Martindale Visit: Day 1 - La Brea Tarpits and Santa Monica

The pictures posted in the previous post "Picture Preview" correspond to this entry. In the evening on Friday, April 10, Bill and Branwen arrived in Los Angeles. The next day we visited the Page Museum at La Brea Tarpits. It is very interesting because it's right in the middle of Los Angeles, about 2 city blocks in size. They have many pristine skeletons from the Ice Age because the tarpits would slow down or trap animals. After the tarpits, we went to Santa Monica to explore the pedestrian shopping area. There are many buskers performing there and lots to see, so it's always a bit of an adventure.

Picture Preview

My Birthday, 2009

Hurray, yesterday was my birthday! It was wonderful. Thanks especially to Rowan for her baking and presents, and to everyone else that send me birthday messages. Nothing particularly exciting to report, had tasty meals all day long, ending with an amazing Turtle cheese cake made by Rowan (photos included below). So delicious. Rowan gave me an awesome knitted toque and a shirt (photos below). Additionally, she gave me two knitting books, one for socks and the other is a knitting book full of patterns for guys. I really love the guy's knitting book, has some awesome patterns that I'm already planning to make. Anyways, that's it for now, keeping it short, but I'm already brewing up another post.

Just Cats

Quickly on the tail of my last post, I figured it was time for a few more kitty photos, just in case the thumb cuts were too gruesome for some. First off, is just a photo of Scimitar being cute and relaxing on the futon. Next, is Ong-Bak (or Whitie as we mostly call him now, though perhaps Orangie would be more appropriate, since his back is mostly orange now), sleeping in the bathroom sink. I'm not sure what gave him the idea to do this. It doesn't matter if the sink is damp, he'll still jump up, then curl up in it. Finally, I can't remember if I ever posted photos of both of them when they were really young, so just for reference, here's a shot of them the first day we had them home.

Oops!

So a few days ago I was cutting up some garlic. All was going well, but something distracted me briefly and I ended up slicing into the tip of my thumb. Thankfully (I think) the knife was very sharp, so the cut was clean and smooth, though it ended up also going through my nail as well (which is why I'm not sure it was good the knife was that sharp, as otherwise maybe the nail would have stopped it). Anyways, I took a few pictures of it the day after, and have posted some choice ones. It's looking good now, the bit of nail I cut through has fallen off and there is only a tiny little scab left. Enjoy!