Cats like presents too!

Audrey (Gabe's wife) knits these fabulous cat toys filled with dried catnip from their backyard. She was kind enough to give one to Pumpkin and Zellie for Christmas. Watch what happens when they encounter it for the first time!

Thanksgiving in Virginia

I had Thanksgiving dinner in West Point with Kris's family. We ate at his sister Michelle's house, his parents came down from Gaylord, and his sister Merrianne and her husband came from Dayton, OH. We got a virtual tour via Skype of the Vienna apartment of his other sister Laura who recently moved there for work. The house was very full and it was almost like being back in Gaylord, except the weather was sunny and in the 50s. I really would like to see some snow now, though. :(

After dinner we went for a walk to the tiny public park, where I got this shot of the York River with Michelle's daughter Meghan looking for shells. I love the delicately pale pink of the sky.

History Pile-up on Route 33!

I've been telling everyone that you can't throw a rock here without hitting a historical marker of some kind, and this is a perfect example. The markers here tell passers-by that they are in the area where Captain John Smith was captured by a party of natives in 1607 and where General McClellan passed through during the Civil War while marching on Richmond. The road itself is as old as the Williamsburg Settlement and was used by a retreating General Cornwallis in 1781.

I found this neat web site where all of these markers can be searched by marker number!

DC's Chinatown

This is an arch over the street in Washington DC's Chinatown district. I was here on this cold windy day visiting the nearby Kochland Science Museum, which is the museum of the National Academy of Sciences.

Zellie takes on the green mousie

Since all I did today was spend a few hours playing chamber music with former strangers, I decided to post this video of Zellie being fierce. This went on for a couple of minutes, but I cut out some spots where she was just sitting in one spot flicking her tail around.

Washington's Office and a Roadside Turtle

When I still lived in the Detroit area and felt like going for a drive I would go to Toledo to see the art museum. I know DC has more art museums than you can shake a paintbrush at, but that's not the kind of drive I had in mind today. Since Toledo is really far away, I drove to Winchester. It might become my new Toledo.

I didn't see any art museums, but Winchester is a pretty old place on the European-American timeline. This building contains an office that George Washington used in 1755 while he planned and supervised the building of a fort there. The door was only about 5'2" tall. I know people were shorter then, but he himself was about 6'3". I would have taken some pictures inside, but they weren't allowed. :(

The office originally stood all by itself, but as with most historical buildings it had numerous other uses through the years. Two more rooms and wood plank floors were added on and a family of 10 once lived here, and it was used as a small hospital during the Civil War. After that, it was a seamstress's house and office.

=

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I drove part of the way back with the top down, even though it had been a rainy day and it is October 25. I like not having to worry about sunburn. I encountered this little guy sitting next to the highway, pointed toward the woods. He slowly drew back into his shell as I approached (although I'm sure it was very fast for him!) and I waited for a few minutes to see if he might come back out, but no luck. What a pretty shell though! I feel better knowing that it looked like the dangerous part of his journey was over. While I was waiting I also noticed that VW could just as easily have had a different name for this new version of their iconic car. If I had the hardtop version, I'd be tempted to get a custom paint job.

Pumpkin and his Nemesis

I joined a group that gets together once a month to play chamber music, so I have to start practicing before our first meetup. It doesn't seem to bother Giselle very much, but Pumpkin sits a few feet away and quietly meows at me while I play -- especially when I'm playing notes that are on the high side. I guess that doesn't mean he doesn't like it; maybe he is a musical cat. Since he doesn't hate the object itself I thought it would make a good stuff-on-my-cat photo. He does look a little annoyed though.

The happy couple, 60 years later

(there is sound, so adjust speakers accordingly)

Let's hear it for Leo and Virginia ...

My mom is in the middle in purple, with her six brothers and sistersThe family tree -- that card in the lower right says 34 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren.

Cider Mill Kitties

I know this isn't a picture of cider, donuts, pumpkins, or anything else autumnal. But on my way to Bad Axe for my grandparents' party, I met my sister and her husband and son at a cider mill near Saginaw. They had barn cats! Barn kitties are the best. Some of them were very friendly and tolerant, like this one. Keegan (my nephew) likes kitty-cats.

Shhh! The Pines whisper.

Vacation, it's pretty awesome. This is a Big Wheel (from the Lumberjack, meaning "large rolling thing"), used with a team of horses to convey logs during the non-snowy season, a.k.a. July. Now they live at Hartwick Pines State Park near Grayling. I probably saw them half a dozen times on school field trips as a kid, but it was good to visit them again.

Bi-weekly laundry -- it's the key to a louse-free life. And if that don't kill 'em, throw them fellahs in the fire.

The sign reads "Portions of this trail open to hunting during established seasons". Since it's bow-hunting season and I didn't want to be mistaken for a deer and end up with more holes in my body than when I went in, I didn't follow that enticing golden autumnal path.

World's Finest Community College

That's North Central Michigan College, if you didn't already know.

This is the entrance to the Natural Area behind NCMC. I used to go for walks here between classes, and it played a prominent role in most biology classes.

The Natural Area contains many wonders, like this little guy. He (or she) is supposed to predict what kind of winter we are going to have, but I just want to pet him.

Yet another National

Beethoven's Ninth! With a real, live chorus and orchestra. What else is there to say?

New frontiers in cat-feeding

It's time to revisit the idea of Pumpkin becoming smaller. Zellie, however, is less smitten with the idea of counter-top eating than she was in the house in Ferndale, so that is out the window. I came across the feeding cage idea on the Internet and it seems to be working so far. I got a small cage and made the opening a little smaller by using a piece of wood that is wired to the bars of the cage. Giselle can get inside and eat anytime she wants, but Pumpkin can't. I was surprised at how narrow I had to make the opening -- a hungry and determined Pumpkin can make himself rather small. At first I was worried that Giselle would eat all of Pumpkin's food, but I rarely see her eat from his dish anymore. Both critters seem happy with the arrangement.

National = Impressive?

Today I met up with some people and went to the National Arboretum. Like most attractions with the word "National" in front of them, this was very impressive. We didn't even see everything. Atop a small hill in the center of a field these columns are standing in a group. They used to hold up part of the US Capitol until they were replaced with marble in the 1800s; now they stand out here and look stately all day.

We also visited the herb garden and the bonsai exhibit.

Oh yeah, and there was a big Koi pond so I had to trick them into nibbling my finger with their rubbery lips. :)

It's time to cut the ribbon

I can't believe that only five months ago I was part of the 8am parade of Michigan-plated Audis and VWs wandering to work in a building that was only about 25% finished. Now the building is totally done, everyone has found places to live, and most of us have Virginia plates of one kind or another. And this week there were people with large scissors there to cut the ribbon.

Gratuitous Pumpkin Picture

He deserves it.

Saturday showers bring Sunday Quilt Shows

Hanna left us as suddenly as she arrived, and I was amazed at how quickly everything dried out again. I decided to visit the Sully Plantation since it is right by my apartment, and was pleasantly surprised to find a quilt show. It is held the Sunday after Labor Day every year, rain or shine. I'm so glad (for their sake) that Hanna was on Saturday and not Sunday!

I want to go back sometime when there's not a quilt show to see more of the history of the place. It was built in the late 1700s.

Richmond

This weekend I fought the Labor Day traffic to visit Richmond, just because it's there. I took this picture from the grounds of what used to be a large Confederate hospital but is now a Visitor Center in a neighborhood that has seen better days. It reminded me very much of Detroit. I want that house on the right that is in the middle of being renovated. And hey, there's the Beetle! Show off your new plates, little Beetle.

I didn't do much, but I drove around to see what was there. I did visit the Tredegar Iron Works which used to make many things in its life (flour, wool, railroad parts), but is most famous for making cannons for the Confederacy. Now, while the upper two floors are dedicated to displaying boring relics of the war, on the lower floor they produce ... couch potatoes.

Outside there was a massive 1,000 ton press! It was made in Toledo, which made it even more exciting. This was used to make railroad parts. Look -- that's where all of the squishing happens.

The building itself looks very distinctive from the outside. The bottom floor is the original construction from the early 1800s when it was a mill, the middle floor is from when it was reconstructed as an iron works, and the top floor is a different color because it had to be rebuilt after a fire in the late 19th century. Very neat. Again, I was ready to move in. They're kind of attached to it though.

Not shown: it was really freakin' hot out. We finally got some rain, thanks to tropical storm Faye, but that just made it even more humid. Autumn can't come soon enough for me.

And now for an important message

I'm Giselle the Cat, and I approve this scarf.

Seema and friends visit!

Last weekend Seema and her friends Sanjum and Sangeetha came to visit from Detroit. They stayed in a hotel in downtown DC so they could be close to all of the sights and sites there, and also so they could be close to all of the clubs.

Chris (the other Urban Scientist who has moved to Virginia) and I took the metro downtown Friday after work to meet them. After dinner we ladies hung around in their hotel room while they got ready to go out while the guys drove around.

Sanjum and me in the hotel  

Team V-Dub!

Seema and me, in her element

Seema and me, in my element

After visiting Great Falls and driving past all of those fancy houses and horse farms, we had dinner in Reston and took Seema and company back to the metro station so they could go back to downtown DC for more clubbing. Sunday afternoon I packed all three of them and their luggage into my little Beetle for the drive back to the Baltimore airport. It was a little crowded, but that's okay.  We had perfect weather all weekend and it was a great day for a convertible ride even if that meant Seema had to hold her suitcase on her lap.

Such a silly kitty.

Zellie loves to squeeze herself between the blinds and the window so she can sunbathe, or at least be close to the warm window. She does this no matter how warm it gets outside. At least I don't worry about leaving her home without the air conditioning on. Pumpkin likes to lay in the sun too, but he doesn't put nearly as much effort into it as she does.

The evolution of drums

This weekend I dropped by the Manassas Museum. Manassas was the site of the first battle of the US Civil War. I was mostly impressed by the ratio in their collection of percussion instruments to other objects. The picture below is a drumstick found on the battlefield in Manassas after the battle. It was quite a beefy drumstick, even by modern standards.

Rhetorical question: Can drumsticks be beefy?

Every drumstick deserves a good drum. This is a Union Army drum.

This drum (with sticks) was used by the Manassas Town Band around 1915. I love the contrast between the rope and leather tensioning system from the Union Army drum and the steel lugs on the drum from 1915.

I would have loved to snatch that bell mounted in foreground for the Farmington Community Band to use. :)

Sunday Kitties

This is our default state lately. It is getting very hot here now, and humid as well. The kitties are taking it well, but it seems like their favorite place to hang out is near the sliding glass door no matter how hot it gets. Zellie even likes to sunbathe when it's 95 degrees. Oh well, there's no accounting for taste, especially among furballs. Pumpkin spends a LOT of time in this position. I never would have thought it would be comfy for him to lay this way. Think maybe he's trying to radiate heat from his belly? He's still as sweet as ever and sleeps on my bed by me every night.