January Miscellany

24 January 2012

While I've been waiting for the weather to become more bike-friendly (and trying not to be too jealous of the snow bikers I can't join), I've been taking a lot of pictures with my cell phone.

Two Thursdays ago, our plumbers were here, again, to diagnose, finally, why our main sewer line keeps backing up into the laundry room wash basin, more and more frequently, costing us about $200 each time.  With my urging to diagnose rather than treat the problem, they sent a camera down.  About ten feet from the wash basin they found tree roots.  This is under the house, mind you.  They're (the roots and the plumbers) gone now, but they'll be back.

Moxie is turning into a real ham. He and Mojo are ten months old today.  Here's Moxie hanging out in the bedroom, waiting for his midnight snack:  dental treats.

Mojo is still smaller than Moxie.  Here he is, doing battle with his perch, while he waits for his midnight snack.  The off-camera lump is Burnaby, waiting for his midnight snack.

 Last week I came home with three catnip toys (as if they need more toys) along with a few bags of groceries.  In one of these bags was a twist-tie.  To hell with the catnip.  This twist-tie was the bees knees.  Carting it around the next morning,  Moxie deposited it in the bedroom trash can.  Jack fished it out for him (the can was otherwise empty), but half an hour later, Moxie was back in, minus his toy.

Here's Mojo after a bout of tabby wrestling.

Burnaby enjoys the cat perch during the day, when he can patrol for squirrels in the back yard and sun himself in peace.  Here he is right after the weekend snowfall.

 Moxie hams it up in his sleep.

Yet another box for Moxie.  Jack says it looks like the kitten is emerging from another dimension.

Mojo got boxy too.

Not to be outdone by his brother, Moxie attempted a triple-boxing after I'd gathered everything together for recycling.

Save for the fact that he trapped himself in the end, the move was well executed.  I'm sure he'd have found his way out eventually, but I had to assist, if for no other reason than the chance to get another other-dimensional picture.

Yesterday temperatures rose, and by evening a thick fog had blanketed campus.  I forgot to turn the flash off for this first picture, but I like the way the camera captured the misty rain.

Turning the flash off didn't work too well either.  Reality was somewhere between the two.

Whitman Hall glowed nicely.

This evening we had an orange sunset over campus.  This is the same view, more or less, as the first two fog pictures.

While snow was falling, I decided to clean out the pantry to make room for the new crock pot.  In doing so I filled a standard kitchen garbage bag with expired soup mixes, pastas, and other random powders that had been hiding way in the back of the long closet.  That's gonna be some interesting eating on the compost pile.  I hope our backyard possum (hoc possum!) enjoys falafel mix and old noodles.

Speaking of falafel mix, the expiration date on those five boxes was December 1999.  Not only, then, did these boxes evade our 2005 kitchen renovation; they also very likely moved in with us in October 1999.

Dale, in a triple-box maneuver all her own, has informed me that, in her move this fall from California to Princeton Junction, she inadvertently carried along a jar of spices that expired in 1988.

In other news, I got an out-of-the-blue email from Mark Shmitt, the erstwhile FreeWheeler, now in Wisconsin, who gave me the name "Our Lady of Perpetual Headwinds" almost a decade ago.  Welcome back to the world of the Hill Slugs, Mark, and thanks for the moniker!