Fortunately, all games are blocked on my work computer. I say fortunately because it would be very tempting if they weren’t blocked!

The Oscars pre-show has started and, since there are so many “stars” that I don’t know these days, I will probably watch off and on and play this game while kind of watching. And we’ll see how long I continue playing the game as the challenges start requiring more effort.

Unfortunately, it was not a very happy birthday for Kevin. He and Soula had to put their dog, Hannah, to sleep today. Half of Hannah’s body was paralyzed about 2 years ago and she has had many medical problems since then. Finally, her problems caught up with her and it was time to say goodbye. It’s never a good day when you have to make this decision and I was sorry it had to happen today for Kevin. They’re going to dinner tomorrow for a bit of a belated celebration. It would certainly be hard to celebrate tonight.

Both of them seemed amazed when I opened the back door and left it open. They were a bit cautious heading out, but then realized they had this giant play yard and started exploring. Nate tried to push himself through the lattice fence almost immediately. He’s going to be hard to contain. The rest of their time out was uneventful and I brought them in after about 1/2 hour so that I could watch the Olympic hockey game and the Lakers game.

US lost, Lakers won. While I would have liked to have seen the US win, I think the closing ceremonies tonight would have been a lot more subdued and not as much of a party had Canada lost the hockey game. So it really wasn’t that bad. And after seeing the US lose, it was really nice to see the Lakers beat the Nuggets!

Since I still had a few hours of sunlight remaining after all that, I went out back and pulled the weeds in all my flowerbeds. Have a bit of trimming to do as well as cleanup along the sides of the house, but the backyard is ready to plant for spring! Hayes sat at the backdoor watching while I did this, so I decided to let him out when I finished. He wandered around and then got curious about the pool…and then took a step forward. It shocked the hell out of him when he started to sink! He steered clear of the pool from that point on, being very careful not to get too close to it.

All this time I thought Nate was asleep in the house since that was the last place I saw him when I went outside. I did think it was odd that he wasn’t at the backdoor trying to come out when I let Hayes out, but just figured he was tired. All of a sudden Nate appeared, coming around the side of the house! I later discovered he had pushed the screen out of the front window and went out on his own! And somehow he figured out how to get to the backyard from out front.

Then Nate decided to do LOTS of exploring! He checked out the pool and took a drink from it. He reminded me of Puto who used to do the same. Then he decided to climb one of the tangelo trees, but didn’t go up much higher than about 4-5 feet for his first climb. No doubt he’ll be the first of these two to get onto the roof once he figures out how to climb the tree in the front yard. And then it was time for them to go indoors for the night since I still needed to clean up all the weeds and leaves that I had cleared out of the flowerbeds.

Got everything cleaned up, started a load of laundry and gathered up the trash since tomorrow is trash day. At that point Nate decided he wasn’t done being outside, and squeezed out the front door as I headed out to put out the trash cans. Now this was happening at about 7 pm, and it was no longer light out. In fact, it was pitch black out! I decided it was pointless to try to find a black cat when it was that dark, so I figured I wouldn’t worry and that he would probably come back at some point. As I finished up with the trash he came back across the driveway and onto the porch. I scooped him up and took him inside, much to his dismay. I still don’t want the cats out at night, but feel a bit better since Nate didn’t go too far away this first time.

And now I’m watching the Olympics closing ceremonies and trying to type with two cats nestled in my arms on my desk between me and the keyboard. Glad to be heading off to bed at a normal time tonight!

And then I can choose what to do each night and I’ll have my weekends back. I’m so ready…but it really has been a great Olympics!

Nate and Hayes are growing like crazy–especially Hayes! I weighed them both this morning by holding each while I got on the scale and then weighing myself separately. Nate weighs about 7 lbs. and Hayes is almost 10 lbs! Both are just a little over 6 months old, so I can just imagine how big Hayes will be at one year. He’s almost as big as Puto was right now.

Both have healed well from their “snipping” and are back to normal. Hayes is turning into a cuddly teddy bear while Nate is a trouble-making little rat! Both now know when it’s time for me to come home and are waiting in the front bedroom window when I pull into the drive. Then they run to meet me at the front door and are all over me for the remainder of the night. I’ve never had cats who want to be with me the way these two do! They really act more like dogs than cats.

Last week was a wonderful break to the winter weather with 80 degree temps and lots of sun. We’re now back to normal with highs in the 50’s and 60’s and chilly temps at night. Not like back East or in the Midwest, but chilly for So.Cal. And the rain is back. It started raining on the way home tonight and will continue through tomorrow. Then another storm is due on Friday night through the weekend. We do still need the rain and, since I’m indoors watching the Olympics, it really doesn’t affect me much. I am looking forward to the nice warm temps that will stay for awhile, though.

It’s supposed to be chilly outside tomorrow with rain starting late in the day, so I’m going to try to keep the motivation going and really work on cleaning. Still have time to get a lot more finished tonight, but have lots more that needs doing.

The Olympics are a big distraction, though. I’m hoping there’s not a lot on tomorrow that I care about so that I can just have the TV on in the background. I know there’s one of the hockey games on and I really don’t care to sit and watch hockey. I just can’t ever figure out who has the puck at any one time. It’s just not clear like basketball. So if that takes up a good portion of the coverage, I should get a lot done around the house.

My neighbor to the north finally hired someone to trim back his ugly-ass tree. He did about 1/5 of the tree himself two weeks ago and I guess he figured out it was too much for him to handle by himself. Only problem is that whoever he hired just did the trimming and didn’t haul off anything. They just left it laying in his yard. Now I really wouldn’t care except that the wind has started blowing tonight and I expect I’ll have lots of loose stuff blown all over my driveway and yard tomorrow morning. It seems that everything this guy does impacts me somehow. And his tree looks absolutely hideous! Sort of like a big huge trunk with three nubs on the top of it. The only good part is that I won’t have leaves, seeds and branches all over my property for another year or two–once he gets all the branches cleaned up, that is.

Nate and Hayes got “snipped and chipped” on Saturday at the Pasadena Humane Society and are almost completely healed! In fact, you wouldn’t know that anything had happened except that they’ve been shaved. I let them venture outdoors yesterday for awhile and they both thought that was great! Unfortunately all the jade plants are in bloom meaning there are lots and lots of bees all over the plants. Nate leaped into the air when he saw his first bee and caught it! I knocked it away from him and smashed it on the ground. He wiped at his nose with his paw and I’m not sure whether he got stung. So, that was the end of their trip outdoors. Not sure whether bee stings are dangerous to cats, but didn’t want some major medical problem for them to deal with the day after surgery.

Our weather has been just fabulous, part of the reason I decided to let Nate and Hayes outdoors. I almost feel guilty enjoying our weather so much when I know that so many people back in the Midwest and East are getting dumped on with snow once again. The key word here is *almost*. Temps have been right around 80 during the day for the entire weekend and will continue that way through mid-week. I know this won’t last, but I’m enjoying it while it does!

Did a lot of shopping this weekend. Got lots of clothes, shoes, jewelry and some new bath rugs at Kohl’s. Saved about $100 with all the coupons I had. Not bad. Then went to Michael’s today and got some new greenery and silk flowers to refill my outdoor planters. Also found some St. Patrick’s Day shamrocks to add to the front porch arrangement. Finally it doesn’t look so barren out there.

Finally, I have gotten totally hooked on the Olympics…as I knew I would! The only event I really didn’t like was the biathalon (skiing/shooting). I just don’t get the point of it. So I passed on that one. But the rest has been quite compelling, resulting in my staying up way too late every night.

And so I’ll try to get to bed a bit earlier tonight. Hope there’s nothing that I *have* to see that’s on after 11 pm.

He complained continually when the dogs tore a hole through the bamboo we stapled up over his old rotted fence and got into his yard. Then he came to me with a proposal to put up a concrete wall between the yards. He wanted me to pay half the cost but was unwilling to allow me to have any say in how the wall would look. I said no.

When I decided to put up a new fence, he complained because it was too tall so we trimmed it down 2 feet. Then he complained that we were killing his bushes along the back of his yard. He stood in his yard inspecting the new fence with every panel we put up and criticized us every step of the way.

In the summer, he would watch tv on his patio and, because he was hard of hearing, turn the sound up so loud that I could hear it in my family room. He especially liked to do this on Sunday mornings and would oftentimes fall asleep at night with the tv blaring while he slept.

Any time that I tried to talk with him he complained. He was one of the most unfriendly persons you could ever ask to live next to. Now that he’s gone I only have the jerk next door to deal with.

I don’t understand how it is that I wind up living next to (or behind) these nasty neighbors. Most of the other people in our neighborhood are really nice people. Now I just have to hope that whoever buys the house is somewhat nice…and that they don’t decide to tear down the house and put up a some big-ass mansion thing.

So I’m not sad to see him go

Am looking forward to a long President’s Day weekend. Have lots to do, but it will be nice to spread it over three days.

Saturday morning I’ll be taking the cats into the Pasadena Humane Society to be “snipped and chipped.” Need to have them there around 8:00 am and pick them up between 4:00-4:30 pm. Will stop at Kohl’s on the way home since I have a $25 gift card (birthday gift from Veronica’s mom) as well as a 30% off everything coupon! After that I’ll be stopping at Trader Joe’s to use another gift card ($40 from Vanessa) to pick up lots of food goodies! As long as I have to get up early, I might as well reward myself with some shopping!

Sunday morning I have to go to the Annual Meeting at All Saints and then I’ll have the rest of Sunday and all day Monday to do whatever I want! Probably will spend part of the time doing chores and hope to fit in some time to work in the yard since the temps are supposed to be in the 70’s this weekend!

Only real snag in all these plans is the Olympics. I know I’m going to get hooked once I start watching and have to be careful not to just sit down in front of the tube until *after* I get the chores finished!

We’re getting unbelievable amounts of rain, accompanied by thunder, lightning, hail and mudslides. Fortunately my home is safe, but I know of others who can’t say the same. I don’t mind the rain, but I feel badly for those who are losing their homes, possessions and cars. And the mess they are left to clean up is overwhelming. I did see an absolutely beautiful big rainbow on my way home from work tonight. I’m hoping that’s a sign…

And then back East, it’s the snow. I’ve never seen so much snow within such a short period of time. I’d kind of like to be there since everything shuts down when you get that much snow. However, it’s still cold and I wouldn’t want to have to deal with that. And I’m sure the continual shoveling would get old after a week of non-stop major snow storms.

Nate decided to sneak out tonight when I opened the door and I didn’t realize he’d gone out. I finally realized this had happened and opened the front door to find him cowering under a chair on the front porch as the rain was pouring down. He was so scared and clutched onto me tightly as I fished him out and brought him inside. Maybe he won’t be so quick to run out the next time!