I told my wife that I will eventually photograph all of the city of Burlington, Vermont but it will take years as I am sort of doing it one little street at a time. Here are a few random views from yesterday’s visit to celebrate my step son’s 21st birthday.
Harry in focus, Bellana out of focus….
Bellana in focus, Harry out of focus….
Happy 21st birthday to Harry!
My step son opened his 21st birthday presents in the car because they were too big to bring into the restaurant.
Bellana has a plant that she named Burt. It grew from a clipping taken from her step mother’s mother’s plant. During the pandemic lockdown Burt ended up at our house for a short time. Bellana cut off a clipping and Jen and I grew a new plant with it. We named it Bertha.
Bertha was a frequent source of blog posts for a while, but I haven’t been sharing any updates lately. She’s still alive and kicking, but she’s definitely having a rough go these days. A bunch of her leaves have died, while new ones are still sprouting. If I keep her watered she does okay, but she’s so big now that we don’t really have any place to put her and I fear she’s close to the live/die tipping point.
With the goal of keeping some form of the original plant alive forever, I took two new clippings this morning. They are in Harry’s room in a glass of water sitting next to the window. Unfortunately the weather is so gloomy and awful there isn’t a lot of sunlight to be found. It should get better over the weekend. Here’s hoping the two clippings grow some new roots and I can pot them both and have two more chances of keeping the original plant alive for all time.
Wish Bertha’s kids luck.
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.
Inside the Red Head's Head 