The 43

Today is the last day of February, but amazingly, we are planning our summer already. I guess it's not that amazing anymore. In today's society, where kids aren't allowed to just explore on their own anymore, and parents are constantly finding things for their children to do (instead of the kids discovering things to do on their own), it's inevitable that parents must plan summer this far ahead. The first salvo in our summer planning was buying waterpark passes. Screamin' Daily Deals had an offer for seriously cheap waterpark passes that also included tickets to soccer games, arena football games, motorsports events and a few hockey games. Though I was perturbed the waterpark is under new ownership and won't be open Sundays (f--ing Utah!), it will be nice to be able to go and not make it an event -- there will be no pressure to stay all day to get our money's worth. But it's not just the waterpark passes. We need to plan vacations, swim camp, maybe swim ...

Losing Desdemona was rough. Losing Iago was tougher than I ever imagined. Iago had been sick for a couple years, but he remained stubborn throughout. After his diagnosis with Cushing's disease and diabetes, and after he was placed on medication to treat him, he regained some his swagger -- swagger we hadn't seen in years. That swagger is what I'll always remember about him. He was a demanindg, meowy cat. If you didn't pet him, he'd meow at you: "Why aren't you petting me?" If you did pet him, he'd meow at you: "Why did it take you so long to pet me?" He had his opinions, and he would tell you them. Here's my favorite Iago story, when he was about 7 months old. Wife and I had found our first apartment together, and we were moving in one Saturday. The kittens were understandably freaked out and weren't yet to explore their new, much bigger apartment. We had our front door open, and a neighbor came by to introduce herself, and her ca...

Though we love our new cat Maggie, I still sometimes find myself in disbelief that our last two cats are gone. It just happened so quickly that I haven't got used to the idea that they aren't here anymore. Wife has already blogged about the passing of Desdemona and Iago , and I'm not going to add too much more. I did want to write a little bit about them, starting with Desdemona. Wife wanted a new cat after her previous one had died, and I had never owned a cat before. Her parents had a cat who just delivered kittens a month earlier, and we were going to take one home with us. There were three kittens in the litter -- two orange tabbies and a black and white shorthair that was the smallest of the three. I picked the black and white cat up for the first time and she looked at me with the cutest little kitten face that I melted. This was going to be our cat. Over the years, Desdemona was always a little shier than her brother, but she was always so sweet. She had the cutest m...

Here in the middle of February, I find myself looking back at a winter 23 years ago -- my senior year of high school. I'm not sure why, though I think being outside at night -- even if just going from the car to the house -- is taking me back. So this was February 1988. I remember listening to Z95 in Chicago a lot. I remember going out with my friends almost every weekend night. I remember the cold, crisp evenings -- the last ones before spring would finally and thankfully arrive. I remember visiting Marquette with my friend Mike for a scholarship essay competition and an overnight experience(I'd end up going to college there, Mike wouldn't). I remember buying a navy P-coat at The Alley for $10. I remember "Just Like Heaven," "Pump Up the Volume," "Tell It to My Heart," "I Get Weak," "Don't Shed a Tear" and "Never Gonna Give You Up." I remember playing too much "Legend of Zelda." Finally, I remember t...

This was our Saturday -- a Saturday that we had didn't have as much planned as a normal Saturday: -- I woke up late after working late last night and after being kept awake by the kitten. -- Wife and boys went to the food co-op to get our purchase for the month. -- Boys played video games with neighbor friend for a few hours. -- Friend watched boys and took them to a movie while Wife and I saw a matinee play. -- Dinner. -- Eldest watched Ghostbusters 2 on Netflix; Littlest and I played Sorry Spin and War while watching the NBA All-Star festivities. -- I'm now blogging. Yes, that's a few things, but compared with our normal Saturdays, it was sparse. I'm looking forward to an equally sparse Sunday.

This is my first post of 2011, and so far, 2011 has not been kind. Our 93-year-old neighbor died, our car was broken into and also needed some unexpected repair work (with two major car repairs coming), and well, it's been winter. But the worst part of 2011 has been both our cats dying three weeks apart. We got Iago and Desdemona as kittens in 1994. Iago had some health problems but had been doing well, and Desi was her usual chipper self at Christmas. But Desi's kidneys failed in early January, and Iago's skin began splitting again just as it had when he was first diagnosed with Cushing's disease two years ago -- and this time, it couldn't be stitched up. We sadly had both cats euthanized. The house the last two weeks had been lonely without any pets. Lonely until today. We started looking for a new pet last weekend. We wanted to get a new kitten or a puppy (eventually we'll get both). A couple nights ago, I took the boys to Salt Lake County Animal Services to ...