In defense of books or, why I don't want a Kindle

Oh geez. Apparently Amazon announced the next generation of the Kindle today. So guess what Marek, Mr. Reader Pants, has been talking about this morning. (If you guessed anything else than the Kindle, well...I don't really know what to say to you.)

Marek wants me to be excited about the Kindle, but I'm here to make it official: I WILL NEVER OWN A KINDLE. There, I said it.

But Jenn!, you say. OMG! Kindle is so cool! It's so light! It's so thin! It's an entire library of books at your fingertips! You can even surf the web with it!

Look, that's all well and good, but books are books. A Kindle is not a book; it's not even like a book. And I'm a book snob (and darn it, I'm not ashamed of it). I only buy new books (yes, even in college). When I go to bookstores and browse, I 100% judge books by their covers. I think the books on your bookshelf say a lot about who you are, and yes, I will judge you if I think your bookshelf is full of crap and intolerable drivel. And don't even get me started on dog-earing pages.

That being said, you simply cannot replace a book with an electronic device.

When I was younger, I spent many nights in bed, stealthily retrieving my book hidden under the quilt at the end of my bed, and reading by the meager light cast down the hallway by the TV my parents were watching. I was read to my entire childhood, and grew up to read voraciously on my own. If there's one thing I will always have money for, it's books. If there's one thing that gives me solace, it's a well-crafted story.

There is something so sublime about a new book. The way it smells, the way it looks, the story it holds. Its glossy or matted cover. The sharp corners of a well-bound paperback, or that distinctive crackling when you first dig into a hardcover. There's a sense of sadness mingled with joy when you make your first crease in the spine of a paperback. You cannot replace the satisfaction of turning a physical page. You cannot replace a well-stocked and well-loved collection, nor can you replace a well-worn copy of your favorite book.

My father, bless his heart, recently converted to the dark side. Growing up, I always shared a love of books with my father. (He introduced me to Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles...I squirreled away his copy of Memnoch the Devil and read it in secret.) But I will not share his love of the Kindle.

You can take your fancy, black-and-white-only tablet. You can turn your virtual pages and revel in the bits and bytes stored on your device.

I'll be over here, soaking up comfort, surrounded by my books.

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Nicknames + Island 5

So I mentioned yesterday that I like to give people nicknames, remember? The picture with all the people and their names? But half of them had other things attached, like Future-Brother-in-Law (or FBIL, as I like to call him) or New Friend or Airport? Nicknames are certainly nothing new (heck, my name is a nickname...a frequently-misspelled-nickname, but a nickname nonetheless), but I like to think I have fun with them.

It started the senior year of college, when there were two Brians in my life, and we all worked for a certain supermarket chain - it could be confusing. So my friends and I just started calling them Brian1 and Brian2 to distinguish them. This kind of nicknaming takes a little bit of time to remember, because you really have to train yourself as to which one is 1 vs 2. My friend (also from the supermarket) later married another Brian...but she wouldn't let me call him Brian3.

Brian1 and Brian2 kicked off a, in my opinion, great string of nicknames for other guys who came and went:

• Bipolar Dave
• Dan the Armored Car Guy...abbreviated to Dan ACG
• Doug the Jiffy Lube Guy
• Saba the Milkman
• Walker the Stalker...called so because he would visit my friend religiously every day to flirt

Since then, I haven't had many pairs of people in my life, but when I do, I usually just fall back to 1 and 2, but I decided to try to be creative again. Plus, it's more fun than calling them Brian A. versus Brian B. versus Brian C., you know?

As for the Island Five, you remember here, when I explained the Island Five? Marek and I were talking about it the other day, and I was explaining to him why I picked each person on my list. He looked confused, because he thought the Island Five was about repopulating the earth, not spending eternity on an island with only five other people. Hence, why he picked who he did (and he promised to fill us all in on those selections soon).

But I thought I'd take a couple minutes to explain why I picked the people I did (because I know you are soooooo curious), because I think you need a nice balance of people if you're going to be stuck on an island with them forever - eye candy helps, but eternity is a long time. And before we get started, you should know I'm a linguist at heart and by training - I love picking apart language and listening to practically any accent.

• Peyton Manning: We can talk about football and Southern hospitality. We can giggle together and laugh at Tom Brady in cute Southern accents.
• David Beckham: He must wear a suit at all times. I will bore him by prattling on about the British monarchy, and he can't do fig about it. I will bring one of those telephone books they throw on my doorstep and make him read out of it.
• [Name Withheld]: We can talk about linguistics and language. He will fascinate me by being so terribly out of touch with pop culture. We can make linguistic examples out of everyone else on the island.
• Thomas Kretschmann: He's German. He's just coming for his accent and his good looks (lucky him!).
• Zac Efron: We can sing songs together and put on musicals (as the male and female leads, natch) together for the others.

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Marek had a birthday (and now he's old)

Marek's birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and we celebrated a week early with some friends and family. Normally we have our parties on Saturday, but we decided to switch things up and have the party on Sunday instead. We went out for lunch to Yard House, which opened near us in the past 6 months or so. They have over 100 beers on tap, which doesn't mean anything to me because I don't like beer, but was good news for almost everyone else.

Here's a group shot from lunch. It was so nice of everyone to come by!

From L-R: Future Brother-in-Law Pawi, Future Stepbrother-in-Law Maciek, Birthday Boy Marek, New Friend Jaimie, Avi, Chris, (MY) Cousin Patrick, (MY) Cousin James, Josh, Sean, and Airport Chris.

Yes, I like to give people nicknames. I will tell you about it sometime.

After lunch, we went back to the house to hang out and play games. I took a shot of the three "sections" of the room, but I'm not going to post the picture of my section because remember, I'm vain?

We like to play the game "Things", which if you haven't played it, you should check it out. It's a really fun game if you play it with the right people. Here's a shot of another third of the room. I took 3 pictures of this group, and not a single picture has everyone looking at the camera at the same time, so I just went with this one.

We also watched the World Cup, and afterwards we grilled some hot dogs and hamburgers. At some point, probably after he'd had a few beers, Marek decided he wanted a cigar, so his brother drove him to the store to get some cigars.

Josh, Jeremy, and Marek smoked cigars and drank on the deck, and the rest of us...I think we watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince...until I got sick of everyone asking questions and everyone explaining everything to everyone else.

Because Josh had been smoking, Avi wanted to Febreze him before they drove home (in Avi's car). Luckily, we had some extra-strength Febreze on hand. I don't know if Josh thought Avi was kidding or not, but he definitely wasn't! Look at the steely resolve on Avi's face. Not only was he sprayed, but it was a 360 degree spray.

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The rest of Fourth of July

Where were we? Oh, right. I told you what we did on Friday and I told you what we did on Saturday. So we must be on Sunday!

But first, some other fun pictures I found from Saturday. Chris has a camera that is fully submersible without a case, so we goofed around taking some pictures of each other underwater. Not the easiest task if you wear contacts, but I think we managed to pull it off. I think it's fairly obvious who was the least comfortable with this activity.

On Sunday we got up early again (though not as early as Saturday) to head to the beach. I really wanted to go to Mayflower Beach, which is on the bay side, so has very little waves, but lots of nice sand and little seaweed. The nice thing about the beach is that the tide goes WAY out, so at low tide, the beach is huge, and there are sandbars everywhere. It's by far my favorite beach, but is also a very busy beach.

You typically have to be to the beach by around 9 AM, especially on weekends during high season, to get a spot. When we drove down 6A (which probably means nothing to you) a little before 9, the line to Mayflower Beach was already out to 6A...very far (it's at least a couple miles down the road to the beach). We ended up driving around to a couple beaches, and I honestly can't remember where we ended up - might have been Corporation beach.

It was wicked hot on Sunday - noticeably hotter than Saturday, and there wasn't any real breeze. We were frying. The beach was pretty busy, and we napped and chatted. At one point, some Jersey Shore-like family sat in front of us. We spent some time trying to figure out if one of the women was au naturel, if you will. (We decided she likely wasn't.)

Can I just tell you, I was in love this this woman's umbrella. It was so pretty.

The water was cold, but the beach was hotter. We made periodic trips down to swim and cool off. Proof that I was there too! I am only posting this picture because I'm vain and I only post pictures of myself where I decide I look okay. (And yes, it's okay if you're jealous of my cellulite. I am. ;))

Here's our best jump picture of the weekend. Marek crouches down under water, I climb on his shoulders, he stands up, and I jump off his shoulders. Lots of fun. Most of the time, I don't jump though, I just fall and get water up my nose. We did this last summer when we went to the beach with Chris, but I remembered to bring the camera this year so we finally got it on "film".

The beach on the second day had these "Swim Area" buoys up. I'm not sure if they marked the area where you could swim safely from the noise of children, or if you weren't supposed to swim beyond this point. (Side story: we got whistled at by the lifeguards on Saturday as we tried to swim out to a buoy...which the lifeguards then swam past on their little boards while out for a leisurely, show-off, rub-it-in-your-face swim. We all disapproved heavily, especially the former lifeguard in our group.)

After the beach we headed back to Chris's house and showered and then left. Marek and I stopped for dinner at Red Robin (!!!!!), and then we went and saw Toy Story 3 afterwards. We were debating going to the Mendon drive-in to see it, but decided on the theatre because it was earlier, and we were pretty tired. After Toy Story 3 we saw The Last Airbender in dreaded 3D.

Toy Story 3 was good, and The Last Airbender was not. The acting in The Last Airbender was pretty bad, especially the child actors, and the script was pretty lame too. It's too bad, because the story was kind of neat, and I enjoyed the effects.

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The Island 5, Explained

I love The Island Five. It's something Marek and I came up with a long time ago, and is a play on the age old question, "If you were stuck on an island, who would you want with you?" Naturally, you'd usually pick your close friends or even some family. So we decided to rule all of those people out, because they are a given. You're certainly free to pick anyone you know in real life, but that's just another spot you're using up. I'm not sure how we arrived at 5...but it's stuck.

My Island Five has stayed pretty constant since the beginning. I've got about 3 regulars, and 2 transition spots that I move people in and out of. I have no clue where Marek's Island Five is at. He had a bunch of dumb really hot girls on there...and The Rock.

So here's mine. We'll start with the regulars.

#1. Peyton Manning

Quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. He's awesome.

My go-to picture. If we're connected on Google Talk, you might recognize this picture. (Random story about this picture: a Patriots friend of mine lost a bet a few years ago that the Patriots would win the AFC Championship...and had to put this picture up as his Facebook profile picture for an entire month.)

#2. David Beckham

Plays world football. Looks great in a suit.

And I've heard rumors he has a high-pitched voice.

#3. [Name Withheld]

I unfortunately cannot tell you who this person is, as it's someone I know in real life, and I'd bet he'd be pretty embarrassed (and totally weirded out) if he knew he was on this list.

(Heck, I'd be embarrassed and weirded out if he knew he was on this list.)

We refer to him as my boyfriend (which is an old joke from college).

Marek has met him and approves.

#4. Thomas Kretschmann

He played Major Otto Ernst Remer in Valkyrie (among others).

He's a recent addition and is in danger of being bumped by Ralph Fiennes.

#5. Zac Efron

Of High School Musical fame, but I like the Charlie St. Cloud Zac Efron (similar below), not the one with the Justin Bieber hair. He also looks good in a suit.

He is also a recent addition, and is also in danger of being bumped by someone more age appropriate.

There are other people hovering off the edge of the island...Heidi Klum, Martha Stewart, and Jacques Pepin have all been given the boot. Marc Murphy could take over #4 or #5...and on and on.

So there it is! Remind me to tell you about the Shopping Cart at the Top of the Mountain some day...

Oh, and tell me who's on your Island Five!

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BBS

I'm stuck at work all weekend, otherwise I'd update you on my fantastic Friday night with my best friends. Hint: it involves Wings! and karaoke! and dancing! and did I mention my best friends?

On top of that, I still have our Fourth of July weekend recap to finish (more beach! more Chris!), Marek's birthday party weekend (with Airport Chris!), and a family weekend up in Maine (with pretty much the best cousins ever!). It's been a busy, but amazingly fun, few weeks.

Be back soon! :)

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More than just a one hit wonder

I was making a new mix CD for my car the other day (yes, I'm that hip), and I stumbled across the Beth Hart song, "L.A. Song", which was all cool and popular back in 2000. I also heard either Shawn Colvin ("Sunny Came Home") or Paula Cole ("Where Have All the Cowboys Gone") when I was listening to the radio a couple of months ago. Yes, that's the last time I voluntarily listened to the radio.

So now driving around with "L.A. Song" on my CD - and a cut off version of Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" thanksalotiTunes - I've gotten to thinking - what are some other one hit wonders of my generation? And not just one hit wonders, but the big "it" songs when we were growing up - you know the ones - they were really popular, and everyone would rush out and buy the CD because you just had to have the song. Or maybe you'd listen to the radio and wait and wait until the song came on and scramble to record it on your favorite mix cassette.

Here's some I've thought of. (I haven't verified that these are in fact one hit wonders, and some artists probably have more than one hit.)

• L.A. Song (Beth Hart)
• Sunny Came Home (Shawn Colvin)
• Where Have All the Cowboys Gone (Paula Cole)
• I'm Gonna Be (The Proclaimers)
• Peaches (The Presidents of the United States of America)
• One of Us (Joan Osborne)
• Everything You Want (Vertical Horizon)

What other ones can you think of? I want to make another mix CD just of these songs, so I'd love to hear of any other songs (or artists) that come to mind!

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Save me, Zac Efron

I'll just cut to the chase. I was unsure if I should post really personal stuff on this blog. Aside from the whole "nothing's private on the internet" (yes, internet, I will not capitalize that!) concern, there's just something about airing dirty laundry that's kind of unappealing to me. But of course, not all personal stuff is dirty laundry...probably just the majority of the interesting stuff. Anyway, I gave it some thought last night, and this is my blog, darn it, so I'm going to blog about what I want to blog about! (Well, technically it's Marek's and my blog, but he even told me last night that it's mine.)

So here's what's up. I was spending a nice, quiet night with the puppy. I had done the dinner dishes - always a major accomplishment - and had cleaned up the second bedroom and even exercised a little. I put almost all of my clothes away. Then I was texting or messaging (won't say which) with someone, and this person in question was doing a really good job of unintentionally hurting my feelings. A LOT.

I'm not going to go into details, but suffice to say that I spent a good amount of time afterwards going back and forth between being angry and sad. If this were the first time said person(s) had made me feel like this, then I might just write it off. (Haha! Who am I kidding? I hold a grudge like nobody's business.) But it wasn't the first time, no. It's been going on for I'd say about 3 years now, but getting progressively worse.

In the end, sadness won out. I suppose after 3 years it succeeded in wearing me down a bit. So, I turned off the lights, and lay in bed and cried for awhile. Then I got to thinking, and I realized I had no one to talk to! Not just because Marek was out for the night and puppy was obliviously sleeping.

I would feel bad just calling someone up, crying, looking for a shoulder to cry on. Maybe there are people in my phone I could have done that to, but there wasn't anyone who came to mind, and that makes me even sadder than the thing that made me sad to begin with.

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Public Humiliation Diet

I came across an interesting thing on Twitter yesterday - the Public Humiliation Diet. I initially thought this was some widespread, Twitter phenomenon, but upon further investigation, it seems like it's a small handful of people. But still, I am intrigued. Does holding oneself accountable in a public forum, to your friends and possibly many strangers, actually work?

Or is it less about holding oneself accountable, and more about having everyone on the internet be privy to your victories and failures. A lot of people struggle with weight (how many people have you ever met who are truly happy with their weight) and body image, but most of us do this privately, with some whining and griping to our close, real life friends.

I've tried a lot of different things to lose weight, including diets and exercise. I haven't stumbled upon the right combination yet, and to be honest, I haven't really been trying that hard. But, we're more than halfway through the year, so I'd like to try a little harder.

I trained hard all spring for the half marathon in May, but I wasn't eating right due to being at school a few nights a week lazy. Once school was over, I still didn't try very hard to eat better, and even worse, I started slacking off in my exercise routine. I also just finished an unprecedented 5 weekends in a row of social drinking, which is about equal to the total amount of alcohol I typically consume in a year.

So, I committed myself to running again this week. It helps that I also committed myself to the Boston Half Marathon, which is less than 3 months away, so it's a good motivator. It helps even more that the Boston Half caps the course open time at 2:30, meaning that I've got to bust my butt to beat my Mini (Indy Half) time. But what helps the most is that after taking 2+ weeks off, I was somehow able to run faster the past two days than I have previously. I'm taking this as a good sign.

And because I completely and utterly suck at keeping a food diary and counting calories and all that jazz, I set up this posterous to serve as a daily picture food diary. Hopefully I can keep up with this one, as it's a little easier for me than diligently writing or typing everything I eat, and I always have my phone with me anyway.

So check it out! I'll post my exercise for the day and whatever I'm eating, and maybe, just maybe, you can help keep myself accountable, too. :)

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Fourth of July weekend: Saturday (beach and Ptown)

A little late, but part 2 of our Fourth of July weekend recap. We got up bright and early Saturday morning - around 6:30 AM I think. We had wanted to be on the road for 7 AM, as we were heading to the outer Cape to Nauset Beach, rather than hang around where we were (can never remember if it's upper, mid, or lower Cape).

Here's the view looking out of Chris's parents' kitchen - so beautiful! From their kitchen, you can see all the way to the beach. It must be so nice to see this every morning. We've been here when the weather was less than ideal, and it's still such a great view.

We ate breakfast and watched the animals outside on the patio - birds, squirrels, and bunnies! These two bunnies were hopping around, oblivious to us, just munching on some plants. It was a nice way to start off the morning.

At some point between getting up and getting to the beach, we started talking about whaleships from the 1800s (or whenever it was). So then on the way to the beach, Chris took us on a detour past this old whaling captain's house (the Penniman House). Here's a picture of the house, which apparently had a scandalous indoor bathroom. The arch you see was made out of the jaw bones of a whale. I thought Chris said that these are replicas, and that the real jaw bones (which I also thought he said were bigger, but I could be making all of that up) were in a museum somewhere. Either way, it's pretty impressive - the arch is huge.

We got to Nauset Beach shortly after 8. Aside from the fact that the beach was largely empty so we got our pick of spots, we didn't have to pay for parking that morning! Small victories. :) It was a really gorgeous day, and there were a bunch of people there surfing in the morning. The beach filled up quickly though. Coincidentally, Marek ran into two people he knew - one guy he used to work with at S&S (in Northampton though!) who was a ranger at the beach, and another guy he works with now. So random.

The waves were pretty decent that day for such a nice, calm day. There was a slight breeze, but not much. Waves are a benefit of going to the ocean side over the bay side.

After the beach started filling up, we were so lucky to have a bunch of college kids sit behind us. Although I will admit, we were kind of jealous of their sandwiches later, because they sounded and smelled delicious. Anyway, Chris overheard one of the douchier kids say, "Sun's out, guns out", so this became our catchphrase for the rest of our lives the day. Here's Chris and Marek in the water, embodying our new favorite phrase.

Chris brought a coconut to the beach (because duh, isn't that what everyone brings to the beach!?), and luckily some guy near us had a hammer, so he borrowed that to crack open the coconut.

We got a decent amount of (gross) coconut water out of the coconut, and we all got to nibble on some pieces of fresh coconut. I've never had fresh coconut, so that was an interesting experience. Clearly we were wholly unprepared for the coconut incident though, as we had to borrow a hammer, and then had to try to use plastic forks to get the coconut out of the shell.

I took this picture for Chris, to encapsulate our beach experience. You'll note the low SPF sunblock (I think it's SPF 8), tanning oil, lemons for our hair, a cup of beer, the coconut, and a frisbee. Last year at the beach, Chris introduced me to tanning oil, and holy cow, I'm addicted to that stuff now. Luckily, I go to the beach about once or twice a year, but still. It smells amazing, and I'm lucky enough that I hardly burn (and I do put sunscreen on underneath).

We spent 10 hours at the beach - we saw low and high tide! It was a really great day, and afterwards, we headed up to Provincetown to walk around and get dinner. I've been to Provincetown before, just once, but it's an experience, let's just say that. It was even more of an experience because it was Fourth of July weekend, so it was more packed than usual.

Marek and I hadn't packed clothes for post-beach, so we headed to Ptown in our beach clothes, and stopped by a couple stores to see if there were any good options for a change of clothes. Here's a sign I saw in one of the shops as we headed into the main part of town.

We grabbed dinner at John Dough's (a pizza/sushi place), and then headed home. Ptown was really busy, and we mostly stayed on the main street, but there were some really nice views if you ventured onto the side streets closer to the beaches.

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So long to a couple of friends :(

It's been a tough week or so around here for pets. We were, at one point, happy owners of a small little zoo - a turtle (red-eared slider), 2 parakeets, then 3 parakeets, and lastly, a crazy Dachshund.

I've had Dingus since 2003; my college boyfriend and I bought him after a trip to NYC when I fell in love with the teeny tiny turtles they sell on the sidewalk. When Dingus was my only pet, I would take him out quite frequently and let him run around - turtles are surprisingly fast! His favorite place to go was some place dark, covered, and out of the way. If you didn't keep a close eye on him, he was likely to scurry off some place you'd have a hard time getting him out of.

One of my favorite Dingus stories was when my friend Chris was apartment-sitting in college, and Dingus disappeared on him. He came over daily to feed Dingus, and one day Dingus had escaped from his tank. Chris later found him wedged between the toilet and the plunger in the bathroom. Another time, Dingus bit a huge chunk out of my lip as I attempted to show my friends that Dingus could give kisses...he latched onto my bottom lip and didn't let go, so I sure learned my lesson the hard way!

My favorite picture of Dingus

Back in May, we were cleaning out Dingus's tank, which involved cleaning and replacing his filter, and cleaning his tank. The dog was away for the day, so Marek let Dingus out to wander around, as he'd been mostly tank-bound since we got the dog (and ever since I had a nightmare about Dingus taking a bite out of my dog's nose!). When it came time to put Dingus back in his tank, he was nowhere to be found!

Now this wasn't out of the ordinary, so we waited a couple days, and Marek even claimed he heard Dingus walking around a couple times. However, after about 4 days, I was getting pretty nervous - I hadn't seen or heard Dingus, and I was getting worried about him. Over the next few days, we basically ripped the house apart, picking up everything off the floor, looking for him in all the small places, places he couldn't even have possibly gotten into.

After he'd been gone for about a week and a half, we just kind of stopped looking for him. We had looked everywhere in the house, so we concluded that he must have wandered outside somewhere (and we even checked outside). I was sad, but partially relieved, because I knew he was living a pretty miserable existence. He'd grown quite a bit since I got him, but was still living in a relatively small tank. He rarely got out of the tank, so I hoped that wherever he'd wandered off to was a nicer place for him. We kept telling ourselves that he made it to the pond near our house and was hanging out with all the other turtles and fish over there.

Fast forward about 8 weeks, and I was cleaning up the house, and discovered him at the bottom of a gym bag. He scared the living daylights out of me. And now we had a problem - we'd already gotten rid of most of his things, and had come to terms with his being gone, but choosing to let him go made me feel awful. In the end, we took him down to the pond we had convinced ourselves he was living in, and let him go there.

We decided that if he went into the pond, that must be where he wanted to be, and that if he showed any hesitation, we would take him right back home. I was reluctant to let him go, but read up about turtles' natural habitats, and it seemed he would be okay in the pond - heck, he had gone almost 2 months without food or water - and in any case, I hoped it might be better for him in the big pond than the tiny tank.

So let him out, and he looked around for a couple minutes, and then ran right into the water. It seems like his natural instincts took over. I watched him swim out a bit, and then head right towards the bottom of the pond and just sit there for awhile. We waited until we couldn't see him any longer, and then left. It was hard, but I think we did the right thing in the end. Hopefully he's leading a much happier life!

What happened to Harry is much less happy though. :( We've had Harry since the fall of 2005; he was a birthday gift to me from Marek. We bought Harry and his "brother" Leroy together, and I just loved them. The birds would sit on my finger and would make cute little chirping noises, and would come and greet me when I came near the cage.

Some time in the spring of 2006, Harry had a problem with his wing, and we had to pull a feather out, and ever since then, Harry had issues flying. He was basically a crippled bird - he could do sort of half flapping, and get a little off the ground, but not like the other birds (we added Eddie to the group earlier that spring). We always felt bad for him because of that, and he seemed to become a mean, cranky bird - the least friendly of them all, and always pecking and biting you when you would try to play with him.

We also found out at one point that Harry was actually a girl. You can tell a parakeet's gender by the color of the thing over its beak - the pretty blue/purple shade is for male parakeets, and the brown color is for females. Maybe Harry was also upset because we continued to call her Harry and refer to her as a male bird. (In our defense, we didn't know it was a girl until at least a year after we got her. Hard to change habits.)

Leroy (left) and Harry

After we got the dog, the birds were mostly cage bound. The dog left them alone, but when we tried to introduce them to each other, he did snap at them, so that was the end of letting them out when the dog was around. While having the dog was great, it was also too bad, because it meant the birds were neglected, play-wise. We still fed them and took good care of them, but we couldn't let them out of their cage to spread their wings and play with us.

We went to trim their nails this past weekend. We trimmed Eddie's first, and had no problems. However, when I was clipping Harry's nails, I cut too much, and cut to the quick - 3 times. :( Harry was bleeding a lot, and we tried to put styptic powder and styptic swabs on it, all to no avail. We ended up putting him in a separate cage so he could relax and calm down, and the bleeding seemed to stop.

However, once we picked him up to look at him again, the bleeding started again. We tried other home remedies (soap, cornstarch) and more styptic powder, but it all just seemed to make it worse. We ended up putting him back in the small cage again, and it seemed like the bleeding was slowing again. We left for the night, and when we came back, poor Harry was curled up in the corner of the cage. He looked like he was just sitting there, relaxing, but he had passed away. :(

I was honestly not that surprised (Harry was the weakest bird), but it was still really upsetting, especially because I feel like it's all my fault. Even if I didn't spend that much time with him, he was still my little bird, and I loved him, and I'll miss him a lot. :( I know his other bird pals are also missing him - when he was in his separate cage, they kept looking over at him and checking up on him.

Here's one of my favorite pictures of him, and how I'll remember him. I love the way he's looking at the camera. I always feel like he has a little inquisitive look on his face, acting like a little tough bird, wondering why I'm taking his picture. :)

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Fourth of July weekend: Friday (with fireworks!)

We came back last night from a great Fourth of July weekend down the Cape! We left Friday afternoon right after work, and were hoping to beat a lot of the traffic rush down to the Cape, or at least minimize the amount of time we were stuck in traffic. Traffic started around 7 miles before the Bourne bridge, and added about 45 minutes to the drive, which was very manageable.

We stayed with our friend Chris and his family. Once we got there, we dropped off our stuff and set out in search of some food. We were initially going to try to eat at Chapin's in Dennis, but ended up at Captain Frosty's, which Chris describes as "more clam shackish". It's a nice, casual dining place where you order at the counter and they bring your food to you. Chris and Marek had some local seafood fare, and I stuck with chicken. :)

Here's Marek trying his first ever cup of clam chowder. He initially wasn't sure if he liked it, but in the end decided that he did. We stuck around Captain Frosty's for awhile. We had some ice cream after dinner, and then headed out to the beach.

I don't remember the name of the first place we checked out, but I think this is a spot where you can see Sandy Neck beach (or may be Sandy neck beach, not sure). Either way, we stayed here for about 5 minutes, if that, because there were SO many bugs flying around. It was gross. It was nice to go though, because I was hoping to get a couple pictures of the sunset while we were on the Cape.

We headed to another spot to try to watch the rest of the sunset, and there were these boats docked there. It was a very pretty scene - the sun was just about gone, and the water was so calm and still. It was a little secluded spot, and just reminds me why I love the Cape so much.

After that, we headed back to Chris's house. This is me with Jackie, our friend who also lives on the Cape. I hadn't seen her in awhile, and she joined us for dinner, so it was really great to hang out with her! :)

After Jackie left, we decided to set off some fireworks. Chris had picked some up during the week, and we headed out back to light them. Here's a picture of one that Chris got for me, a little army tank. He got Marek these whirly things called "Googles", which spun around and emitted sparks.

Here's some other fireworks he picked up, I think for his family. Cute little chickens and a rooster. There's a cute pillow on the counter at Chris's parents' house that says The rooster crows, but the hen delivers the goods (or something like that), and I've always thought it was so cute.

Chris lighting a sparkler for Marek. Alcohol and fireworks is always a good combination!

Here's Marek with his sparkler lit up. This was the first time in my whole life that I have ever played with sparklers, and they are pretty fun! Although I think they're a little scary, too, but not as scary as the Roman candles we had.

Here is Chris with his sparkler. He picked up a bunch of other fireworks, including the Googles, Roman candles, and some other standalone things that just emitted sparks and then kind of blew up. We had a lot of fun setting them off and then running away as fast as we could. I was terrified of getting burnt or something.

The Roman candles were a lot of fun, but kept getting ash or whatnot in my eye. We set off about 6 of them (I think 2 apiece), and the last thing we did was try to light 3 at once. We each had one, and each candle had about 8 explosions in them, so they were making quite a bit of noise, but it was a lot of fun!

We used this piece of cardboard as the "flat" surface that many of the fireworks called for. For my first time with fireworks, I had a lot of fun, and it was a great time. :)

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