pics – Page 43 – The Books are Taking Over…

How to tell when you have an addict in the home

Addicts are often good at hiding their disease. Some can go years before the extent of their addiction is revealed. Sometimes the addiction ruins their relationships, their job, their finances, etc.

In our case, things are a little different.

This is Bucky, and he’s addicted to The Furminator.

Bucky, also known as Buckminster Charles the III, is the eldest of our pack of furry kids. He rules the house with a mixture of patience, nose baps, and the unabashed understanding that he is simply master of all he surveys by virtue of being a cat. We are simply his staff and, while he loves us and we can occasionally itch that scratch he can’t reach, we primarily exist to feed him and shower him with praise.

Then we brought home the Furminator and everything changed. We’d been looking for a way to more properly groom Smoky. Smoky is allergic to, well, just about everything, and is also prone to overgrooming himself and, um, hairballs. So, we thought that a good grooming tool might be just the thing to help minimize the hairballs and the overgrooming.

Smoky likes the Furminator just fine. Bucky? Well, that’s a whole different story. He’s an addict.

He quite literally comes to us each and every day and demands to be groomed. This, in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. Bucky is, we think, part Abyssinian. He’s got a double coat that’s very thick and while he’s perfectly capable of grooming himself, in his old age, he’s discovered that it isn’t as much fun as it used to be.

Once he discovered the Furminator, all bets were off. He will keep us from our job searching at the computer. He will bat at us, sit on our keyboards and hands, even swat at our faces until we find the Furminator (it is never far from reach) and groom him until he is happy with the results. He does this every day at least once a day. There is no escaping it. If he had thumbs he would do it himself, I think. But alas, this one evolutionary development keeps him from truly taking his destiny in hand and ruling the house.

All this being said, he does look like a glossy and fabulous new kitty. We absolutely recommend the Furminator. Just be prepared. There may be a 12 step program in your cat’s future…

~Kelly

We made it onto Boston.com again

This time they liked the photo of Rerun in the snow.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/specials/020111_readers_snowstorm_photos/#/item-15625

Enjoy,

~Kelly

More fun with random pictures!

That’s right, folks, more photos from my phone’s brain for you. Enjoy!

Seen at Costco. — Worst name and byline for a wine *ever*.

These next two are from that Bridal thing Geoff and I went to at Bloomingdale’s. Um, needless to say we didn’t register for them. The first one elicited a comment from Geoff along the lines of, “I guess that is what Elrond would serve his salads out of?”

So when, exactly, does one stop eating? — It's a leaf. It's a salad bowl. It's a leaf. It's a salad bowl.

Chicken! — A chicken shaped... cheese board?

Gratuitous adorable pictures of Thumbelina napping. On Scratch’s head. Heh.

Kitteh pillow the first. — I haz a fuzzy striped pillow.

mmm, fuzzy WARM striped pillow. — I'm so comfortable I'm sticking out my tongue.

And finally, pictures from a trip outside yesterday with the “puppehs.”

Wait! What was that? — Behold my puffed tail! For I am Defender of the Manor! MROW!

The Three Musketeers. — You shall not pass! Ooh! Shiny...

And that’s it, folks. Hope you enjoyed the photos.

~Kelly

Random photos for you!

I finally offloaded a bunch of photos that had been sitting on my cell phone for a while. As a result, picspam for you!

Are those bedroom eyes? — This is the look he gets right before he tries to eat your face.

Woo! What a view! — Fenway Park at night.

Pretty... — A gorgeous watercolor I saw at an exhibition of art at MGH.

Posted for the last several years in Inman Sq. — My very favorite poster, ever.

BAD Santa!! — The singularly most disturbing holiday image from this past december. His skirt swayed back and forth...

This is what I have so far. There will be more tomorrow. Enjoy the random!

~Kelly

The care and feeding of a wedding registry

This whole getting married this is supposed to be complicated. At least, when you have the large-ish church wedding with the cast of thousands. I get that. That being said I have yet to buy a wedding magazine or leaf through any of the GIANT magazines that I have received “complimentary subscriptions” to in the mail. (Seriously, you get amazing amounts of crap once any wedding vendor gets your name.)

What Geoff and I have done, among other things, is set up a wedding registry. Or, rather, several registries. Basically, I picked out a couple of things that were important to me and let him, with some power of veto, pick out the rest. We set up registries on Amazon.com, Bloomingdale’s, and Macy’s. What I did not anticipate was having to regularly visit said registries and maintain them. Apparently, vendors like to play games with availability of the stuff that they offer up for registries. So, that really cool thing that you actually need? It may just up and be unavailable for no particular reason with no instock date in sight. So, you have to check in regularly and then edit as necessary. This is kind of a pain, but we have gotten used to it.

The nice part about this is that we were invited to Bloomingdale’s for a “Couple’s Night Out” registry party. Having never been to one, and because they’d feed us for free, we decided to go. The food wasn’t bad, the mocktails were excellent, and once the presentation was over, there was a **competition**. As couples, we basically got to run all over the tabletop department and come up with our coolest place setting and then set it up for judging. There were actual prizes. Granted, they were tacky champagne flutes which we didn’t need and I knew that at the time. But, that wasn’t the point. I wanted to win solely for the point of winning.

We didn’t win. Which, in the end, was probably a good thing since the last thing I need is more clutter and wedding related crap in the house. But a took a picture of our cool place setting in its fancy pink-ness. Here it is.

Can you believe the one in the upper left won? — Our fabulous pink and gold place setting.

Anyway, we had fun while at Bloomingdale’s. We did actually learn some stuff, and we met our “Registry Consultant.” Basically, she’s the person that you folks can call if you want to get us something and you are 1) not internet savvy, 2) out of state, 3) out of the country and don’t know how to get something to us without all the stupid international mail and taxes and snafus and whatnot, or 4) don’t have one of the bricks and mortar stores near you. We’re apparently allowed to put her name up and post her info, so here it is. Fabulous Bloomingdale’s lady is Claudia Askew 617.630.6044 She was very personable and nice to us at the party and the customer service the night of was fabulous (aside from the fact that we didn’t win…)

We may go to one of the same type of parties thrown by Macy’s at some point in the future. Or we may not. We’ve pretty much picked out everything we need at this point. (And no, we didn’t do this.) Now we just have to hope that everything stays in stock till the big day. And now for those wedding magazines… anyone need any reading material for the bathroom?

~Kelly

Moar snow pictures!!!

So, as some of you may have heard, and others experienced firsthand, we have a lot of snow this winter. Like, a ludicrous amount.

Naturally, this requires that we take pictures.

As you may have noticed in our last round of snow photos, our dogs are rather big wimps when it comes to snow. Or rain. Or mist. Pretty much anything that falls from the sky makes them upset. Our youngest, and perhaps craziest animal, Scratch, however, has no such compunction. Scratch, originally a barn cat/foundling from Alabama, will literally wade through chest deep snow, burrow into snow banks, and wallow around in it until he gets cold. The fact that he’s wet doesn’t even seem to register.

And so I present to you, Scratch in the snow, both in front and in back of our home. There is chest deep-ish snow in in the back yard where we haven’t shoveled all winter and where I had to shove the door to even get it open wide enough to get out the door with him. You may notice the distinct lack of doggie footprints. Remember I said they were wimps? Yeah, that. Anyway, here’s Scratch in the backyard.

Chest deep snow! — Hmmm, the recycling bin is under here somewhere. I think.

And here are the photos from the front of the house.

Giant front snow pile. — Yes, that's right folks. The snow in the front is up to the front window.

The front yard. — There's shrubbery under there... somewhere...

Kitteh! In the snow! — Scratch inspects the front walk.

Shivering wimpy dog. — Rerun looking for the ideal snow-free place to pee.

We’ll be posting some photos to Boston.com. If they get added to the storm album we’ll link it up here.

~Kelly

Snow!

Well, we had a white Christmas more or less. There was a little snow on the ground from Monday’s poorly forecast Rush Hour storm that snarled traffic and left Geoff in a traffic jam that meant it took him about an hour to get the 4 miles home from his interview.

Yesterday, however, was an entirely different story. This time they got the forecast pretty much dead on. They even got it right that the snowfall amounts would vary *wildly* not only from city to town but from block to block. What started out as light fluffy snow ended up as heavy wet stuff. Trees have come down and at one point about 60,000 people state wide were without power (that’s nothing compared to the ice storm from a few years back.)

Anyway, once we dug out from under our own Winter Wonderland, we took the dogs, dressed them (much to Rerun’s distress) and put them in the AWESOME red wagon my mom got us for my birthday last year. It was intended as a Brimfield accessory, but it has all terrain wheels, so we figured we might as well try it out in the snow.

Behold, photos! Of annoyed Chilly Dogs! And snowed in trucks!

View from the front door, BEFORE shoveling. — Do you see stairs? I don't.

A view looking down our street. — The quietest you will ever see our street.

The truck, still snow covered. — No, we haven't actually dug it out yet.

See the hidden kitty? — This is what happens when you don't have storm windows.

Our Little Red All Terrain Wagon — Geoff and the Little Red Wagon of Awesomeness

Impatient Chilly Dogs. — Waiting for Daddy while he's in the store.

Spoiled, who's spoiled? — We may be freezing, but we're riding in style.

And, a picture from the dog park that we took on our way home.

A snowperson presides over the park. — Braver dogs than ours play in the background.

We’re back inside now nice and safe and warm. The dogs are not traumatized from their wagon ride, and dinner is cooking in the oven. We hope that wherever you are that you’re nice and safe and warm.

~Kelly

Officer Geoff

Geoff as your friendly neighborhood police officer — Friendly Officer Geoff

This past week the Cambridge Police Department sat down for our formal photographs, thanks to SGT Lashley (who normally does crime scene photography). So I got my picture made as well, and since SGT Lashley was making me laugh with his running commentary my photos came out with me grinning from ear to ear.

Holiday photos coming soon!

-Geoff

Finally, some new pictures!

Geoff and our friend Amanda and I went to the Deval Patrick and Barack Obama rally on Saturday October 16th. We waited in line for HOURS. It was unusually cold and even Geoff was freezing. I was convinced that we’d never get in to the rally and, despite the photo it was not all smiles.

smiling and freezing while waiting in line

We did eventually get inside. We got to see Vicki Kennedy, Mayor Menino, John Kerry, Deval Patrick, and the Leader of the Free World, President Barack Obama. Oh, and James Taylor spoke and played and we all sang along. It was exhausting but fun. I’ve added some pictures below of various speakers. I’m going to upload the full set of edited photos to shutterfly in a little while and I’ll add the link here.

It was a beautiful day — It was a beautiful, sunny, cold day.

And that’s it for now. If you want to see Amanda’s photos the link is here http://picasaweb.google.com/abs0628/ObamaPatrickRallyOctober2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCMXtpvu_sNOSkgE&feat=directlink

~Kelly

P.S. Here are all of our photos, so far, from the rally. Enjoy. http://devalpatrickbarackobamarally.shutterfly.com/

Much belated Duck Tour photo

Geoff here – I have been meaning to get this photo scanned and posted for a while. It was great to see Matt, Shayna and the kids and it was nice to meet Shayna’s sister Tonya whom I had never met before. The kids had a lot of fun that day on the Duck tour and walking around in Charlestown. For some reason they were hung up on pirates that day – I think it was because we told them the U.S.S. Constitution had been used to fight pirates a long time ago. Campbell got to drive the Duck so he was pretty excited about that. Believe it or not, this was actually my first time to ever go on one of these tours.