A Hosta Interlude

For Christmas, I did actually receive a couple of Hosta-themed gifts. (Lest any of you think that my obsession has disappeared and I am sliding over to the dark side of Geekdom) My love for all things Hosta never leaves, it just goes a little dormant in the Winter. It's always there and perks up on occasion, especially when I get to flip through the most comprehensive book on Hostas there is.

I present to you......The Hostapedia:

I received this as a Christmas gift from my future MIL. Last year she gave me the Color Encyclopedia of Hostas, which, fantastic in its own right, is not quite as voluminous as the Hostapedia. It's more of a coffee table book with lots of pictures and information, but the Hostapedia dwarfs it by about 6 pounds. Seriously, the thing weighs a metric ton. I pushed aside my other gifts and obnoxiously started paging through it after tearing off the wrapping paper on Christmas Eve, squealing and letting out little shouts here and there, and blabbering on about all of the varieties - while 5 people just sat there and tried to ignore me and get on with their festivities. I could have sat there for hours and hours, rocking and sucking my thumb and drooling. So pretty, I am.

When CrabbyC and I visited Bridgewood Gardens for their Open House in July last year, Chick first introduced me to the Hostapedia and advised that if I wanted information on just about any kind of Hosta ever bred, I had to get this book. He told me that it even contained plants that he introduced years ago and no longer grows. It's THAT comprehensive.

All I know is, I'm going to need a bigger bookshelf.

Next. On Christmas Day, my mom and dad (and GeekBoy) presented me with the sign you see below.

It's going to be placed at the entrance to the section of our property that is devoted to Hostas. CrabbyC and GeekBoy conspired together, used a photo of one of my plants as the background and created the sign online. It's hilarious and I love it. There is a bracket that it goes on with a thing that you jam into the ground to hold it up. (Yes. I know. I am having trouble with my words today)

Now my only worry is living up to the damn sign.

On the third day after Christmas...

my GeekBoy gave to me:

A brand-spanking new MacBook.

This was after he presented me with a Lenovo NetBook on Christmas Eve. (squee!)

See - my antique G4 iBook had a full (60GB - teeny tiny in this day and age!) hard drive, and couldn't run the Snow Leopard upgrade that he also gave to me for Christmas. The 'black box' (also a Christmas gift) would take some of the load off of the hard drive, but without an upgrade to the OS, I would be stuck practically in the 20th century. And there were no more slots to add faster running hamsters.

I love having my very own live-in Geek Squad (so does CrabbyC).

Macs are pretty easy to use - just open the box and turn it on. The new one had an option to transfer everything from your old Mac to your shiny new one - how convenient.

Here they are - old (on right) and new (on left).

We didn't tether them together - they were talking to each other over our wireless network. I don't know if you can see what the it says below the happy Macs, I can't remember exactly, but it's something like 13 hours remaining on the transfer. GeekBoy says if we had tethered them together it would have been a lot shorter. Um, so why didn't we?

So, 8 days later, my new Mac was up and running - boy is it NICE. GeekBoy inherited my old one and he's been busy tricking it out and showing me all of the things it can do that I never took advantage of.

Whatever. I just got 2 new computers in the span of a week!

Just what he needed was another computer. He still has the one that went to college with him - back in 1987. Someone recently asked him how many computers he had and what was his answer?

'Shut up'.

We are an Apple/PC family; my work machine and the netbook are Windows-based machines, but I also use a Mac. I can't say that I prefer one to the other - I think Apple has an edge over Microsoft in terms of out-of-the-box useability, but Windows applications/software are MUCH easier to find and are less expensive.

What about you? Apple or Microsoft? And why?

Yay! Now he's 2 years older than me!

It's GeekBoy's birthday today - he's 41. (can you believe it?)



In the spirit of being a true geek, he will be spending the evening duking it out with some like-minded friends in their weekly D&D game.



No worries though, he's being taken out to dinner tomorrow night and Tuesday night to celebrate of his big day.


And PRESENTS - he'll have things to open too.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

Placeholder (Cat Intro Theme)

I have a new post all ready to go, except that the photos that go with it, that I know I loaded onto my newfangled external hard drive thingy aka 'the black box', aren't there. WTF?

So, instead, I give you:
Madamoiselle La Most Beautiful Cat in the World, or as we call her - Pretty.

Ignore the cat hair, lint bits and unmade bed. Focus on the PRETTY GIRL.

Pretty is a former supermodel, now spokeskitteh for warm laps. She enjoys taunting the boys, running away from you when you try to pet her and cuddling into the nook of your side when you're sleeping.

Likes: cork toys, special soft food, good pets, boys

Dislikes: taking pills, going for rides in the car, getting her nails clipped, when mommy makes her butt get her

Madamoiselle is the second oldest of our 3 furkids. I adopted her from a shelter when I was living in CA in 1998. Right now she is on steroids, getting over an allergy that was causing her to lick all of the fur off of her belly and parts of her legs, sometimes removing the skin too (ugh - awful). Pretty is on the mend; her fur is growing back and she is still very beautiful (and she KNOWS it).

One down, two to go.

Frowf!

The curious case of the weird table skin

One night, while in Mexico, GeekBoy and I opted to have a romantic dinner for 2 on the beach. I say romantic because I have a way of sometimes sucking the romance out of stuff we do.

Case in point: our romantic dinner on the beach.

It started out OK, with a nice flaming path to our dining tent on the sand.

Here's GeekBoy, looking all dapper.

If you look at the sheer fabric fastened to the tent poles, you can see it fluttering around, as if bandied about by a gentle sea breeze. In reality - we had hurricane force winds and we were barely able to keep the food on our plates or hear each other talk.

That's not where the romantic part starts to break down, though.

Wait for it.

And here, we have us. I have a white knuckle death-grip on my chair to keep from being blown into the tent down the beach from ours. But, isn't the table kind of cool-looking? With that light inside it?

I thought so. (And here is where it morphs from romant-ic to com-ic)

I really liked the table.

A LOT.

I couldn't help it. It was wearing this kind of, I don't know, full table condom stretchy skin -thing.

I was completely unable to keep my hands off of it. Pressing and poking and tugging at it like a 4 year old, throughout the entire meal. It was SO cool. And kind of SEX-ay, if you must know.

GeekBoy soon tired of my antics with the table condom:
And ordered me to pay attention to my dinner. Before it blew away and gained a side of sand.

Not all of the romance was lost, however, we did finish with a very romantically themed dessert:

But if anyone knows where I can get one of those table condom things, PLEASE tell me! I'm kind of jonesing over here.

Let's take a wee step back

Hey! Here I am.

No, we didn't decide to stay in Mexico and spend the rest of our days drinking margaritas and panhandling from the touristas. We came back and I was sick. For a month. Then Christmas was on top of GeekBoy and I, pistol-whipping us like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. Then New Years came, which was a little more laid back, but in between them somehow I filled up the hard drive on my laptop. And then the new OS that GeekBoy got me for Christmas wouldn't work with it (because it was, in computer years - 5 - ancient), so ugh, I was having trouble with downloading my photos and he was teaching me to put them on our server instead and then it was confusing and so I gave up.

The End.

No, not really.

When last I left you I was all amped up for spider monkeys! and turtles! and umbrella drinks!

True to my word, I have them all documented:

One! One Magical Spider Monkey! His name is Chato. He's a fan of yogurt; and here we see him up in his tree, guzzling down a yogurt that our guide for the day - Jay, brought to him.

GeekBoy and I can't recommend Jay's services enough. We booked our tour through Edventure Tours before we left for Mexico, and it really was an all-around awesome day.

First we toured the ruins at Tulum (with a different guide), then we met up with Jay, who squired us around in his Hummer - it was the first time I'd ever been in one - for the rest of the day, to the Cenotes (where we met Chato), a private secluded beach (where we had the best chicken tacos I've ever tasted), the bay (turtles!) and then a lagoon (giant parrotfish). He was a wonderful guide and so much fun. If you have plans to visit the Cancun/Riviera Maya area, you must book a day tour with them, and request Jay. The cost wasn't much more for a private tour ($40) - but it was so worth it.

So, getting back to the agenda:

Turtles! Look at HIM!
GeekBoy had his (old-ass) underwater camera with him, so he was taking pictures at all the spots we snorkeled at. Unfortunately, since the camera is old-ass, the photos didn't come out as well as we would have liked. But here, at least, you get to see one of the turtles we hung out with for a bit. They were very cool, just swimming around and seemingly oblivious to the 50 or so people floating above them checking them out.

Well, I didn't get any pictures of the umbrella drinks, and to be truthful, there weren't any frigging umbrellas in them anyway. But they were delicious.

So, as a consolation - I give you a picture of us, at Tulum:
Yeah. Just.......yeah.

Overall, we had a great time. The resort was fabulous, the food was yummy and I only had to get up at 5AM every day to secure a hut-thing and 2 chairs for us on the beach.

Oh, and maybe one small, little, TINY drawback was that there possibly, might have been, some moronic promotion offered by the resort during our vacation where kids stayed for free.

And you know what that means.