November Already?

I’m still quite busy, both at home and at work. So much so that I now have three books with partially-written reviews that I need to finish and post here. It seems like as I get older, I have ever-more stretches of time when I’m so busy I start falling behind on the “everyday stuff”.

This past weekend was quite busy. We slept a lot, since we were both feeling quite tired from the week; we were glad for the extra hour of sleep!

Saturday morning we got together with Subrata and Susan for lunch at The Counter, which they’d never been to. Debbi and Susan then went off shopping at a sale while Subrata and I came home and played some Magic (Ravnica sealed deck), which was fun although neither of us had terribly exciting decks. (I think draft tends to lead to building more interesting decks than sealed, but then you can do sealed with any number of players, so they each have their uses.) I’d contemplated going up to Borderlands Books for their 10-year anniversary sale, but Subrata decided to pass and I decided I didn’t have much I was really looking for and didn’t feel like making the drive up to San Francisco. Instead we stayed home and did some chores and ran some errands, and then went to Cafe Borrone for dinner and reading.

Sunday we ran a few short errands, but mostly stayed home to have a day off. We watched what Subrata called Football Armageddon, otherwise known as the Patriots-Colts game, which was a rare exciting Pats game, in that they still won but it wasn’t easy for a change.

The weekend ended with a bit of irony: Sunday evening I was feeling all happy that I’d finished everything on my list to do for the weekend… and then around 6 pm my stereo receiver stopped working, just emitting a hum instead of any actual sound. I tinkered with it a little, but it seemed pretty dead. I’d been planning to replace it anyway (it’s 18 years old!), but I hadn’t expected it to force the issue. Ah, well.

(Strangely, it started working again by last night, and it’s on right now playing KCSM jazz music, but I bet it won’t last.)

Anyway, November is here: It’s gotten cold and dark out, now that the time has changed. We’re supposed to get rain later this week. My seasonal affective disorder has been keeping itself in check pretty well this fall, and now I’m actively looking forward to the rain. I just wish the trees would finish dropping their leaves so I can clean up the back yard.

Bittersweet Halloween

Every year we buy candy and put out some candles in red-colored holders for Halloween. Traditionally we get hardly any kids, which bums Debbi out because she loves seeing little kids in costume. We don’t get many because we’re on the edge of Apartment Central, on the wrong side of a major street from the rest of the residential area.

This year, though, we hit the motherlode, and went through most of our candy. Many groups of young kids were coming by as late as 7:30. I think it’s because Daylight Savings Time got moved back a week, so the sun didn’t set until 6:30. So it made Debbi’s day.

Unfortunately, I went upstairs to go to the bathroom, and happened to wander into the front room in time to see a trio of teenagers making off with two of my candleholders. I ran downstairs and put on my sandals and ran after them, but by the time I got there there were no candles in sight, and they didn’t know anything about it. So either I caught up to the wrong kids, or they got rid of them (or stashed them in their bags) and played dumb. My bet is the latter, but there’s no way to be sure. I looked around briefly with a flashlight to see if they threw them aside, but no luck.

I’ve always been aware that Halloween is also a night of teenagers (and some adults) playing pranks and generally misbehaving (a friend of mine and I nearly got mugged 20 years ago walking out on Halloween night, and I’ve also been hit with an egg once), so I knew there was a chance I’d lose the candles someday. Honestly, after 5 years I’m surprised this is the first time. But it’s still a bummer that people act this way. Oh well.

We also had a couple of men in a truck loitering around. They parked down the street, drove away, then came back and walked around. Debbi and I each talked to them, and it sounds like they were looking for an apartment complex, and had a number and a complex name, but not the street name. The number suggested that they wanted to be looking on the cross street (our street’s numbers don’t go up that high), so I directed them that way. I’ll never know whether I actually helped them, though. But hopefully they were just lost and that I helped them find their destination.

I don’t have many good memories of Halloween, but I like the idea enough that I keep trying.

Welcome to the World, Isabella!

Yesterday we went to the hospital to visit our friends Lisa and Michel, since Lisa gave birth to a baby girl named Isabella! Isabella couldn’t wait, since she arrived about two weeks early – on the day that was supposed to be Lisa’s last day at work. (A friend of mine – who’s a mom herself – says that the last few days of waiting for the baby are the worst, so maybe this is all for the best.) Lisa’s tired (Isabella showed up not long after midnight), but she’s in good spirits.

That I can recall, this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to see a baby this tiny, less than a day old. (Well, I can always just walk into a maternity ward and look at the newborns, but that’s not what I mean.) She was pink and purple, she had a head of black hair, and her eyes were just barely open (she was sleepy and had just eaten), but her eyes tracked me as I moved side-to-side in front of her. She was perfectly happy just being held by her daddy.

I said to Isabella “Today really is the first day of the rest of your life!” And she didn’t start crying, so I guess she’s go a good sense of humor!

Pesto!

Last night was fun with our new food processor.

On the way home I stopped at the brand new and freakin’ huge Whole Foods in Cupertino and picked up a few things. Getting home a little late, I put together some garlic bread: Crushed garlic and fresh-ground parmesan cheese mixed into butter, spread on top of sliced french bread, and baked for 12 minutes.

While it was baking I started making fresh homemade pesto. A basil plant I potted several months ago has been going nuts, so I had plenty of basil for the mix, along with garlic cloves, pine nuts, a little parsley, and olive oil. After processing it to a creamy smoothness I mixed in salt and parmesan (ended up needing more salt than I’d first expected, and probably could have used even more). The bread was out by this time, so I boiled water and prepared some shell pasta.

It all came together really well, and man was the pesto fresh and strong! Definitely something to make again, and I wonder if the pesto might taste even better after sitting overnight to mellow. Hard to say, though we do have a little left over. But still: Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm!

We did manage to kill every vampire in a one-mile radius, though. Garlic city, I’m telling you.

Kitty Update

Most of my weekend was taken up with reading, specifically reading Joan Vinge’s Catspaw for our book discussion group, as well as its predecessor Psion. More about then later.

Besides that we got together with Subrata and Susan on Friday night for dinner and games – we’ve apparently hooked Susan on playing dominoes. We had an excellent time, reducing ourselves to complete hysterical laughter by the end of the evening, which is always a good way to start a weekend.

The other component of the weekend was less fun, though. As I mentioned not long ago, Jefferson has been having some digestive issues, for which he got to take antibiotics and then some stuff to help his digestive tract. The former stuff was liquid which he absolutely hated (and got to take twice a day – lucky us), while the latter is a powder I mix into some wet food which he absolutely loves. (And so do the other three cats, which means I get to spend ten minutes herding them away from him so he can eat in peace.)

Well, Saturday afternoon Jeff started behaving strangely: First he started yelping at the other cats when they got too close to him, and then he decided to spend Saturday evening and most of Sunday upstairs under the futon in the study. He didn’t even come down for dinner.

Sunday afternoon I tried bringing him up a bowl of water, and he immediately pulled himself over to the bowl and drank from it. So we tried bringing up some food at mealtime, and he was perfectly happy to eat that, too. By the evening he started coming out from under the futon, and he spent an hour on the futon with Debbi. This morning he came down for dinner, and also came to check me out of his own accord while I was lying in bed trying to get up. He went back to lie on the futon after breakfast, but didn’t seem as skittish as he was before.

So we’re not sure what happened. I talked to the vet this morning and it sounds like his medications are likely not the culprit, since he’s been on them for over a week and they’re not the sort of thing likely to build up to a “critical mass” change in his behavior. So he might have just gotten an upset tummy for some reason, or maybe he ate something he wasn’t supposed to and it laid him low for a day. I dunno.

Hopefully he’ll be back to normal by tomorrow, and then all I have to worry about is his original digestive problems, which haven’t gotten any better that I can tell, but don’t seem to be bothering him very much, either.

If you’d asked me a few years ago which cat would have caused me the most trouble as he moved into old age, I’d have said Newton. But other than losing some weight (probably due to a borderline-high thyroid, but not one so high that the vet thinks he needs medication yet), he seems healthy as a horse. Even his teeth – in lousy shape for most of his life – seem to be holding up well! So he’ll probably be wrestling with Blackjack for years to come. But it looks like Jefferson is going to be getting better acquainted with the vet over the next few years.

Sheesh.

Partytime!

I think we spent nearly the whole weekend at parties, and the rest of the weekend (well, maybe not that long) taking care of a friend’s cats. Busy weekend!

Friday night I had people over to play poker. So there were six of us, and Debbi came down to say hi occasionally, but otherwise spent the evening up in the study. Poker went well, although I played fairly poorly. People joked that our table had a tendency to make the chips rolls when they tossed them – probably just dumb luck. And everyone enjoyed having the cats around when they finally came down to check everyone out. Ironically, Andrew’s girlfriend Lindsay was suffering from allergies to the cats, but ended up cleaning up when it came to the chips!

Saturday my friend Lee hosted a birthday party, with a gaming theme. We went out beforehand and I picked up a copy of The Great Dalmuti as a gift. We headed over and hung out for most of the rest of the day. I did a little gaming, and we chatted with some friends we hadn’t seen in quite a while. Pizza was ordered from Patxi’s, which was pretty good even though I’m not a big fan of deep dish (give me thin crust pizza any day), as well as cake from the king of local cake bakeries, The Prolific Oven. Mmm-mmm!

In the evening as people headed out, we convened another poker game. I took Debbi home first and then came back to play. I had another mediocre session (weak cards/bad luck/not aggressive enough; I still need to work on that last point), and ran out of energy around midnight and headed home. James told me today that the game lasted until 4 am! Yow! I definitely wouldn’t have been making good poker decisions that late into the night.

Sunday we went over to my friend Ray‘s apartment for a birthday/housewarming party for him and his wife Sarah, as they have the same birthday. I haven’t seen Ray in a while (since he no longer works with me) and had a lot of fun nattering with him. I should invite him to dinner sometime for more of the same. I didn’t know the other guests who came, but it was generally a lively and fun bunch. I think Debbi was experiencing some geek overload after a whole weekend with many of my programmer friends, so we headed out after a couple of hours, and eventually came home to collapse on the couch for the rest of the day.

I’m not generally a really social creature, but I had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone, even though I was pretty exhausted by the end of the whole weekend! I think I’ll need a nice lazy weekend soon. But it was worth it.

Now I just have to plow through the books for the book discussion group next weekend…

Stress Puppy

Insanely busy lately.

I have a little list of things to do for my house. One of these – refinancing my mortgage – should be pretty easy and is already underway. Other things are going to take more effort and thought: Putting in new windows, replacing the kitchen dispose-all, figuring out what’s up with one of the lights in the master bathroom… that sort of thing.

Meanwhile work is hopping lately. Lots of meetings and design and planning for a bunch of different projects, and meanwhile I’m ripping code apart and putting it back together. It’s a pretty lively time, but it’s keeping me plenty busy.

I was having trouble sleeping earlier this week, which I almost never do. I’m a heavy sleeper, and usually find it very easy to fall asleep, but the latter point was failing me Sunday and Monday night. I got over it on Tuesday, but it left me pretty tired for the rest of the week. I still managed to get up early for my morning bike ride on Tuesday and Thursday, though.

And to top it off, Debbi had a rough day today, and I was feeling stressed on her behalf. She always tells me not to be stressed like this, because it doesn’t do any good. But I do worry about things. If you know me, you probably think of me as a pretty laid-back person, but sometimes I get really wound up when I’m juggling too many tasks, or things I feel not-well-suited to deal with.

It’s not all work and stress, though: The new Magic expansion, Lorwyn, is nearly out, and the card list has been posted. Also, TCGPlayer has Lorwyn set up in their practice booster draft engine.

Better yet, the baseball playoffs have started. My Red Sox dominated their first game (the first round is all best-of-five series), and the Indians beat the Yankees. I’ll root for one of these two to win the World Series – the Sox are my team, and the Tribe are my grandfather’s team. I’m more indifferent to the National League, where the Rockies won the first 2 games against the Phillies (making one of my cow-orkers happy, and another not so much), and the Diamondbacks won the first 2 against the Cubs (sorry RJ). I think all of the American League teams are better than any of the National League teams (well, maybe not the Angels), and generally more interesting teams to boot. I kind of like the Diamondbacks, though, since they’ve reinvented themselves the last few years as a team of exciting young players, and I think they’re doing a lot of things right.

Anyway.

Admittedly my seasonal affective disorder might have something to do with my feelings of stress. I’ll get through it.

Especially if the Red Sox keep winning. Or, failing that, the Yankees keep losing.

Various Friends

I’ve had a week of seeing several friends. Which is a good thing!

First, I have a cow-orker from Sweden, Joar, who just moved to America last weekend, so I invited him and his wife out to dinner with me and Debbi Tuesday night. They met us at our house and we drove downtown to have dinner at Amici’s and then walk down and back through downtown Mountain View. I can’t remember the last time I met someone who had just moved to America, so it’s been very interesting learning about the immigration process and all the things they’ve had to adjust to. For instance, living in a suburban environment where cars are a necessity, rather than in a city where you can just use public transit. So I’ve been giving them some advice about traffic patterns and distances and weather and so forth (and was up-front about the fact that I’m something of a snob about living on the peninsula, as I didn’t care much for living in the valley proper).

Even though Joar’s come out to visit several times since he started working on our team, I figured they might enjoy a night out and away from all the tasks they have to tackle this week.

Wednesday evening I felt like I had the beginnings of a cold, and it got worse as the night wore on, so I called in sick on Thursday – a rare day when I felt like I didn’t have anything pressing so I could stay home without any worries! So it was a nice quiet day of watching DVDs and reading – and blowing my nose a lot.

Friday I felt better and headed back into work. In the evening Subrata and I headed over to Superstars for their Friday Night Magic draft. I drafted a somewhat unremarkable white-black deck, although that’s a big step up from my last two drafts, which were awful! I felt like I was competitive in most of my games, even though I lost more than I won, and at least two of my games were lost more due to bad luck than bad play. So that’s a step forward, right?

Saturday we drove down to Los Gatos for our friends Lisa and Michel’s baby shower. It was in a nice little park off a main park, and although it was a little chilly, it was otherwise a very nice day (perfectly clear and sunny – our party’s campsite just happened to be in the shade) and everyone had a very nice time. I was able to reacquaint myself with many of Lisa & Michel’s friends and family, whom I only see every couple of years, it seems like.

Unfortunately, Debbi ended up catching a cold of her own (or maybe she caught my cold, except mine didn’t come with a sore throat like hers did), so today we had a fairly quiet day, other than a run to the supermarket and to get my hair cut. I cooked Indian food for dinner (Debbi says it helped clean out her sinuses! And I got to use our new food processor to make cashew nut butter) and I did some work in the yard.

Only a little to report on the cat front since Tuesday’s trip to the vet: Jefferson has been taking antibiotics for a few days (which he hates) but he’s still having his bathroom issues. Newton apparently has a hyperactive thyroid, which is not unusual for an older cat, so he’ll get some medicine of his own soon. But otherwise they’re both in pretty good health.

My goal for October is to feel like I’m not stretched as thin. August and September just flew by with everything I’ve been doing! (Or do I say that every month?)

Cat Checkup

Having put jury duty behind me, my next task was to take my cats – Jefferson and Newton – into the vet for a check-up. They’re now over 13 years old, which is pretty old in kitty years. Lots of kitties – even indoor ones – don’t make it that long! They’re both in pretty good health, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure. I decided after some dithering to switch to the vet Debbi uses, the Mid-Peninsula Animal Hospital, since I’ve liked them slightly better than my vet the times I’ve taken her cats in there. (Unfortunately I live a little too far to make it to the Cat Hospital in Campbell, or I’d still be going there.)

Jeff has recently been having some problems with, well, his stool being watery. But no other symptoms of anything that I’ve observed. The vet said this could be due to a very long list of things, from parasites (improbable in an older, indoor cat) to inflamed bowels to more serious things. So he gave a blood sample to be tested, and he’s on antibiotics and then some other drugs for a few weeks to eliminate some possibilities. Jefferson hates taking liquid drugs – he drools all over the place – so this will be plenty of fun, believe me.

Newton, meanwhile, has lost over a pound since his last checkup, and is definitely the smallest of our four cats now (Roulette is around 10 pounds, Newton is 8). He hasn’t shown any symptoms of anything else, although he was so active and squirmy in the vet’s office that they said it’s possible he could have a hyperactive thyroid. So he’s also getting some blood tests done. I’ll probably try to feed him a little more in the future, too; it’s very hard to regulate food when you have four cats!

So the news was I guess about what I expected, pending the results of the tests. They’re both still active and friendly so I’m optimistic that they’re still in pretty good shape. But they are getting up there, and I need to keep that in mind.

When we got home, Blackjack started following Jeff around and sniffing at him, which didn’t endear him to Jeff. I eventually separated them since Jefferson didn’t need the extra stress. I’m sure they all just went to sleep when I left for work, anyway!

Shopping Weekend

I managed to avoid jury duty last week, not through any doing of my own; they hardly called anyone for service relative to the number of people on call, so I just had to check the web site twice a day. It was kind of stressful wondering if I’d have to put things on hold for an indefinite time on fairly short notice, but happily it never came to pass. This is the third time since I moved to California that I’ve been on the wait list, which seems to be more often than most of my friends. Maybe I’ll get lucky and not get called again for five or six years.

We had a pretty laid-back weekend, which I really needed, mostly shopping for stuff. A couple weeks ago at Monday night Magic Chris and Alex made homemade french fries, and boy were they yummy! So I told Debbi I wanted to get a deep-fryer, and she said “Not until I get my food processor!” (Do you sense a long-standing point of contention between us? Maaaaaaybe.)

So we drove around to a bunch of places to look for a food processor, and were a little surprised to see that only Bed Bath and Beyond had much in the way of selection; weird, since everyone had a gazillion blenders. I guess food processors just aren’t as trendy as they used to be. Eventually we bought a KitchenAid machine from Fry’s, along with a deep fryer. So tonight we made french fries – and they were yummy! I’m not sure when we’ll break out the food processor – but our next trick will be figuring out where to store this stuff, since we’re getting short on space in the kitchen!

We headed over to Half Moon Bay today to have brunch at the Main Street Grill, which was yummy as always, but Debbi was feeling like having a lazy day at home so we came back and finished our shopping before coming home rather than going out for a hike. Next time!

So now we’re wrapping up the evening by hanging out and watching the new Jeff Dunham TV special. Not a bad wrap-up to the weekend.