I Won! I Won

After years of lamenting my lousy fortune at raffles and other contests, I finally won something substantial. Ok, many moons ago I won a tee shirt. But I found out about it much later on so when I contacted the company that hosted the raffle, they said the time claiming prizes has lapsed. So that didn't count.

This time around it counted. Last week I was notified via email that I won a contest for a Pink Martini concert tickets. I don't know who Pink Martini is. If you don't either, just google them. The email also mentioned that someone would be contacting me for claiming info.

A day later the info was left on my answering machine. I was to go to the box office of the venue, which was Paramount Theater, the wonderful art deco style theater in Oakland, and collect my will-call tickets.

What a great thing, isn't it? So my husband and I decided to make it a date night. The concert starts at 7:30. Oakland is 20 miles away. We left by 5:30 - 5:45 and headed to Chinatown which is near the venue. Parking took up a few minutes to secure, street parking that is. Then we went to a Vietnamese place where we ordered Singapore noodles and some Vietnamese noodles. My apologies I cannot remember the "actual names" of the dishes. The Vietnamese noodle dish is the one I like and order all the time, but the Singapore noodles take a little bit of getting used to. I cannot marry the curry flavor with a noodle dish, sorry. One of my many many flaws is my inability to totally embrace the curry flavor.

When we reach the venue we found street parking, 2-3 blocks away, and the will-call and box office line was long. But we managed to get the tickets in the least amount of time. The theater is really opulent. I'll have to go back and see this theater in a tour or something.

The line to get some refreshments/beverages is long that we decided to just abandon that when 7:30 came around.

We have enjoyed great music via a 10-piece orchestra. Global music I think one said is their forte/genre.

Unfortunately it was a Sunday night and we had to work today so we left during the intermission. While we both wanted to stay and finish the concert, we knew that we'd be paying dearly Monday if we did. So old fogeys that we are we left for home.

I'm so glad I finally got to win something. One of the many things I'm thankful for.

Street Photography #12:

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay 'them'

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle.. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.' And the devil’s name is Alzheimer's.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love , whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER :
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Worry about nothing, pray about everything

Dear Blog

Poor neglected blog. 10 days since the last post. There’s a lot on my plate right now and maintaining four other blogs – mainly photo blogs – something has to suffer and I’m afraid it’s you.

Around these times you know I tend to be stressed out, dealing with traffic in order to get to and from work and the same thing during the weekend from one errand to another – too much drain on the energy.

I have stuff to tell you, but am too tired to make some sense still. But I have been caring for these little balls of fur that visit every day. This weekend hubs and I got to pet little Fuzzy. Yap, you know it, I have already named 2 of these cats. The other one is Midnite.

Fuzzy is fascinating. She came when she was a baby, brought by Gray, one of the original feral cats that visited us last year. Gray came to us as a baby and grew up a bit. She/he brought Fuzzy to us as a baby. Fuzzy played through the screen door with Buster. So they knew each other from the very beginning.

Gray and Midnite – the original one – were our first babies, they came every night. Because they were babies we used to put out bowls of milk, then they graduated to table scraps and cat food.

All of a sudden Midnite and Gray no longer came to visit. I was constantly worried they might have been run over or you know killed by dogs or something.

Our neighborhood is a safe haven for them, I believe. I know for a fact that our neighboor who we share a back fence with also feeds them.

Now this group has grown. And Fuzzy has grown too. She/he’s probably 3-4 months old now and very sweet little one. We got to pet her and she/he purred for us. Next step is to pick her up. And if she/he’s willing, we’ll get her spayed/neutered, get checked up and given all the necessary shots and we’ll adopt her.

Now all these is based on whether she will be tame enough to allow us to carry her. If that happens, I still have one hurdle to overcome. What will her/his arrival impact on Emma. Emma has been really aloof with all the cats feeding in the backyard. Buster we have no problem, he’s the sociable one. He greets them and plays with them thru the screen door.

We have put up an interim shelter for them since it has been raining lately and the temperature has dropped. Fuzzy has that wonderful long hair and it appears to have doubled since the weather has changed. What a beautiful cat.

However, the cats don’t seem to know how to use this interim shelter. We’ve been extremely busy with our weekends that we had no time to make their house. We still plan on making them some sort of shelter when the weather is lousy.

See how busy I am. I am not even mentioning about work, as I don’t want to say anything about it.


Love,
Me

Feeling the Season

Finally cool enough to be fall, and the leaves are starting to change colors.

This image was shot in Plumas County 10/22/11. There are some trees like this around my neighborhood, but not quite this showy yet.

The cool breeze is very welcome and the chill in the air is very comforting. I want to light a fire tonite while hubs and I cuddle in the couch laughing our heads off while watching BIG BANG THEORY on syndication.

Now I have a plan.

Happy weekend. Hope you're enjoying your fall season.

This and That

A week had gone by again without a post. Yes, I was busy with stuff - aren't we all?

But I was mainly staying away from writing down my feelings, or anything for that matter. Except that I had drafted a post last week to coincide with my dad's birthday. It was a very emotional week - mainly because I still miss my dad despite all the years of his passing. Additionally, my system is full of hormones (undergoing fertility treatment) which makes me really emotionally imbalance. So weepy. And so the post I crafted last week will remain unpublished.

How was your week? Were you busy with Halloween parties? Not once did I attend a Halloween Party or don a costume, although seeing the receptionist dressed as a Minnie Mouse,at the fertility center today where I had my ultrasound earlier,I was a tinge envious that they wear costumes to work on Halloween. May I add, she's such a fine cute Minnie Mouse in her red polka dot dress and her mouse ears.

Last week also we had a little dinner in connection with church business and this Sunday we'll have luncheon also. This quarter of the year is always so full of something to do.

Still affected by the hormones, I managed to help my husband prep the linen closet this weekend. On Saturday, he stripped the carpeting and we installed wood laminate floors. We're quite pro at this after having installed all the wood floors downstairs.

On Sunday, despite all my whining and weepiness, we were able to paint the walls of the linen closet. This is in preparation for our custom built closet that will be installed this Friday. I am so excited. The master bedroom closet will also be redone. We worked with the closet company a few months ago when they were running some sales so we thought that we made a good deal. Well, I mean we had a budget in mind before we approached them and when the design was on paper and all the materials and labor costs were totalled and they were within our budget range, we gave them a go signal to complete this work order.

Why it took so long to get installed? We purposely did that because we were taking that vacation in September. So this Friday my new closets will be installed.

I hope this would make my closets really neat and tidy. Except that with this new installation all the other boxes we have there would be all gone, and Buster, my cat, wouldn't be very happy with that. He likes to nap in those boxes.

Oh I almost forgot my little nephew (my niece's only son) age 17 months came for a visit so we stopped installing floors to visit with him. He was so energetic and was playing with Buster. Poor cat, he is so patient with toddlers but he gets beaten up - whap here, whap there. And poor Buster he could only run away from this monster of a toddler.

We spent a couple of hours over dinner at a friend's house last evening. Her husband was here for 2 weeks and was leaving again and we thought we had time to spend more time with them, but 2 weeks came and gone and we only had 2 times to be with them.

I guess this would do. I just had to document these things that are happening in my life right now. Thanks for reading my nonsense.

Street Photography #11

Just a little update:

*** Discovered THE BIG BANG THEORY - a real laughfest. Been watching it on ON DEMAND and syndication.

*** Found 2 little kitties, approx a week old, in the backyard on Sunday. I could guess where they came from, but they were from a pack (do you say pack with cats?) of feral cats or stray cats from this neighborhood. We bottlefed them and put them in a box in the garage overnight. Then husband surrendered them to the Animal Shelter the next day. Will go and visit tonite or sometime this week. I missed them already. Our hearts broke when we had to give them up. Much as I'd like to add to my brood of 2, we cannot take care of that young an animal since we both are at work all day long. The kitties will just die of starvation.

***Went to Plumas Co. on Saturday for our annual leaf peeping drive, except that the leaves were late in changing this year. The explosion of colors wasn't there but we managed to salvage some shots with fall colors.

***Am thinking of reviving my other blog - which is solely for random photos. Let me sleep some more on this.