The Twizzler

The pictures alone make me want to build myself one of these!

http://www.blueheronkayaks.com/kayak/index.html

I ran across a link to The Gender Genie today.  Give it some text and it looks for keywords, weights them and tries to guess if the text was written by a man or a woman.  It works best with 500 words or more, so I gave it half a dozen of my longer blog entries, and it figured out I was a woman every time.

That’s okay, I’m comfortable with my feminmasculinity.

Our cable modem died last week, and a Shaw technician won’t make it out for a service call until Thursday.  You don’t realise how much you use the Internet until you don’t have it!  Helen had to go to a neighbour’s last night to place our weekly grocery order with spud.ca (they deliver organic grocery products to your door at prices similar to organic stores–we love them!).

If you’ve emailed Helen in the past week, don’t expect an answer until this weekend at the earliest.

Nate

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Emperor Nate the Loquacious of Larkhill under Porton Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Thanks for pointing this out, Phyllis.  🙂

Mostly I miss Minuit in the mornings.  She was always a part of the morning routine.  I’d get up while everyone else was still asleep.  Minuit was usually lying on our bed; she may have cracked open an eye at me but I couldn’t tell, it was too dark.  But when I was done my shower there she’d be sitting outside the bathroom door, demurely looking the other way but with her ears following my every move.

I’d go in the walk-in closet and close the door so the light wouldn’t wake Helen.  Minuit would never come in with me–that’d be too uncatlike–but about a minute later she’d push the door open, squeeze through, and jump up on the dresser purring and rubbing her head on my arm any time I got close enough, and on the wall otherwise.

When I was dressed I’d sneak quietly out of the room but Minuit would be out already, waiting by the door to the kids’ room.  She’d sit there while I quietly kissed them good morning without waking them, then follow me downstairs right on my heels like an obedient dog.

And all through breakfast and until I walked out the door she’d follow me around.  No, “follow” isn’t the right word.  She’d “lollow” me around.  She’d pretend to lead, always walking ahead of me, but watching me the whole time with her eyes or ears trying to guess where I was headed next so that she could just happen to be going there herself.

Now she’s just happened to go somewhere I can’t follow.

47 … 48 … 49 …

Daddy, is it 80 after 40-10?

-Shana

No, not “cat food poisoning”; “cat food poisoning“.  We had ground beef yesterday and I put the butcher’s paper it was wrapped in into the garbage.  Today when we got back from church the paper was in the middle of the kitchen floor and Minuit is throwing up every few minutes.  😦  I wish I could be sick like her though:  in between throwing up, she’s acting perfectly normal, doesn’t look sick at all.

Update on Monday:  I take that back, I don’t want to be sick like her.  Last night she grew so weak she could barely stand, lost all interest in eating, barely acknowleded our presence when we touched her, staggered (with assistance) to her water bowl and just lay in it with her paws and face right in the water.  She’s now at the 24 hour vet and they’re not yet sure she’s going to make it.  The doctor doesn’t understand what’s wrong with her, he says these symptoms are way too extreme and too fast to be food poisoning from raw meat, but we can’t think of anything else she could have eaten or done that would cause this.  We’ll update you when we know more.

Update on Tuesday:  Minuit died Monday morning.  It’s still a mystery what happened.  All symptoms point to poisoning (like drugs or rat poison, not food poisoning) but we can’t think where she would have come in contact with a poison.  We took the kids to see her after she had died, and Shana spent most of the afternoon crying her heart out, poor girl.  She’s over it now, and we’re having some good talks about life and death.  Kenan knows Minuit isn’t coming back, but isn’t too concerned about it.

Cash donations will be accepted in lieu of catnip.

Shana has learned to whistle.  Today!  She’s been getting closer and closer as she’s kept trying over the last many months, but today finally she gets a consistent and recognizable whistling sound.  So she’s been whistling all day.  She’s so cute.  And very proud of herself.

We’re hoping next week she learns another note.

This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt; let those who are hungry, enter and eat thereof, and all who are in distress come and celebrate the Passover.

The morning of (our) first day of Passover (we started Wednesday instead of Monday because it just worked better for us!) was exciting from the moment Shana opened her eyes.  A big huge present in her bed!

Inside was another present.  And inside that another.  And another.  And several layers later, she got the smallest of a set of matrioshka dolls–we’ve been giving her one a year every Passover.

Kenan got a surprise too.  A little red keepah.  Actually I got one too, a nice blue one.  And with my new short haircut, it actually stayed on my head.

Most of the day was spent preparing for the seder.  (Actually most of the past week or two was spent the same way).  Here’s Grandma sharing some special time making matzah balls with Shana.

We had a great Passover this year.  Fifteen people, including four kids.  Passover is really for kids, and we tend to not have very many (because the seder runs really late!) so we were glad to have Shana’s best friend Abbi and her brother Matthias.  It was a fun group with a good mix of people who’d never been to a seder before and others who had, and plenty of questions–which is the most important thing to have at a seder!

Shana asked the four questions this year with help from some finger puppets.

By the time the dishes were done and the last guests out of the house it was nearly midnight and Shana was still wired (Kenan was asleep).  Somehow we got her to bed before we collapsed ourselves.

Breakfast the day after a Passover seder is traditionally leftover Matzah Ball Soup.  And lunch.  And supper.  And the next day.  Until we’re sufficiently recovered or the leftovers are gone, whichever comes second.

Next year in Jerusalem!