Kingfisher Cove

Hong Kong!

Funny! When I talked to Nate the other night, he made it clear that I wasn’t supposed to broadcast over the internets where in the world he was. He sounded pretty dire about it. So, I took it to heart and didn’t mention it on my blog or Facebook.

Then this morning while I was browsing through Facebook, I came across this (you can click to embiggen):

Ha! Some secret if the ship’s communication center actually publishes their whereabouts on Facebook themselves! At the site, I purloined a couple of pictures of their arrival into Hong Kong’s port:

                                              (Nate’s on there!)

(This is actually taken from the USS Carl Vinson, the aircraft carrier that Nate’s ship supports, but it shows the city really well!)

I keep chuckling about how giddy Nate sounded when he called me from a taxi, heading into the city with his buddy (who has been there before, so he knew where to go and how to get there). Nate wasn’t assigned duty for their duration there (a couple of days) so he was free to explore!

Hmm. Wonder if he’ll think to bring me back a little memento?

Laughing Our Lips Off

There is this “cat game” app for the iPad that is intended to drive cats nuts. It’s a three-parter, one with a realistic little mouse with a l-o-n-g swishy tail that scampers all over the screen and then disappears, and it squeaks if you touch it – or if a cat paw touches/whacks it. I’ve seen videos on YouTube of cats playing with the thing and going bonkers and it’s hilarious! There’s another one with a “laser” light for them to chase, and another with a butterfly flying around. Mojo was sleeping on the bed here at Harstine and I brought the iPad over to him with the mouse skittering around on the screen. He peered at it. An ear flickered. His head moved a bit as he followed the mouse. Then, lazily, he laid one huge paw on the screen and the mouse squeaked. He peered at it again. He yawned. Again, once more, with the slow-motion paw. (Like, “This is what you want me to do, right?”) Then another yawn. That’s about it.

SO THEN. A little while later, we showed it to the dogs. OH. MY. GOD. Both Bailey and Peanut went absolutely apeshit. Bailey frantically tried to get UNDER the iPad to find where the mouse disappeared to! Peanut lunged at the iPad, squealing and whining. Long after I’d picked up the iPad (and wiped off the dog nose prints), Bailey cried and whined and carried on and Peanut sniffed around the entire trailer trying to find that mouse!

Mojo could give a shit, but the weenies went apeshit.

Later, we tried out the butterfly (which chirped like a bird if you touched it). Again, Mojo was blasé about it, but Bailey in particular had a fit.

Holy butterfly, Batman.

Oh, the entertainment.

What a Whirlwind!

I’m writing this from a very wet and rainy (and soon to be windy?) Harstine Island. We’re in the midst of “King Tides” here, too — the alignment of the sun and moon (and Aquarius in the 10th house…) cause extremely high tides, well above 16 feet. Should be interesting if it does get windy.

So, we’re just now coming off of three days of Christmas! My brother, SIL, and niece came over Christmas Eve for appetizers and gift-opening. It was a lot of fun!

I didn’t get very many pictures, though. The family is really not much into having photos taken, and I’m the only picture-taker so there will be none of me. Which is totally fine with me. Here are some of the snacks for Christmas Eve (nothing real fancy, but it was good!)

I gave my niece “The Hunger Games” trilogy as a hardback boxed set. Along with Harry Potter, it just requires having the real thing and not reading them on an electronic device!

As for me…I didn’t get a picture of it that night (and right now it’s smeared with fingerprints!) but John got me an iPad! I’m so excited! I’m discovering that there are things that it can’t do quite as well as an old fashioned laptop, though. So I brought both of them here to Harstine. I keep going back and forth between them. Actually, here’s a pretty lame picture of the two of them:

I also have a keyboard for the iPad, although I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet! It had to charge, and then we’ve been gone a lot. And, I forgot to bring it with me.

Bailey got a new toy lobster. She was a very happy dog.

On Christmas Day we drove up to Camano Island and spent the day with Dad. My brother, SIL, and niece came, too. Honey Baked ham! (Special shout-out to my brother for standing in line for an hour to pick it up).

As I mentioned, my family just isn’t into pictures…

The dogs don’t mind, though.

Then the day after Christmas (yesterday), John and I and the weenies drove down to John’s folks’ house. Here was Bailey navigating on the way down (and you can sort of see John’s new leather jacket!)

We had roast duck for dinner! (It was a fantabulous dinner!) Opened some gifts there, too (here’s John’s dad with little Chibi perched on his neck):

And John’s mom:

Actually, I forgot; there is one picture of me!

Lots of driving all over the place, but it was pleasant and there sure was a lot of good food. Too much.

The elephant in the room, though, was Nate’s absence. And the fact that he didn’t call (likely wasn’t able to). There has been a black hole at my side these past three days.

Wonder if I’ll find any more of those little white pellets laying around?

~~~~~

Update: Nate called! He is in a far-away port (can’t say where here on the intertubes…) and he is doing great. Has some free time to explore and he sounded giddy about it. All is well with him! He’s seeing the world.

A Strange Thing

Long before Nate left for the Navy (going on three years ago), he had a pellet gun that shot little plastic white pellets. I don’t really know why he got it, and I don’t know what he shot at (the dogs and cat still adore him so apparently they weren’t targets). But John and I would both get really frustrated finding little white pellets all over the house. I got on him about shooting it in the house while we weren’t around (not acceptable!), and there was no evidence of damage or anything, but we still kept encountering those #!$%&@! pellets every damned where. Obviously in these last going-on-three-years, that has stopped.

Until this week.

Not while he was home over Thanksgiving. Or up until now. This week.

Today I found two in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. John found one in the dining room.

The cleaning lady has come twice since Nate left. I have a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

I haven’t heard a single word from Nate since he’s been on deployment. But something tells me this is some sort of message.

Ugh.

Juggling TWO proposals at work, and while I'm working on one, the OTHER project manager is unhappy with me because I'm not working on HIS proposal. And then, vice versa.

I'm also really sick and tired of being treated like I'm clerical staff. I'm about ready to get the machete out.

Oh. And bah-humbug.

 

All’s Not Lost

We’ve got a bit of festivity going on.

And presents are wrapped! (Just not under the tree).

It’ll do.

Cute or What??

Just saw this on Pinterest – I LOVE it! It’s a salt and pepper shaker, but I don’t care about that. I just think it’s the cutest Christmas decoration ever!

From Pottery Barn, but it’s no longer available! I’m bereft!

It’s Been a Week

From Hell.

Oh, there have been worse weeks, but this one has been the suckiest in quite a while. My first thought was to make a bullet list of all my bitches (and there would have been a lot of them), but John took me out to dinner tonight and it did me good. I’m not feeling quite so “whiney” as I was before that really nummy dinner (and good conversation). In fact, I came home and immediately got to work in my “glass studio” and my kiln is currently cooking!

Truth is, I STILL need to put out some Christmas decorations. I’ve got nothing! Just haven’t been in the mood. I did stop at the grocery store on my way home from work tonight and I picked up a poinsettia. (Which will probably die between now and Christmas Eve). But aside from the (rather lame) little table-top Christmas tree in the living room, that’s it so far. I’ve really been avoiding the depressing, cobwebby dungeon of stacked bins to try to figure out which ones hold a few festive items that I’d like to set out.  (Uhm, yeah, the bins are labeled. But over the years I’ve pretty much ignored the labels when it came time to put everything away. So, a lot of good the labels do now. Sigh).

I’m not my mother’s daughter, I guess.

It’s going to be a busy weekend as I have WRAPPING to do. (In addition to all those mundane chores, like laundry, etc.). It’ll be strange to not put the gifts under the tree. I’m not really sure where I will put them. Yeah, I miss the tree. But I know I won’t when the time would have come to take it down. That will feel like a big relief.

I miss my boss! She left Wednesday for Liverpool, England with her boyfriend for nine days to among other things (get this:) See Paul McCartney in concert. In Liverpool. The home of the Beatles. Where it all began. How cool is that? I was never a HUGE Beatles fan, but I liked them and especially Paul McCartney, and I’ve felt sad since the death of John and George, knowing that they’ll never be together again. I suppose it’s odd to say “I miss my boss,” but we are quite the team. It feels good to say that.

And on that note, bed is beckoning. Here’s hoping that I can actually SLEEP. I’ve had insomnia lately and I know that’s contributing to my bluesy mood.

Kind of Out of It

I think what I really need is to hear from Nate. He led me to believe (before he left on his deployment) that he’d have the opportunity to be pretty much in touch, unless something grave/bad/dire/secretive happened. But I suspect their access to the ship’s computers is limited, and there are (after all) over 300 sailors on board. And no cell phone/Facebook contact. I miss his idiotic (and I do mean idiotic) Facebook posts.

I guess what also gets to me? The fact that he’s moving further and further away every minute of every day. A whole helluva lot of ocean out there.

I’m having to work hard to be in any sort of Christmas spirit this year, and today I sort of took a step toward that with having my nails done (they were in dire need). Instead of my usual french white tips (which I really like), I opted for a coral color so that my talented nail lady could paint white snowflakes on each ring finger. Good first step, dontcha think? Tomorrow I plan to set out a few decorations. Today was mostly a chore-day and I needed to get that out of the way.

I also sent out my Christmas newsletters this morning — via email. (Didn’t get one? I probably don’t have your email address). (Uhm, or else CHECK your email…) I wrestled a bit about the email thing, but when I designed it in my InDesign program, I was thinking email all along. I used a background that would have drained my printer ink (especially the blue — multiple times). I also used a lot of photos that would have printed very small. As a PDF, people can easily zoom in on the pictures and size the text to their liking. There are benefits! Plus, I saved a number of trees. So there. (It still feels a little lazy, but the creation of that newsletter is a lot of work so I’ve balanced it out).

John is working this weekend, but last weekend we did go to Harstine — first time since October, I think. Mostly it was a dark, foggy/cloudy and COLD weekend, but Sunday the fog/clouds parted for a bit and we bundled up and bee-lined it to the beach. When we decided to head down there, Mojo was all curled up on the bed in the trailer and I mentioned to him that he just might want to join us on the beach, take a walk. I might have mentioned it a couple of times as I was bundling up, and then I exited the trailer and followed John and the weenies down the path. After a a few moments I turned around and there was Mojo at my heels. What a cat.

 

I thought about making another calendar via Shutterfly again this year (I  love them), but I really haven’t taken enough stellar photos throughout the year to warrant one. I can’t believe how many of those *stellar* photo opportunities occur seconds AFTER I’ve already taken a picture. Or a video. I took a video of Mojo on a log that was so-so, turned it off (because I don’t like vids longer than about 30 seconds) and then he immediately did this Halloween humped cat hop along the log aimed at the weenies that was absolutely hysterical. I absolutely KICKED myself that I’d turned off the camera. Oh God, it would have been priceless. Really. You’ll just have to take my word for it. Sigh.

I did try to focus on some quality shots, though. (Click  to embiggen).

Nate’s Ship Leaves Port

USS Halsey leaving San Diego November 30, 2011 with Nate on board.