Kitty At My Foot and I Wanna Touch It!

Tid bits:

• Two-faced cat born in Oregon. Story is from June 17, but worth watching even now: http://www.katu.com/stories/77861.html

• In related news, we were at the local pet store last weekend and they had two white Siamese Cats for sale. Colleen and I both thought one of them looked like our old Weimaraner, Coltrane. Same expression, same eyes, just a different species. Darn our cat allergies! I really would have loved to have that cat romping around our house.

• Summer is really starting to wane here in Oregon. The last couple of days have been in the high 60s/mid 70s and we got some rain.

• I hate wallpaper. Having removed it from three rooms in our old house, I thought I was free of that tedious, messy and long process. However, I'm painting our boys' bathroom and needed to remove a Winnie the Pooh border previous owners had put up and we lived with for the last few years. I thought it would be a breeze, but it's my worst wallpaper experience yet. The bottle of Dif wallpaper glue remover even has an asterik to the directions that states border glue will require prolonged soaking and may never come completely off. I spent two and a half hours trying to remove no more than 8 feet of the stuff and am not even half done. Plus, the paint on the wall on which the border was glued is textured, so I can't scrape the paper off -- I have to gently pick it off otherwise I scrape the paint off right to the drywall. Ugh.

Ty or Mig?

Who is your favorite? I can't decide who I'd like to see more as the lead singer for INXS. Susie is also good in my book.

Rock Star: INXS has captured my attention. SO much better than American Idol. Results show is tonight (Wednesday), so if you're just hearing of the show now, it would be a good place to start. VH1 also reruns the performance shows throughout the week.

Deanna is SO WRONG for INXS. Too Cher-like. JD is a tool. Marty is good, but his performances are all the same -- brooding, screaming, face twitching. Jordis is a marginal singer, but I like her personality, so although I don't want her to win, I'd like her to survive the vote tonight. It's unlikely, however, after that dismal Dream On performance last night.

I used to think Dave Navaro was a tool also, but I actually have come to respect him. He is real, his comments are constructive (except to the ousted member each week -- always a "it's been awesome seeing you grow as a performer and a person...blah, blah, blah"), and he is pretty cool.

I played INXS's Kick album this past weekend with a newfound interest. It's quite a good deal for them. They appear to be down to earth, nice guys, and I'm happy for them.

Since the show is Rock Star: INXS, you can only assume this Mark Burnett show will move on to another band. I'm sure I won't be as interested in the next installment, because I was an INXS fan back in high school. Saw a great concert by them in 1988 at my sister's college, Jame Madison University in Virginia with MSL and other friends.

My sister's baby boy is due in a month. Nicholas (Cole) Robert Davis. I am going to be the Godfather! I'm excited about that, and so proud.

Birthdays

Grady has been celebrating his friends' birthdays with a frenzy lately. Last Saturday, he attended Logan's party, held at Logan's house, complete with a visit from The Reptile Man. The kids got to ride a Saharan Turtle, hold an albino boa constrictor, pet giant frogs and just generally revel in all things creepy. Logan's parents catered the event with delicious bbq ribs.

On Sunday, I took him to Jamie's birthday party. She had it at Peanut Butter & Ellie's, a kid's themed restaurant. This was no Chuck E. Cheese's, thank goodness. It was a cute space with some low tables, crafts, a Brio train table set under a fantastical arbor, and peanut butter playdough the kids could safely eat. Jamie's parents arranged for the kids to have Filthy Tea. It's was a tea party like you've never seen before. The tea was chocolate milk in a teapot, the saucers were covered in "dirty" chocolate flakes, the cups had gross gummy worms coming out of them, and the tops of the "mud" cookies had disgusting faces drawn with icing. Grady had a great time.

On September 11, he's attending Andy's birthday party at a local gym/jumping castle extravaganza, Pump It Up. On September 17, he's attending John's birthday party.

And, on September 24, Grady will host his closest 15 friends at a bowling alley and pizza parlor. Not the classiest party on the circuit, but certainly one that will appeal to 15 5-year olds! To give you an idea of what affluent parent's named their Millenium babies, here is Grady's invitation list:

Girls: Maddie, Taya, Mariah, Annie, Jamie, Kaitlin
Boys: Shelby, Lucas, Will, Logan, John, Pierce, Walter, Jack, Changha

Last Thursday, my great friend, MSL (who sometimes comments on this blog) flew into town from D.C. to take in his cousin's wedding in Eugene. He flew in 4 hours earlier than another cousin with whom he was sharing a ride down to Eugene. So, we were able to have a very nice lunch together down on the waterfront, make a beer and liquor run (the wedding was held in a campground on the river, so you had to bring your own supplies), and then shoot the breeze back at my house before he was picked up. He is such a good friend, and I'm very lucky to have him in my life. Trusted friends are so important.

Back with some banalities

Since my last post I went on vacation to San Diego with my family and my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and their two great children. We really centered the experience around the kids. Ours are almost-five and almost-three. There's are 13 and 11. So, we got there a couple of days earlier than them and went to Lego Land and did kid's activities around the pool. Lego Land, surprisingly, was really fun. My five year old, Grady, surprised me by going on a pretty scary roller coaster twice. It scared my wife more than him. Once the others arrived, we got to SeaWorld, The San Diego Zoo, Old Town San Diego, La Jolla and some good restaurants.

In random order, here a few things that I have seen, been on my mind, or have happened to me.

• At the San Diego Zoo, we got there right when the park opened and took the AerialTram to the opposite end of the park. When we exited the platform, I saw two white dogs being walked towards us. One was larger than the other. I commented to the group that it was odd to see dogs at a zoo. Well, only one was a dog. The other, as it approached with its jaws clamped around a full-sized Gatorade bottle, turned out to be an Arctic Wolf. It was beautiful, and very tall. It kept hopping up on the hip-high walls of the path we were on to scan the pens for the animals. The handlers were trying to whisk the wolf away and telling us to keep our distance. Later we saw two handlers walking an Ocelot and vigorously asking people not to touch it. My brother-in-law, Chris, later hypothesized they do this public walking of animals on purpose to generate some word-of-mouth excitement. I'm sure he's right, as there are plenty of other times during the day these animals could be moved, but it was still kind of thrilling. Oh, and I thought it was kind of cool that the wolf had a domesticized canine as its friend.
• Yesterday morning I was driving to the post office and passed a newly mowed field near our house. Something caught my eye and I slowed down and realized there were two grey foxes walking around. I did a quick u-turn and parked next to the field. Before they noticed me, I realized they were scanning the freshly mowed field for mice. After the foxes noticed me, they remained motionless and stared me straight in the eyes for over three minutes. I've never seen a fox up close like that before. (And, yes, I had to look up whether the plural of fox was foxes or fox.)

• I have noticed a lot of PT Cruisers on the road recently. I have always disliked that car for its looks, and also for its quality (I was unlucky enough to be given one as a rental car). But now I have another reason to dislike PT Cruisers. In the last day I've seen at least 10 of them, and ALL 10 have had something displayed on the back. Either a trite bumper sticker, a variety of Support Our Troops, Fight Breast Cancer..... ribbons, vanity license plates or fancy club decals of some sort. I mean, isn't it enough to own one of the cheesiest cars on the road, without having to go over the top and add more kitsch? Ugh. Stop. Now that I've mentioned it, keep an eye out for this sad phenomenon.
• My son, Liam, who turns 3 in late November, is finally starting to poop on the toilet. It's been a long time coming, and boy is it exhilerating to finally have him buy into the program. So far, he's gone five times in about as many days. So about 50% of the time. And, he's done it at school, which is very good considering all the distractions he has there. Ours is almost a diaper-free house. For those of you who can't appreciate what that means, you'll just have to trust me. It is a big deal. BIG. DEAL.
• I'm still struggling with what to do next for my career (or for that matter, even for a job). It's not fun, and is part of the reason I took a hiatus from this blog. I just have had too much negative energy in me. Any posting would have been nasty or hurtful.
• We have another funnel spider in our backyard that Grady and I enjoy feeding. Remember last year? (Spiderrific and Spider Update) This year's spider isn't as big ..... yet. We're supplying it daily with ants, beetles and small bees to see how much we can fatten it up before the first frost. Though, nothing will beat the spider we had in our old house. See ugh, shiver, scary picture here.
• While in Coronado, just outside of San Diego, we saw a modest house for sale. We stopped and got a flyer to see what real estate prices were like. A house that looked like it might go for around $500K house in Portland, was $4.3 Million in Coronado. Caarayzeee!
• I posted some pictures a while back from our 4th of July vacation in Maine. I didn't mention it here on the blog, but here is the link: pictures. Once again, I loudly sing the virtues of Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0. Now selling for about $60 on the Web. Well worth it.
• With me not blogging, I've lost interest in some of the other blogs I used to read. The only ones I'm keeping regular tabs on are Chelsie's, Erik's and WaiterRant. I look forward to catching up with MyNacho and Ill Jackass when I'm feeling a bit more social.

Well, thanks for sticking with me this far down. More to come. As you know, comments are always welcome and much appreciated.