Today was my last day at work for a couple of weeks. I still have work to do, but I am no longer on any kind of clock other than one meeting I’m supposed to call in to tomorrow morning.
I don’t take traditional vacations very often. You know…the kind where you get on a plane/train/boat and go somewhere a long distance from home. There are lots of reasons why this is the case. Firstly, we have a house full of cats that are more our children or our demanding house guests than something so crass as a “pet”. We can’t very well take them with us: most hotels frown on guests with six cats. And it takes a lot of arranging to find someone trustworthy enough to care for them who has time to do so that just happens to correspond to when we want to take our vacation.
There were two news stories on my desktop today that, individually, were sad tales of accidental death. But side by side as they were, they pointed out the difference between a life well spent and a sad waste.
My previous post was angry, and looked at the worst aspects of the human animal and how some can sink to levels that might drive me to violence against them. I find it really difficult to soften my feelings towards the two teenagers involved.
It was 38 degrees Celsius here on Wednesday. It was about 32 today, and about the same on Monday and Tuesday. I like warm weather, but “warm” to me is 25 degrees.
We’d probably have central air conditioning in our house if this kind of weather was common. Instead, we make do. Our house has “top opening” windows, so in-window air conditioning isn’t an option for us either. I bought a portable AC unit a couple of years ago, the type with the big hoses you are supposed to route through the window…but guess what? There isn’t any real way to mount the hoses / vents in top opening windows either. I can jury rig something with tin foil and cardboard (I’m serious), but it is generally more hassle than it’s worth.
I’ve been working a lot lately, scrambling to catch up with some application programming work. Part of this is a result of being behind the technological curve in terms of the particular programming environment I’m working in (J2EE/WebSphere/Hibernate/Spring). Suffice it to say I’ve been working some overtime.
My back problems flared up today big time. I have some hinky stuff going on with my C4/C5 vertebrae- arthritic growths/bony spurs, microfractures, and stuff like that. Once in a while something happens and the bones pinch the nerves that run through/near them, or at least that’s how it was explained to me.
Earlier this week I was relaxing in the back yard reading a book. It was about 6:00 PM, and was starting to cool down after reaching 25 degrees Celsius or thereabouts. I heard a rustling sound in the vines and some odd “chuff” noises from the corner of our gazebo. I looked in the direction of the sound, and saw Mama Raccoon hanging upside down and peering at me.
Earlier today, my wife and her parents noticed a raccoon walking through our back yard. Later, the ‘coon came back, this time poking around under our deck. This time, I got a look at her (I’ll explain the gender assumption in a moment): she is huge, easily twice the size of our largest cat. I’d speculate that she’s 30 pounds, give or take. And she seemed to have absolutely no fear: I stepped out into the back yard, and she turned around as she walked towards our gate and looked at me before walking off. Our cat Rommel was out in the cat run, and fluffed up/hissed at the raccoon at this point, who completely ignored him.
