Packing. Ugh

The worst part of any trip is the packing. Washing, ironing, and....

...the cat sitting on all your clean stuff.

There's no way I'm making it out of here without cat hair all over everything.

furball on my just-ironed pants

furball on my suitcase

I tried a diversionary tactic, putting Chris's suitcase on the bed.
She showed momentary interest...

...before returning to mine. Sigh.

Oh, Yeah, It's My...

Birthday

I never think much about my birthday but others are always nice enough to remind me.

Flowers and cards.....

Dinner out.....

Blue Olive Cafe

I had lamb kebab.....

Yum

Chris had falafel wrapped in pita bread with tahiti sauce....

Really Good

I usually eat a lot of pita bread at the Blue Olive but this time I made sure to save room for...

No cake was harmed in the making of this birthday. Oh... well, maybe....

Thank you Helen Bernard Bakery

Gratuitous flower pictures. Our backyard:

Armadillo

Last weekend I took a quick trip to Santa Fe. Wow, very hot there in August. But in the evening the temperatures cooled down enough to have dinner on the patio.

chow time

view out the back

My big coup during the weekend was scoring a carved armadillo at the Santa Fe Folk Art Museum. I couldn't bring it on the plane so I asked Dad, aka The Wrapper, to mail it to Portland. Here's what it looked like upon arrival. A formidable wrapping job, but surely nothing I couldn't handle.

Armadillo, Well-Wrapped

5 minutes later...

10 minutes later.....

20 minutes later.....

30 minutes later.....

Behold the Amadillo

Thanks Dad!