Repotted 2 Catts

- Blc Haw Yuan Beauty 'Hong'
- Iwan Apple Blossom

Also moved them outside.

Little NoID Phal & Geranium

Got this yesterday from the PV Longs. So cute!












Geranium Westray. Love that brilliant pink color.

View From Berkeley Pier

To the right, GG in the distance.

To the left, the Bay Bridge and the City in the distance.

Longs Pleasant Valley

Sitting At The Starbucks

Hanging out at the coffee place now. Out at 7:15am, the guys got to the house early. Hmmm, expected O to do the repairs personally.

Gee, that worked really well. Must retype this.

Patio Crack

Patio Crack Fixed Tomorrow?

Took break from any more patio thinking. Hubby spoke to O on Saturday morn, and he couldn't come due to a religious retreat, but agreed to come over Sunday afternoon. Wouldn't have offered to do that for me, I'm sure.

Discussed, supposed to come tomorrow to fix. I think I'm going to go out most of the day. Still rebuilding the patience reserves.

First Blogger Mobile Pic!

Aha! Success! Turns out I had to register TWICE - once on 256447 then again on go@blogger.com.

This was from 2/1/09, Sunday morning, from the cafe looking at the GG. Hubby was doing his usual run. I was in deep mourning that day for Mozart. Feelings still vividly recalled.

First Blogger Mobile Text!

Subject: First mobile post! Now to figure out why pics won't go thru.

Of course, can't quite figure out the title part yet, had to come direct to the blog to add.

Pixie Sleeps With Us

For the first time ever, Pixie slept on top of me sometime early morning! At first, feeling a very heavy kitty, I assumed it was Ginza, but then the purr didn't sound right. Then it got louder and louder, and suddenly a burp, and I realized it was Pixie. She slept halfway on me and between Hubby for quite some time, marching away on me and not letting me sleep.

Rosemary Bush Finally Gone!

Just now, on impulse, went out front and ripped out the rosemary bush. Looks soooo much better now. It wasn't growing bush-like: thick fingers snaked all along the front of the house and looked like some creepy crawly monster was taking over the front of the house. Kept meaning to prune it or remove it, but couldn't make up my mind. Until just now.

Also just replaced the lantana in one of the square planters with the salmon geranium.

Odontocidium Pacific Paladium 'Pacific Lava'

The Odcdm from McClellan's the other day. Beautiful, deep burgundy red. Smells just like Sharry Baby. Large plant.

Little Bit Cooler Today

Around 90-something today. Yesterday topped the charts - 107°!!! Hubby spent most of the day with me, having breakfast in a chic little place in the City, bumming around Chinatown, North Beach, quick stop at McClellan's, then straight home to escape the heat.

Marathon movies with 'Infernal Affairs' I & II. Hubby still prefers 'The Departed'. LOL. Pizza delivered.

Wonderful hanging out with Hubby. Great day.

Uh-oh: First Crack

Spoke too soon, apparently. Sometime yesterday or this morning, the first crack appeared, in a very obvious place - the left section of the patio landing platform. This was the worry area already due to the hollow structure. 'No problem', indeed. But not going to stress about it, going to leave it to Hubby to discuss w/ O.

Expect that to be the only unpleasant surprise. Famous last words.

Lc Fiery Walkeriana x Minipurple

Opened up yesterday. The cutest little thing! I have it marked as fragrant, but day 2, and nothing yet.

Growing conditions: indoors, under fluorescents, with the phals.

4/22 Update: Fragrance coming out! Sweet smell.

TV - Wallander (Swedish series)

We've seen 'Before the Frost' and 'The Village Idiot' so far, and we're really enjoying this character and series! Had heard of Mankell's books, and meant to try one some time. Will definitely add a couple to my ever-growing pile of books to read on the shelves.

Saw an ad for Branagh's version of this character coming to PBS in English. Very interested to see this! Already aired over there last year, and gotten excellent reviews. Very cool.

Movie - Infernal Affairs I & II

Watched both for a second time. Really entertaining, enjoyed both. Great tension, taut storytelling. Understood most of it, but the subtitles still helpful.

The re-viewing was prompted by seeing 'The Departed' on TV the other day (we own it too, but didn't care to actually expend energy putting it in the player). Found it boring. Even Nicholson couldn't make it interesting for me. But I did like DiCaprio, and I don't usually. Doesn't hold a candle to either IA I or II. OTOH, Hubby really liked it, which is why we got it some time back.

Another Scorcher

Whoa. 104° today according to the gauge outside with the orchids. I LOVE MY A/C!!!!!!!!! Seriously. BEST home item ever bought. Hit 103° yesterday.

I still remember the misery of baking in the house. Even the outside felt cooler than inside. Feeling so bad for the kitties, toweling them down with wet cloths, and putting ice in their water.

Gorgeous Day

It is beautiful and HOT today. Happy and relaxed. Ahhhhh, having an almost-perfect day (if Hubby were here). Puttering around the yard, smelling the beautiful lilacs, repotting a couple cyms. Watching a Midsomer while the kitties all nap around me, having a coffee.

Kayla's Fur

Kayla has the silkiest, plushest, thickest fur of all the kitties.

Contractor - Found The Right Word

Sulking. That's the word I was looking for. He's a major sulker! What drama. LOL. Had a nice chat w/ Pam yesterday, good change of subject!

New day today, deep breath. Luckily they were here only for a couple hours in the morning. Needed a quiet relaxing day!

Pixie The Escapee

Scary moment #? Broke one of my cardinal rules today. Thou shalt never leave any patio door open longer than it takes to get in and out. I could excuse it by saying I was stressed out, but that's lame. I screwed up.

I stood in the middle of the doorway when I get interrupted, and thought it would be quick. Next thing I know, O points out that one of my cats is 'over there', 'there' being all the way at the right end of the house, at the edge of the new patio. Sure enough, Pixie's crouched at the edge contemplating heading off to the side of the house. I calmly and casually start walking toward her, she sees me coming, and races back to the patio door, thankfully! That comforted me a lot, that if she did get out again she'd know exactly where to return.

First time ever for me in 7 years. Guess I'm allowed one. Doesn't make me feel any better.

Lower Stress Level Now

After a couple more hours assessing the negatives:

- Little crawlspace door looks hideous. Doesn't cover the exposed framing. Was part of the job, became extra $.
- Splotchy water sprinkles over several areas.
- Stuccoed side stairs on door side. Looks weird. Maybe better when painted, should be sand-colored to match the rest of the stairs. Will be doing that myself.
- After being reassured several times the tan color was mixed all the way thru, discovered that actually no, it's only on the top inch or two. Not a huge deal, but dislike the miscommunication/lie?
- Looks like the tops of the retaining walls not being stuccoed. Was part of the job. Not looking forward to conversation.
- Sloppy joint edges.
- Didn't spray any water all day that I saw (curing?).
- Piece of the stucco fell off. Clumsily tried to put it back. Rushed to clean it, worried it may stain the concrete.
- To top it off, I found out at end of the day, that they'd dragged the orchid cart by the none-wheeled metal bottom, to move them out of the way. Marked the driveway concrete. Grrr.

But the big picture:

- Concrete seems solidly done - no cracking, blistering, or any bad problems at the moment, but then I don't know when they'd show up.
- Correct sloping - watched the water running away from the house.
- Colors are exactly what they were supposed to be.
- Can come to terms with all above negs.

Most people will run into turbulence with a contractor. Some things are just not going to go swimmingly. No different here. Just have to stop reacting to his almost childish reactions on feedback. He expected me to be over the moon after the stamping, and when I wasn't, it felt like he just completely got demotivated and checked out mentally, instead of just taking it in stride and addressing my concerns as fixable or not. Really tired of the out-of-proportion demotivating reaction to every little question I ask, like everything is a personal insult. Grrrr.

Dislike Van Ness Drawstring Litterbox Liners

They're just glorified shortened large trash bags! 2 corners like regular bags, so they bunch up right in the middle of the litterbox walls, where....oh gee, exactly where the kitties pee the most. So solidified litter just bunches all up in the creases, breaks up into unholy messes when you lift it up to scooper. When digging, the kitties also catch and pull up the pooled excess plastic, unearthing the solidified waste.

Is it sooooo hard to make 4 freaking corners?

Patio - Different Expectations

Ahhhh....we've come to a basic truth about how we see the finished product. O thinks irregular edges and water spots on the concrete are just fine. Broom hairs that got left behind are also ok in his book. He thinks of them as unimportant 'details'. I think otherwise. Expected smooth edges like the industrial concrete I see elsewhere. Turns out he charged me less because he didn't think he had to really deal with a more professional look, but he now realizes I really wanted that. Too bad we didn't figure that out BEFORE the pour. If I'd known that earlier, I could have shaped up the edges myself when the concrete was still wet.

I'm equally responsible. I did see irregular edges in his other projects, but didn't think to question him about them. He also didn't care much about the hairline crack at the thin edge of one project. That should have clued me in. He's more focused on structural soundness, etc. That aspect of the project I'm very confident in.

He's unhappy now that he thinks he didn't deliver what I wanted, but I'm a bit more hardened about his sensitivity to any criticism. Annoyed and done with feeling bad about 'hurting his feelings'. He just has to deal. He's the contractor.

Bottom line: The finished product is something I like and can live with. I'm just not thrilled right now. I'm paying more attention to everything right now 'cause it's new and there's nothing out there. I think once I get used to it, and start putting furniture out, I won't focus so much on all the imperfections. Overall it turned out pretty good.

Bad part of this whole thing is now he'll charge me extra on any future work, thinking I'll be 'this picky' on everything. His planting & designing abilities, now that's superb. No problems there. But bummer. Must go shopping for another guy, I think.

Today's Catnip - Kayla Mega-Headbumps

Kayla slamming her head into my chin and mouth for 10 minutes straight. Scolding meows as I try to dodge her advances, renewed focused attempts to slam into my chin and mouth some more. Accompanied by lots of cheek rubbing and marching.

She was adorable today as she intently stared at the crew as they worked, like she was really supervising them.

Patio - Day Twenty-Eight

The patio is poured!!! Major work done. 1 major error, couple slight ones. Overall, great job, I think. I'm just more relieved it's done, and picking over the various slights than just enjoying the finished job. I'm a perfectionist, and there are several sections where it's not a perfect line, so that annoys me. Etc. The stamped parts are beautiful, and the colors were excellent.

Right on schedule and on budget. Contractor definitely lived up to expectations.

Finishing touches later in the week. Then comes stage 2. Never-ending.

Car Troubles Again

Car wouldn't start again after I left Chipotle's with the guys' lunch. Had to ask O for a favor, he was nice enough to drive over to help, after I got an ETA of over an hour for AAA. He guessed bad contact when I said we just got the battery on Monday. Moved the battery contact around, and I was able to start it. Felt very silly, I moved it myself earlier, guess not hard enough.

Orchid Disaster

Thought nothing of putting out the catt carts for some sun as usual. Pretty windy, but didn't think that would be a prob. Wrong. Very big prob. One of the carts tipped over, spilling most of the catts on the top 2 shelves. The wind was so strong it swept much of the bark mix, pots and some of the catts and the labels every which way, out into the street. Now there's a bunch of traumatized broken catts and mixed labels. What a disaster.

Interesting Article About Newspapers' Future

Another change of tone for this blog, hmmm. Getting serious occasionally. Scary trend? LOL.

I really enjoyed this journalist's well-written blog entry on some fundamental faults underlying traditional newspapers' current business models, and their failure to capitalize online media. LOL, I'm an 'echo chamber'. I like that.

Idiot Gets into Polar Bear Exhibit

Not usually in keeping with this blog's tone, but as an animal lover this Telegraph.co.uk article was too much to pass up. Too much especially with the sad incident with the other idiots at the SF Zoo a while back. I really hope nothing happens to the bears as a result of this idiot's actions. I'm surprised she wasn't mauled more - perhaps they were pleased at moving live food and wanted to play with it a bit more first. Nice change for feeding time, they thought.

It really begs the question: "WHAT THE FUCK were you thinking??!" Animals are animals. Big ass polar bears are animals. Did she think they were going to give her a human-like hug? She apparently scaled 3 different levels of fences before 'accidentally' falling into the actual pool. Those fences are there for a reason. A very very good reason.

I love and humanize my cats dearly, but I have no illusions that they wouldn't attack the hell out of me if they were hurt and I was trying to treat them. Or, if there wasn't any other food available for days and I were half-dead, they wouldn't eat me. Yeah, right.

Patio - Day Twenty-Six

Excellent. O stopped by in the morning as requested to check out the foundation, confirmed everything was ok, and said he could take care of the broken beam that's making the countertop separate from the wall. Easy fix, just sister in another beam next to it. Terrific idea. I *could* do it myself and save the money, but I don't want to bother.

Pour scheduled for Wednesday. Woohoo.

Mood - Cranky

Due to lack of sleep from worrying about my house separating into pieces, I am tired and cranky. Very very cranky. Took a nap, and made mood even worse. Now I'm discombobulated, sleepy, tired and cranky. And itchy from flea bites. Red welts all over. Seems to have gotten worse, not better, since the Advantage application. Grrr.

Don't think playing computer games helped either. Playing the trials of Diner Dash, various versions, and can't figure out which one to buy. The Hometown version is really cute, I think, but that first screen stops after one play. I think the other 'try now' I'm playing are other games, not included in Hometown, but I can't tell. Also the finger pad doesn't click on items, so it takes lots of taps which slowed me down. Think a mouse would be better for the game. It's also incredibly annoying because it checks for updates before EVERY play start, and it takes a looooong time.

Patio - Day Twenty-Three

Stress city. Yesterday O re-inspected the house foundation to make sure everything was good for the pour next week, and pointed out a hairline crack that wasn't much that he was going to fix. Just for kicks, later I went under the house to check things out, and freaked out when I discovered another crack on the inside. Wondering if it goes all the way to the outside, which I can't really tell since there's all kinds of soil there now. Put in a call for O to check out first thing Monday. But now I'm having all kinds of nightmare scenarios where the foundation is spreading like wildfire. Couldn't sleep last night.

Patio - Day Twenty-Two

Enough breaks in the rain that the guys laid out all the rebar today. Picked out colors from swatches too, although I'm aware that the color will not really look like the swatches at all. I did approve the main color from yesterday, so it was just the outline/stairs that was under discussion. Will just go with O's recommendation, and cross my fingers.

Gave me a good sketch of next week's actions - pretty much all done in one day - which day dependent on weather. Approx. 3 hrs of pouring, then the rest of the day smoothing it all out, putting in the color, and stamping, I think. Will have 7 or so guys, lots of noise, he warned.

Consensus - Kitties Love Tiki Cat

Dropped by the Pet Food Express and picked up another batch of brands. Tried out the Tiki Cat for their afternoon snack, and all the kitties gobbled it up, even Kayla, Ms.-Queen-Of-Pickiness. Too bad all the flavors are fish-based, so I have to be sparing with it. But looked very good, like real food, good ingredients and smelled good.

Patio - Day Twenty-One

No activity since Monday, as he's getting all the supplies together. Everything on hold anyway since yesterday, due to the heavy rain. Will pick up again next Monday, after everything dries. Friday/Saturday are also holidays for all of the crew, as they celebrate Easter.

Met up with O to check out the finished color of another project, and we apologized to each other about the other day. Very professional, very casual, very nice.

Patio - Day Seventeen

Minor scrap with Oscar today. Was just asking about the stairs pouring process, but a combination of him sounding a little patronizing like I shouldn't worry my little head and me sounding like an interrogator, was not good. Was annoyed for a while.

Took us over to check out a CV finished project. Hubby very impressed and pleased with the finished product. OMG, the homeowner, though!

Patio - Day Sixteen

Work going well. Guys took the day off yesterday to do their bread-and-butter landscaping regulars. Today a guy doing the fill, but ran out this afternoon, and just hanging around now. Glad for the break, was getting a bit strained having the guys around all the time, jackhammering on Wednesday too. Wore down my nerves.

The retaining wall completely up. Had to raise it up a bit on the right side, facing the main patio door, and doesn't look too attractive now, but can be disguised. Tradeoff for eliminating the other set of stairs. Can live with it. The platform's blocked in.

Ohhh, Oscar & guys just rolled up, lots of noise. Wonder what they're doing this late in the afternoon!

Kayla Supervises The Laundry

Looks like she approved. Awww. That's sweet. Reminds me of Bubby. He loved laundry.

Today's Catnip - Pixie's Sleeping Grunts

Awww. Pixie curled up next to me napping, making sure she's right against my leg, both front and back paws all tucked under her chin in a little ball. Little grunts as she occasionally makes a stretch or a position change. Adorable.

She slept on my side of the bed last night, shoving me over to the middle of the bed as usual, with Hubby practically hanging over the other end. LOL.

TV - Maigret et L'Affaire Saint-Fiacre

Billed in English as "Maigret goes home". Of the series, this was the most enjoyable for me, but that's not saying much. Really watch this just to exercise my French. Never really got enthusiastic about this detective, although these guys are usually right up my alley.

Spoiler: Former employer dies in church exactly at the time stated in a threatening note sent to her. It's the son of the current steward who had an affair with her and was cast aside after she finished.

Hey! This just popped into mind: some time ago, a weird uber-fan (ran a Maigret forum) commenting on behalf of all French people (but my buddy Pierre declines inclusion) blasted me for being 'superficial' simply for saying nothing about the TV show except for some woman's appearance and wondering about French standards of beauty. Then went off on several long rants on all Americans caring about boob jobs and huge lips, but how much more superior the French were cause THEY didn't care about such things. Who said we all cared? Talk about being superficial! No generalizing about us, was there. How pathetic was that? Besides, how serious can a blog on FLOWERS and CATS be?! (Serious stuff's on my other blogs.) OMFG, it was so bizarre and funny I still remember it.