Police Log

Some recent updates from the Police Log. Handbag Missing A 72-year-old Plymouth Meeting woman told police her handbag went missing after she hid it in a bush outside her house on the 2900 block of Sheffield Drive, according to June 28 incident report. The woman said she put the handbag in a bush because she saw a man she did not know walking toward her as she was getting something out of her car. When she went to retrieve the handbag it was gone. Disturbance A female reported to police on June 22 that she wanted to report an altercation she was involved in earlier. The female reported that she pulled into a parking lot in the 100 block of Crawford Avenue and found another vehicle parked, not diplaying a handicap placard or plate, in a disabled person's spot. The female obtained the plate number of the vheicle as the driver was leaving and then contacted plice to report the incident. Police are still investigating.

Take this quiz: You know you're a cat weirdo when...

We have a new cat visiting us. It's a very young kitten who's been following Gray Kitty around. We call him/her "Black and Whitey" because of his/her coloring, but we're trying to come up with a new name. I think "Orca" might be a possibility. We also have an occasional visit from a white and orange spotted cat. All of these cats have led us to wonder if we've become cat weirdos. So here's a test: You know you're a cat weirdo when... 1. You're excited when a new stray cat shows up outside on your deck. 2. Every morning you check the deck to see if there are any stray cats outside. 3. You worry about the stray cats that you don't see for a few days. 4. You go outside from a different, inconvenient door so as not to frighten the stray cats on the deck. 5. Everyone (you know who you are) sends you a birthday card with a cat on it. 6. All your blog postings are about cats.

Bird Adventure

On Saturday morning, I was in the basement and I opened the door from the basement to the garage -- I forget why, probably to let Whitey or Olive out. Rich always said we shouldn't leave that door open because Olive might bring her prey in, but there was a nice breeze and Olive doesn't really catch animals that often, so I left the door open, carelessly disregarding Rich's sage advice. The next thing I knew Olive was frantically chasing something in the basement and there was a lot of fluttering and squawking. A house finch flew up and perched in the ceiling joists. Olive was beside herself with excitement, but the bird was totally out of reach. He must have known he was pretty safe, because he just sat there on the joist. I left the door open, hoping that he would find his way out without Olive noticing, and went upstairs. Later I noticed a few feathers on the basement floor, so I figured that Olive had won. Nope. A couple of hours later I heard a chirping noise from the living room, and saw the bird sitting in the window. Now what? I managed to sneak up on him with a paper grocery bag and get him into the bag. This time there was more squawking than ever -- he must have thought he was really done for this time. I let him go outside. He seemed to be in good shape because he flew right across the street and headed for a very tall tree. I went back into the house and saw Whitey stalking into the living room. He was undoubtedly attracted by the exciting sounds of an upset bird, which he apparently still found extremely interesting even at his age (pushing nineteen). Luckily at his age he doesn't remember too much about why he's doing something, so I don't think his disappointment at not finding a bird in his house lasted too long.

Still too Lazy to Update

Just a quick note on Peter's classes for the fall. He had two PE requirements so he decided to take them both in one semester. He selected "Circus Skills" and "Outdoor Skills". After hearing about Circus Skills, Mom's Overactive Imagination kicked in and I immediately envisioned the topics of "Lion Taming", "High Wire", "Fire Eating", "Shooting out of Cannon", and "Trapeze Techniques with Hostile Partner". At least I thought that Outdoor Skills would be relatively safe, but then I thought of --
Week 1: Quicksand Self-Rescue
Week 2: First aid for Snakebite (includes practice with antivenom)
Week 3: Vein or Artery? Tips on Using Tourniquets
Spring Break: Rock-Climbing Trip to El Capitan (optional Free Solo )
Week 5: Where is that Bear Cub's Mom?
Week 6: Forest Mushrooms: Gourmet Feast or Painful Death?
Week 7: What to do if Your Arm Gets Stuck under a Big Rock and You didn't Tell Anyone Where you Went
Week 8: Mountain Men of the Rockies: Customs and Weaponry

Update!

Regular readers of this blog have probably been worried that there hasn't been a post for awhile. Is she dead? In a coma? In prison? Rehab? Does she hate us? No, the reason is much simpler, first a lot of travel, then laziness.
Unfortunately, I do have some sad news. Sandy passed away at the ripe old age of 16, only a couple of weeks after her birthday. We miss her but we like to think that she had a full life and didn't really have any medical problems until close to the end.
As for the travel, the first trip was to Orlando for a W3C meeting. Besides lots of exciting work on World Wide Web standards, we also enjoyed a trip to the Kennedy Space Center, where we had a tour and heard a talk by an astronaut. Here I am with some of my colleagues and the astronaut, who is in the middle.
Then it was on to Sarasota, to see Rich's mom and dad, and Aunt Sue and Uncle Mike, where we had, as usual, a nice visit, including a lot of wonderful meals. Rich stayed in Sarasota for a few more days while I went out to San Diego for a conference. Here we are enjoying a meal in Sarasota.

Gray Kitty Those of you with whom we've been in communication by the quaint medium of "telephone" will know that we have a new animal-related project, befriending "Gray Kitty", a (possibly) stray cat that has taken to hanging around our deck mooching for a handout. Gray Kitty likes to sit right outside our kitchen door, meowing loudly for a meal. After s/he gets a dish of cat food, s/he then meows loudly for us to go away so that s/he can eat in peace, because Gray Kitty is afraid of us and doesn't like to eat when we're nearby. Gray Kitty is getting to be  quite at home in our yard, having been observed chasing away another (possibly) stray cat(Dark Gray Kitty with White-Tipped Tail). I should point out that while I call our project "befriending Gray Kitty", Rich calls it "stealing the neighbor's cat".
Bad Tree! Another bad tree has fallen into our yard. Well, half of a tree. The other half is still standing in the neighbor's yard, at least for now. This one is very far from the road, which is good in that it doesn't look as horrible as the first one, but bad in that there's less of an incentive to get rid of it. You can hardly even see it from the house. When I told the tree service our address they said "Oh, yeah, the big sycamore tree". (See the December 19 post)

Home Improvements

Here are some pictures of our latest home improvments. First, a fireplace insert with a fake electric fire  and heater. This doesn't look  as cool as a real fire, but it also  doesn't  suck all the heat out of the  house and take forever to get started. The picture was supposed to show me  cozily having a  cup of tea and reading  a book with a cat sleeping on my lap, but the cat (Olive) declined to cooperate and had to be held on my lap  with a death grip  while the picture was taken. That's why she and I both look a  bit tense  in the picture. After taking the fire picture, we  retired to the basement pub (still not named! please see earlier post!) to take the other picture, which  shows the new bar after the wood was finished, along with our new fake tree. We're trying to achieve  the atmosphere of a "fern pub".  Since there's almost no natural light in the basement, this has to be done with fake greenery. On the other hand, if we wanted to work with the natural light, the other option would be to have a "mushroom pub".

Sweet Sixteen!

The year is 1992. Sarah is halfway through first grade at Plymouth Elementary. Peter is working on learning shapes and colors at Windmill Day School. The 1992 Presidential campaign is starting up, with the race becoming an eventual showdown between Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Ross Perot. There are 26 servers on the World Wide Web. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, a litter of precious blond cock-a-poo puppies is born, including one dainty young girl. Two months later, we brought that young lady home and named her Sandy. Our cats, Whitey and Gus, were not terribly pleased, but eventually they all came to tolerate each other. Sandy is also known affectionately as "Sandom", "Sanj", "Sandypants", and "Sanjmeister". Sandy still gets the paper for us in the morning (see the post "Sandy gets the paper" from November 11), and enjoys her hobbies, which are mainly sleeping and barking. Let's all wish Sandy a happy 16th birthday!