In Which I Put Batteries In My Camera

So you might have noticed that I restocked on batteries for my camera.  I went a little crazy today as a result, so you get a lot of pictures.  Kind of random, disjointed pictures, but then this is my blog, after all, and so you've probably come to expect that sort of thing.

And yes, that is Connor giving us his a hoity-toity look.  With a lemur.  I think he pulls it off well.

Anyway, I had a rare few hours of weekday respite care, so I took the opportunity to stop by the library and bid a sad farewell to The Worst Keyboard That Ever Was.  I'm heartbroken, let me tell you.  I decided on zoo animals for our next theme box, and I may have been just slightly influenced in my choice by the fact that the box does not contain any objects that make noise.  It did, however, contain Connor's new buddy Lemur as well as this awesome raccoon puppet, which I took one look at and decided to name "Roadkill." 

Seriously, what is wrong with this puppet? 

Anyway, Roadkill and Cricket are the best of friends now, and I actually caught her trying to carry her new pal around in her mouth earlier today.  She doesn't feel quite the same way about Lemur, despite my best attempts to make them better acquainted.  They are Not Friends.  She began attempting to disembowel him five seconds after this picture was taken.

I'm so mean.

It's about four in the afternoon in that picture of Connor, by the way, and he's stripped down to a diaper because it's so dang hot here right now.  When I moved to Washington State from Texas, I assumed I'd left the 90 degree weather behind me.  Normally this time of year the average temperature for this area is 75 degrees.  I looked it up on the weather channel website and everything.  Well, it hit 91 today, and yesterday the high was 96 degrees-- a record for this area.  Not fun in a place where most houses and small businesses don't have air conditioning.  And since so far as we can tell Connor doesn't sweat, we've been sticking pretty close to home recently, and he's been spending a lot of time sans clothing.  So he spent most of the day in nothing but a diaper, a lemur and his hearing aids, which I picked up new earmolds for a couple of days ago.  I'm hoping the blue will be a little easier to find if he decided to yank them apart and throw an earmold across a parking lot again.

And now for something completely different. 

Here's our deck as of this afternoon; a few of you have asked to see how it's coming along.  You can really see the shape it will take now, and start to get a good idea of what it will look like when it's finished.  Those T-shaped supports sticking up are the beginnings of our benches.  Another ramp will run down the side of our house where the pile of decking material is stacked in the far left corner of the deck.  The deck and ramp both aren't high enough to need a big railing; we'll be adding a "bumper" around the sides that will come up about four inches high all around and prevent tragic wheelchair accidents.  The ramp already in will come out onto our patio, which will probably be our next project after this one is finished.  Work has slowed way, way down because it's so hot outside and the deck is in full sun and has proved to be an excellent reflector of heat.  I wouldn't expect it to take too much longer, though.

Anyway, Connor had a good day, I erased Cricket's memory of Lemur-related trauma by letting her snuggle with Roadkill and feeding her catnip, and I didn't get any pictures of Loki because he was too busy skidding around our house in a mad catnip-induced frenzy.  Note to self: take pictures of Loki before catnip.  Here's Cricket and Roadkill once the catnip wore off.  Loki was still running back and forth up and down our hallways at thirty miles an hour.

In conclusion, our cats are insane.

~Jess