Can we fix it?

yeswecanine
Make your own at obamicon.me

I hereby promise to post a proper entry tomorrow all about our adventures with Mario and Ange.

It hasn’t stopped snowing all day

We’re at about 4 inches of the white stuff now. Absolutely gorgeous out it is, but not good for cameras…

When 900 dog years you be, look as good as me you not. Hmm?
Mr. A takes on allcomers.

Why, Lord Atticus, only you would be so bold. There’ll be a more minimal version in tomorrow’s advent window.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Antarctica

me and the missus
Minutes before my fisheye lens frosted over completely...

I woke up at 7.30, ran to the window to see if it had snowed yet, saw it hadn’t and went back to bed feeling thoroughly crestfallen. An hour later I put the coffee on and saw that flakes of snow the size of old pennies were coming thick and fast and there was at least an inch covering the garden. I waited for DrSita to surface so she could share the sight of Atticus’ first encounter with the elements and then played around for 10 minutes in the garden. La Doctora shot a fair few photos of us which I made into a collage… I chucked a snowball and he pretty much swallowed it whole then started trying to munch through the rest of the garden. Hope he didn’t bury his bone from yesterday too deep ‘cos he’s going to need a pickaxe/ pneumatic drill to get through the earth again.

It was still snowing an hour or so later so I thought, sod it and headed out on me own with me camera, two pairs of socks, pajama bottoms and trousers and two jackets and still got cold. But it was more than worth it, lots of people were out with dogs/ sledges/ kids/ combinations thereof and then I chanced upon a steam train pulling into the station and got a few nice shots. I took a LOT of photos today and don’t want to flood Flickr just yet so I’ll upload them in drips and drabs over the next few days.

We took Atticus out for a walk and let him off the lead in a park which is usually full of squirrels and has cars driving past, today it was perfect because there was nothing whatsoever to chase so he just ran around investigating where the other dogs had been. We fancied another coffee so we dropped ‘Cus back at the house and nipped off to Twin Paradox, the physics-themed coffee shop near our house.

I had to return a couple of DVDs (Man on Wire & Wanted) so I made another trek outside and it’s bloody freezing. Really freezing. Montreal freezing. The news says with the windchill it’s zero F at the moment. Which is… hang on I’ll google it… -17°C (¿¡?!) . Well that would explain why I couldn’t feel my fingers when I got home.  I really should have bought gloves… It’s worth it though. I loves the snow see.

Righty, time to do tomorrow’s Atticalendar…

The lambshank redemption

Shanked
DrPablov and the lamb shank

DrSita got a doggy bag of the leftovers of her meal last night. This morning we had the handover ceremony… He took it straight away to his ‘secret’ lair underneath the pine trees outside… We’ll probably not see young ‘Cus for a while…

There’s always his advent calendar though… Today’s is pretty poor (I’ve had a lot of work on), but tomorrow’s should see a return to form. You’re honour bound not to click on it till midnight though.

No snow yet.

Next stop: Portland

Sita accepted Lewis and Clarke’s offer last night for a post-doctoral position in their Latin American Studies dept. It’s a one-year gig, but they’ll be paying for our moving expenses (U-Haul for our craigslist furniture and limousine for the schipperke). We’re very happy about all this. If you’ve ever written an email to Sita, you may have received a letter this morning about it, if not… Sur-prise!

This also means Sita will finally be Professor Sita with the hat and everything sometime in June with a PhD signed by none other than California’s own Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Oregon is a surprisingly cool place with lots going on, plenty of bars, music and has all manner of parks, dormant volcanoes and borders with Canada to explore. So it’s all good. And keeps our record of never staying in the same zip code for more than 10 months at a time unbroken… It’s still 8 hours behind GMT but maybe the change of scenery will encourage friends and family from t’other side of the pond to visit us again.

The problem with California… and it has many… is that it costs a small fortune to live here. You’re paying a premium just for the privilege of living here and after a while it starts to grate. Especially if you’re not out and enjoying the surroundings to the fullest and just treading water in the (su) ‘burbs. It’s like living in the carpark of Disneyland but paying for a family ticket every day. And it takes an hour to get anywhere in the carpark. And all the cars look the same. And you’ve got a dog. And you were never that keen on Disneyland in the first place. Yeah. Reading back, it’s Just like that.

Talking of dogs. Our neighbours have started feeding the squirrels in the back garden so they’re often running around our little green patch like they own the place. Of course, they don’t own it. Nope, that title belongs to one Atticus Gaytan-Fisher. And he’ll defend the place even if it means flailing blindly against a ground level window until it shatters into small pieces like what happened this morning.

Plus points:

  • He didn’t hurt himself.
  • We live one block away from the DIY shop.
  • It was squirrels he was after, not the neighbours or landlord.
  • I’ve learnt how to replace windows in Victorian style homes and shall put up a page advertising this new service at agaveweb.com soon enough. That’s if Kevin Fennelly isn’t available.

Minus points:

  • He didn’t hurt himself.

Not a scratch. No lessons learnt whatsoever. So I’ve put up cardboard in front of his office windows so he is less apt to throw himself at them. That’s the theory anyway. He’ll probably just start tunnelling.

This evening I’m meeting Fernando from Guadalajara in Amoeba records, San Pancho so I might have a power nap now so I can hit the ground running later over the Bay Bridge. So there you go. Life in the fast lane, Alameda (25mph max).