Pointless cat photos

Because the internet needs more cat photos, really.

This is me not apologising for not blogging, by the way. Life has been busy. I recently officially took on social media management at work, and since that's becoming more and more a part of our marketing it's keeping me on my toes.

I don't really have any other news. Dad and I went out for Chinese food last night because we both have upcoming birthdays and I won't be home for either of them. He was pretty quick to agree to supper when I suggested it, because as a Legion member Remembrance Day is always fairly busy for him. I also had to give him his birthday present early, because it was perishable. What did I give him? Sausages. No, I'm not kidding. I gave him sausages from Big Bend Market, which makes them in-house from local meat. They have other fantastic local products as well, and a great lunch counter. If you're in the Red Deer area you should look them up.

I of course didn't give him the sausages at the restaurant. You know, in case you wondered.

Anyway, that's all I have at the moment. Oh, except for the fact that Dad's washing machine is sounding like it's preparing for take-off. I think he needs to start looking at the sales flyers. Now onto the Turkey Brothers:

Tom was unimpressed with Dad's towel mountain.

The "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" pose.

Bob, chillin'.

Add me with a face cloth and you'll know what it's like to wash your face here. Yes, he stands right in the sink.

Big ol' social media sigh

That's my car covered in snow last week, by the way. My two fans know how happy that makes me.

Anyway.

A few years ago my (former. He has his own room now) office mate started a twitter account for work. I thought he was off his chump, to be honest. What were we ever going to use those silly 140 characters for, anyway?

Most of our advertising, it turns out. And a fair bit of visitor contact.

We were, accidently as it may be, fairly early adopters of social media. We're very active on twitter, instagram, and facebook, and are likely to be on a couple of other outlets soon. We're busy enough that we needed a social media coordinator.

Guess who?

Sigh.

I spend most of my work time these days posting and tracking. If I go for a walk I make sure I have my phone in case there's an instagram opportunity.

I'm on facebook, even though I've always hated facebook.

Life is weird, folks.

I'm not at work today, but I've spent nearly two hours doing work stuff from my phone.



Ah well, could be worse. I still go for walks, even with the phone aspect. We're more connected with visitors than we used to be. I still don't have a computer (if you don't count my tablet since, given that I don't have WiFi...). Well. I suppose the end is that I'm employed to be too connected, but at the moment I can live with it.

At the moment.

For now.

Stay tuned. An alert sounded as I was typing this.





Sigh.

Back in the saddle, sort of. With random photos that have nothing to do with anything.

Bob sits this way by choice, remember.

By the way, these photos really do have nothing at all to do with the blather. Nothing. No false advertising here. Shall we begin?

Back in November of 2014, I was in pain. Lower abdominal pain. I though it was just a nastier than usual period, which sometimes happens as you approach all that menopausal irregularity fun. The problem was, I had an interpreter who hadn't done planetarium for a while and asked me to take her first of two that day so that she could have a review.

That didn't help the pain.

I did it anyway, but asked a coworker if she could watch the second program because I just didn't think that I could handle it.

That night the pain got even worse, and at a certain point in the sleepless night I decided to run a hot bath. It helps a little when I have kidney stone pain. Well, it became obvious as soon as I got in the tub that it wasn't going to work and that something was really wrong. I got dressed and walked to the hospital. Yes, walked. I live close enough that I would have got there well before a cab or a friend would have arrived to pick me up.

Road construction for the new bridge at Dad's place.

 After a longer than necessary wait in an almost empty ER waiting room (I think they figured that it wasn't serious because I walked there. All I know is that I was given an incredibly flimsy excuse when they finally came for me) during which I developed a fever, x-rays basically led to the medical equivalent of OH SHIT when they found gas in my abdomen.

It turned out to be a ruptured diverticulum, and meant emergency surgery, a week in hospital on some pretty heavy antibiotics, and over a year with an ostomy.

Needless to say -- for anyone familiar with mobile planetariums, that is -- I didn't do planetarium for a while.

For those new to the program, I had ostomy reversal surgery at the beginning of April this year. Recovery's been a little harder than I expected, but I'm getting there.

Tom's pose is to remind me that he hates the camera.

This past week I was pulled out of the last day of our Nature School week to do some other programming, including two hours of edible plants and... oh come on, you've guessed... a planetarium program. A program for a youth group that we also used as a training opportunity for a couple of the new interpreters.

Planetarium. First time in over a year and a half. First time since I ruptured. Training. Was I nervous? Not really. I was pretty much too busy being scared to death to be nervous.

But how did it go, Dee? Oh, all right, I suppose. I didn't explode again, which was a good thing. I felt like a bit of a helpless femme because I had to get my interpreters to do most of the heavy lifting (it doesn't hurt very much to lift things now, but I find that I get winded really quickly), but that's partly because I have a hard time accepting help when I should be able to do things myself. As for the program, I guess it was ok. I had a couple of memory lapses, but when it's been over a year since you've used some of the terminology I think that's forgivable.

Back in the planetarium saddle.





I'm not sure if that deserves a YAY! yet or not, to be honest.



I'll let you know.

----------

I'm going to schedule a few garden photo posts now, since that seems to be the only way I manage to post during the week anymore. Watch this space, as they say.

Any moth people out there?

I noticed this outside our back door at work the other day, and haven't had time to ID it yet. I'm curious.

I haven't had time is the theme of the blog, by the way. Sorry for the lack of posting.

And the short posts.





Like this one.

Chickens

This is what's going on at work at the moment. Day-old chicks that will eventually go to the historic site that we run out of this office. They're cute, noisy, and chickens.

I'm not a fan, really.

Oh, I get the whole urban chicken movement, and as long as you only have a couple I'm sure that it's fine. I grew up down the hill from a commercial chicken operation, though. We called it a hatchery, but I think it was a pullet farm. At any rate, my memories of chickens are the exciting smells of the neighbourhood when they opened the barn doors on hot days to air things out.



Yep. You can keep your cute little chicks, friends.

This other thing is just a bit of silliness from a pointless but fun app called Magic Fluids. I'll let you look it up for yourselves, if you're interested. The only reason that I kept this particular iteration is that it looked vaguely space-ish. If you squint right, maybe. Anyway, it's fun and harmless and that's kind of my thing at the moment.



Say it with me now: back to work for me.

A picture of a duck

Ok, two ducks, even though the female's looking fairly headless here.

The algal bloom is partly because we've had a very warm spring (you may have heard about the fires, right?), and partly because the low snow cover has led to low lake levels around here.

We need rain, folks. Get out your best dance, please.

That's all you're getting for today, since this was just a little break from actual work. So, um, enjoy the ducks, I guess.





Or the algae. Whatever floats your boat.

Where I work

No, I'm not officially back yet, but I did go for a walk (in the wind) today. Here's a couple of things I noticed:

Just going down the path.

Neat lichens, tree.

Windy out on the West Lake.

Silver Berry (Wolf Willow) leaves.

Thin-legged Wolf Spider

Balsam Poplar bud.

No blather today, though. Time for me to find some lunch.

Pointless photos of the day: Spring version

 Let it be known that there are things actually growing in Dad's yard, as I found when I was stomping around with the camera (REAL camera) yesterday. This first one is a Pasque Flower or Prairie Crocus, and the rest are tulips and daffodils. To be fair, most of this stuff is growing where the dryer vent heats the soil early, but still, it gives some hope of colour within the next few weeks.

 If the deer don't chew off the tulips, of course.

 There seems to be a lot of tulips this year.

 The deer don't go for the daffodils at all, by the way. That's one of the gardening tips I give people who phone the Nature Centre complaining that the deer are eating their tulips.

That's right, I suggest daffodils instead. Not usually what people want to hear, but hey. If you want wildlife around -- and most people do -- you sort of have to plan for it to be around, right?

Anyway, this is what you're getting today because the Lahore attack (as sadly predictable as it was, on a Christian holiday) doesn't exactly put me in a light blather mood. Especially considering the fact that it's reasonably early in the day yet, and I somehow don't expect that it's the last thing we'll hear about this Sunday.




I sure hope that I'm wrong on that.

Pointless cat photo of the day:

Bob in full Bob pose. Told you it was normal.

For Bob.



That's it for today, I'm afraid. It's been a fairly exhausting week, what with many (MANY) summer staff interviews, getting my final surgical appointments in order, and... Brussels (edited to add Baghdad, sadly), which really shouldn't be the last thing on this list. Still, I guess it's human nature that self will out, even as humanity proves once again that it too often lacks its namesake.

More blathery-type typing in the next day or so, maybe, depending on what my mood does. In the meantime, just enjoy the Bobness.

Just quickly

I need to take more pointless photos. My stored snow ones are rapidly becoming out of date.

I'm certainly not complaining.



Anyway, this is just a quick post for anyone who was wondering about the surgery thing and isn't local enough to have heard the news. Construction flooding at the hospital has closed half of the operating rooms for an indefinite period. This, of course, means that dozens -- probably more like hundreds if you count the smaller surgeries -- of operations have been postponed.

Mine included.

They're going to continue the pre-op stuff to get it out of the way, and reschedule the last blood test when they know my date.

This could, depending on the wait, be a good thing. Yep, believe it or not.

As it was, the surgical date was cutting it awfully close to the start of spring staff training, and since we have pretty much a new crew this year I'm kinda sorta needed. Now, if I somehow get a date even closer to spring training it'll blow, but if (and considering the uncertainty of everything, this seems more likely) the new date is AFTER training, it'll be ok. Or at least better.

So yeah. Limbo again, but this time with the thing in sight at least.



I'll keep you posted. Have a good weekend.

Pointless whatever happens to come out...

The last couple of days I've spent at a teachers convention. It was good -- a lot of new contacts, a lot of updating old ones... and a lot of telling my regulars that I'll be on medical leave.

That makes things real, right?

Yeah, the surgery's approaching. I can't deny it.



I'm not denying it in fact, since I've been letting my teachers know.





It's still weird though. Weird actually wanting someone to cut you open. And for those new to the program, that last statement was literal.

Ah well, it'll happen. And teachers? I'll be back in  the fall. In reality, before then.



I hope.

What do I title yet another jewellery post that may or may not be about jewellery?

First, I should say in regards to the surgery (the end of March for anyone keeping a calendar. For my sister-in-law, my mother's birthday. See if my brother can remember that date...), at the moment I'm fine. When I got the call, the feeling was at last. I've been waiting for so long. Then the feeling became holy crap this is going to happen. That's where that incoherent deleted post came from. Now? I really am fine. I imagine that anxiety will set in in a big way once the date is closer and that I'll start thinking more about what recovery was like the last time, but for now I'm concentrating more on being prepared. Emotionally, physically.... and, let's face it, making sure that my bills are paid and my apartment is clean before the date. Last time was an emergency, for those new to the program, so I had the embarrassment of a mess on top of everything else.

Ok, now on to more frivolous things.

I was on Amazon a while ago because I had the remnants of some gift cards to use up. There was a book that I knew I wanted, but to use up the rest of the amount I was just going to browse. And that, boys and girls, is how Dee habitually ends up overspending with gift cards.

Usually.

This time I instead ended up going to the Deals Store page, which I hadn't ever thought to do before. I know, right? They're going to take away my Cheap and Proud of It card. Anyway, because I'd never been there before I hadn't realised that there was such a thing as Lightning Deals.

Silly, silly girl.

I had a look, and they had me at amber. Well, at silver too, because I'm very much a silver person. Better for my skin tone, and conveniently much better for my wallet. I got the pendant you see here (there's matching earrings as well, but I suck at ear-selfies) for a stupidly reduced price, which lets you know what the original mark-up was. The amber's heat treated (that's how they get the different colours) which isn't my ideal, but the thing seems well put together and, more importantly, looks nice.

Yet more jewellery for my jewellery resurgence, I guess.

I was big on all the stupid but fun eighties jewellery when I was a teenager, but scaled back a lot when I was in university (anyone wearing rings, for example, in a lab with formalin is a bit stupid. Yes, even though you wear gloves). When I started the naturalist thing I wore a bunch of themed earrings because the students liked them. Then that sort of fell by the wayside. And why? Laziness, I suppose.

So why the return?

A rock show. The one where I met the owner of the rock shop that you hear about so frequently. My coworker already knew him, and between the three of us we decided to make a swap of some of our unused specimens for some good pieces of pyrite for our rock programming. And, naturally, I also looked at his jewellery pieces. They were neat so I bought a couple.

I wore them occasionally until one year when we had a week with the same students (we call it nature school) I found out that the kids -- and not just the girls -- were checking to see which rock I was wearing each day. It sparked more learning, and yep, you guessed it. That's when the rock pendants became part of my everyday work wear. They don't get noticed everyday, of course, but they get noticed enough that I've increased my collection.

As you've noticed.





This is the part where I say that it's time for lunch, as my two fans know. It is, and I've typed enough now. I promise no more surgery weirdness until at least mid-March, ok?



There will be more rocks, though. I can guarantee it. Probably tomorrow...

Pointless photos of the day:

 Not in a blathery mood right now (no reason; just Saturday, I guess), so have some cellphone shots instead.

First, Tom the 14 lb cat tries to overbalance a chair. If you're sitting in it when he decides to jump on the back, you feel like you're headed through the window.

Next, Tom demonstrating what a good job the Turkey Brothers are doing of destroying the drywall as they jump up to the basement window. They've also managed to take down the curtain, as you see.

 This one? Bob just being Bob.

He's a bit of a poser, all right.

Finally, my coworker Kathryn and her dog PJ demonstrating some of the instruments we bought at work for use with our music playground.We got a $2000 grant, and let me tell you that it's fun ordering a whole whack of percussion instruments and not being the one to pay for it. Hard to tell from this angle, but there is a LOT of stuff on that table.



Ok, that's it for now. Maybe some blather tomorrow. Or at least tea...

Something

Actually, more likely nothing. I just wanted a chance to use a real photo from a real camera after spending the past little while taking phone pictures for work's instagram. Kind of proving to myself that I do still occasionally take real photos, I suupose.

Even if they're weird.

Oh, there is one something. I forgot to tell you about the last tea sample from that Christmas tea set. It was Strawberry Rhubarb Parfait, and to be honest it didn't do it for me. It seemed like it needed the word"-flavoured" after it, like it was somehow fake. I know that artificial flavouring is listed, but I suspect that it's more about the dried strawberries. Dried strawberry is a pretty strong taste, and it's hard for it not to jump in and announce itself above everything else. Ah well, one tea out of nine isn't bad at all, considering what diverse tastes the company tries to appeal to.

Back to work, then, but for anyone who wondered which of my regulars that I mentioned the other day needed replenishing, it was Quangzhou Milk Oolong (I promise, one of the smoothest teas you'll ever drink) and Chocolate Rocket. Consider that last one morning coffee for the I-hate-coffee crowd.



I'm a proud member, if you hadn't guessed.

Today

Today it looks like this outside the back door at work.

Today's jewellery is a snowflake obsidian marble in a rock cage and some weird vintage 70s earrings.

Today's tea is Cinnamon Rooibos Chai. It's pretty good, but I'm not sure that the apple does much for it. Could be wrong, but to find out I'd have to fish out all the apple bits before I make it next time and that seems kind of pointless. Last night's tea, incidentally, was Mother's Little Helper.  It has peppermint and lemongrass and tastes like peppermint and lemongrass, which is good because it covers up the chamomile. Not a huge fan of chamomile, to be honest. And does the valerian do anything? Oh, I don't know. I was tired enough to begin with, so who knows if it made any difference. Besides, it does make me a little leery. Valerian is a drug, after all. I'm sure that the tea doesn't contain much of it, but still.

Today's test for my father's phone: to see if he could answer a call. He couldn't. The whole swiping thing takes practise, as I know from experience. My own phone's set up very right-handedly, and this lefty took a couple of tries to be successful.

He has managed to send a photo by MMS, though, so things are going pretty well.

Today at work I've looked through over thirty web pages of percussion instruments to help decide what we're buying to help with programming our music park. Brain-draining, but it could be worse.

And speaking of that, I'd better get back at it. Later, then.

Tea of the day:

And a mysteriously silhouetted Downy Woodpecker. He's only here a) to provide some sort of photo for a short post, and b) because the blur of the chickadee flying beneath him made me laugh. I didn't see it at the time.

Anyway, today's (well, last night's since I'm not having any right now) tea is Super Ginger, courtesy of Christmas and my brother and sister-in-law (mostly my sister-in-law). As well as being my art supply enablers, you see, they're also my Christmas tea enablers.

Anyway, Super Ginger is what I had last night, and for which I broke one of my own new-tea rules. In general, even though I like a bit of sweet something-or-other in my teas I always make an effort to try new teas without anything at least once so that I can get a feel for the tea itself.

Not last night, though. I put in a little honey for the same reason that I tried this tea first from the selection, and that's because I don't like black pepper in teas. I mean, I like black pepper in itself; I just don't think it belongs in teas because it masks too many other flavours. Thus, the honey to gird myself somewhat against the pepper. Just a little bit of honey, mind. The tea itself has stevia in it already, so I didn't want to take the chance of oversweetening.

Well, I needn't have bothered. Turns out that ginger is as good at masking -- or at least settling down -- the taste of black pepper as it is at hiding green pepper.

A note to those who don't know: I really dislike green pepper. The only way I can eat it is with ginger beef.

Anyway (again), if you like ginger (and I do), you'll like this tea. As advertised, it's also very soothing to the throat, and helps open up the airways a bit. It would probably be decent for an upset stomach as well, given that ginger is good for that in general.

Would I buy it for myself? Probably. Especially if it was on sale.

Back to work now for me.

Interesting couple of days

 In honour of my father's birthday I thought I'd show you a picture of the cat I gave him, still in its wrapping paper. Or maybe that was just a cat thinking that the wrapping paper was his present?

Sounds more likely.

I also brought a little (read: cheap) present for the Turkey Brothers, which Tom is demonstrating below. You never know with cat toys, as any cat owner can tell you. You might notice that Bob has a very ugly candy cane-ish thing beside him in the birthday paper? That was from a cat toy "stocking" from a dollar store. They lost it almost immediately after Christmas and found it only about a month ago. Now they're obsessed with it.

The current toy hangs from a door and has a dangly mouse that makes an electronic squeak. To these two at the moment it's seeming like cat crack, the way they go at it. They'll probably get tired of it in a day or two, but for now it almost -- almost -- beats the ugly candy cane.

I took these shots with the phone even though I have the actual camera with me because the phone seems to annoy Tom less. I'm still not sure whether it's the flash or the beep that bothers him, but more and more my Tom photos just look like photos of a PO'd cat. Maybe I should try it on silent today and see if that changes anything.

Anyway, what I started out to say is that it's been an interesting couple of days. After a year of planning and design, we had the grand opening of our new displays at the Nature Centre. I'm not talking one or two pictures here, either; this was a $1.5 million project, replacing the thirty year old displays that were put in when the building was constructed. Thursday we were making sure that everything was ready for the sneak preview we gave staff and their families, and Friday was the opening itself, complete with dignitaries and speeches and everything that goes with a lot of money spent. I was on photo (with actual camera) and social media detail, so when I wasn't shooting I had my head buried in my phone, like I always said I would never do.

Ah well. At least it was for work.

I have to admit that after all of that on a sprained ankle I'm more than tired, though.

Anyway. Again. This post got a little delayed because my uncle came over bearing gifts (and if you take blogging over gifts I'd really wonder at you), and now I'd like some lunch. I'll put a panorama of part of the new displays below. It's more fun on the phone where you can scroll through it, but at least it gives a little bit of an idea.

Besides, if you're in the area at all you really should come down on your own and have a look. We think it turned out pretty well, and we're kind of proud of that.

Another quick post

I spent all day in Lethbridge yesterday (about eight hours or so in a car, all told). Spent today twisting chenille stems (long story) and documenting the installation of our new displays at work.

Plus, I have a cold.

Yeah, I'm a little too tired for a blather at this point. Catch you later in the week, probably, because after all we have to talk about the fact that this city now has a DAVIDsTEA at some point.



Maybe I'll go there on my way home. I wouldn't mind some (more) tea.

Bye for now, though.

Phone games

This'll be quick. I have work to do. Actually, that's what led to this.

I was out taking phone shots for work instagram (I'm not on instagram, but work is. I'll give the handle another time if anyone's interested) and twitter, and decided on my way back to the office to try a panorama since I've never done that with this phone. Or anything else, for that matter. Anyway, for a first go it turned out not too badly:

As usual, click on the thumbnail to see the bigger version.

And that's my workplace. On the phone you can pan across the photo, which made Wheat a little jealous since his doesn't do that. Maybe it's a feature of newer Android phones? Dunno, but I'll probably be taking more of these now.

So I have a d.

I also have a mess on my desk. I really need to do something about that.

So yeah, I have a d. And why do I have a d? Well, the short answer is that they're doing a big renovation -- a redesign, really -- of our permanent displays here at work. And that means destruction.

And that means, in the world of museums (of which we're sort of a part), that any of the old displays that aren't being incorporated into the new one are first offered to other area museums, then to the staff, and then... well, I imagine that you can guess.

When it came time for the staff to have their picks I decided that I didn't want anything. I have a small apartment, I'm already trying to get rid of clutter, and the plain fact is that display stuff is usually far bigger than you think it is. I might have wanted a small part of one of the displays that I helped work on if they weren't going to save it, but they're saving it so I'm ok with that.

I was away for a few days because I managed to pick up a bug that's been going around, and when I got in today there was a d on my desk. It's from the main title of the old display. I can't remember if I said anything about wanting it (I might have, jokingly), but somebody took pity on my lack of souvenirs and now I have a d.

And what will I do with my d? Hang it on the wall, of course. What else do you do with a d when you go by Dee most of the time? I'll hang it on the wall, and if people ask about it I'll say that it's to remind me of who I am.

Which it is in a way, I suppose. You can't work in the same job for so long and not have it affect who you are at least a little.



Besides, it's my d.