tribute

it is always sad when a pet dies... but it is even sadder when that pet was as cute as this...

my sister traci's cat...

paul buttons quick

okay, i don't think his middle name was actually buttons, but traci, if you want to do a posthumous modification, feel free...


traci memorializes him best in her email so i will reprint it here, altering only a small swear word paul apparently used repeatedly (i alter it only because there's a chance grandparents and small cousins may at some point read this and well, i guess the grandparents can handle it... it's really the cousins i worry about).

anywho, here is the obituary:

After over six years of telling vets who predicted his impending demise 
to "#$*@ off," Paul finally decided enough is enough.  He (in Steph's 
words) "bowed out gracefully" early this morning.  Paul had a good long 
life, battling early on with a few mental demons (which caused him to 
pee on my pillows and newly-washed clothes) to become one of the 
sweetest (if not always the healthiest) kitties around.  Paul will be 
much missed!
He is survived by his big fat orange companion of 11 years, Mory J. Cat 
(a.k.a. Fatty Pants 2006), who, in his moment of despair early this 
morning, threw up on my bed.
Raise a glass to Paul (I think he would've enjoyed a gin and tonic)!

snoozy

busy day.

time to think about sleeping.

Birthday Alert!

who's celebrating a birthday today?

i can't quite tell from here...

looks like...

someone with sunglasses on...

starting to look familiar...

could it be?

dad?

i was right!

happy birthday dad! (too bad it is also daughter's day. ah well.)

addict's remorse

i'm rethinking the wisdom of deciding to become a regular coffee drinker. before May of this year i'd drink coffee now and then. i liked it, don't get me wrong, but i wasn't like most of you (addicts) out there. i could take it or leave it. i controlled coffee. coffee didn't control me. then, fourth round of finals rolled around and i decided, you know what... it's about time i got hooked on coffee. i mean, everyone's doing it. my friends. my husband. my parents. my in-laws. even my grandparents! what is wrong with me that i can just roll out of bed in the morning happy as a clam?

before: happy as a clam...

something's not right here...

something has to change. and so... i made the switch. i turned into the rest of you. but... was it the right decision??? today, even knowing that the coffee had been made... even having received plenty of sleep... i could barely keep my eyes open to roll out of bed and make my way to the kitchen. i have turned into a zombie without coffee!!!

now: zombie...

people! what if there's some big conspiracy to get us all hooked and then once we are, it's going to be taken away from us???!!!! we're not going to have the strength to fight back!!! we'll be too tired!!! too groggy!!!! this is not right!!! i'm scared for our survival. what if the beans run out??!!! WHAT IF THE BEANS RUN OUT!!!!!!!!

is this what being an adult is like?? grumble...

last post of the weekend

oklahoma update: greg informed me that he and his 2 other remaining teammates won a pizza eating contest against another team: 70-0.

the sun was not sunny

sunday part 2:

the rain finally decided to show up...

so, no gardening for now. i know you are all just tearing up that there aren't any garden photos (but remember, this is part 2 of sunday... and i posted on friday)

instead, i made blueberry muffins...

but, don't ask me how many i ate because i probably won't tell you.

but, i will tell you who killed mrs. inglethorpe...

if you really must know.

books, bugs, beeps

this weekend, as greg is throwing around a frisbee* in oklahoma, the cats and i are enjoying a nice madison weekend. as much as i can, i'm rushing through my current(ly not all that interesting) book so that i can get onto all of the new ones i've recently purchased** or been gifted***:




*okay, he's not just throwing around a frisbee. i will admit that ultimate frisbee takes much more skill than i presently possess.

**the courthouse sells (hardly ever used) books for 1 and 2 dollars! how can one resist?!

***one of these books i'm actually gifting to someone. dad, don't look at them too carefully.

yesterday's sky:

but it didn't even rain.

yesterday at the garden. one veralouie reader asked for a picture of the garden as a whole. my best efforts could only fit it within three photos. for those who haven't yet visited it, it's a 20x20 plot.

from the front left....

that table thing in the corner is not part of our plot.

from the middle....

beatrices... trug... in the middle...
asparagus...beans... potatoes to the left...

garlic...tomatoes... basil to the right...

from the front right...

row closest to the bottom of the picture...from left to right, onions, mystery pepper, cabbage patch kids, lettuce, cilantro.

battle of the clearly immodest beetles...

our strategy in the beginning was to send them on vacation. we'd walk them over to some bushes 100 yards away and let them find their way back. which they did.

they have succeeded in creating multiple generations. babies with small mouths, teenagers with big stomachs, and adults, with... as you can see, a voracious appetite for something other than food.

our vacationing strategy was not doing enough. so, we initiated 'operation squish them.' this has pretty much been greg's job, although under the wisconsin statutes i am just as guilty of their deaths****. how do i feel about these blood potatoes? a little torn*****. i really don't like to kill bugs, no matter how mean they are.

so, with greg gone, i found myself unable to kill the guys yesterday, and yesterday... there were more beetles than ever before. so... (any troy gardeners please stop reading now)... i put them in the green trug, along with some weeds... and... some potato plant leaves to keep them satisfied... and took them over to the weed pile which is... well... very far away from our plot... and hoped that it would take them a long, long time to get home.


****i'm listening to 'to the best of our knowledge' right now and a woman is asking people three questions: what do you live for? what would you die for? and what would you kill for? me... i guess i would kill for my potato plants?!

*****: see ****.

on a less buggly note... look at what i found on some of the mystery beans!

i still have no clue what kind of bean plants they are.

this morning... waiting for the coffee maker to beep at me... beeeeep!!! please...

news and caffeine on the balcony...

more later!

a post! it's about time!

hey! i'm back! i'm sure by now you've all moved on and found better blogs or more interesting things to do with your time. i sure hope not! sorry i have not updated the blog for almost an entire week! you must have been so bored at work!!! or, like me... you were too busy to think about veralouie. well, i thought about it, but never found a good time to update. but here i am! and here is a long post for your enjoyment. i can't say many amazing things happened this past week, but i'll do my best:

wednesday morning: up at 5:15 a.m. to get to a marital property training day in milwaukee...

7 a.m. storms on the way to milwaukee...

our destination: the ubiquitous hotel conference room...

it wasn't so bad. we learned a little, got free pens, free paper, free binders, free donuts, free tea, free water, free orange juice, free mints.

next: over to greg's lab after work and he was in the 'machine shop'... can i just show you how ancient this machine shop is...

no, this is not an antique train engine...

it's a tool of some sort. i'm pretty sure it's the only one of its kind out there.

i did some research on this company...

admittedly i was sort of hoping it would no longer be around. that i would only find something about it in some long gone newspaper. not so. central steel and wire has been around since 1909. but i bet this was one of the first stickers they ever made.

no, there wasn't a shaven metal fete. it's just a little bit messy in the machine shop.

man! south bend lathe works is still around too! but it was founded in 1906... so... so this machine shop really is ancient i swear! it's just that these companies are really successful. anyhow, i can at least guarantee that the last time this machine was oiled daily was 1906.

anywho, next up.... what else... green stuff....

this is potentially a view from our new place...okay, it doesn't look all that impressive from the picture, but can you see the bench for sitting on? that's neat huh?


here's our place! okay, okay, it's not our place. not by a long shot. these are the first couple of places that will be finished. ours is the last place. and ours is one, not two stories. maybe i've already shown you a picture of this. isn't it exciting though!?

here's a garden update...

the lettuce that we planted from seed...

just a view....

the soy beans...

the mystery beans...

the greeeeen beans...

just another view...

we planted morning glories by the fence. this is one of the big guys. none have bloomed yet.

have i shown you these yet? can you guess what they are...

us pear a gus.

our mystery pepper plant...

it appears that we will soon find out what kind of peppers we will be getting.

we brought out camping chairs and sat in our garden plot. hee hee.

uhhh....

our two cabbage patch kids...

more cilantro than we could ever eat...

and lettuce.

look! a tomato plant that's really starting to go somewhere!

hmm... this is a very tragic story...

so, this very pretty moth lands on our potato plants and hangs out... minding it's own business... not being destructive (unlike the potato beetles)... and just, generally, acting pretty and nice. and then what happens? i spray it with the hose. on accident of course. but it shot the poor thing off the plant and onto the ground. but... it was okay... it sat on the hay recovering...
until...
i stepped on it. on accident of course! it was very sad. and for those gapers out there, no i did not take a picture of the accident scene. we'll just remember her as she was.

these guys are garlic...

compared to some of the garlic stalks in other plots, these are truly pitiful looking. many people are already getting garlic scapes on their stalks. i don't think ours will get scapes. anywho, we pulled out a couple we believed to be dead and guess what we found...

these!

mini garlics! or, what will (that is, would) eventually become garlic bulbs. how fun!

these are garlic scapes. not as developed as some seem to get. you use it just like garlic. they came in our vegetable box this week.

just another view...

so, the very first thing we planted in the garden was spinach. it never came up. well, so we thought. but finally one randomly popped up. or... so we think. it could just be a gigantic weed...

what do you think?

next: on the right, just a few of our 40+ tomato plants. yes... over 40 tomato plants. what were we thinking? we just couldn't get rid of the volunteers. even the wimpy ones. so, if you'd like to put in an order for tomato sauce, now's a good time. to the left, our green beans and a few of the mystery beans.

the three beatrices. lovely as ever. the flowers in them are growing steadily. the ferns in the first beatrice are even getting flowers on them.

these are onions that we happen to be quite proud of. just look at them!

this is the trug and some of our gardening equipment. trug... is that what the green bucket is called? i know it's something like that. well, it's the trug now. it holds weeds.

i started these gloves from seed. they've really taken off in the past few weeks. soon they'll be ready for harvest and i can wear them!

cheesy sunset picture...

well, not so cheesy right?

i would now like to update you now on the flowers on the patio because i know you just can't get enough of all of our plants and flowers...

okay, so this chamomile might as well have been dead. i was ready to pull them out and put in something new but greg insisted they were doing fine. and guess what! they revived themselves somehow!

see all those little white things... those are flowers. there were virtually no new flowers on it a week ago. good job chamomile! p.s. i know they're scruffy. they're like the scruffiest chamomiles ever. so tangled.

our daisies weren't doing all that well either because dracula decided she liked them, but, they too are making a comeback...

the balcony cilantro is going to be coriander soon.

and this... this is the pride of the balcony...

we started this (and a few others like it) from seed. it's called painted tongue. odd name yes, but look at how pretty it is! we have been waiting on a flower from these guys for so long and this is the first.

well, that's it for now!