It was 33 freaking degrees this morning. This is not normal, or even appreciated, at the end of a Florida February.

But then there was also this, and my day suddenly seemed a little bit warmer.

Never underestimate the ability of pretty pictures, graphs, charts, and multiple options to make weather fun.

See?

Hello, Vancouver. How’s the weather going to be for the opening ceremonies?

The kids and I have been watching Leverage on Netflix the past few weeks. We’re almost caught up to the “now showing” – oh no!

(This post made to test the new Android WordPress app. I like.)

Random pic to test image adding -

Hello, new friend.

Almost two years ago, we adopted a kitten.  Tiger was a ten week old baby when we got him, who’d lived all of his short life under a beach cottage porch with the feral colony he’d been born a part of.

He adjusted to the life of an indoor kitty well.  Mostly he’s content with his pampered housecat life, where he spends his days napping on the couch and his nights snoozing at the foot of my daughter’s bed.  Occasionally he makes a break for the outdoors, once getting all the way to the back bushes – about 30 feet from the door – before huddling into a pitiful ball of confusion and waiting to be rescued.  He endures the occasional cuddle, and plays with the dog or anyone who will roll a golf ball for him.

But he’s still only a step out of the streets, and that left its mark.  A cuddly lapcat he is not.

A few months ago, my sis started talking cats to me.  Let me be more clear.  She started linking cats to me.  Her heart will always have a tender spot where her memories of Sultan are, but she has a very big heart.  Big enough for Layla.  Which is it’s own special story, one you should read.

Of course the linking of one cat let to the linking of more cats.  And soon I realized I was checking the cats looking for homes with way more interest than someone that didn’t plan on getting more cats ever should.

Then just before Christmas, I mentioned this new interest of mine to my husband.  As expected, he wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic.  But once the seed was planted in the dark of his mind, it sprouted life of its own.

And soon after Christmas, he went from “No” to “Why didn’t you bring home a cat yet?”

Bringing a new cat into a house that already has other pets, and 2 children, has its own challenges.  Nothing like what my sister has had with her Bengal rescue, but there were things to think about.  We really wanted a cat, not a kitten.  Kittens generally find homes fairly quickly; adult cats are as likely to end up at the shelter as they are to find a new home.  And we wanted a lapcat.  A snuggly cat that would appreciate my daughter’s attempts to cuddle, not just tolerate them.

Thanks to the warmhearted, caring people at Adopt a Rescue Kitty ( AARK ) we found all that, and more.

Meet Aragon.  Or Eragon.  Or Earagon.  Or Argone.  All different ways his name was spelled on the various bits of paperwork that came with him. Poor guy, no wonder he’s so confused looking.  Ten months old, and no one has figured out how to spell his name yet.  (The first one is a community in Spain, and was a kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula.  The second is a dragon in a pretty well-known book.  I don’t even know where the other spellings came from.)

He’s a sweetie. A cuddle kitty.  A heart stealer.  And quite a camera hog.  Every time I pull the Kodak (or the Pentax or the camera phone) out, he walks right up and sticks his face in it.

But how can you get upset, when he purrs and rubs his chin against you right after?

Thanks for sending my husband that offer, AT&T. One more reason to appreciate my Nexus One.

Short post, but – Are you still using IE?
The Wall Street Journal says :
“Security-software maker McAfee Inc. said Thursday that a flaw in Microsoft Corp.’s Internet browser was exploited in recent cyber-attacks on Google Inc. and others that have caused the search giant to consider pulling out of China. ”

There’s a bit more detail in the CNET story, where it says “The vulnerability affects Internet Explorer 6, IE 7, and IE 8 on Windows 7, Vista, Windows XP, Server 2003, Server 2008 R2, as well as IE 6 Service Pack 1 on Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Microsoft said in an advisory on Thursday afternoon.” But it comes down to – if you’re still using IE, it’s a good time to give another browser a try.

Mozilla Firefox. Chrome. Opera. Safari. If you aren’t surfing safe, you shouldn’t be surfing.

in my throat, throat, throat.

Argh. It’s no time for coughs and sniffles.
This is me, scowling at my cabinet of vitamins (vitamins that I take every day) as I head off to bed.

The Christmas tree is retired to it’s off-season home (front closet, big red box – this year I sat on the tree and actually got the entire tree IN the box!). Princess wanted to know why we couldn’t leave it up longer.

“It’s been up for over 5 weeks. That’s more than a month – and that’s long enough.”

“But everyone else still has their tree up!”

“If everyone else jumps off a bridge, would you do it too?”

And a bit joyful Thank you, to the person in my family that taught my husband this phrase over the holidays. I don’t know how we’ve made it through 15 years of parenting without using it. It was right up there with “Life’s not fair” (which is the only correct answer to “That’s not fair!”) as my absolute favorite parental responses when I was growing up.

My take on this as a parent has been to ban the word fair, unless we’re talking about skin tone or weather. My daughter calls it “the ‘f’ word”, which raises some questioning eyebrows amongst the PTA set when she wistfully says “I would say it’s the ‘f’ word but I’m not allowed to.”

Raised eyebrows aside, my holiday is back in the boxes for another year. The last of the box-garbage sits by the door, waiting for good garbage day weather so it can survive a night on the curb without becoming curb mulch. And I still have no food in the house after 3 full days back home. So it’s off to the store I go.

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

I didn’t expect to find myself in the clinic at Walgreens for over an hour today. My son didn’t expect to have ears so packed with earwax that the nurse practitioner couldn’t even see the infection lurking behind them either. Of the two of us, I’d say I got off easiest.

So son’s ears are cleaned of wax (a grossly fascinating process I was tempted to document, but didn’t – must save him any possible embarrassment), and a week of antibiotics should take care of the infection. Welcome to 2010!

And now it’s New Years Slay on LOGO, and time to shut down the pc for the night.

I’m over at Beyond the Veil today with my December post – Three things I’ve learned about the holidays

I’m also sitting at my desk with a white stuffed cat on my head, a light brown and white stuffed dog on my left shoulder, another white stuffed cat on my right shoulder, and a sniffly seven year old standing here giggling at me. (Who is proud she can now read what I write about her, which makes her giggle even more.)

How are you spending your Christmas Eve Eve?