Kitty's Kitties

So when the kitty had her three baby abortion, apparently they forgot six kitties in her. Last night the kitty went into labor and she was having a hard time getting the babies out. Mustache man (pictured) to the rescue. He's a cat we're really close to, and he helped deliver the kitties. One didn't move when she came out, but then she was okay. All six were healthy.

Then Jill and Ben came to visit, and Jill had to work, but for some reason Ben didn't have to, so he cooked for us, cared for the kitties and he even fixed the floor when it broke. It was great to see them, and we were so thankful to have Ben's help during such a crazy time.

Okay - that was my dream. I can't even begin to interpret it. I know I'm thinking a lot about having babies, but I didn't realize that I pushed that to my kitty too!!

To Judge a Book by its Cover

Today I judged hundreds, maybe thousands, of books by their covers. After staying up late because I watched a cheezy chick flick, and then having my air con service guy come in the morning, and a nice work out - I went to meet my friend, Gal, at the Singapore library's annual book sale. They put TONS of books in an expo hall. They are separated first by language (Chinese/English/Malay) and then by fiction/non-fiction, but that's IT. Biographies are next to "Winetasting for dummies."

In the fiction, I only recognized two authors, and one was Garrison Keillor, and th book was in such horrible condition, it wasn't even an option.

Luckily I found a superstar in the non-fiction. I found a book on the social history of toilets.

NSmen

Since Matt's in Israel, I figured I would post about something that I have been thinking about for a while...that has to do with Israel.

In Israel the military is mandatory - as most people know. Men serve something like three years, and women serve a bit less, but they also serve. When you're in Israel, you're well aware of this fact. You see soldiers (with guns...which is a bit alarming when you see it for the first time) EVERYWHERE. They're sitting/sleeping next to you on the bus, they're walking around town, they're out with you on the weekends. At least while I was living there (and younger than I am now...) it seemed like EVERYONE was in the army, and it also seemed like they were mostly all hot.

In Israel, it really appears to me that nearly every 18-21 year old guy is hot. Maybe that's gross to say now that I'm 30, but when I was living in Israel and 20 and then 22, it was amazing! They look older, buffer, tanner, more confident than American men. They had great bodies, and they fricken fought for their country!!

In Singapore, military service is also required, but for men only. I feel horrible writing this, because they're also doing a great deed for their country, but here goes...they're totally not hot in uniform. They look like skinny little boys wearing a costume of fatigues. A couple of points: Asian men look younger than Israeli and American men, so they look young to me no matter what. Singapore isn't in immediate danger like Israeli is (though some people think they are in immediate danger from Malaysia - or at least could be at the drop of a hat). For some reason they're not as visible as the Israeli soldiers, so I only see about five per week, so maybe the buff, hot ones are walking around somewhere else.

In other news, I have so many friends having babies!
in November: Cristine
in December: Lauren, Laura, Lee Fong, Liba and Sara
I think there are more, but I'm just forgetting for the minute.
Also - do you think there is something about having your name start with "L" and getting pregnant sometime around Feb/March?

Kitty Behavio(u)r

Kitty has been behaving very weirdly. I don't know if it's because we left her alone for about 30 hours, or if it's because Matt's not here, or if it's because I'm paying more attention, and she's not really acting weird, but to me - it's weird.

Here are a few pictures, and in addition:
She pushed a coin around our house for about an hour, and then it ended up under the couch, where she couldn't reach it.

You know when you have a spiral notebook, and you tear off a page, and it leaves this little string of paper attached to the notebook? She played with one of those for a while, and then she liberated it from the notebook and pushed it around the house for a long time.

There were three tampons on the dining room table (Matt's not home to tell me to tell me to clean it up). She pushed one to the edge of the table, and then pushed it off. She then pushed the second to the edge of the table and then pushed it off, and finally she did it with the third.

She has also been a velcro cat when I am home. She doesn't leave me alone - when I go to the bathroom, she takes a shower. When I read in bed, she goes to bed on my feet. When I'm sitting on the couch, she lays on the rug. It's pretty funny.

Pictures include:
Her being a nutty clean cat. When she poos, she won't stand in the litter box to cover her poo. She has to stand on the very thin EDGE of the litter box and reach down to cover it up. It's pretty funny, since she's small, and the box is big!

She played with the gross grapes that were left over in the bottom of the bowl. That was at least 20 minutes of rolling grapes entertainment.

She has this new thing that I haven't seen her do since we first took her home (when we had her spayed). She has been literally climbing the wall. She climbs up the grate on our sliding door - TO THE CEILING!!!

Watch your Hand, Mister!

Reeses

My coworker, Tom's family came to visit. They brought the office a couple of bags of little peanut butter cups. In the States, these would be gone within the day. Who can resist the peanut butter cup? Is there anything better in the world (other than sour punch straws?)???

In our office, I think I was the only one eating them. I ate three yesterday, and I had a whopping six today (I know - that's WAY too many, but no one else was, so I had to compensate!). Finally, I said to another American how crazy I thought it was that they were lasting so long. We still had more than a bag and a half after a full day and a half of potential eating!! Well, that got people interested, and all of the Singaporeans and one Korean came into the pantry (that's what they call the kitchen at work), and they all tried their first peanut butter cups. Unfortunately they liked them, so we're only left with one bag for tomorrow.

Pulau Tioman

This past weekend I went diving to Tioman with Tenley. The weekend started as usual - meet at the dive shop after work on Friday, drive, cross the border, drive more, wait for the tide at the port of Mersing, get on a boat, sleep on the boat (freak out a little - because I'm a bit scared of dark, night, and boats), get to the island, sleep, then dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, sleep, eat, dive, eat, dive, get on the boat back to the port, get on the bus, cross the border, drive more, get back to the dive shop, hop in a taxi him.

The only differences were:
1) I didn't like Tioman as much as Dayang at all
2) There was way less eating than there should have been
3) My dive master was extremely mean and not at all enjoyable to be around
4) I actually felt unsafe a few times this weekend (which I never had with this shop)
5) The diving was alright
6) Because of 1-5, I didn't come back freaking out about how much I love diving

Great things:
1) I saw the bumphead parrotfish that I'm obsessed with
2) A HILARIOUS clown fish attacked Tenley's finger and then my camera - a few times! It is super hard to laugh underwater - when you smile your mask lets water in!! (Note the photo - the clownfish is the Nemo like orange one)
3) I loved the weekend with Tenley. She rocks.
4) I only felt super nauseous for about 20 minutes - and there was a lot of time on rocky boats
5) Great people on the trip

If you're interested in diving (or learning about it), please read a few of my experiences. If diving bores you, skip to the pictures, and I'll see you here real soon.

Experience one:
Diving is all about buoyancy. If you put enough weights on yourself (which you wear on a belt when you dive), you will sink and get to the bottom. If you don't put enough weights on, you will not be able to get below the surface. Also, you wear a buoyancy control device (BCD) that you can put air in to make you float more or less. As you go down, the air in the BCD decompresses and becomes less, so sometimes when you go down far you might have to put more air in, and when you're coming up, sometimes you have to let some out so you don't shoot up to the surface. That's the educational background.

Anyways, when we were getting into the water, it was super choppy, and we were jumping and and holding onto a buoy (so the waves didn't sweep us away) and descending together. I jumped in, and I tried to put more air in my bcd so I would stay on the surface (remember - I'm wearing weights which send you straight down), and every time I put air in, the air came out. One of the Malaysian boat guys on a nearby boat showed me that my dump valve at the top of my bcd was stuck under the strap, but I couldn't get it out and tread water and not go under and try to hold the buoy. Essentially, I was scared, and I was going under (but I had a whole tank of air on me, so it wouldn't have been so bad if I just went down...). I wasn't panicking, but I was a bit worried and scared. My dive guy yelled at me to calm down and talked to me like I was an idiot. He also jumped in and fixed my valve - so I'll give credit where credit is due, but I felt like a piece of shit afterwards.

Experience two:
On that same dive my ear started hurting and not being able to pop. Dive lesson #2...When you go underwater, the air in your cavities condenses, and you need to put more in, so you can blow air from your nose into your head and pop your ears (you know - hold your nose and blow), and the mask tightens, so that's why divers have their nose in their mask - you blow out of your nose to get air in that space. It's also important to keep breathing so that nothing weird happens to your lungs when the compression happens there. So...sometimes it happens that I blow and blow, and my ear won't pop. It usually happens one dive per dive trip, and I just swim above everyone, and eventually it goes away and I go back down. No problem. Usually my dive masters say (underwater with hand motions), "you stay there. Don't come down until your ear is fine. We'll be down here." And then they check on me every so often. No problem.

Dive lesson #3...remember, diving is all about buoyancy, so you need to stay horizontal at the bottom, or if you face down and kick, you will go down, and if you face up and kick, you will go up. Usually I use light plastic/rubbery fins, and I have no problem staying horizontal. This time the dive shop packed fins that were too small, so I borrowed someone's "jet fins" that are super heavy. Because they're heavier, they made my feet go lower, which made my head higher, which made me go up every time I kicked. It's just a different way of diving - you sort of have to bend at the waist to stay level if you kick with heavy fins. I didn't get the hang of it real fast, so I was going up and down a bit. So...back to my story...my ear was hurting, so I went up a bit until I didn't feel pressure, and I was going to swim up there until it got better. The dive master pointed aggressively at me and then pointed down, meaning "You- GET DOWN HERE!" I pointed to my ear and did the "it's not so good" sign. And he took that opportunity to show me that I was going up and down and making my ear hurt, then he kept telling me to come down. There is no way at all I should go down when I can't equalize my ear. I kept trying, and something popped, and I got super dizzy for a minute, and then it went away, but I felt scared and unhappy and like a piece of shit again.

I had one dive master that was just about to enter the water and then realized that he hadn't turned on his air. He also said that he's too lazy to put up the "sausage" that is the bright orange air filled thing that says "divers below" when we come up. It's so boats don't hit us. They also started driving away from the port the last morning without counting everyone. They also ran out of water and told us to buy our own water for the rest of the trip. The mean one also publicly embarrassed me a few times this weekend. All in all I was thoroughly unimpressed, and pretty turned off. I even thought that I might not like diving anymore after the second, third, and fourth dives. I wasn't sure I would dive the next day. That's totally not me. My confidence was shaken - and not for any good reason - just for a jerk.

Sorry this is so negative - I guess I needed to vent, and Matt's in Israel having the time of his life with so many people I love!!! Enjoy the pictures. Click here for most of the good ones. There are some goodies...