Still Strangely Balmy

Went walking at Seven Lakes. Here's what it was like this time last year. A bit different this year:

Dreaming of a wet Christmas

Unlike last year's Christmas, today we have electricity and the temps outside are in the upper 40s and, instead of being treated to 2' of ice and snowfall, we only got a slight drizzle of rain mid-day. Simon got an itching for mince pies and here is his first attempt ever: half gf and half for "normal" people. [in the interest of full disclosure: the mince pies were from Monday - I made them to take into the office because we - the department - were meeting to make a shortlist of people to fly out for interviews and I thought we needed fortifying.  To my amazement, they all got eaten.]  Take a look now as it won't last, not only because all the presents will soon be harvested but because the tree is already seriously painful to touch and will find itself curbside very soon.Sylvester's point of view:Frederick climbed onto Grandma's lap and we heard the creak of bones bending under the weight. Sylvester is happy every day.This is the best part of winter--and now we have so many good, new, books to read!As Sylvester snuggled onto our bed covers this morning Simon said, "Sylvester sure loves people!" Immediately after Sylvester jumped up and threw himself onto Simon's calf and worried it with his pin-sharp teeth. Yes, he does LOVE people. Thomas dragged himself out of bed at 1 this afternoon to join us for present opening. An hour later, still bleary-eyed from lack of sleep his managed to stay upright long enough to eat Christmas dinner. I'm completely exhausted and ready for bed, from the shrieks of laughter and loud raucous music I hear coming from his room, Thomas is just gearing up for a long night. We should have just given the cats big stacks of empty boxes.Simon wanted everyone to see both his snazzy sweater vest and his fancy hat.Frederick worked all week on a Christmas surprise present for Simon and me. Here it is:We opened the box to find a snuggle blanket made up of two layers of fleece that he not only picked out, but cut to size and hand-tied all the edges himself.  He squealed with excitement when Simon showed it to everyone. It's now on our couch where both humans and cats can take full advantage of it.Simon is pleased that he received something that no one else cares about  [Jami doesn't realize that I'm holding Grandma's present to all of us, and she's actually being tactless].

Last (and First) Concert of the Year

This was a week ago but still worth posting. This is from Thomas's first wind ensemble concerts. They performed several slow songs and a few Christmas numbers but I like this one the best. You can see some fancy finger footling done by Thomas.

It's not just beeping like it was in my day

Thomas had his first concert with the FYSO last night. As usual, it was at a high school that I have never been to before, so we had to do the usual wandering around vast hallways, looking for the auditorium. Fortunately there was not a basketball game going on last night as there always seems to be when we have to do this as my usual rule of "follow everyone else" only gets me to the gym, then. Now that Simon is a whiz (nobody beats him) at uploading humongous files onto YouTube, we can show complete songs without having to ask OEL to get us access to UM-Flint's server space. We'll spare you the Holiday Pop medley (which was designed to induce singing) and show Thomas's favorite, which is a Nintendo Video Game medley (hence the post title). I didn't recognize any of the so-called tunes (Thomas's current ambition is to become a video game composer, and apparently that's a Real Thing), but it is a snappy number nonetheless:
Tonight is the Wind Ensemble concert and then, finally, we are FREE to start thinking about holiday breaks (after, of course, we get through next week, the last week of the semester).
[Weird note: better watch that video soon because it's been flagged by YouTube because one of the tunes (according to them, from a game called "Kingdom Hearts") is owned by Disney! So: they have a program that scans through all of the billions of hours of videos uploaded to YouTube and can recognize music - even when it's played by children! Either that, or they have an army of magic lawyer elves.]

It's Always Something

Sunday evening Simon and I were watching tv when we heard a POP and a loud WHOOSHING noise come from the half-bath just off the living room. We ran over to the bathroom to find water spraying up from the floor all over the room, which was already more than an inch under water. Simon faced the intense spray and found the problem, the in-line going to the toilet tank had sprung a leak right at the gasket attaching the line to toilet. So, we shut off the water, swabbed up the gallons and gallons of water (repeatedly shoving a curious kitty out of the way who was seriously worried about his litter box floating away) and then put a sign on the toilet "Out of Order." Given that it was a Sunday and just before one of the busiest weeks of the year, we decided to put off dealing with plumbers for a while. "Good thing it didn't happen while we were asleep!" I said. Whew! Just imagine what a disaster THAT would have been. Well, we didn't have to strain our imagination capacities for long, as this morning, about 6 am when it is pitch black out, Simon got out of bed to find the upstairs bathroom had flooded (because the toilet up there had sprung a leak), the water had seeped through the floor into the kitchen, which was completely flooded and water had both run down the stairs into the basement as well as seeped through the floor into the washer/dryer room and flooded that room. So, we shut off the water to yet another bathroom (and how long before the basement toilet would explode, spraying water all over the place?) and began sopping up the worst of it. Amazingly, a plumber was able to get out this morning and fixed the half-bath toilet in a jiff but was completely at a loss as to what caused the problem upstairs: no broken pipes, no cracked gaskets, no rotten seals...nothing whatsoever was wrong with the toilet. Their advice? Shut off the water line after every use--CERTAINLY whenever we leave the house for even the shortest trip. Great. Just great. This is not a picture of a baggy backside but of our ceiling, saggy from water damage and still creaking and groaning under the weight of water retention. So add "hire someone to plaster new kitchen ceiling" on our list of Things To Do.

Fiend in Feline Form

Ahh - isn't he cute!

Look at that - adorable!

But wait, what's this? You don't belong there!

Get out of there!

And that's not counting all the times he savages our ankles, or indeed any other exposed flesh. Every once in a while we'll hear Frederick say "Ooh!" and it means we have to rescue him from a savage kitten-attack.