Hey, look! My car travels in three dimensions.
Actually, I really hate this gear shift. In the dark even though the letters/numbers light up, I have no idea what gear I’m in until I press on the gas.
Author Archive
3D
October 6, 2009Mali
October 4, 2009This is our friend Mali. I had no idea that he was mugging for the camera behind our backs. This was taken at a games exposition (cleverly named Games09!) at Festival City Mall.
Click on the image for a bigger version.
Special Ostadi
October 2, 2009We had dinner at Special Ostadi again last night. If you want a glimpse at the inside of the restaurant, view the video from last June. https://livingthetravelchannel.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/special-ostadi/
We met up with some of our favorite friends – Uzma and Rami. Rami brought his friend Khaled, who was a “Special Ostadi virgin” according to Rami. Rami wanted to share the delight that is wonderful food and friendly service with his friend.
It is kinda like the television show Cheers in that we walk in, they recognize us, welcome us warmly, they know approximately how long it has been since our last visit, and you just can’t beat that.
It is a family owned and run business. The father runs the cash register and the sons serve as waiters, but not just your run of the mill waiters. They are comical and always make us happy to be there. Khaled (the waiter, not our dinner companion Khaled) was wearing his Michael Jackson tribute t-shirt and graced us with a little “Who’s Bad” choreography.
We had a blast. We tipped about 40% and Paul had trouble convincing the father to keep the extra amount. We look forward to many, many meals at Special Ostadi.
The Green line of the Metro goes within a few blocks of the restaurant and it runs right by our apartment. I think this is an omen. I can’t wait for the line to open.
Buddy Movie
October 2, 2009You’ve all seen at least one buddy movie – Lethal Weapon, Tango & Cash, Beverly Hills Cop, Rush Hour, Turner & Hooch, etc. You know the basic formula – two males are forced together by circumstances out of their control, they don’t like each other or at least one doesn’t like the other, through the course of the movie they overcome their conflict and bond for life.
Here’s our buddy movie. It only took about 4 weeks for the break through to happen.
Awww…
September 30, 2009
How cute is this? Crossed tails and everything. Enjoying some raw egg to make their coats shiny (and get them out of my breakfast plate).
Here’s Bert’s switch maneuver.
And a peaceful resolve.
Cat Hog
September 29, 2009
It was awfully quiet and I was feeling lonesome, so I went in search of our kitties and found Daddybird hogging them ALL!
Toy – Monopoly
September 26, 2009The store downstairs had two cheap versions of Monopoly, so we bought them and here is what you get for $1.62 or $2.72.
Hoopoe
September 26, 2009Hoopoe birds are quite striking and I find them very interesting, but they are hard to catch on film. They usually fly away before I can get my camera out of my purse. Here is a little snippet. We even get a few flashes of his crest although he doesn’t furl it fully.
Stalker cat
September 22, 2009So, for three weeks, Oliver has been hating Bert. His freak out reactions gradually decreased little by little, but even now he still growls and hisses at him.
Oliver used to drive us crazy because he would howl piteously as if abandoned even though we were in the room. Or, he would go into another room and begin the howling. All this time I’m thinking we are going to get evicted for noise.
Now, Bert and Oliver are playmates, chasing each other around. Well, actually, it’s Oliver doing the chasing. He follows Bert everywhere, sneaking up from behind or the side and attacking. They aren’t using claws and teeth, so it really is play even though it looks like dirty tactics. Oliver is quite the “sneaky snake.”
Now, he only howls when he can’t find Bert or someone (read Daddybird) has picked Bert up and thereby disrupted the play.
Neither has stopped for a nap, yet, so I don’t know how that will go. They have to stop sometime.
Bert has always been good about playing independently and entertaining himself. Oliver has always been high maintenance needing to be played with. This is how the game of fetch came about. I’m not sure how long Bert will put up with having to entertain Oliver. It will be interesting to watch.
American Ingenuity
September 22, 2009Pet stores are fairly rare here and not necessarily fully stocked. We went to one of the “best” and they had three brands of cat food to choose from – the cheap brand we were already using (and which seems to be giving the cats digestive trouble) or two really expensive brands. The only litter scoop they had came with a litter box. There were no separately available tools. AND they were all out of litter. They had a few cat trees, but they were short and one was covered in powder blue shag carpet – way too foofoo for two male cats. They were also not particularly sturdy.
We have very high ceilings and Bert, especially, wants to be as high as he can get. He climbed on top of the dining room chair and stared longingly at the ceiling the other day. Plus, there are plenty of interesting things for them to see out the window, if they can just get high enough to see over the balcony railing.
To order a nice, big cat tree via the internet and have it shipped here is prohibitive. Finding a carpenter who could build us one would be time consuming and possibly impossible.
So, while at Ace “Hardware” (I use quotes because they have very little hardware) we found tall metal shelving for a fairly reasonable price and I had an epiphany, alright, it was just an idea, but a really, really good one.
We bought two sets of shelving.
I cut up the box to make the wire shelving easier to walk on for cats.
I was very frugal, this is what is left of the boxes the shelves came in. 
I cut up cheap fleece blankets to cover each shelf. These can be removed, laundered and replaced (unlike carpet covered cat trees.)
I added dangling toys. Daddybird gave me a hard time for putting the Star of David on a tree for Arab cats.
Again, I was being frugal. The stars were attached to some felt place mats I bought for another project.
We will connect the two shelf towers with heavy duty plastic ties. I have to run to the store to get them, so not quite complete, yet.
And Voila! The best cat tree in town.
You know what they say – You can tell how crazy a person is by the size of their cat tree.
Living the Travel Channel 