This week it’s apparently all about the surveys. I haven’t done one of these in a while, so here’s a Friday Five.

1. What do you do for a living?
   I work for a construction cost estimating company. However, my job has very little to do with estimating. I’m part database wrangler (of the not-really-a-real-database Access variety) and part research writer. I spend my days researching and writing about the various issues that are impacting the construction industry. Part of that researching and writing includes a strong focus on sustainable building and design.

2. What do you like most about your job?
   Do I have to pick just one thing? I love the fact that my job is never the same thing from one day to the next. In the past year I’ve worked on white papers, presentations, news briefs. I’ve built and loaded databases. I’ve compiled and manipulated cost indexes and learned how to do all sorts of nifty things with graphs. I’ve rediscovered how wonderful it is to work in a small office, with a small group of people, in a company where I am not just another number. I love the fact that flexibility is encouraged, and in fact almost mandatory for the things I do. I love the fact that with each new report I write or project I work on I learn more and more about this industry. Overall, I really love my job. I feel like I’ve found a place where my skills are a good fit.

3. What do you like least about your job?
   This one’s harder to answer. There are times when I’m in full-on database loading mode and I’ve done so much typing that my hands and wrists ache. There are times when I wish the office was closer to home, or at least closer to a public transportation route so I would have more options to get to work (instead of driving). The lawyers underneath us who are always arguing with each other at the top of their lungs over stupid things like who used the printer last can occasionally drive me batty. I know these seem like such nit-picky complaints, but that’s only because it’s all I can come up with. There’s really not much for me to complain about.

4. When you have a bad day at work it’s usually because _____…
   If I’m having a bad day it’s usually because I’m exhausted and having a hard time focusing. However, this rarely has anything to do with the job itself.

   I’ve had other jobs where I dreaded coming in to work, and spent the entire day watching the clock, wishing desperately for time to go faster so I could go home. There haven’t been any days like that with this job. Hopefully there won’t be any in the future either.

5. What other career(s) are you interested in?
   Actually, I think I’ve found a good place for me. I adore writing, and this job gives me plenty of opportunities to do that. I like playing with databases and writing code to pull out the data in new and unique ways, and I certainly am given enough opportunities to satisfy that part of my brain as well. I need a job that will keep me busy enough, without overwhelming me, and that will constantly surprise and challenge me, and I usually get that here as well. So I’m not sure if there would be another career beyond what I’m currently doing that I would really be that interested in.

   Well, okay, if someone were to offer to pay me ridiculously large sums of money to lounge around my house knitting, poking around on my computer, and petting cats, I may have to think really, really hard. But I figure the odds aren’t exactly high for this sort of thing, so I’m pretty safe.

We’ve been doing interviews over at The Usual Suspects for a few months now. My second one was just posted over there, so I decided, in lieu of an actual entry, I’d reprint it here.

An Interview of Jenipurr, by Locust

1. Your home seems to be very important to you. You bought land and had your house custom built. Why did you go that route?

   Years ago my coworker was looking at buying land and building a house, and showed me the house plans she and her husband had found online. I was intrigued so I started poking around. I stumbled onto the plans for my dream house, but at that time I wasn’t in any kind of position to even consider it. But I bookmarked the site, and in a weak moment I sent them some money and had them give me a rough estimate of how much it would cost to build that house in my area. It was always in the back of my mind when I first started looking at houses with the intent to buy, but I didn’t start considering it more seriously until I looked around on a whim and found out that land was not only available, but something I could afford. And in some kind of strangely amusing twist, I discovered that I could afford more house (and construction loan) by building it than if I were to buy pre-built, even with the same down payment. I called around, there was this quarter-acre lot available in a lovely neighborhood, I found a general contractor who was perfect, and suddenly all the pieces fell together.

   Do you think that having done it that way makes it feel more like home?

   I suppose in some ways it could. I’ve never actually owned a house before so I really have nothing to compare it with. But having it built to our specifications does mean that it was a completely blank slate. Anything that was done to it was done because we wanted it. I didn’t have to inherit someone else’s idea of style. But even then it took both my husband and I a few months before we started feeling like it was truly our home, and not just this incredible house someone else was being nice enough to let us camp out in for a little while.

   Do you see it as something that’s done or something that’s ever-evolving?

   Something I very quickly realized is that a house is never complete. Owning a home means that you own a never-ending project. It’s just up to you to decide how complicated and detailed your project wants to be. For example, we had them paint the entire thing white, just because I knew it would take us a long time to decide what to do in all the rooms. The tree on the wall in the breakfast nook is a long-term project. The sky detailing in the master bathroom is a long-term project (although I did actually buy the paint, so I’m one step further down that path). Simply filling it with furniture is a long term project – one that will probably never end. We’re about halfway done with the backyard, and once that’s completed the front yard gets ripped out because we both want to replace the water-guzzling grass with more drought tolerant, native plants. There are discussions in the works with some electrician friends to completely rewire the computer room.

   And that only covers the little things. If I had lots of money I would completely remodel the kitchen and laundry room. We’ve talked about eventually building over the garage to extend the house and provide another room (like we really need more space, but need and want are two entirely different things). There are so many changes we have pondered, and that’s after only a little less than three years in the house. Give me another five or ten years and I’m sure my list of projects and changes will be even longer.

   The important distinction is that I find this kind of thing fun. I never let myself consider what could be changed in any of the places I rented because I knew it wasn’t mine to play with. The simple fact that we *own* this house is very freeing. I only wish I knew more about construction so I could try to do more of the bigger stuff myself.

   Would you do it again?

   Definitely. Of course, I have a short list in my head of all the things I would do differently the next time we build our house, but I have a feeling that would always be the case, no matter how many times we repeated the process. The beauty of having the house built is that we were free to make changes as we went. We weren’t restricted by someone else’s vision of what the house would look like or be. It was an overwhelming experience, especially since I hadn’t a clue what to do for most of the circumstances we faced, but our general contractor was wonderful, and walked us through everything without once making us feel like we were stupid.

   Can you ever imagine leaving?

   Yes I can imagine it. No, I don’t want to. I love our house – even with all the things I might want to change about it. Part of it may simply be that this is the first place I’ve ever lived in that is truly mine, but most of it is because it suits me. I’ve already poured a lot of love and work into the house to make it uniquely ours, and I know that will only continue as the years pass.

2. You’ve got an eye for moments, as seen in your photoblog. What catches your eye when you go to take a photograph?

   Shortly after I started Cat’s Eye View, I heard an interview on NPR, in which they were discussing the new technology in cellular phones, especially phones with cameras. The interviewer pointed out that digital photography changes how we view taking pictures. Instead of trying to capture a memory, digital photography allows us to simply focus on just catching the moment. I’ve kept that in mind when I take pictures, even when they’re pictures not specifically meant for Cat’s Eye View. I try to find things that seem interesting; something in the shot that might be worth a second glance. I like catching people (especially little kids) when they don’t even realize I’m taking their picture. Posed shots are never nearly as vibrant to me.

   Have you ever seen something in a photo you’ve take that you hadn’t noticed before?

   The best example of this would be the picture I took of the flowering pear in our front yard. I’d taken the picture of the blossoms on a branch against the sky, mainly to have a clean background for the flowers. But when I saw the picture itself I was struck by how brilliantly blue the sky actually turned out.

   What’s your favorite of the photos you’ve taken?
   I’m not sure I can pick just one. I took this one at the State Fair last year (got permission from her parents to take it) and I love the story it tells – all the colors and the blur of activity behind the stroller, and the little girl who’s just had enough. This one was a lucky shot – one of my coworkers had pressed his face on the window and the next day the light hit just right so that we saw it. I was thrilled the shot came out. I like this one because of the contrast in colors (and okay, so I admit I covet those boots). And finally, this one should be fairly self explanatory (I so rarely manage to get sunset pictures to come out so well).

3. You’ve described yourself as an agnostic with a spiritual side. Where does your sense of spirituality come from? How would you describe it?

   Back when I was in high school, we had a long term substitute teacher in English who really drove a lot of us nuts. One classic case was that after a test, he told us that if we could show him where in the book it said that we were right, we would get credit for any questions we’d missed. In my case, if I was right, the information did not exist in the book at all. So I asked him to show me where, in the book, it existed. He refused, insisting I had to show him the section to prove my case. But the entire point of my argument was that the information did not exist. My very proof was that that it wasn’t there at all. Ultimately he won because, after all, he was the acting teacher and I was just a powerless student. But the whole point of this story is to clarify how I feel about faith, and god(s) and supreme beings, and celestial master plans, and all the rest. I can’t just take someone else’s word for it. I need real, defendable proof.

   I think that the problem is that I am incapable of complete faith. I am, for the most part, a purely logical thinker, and I cannot grasp how I am supposed to take something as huge as the existence of some supreme being on faith, without any proof whatsoever. I am currently taking a bible study class at the church where we attend because I want to understand the book better, in the context of how strongly it has impacted our cultures and societies for so many centuries. But I still cannot grasp how I am supposed to think that this book equals proof. If there is no god, it is just a book like any other book. Simply writing a book about something does not make it true.

   However, I realize that there is always the possibility that something truly does exist, and I do think that there are things out there beyond what I can see or touch or feel. I deeply enjoy theological discussions with people who are open-minded enough to want to debate varying theories without feeling the need to insist that their way is the only way. I am leaving myself open to being persuaded one way or another, because the search itself is so interesting.

   Have you ever had to defend it and, if so, to whom?

   Luckily I’ve never felt that I had to defend my inability to believe, although I have been asked to clarify it many times. I think, just as I have such a hard time understanding how others can believe without question, some people with deep faith cannot understand my position either. I will admit, however, that I get a secret glee out of stumping the bible-thumpers who go door to door by asking them to prove the existence of a god without using their bible. I have yet to find a single one who was even willing (or able) to try. Somehow, that seems kind of sad.

   Do you believe you could ever move toward atheism or formalized faith, or is agnostism where you’ll always be?

   I have a feeling I will probably always remain staunchly agnostic. There is a part of me that wishes I could find the peace that my friends have with their own various religious faiths, and I wonder if I will ever be able to understand or accept things based purely on faith. Thus, I go to church and I read the bible to try to make sense of it all. I listen to people of other faiths and ask them questions and have, at times, been in the position of having to explain facets of Christianity to non-Christians as well. I accept that I will always be searching for a better understanding of faith, but I’m fine with that. The existence, or non-existence, of a supreme being really doesn’t matter much to me one way or the other. But I know I’ll always have the curiosity, and the need, to figure it out for myself.

4. You seem to have an incredible sense of community. Has it always been that way? Are you someone who gets invited into the communities of others or do you make your own? Is there anything you’d change about the way you are connected to the people around you?

   I found this an interesting question, if only because it’s something I’ve struggled with for so long. After college it seemed like I spent so much of my time feeling isolated and disconnected. I know that a large part of this was due simply to the fact that my job had me on the road all the time. Plus, by the very nature of the work I was doing, I had to refrain from forming anything more than casual friendships with the people I worked with because as a consultant, I would always be the outsider. Add to this the fact that all my friends from college gradually moved away, either physically or mentally (into a different stage of life than I was in) and I spent a lot of years feeling as if any chance for strong friendships had slipped away. It’s only in the last few years I’ve finally started to feel as if I actually belong somewhere. It’s helped that I’ve had a series of jobs that have not required the kind of extensive travel I was dealing with before. It also helped that we moved to a community where I have a vested interest in putting down roots and trying to make lasting friendships. Overall, I think the main thing is that I finally have the time to put in the effort. Integrating into any community of people requires time and energy, and when you’re constantly on the road it’s really hard to make that happen.

   Right now I’m one of the biggest driving forces behind getting a social group going for people our age at the church where we attend. It’s been a difficult process, but also very gratifying to see that it’s finally starting to come together, and it has underscored the fact that social communities require someone willing to take the time to make the effort.

5. You keep journals and you’ve done NaNoWriMo. What compels you to tell stories?

   When I was younger I used to carry around at least one three-subject notebook with me at all times, and I was forever scribbling stories into them. I often had several different stories all going on at once, and there were times when it seemed like I couldn’t write fast enough to get them all down. I still have an entire drawer of those notebooks of half-finished stories, and every once in a while I drag them out and read through them, just to remind myself that once upon a time I actually could write fiction. I think perhaps the reason I have done NaNoWriMo twice now is to try to kick start that part of the brain again. There are still stories lurking in my head that I want very much to get out, but I just don’t seem to have the ability to translate them to paper anymore. NaNoWriMo is my once-a-year test to see if I can get just a little bit further on overcoming that block.

   These days, however, my sense of story is based more on what is going on around me, and not so much all the little what-ifs in my head. Part of that is probably due to the fact that I have always been very good at the type of writing that is meant to explain things so other people will understand – research papers, reports, user manuals, any type of non-fiction document that might be needed. In fact, a lot of my work in the past few years has focused more on this type of writing. Part of it has also been the online journal, which I’ve kept now for over four years. I enjoy having the journal because it’s a place for me to continually practice my writing skills; to find ways to turn the things around me into something that someone else might be interested in reading. I’ve had a need to write for as long as I can remember, but now I focus more on how I can write for the journal.

   Is it something you look for in others, their ability to weave stories?

   The ability to weave a story in a way that makes even the mundane seem interesting is something I know I will work on for the rest of my life, and since it’s so important to me, it does become an important aspect in how I view others as well. I’ve been trying to get my sisters to take up online journaling because they both are good writers and I think they would enjoy having that outlet. I have also tried to encourage my mom to write down her experiences as a chaplain because she always wrote the most wonderful letters when we were kids – full of humor and all the little details that made them fun to read.

   Is it part of how you define yourself? Do you see everything as a story?

   Yes, and yes. I think I have always considered myself a writer, even though the writing I get paid to do (reports, presentations, white papers, etc.) might not be quite what I first envisioned I’d be doing when I was younger. Having the online journal keeps that designation firmly in my head. There is always a story to tell. It might not be the most exciting story when it comes to the things I do for work, and it might not be fiction when it comes to the things I write for fun, but nonetheless, the stories are there. It’s just up to me to get them out.

Yesterday one of my coworkers, who had been outside on the deck talking on the phone, came into the office and announced “There’s a turtle.”

Naturally the rest of us dropped whatever we were doing to take advantage of such a wonderful excuse to procrastinate on work and rushed outside with the office binoculars to the deck to peer down at the river bank. Sure enough, there it was. A turtle. A fairly big turtle, actually, probably bigger than my foot. And it was just sitting on the bank, occasionally looking around, sunning itself.

As we watched, a second turtle surfaced in the water a few dozen feet away from the first, paddling its little legs just under the surface in a lazy fashion until it established maximum floating capacity, and then just bobbed there with its head poking out of the water.

Later in the day, as I was peering outside to check on the turtle I noticed a little cluster of ducks waddling across the bank. That’s not actually all that exciting because we see ducks around here pretty much every day, but while I was eying them and the turtle another bird came swooping in. At first I thought it was some kind of duck, but the neck and beak were far too long and narrow. We get quite an assortment of wildlife here on the river – heck a few months ago we even had some kind of swan (although we couldn’t figure out if it was a trumpeter or some other kind because the only distinction is apparently wing span and neither of us felt particularly like swimming out into the middle of the river to get the swan to spread his wings so we could measure him). But I’d never seen a bird like this before. It was kind of pretty in a muted way – a silvery blue on the head and back and with a brown neck and very narrow beak.

A hasty bird book / internet search led us to the conclusion that it was a green heron, a name which makes perfect sense, seeing as how there isn’t the slightest bit of green on the bird whatsoever. It eventually flew away, however, and despite our checking on it every hour or so, the turtle on the bank showed no signs of doing anything more than just sitting there being turtley, so we all eventually gave up and went back to doing actual work. Ah well.

Today the turtle was there again this morning, although it had moved a few yards downstream. It was still there when we walked over to Chevy’s for an office lunch, but later this afternoon, it had disappeared. Alas, for the rest of the day there has been nothing more exciting out there than ducks.

It being Palm Sunday, the choir director decided to have us sing a huge pile of music. Included in this pile of music were a song for just the men and a song for just the women. I got to demonstrate, once again, my musical multi-gender tendencies by singing in both of them.

It was a fairly long service, even without a sermon, due to all the singing, but since we were the ones doing most of the hopping up and down to sing it passed pretty quickly. After church I tracked down my knitting-enabling friend, whipped out my knitting bag, and got her to show me how to attach the sleeves. Friday night was craft night so at that point I had her show me how to make and attach the side panels (stupid weirdly sized pattern, grumble), and I finished one of those yesterday. So today’s task was to learn how to do the sleeves, and next Sunday, if all goes as planned, I can get her to walk me through making the button holes, and then this sweater will be all complete. I am torn between whether to be happy about this or worried. After all, Murphy’s Law clearly dictates that the moment I complete this long-sleeved cardigan sweater which is obviously meant to be worn in cooler weather, summer will come early and with a vengeance. Ah well. I am willing to take that chance, if only because I have many other projects to finish this year. Oh yes.

After church we did lunch with my parents at Chevy’s, where I expanded my food horizons by trying their portabella mushroom and asparagus fajitas (not bad, although the asparagus was on the tough and stringy side. Shudder). Then we went home and changed and headed off to Davis because since this sweater is almost done, I am in need of those new needles. I hit the yarn shop first, where I managed to refrain from actually buying any yarn (although I did succumb to the lure of the cutest little container to hold the tapestry needles so I no longer have to rummage through my knitting bag and figure out what I did with them), and then we went to Borders. I had finally made up my mind to get one of the knitting books I’d seen last weekend and didn’t buy then, but unfortunately it was gone. I suppose that was probably for the best since the last thing I need is yet another book of patterns of things that I will never have time to make, but still, sigh.

So instead of buying a book, we got coffee and found a little table in the café section and Richard did some reading while I finished up the side panels of my sweater. There was a woman singing who had a very lovely voice, and also a clever way of working the crowd, so by the end we decided to buy her CD, if only to encourage her to keep at it.

We’ve spent the last few hours watching episodes of season three of Angel, which we both agree is a lot better than season two (even though the last few episodes of season two almost made up for the middle section that was simply too much Darla angst). Richard worked on homework and I managed to attach the first sleeve, and I am actually quite pleased with how well it turned out. I’m not entirely sure I did it the right way, but with the window pane pattern it *looks* like it was supposed to be that way so I am not too worried about it. I did not end up getting the seams aligned as perfectly as I had hoped, but the important thing is that I doubt anyone will notice, and really, if someone is staring that closely at my armpit they have a lot of other issues that are probably far more important than my shoulder seams anyway.

Oh, and by the way, I let Zucchini out of confinement this morning. This evening I took pity on all the poor starving (yeah, right) cats in the house and gave them wet food instead of the usual boring dry stuff. He was one of the first to the plates, and has been inhaling food like there is no tomorrow. I think he is trying to make up for being so sick and not being interested in eating for the last few days (except for what I managed to stuff down his throat with my fingers). So it seems everything is back to the way it it is supposed to be. Now if I can only convince him – and all the other cats, for that matter – that eating stuffing out of cat toys is a bad idea, we won’t ever have to deal with this again.

Today was a good day. It started with sleeping in and ended with gaming and in the middle there was a few hours of being very girly, so it covered all the bases. Plus there were even, at one point, root beer floats, so how much better can a day get?

Richard went off to work out this morning. I suppose I could have gone with him but I decided I would rather take advantage of the fact that Saturdays are the one day each week I get to actually try to sleep in, so he went without me. When I finally dragged myself out of bed there was only about an hour or so left to dress in something pink and floral and inhale some breakfast before I headed over to the church for the annual Women’s Tea Party. I should mention that not only was the dress very, very pink, so were the shoes. Plus I even painted my toenails for the occasion. Will wonders never cease.

This year the theme was teddy bears. Most of the tables were decorated with some kind of little bears, and people had lent out some of their favorite bears as part of a teddy bear museum. We thought at first that my grandma’s bear was the oldest one there since it was from the 1910’s, but there was one bear from 190-something that was almost a hundred years old and thus got to be the most ancient one. People brought in all manner of bears, from thread-bare critters that had obviously been well-loved in their day, to pristine bears that were more likely the sit-on-a-shelf-and-don’t-touch variety. I’ll admit that I prefer the well-loved ones, just because they have so much more personality.

There was tea to drink, of course, and a very light lunch of chicken salad and grapes and a dense whole wheat and seed roll that was probably negative calories based on the effort it took to chew. This was followed by poppy seed cake, and then they brought out the entertainment, which turned out to be the owner of the local florist shop, who showed us how to make floral arrangements in teacups and teapots and old tins. Or rather, she took flowers and containers and did magical things and then tucked a teddy bear among the blooms and told us that we, too, could do this because it was so easy. She was so lively and charming and funny that we all let her keep her delusions that floral arranging is easy, even though I know ours wasn’t the only table possessed of full recognition that if we had been given the same containers and flowers, our versions wouldn’t have looked anything like the gorgeous creations she was producing.

At the end of the tea there were the usual door prizes, although in this case they were all teddy bears. I did not win a door prize, which was probably for the best, although I had my eye on a few of the very small ones because I thought they looked like just the right size to add to Rosemary’s slowly growing collection of Things To Carry Around The House While Beeping Pathetically, and one should always encourage this behavior in one’s cats. But alas, the only thing I came home with was some extra poppy seed cake to share with Richard.

There wasn’t much left of the afternoon after the tea, so we slumped around the house half-awake until we realized it was almost game time. I zipped off downtown to get root beer floats and also picked up some KFC, and then as we were setting up the dining room table I suddenly remembered that I had promised my knitting-enabling friend that I would return her yarn winding contraption to her today and I still had three more rather messy skeins to wind. Shortly thereafter the others showed up at our house for the monthly gaming session (in which, among other bits of excitement, I got to take out half a city block with a fire ball. Oh yes I do love playing a sorcerer, and also yes, I know I am a big nerd). Throughout the entire session I hunched over the winding contraption which I hooked to one of the chairs and squeakily wound the rest of my yarn, sometimes even without any feline assistance. Somehow I managed to get it all done, and now there is a large bag of yarn balls in the guest room upstairs, just waiting for me to finish up this sweater and start something new.

We’ve had quite the wind storm in the last two days around here, to the point that driving to and from work was a challenge in keeping the car in my own lane. So it was not a complete surprise when the power started flickering in the house this evening, and it was only inevitable that a few hours later the power went off completely.

It wasn’t so big a deal for me because I was at choir practice at the time, but Richard ended up camping out at Starbucks (the only place open that late) for a few hours to at least be able to work on his homework (a feat which requires light). So after choir I joined him there and played backgammon on my Palm Pilot and sipped a chai tea latte for about an hour until it was time for E.R.. Since the power was still out at home we ended up going over to my parents’ house to watch it there. I think if we’d been home we might not have bothered with that kind of effort, but we were already loitering around town taking advantage of other people’s electricity, so this was just a continuation.

After the show was over we gave up and went home, since normally one does not require electricity to go to sleep, but luckily the power had finally been restored in our neighborhood so we didn’t have to stumble around the house in the dark. This also meant that I could see what I was doing when I checked in on Zucchini, and could see quite clearly the huge nasty pile of hairball and slime he had puked onto the floor. This might normally not be cause for celebration, and before this week I would never have thought I’d be so happy to see something so disgusting. But that hairball means that he does not have to go in for surgery after all, and that maybe, just maybe, he’s all better.

I noticed he wasn’t eating when we fed the cats on Monday night, but that sometimes happens with him and it’s not been a problem before. But Tuesday morning he didn’t come out to eat and he’d been throwing up periodically all night. I gave him some hairball medicine, but by Tuesday night not only was he not remotely interested in food, he was lying in a little ball in one of the cat beds by the fireplace, lethargic and reeking of cat puke and obviously sick.

X-rays Tuesday night showed an obstruction in his stomach which – based on the shape and the shading, looked like it was probably the mother of all hairballs. Most of the time cats can pass this sort of thing on their own, but every once in a while things get so impacted that it can just sit there and mat tighter and tighter, and refuse to exit through any of the usual methods. Wednesday after work I took him in for x-rays again to see if things were progressing, but there was no change. And this afternoon the third set of x-rays showed the same problem. This afternoon we finally decided that he needed surgery to get this thing out. Tomorrow morning I was supposed to drop him off so the vet could cut him open and remove the offending clump of nasty goo.

So when I saw that huge mess on the floor this evening I admit to giving a small cheer. And at least now I know what caused the problem. Someone (I suspect Rosemary, since she’s usually the toy shredder of the house) has been recently disemboweling some of the cat toys, and there’ve been a few times in the past week or three that I’ve found great wads of stuffing draped all over the floor. Apparently at some point Zucchini decided this stuff was edible. Guess what. It’s not.

He’s not out of the woods yet, because there’s still the possibility some of this has lodged itself in his intestines and could be causing blockage there. He’s still going to have to remain confined and under observation for the next few days until we’re certain that everything is moving along like it’s supposed to. But after the force-feeding and the daily visits to the vet and the worry and all the worst-case scenarios that have been running through my head, what a relief to have such physical proof that the worst seems to be over.

There was no riding of bikes today either, but there were much better excuses than hanging out at bookstores or eating tandoori. Today started with choir practice, followed by frantic practicing of the piano (by me) since I was the accompanist for the church service this morning. I’d called my dad earlier in the week to see if he wanted to play recorder with me on the song for the prelude, but it turned out that the song really wasn’t going to work. Of course we didn’t quite finalize that until this morning, so there was a short and frantic scramble to find a substitute song we could play.

After church we all headed home to change and eat lunch (highly nutritious peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches for us) and then Richard and I headed over to pick up my parents before driving down to Concord for a play. We overpadded the time needed for the trip, so arrived with plenty of time to poke around REI and drool over the highly overpriced biking gear. And then it was time to get our seats, so off we trotted to the Willows Playhouse, where we met Richard’s parents and little sister who had driven up from Campbell, and we watched a spectacular performance of Children of Eden.

I think everyone but my dad had seen the play before, although he was very familiar with the music. The plot is a summary of biblical history, starting with Adam and Eve and ending with Noah and the ark, but the premise of the play focuses on the relationship between people and god, and how both sides learn and grow.

It’s also an extremely complicated play to put on. Not only does it require a huge amount of costume changes and characters, but it also requires a huge amount of talent. There are so many parts with solos and harmonies that only a large enough and strong enough cast can pull it off.

There was a bit of excitement at the end. During the big almost-a-finale song where everyone’s singing and dancing one of the younger cast members took a wrong step and fell off the stage. Since he happened to be on risers on the stage at the time, it was a pretty high fall, especially since he was pretty small. There were a few tense moments while he was checked over, but luckily it appeared he was more upset and embarrassed by the shock of falling and not seriously injured. The rest of the cast was obviously upset by the whole thing but rallied together and finished out the play to well-earned applause.

The only downside to the play is that it tends to be a little long, and with the little guy falling off the stage that stretched the time even longer. Luckily Richard had made our dinner reservations with lots of time in between, and even luckier, Benihana’s was just across the parking lot, so we were able to meander over there with time to spare. That gave us about ten or fifteen minutes to lurk in the lobby of the restaurant and chat. It was a good choice for dinner for this crowd, since any gathering of my family and Richard’s family can never, ever, be quiet or boring. They’re all a lively and humorous bunch.

We cheered the chef, who prepared our meal in front of us, and we flung chopstick wrappers at each other and we did not succeed in getting them to believe that any of us were having a birthday, and we all ate far too much. After dinner there were hugs goodbye and plans made for Easter dinner and then a short trip into Trader Joe’s to stock up on blintzes and other goodies that can only be found there, and then, finally, onward we went to home from a long and wonderful day.

I am beginning to realize that making a mileage goal for the year may not have been the best idea. This is because every time we decide to do something besides ride our bikes, especially when the weather is as perfect and wind-free as it was today, I feel guilty. I should not have to feel guilty about taking a break from exercise, darn it. I go to the gym three days a week and heave weights around and spend time on the recumbent bike, for which my thighs may never forgive me. I also go splash around in a cold pool one day a week and do endless eggbeaters, another thing for which my thighs (and my knees) may never forgive me. Okay, so it’s not miles on the bike, but still, it has to count for *something*, right?

But anyway, enough about the guilt. Today was one of those perfectly lovely and lazy days – too nice to feel any guilt over. We slept in a little and then we headed in to Davis for waffles, and then we decided to meander around town for a little while since it was so lovely out. We walked over to the bank, and did a quick brose of the gaming/comics store (for Richard, because he is, after all, the bigger nerd of the pair of us), and wandered around the Farmer’s Market, buying the largest satsumas I have ever seen, and a wedge of some kind of cheese, and a bunch of baby carrots that looked as if they had just been pulled straight from the ground. After that we went home to do vaguely productive things like homework (for Richard) and sewing the sleeve seams together for the sweater I’m knitting (for me). I am actually rather excited by this because the sweater is at the point now where I can start putting all the pieces together and finally finish it. Of course the weather will be too warm for me to wear it when it’s done, but there is always next year.

Then, because Richard was getting antsy to get out of the house and because I was willing to tag along, we returned to Davis. We spent a few hours at Borders sipping coffee and smoothies and eating dry and tasteless scones. While at Borders I started knitting my next project, but it turns out I will need smaller needles so I ended up ripping the whole thing out. Why I did not think to swing by the wool store and buy those smaller needles while we were in town I do not know, but if nothing else, I spent some time sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the shelves flipping through books of knitting patterns. I am very proud of the fact that I only ended up buying one, even though I was so very tempted by about half a dozen more.

We went for Indian food for dinner because it has been far too long since we had salmon tandoori with extra onions and naan. Plus there was the added incentive that our favorite restaurant had finally reopened after what was apparently a very long remodel. We sat in the restaurant and looked around and tried to figure out what had been changed, but finally had to give up and ask (it was a remodel of the kitchen).

The salmon tandoori was just as delicious as we remembered it to be, and the naan just as marvelous. Normally we follow the meal with chai but last night we wanted to get home in time to watch Kingdom Hospital, since it was usurped from its usual time this past week by a stupid basketball game. I am trying very hard to like this show since, after all, it is by Stephen King. But it is moving at slightly less than glacial speed developing any sort of plot, to the point where I am beginning to think that I could probably skip every other episode and not fall a bit behind in what’s going on. I’m a little apprehensive because I remember King’s latest miniseries (Rose Red) with no small amount of sadness for its cheesy badness. However, I am not willing to give up on Kingdom yet, if only because I find the entire premise of a fanged anteater amusing, and also because it is, as I mentioned earlier, by Stephen King and so I must cling to the hope that somewhere along the way it will all turn out okay.

The past month we’ve tried a little experiment. Instead of chasing three cats around the house and trying to lock two of them in one room and the third in another room, all with their own special kind of very expensive prescription food while the remaining four cats scream at us from the floor and mill around our ankles doing their best to trip us so they might get fed too, we decided to hold our breaths and switch everyone to the most popular of the prescription foods, since all the cats had already proven they were more than happy to eat it. I think the fact that it is far more expensive than their other food probably had a lot to do with why they were all so happy to chow down on the new stuff.

Anyway, at first the experiment seemed to have been a success. After all, one of my biggest fears was that Tangerine would get sick again, since cats with irritable bowel syndrome tend to be prone to having nasty reactions to certain grains and proteins used in cat food. Plus my attempts to get actual information about the topic from Hills (the makers of Science Diet) met with miserable failure, due to the fact that the person who answers the customer support emails seemed completely incapable of answering a simple yes or no question, and instead felt that sending me pdf’s of nutritional information I can easily get by reading the damn bag (and which did not answer my question, which was why I tried to contact them in the first place) should be sufficient. Thank you, Hills, for nothing.

But I digress. Despite my worries, Tangerine seems to be perfectly happy and healthy and her recent daily trend of having at least one mad dash up and down the stairs at top speed followed by a race around the downstairs circle while narrowly avoiding crashing into at least two other cats and possibly one human seems unabated. All the other cats have been eating the food and acting healthy, plus there was the very lovely added bonus that if this worked out we could go back to free feeding and not having to plan our lives around getting home to feed the cats.

Alas, as nice as it was while it lasted, the experiment ultimately failed. I took Rebecca (aka crotchety old lady cat) into the vet on Monday afternoon for yet another round of blood tests and discovered that her levels of whatever the heck it is they measure to test for kidney disease have climbed even higher, which requires that she go on a prescription diet. And, of course, this prescription diet is exactly the opposite kind of diet that the other cats need, and now we are right back where we started. Well, not really as bad as all that, actually, since now it’s only one cat we have to chase around the house and since there are two humans, one human can be getting the food for the rest of the horde so the other human can snag the ornery little tortoiseshell without fear of being tripped while climbing the stairs.

Excuse me while I geek out on our garden for a few moments. I am happy to report that, unlike the creepers we planted between the stepping stones around the flower bed this summer, the little perennials we put into the flower bed itself have so far remained alive and actually started to do a teeny bit of growing. Not enough to make them look any less pathetic, mind you, but it’s a start. I give full credit for this amazing occurence to the fact that – unlike the creepers – I am actually remembering to water the new plants. Amazing what a little bit of sprinkling will do to keep your brand new greenery from getting brown and crispy.

Also, what is even more exciting than the fact that they are still alive is that they have actually managed to produce a flower! One of the evening primroses has produced one perfect yellow blossom.

I am impatiently waiting for the rest of the new plants to get busy with the flowering as well. After all, the white peach tree gave quite a show of pink there for a few days, and the climbing roses over the arbor gate just recently burst into bloom. So the rest of the plants need to get with the program. Make with the pretty, darn it!