Christmas, 2009 from Mike C on Vimeo.

I wrote a post for last Christmas that included pictures but never got around to making a video until now. So here it is, a video of our Christmas 2009 get-together with friends and family.

Note: if the video stutters, click on the “HD is On” button so that it changes to “HD is Off.”

Music used:

• Christmas Time Is Here by the Vince Guaraldi Trio from A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Theme from the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack
• Dinah by Django Reinhardt from The Classic Early Recordings, Vol 1

February hasn’t been the best of months. A good friend had a bit of a rough month health-wise. Fortunately, though things were looking a little hairy for a while, he’s doing a lot better now.

Stuff I’ve watched/read this month:

movies & books

tv

Misc. February Events

• 2010 Winter Olympics
• Valentine’s Day
• Family Get-Together
• UFC 110: Big Nog losing (bummer); Wandy winning (cool!)

Jill and Lucy came back from a visit with Auntie Laura the other day raving about a radio show Auntie had playing, Little Steven’s Underground Garage. The music is really cool, much of it neat pop/rock stuff from the 60s. (I didn’t even know Soupy Sales had a catchy tune called Your Brains Will Fall Out.) Note: though the music is great, the web site is pretty terrible.

We usually listen to music while we play, so the kid is already developing her own taste about what she likes. (note: the kid just dropped by again. I’m running late!) She’s even got to the point where she’s curious about making music. Jill and I will do our best to encourage this curiosity. Who knows, maybe she’ll turn out to be another Soupy Sales! Probably not.

Other examples of Lucy and music:

• Dancing (and Falling Down) to Green Day
• Just Making Noise

Oh well, I’m off to play blocks. Bye.

Lucy put on a cat show last night. She made a podium out of some boxes, and the three of us judged the cats. Since there was a tie, madame had the deciding vote on the winners.

Here is the winners circle…little grey checked kitten won first prize, followed by yellow kitten and Jiji. Notably absent was…

Here’s a pic of Lucy and I with some cool cards she made with her mom. It looks like some bed-head made it into this pic!

Here’s a pic of us playing Lucy’s current favorite game. Wubie always pops up whenever we bust out the board games. Also, a close-up of a Valentine’s Day card.

Feeling inspired, Lucy ran up to her easel and drew “Mommy Holding a Valentine.” She was very proud of it. Her style is changing so much as she grows up, getting much more representational.

Above you can also see how Wubert got “volunteered” for our newspaper pirate hat show.

More drawing, along with a visit with Gma Vita (where we found some time to watch a bit of Pawn Stars.) If you look close, you can see that Gma is holding her own card.

More hat pics.

Here’s one located on an island, reached by a bridge. (Note the mice floating on cake islands.)

The other day we built a house for the mouse family which reminded me of the Guggenheim museum, hence the title of this post:

The mouse family inside their new house, they also got some furniture this build:

An overview shot, and a clue to how long it lasted:

He endures from her things which he would never tolerate from anyone else…like being dressed in hats and covered in blankets.

He has seen her grow from a tiny baby, and it seems he knows her vulnerability, and that she is little, and still growing.

He loves to play with her, and when she is asleep, he often sits next to her, watchfully, or if it has been a very long nap, prods her to wake up so he can play with her.

He rarely bites or scratches, unless he is really provoked. It takes a lot to get him to do it, and she almost always deserves it.

Even when he is napping, he always seems to have an ear cocked listening for her. The vet says this is the kind of interaction that will keep him young, keeping his mind active and occupied.

So here’s to you Wubie, the very patient cat!

They rapidly sank past the whipped cream to plonk! in the bottom of the cup, melting, and upping the chocolate factor. It wasn’t bad, but it was very filling. A few raisins go a very long way.

So the morale of the (very thin) story is, if you happen to be dining at a café with madame, watch yer cups!

It was the worst, especially when you were looking for something important. This video, taken in November, 2009, shows off some of the mess:

Garage Days Revisited from Mike C on Vimeo.

Jill knows me well enough to know that when things start getting messy and unstructured, I start getting antsy. Well, I must have hit my maximum capacity for messiness, because I spent much of the weekend (and part of the week) straightening out the garage.Though it’s still a work in progress, it’s a lot better than what it was.

When I first started cleaning up, I noticed that many of the cardboard moving boxes we’d been using for our junk were starting to break down. The cardboard was beginning to warp and sag. I decided to replace them with 18 gallon plastic tubs.

Though it took a while, during the transition from old, soggy cardboard to shiny, new plastic tubs, I made sure to inventory all of our junk and keep the data in a Google Docs spreadsheet.

Though our wireless network initially didn’t extend to our detached garage, I created a second wireless network with an old Airport Express access point I had and placed it as close as I could to our garage. Luckily, it worked out and I now had wireless access in the garage!

It’s so cool. I can bring a laptop into the garage and use Google Open Docs to help keep the garage in order. I share the spreadsheet with Jill so that at any time she can see if something she needs is in the garage. If she sees something she wants in the spreadsheet she can grab it herself or just say, “Hey, can you grab me that Diddy Kong Racing cartridge? It’s in bin #27.”

Yep, it’s a very satisfying feeling indeed when your techy, geeky, and Felix Unger sides can all meet and play nice.

BTW, this is our 400th post. Can ya believe it? 400 posts about cats, babies, and tv shows. In case you’re interested, here are some past ‘milestone’ posts:

• 300th Post
• 200th Post
• 100th Post