Crazy pink and purple for my battshit crazy Scarlette. Brown and orange for my tortie, Lili Leau.

In the center of my elbow, blue for Savannah. Also filler and some more on the skull.

Archie, which I don't think I've share.  And "Tu me manques", as a tribute to my baby.

Hidden cream and sky blue paw for Little Shit, my husband's Siamese.

Close up of Savannah's.

Birgette's paw in gray and yellow (once the blood clears), right below the rose. Also, the remaining blank canvas before my sleeve is 100% finished.

More skull and the geometric pattern, which everyone tells me looks like Q-bert's (?) world.  Once his world was explained, I felt very sad for a fictional character.

Finally, Lizzie's paw above the outside of my wrist, in pink and green for her little tongue and green eyes.

I've been vacillating on how exactly I wanted to do this recap post.  Day by day or activity by activity?

Okay, so this is what I'll do, things for which I am grateful:

Archie

Husband

Family & Friends

Health

Creativity

I say "delude" because the feeling this morning, as I sat atop the wonder horse of the century, was not that I was riding in our normal pasture; rather, we were riding somewhere foreign and, strangely, surreal.

The trees have dropped these fuzzy little balls all over the place.  Coupled with the complete lack of light, I felt like I was.. somewhere else.  The closest comparison I have is skiing at night.  Everything looks the same - uniform - with the darkened outlines of trees and people.

Speaking of skiing, which has been on my mind, the husband and I are talking trips.  This isn't the sort of trip that we would normally be able to afford, not with saving to buy a house, but it's one of the perks of his employment.  Every year, my husband gets to go somewhere for a conference.  The first year, it was Chicago and I tagged along.  The second year, he went to San Diego.  I didn't go because we would be going again a few months later for my cousin's wedding.  This year, he's got the choice between a ski resort in Utah in February or N'Orleans in the Spring.  I'm leaning towards Utah.  I've skied the East Coast* - I want to try some real mountains!

*Growing up, I would go on ski trips with the high school at which my mother taught.  When she stopped going on those trips, we would still take the occasional trip as a family.  The last time I went skiing was the winter before D and I got married.  I've done one black diamond, but prefer to stick to the blues and greens.

I woke up at about 5:45.  Walked dogs, fed cats, gave dogs a treat and ran out of the apartment.  It was pitch black when I got to the barn, so I spent a few minutes extra just grooming.  Finally, at about 6:25, I figured that I need to get on if I was going to and get moving.  I turned on the floods, but, after mounting, Archie marched to the front pasture.  I turned on the program that I use to track us, CycleMeter, and set an alarm for 6:50 (it was actually one of my wake-the-fuck-up,-it's-late alarms).  I gave him an extra lap walking warm up for two reasons: he was stiff and I still wasn't able to see much.  When it lightened just enough, we trotted a large figure-8.  I wanted to work both sides in not a lot of time. There were a few moments when I felt like he was strongly debating being naughty, but he reined it in. (Har har)
He wasn't sweaty or blowing or anything - we didn't work that hard - so I just brushed him quickly and gave him his beet pulp.  I was back at the apartment at about 7:02.  Next time, I'll have a better idea of what I'm going to wear for work and will probably already set it out.  Instead, I set the dog food to soak and ran up the stairs to get dressed and clean up the effects of having ridden.  Fed the dogs, packed my lunch, and was out the door at the normal time.

Tonight, we're going to meet at the gym when he gets off of work.  I'm sort of excited about not having any huge obligation to squeeze in a darkened ride after walking dogs.  Instead, I'm going to finish the frame for one of the photos, clean off the glass, and get those things ready.  The art show is some time in December, but the exhibits are due this week.

Here are some random iPhone photos taken last night (I'm venturing in to Instagram.  Surprised?):

Lili Leau

Scarlette (LOVE THIS)

Let me go in a chronological order, else I'll get confused.

Yesterday morning, I started the day with a little and incredibly short bareback trail ride.  Archie took his job very seriously and marched me to the end of the meadow, started to freak out, and brought me safely back.  I don't think I ever stopped rubbing his withers and ever held the reins correctly.  It was a wonderful feeling - the warmth of his coat on that brisk morning.

Left him with his beet pulp and headed to Wal-Mart to get another cat carrier.  Then it was home to clean up and wrangle cats.  Both of our cats were overdue for vaccines and the local pet store was running a clinic.  I feel like I need to give a disclaimer before I admit to going to a clinic for vax.  So, here it is:  your pet deserves a physical exam by a licensed veterinarian at least once a year; vaccine clinics do not count as an "exam," as your pet is only being stabbed and not examined. Why do I feel like I can justify not taking the kitties to an actual vet and just a vet in a box?  It's the five years of vet med experience and the hypersensitivity to all of my animals' physical well-being.  But I am not a vet.

Okay, so we spent an hour and a half there, girls covered by a towel and they were excellent.

Until we got home and one had a vomiting spell, recovered, and the other has been lethargic today.  Consensus?  Our kids are indoors and we'll probably never vaccinate them again (which is so illegal).

We didn't find out about the reactions until later, because it was back to the Humane Society for a photo session and ... dun dun dun.. foster paperwork.  I took the dogs to a different area to photograph them - there were only about five - because they were doing another feral cat trap-neuter-release day and the other runs had play groups in them.  I did rediscover another run in the front that I might make better use of.  It's got a lot of lantanas and flowers.

So, we're fostering a litter of four kittens, aged at about six weeks.  They're took young for adoption, but we discovered them last week.  We were at PetSmart looking for a specific type of stay-the-fuck-off-the-furniture blanket and just wandered by the adoptable pets.  D's been talking about a Siamese for ever.  And, in a little crate next to a cardboard box was a litter of two Siamese and two black kittens (with amazing eyes).  The story is that someone dropped the box of kittens off early, early in the morning, before PetSmart opened, with a sign saying "free kittens."

The rescue working took them but didn't have any available fosters.  So off to the Humane Society they went (where we met up with them, actually - as I think I was taking pictures).  Since I know all the people there now, I told them that I was interested in one of the kittens.  We've been checking the website and stopping by for the last week.  On Friday, the receptionist sent me an email telling me that the kittens were still too young to be adopted, but they really needed to be fostered out.  We talked about it for a night and I emailed the recep back on Saturday.  On Sunday, we picked them up.

Monster.

They've been locked in a crate for about a week now, so when we released them in the guest room, they went ballistic.  It's a joy to watch.

The dogs are very interested, the cats are hateful and I think it's going to be a pretty stressful couple of weeks.  They'll go back on 11/8 to be neutered and spayed and our foster session will be over.  Also, by that point, we should better be able to determine if now is an okay time to make an addition to our furry family.

I call them our little monsters, because they're currently named after Lord of the Rings characters (which suck.. Samwise?  Merry?  Pippin?  Something else I can't remember?).

OPSDMC?  Fail.  Antique chair in the bottom left, knocked over.

Meeting a neighbor's cat.

This morning, I took another pee sample of Savannah's to the clinic to be tested.  If it comes back okay, then she's fine.  I think she might be going on another round of antibiotics, though.  Which also means a cysto and culture.  Poor baby girl.

This is just us out, but damn, it's a nice picture.

And there seem to be a lot of them! We'll start with the oldest first.