Daisy

I went home to visit my family this weekend (which is always its own treat). And while there I saw my cat Daisy who everytime I see makes me aware of the frailty and beauty of existence.

When I first saw Daisy, it was just after I had put my kitten Beezus down because of an inoperable brain tumor. We had taken her to the vet after she suddenly started to walk crooked. They gave us some medication but basically gave us a week to say our goodbyes.

I stayed up for a week straight giving Beezie medicine, feeding her soggy food so that she would actually eat and watching Jay Leno and infomercials to try to keep our spirits up--she especially liked the Flowbie (TM).

Despite my best efforts, at the end of the week, we took her back to the vet and I cried as she was carried down the hall to the room where they put her down--I watched the fear in her eyes-there's really no way to explain that to a helpless creature.

After that, I felt like it would be difficult to replace my sweet little Beezus.

God had different plans as usual...

Our neighbor told us that there was a litter of kittens that had been saved from being plowed down in a shopping mall development but they needed new homes or they would be sent to the pound. She knew it was really soon after we lost our cat, but would we be willing to save another kitten?

I went tentatively to visit the apartment where they had the kittens-most of them were sitting, well-behaved in a basket; couple of them were playing together on the floor, and then there was a scrappy kitten darting underneath a cupboard, peering out at me. When I leaned in to investigate, and poked my finger, she quickly swiped at it, giving it a good swift scratch.

It was instant love.

I knew I had to have that fiesty kitten, runt of the litter with moxie enough to swipe at the big lady coming to get her!

It's been love ever since-she never scratches me now--there is a built-in trust. As soon as she hears me coming she scrambles over and rolls onto her back with her white pretty paws in the air--waiting for me to rub her fuzzy belly. I never knew a cat as loyal and sweet. And now I miss her. And it's sad and pathetic....

Dave and I have Ruff--his sweet wonderful cat (I'm SO glad he likes cats and dogs) but there will ALWAYS be a place in my heart for my Daisy.

Art Aficionados

I recently (probably about a month or so ago-but what with all the recent hoopla....I've been a bit sidetracked...) was asked by a friend to create a couple of paintings to accent their attractive condo. They had a plain wall over the couch which meant they needed to be bold and eye-catching.

I found this task to be daunting-not because of the actual piece itself, just because I wanted the piece to be as cool as the people I would give it to, furthermore, I wanted to make sure that once the colors went into the room, they didn't suddenly rebel, run mad and start to morph into a sludgy mess that in no way accented or complimented the room.

So I had my work cut out for me.

I mixed colors like mad and bulit up the canvas into a texturized dream and FINALLY made a piece that not only I like, but my friend seem to be happy with as well (unless they are just realllllly trying to make me feel better...lol)

Regardless-I love how they bring out the color of the room and splash it up--it's pretty exciting to have these in someones home and not have to wait till it's posthumous.

Happy 4th?

So...The 4th was an eventful day...Dave and I were GOING to take it easy...but...as per usual-that didn't happen.
We started the day off normally, and tried to sleep in-then headed to the mall where Dave got some nice shirts and ties at Macy's and I spent a small fortune at the MAC section on a new blush, eyeshadow and lipstain...I may not have money for food, but I MUST have my MAC cosmetics...lol
Sooo-after that, we went to LUSH and did a bit of browsing...(they FINALLY put one into Tysons---Sarah and Kath are ready to scream---I can hear it...)
Then we did a barbeque with friends, set off fireworks and played videogames---btw---I SO want a Wii now...
the whole day up till then...fairly ok---except for the tornado warning that turned out to be nothing.
So then me and Dave decided to head home, to beat traffic from the DC fireworks...Famous last words would be, "We're tired...let's get home before the traffic starts."
well..........needless to say-by the time we made it to the 14th street bridge-all there was, was a parking lot.
It was kind of surreal.
We've decided that someday it'll be a cool story to tell our kids, but last night-it was like..."I can see home from here....and all I wanna do is go to sleep..."
So-we watched the fireworks and listened to Johnny Cash-we decided it was good All-American music to celebrate the 4th with and blast the other cars out with...hehe
Then once they were over we attempted to drive into the city-yeah, right.
EVERY SINGLE STREET downtown was closed off.
We must have tried every alternate direction we could think of-finally ending up BACK in Virginia an hour later, only to turn BACK around trying to head to Rosslyn to get over the Key Bridge HOPING against all hope that Georgetown would not be blocked.
It was not blocked off-but horribly backed up because apparently this was the ONLY funnel back into the city....oy.
I give my husband TREMENDOUS props because in the face of all of that traffic I never heard him yell once-even at the 7 or 8 cabbies that tried to cut us off (he DID however manuever his way deftly through the traffic and cut them off--it was pretty hot)
We did however both go through a pack of cigarettes...lol---but I figure, the amount of secondhand smoke from the fireworks was equal-at least there was a filter.
*WHEW*
Anyhow
On our way through Rosslyn-which seemed like an eternity, we happened to pass 2 pieces of AMAzing artwork which I feel almost made up for the awfulness of the 3 (count that) 3 hour drive home, which incidentally should have at MOST taken us 35-40 minutes.

The first piece was this LED light installation that looked like fireflies on poles all lined up. It would be so cool to have this in a yard.
It is called CO2LED and was created by Jack Sanders, Robert Gay, and Butch Anthony. Ironically, the piece is only up for a month, and if we had been there ANY other time, which we never are because it's in a part of Rosslyn we never go to, we never would have seen it.

The second piece is a piece of work done by an experimental artist by the name of Ned Kahn. It looks like there is a waterfall running down the side of this bulding, but is sort of stops midway. It's amazing.The piece is called Liquid Pixels and was soo cool to see at night with lights reflecting off of it.

So....We DID finally make it home...and I ran to go pee because frankly---my appreciation of that artwork made me think about running water and having to pee and suddenly---everything had a yellow filter...

SO--happy independance from ENGLAND.....LOL

love you duckies---hope it's great across the pond!