Tyler cats

     December 3rd, 2011, marked the passing of one of our special kitties, Tyler.

     He was a good kitty, an excellent cuddle-buddy, and a special friend. For the last year, Tyler cats had been fighting feline diabetes, and although it appeared that we had it under control, he was still taken from us at the age of eleven. Our trusted veterinarian, Dr. Becky Bolch at Friendship Hospital for Animals, believes that he may have had some type of lymphoma that attacked his kidneys, and that would explain how we lost him so quickly.



    Friday night, December 2nd, 2011, Tyler simply stopped eating and had no interest in his food. As this is quite unusual for our big, diabetic kitty, we called the veterinarian hospital, and as recommended, we rushed him there that night. We learned the next morning that Tyler had gone into renal failure. In a matter of 12 hours, he had passed away.

     Tyler is survived by me and my husband, his litter-mate and brother, Tommy (also 11), and his later-adopted sister, Pooh Bear (13). We mourn for our loss and the Tyler-shaped hole in our lives. My husband adopted Tommy and Tyler when they were just kittens, and he has been their faithful and loving owner ever since. My husband telecommutes full-time, and as such, much of his daily routines were dictated by Tyler's needs. Our family tries everyday to learn to go on without our sweet boy. We are comforted knowing that Tyler was well cared for and loved in every way. We provided only the best kitty supplies for him, and he never wanted for affection, toys, or playtime. Tyler will never make it to our new home, which pains us deeply, but we strove every day, year after year, to make sure that we were always improving things for Tyler and all of our kitties--bigger apartments, better exercise, more windows--as much as we could afford.

     Tyler cats, we miss you and love you so much. We hope that on December 3rd, 2011, somewhere in the world, an orange newborn kitten with a white face, belly, and boots opened his yellow eyes to a new, happy life.

Buying a House

     It's finally Friday, and goodness, this has felt like a long week. Maybe that's because I've been eager for Saturday to arrive--the day of our new home inspection. It is at one PM, and while it's possibly one of the more boring and time-consuming steps to purchasing one's first home, I am still excited about it. One more thing to check off the needs-to-be-done list, and one step closer to the home legally being mine.

     Yes, I'm buying a house, and right now, it is currently my top-most concern. My husband and I made an offer on a house, and it was accepted. Now comes the waiting game. We've opted for a sixty-day close, because we are in a lease until the middle of March. Waiting is logical and really good for our purposes, but honestly? I want my house. Now. I read an article on the Washington Post website about garlic and now being the proper time to plant it, and I am longing to stick cloves in the back yard of our pending home. That is the issue here--pending. There isn't anything in place to assure me that this house will eventually be mine. We are only having the inspection done this Saturday, and I'm not entirely sure that we've totally secured our mortgage interest rate yet. I know I signed a lot of paperwork, but I am uncertain of the result of said paperwork. We're at an interesting time. I've decided that I'm going to think of the house as "mine," and not prepare for the crushing disappointment if everything falls through. I'm preparing for only good.

     To show you why I'm so excited, though--this will be my new kitchen. I can't wait!

Fall-ified!

     We are two days into September, and my blog has been fall-ified. My desk has been mostly fall-ified, my candles at home are switched to the autumn scents, and my hand soaps at my sinks are of the new Bath and Body Works Autumn variety. I've made sure that my bathrooms are stocked with the limited edition fall-scented Febreze sprays. I've switched the scent theme of my hand sanitizers at work from beachy to Halloween-y (because those are the ones I have right now). My desk also holds a Renuzit Aroma cone in Apple & Cinnamon. Ladies and gentlemen, I am ready for fall.


Pretty soaps, all in a row.
     We have finally reached Labor Day weekend, and for this, I am glad. (1) Yay for the three day weekend! As my husband pointed out yesterday, summer, for some reason, is filled with straight working days and few holidays. So when you most want a holiday, there are none to be found. Autumn, however, is loaded with holidays. There are months of three- or even four-day weekends ahead of us. My husband works for the government, so he will eventually hit a point where he won't have to work a full pay period (two weeks) without a day off for the rest of the year. Holidays are so lovely. (2) Good riddance, summer! Cooler weather is bound to be around soon! I know, I know, the DC area is still predicted to hit 89 degrees this weekend, but so what! We will eventually cool off, and I have hoodies and sweaters in the eaves, just waiting for some action.

     So what are your plans for the holiday weekend? If I know my husband, we are going to bake. Remember the mixer I plugged a few scant entries ago? If you don't remember, don't worry--I'll plug it here:

LOOK AT THAT PRICE. In case it doesn't stay that way, please note that today, the price on this item, new, reads $225.99. You can see why we bought it--you can't beat that price! Especially when my husband and I pay for Amazon Prime. The price hit that low on Monday, and by Wednesday, we had a mixer. It's given my husband good reason to crack open the book my mom got him last Christmas:

All day today, he's been asking me all sorts of possibly yummy questions. For example, "Do we have cooling racks?", "Do we have Crisco?", and "Do we have heavy cream?" My husband learned the art of pie crusts from his mother, much to my mother's delight. How can you dislike a son-in-law that makes you apple pie? You really can't, especially when he's my husband.

     If we don't jump straight into baking tomorrow, I imagine we'll visit Williams-Sonoma or Sur la Table, just to stock up on the last few hardware supplies we don't have, and possibly a trip to everyone's favorite grocery store, Wegmans, to get the best quality ingredients.

     In all honesty, I just can't wait to get home--it's going to be a delicious weekend!

     Please note that this post contains product links using Amazon Associates. Should enough people click the links and make purchases, I would get paid. Amazon Associates pays once your clicks equal $10; in my entire history with the program, I currently have about $3, so I have never been paid yet, lol. The biggest reason I use Amazon Associates is so that I don't have to use my own personal server space for image hosting when I refer to products, and to ensure proper and unbroken links for archiving purposes.

A whole lotta shakin' goin' on!

     How many earthquake puns are you going to hear today? A lot. I'm going to blog my experience--the earthquake will be blogged. Also, disclaimer, this image is an extreme exaggeration.

     I'd like to post some of the news sources that were either sent to me or that I found. My personal story of the quake can be found below the links.

MSNBC's Coverage of the Quake

Virginia Earthquake: Washington National Cathedral Damaged, to speak as to the scope of damaage. This link is the worst I've heard so far.

[Edit at 5:13pm] WMATA's Post-Earthquake Service Updates. WMATA is still operating at 15mph system-wide while all of the tracks are checked.

[Edit at 4:57pm] Did you feel it? Tell the U.S. Geological Survey your story.

[Edit at 5:09pm] FEMA: What to do after an earthquake, in case we're not yet out of the woods.

    A little before 2pm, OSA Headquarters. I'm at my desk, publishing today's Optics Express papers, when suddenly, I'm moving, and my very large and easy to see computer monitor appears like I'm looking through water at it. The whole thing lasted under 10 seconds, I'm sure. I went to the entrance of my cube and see the head of my department running down the hall and saying, "Get out of here now!" Thanks to her immediate leadership, I grab my purse and phone and leave. To note, this was right in front of my face, and it didn't waste any time at all. I work on the third floor of our six-floored building, so we are hastily making our way to the basement exit, as our emergency plan instructs. I think our general evacuation went off without a hitch. Out of the building and on the sidewalk, I can see that other buildings are doing the same--evacuating. I grab my phone and call my husband once. Twice. Thrice. No service. I think I said to no one in particular, "This is big."

     While my phone calling and texting abilities were limited, I still had 3G coverage (which, to date, is the best excuse for a smart phone I can come up with). I sign on to Google Chat and am able to stay in contact with my husband. He was telecommuting in Fairfax, VA. At 1:57pm, he said, "We just had an earthquake." Although the word was in my mind, I had not officially labeled this incident an earthquake yet. My husband was the first to confirm it. At 1:59pm, he sent that there was a system wide alert that he area was hit with an earthquake. I'm not sure if this alert came from the television or the emergency weather radio that we have. He also told me that his parents felt something too--up in State College, Pa, over 200 miles away. With a computer at his fingertips, he sent me updates as he could find them. I got the first number from him--5.8. Later, he sent me the epicenter, which is currently believed to be in southern VA. As he sent these things to me, I updated my surrounding coworkers. We were gathered in the green space beside PNC Bank in Dupont Circle. We had to wait for the Fire Department to inspect and ensure the security and stability of our building, post-quake. By my emailing history, I can see that we did not return to the building for roughly 37 minutes.

As of 4:24pm, my place of work, OSA, is officially closed. I received an email at 4:07pm from OPM that an early dismissal is in place. It remains to be seen what the operating status will be tomorrow.

     Back in the building, I checked the usual social media suspects--Facebook, Twitter. Both were abuzz.

     At my work, we had a practice evacuation planned for Thursday, August 25th. Post-quake and once we were all back in the building, our building manager sent around an email that began, "Can I plan an evacuation drill, or what?"

Random stuffs

     Posting a few random things while working through the day. Like this: Beavis and Butthead is returning to MTV this fall. Now my husband's spot-on impressions can be relevant again.

     Also, a public service announcement: Williams-Sonoma is offering 25% off of their Kitchen-Aid mixer. That means that this lovely beauty:



KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer
which is usually priced at $299.95, is currently priced at $224.96. The sale ends on Saturday, I think? So If you want it, grab it up!

     So apparently I'm a fan of the show The Big Bang Theory enough to want to read along with the live tweeting of the cast interview at ComicCon today. I do sincerely love the show, and unlike many, I adore Amy Farrah Fowler.

Looks like that's all for today.

Mobile Blogging!

     I'm currently on a train, home-bound. I'm also currently able to share my thoughts with the world! While this is not terribly interesting now, it has the potential to become so. Say, on the DC2NY bus this Friday to New York. Or in the city itself. Or wherever else inspiration may strike. Live content, here I come!

Getting a jump on things, stamps.

     Haven't updated since autumn. I'm not going to try to fill in all of that blank time, so instead, I'm getting a jump on summer. I changed the backgrounds around to the summer theme today, although it is not yet officially summer. I'm not waiting until June 21st to make the change. Summer to me is in months--June, July, August. Although in metro DC land, it's June through October, really. I shouldn't complain--Spring 2011 hasn't been too bad at all. More rain than usual, but we don't nearly have the tumultuous weather that much of the rest of the country is experiencing. I did watch a special on NOVA about tornadoes a few weeks ago, though (you can probably catch it on Hulu if you were so inclined), and they reported about an F4 tornado that hit the town of La Plata, Maryland in 2002. La Plata is about 35 miles south of DC. The expert on NOVA said that if the storm were about 50 miles north, it would have wrecked DC beltway to beltway. I hope that, in this year of increasingly violent weather, we do not approach anything like that scenario. Storms aside, the temperatures haven't really passed the mid 70's. As I type, my computer reports a temperature of 66 degrees, which is comfortably cool to me. I just looked up the forecast for next week, and I saw the temperature 85 coming up--I knew the heat wouldn't stay away for long.

     I decided to pick up posting today because I wanted to write about my experience buying stamps online, and I figured it would be too long to tweet or post on Facebook. I went to the USPS Stamp Store Online, and the variety of forever stamp designs was very tempting. I added a few to my online cart, and before I knew it, I was up to $65. In stamps! The most I usually mail are my holiday cards, and I'll probably purchase holiday stamps for that time. I'm sure in my life, I'll probably use that many stamps, but did I really need to buy that many right now? No. I did enjoy the designs, though. Jazz, American Scientists, Flora and Fauna, Green Living Tips, The Year of the Rabbit. I did buy the Green Living and Year of the Rabbit ones. I also bought 10 of the Comics collection and 10 of the Adopt-A-Pet collection. I should be set on stamps. I was disappointed that the Simpsons collection is no longer being sold, though. I did enjoy mailing in expensive bills with Bart Simpson's outward-sticking tongue on the front.

     In other news, have you ever bought something that you just absolutely loved? I just did on Thursday:


Calvin Klein Sheer Ribbed Drapefront Cardigan
Seriously, I love it fiercely. I'm pretty sure it doesn't "do anything" for me--it doesn't accent my silhouette or my shape and it doesn't make me look slim. I don't intend to hide in it, though, either. I look at myself in a mirror and hear the chastisements of What Not to Wear hosts in my head, but I can't bring myself to care. I feel like I've been looking for this cardigan for a long time, and now that I have it, I'm satisfied. And I'm okay with that!