And its been an eventful year.

I’ve been scootering for a year and a half now. And now have 4 cats instead of 3. I’ve survived interesting times with my biz. My family and friends are doing pretty well. Fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers and nephews and nieces are all good. Yay!

New books have been read, new songs heard and sung. New places visited and old ones were re-visited.

The only new years resolution I may attempt is to try to be better about writing here. I’ve really let this slide in the last 6 months. And I do know that the only way to get better at writing is to sit down and apply fingers to key board. It’s time to do that now.

I do want to thank everyone who checks in here and follows me on twitter. Y’all are a wonderful group of people and I really appreciate you. Even when I’m being silly or stupid or geeky, you still want to see what I’m nattering on about. Thank you.

Happy New Year, Y’all! As I said earlier on twitter, may the best day of this year be worse than the worst day of the next year!

I spent the afternoon listening to the online reenactment of the 1969 lunar landing. It was on in the background of the work I was doing and the crackles of static punctuated different points of the afternoon.

Forty years ago I was a little over 2 years old. I’d love to say that “I remember the landing” but I don’t. I think I remember being inside that night and that I saw Neil Armstrong take those steps, but that may be a conflation of memories of other broadcasts.

No matter. That moment is indelibly etched in my head. I’m not the son of a son of a sailor. I’m a child of NASA. My dad was working for NASA at that time. My younger sister and I were both born in Rockledge while Dad worked at the Cape. He was an engineer working on ways to go even further into space than the moon. I have vague memories of the apartment and the tv with the black and white images of the lunar lander.

My dad was younger than I am now, and only a few years out of school. He worked on space travel until 1970, then work took him elsewhere. Even though he never worked for the space industry afterwards, he has always been interested in the space program.

I wanted to be an astronaut. But after seeing my father’s gypsy ways in engineering, that approach never appealed to me. I didn’t have a calling to engineering, and in college I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do when I grew up. Instead I’m moving more away from the sciences and further into the arts. But I will always have a calling to the sky and space.

As I said on twitter earlier “The Eagle has landed. Even 40 yrs later I have goosebumps, tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat.”

Thanks, y’all, for all the support you’ve given us in the last month and a half. DH & I and the other 2 kitties waited a month, then we went to the Humane Society. DH & I ended upcoming home with 2 kittens. We decided on 2 kittens since we didn’t them to annoy the everliving snot out of the older cats who are 10 and 6.

So we adopted Frankie and Penny from the Humane Society. They are no longer named Frankie and Penny. The little boy is now Garibaldi. And the little girl is Na’Toth.

The oldest 2 cats are not thrilled with the kittens, but are also grooming them. As long as we make sure to let the older kitties know we aren’t supplanting them, They are ok. So the kitties are here We still miss Delenn, and will continue to do so. But the loss is no longer so sharp, and we are loving the new kittens. Life goes on, and we honored the memory of Delenn by going to the Humane Society to find new kitties.

Delenn is gone. Yesterday she perked up a bit in the afternoon. DH had a chance to visit with her and sing her cat songs. She got up from where she was laying and went into the kitchen and he gave her some chunk chicken. She gobbled it up and meowed for more! I was encourage when he called me to tell me about it. He ended up giving her several more pieces of chicken, which she gladly ate and then went back to her spot. After I got home, she was not as perky. She ended up throwing up everything she had eaten for the last 4 hours. She was wandering between the litter box to throw up and then back to her nest. Each trip was shakier than the previous. It reached the point where she would wander out of her nest a few steps, throw up, and then go back. Finally she went downstairs to hide. It was time.

So this morning DH and & took her to the vet for the last time. We both have been crying on and off since Wednesday. This little kitty has been a big part of our lives for a long time. She’s been a sweet and loyal companion. One of the hardest parts was getting out of bed this morning. I wanted to stay in bed and pretend that nothing had changed and Delenn was fine. But that’s not true, and wasn’t ever going to be true. So We both got up and moving. We found her hiding under the couch downstairs and brought her back upstairs. She allowed me to hold her on my lap for a bit, then got a little bit of water and wandered slowly back to her nest upstairs. I had a bit of yogurt, and Delenn had some too.

After the vet’s offices opened, I called to see about bringing her in. We got it set up and then got it together to go. The hardest part was pulling Delenn from her nest and getting her set in the towel for the trip. She didn’t fight it at all. I had promised her that she wouldn’t hurt any more, and I wasn’t going to break that promise. We got to the vet’ s office and Delenn perked up a bit again, nosing around the counter and the office cats, checking out the chocolates on the counter too. I told her that if she wanted one, she was welcome to it. She wasn’t that interested in the chocolates, and checked out a few more things and cats around the way. But the vet’s tech came around and had the room ready soon, and we went back there. They had a towel down, but I put our towel down over it for her. Delenn settled down on the table and you could see very rib and both sets of hips. The vet made sure we all knew where the tissues were, since we were leaking at the eyes and sniffling. They used gas to let her go to sleep, then gave her the injection. She went quickly.

She’s been buried, and is now no longer hurting. We will miss her.

I’m sitting here on the floor beside my oldest kitty, Delenn. Delenn is the one you see when you see my avatar. She was diagnosed with a gastro-intestinal cancer this morning. She’s been losing weight for some time. And has been into the vet 3 or 4 times this year before today. She’s had bloodwork done that was normal. And has been losing more weight. After being sick Monday and Tuesday myself, I got up and got her into a cat specialist before getting to the office in the morning.

She’s down to 3.5 pounds. And has a mass in her abdominal cavity. And is frail enough that there is no way for her to have surgery to remove it. We knew she had lost weight, but didn’t realize it had gotten down so far.

I’ve spent most of the afternoon here. Its where she seems to be most comfortable. And she’s spent hours lying next to me when I’ve been sick, so its the least I can do. She had a little bit of chicken, and we shared some ice cream, and we’ve both had a little bit of water. I’ve been crying on and off all afternoon. Delenn is napping now, and doesn’t seem to be in real pain.

She’s been here with us for 11, almost 12 years. She came to us from the Humane Society. She was around a year old, and had been surrendered by her previous owner. There were lots of bouncy kittens there, but we decided to look for an older cat. She had just come out of quarantine, and was out on the floor for folks to see. She claimed us then. She’s taught me a lot about being a cat owner/owned by a cat. Some fun, some not quite so fun, but all the time I wouldn’t anything in the world for it. We’ve made some midnight runs to the animal emergency room, but she’s been a good sport and has done well by it, other than serenading us with her displeasure as she was on the way there.

Once I have a few pics up online, I’ll add them to this so you can see what a beauty she is.

There’s a fund raiser for Cleve Eaton in Birmingham at the Open Door Cafe this upcoming Saturday. its from 2:00 PM until 8ish. There are bands playing, and things for the kids to do. its $20.00 at the door, and includes a BBQ chicken dinner. More info can be found at Cleve Eaton’s web site.

My little brother is getting married in March. And its shower time. I went to one of the showers last month. It was nice, and we played the usual stupid wedding shower games, make a wedding dress out of toilet paper, guess what kind of kitchen implements are in a pillowcase by feel, and guess the number of M&Ms in a jar. Whee. Mom made the cake for that shower, and will be making both the bride’s cake and the grooms cake for the wedding.

So this Sunday there’s going to be a reception at church, and Mom was asked to make the cake for it. Mom agreed to do it, and get it done early because there’s another wedding shower this weekend down where my little brother and his fiancee live. On this past Monday, the lady hosting the shower called and asked Mom to make a cake for this shower, since my brother’s fiancee really likes her cakes.

So I spent this evening over at Mom’s house, helping her mix up buttercream icing. I decorated the cupcakes that are for church for the kids. I mixed up the color blue that is in the same family as the bridesmaids dresses to use on the shower caked. I even helped to decorate the shower cake. At least I was able to let Mom continue to decorate the cakes while I mixed up extra batches of icing. Otherwise it would have taken her a couple more hours to get it all done. It was fun spending time with her.

I was able to take the motorcycle safety class that I wanted. 2 days on a motorcycle when you aren’t used to it will wear you out! The class I took was from the RIDE instructors. Its a variation of the MSF basic riders course, and I took the class at the Harley dealership in Pelham.

It was raining as I drove to the class location, and continued to rain on and off until 10:30 or so. The rain wasn’t heavy, and didn’t stop us from doing anything. There were 5 men and 3 women in the class, and the instructors weren’t being jerks to folks. They knew I have a scooter, and are cool with it. One of the other ladies has a Honda Reflex that she rides regularly, and had just gotten a Harley Softtail. We were riding Honda Rebels, little 250cc bikes. We were schooled not only on the maneuvers they wanted us to do, but on proper mounting and dismounting of the bikes. We spent a good chunk of time on the bike, learning where the clutch engaged and disengaged, as well as the slow speed maneuvers, the straight weave, 90 degree turns and offset turns. We even managed to start working on shifting gears. I managed to get the bike into 3rd gear and back down!

We had one person go down late the first day in the class, as we were coming back from a break and doing offset weaves. I was a bit disconcerted by it, but the rider picked up the bike and got back on it and kept going with the exercise. After class was over, and most everyone else had gone, one of the instructors was riding his Harley RoadKing through some of the cones for the course, doing the offset weaves on it. I was impressed.

After fighting the clutch and not finding neutral the first day, I was able to find neutral much more often on the second day. I still was fighting the clutch all day long. The instructors knew I was a scooter rider with an automatic transmission, so I have a feeling they gave me more latitude on my clutch handling – say rather my gear shifting skills than they gave the folks who had just bought motorcycles. If I am going to be doing any regular MC riding, I think I’ll be getting a pair of MC boots that are made more for that and don’t have quite so distinct a tread pattern as my hiking boots. They work well for me with the scooter footboard, but fighting the foot pegs on a regular basis is not on my list of things to do.

Nobody had an attitude about what we were learning, so everyone in class was open to actually learn something. Most folks, if they’ve ridden, either hadn’t ridden recently or were there to see about learning something new. Some were very new to it. Nobody was flunked, and everybody seemed to be willing to listen and adjust what they were doing within the limits of what they were physically capable of. I noticed that I was starting out much more tired on the second day, and that I was having problems with fatigue in some exercises in the morning. This afternoon as we were working on swerves and emergency braking at the end of the day I saw that I was making some stupid mistakes from fatigue. Nothing horrid in itself, but not something I would do if I was fresh and sharp. And I was recognizing that it was not right. I was semi joking around with folks about learning the clutch and now needing a couple hundred hours to get good and comfortable with shifting gears.

The nice thing about this particular class is that the instructors make themselves available by phone and email afterward and you have the option of riding another class in the future for no charge when there is an empty seat.

I really would like to take my scooter and ride the course of cones they had. I’ll be taking some of the ones I have and setting up a course in a parking lot and practicing the weaves and obstacle avoidance swerves, as well as emergency braking for sure. I got up to 25 MPH on the last day. I was joking with DH about it, and saying that now I was a real MC rider. I could shift gears up and down. If nothing else, I feel confident now that if we were out riding on DH’s Ural and something happened to him, I could get us home without any major mishap.

Of course everyone asked if I was planning on moving up to a MC. I told most folks that I wasn’t planning on getting anything now. After the entire class was over when I was asked that, I told them that I really wanted to get proficient with my scooter first. I couldn’t say for the future, but that option is open for me. And that DH is looking at possibly getting either a trail bike or a dual sport bike, and that would be one I would be happy to pick up and ride more than the Ural.

My shoulders, forearms and wrists ached and hurt after the class. I spent more time working the clutch than I’ve done with my left hand in a very long time.

She’s no longer in a cast! Hooray!

Mom got her cast off and now is wearing an ankle brace. She’s very happy to be able to wear shoes and drive herself around now!

I’ve been a horrible poster in 2008. Part of the my problem is twitter. I’m posting more smaller posts that normally might have gotten channeled into a blog post.

Now I’m sitting here at home, watching the 9:30PM news and listening to the gunfire in the ‘hood. Its New Year’s Eve! We have to pull out the guns and shoot them! bleh. dumbasses. Quite the glamorous life, innit? After being sick, I probably won’t make it to midnight. Oh well.

If I had been industrious, I’d have a list of books I’ve read this past year, and a good set of resolutions for next year. The Terminal already asked about resolutions, and I had some good ones. One of my Christmas presents was a MSF class. I do want to ride my scooter more! My biz was good this past year, and I hope that it goes better next year. Its a chancy thing in the new economy, but I’m not backing down and I already have bookings for 2009. I’m going to try to post more here in ‘09, but I won’t guarantee it.

Thank you to all of you who do come here and hang out occasionally. I do appreciate you all. I wish us a joyous and prosperous New Year!