Since she was young, Misu has had a talent for underestimating her own size. This has led to many occasions where she will wedge in or perch on places that really are not meant to support a creature of her… *cough* stately magnitude. Today, I share with you a collection of such moments caught on camera.
Infamous kittenhood sandal incident.
In burrito form.
Threatening to push the large lamp over to make more room on the speaker top.
Suggesting that she could use a wash.
Crushing the box that water bottles come in.
Trying to look dignified on a cat tree ledge meant for smaller felines.
Taking up two chairs and still out of room.
Making sure my socks are all sufficiently covered in cat hair.
Our younger cat, Coco, is Siamese on her father’s side. This is especially evident in her very vocal interactions with us. Every morning, Coco gives me a detailed report of the happenings of the night before and the status of the food bowl. Since it seems that she doesn’t get nearly as much camera time on this blog as she should, I thought I’d share some of yesterday’s conversation with you
Go see tall ships on the way back from updating my visa in Pori. I want to take this tour!
OK, so this just happened to be docking when we were having coffee at a cafe nearby. It’s cool, though!
Go to a friends’ rustic summer house to fish, grill meat, and use a smoke sauna.
Go watch end-of-summer fireworks show over the water.
Finns are exceptionally fond of fireworks and will use them whenever they can. It’s almost like being back at Disneyland.
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We were out shopping along the canal for wedding stationery and encountered this parade. Mostly, I just like dancers who wear feathers, so I recorded some
The husband (!!!) got me a new camera for my birthday, so I’ve been testing all the settings on random stuff around the house lately. One of these subjects happened to be the birdfeeder on our balcony, which I put out a few weeks ago for this year’s fall/winter feeding season. The birdfeeder only gets put out after all the plants growing on the balcony are pretty much dead, so that frequent diners won’t start helping themselves to a side of green salad along with their birdseed. My motivation for feeding our avian neighbors is far from selfless — the cats LOVE watching the feathery parade and will sit at the window for half the day just staring. And occasionally chattering excitedly or making small mews of yearning. Which is great for me, because that’s a long chunk of hours when I don’t have to be yelling at one cat or another for scratching the couch and chewing the wallpaper. This set of photos shows the two main birds that come visit us, the Great Tit (the yellow and black ones) and the House Sparrow (the little brown guys almost everybody’s familiar with). We also get a few other varieties as the weather gets colder — I’m pretty sure I saw a waxwing last year. I’ll take pictures this year and then I can find out for sure by comparing with descriptions online
It has been brought to my attention that I have not posted any cat pictures for nearly half a year. OMG, what sort of blog am I running here if I’m forgetting to post about my cats? o.O
To remedy this, I present to you not one but TWO Misu and Coco videos, plus a photo gallery of assorted furry goodness
Misu lounges in her typical morning nap spot, our dining table.
Misu decides that she should try a more serious pose. Though it looks like there is a flower growing out of her head.
Somebody we met in Old Rauma one weekend who had another big fluffy mellow cat! On a harness! :-D
Another big fluffy cat I met this summer.
I was on my way to water my garden and this little guy just came up and started talking to me.
So naturally, i talked back. and patted it.
And then he let me pick him up and turn in on his belly.
Lesson here? All big fluffy cats have a bit of Misu in them.
Typical Misu evening nap spot.
Within convenient reach of belly rubs, as you can see.
No, really — unless you are my parents, you probably won’t be interested in these pictures. Just stuff that I snapped here and there in my wanderings, of dubious interest and usually bad resolution.
Last view of our street corner before heading to the airport.
Cool display of old sewing machines in a shop window at Westfield.
One of the garages where the double-decker buses live!
Drive-by Trafalgar Square picture.
Drive-by Trafalgar Square picture.
Charing Cross station, after coming back from a day out in Kent.
More cool window displays.
Hard to see, but the seedy place in the middle is “Michael’s High Class Fish Bar”. No, we didn’t dare go inside.
One of these days, I’ll get around to visiting pretty places with moats.
Motorbike protest outside of Piccadilly station. Very loud, so you might want to turn down the speakers if they’re on.
Pretty view above Fort Horsted of the surrounded Kent countryside and beyond.
Yep, this would be the post where I put up completely random photos of stuff I’ve seen around town. I did the double decker bus tour last time around and took pictures of all the typical monuments, so those are NOT here. If, for some strange reason (hi, mom and dad!) you want to see those old touristy photos, I suggest you head over to my Facebook photo albums. Otherwise, brace yourselves for nonsensical picspam!
Cute festival on the canal taking place when we left work two weekends ago.
Apartment complexes across the street from the bus stop. I still find brick buildings a novelty, despite now living in a country where they exist in much greater numbers than earthquake-prone Cali ever had.
The Earl’s Court-Olympia Exhibition Hall, almost next door to the girls’ flat.
Another view of the exhibition hall. They had a dog show there this past weekend! Also, a health foods show. Not in the same hall, one would hope.
Pretty rose blooming outside in the front garden. Would that I could get them to do the same on my balcony :-(
Typical quiet morning streets in West Kensington.
An ad at a tube station for what sounds like a truly godawful romance novel, of the sort that I happily no longer have to edit or ghost write.
An ad for a show about an orangutan that does naughty things with sticks? Ow, splinters!
Well, not really. More like I took a bunch of photos during the holiday season and forgot to share them until now. Better late than never? Besides, looking at snowy pictures is much nicer when it’s warm and sunny outside
A day’s worth of snow to clear off before we could drive over to Christmas dinner.
Snowing, and it got dark fast, too!
More snowing pics!
It was snowing pretty generously on December 24th. Talk about your picture book holidays.
More of the trees surrounded our little apartment complex.
The view up the hill from our apartment.
Our own tree! And it’s so big! Surprisingly, the cats didn’t kill it. We only had a handful of ornaments, since I forgot to pack the ones we bought in Cali. Will have to dig around for those next time we go back.
The family dog enjoys her present.
The view of the nearby lake and forest from T’s grandparents’ balcony.
The view of the nearby lake and forest from T’s grandparents’ balcony.
The view of the nearby lake and forest from T’s grandparents’ balcony.
T’s grandparents’ tree. Really gotta remember to get some lights to string up this year.
This is actually our little Christmas tree from the old apartment, December 2009. I just thought it was a fun contrast to the much bigger tree we got this past winter. It’s sitting on a tabletop covered mostly with foil-wrapped chocolate snowmen :-)
The spread at T’s grandparents’ place, buffet-style. This was taken after everybody had served themselves, unfortunately, but you get the idea.
Some time in early 1998, I had a brief stint as a pet portraitist for charity. People would send me their pet photos, I’d paint them and the owners would receive the original work as well as a set of matching printed note cards in exchange for donating to a worthy cause. Then school started taking up more of my time and I fell out of touch with the people I’d been working with. It’s not something I’ve really followed up on since then, but I’ve been thinking about it lately because of my recent crafting renaissance. My skills have also improved a bit, thanks to various art classes taken during my time at design school. Perhaps this is something I might come back to this summer. I’ve got a couple of furloafs that are quite willing to pose for their portraits in exchange for a prolonged belly rub, after all.
A few selections from the portraits I did back then, because I don’t think it’s anything I’ve really ever mentioned before…
These pictures are actually from summer of 2009, but I had to share them with y’all because I really do think this is one of the prettiest spiders that I’ve ever seen. And there are people out there who agree!
I caught him in the doorway of our apartment and was going to let him go in the bushes further away in the parking lot, but took the chance to try out the limit of my camera’s macro settings first. I just love the crispness of its spots and the bright iridescent face. It is a Phidippus audax, or Daring Jumping Spider, native to most of North America. Probably one of the biggest local spiders I’ve ever seen — you could even see his fur if you squinted. The former biologist in me still loves bringing home random critters to examine. T just told to get rid of the thing as fast as humanly possible
By the time this posts, I will have my new Finnish driver’s license. Apparently, that will be valid until I turn 70, so no more lines at the DMV for me! I have to give them my CA DL, but that is due to expire next year anyway, so no real loss. Might just go get a new one next time I’m back in town, so that I have both options open. Did you know that teenagers getting their licenses here have to go through a series of classes and tests that end up costing $1K-$2K? Makes the few hundred spent on private driving lessons back home seem like a drop in a bucket. Then again, insurance and random automotive fees cost much more back in Cali, so it probably evens out in the end.
Anyway, in honor of my new license, a retrospective of the cars of my life. Well, mostly just the ones that I actually got to drive.
This is our current car, a ’97 white Volvo station wagon. T’s dad managed to find us an automatic, which isn’t so common out here, so that I wouldn’t be completely stranded. This car also happens to look like the love child of my past two cars, painted white. Totally not on purpose, but kinda funny.
The car that I left behind when we moved away last year, my silver ’99 Honda CR-V named Guildenstern. Yes, there was a Rosencrantz as well, but I don’t know where it went. This mini-SUV did a lot of heavy work for something never meant to leave city roads, including climbing up precarious mountain paths and driving through dusty ranches amongst cattle. The life of a crew car is not cushy It also was featured in a few films earlier in its career, including Vin Diesel’s A Man Apart.
My trusty old ’80 silver Volvo station wagon, the first car ever handed over into my control. This thing went through a lot of commuting and long road trips before finally meeting an unfortunate and early end at the hands of a certain sibling. It was also nicknamed Maude, the Minute Dodo, as a nod to a certain intergalactic smuggler’s starship. Many, many apartment moves were conducted with the help of this fine tank-like motorbeast. It was also a background vehicle and stand-in for one of the picture cars in Never Been Kissed.
Yep, if you guessed more driving-around-town videos, you’re right! These ones show the harbors, mostly the smaller ones near the giant seawater swimming pool and recreational boat docks. The commercial docks are not nearly as pretty
Once again, stuff that I meant to send to my parents earlier and never got around to. This time, a driving tour we did of Rauma in early June of last year. This mostly shows the Old Town area, which is an UNESCO world heritage site comprised of 17th century wooden buildings.
Can you tell I’m going through my old photos folders? Yeah Some pictures of a particularly lovely rainbow on the last day of August 2010, right outside our kitchen window.
It will have been one full year since we moved to Finland this May! However, I will be away on a business trip when that anniversary date comes, so I’m posting and scheduling a bunch of stuff early to make up for it. Here is a random hodgepodge of pictures I took while wandering around our little corner of the country in June and July of last year. Yes, this is mostly for you, Mom and Dad
More pretty green roads.
The high school.
The hockey stadium, where much of the city’s big events happen.
Random park statuary.
A glimpse of the performing arts center and canal.
Lots of pedestrians! Almost unheard of in Orange County :-P
Driving through the shopping district on a fine summer’s day.
Driving through the shopping district on a fine summer’s day.
Driving through various parts of Rauma.
Old train and patch of railroad in middle of town.
Then again, seeing sky that wasn’t brown was a treat.
Clouds! No, we didn’t get many of these in Cali, either.
Gorgeous rolling green fields.
More canal.
Gorgeous rolling green fields.
The canal.
Poor little stranded palm tree.
There is supposed to be a swamp monster made of twining plants in that boat, but I think the plants died.
A video I took of Coco in late August of 2009, playing with her favorite green felted mouse toy. She was a little over half a year old at the time? The toy was actually almost 2 years old at that point, but Misu never really paid much attention to it. One day, the new kitten was rummaging through the toy box, found it at the very bottom, and it was love at first bite. She carried that thing around with her all the time and we’d find it in the strangest places, depending on where she had been sleeping. It was her teddy bear and security blanket — even Misu knew this and would sometimes steal it when she wanted to tease the younger cat. This is the same mouse toy that I refurbished last month because it was nothing more than a piece of scrap after a year and a half of rough play. We couldn’t bear to throw out the scraps because we knew it would break Coco’s heart. Crochet pattern for what I did upcoming in my fashion/crafting blog.
Right. So it came to my attention that in my fashion blog, I’d mentioned that Coco was a long cat but then posted pictures at angles which might have made her seem foreshortened to a more normal-looking length. Here are some photos from my albums to help remedy any possible misconceptions.
Here is a fairly good illustration of the length of her skinny antelope legs. Her tail looks short in this first picture but is actually around a foot long.
A picture of her stretching from a year ago.
Also, when we say that our other cat Misu is a furry land whale? This is what we mean. And yes, I do indeed bury my face in her belly and blow raspberries frequently. She just keeps on purring because she loves belly rubs.
So we spent this past weekend in Stockholm (only a 40-minute plane ride, though the transport to and from the airports add us as well) and are just now recovering from it. On the up side, though, my deep love for non-LA public transportation remains intact. Gads, I wish I’d grown up somewhere with a decent subway system. Mental note — slipping and slogging your way through winter streets in a large city is much harder than it looks, especially when you’re wearing several pounds of bulky winter clothing o.O
It was still fun and very pretty, though! We stayed with a university friend of T’s and she was kind enough to accompany us on most of our wanderings. She recently moved into this gorgeous 18th-century penthouse flat that’s smack dab in the middle of old town and the palace district, so it was an ideal starting place for touristy activities.
We mostly shopped and took in the local scenery this time around, since we only had limited time so it would have been hard to schedule any museum or tours. We’re told that spring is a much better time to be doing that sort of thing anyway, so will get around to it next year. We had a bit of difficulty finding a restaurant for dinner on Saturday night, since it seems that most of them do reservations-only “Christmas tables” all the way through December. Which leaves me wondering where all the other countless tourists must have been having dinner, because I’m sure most of them, like us, were just walking through the doors expecting normal restaurant service. Meh. We ended up finding an adorable little Thai place one night and went to a cozy Indian place the second night. Which was perfectly fine with me, since we don’t really have access to either back in Rauma. Happily, I also carted home a suitcase full of various dried and canned Asian groceries, so will be able to add a bit of needed ethnic variety to my kitchen.
All in all, walking around and taking pictures was plenty for me on this first trip, since part of the fun of a new city is just taking in the atmosphere. Here, have a look!
Random view of our building from the inside courtyard, because I just love the old-fashioned windows.
This pretty church also faces the same square. It’s where they held the royal wedding earlier this year.
Hey look, it’s the palace again! That little yellow booth in the back is for the guard.
Obelisk! (For Keva)
More shopping stalls at the old town Christmas market.
Mistletoe and greens stall at the Christmas market.
Walking down the narrow streets of old town.
Highly amusing store window display with a monocled monkey, cross-dressing eye-patched bald mannequin, and various other things.
Sign showing layout of old tunnels.
A lot of these underground areas have been converted into pubs and restaurants, but this cellar was nicely lit and decorated for a tour.
The cellar of the old town Indiska, made of masonry from medieval Stockholm.
Back side of the royal palace, which happened to be across the square from the building we were staying in.
The lovely old Georgian-era building that we stayed in during our trip, courtesy of T’s friend.
One of the many waterfronts in the city, considering it’s made up of a series of islands.
Picturesque waterside statue.
Downtown skating rink and decorated tree.
“American Cookies” kiosk at the mall, featuring brownies and overly frosted cupcakes.
New fancy camera, though!
I have to give them my CA DL, but that is due to expire next year anyway, so no real loss. Might just go get a new one next time I’m back in town, so that I have both options open. Did you know that teenagers getting their licenses here have to go through a series of classes and tests that end up costing $1K-$2K? Makes the few hundred spent on private driving lessons back home seem like a drop in a bucket. Then again, insurance and random automotive fees cost much more back in Cali, so it probably evens out in the end.
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