was more a creek-BED walk.  We could really use some rain.

But there were butterflies:

and pretty flowers:

and pretty WEIRD flowers:

and I got to watch the firefighters practice at their practice facility:

Another day I went to Ithaca:

where I got to visit my favorite store, The Tibet Store.  I picked up some prayer flags to hang above my door.  (Because God knows I could USE the prayers, ha.)

I stopped at a farm stand on the way back and got some amazing tomatoes, along with the prettiest hanging baskets ever, which the farmer said she purchased from the Mennonites to re-sell at the stand.  I don't know if the Mennonite thing is true or not, but it makes a good story, and isn't this basket pretty?

And of course, every day included lots of hanging out.

Sodapop was being camera-shy, but he was hangin' with the rest of us.

More pics to follow!  My blog:  Come for the kitten pics, stay for the vacation slideshow.  Ha.

I'm baaaaack!

And hoo boy, was that a good week.

Vacation, Day One:  It started with filling up the DEE-luxe swimming pool:

and then I had a little home improvement project to tackle.  I had an old bookcase in front of the living room window that the cats like to hang out on:

(Yes, my house is THAT MESSY.  Deal with it.)  The bookcase was falling apart and needed to be replaced.  I'd been looking forEVER for something to go in that window, but nothing was the right size. I didn't want just another Sauder piece-of-crap bookcase; I wanted something different.  And then! I found a vintage fainting couch/chaise/window seat/whatever-you-wanna-call-it at an estate-sale store.  Unfortunately, it was a little too short for the cats to sit on it and still look out the window, but I figured I could remedy that by picking up some concrete blocks at Home Depot.

Dear Home Depot:  Maybe "stacked in a wobbly wall on an uneven pallet" is not the best way to stock concrete blocks.  I'm just sayin'.

Yep, it was the first day of vaca and I'd narrowly averted death.

But!  A mere flesh wound was not going to deter me.  I got the blocks, got the couch set up, covered the seat with some fabric (because cats), and we were good to go.

The cats have not sat on it yet.  SIGH.

But!  Day One also included the purchase of a pirate costume:

Because when you see a pirate costume for sale for a dollar, you buy it, obviously.

And good things were still to come:

Back soon with more.  I'LL BET YOU CAN'T WAIT.  Ha.

Still on vaca!

and everything is great, the weather is super, and I'm having a blast.  But I took this pic tonight and I have to share it because it cracks me up every time I look at it.

I'm calling it, "Cindy Lou Who says hey".

I'll talk to you soon!

Oh my my, what a beautiful day

I'll be off work for (most of) next week and am planning lots of day trips to enjoy this summer weather to the fullest, so take care, everybody, and I'll be back soon with tales of pirate costumes, near-death at Home Depot, and other funny stories.  See ya soon!

What the hell IS that?!

Am I the only one who remembers that old SNL skit?

A million years later, that still cracks me up.

ANYway, I was driving home from work the other night, and came across some big ol' birds sitting on fenceposts in a field.

Hmmm.  Too big to be crows, too small to be turkeys.  What the hell IS that?!

I pulled over, grabbed the binocs out of the back of the car (because everything in the free world ends up in the back of my car), and, dressed in my office attire, started along the fence line to see if I could get a closer look.  I'm sure the farmer was off on a tractor somewhere nearby, looking at me, wondering, what in the hell IS that?!

I got a little closer, focused the binocs, and ...

Turkey vultures!  Very cool.  So I grabbed my camera (ALSO in the back of the car, natch) and snapped some pics.

Cool birds.

A question for all you cat fosterers out there

Have you ever had a kitten start eating solids at two-and-a-half weeks?

Because this little girl is kinda blowing my mind:

Lemme in, Mom, I'm hungry!:

"Can you believe this kid?":

And she's not just sniffing at it, or blindly stumbling through the bowl.  She is flat-out PIGGING OUT, complete with slurping noises and a messy face.

It's almost scary, like I've got a super-advanced genius kitten in the bunch.  So, all you cat fosterers, have you ever had a kitten start eating this young?  Enquiring minds want to know.