Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Alana!  Hope it was colorful!

Kaylee.2

She's back!!  After about three weeks of not seeing Kaylee again, Christina and I assumed that she had moved on and wouldn't be coming back even though we fed her.  Last week I heard a few isolated meows that sounded like her, but never saw the cat that made them.  This Tuesday Christina ran into Kaylee in the parking, gave her a bit of loving, then instead of following, Kaylee actually led Christina to the door of our apartment and invited herself into our apartment.  She is adorable and as precious as ever, and has made the conscious decision to stay with us.  She never bolts for the door like she used to, but lazily watches us come in and spends hardly any time in the windows even though they were her favorite haunts last time.  Unfortunately, Christina and I are met with the same predicament that we cannot keep her past this year.  Know anyone who's looking for an extremely loving and easy to care for cat? 

Kaylee

This is an old story, but certainly one worth sharing.  On the first of the month I was dropping off my rent check and right by the door was a gorgeous cat begging for attention.  She had a collar, so I gave her a bit of loving.  She was very unhappy when I had to leave and followed me to the mailbox.  When she followed me back to my apartment what else was I supposed to do, but feed her and love her?

My roommate was home at the time, so we made the mutual desicion to try to find her owner and therefore take her in for a few days so that we would have custody of her if she was claimed.  We bought the stuff she needed to be temporarily adopted, named her Kaylee after the character in Firefly, and made the posters, but when we went to put them up one of the office ladies said that Kaylee had turned up around Easter and had been practically living on her back porch.  The search then turned to a new owner since Christina and I both didn't have a place for her after this year.

Kaylee's a very vocal cat and will let you know when she is unhappy, for example if you come home but don't pay attention to her right away.  Or if you cook and don't share with her.  Or if you leave.  Fortunately, she's a sucker for loving and you can pet her for a while to make her forgive you.  She's odd for a cat in that anytime you want to pet her she will accept it gladly.  Kaylee certainly ruled the household from the moment she came in, although we did not allow her to scratch the furniture.  

Unfortunately, having spent so much time outdoors, she wasn't fond of being cooped up.  We would let her out on the balcony every now and then so that she could be outside and almost a week after she followed me home, she made the jump and we haven't seen her since.  So for five days, Christina and I were the happy owners of spunky and extremely lovable cat named Kaylee.

Photo Hunter: Anything Goes

The theme is Anything Goes.

Anything Goes is a musical by Cole Porter.

Cole Porter is mentioned adoringly by the Man in Chair in Drowsy Chaperone.

Drowsy Chaperone is a spin off of that era's musicals.

Musicals are bright and fun and I just finished uploading all of my pictures for Drowsy Chaperone which is in the style of Anything Goes.

How's that for a train of thought?

"I don't wanna show off"

An airship!

Photo Hunter

Photo Hunter: Sports

I don't like sports.  I am terribly unathletic and don't see much point in all the hype given to athletes.  However, under the influence of friends and family I have come into a recent appreciation for softball/baseball/t-ball.  It certainly helps if you know the players personally and can shout intelligent phrases; plus, it is a good excuse to be outside for a while -- a luxary hardly granted to a theatre student.  That being said, here is my ode to sports:

My nephew's first t-ball game...

My high school friend, Courtney Oberg, playing for Baylor...

Stuck

Early last Tuesday morning I was awakened by my roommate after she discovered  that her car battery had died.  I agreed to jump start her car after class and went back to sleep.  Eleven o'clock and done for the day I returned home for a quick jump start and thus the adventure begins.

First of all, my car is designed terribly.  Here's a visual aide:

This is a sideways (don't ask me, ask blogger) picture of my battery with the positive terminal clearly marked.  What is missing?  That's right, the negative terminal.  Against my better hopes, I pulled out the car's instruction manual in hopes of locating the hidden terminal.  I was told that it was "a bolt under the metal part on the driver's side in front of the radiator marked with the letters GND."  Great!  What's a radiator?  After about fifteen minutes of me peering into the depths of the engine compartment, Christina and I switched places and I realized that I had been leaning over the sticker that marked the bolt hidden under a scrap of metal whose only purpose was to hide this bolt the whole time.  Here is a visual of how far away the negative terminal is from the acutal battery:

The positive terminal is the red bit at the top of the picture and the negative is under the discoloration on the bottom edge of the picture.  After we had overcome the poor design of my engine, Christina's car was easily started.

Round two began when she did not have enough time to drive around and let the battery rejuvinate itself and got stuck at Office Depot.  On an errand of my own, I wasn't far away and met her there.  We started her car up again without a fuss and since I had a slightly more fluid schedule I offered to switch vehicles so that it could run like it needed to.  Christina gratefully agreed and we went our seperate ways.

Far from the reaches of campus, I was stopped at a traffic light, about four cars back.  The engine began to sputter and I just knew that Christina's car was going to give out again.  I tried to save it, but there was no hope.  The next step was to locate the hazard lights and turn them on, then put it in park.  Not long after I realized that I couldn't push the gear shift past neutral, I realized that the hazards weren't working.  The battery was that dead.  

Christina was far away, but immediately turned in my direction when I called, then I called my sister to see if there was anything else I could do.  Meanwhile, I was stuck at a traffic light with my foot stuck to the brake, no efficient way to alert people of my troubles, and a gas station so close that I could almost touch it but could not hope to reach it.  A godsend in the form of two guys appeared saying, "We want to push your car into the gas station, is this okay?"  I told them that, yes, indeed, I would allow them to take me out of the middle of the road.  They stopped traffic and pushed me in and were back on the road before I had a chance to say thank you.  Christina fortunately had AAA and was able to sit out the last bit of the day getting the battery replaced.  Now I rejoice when I see that her car has changed spaces since it means that it has left one location and has successfully returned to the apartment.  

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Shery! Hope it was beautiful.