Today is Robin Sparkles the Cat’s first adoptiversary. One year ago today we met her for the first time at the MSPCA in Methuen, Massachusetts and we took her home with us. Her daughter, Lily Pad the Cat, was also adopted that day but she needed some medical work before we could take her home. We’re marking her adoptiversary as the day she came home for the first time. That is early next week.
Robin’s name was Disco when she was at the shelter. Lily’s name was Boogie.
My step daughter is here! Awesome!
Robin Sparkles is overwhelmed with glee!
Lily is thrilled as well.
My step daughter got me a heated blanket for xmas. I may never be cold again.
My wife was just talking baby talk to one of the cats, Lily, and frankly I could have listened to it all night.
It’s New Year’s Day. Is everyone having a nice holiday today? I hope so.
This is the day that we celebrate the new year by getting rid of all of the xmas decorations. It is the time for me to embrace my inner scrooge or my inner grinch and put an end to the season and put the house back to normal. Insert the sound of my sigh of relief here.
My initial plan was to wait for Harry to get out of bed at some point in the early afternoon and then Jen and Harry and I could just crank our way through all of the decorations together. It would take no time at all. Then when I finished my morning routine I decided to bring a couple of the boxes we store the decorations in upstairs with me and I’d pick off a few things on my own. Next thing I knew the tree was gone. Jen went from room to room and pulled most of the rest of the stuff out and stacked it on the dining room table. I took a break for some water and some meds and some real estate shopping TV show episodes and then brought a few more boxes upstairs and… next thing we knew, everything was gone. The house has been 100% de-xmased.
It is glorious.
I still need to move some furniture around in the living room, move a bunch of empty amazon shipping boxes to the cellar, put a new cat tree together, and then help Jen cook a super fancy dinner. That is a long to-do list, but it is fine because the decorations are done.
Again… glorious, said the grinchy scrooge.
It’s New Years Eve again. Wasn’t it just New Years Eve a few weeks ago? 2023 is ending? How the hell did that happen?
We don’t have any solid plans for today apart from picking up some take-out Chinese food. Maybe some board games? Maybe another round of Yahtzee?
I watched Rebel Moon on Netflix. I was conflicted. I wanted to watch it but I also did not want to watch it. See the conflict? My spoiler free review is to recommend that you wait until part two comes out in April. This movie feels like two hours worth of a four hour heist movie, where generally the first half of a heist movie is assembling the team. That means the movie that is out now is really just the assembling of the team. That’s why it doesn’t have a coherent story. It’s more like a bunch of mini-movies introducing all of the characters. Hopefully part two will make sense on it’s own. So if you wait for part two to come out and then watch them both together, maybe it will be a decent movie as a whole. For now though… eh.
I have to play guitar today. I have two songs in progress for this month’s Record Every Month challenge. They both need lead guitar parts. I need to record them today and then mix the two songs and then I will have my first R.E.M. win since September. It’s a must.
Speaking of guitar, I went down a rabbit hole last week that I find myself visiting once every couple of years. If you read this page you might have noticed that I have been obsessed with the band Rush since 1981. Back then there were two bands that I was obsessed with. The other was Led Zeppelin. As I got older though, the whole unending adolescence vibe that Zeppelin had sort of got tiring for me and I moved away from them. Also, Jimmy Page is one of my guitar heroes, and he is definitely one of the reasons I NEEDED to learn to play guitar when I was a kid. When I look at my own playing objectively though (if that’s even possible) I don’t hear a lot of his style in my playing. I think as I moved away from the debauchery that Zeppelin represented, I sort of moved away from Page too.
Every once in a while though, I feel the need to really dig into the catalog and try to remind myself that there is a lot of value there. That comes up once every couple of years, and it came up for me on Thursday. I put together a playlist with all of their studio records and over the course of the work day I plowed through all of it. Did the old musical feelings I used to get when I listened to Led Zeppelin as a teenager come back? Yes. Not exactly the same, as I am no longer that kid that I used to be, but it was close enough that I felt good about the whole experience. Now I can move on to other things again until the next time I feel cosmically compelled to examine the Zeppelin again. Probably some time in 2025, I think.
Okay then, it’s almost 11:00am. I have not had anything to eat for about three hours. It’s time to have a snack to keep my stomach happy. Gastric Bypass for the win!
Happy New Years Eve, everyone. HoHoHo.
Bellana left. She’s spending the next couple of days with a friend, then at her dad’s, then with another friend. We were joking that there is only so much of her to go around and everyone wants a piece.
Harry’s in the city visiting a friend and Jen just ran out to the store.
I’m home alone. Just me and the cats. Speaking of which…
We are home again. Another xmas gathering is in the books. We went to my in-laws and had dinner and swapped gifts. It was lovely and it brings the holiday to a close.
Tomorrow? Back to work. Not only that, but it’s an in the office day.
Crud.
The count down to New Years is on. We thought about New York (but not Times Square) but now we’re thinking of maybe taking a day next weekend and visiting Newport, RI. Newport is famous for gilded age, rich people houses but for me it’s more famous as the birthplace of Throwing Muses.
Will we do either of these things? Who knows. There are three more days until the next long weekend. As Traffic said on their amazing second album, who knows what tomorrow may bring?
Santa Claus brought me a new Apple Watch for xmas yesterday. HoHoHolyShit, that’s cool! It’s a series 9. I’m not even sure what’s new with it. I have some research to do. It has an oxygen sensor, I think? Cool!
It took some doing to pair it with my iPhone. It failed twice before it worked, but now we’re up to speed. I haven’t had the battery up to 100% yet, but it’s getting there. I just did a 45 minute workout, the first with the new device. 45 minutes of jogging in place (pronounced yogging, with a soft “j”).
I got a bunch of really cool xmas gifts. Two members of my family heard me constantly bitching about how cold I feel now that I am down 200 pounds and got me heated blankets. You can bet your ass I am going to use the hell out of those. I also got a couple of cool Rush things. A magazine and a puzzle. There was a print of a photo of me and my mother dancing at the wedding. My mother is smiling from ear to ear. It’s perfect and I may have started crying a little when I saw it. I think my family members, my wife and my two step kids, might like me a little. I think they might keep me around.
Still to come is xmas celebration at Jen’s mother and step father’s house. That is still a few hours away, but I am looking forward to it. Any time we can get the kids over Nana and Papa’s house is a good time. It doesn’t happen often anymore, but it’s always great when it does.
HoHoHope your day after xmas is going well.
I have a new favorite photograph. Aunt Mary took this.
Inside the Red Head's Head 