Heeeeeeeeerrrrrre's....Winter!

We were thoroughly abused by cold weather as of late. Last Thursday the snow/rain/sleet/hail/ice started to fall, and it coated everything around us with a nice layer of ice, which tore apart trees and knocked out power all over. We were only without electricity for about 24 hours (apparently we're on the same part of the power grid as the township offices, which helps), but it got mighty cold at night. I left the house Friday morning and it was 55 degrees in the house. As of Monday, some people were still without power. When the sun came out, it actually looked pretty cool outside, with every twig of every bush and tree looking like it was covered in glass. It's finally warming up some now.

Over the weekend the girls stayed at Lisa's parents, so we had a lovely good time: we had dinner at the Outback, saw the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, slept in, watched Wedding Crashers at home before noon, had dinner at Panera, went to a Griffins game, had drinks/appetizers/dessert at Friday's, slept in (Lisa until 10:40), and then went and picked up the girls. We could use a weekend like this once a month.

In cat news: Tate is healthy and very much a kitten (he insisted on sleeping next to me under the covers the other night when the power was out), Layla has a horrible cold and is on three medications, and apparently Marta has a heart murmur that is getting checked out via ultrasound today. Yikes.

Abby and Annika

Well, I can't resist any suggestion that I post pictures of my girls (thanks Rebecca), so here's a couple of recent ones. Annika is cuddling with Tate, one of the new cats. Abby's hair pretty much always looks like that. Not long ago we measured the two of them. Annika is 3' 7" (a tall hobbit) while Abby was 2'7".

Da Superbowl

Superbowl thoughts: the game itself was somewhat disappointing. I was only marginally rooting for the Seahawks, but some borderline penalty calls against Seattle essentially kept the game from being interesting. Oh well. The most fun was having a picnic on the floor with Annika and Abby toward the beginning of the game, and later on just sitting with Annika and watching halftime. She was asking questions about everything all night, mostly about why some commercials were funny (how do explain why the MacGyver ad is humorous?), but it was unending during halftime - "Do they like being in the tongue?" "Why is there smoke?" "Why do they have those lights?" but my favorite comment was just a statement: "He is an old man, but he can still sing!" Indeed, my insightful daughter.

And we're off, with a four-note theme...

That's a quote from Professor Peter Schickele (aka P.D.Q. Bach), as he "concertcasts" Beethoven's 5th.

I don't know if this thing is going to go anywhere, but I've decided to follow the crowd and put some of my life up for all the world to see. Here goes...

I've adopted "blidablat" as an internet identity, out of the need for something that didn't end with an underscore and 3 digits. A blidablat is a couch-dwelling creature that occasionally emerged during the childhood I shared with my three younger brothers. It was contained by the three cushions of the couch propped vertically against the front, along with the back and arms of the couch. The blidiblat was basically defined by its appetite, as it devoured anything that was tossed into its enclosure. Inevitably, all the brothers involved in offering stuffed animal sacrifices to the blidablat were devoured as well.

Quickly, here's other stuff that has happened to me and my family in 2006:

Got sick. So did the rest of the family. For a long time. Everyone's on the way up now, though.

We adopted two cats from the Humane Society (it's always an adopt-one-get-one-free deal there). Layla is just over a year old, is small, and has a vicious cold right now. We have heard her sneeze upwards of 25 times in a row. She came with her name. Tate is about 4 months old, and was originally named Rexford. It took us about four days to name him, and went through many other potential names, including Pippin, Max, Mookie, J.D., Sky, and some offered by Annika: Oo-ah, Sheeree, Pep, and Workjob. We're all happy with Tate, and it's especially funny to hear Abby running around the house going "Taaaaaaate!". Marta, the existing cat, who is 8 years old, is . . . tolerating them.

Well, I hope someone reads this. With a link on our broswer to the blogs of other family members, we've enjoyed how quick and easy it is to check out what they're doing. It's amazing how tough it is to take the initiative and send out an email or call people just to talk about stuff. Obviously, this is ultra-impersonal, but it helps.