Happy Valentine’s Day Eve, residents of Cutetropolis! How appropriate that today’s visitors from reader Squiddy are curled up in the shape of a heart!
Wanted to share this pic for Valentines Day. My two little love bugs snuggled at my feet in bed. This is how I wake up every morning. They make lockdown into a joy.
Morning, all. Sad today. My dad’s brother went on hospice yesterday. He had surgery last week and then his kidneys were failing and he has congestive heart failure. They’re in North Carolina, and with covid and everything my dad can’t go. Apparently he wouldn’t know he was there, anyway. Just waiting, now. 😔
Plus I have to do my taxes.
On a lighter note, Olive & Mabel Lockdown Life
Let me send you a big virtual hug, Allein!
So sorry for your family,thinking good thoughts for you all.
Allein, I’m so sorry about your uncle, especially since he’s so far away. Hard for your Dad, losing a sibling, it’s like losing a body part. Someone who shares a lifetime of memories is no longer there to share them. Wishing your family peace during this difficult time.
We are about to have a day of miserable weather, ice, snow, sleet, freezing rain, you name it. I was out before 7 this am to get my shopping done – had to pile in the bunny greens for Fergus.
I so love Olive and Mabel.
And love those Valentine puss cats.❤️
I’m so sorry about your uncle, Allein. My heart goes out to you and all your family.
Thank you. He always called me his favorite niece. (I’m his only niece, but that’s beside the point. 😉 )
Cold and gray here. No snow yet…weather says snow/freezing rain later.
Sorry to hear about your uncle, Allein. And doing taxes on top of that, sounds like a bit of a rough day.
These two are adorable. They’re very pretty and what a great way to wake up.
We’re might be taking a drive up to the mountains later to see if we find snow for our friend’s girls who’ve never seen it. And I know there’s plenty of people here who’d gladly send them some, lol.
Stay warm and safe if you’re in the path of the Polar Express that’s coming through this weekend.
We’ve got plenty already! ❄⛄
So sorry to hear about your uncle, Allein. Thanks for sharing Mabel and Olive–Andrew Cotter is an international treasure.
I too will do my taxes today, but since I’m expecting a refund, that will actually be exciting!
It’s bitterly cold in CO right now, and my insulation-free house has been freezing. We’ll have cold weather through next Wednesday, so I’m actually keeping the space heaters on to supplement the mini splits. Unfortunately, the basement office will be cold no matter what, and the space heater down there can’t do much–the cold just seems to leach right through the walls. Wish I could convince Scorpius to sit on my lap while I work. I keep telling him we’d both be warmer, but he’s not having it.
People, if you need a delightful pickmeup, I highly recommend Netflix’s 55-minute documentary on Betty White. Watched it last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s from 2018 and includes Mary Tyler Moore and Carl Reiner, along with other stars from Betty’s long, glorious career. I also didn’t know she was an animal lover. She gets to hang out with somebody special from the LA Zoo, and that was the highlight of the whole thing for me.
Hope we hear from Duckie about her nephew, and Alice about her back and her dad, and everybody else who’s been troubled lately. Love you all.
Good Morning Everyone,
Squiddy, your two beautiful furr-babies! No squinting needed to see the love.
Allein, I am so sorry about your Uncle. Lots of hugs for you and your dad. ❤️❤️❤️
It’s a three-day weekend and so as usual I don’t know what to do with myself. There’s so much I should do, what I want to do, and what I must do. A friend had twins in December, very early, and they’ve just come home last week. I’m knitting purple baby sweaters and just finished watching Finding Dory. I’m going to head downstairs soon to do some of what I should do: lesson plans, mask washing, family photo album repair, and cleaning and tidying. I got a box of 88 oranges from my farm share, I must decide what to do with them. Maybe I’ll make a batch of orange marmalade. I made a big batch of split pea soup yesterday, so there might be some canning in my future as well.
Stay warm if you are in any weather zones and have a wonderful weekend. 🥰
Squiddy your love bugs are purrfect for Valentine’s Day 💕 What a couple of sweethearts.
Allein. So sorry about your uncle and the extra tough circumstances that make it more difficult. Even though you can’t be there in person, your hearts are there and that’s what counts. 💕
Sad new about your uncle Allein, it’s hard not to be able to say goodbye to loved ones, this darn virus is hurting people in so many ways.
They are starting to see UK and South African variants here so we decided to double mask when we go out (cloth mask over medical mask) just to be safer since we’re probably not getting our vaccines until summer or fall.
Good morning to all! I’m so sorry to hear the news about your uncle, Allein. I hope he gets the best possible care.
I have a story about Vera but no accompanying picture for reasons that will soon become obvious. Recently she surprised me by coming into my room and exploring under my bed, something even Ani never did.
Since my bedroom isn’t really rabbit proof, I set to work cleaning out all the clutter under the bed and placing all the electrical cords out of her reach.
Last night, Vera surprised me again by crawling inside the bed frame that holds up my mattress. She opened up a little hole in the cloth and hopped up inside, crawling from one slat to another. It’s like having the world’s largest bedbug.
Thanks; his daughter is a nurse so she went there to talk to the doctor with her mom before the hospice decision was made. My aunt has lots of kids and grandkids to support her, at least.
Sounds like Vera is making herself quite at home…
Many years ago, I had a bunny named Angel and she did what Vera did, only it was to a chair. We didn’t let the bunnies into our bedroom but when they were able to quickly dart in, they went for under the bed. Which like yours, wasn’t bunny proof. And a bunny will go right back to that area until they choose a different place. Hey, at least you got under your bed cleaned out, one unplanned task done.
Our cat used to do that. I love the idea of a giant bedbug!😂
Good morning everybody from freezing Montana! We’ve been in the throes of the Polar Vortex of Doom for the last several days with highs in the negative double digits and windchills of up to -55. YIKES. Today I think is supposed to be the last of it and things will start warming up tomorrow. So I’m staying home in my PJs today upstairs in the apartment where it’s toasty, with all of my books for company. I’m spending this morning attending the Tolkien Society’s virtual 2021 Seminar on 21st Century Receptions of Tolkien and it’s very interesting! The last session will start in 20 minutes or so. The time zone difference is messing with my head, everyone in the UK is hunkered down with their beer and whatnot and I’m on my first morning cup of coffee. Ha!
Allein, so sorry about your uncle. 🙁 Hang in there.
Your seminar sounds fascinating! I’ve been relistening to all the books, after a very long break from them–too long. Since I rewatched all the movies around Thanksgiving, the book-review reminds me of all the ways Jackson’s scripts worked so well. Sure, there were not-so-well bits too, especially for The Hobbit trilogy, but they did an amazing job with LOTR.
BTW, I knew it was almost Valentine’s Day when I stopped at Wegmans after work last night and encountered a wall of red roses right across the front. (More flowers behind it, and behind that they had set up a counter with rolls of cellophane for wrapping.)
Morning, peeps.
Squiddy, your love bugs are a joy to behold.
Allein, I’m so sorry to hear about your uncle.
I mentioned on Thursday that my nephew had come home, after they shoved two units of blood in his tiny veins. I guess it got muddled up among everything else.
The tension is high in Duckieville, based on a lot of having to wait. Hubby finds out about possible job transfer this coming week, BFF getting tested for COVID after a work exposure, I qualify for first round of vaccine here if doctor signs off, my gp filling in disability pension form for me (and having to wait for results), getting pneumonia shot this coming week. To top everything off, I caught a cold.
Last day of polar vortex today, but it’s started to snow.
I’m not very good at being patient.
Have a great weekend. Mike, loved hearing about your bedbug.
Hang in there Duckie. Hugs.
Thanks for the updates, Duckie! I am still holding your nephew and your family in my thoughts. I hope the tension eases soon.
Duckie, I heard about your nephew coming home and want to keep hearing about his situation.
Squiddy, how did I forget to mention the beautiful floofage above? Those two make my heart melt every time I see them!
Mike, your furry bedbug sounds adorable.
Okay, no more procrastination! Time to do the taxes.
This has been a cold, problematic and stressful week. It wasn’t very cold here as compared to what you have there in Canada and the north of US, but frozen rain made my life a bit difficult.
I don’t just mean the unexpected dance moves I performed every now and then, but scraping off the ice-armour from my car took a few hours. All the car-doors were frozen too, the only one I could open with some de-freezer was the passenger side one, so I crawled over to the driver seat. Only to realize later that the gate is also completely frozen so I cannot open it 🙂
The prairies are experiencing the typical deep stint of deep freeze but yes, other spots around the country are colder than normal dipping to freezing instead of above. So yup. We’re SO done with winter here!
Allein, very sorry to hear about your uncle. Big hugs to you…
Squiddy, your Valentine kitties are beautiful!
I’ll be spending part of the weekend working on taxes, too, but just gathering information to take when we have them done. Boring as heck, so I always put it off.
Waiting for hubby to get ready so that we can take my new SUV up and down our very snowy, hilly road to see how it does. It’s lower to the ground than the Jeep but I’ve seen good reviews of its performance in snow. We had a couple inches yesterday; after snowing all night long it’s almost a foot today!
OMG!! SUCH GOOD NEWS!
I’ve been fostering an orange and white guinea pig whom I’ve named Sherbet for the past 5 weeks. She came from a hoarding situation and was pregnant. And she’s HUGE (for a guinea pig). I’ve been expecting her to give birth every second for the past 5 weeks.
AND TODAY WAS THE DAY. It literally just happened, and I want to give her some space to get them all cleaned up and welcomed to the world. But after that, I’ll send pics.
I’m so excited!
Squeee!!! Please tell me the babies will get equally adorable dessert names…
I think there are 3 of them. I’m tempted to name them all after ice cream, both in honor of their mama and because today is both a rare snow day and the day before Valentines Day. And ice cream is the intersection of snow and love.
And suggestions?
Depends what color they are…
Could go Neapolitan: Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry
Butter Pecan?
Cookies & Cream?
Creamsicle, if one looks like mama…
Gelato
Mochi
Kulfi
Tortoni
Tartufo
Sorbet
Cone
Popsicle
SnoCone
Sundae
Edy
Breyer
Schrafft (anyone remember Schrafft’s besides me?)
Milkshake
Frappe
Cabinet
Yippeee!!! Baby piggies!!!! Congrats, mazel tov, bonne chance, and huzzah! Can’t wait to see pics of the lil jelly beans.
Squiddy, your kitties are lovely, and congratulations on the new peegs!
Duckie, hang in there.
Mike, can your mattress be saved?!?
To everyone in Land o’ Cold, stay warm!
P.S. Bibi gave a heart-shaped box full of chocolates to the guy who runs our little local pet store. She says they’re engaged. He hasn’t set a date, but she is totally committed.
😍
Warm hugs all around! Everything is covered in ice, here.
Tuesday was much warmer, but wet in the morning. When the sun came out, our roof steamed. A man walking his dog called the fire department, thinking it was smoke. Two firetrucks and a battalion chief arrived with sirens and took out our internet!
Allein, sorry to hear about your uncle. Although my dad isn’t doing too badly at the moment, his all-round health is declining and I’ll have to face the fact that he won’t be with me for much longer. On a more cheerful note, we both thought he’d lost his wallet at the Covid vaccination site in December…but yesterday it turned up in the recesses of his winter jacket, after somehow falling through a rip in the lining. There was £7 in it, which paid for the fish and chips this evening!
My back is now fully recovered, despite an exhausting few hours spent rearranging my bedroom furniture. The new system allows me to look out of the window whilst lying in bed and also makes makes it possible to do the ironing without constantly banging my elbow on a chest of drawers.
Carlotta wow! 🙀 Weird excitement!
Update on Vera: After allowing her a leisurely long visit to my bedroom, I discovered that she had peed in several places, including inside the bed frame. So that’s enough bedroom time for her, I think.
Oh, dear, Mike! I think you’ve made the right decision.
The morning after I brought Mookie and Mazzilli home (they were ten-week-old kittens), I couldn’t find Mazzilli. I could hear a faint meowing from somewhere. It took what felt like hours finding the source. He had climbed inside the back of the sofa-bed and couldn’t get out. How he managed to avoid peeing and pooping in there is one mystery. How I managed to avoid breaking my arm and his neck getting him out is another. But I got him out safely and he made a beeline for the litter box. And though I had dodged the Big Stinky bullet, I got rid of the sofa-bed eftsoons and right speedily. One bout of that was more than enough.
When Stars & Stripes were little, my parents were walking some visiting friends out, and I was in the kitchen when I heard a thumping coming from the direction of the refrigerator. I opened the pantry cabinet next to it, because I assumed one of them had gotten in there (they liked to play in there when they were small enough). No kitties. Then I heard it again and opened the freezer…Stripes came tumbling down from the second shelf. Luckily it wasn’t too long before he was too big to have to worry about him sneaking into the freezer.
Thank you, R&B’s Mom for using the word “eftsoons” – it’s a favorite.