Kayla's Turn

It occurs to me that I have 2 posts about fun things I've done with Artie but I haven't posted anything about my adventures with Kayla. A few weeks ago, Kayla and I, along with Scott, Jonquil and Jason, went to see Wicked. Wicked is the story of Glinda and Elphaba, otherwise known as the Wicked Witch and the Good Witch from Wizard of Oz. As The Wizard of Oz is Kayla and I's favorite movie, I promised her we'd see the musical if it came to Detroit. The book Wicked is also excellent but I would say its best for readers over age 15. Kayla loved the show and sad G(a)linda was her favorite character because she was so silly. Her favorite line was "Something's wrong. I didn't get my way." During the intermission, Kayla leaned over to me and said "We should go to more musicals like this!" I agree.
Since the show was the same day as Kayla's last day of school, she spent the night with me. The next day we went to the new IKEA in Canton. We had a great time checking out all the room layouts and picking out the stuff we'd buy if we won the $1000 gift card (which we didn't). We also tried to find a new chair for my living room but we seemed to have wildly divergent tastes. Kayla likes this one, the Lycksele Lovast because it folds out in to a bed. I like the idea, especially after I discovered what a bed hog she is. Personally, I'm more of a side chair with arms kind of girl. For example, I am thinking about the Lillberg or the Lund Bjuv.
Following our tour of IKEA and some lunch, we visited the Scrapbook Zone in Farmington where I gave Kayla $10 and pointed her in the direction of the dollar section. She found some great die cuts of the Wizard of Oz along with a small 6x6 scrapbook and some karate stickers. That night, I we made turkey tacos and drank sparking apple cider (from IKEA of course) toasting to a fun weekend.

Do the Wave!

This weekend, I took Artie to his first ever Detroit Tiger game. I'm not sure he really got in to the whole game like he did the Piston's game last fall but, he did have a good time and of course, took lots of pictures. The tickets were provided free of charge from Variety, the Children's Charity through my volunteer work at Care House of Pontiac. All the kids in our group got free t-shirts and a souvenir of his or her choice. Artie, not surprisingly, went for the mini-bat.
The Tigers were playing the St. Louis Cardinals in the 3rd game of a Interleague series. They beat St. Louis 4-1 rounding out a sweep of the weekend series. The Tigers are amazingly playing well over .500 ball in fact they are the best team in baseball right now. After years of disappointments, its almost like a dream. Could it be we'll have baseball in October in Detroit this year?

The rest of my weekend with Artie primarly consisted of hanging out at the pool. Artie made friend with 2 "big kids" in my complex who were happy to trade cannonballs and shark attacks with him for hours on Saturday. Thanks Anthony and Joe!! I still think Artie believes those guy are kids instead of grown men in their late 20s.

All the pictures, good bad and ugly, are on my Flickr site and if you click on that picture of Artie up top, you'll go right to 'em. I was really pleased that the only shot of my cannonball is the splash.

These Inmates are Running the Asylum

I'm not one of those wierd "cat ladies" or anything but I do have 2 cats. Two cats with highly neurotic personalities.
If I had a camera in my hand right this second, I could take a picture of Parada climbing the screen of my sliding door. She's between the screen and the glass door. Why? I just don't know. I believe Parada is part or all monkey. When she first came to me, via Beth Gifford, I struggled with a name. I am a strong believer in naming cats based on their personalities. Parada has this tendency to purr really loud, moreso when she's up to no good. But nothing purr-like was fitting. She also bends her tail back toward her head, much like a ring tailed lemur. I checked in to the names of the lemurs in the movie Madagascar but I guess they don't have names. I ended up with Parada which is a down and dirty version of "Stop that" in Spanish. It could also mean "get down" or "enough already" but apparently it means nothing to her. She doesn't listen much. She also takes full advantage of guests to the house. Apparently, she has the idea that I won't make her get off the counter if someone is there (wrong). She has also learned to follow her antics with this cute little head tilt, cuddle with your feet and lay belly up manuever.
Now Mina, she's a little more chill. To the point of being cold. Unless you have her brush or any brush that looks like her brush. Then she is a total cat slut. Oh, and she likes men more than women too. Me, I'm just the lady who fills the food and water bowls. Mina isn't really happy about Parada living with us. I got another cat because I thought Mina was lonely after Chandler died. Apparently I was wrong and she isn't ever going to let me forget it. They get along a little better now, SEVEN months later but there is still a lot of hissing and growling in my house.
Speaking of Chandler, I posted a few pictures of the little man on my flickr page. Chandler had to leave us last summer after he got sick, unexpectedly. He was only 5 years old but when the doctor said I was looking at thousands of dollars in medical care, I knew my choices were limtited. The people at the emergency vet were really wonderful and even made an impression of his paw for me as a memento. Chandler thought I was his mother and he used to try and nurse (I think) off this mole on my neck. It was a little strange but I'm sure being dumped at the Humane Society and being the last of his siblings to find a family was a little strange for him. Chandler was part Manx, according to his vet, and this explains a lot of his idiosyncrasies. Manx cats are watch cats; they like to be at human eye level so they will often prefer to sleep on the back of chairs or up on furniture instead of on the floor or in baskets. Chandler also preferred sleeping up by my head at night. He was very protective of me and also liked to hunt mostly catching bugs since he wasn't allowed outside. He will be missed but fortunately, Parada has brought a whole new bag of tricks in to the house. There is no point in looking at eye level or on the floor for her- she will be up, up on top of the cabinets or in the high window sill or even up on top of the 4 poster bed (and I do mean on top of the posts- hopefully I'll get a picure of that soon).