Pet Log

Well, Sarah, if you think that the idea of training a web cam on Hammy would mean that your life is sad, please don't tell me what you think of this. I kept track of the pets' activities one day so  that anyone who's interested in Sandy, Whitey and Olive can see what they're doing on an hour by hour basis. This is a log of their activities from Friday, January 25.

Time	Pet	Behavior	What Pet wants
6:35	Sandy	barking	go out
6:50	Olive	walking on us	breakfast
7:18	Whitey	meowing	breakfast
7:42	Olive	walking on newspaper	Debbie's breakfast
8:00	Olive	stand by door	go out
8:02	Whitey	stare at kitchen	someone to check his dish in case it's empty
8:00	Sandy	barking	unknown (Whitey's breakfast?)
8:41	Sandy	dogging footsteps	go out
8:45	Olive	wistful looking at dish	snack
8:50	Sandy	roll on back	ear scratching
11:20	Sandy	martyred look	go out
11:33	Olive	looking at dish with dissatisfied expression	lunch
11:43	Whitey	hop on Debbie's lap	stir food in dish
11:44	Olive	looking at door	go out
12:33	Olive	mournful face at window	come in
12:33	Sandy	barking	lunchtime dog treat
2:02	Whitey	hop on lap, rub face on pen	snack
2:05	Sandy	dogging footsteps, hopeful look	go out
3:23	Whitey	hop on chair	unknown (he forgot?)
4:49	Whitey	meowing, hop on lap	snack
4:50	Olive	restless pacing, baleful look	snack
4:55	Sandy	dogging footsteps, expectant look	go out
6:30	Sandy	nonstop barking	snack
7:04	Whitey	baleful expression	snack
10:00	Sandy	dogging footsteps, hopeful look	go out

Pet Update

All the pets are doing well. Olive's newest habit is attacking a small ear of decorative corn we have on our buffet. When she comes in from outside, she heads straight for the buffet, grabs the corn, and carries it under the table. Here she is grabbing the corn. Although there are several ears of corn in the basket, for some reason, she only attacks one ear at a time. We think the things she normally attacks are all hibernating, so she's looking for something to do. Sandy was obsessed with biting her feet for awhile. We were originally told that she had fleas, and we were scolded for not keeping her up to date on her Top-Spot. This (that is, the part about not keeping up to date on the Top Spot) was true, but it actually turned out that she had sarcoptic mange, which is a disgusting mite infestation. Luckily, it's nothing that a few expensive and time-consuming visits to the vet can't take care of. Apparently people can catch it from their dogs, although it does require a canine host to (shudder) reproduce. This makes me itch just thinking about it, but thank goodness we haven't gotten it from her. She's doing really well now, and has stopped biting her feet.

Arrival at College

We took Peter to Purchase on Monday. It seemed  like Peter had about one tenth of the stuff that Sarah  had, so it was pretty easy to get everything  packed. It's a little over two hours away, not too  bad of a drive. For some reason, Nuvi the GPS wanted to route us directly through New York City, which is on the way, but it's not really a good idea to drive through. We had to override Nuvi quite a few times. Technically it would be a shorter distance  if we went that way, but it would probably take about three times as long. It seemed pretty disorganized when we got there. There  were no signs or anything to tell us where to go or where to park, and when we did get to the office of Residence Life they didn't seem to know what to do. There was no elevator, and Peter's room is on the third floor! I made friends with a crippled dad whom I met inching his way downstairs with his cane. Eventually we found Peter's room, which was already occupied by a sleeping dude, (this is at noon) aka Roommate #1. He  explained that he was still sleeping because he had gone to  bed at 4:00 a.m. and didn't say anything else as long as we were there except that he told us where the Ethernet connection was.  He was playing a game on his computer that was making strange moaning noises the whole time we were there. I kept thinking it was him, but luckily I was wrong. Here's Peter at his desk. Even though the room was a triple, there was plenty of room for Peter's stuff.  Here's Peter hanging the flag of Brittany in his window. After we found the room we went to lunch, unpacked, and then went to the bookstore for a few forgotten items. We went back home after that. It seems pretty strange not to have Peter around. I expect we'll soon be settling into the "empty nest" lifestyle, where we go to bed at 9:00 p.m., buy half gallons of milk, and pay inordinate amounts of attention to our pets.   Well, must go, I think Olive wants a snack.

Party Suggestion -- Burns Supper!

Here's an idea for January 25 (Robert Burns's -- and Aunt Sue's!) birthday -- a "Burns Night", featuring haggis, bagpipes, Scotch, and inscrutable Scottish poetry. Check out the immortal "Address to a Haggis".

New Weather Report! Preparing for College!

One of our Christmas gifts was a backyard weather station, which we finally managed to set up after what seemed like several hundred unsuccessful trips to Lowes for mounting hardware, followed by one successful trip to Radio Shack. We have a wind gauge, temperature sensor, rain gauge and barometer. It also came with software for putting the data on the web. You can see our data by clicking on the new weather link. It's been 40 degrees and raining for the last week. So far then, there's really been no need to check the weather station because the weather hasn't changed. Gearing up to take Peter to college on Monday. Piling up stuff in Sarah's room. Doesn't seem like enough -- what are we forgetting? Supposed to buy "Extra long" sheets. Why? Can't remember size of sheets I bought, will Peter end up short-sheeted? Finally got all of his files/programs off his old computer onto his new laptop, using "Windows Easy (not!!!) Transfer". Hope didn't transfer too many viruses/adware, or at least not the really bad ones. There hasn't been too much progress on the pub name. So far the only suggestions have been "The Babbling Friend", a nod to our nearby stream and the Plymouth Quaker heritage, and "The Coal Hole", evoking the coal mining history of Pennsylvania. Of course French suggestions would be merveilleux (BabbleFish offers le Quaker de babillage, and le trou de charbon).