I had one more phone call to make, actually, to the person I'm supposed to be sponsoring as she investigates becoming a Catholic. I haven't been turning up, mostly because of baseball games. I apologized and we agreed we'd get together Sunday.

Yay, Stasi!

Rich brought the VCR home just before soap time on Friday, so it was really hectic trying to get it set up to do the soap. Then I didn't have anything to tape till Sunday, so it's been a little more leisurely figuring out how it works. I left right after GH started, but I'm really glad to announce that it worked well and I got to see the evil Bell go Ding-Dong (The Witch is Dead) again. Maybe just maybe this time it will take! There are suggestions on the newsgroup to drive the stake through her "heart" right now, so she won't revive Yet Again.

I did mutter a little something about getting him dance lessons for HIS birthday, but actually I'm quite pleased. The other one, once cleaned, recorded sound just right but the video head was apparently loose and jumped around a lot. I decided I was right, I'd rather be blind than deaf, but it's nice not to have to choose.

I had to leave for Fitch's vet exam, which turned out not to be as straightforward give-him- a-booster-shot as I had hoped. He weighs 6 pounds 3 ounces, but is younger than we thought, probably just over 4 months. So I'm placing Crombie's birthday as April 15 and Fitch's as June 1. When I got home I showed Rich their teeth, and Fitch has dropped one of his baby canines, (shouldn't those be "felines"?) so the grownup teeth are coming in soon.
Anyway. Fitch is running a fever. Also, his tummy is distended, so they think he might have worms, and I get the joyous job of getting a stool sample. (I asked how, and they have a little thing kind of like a cookie cutter to do it with. Oh yay.) So I got eye medicine, tetracycline this time, for both little monsters, who have been passing it back and forth with great abandon, and an antibiotic for Fitch, and have to go back on Monday.

Then today, I looked out in the morning and there was a squirrel in my bromeliads on the porch. I went to chase it off, Sailor came bounding out the door, bouncing through the cactus garden hoping to chase a squirrel up the palm tree as he does, and the porch squirrel had only one place to run, straight up the stucco wall to right under the porch roof. It really looked for a hole, like into the attic, thank goodness there were none.
So there we are, squirrel up at the top of my porch, yelling at me, me not actually wanting to hurt it, just not wanting it there, dog sniffing around all a-wag. So I went in and it apparently decided to leave.

In the afternoon we decided to go look at the Northridge Water District garden. The paper gave an address on N. Antelope road. As Antelope is an east-west road, but takes a jog and has a more northern leg, we thought maybe that was what they meant. Nope. So Rich decided to work along Antelope back to Watt. When we lived in the area, 23 years ago, this street didn't exist. Sure enough, just as we were passing the "Ridge Pointe" housing development, and I was thinking "hmmmm... 'ridge'", we spied Antelope North Road. And there, indeed, was the garden. This is a demonstration garden to show water-saving tricks. I find it's just like the home shows, I want it ALL, and I want it all NOW! We saw something that looked a bit like my ornamental garlic only much showier and I asked what it was, and it was indeed garlic, just in better soil, I guess. Mexican sage is really pretty, too, and is a butterfly plant.

Then, rather than go straight home, we did some exploring. We went to the end of Antelope North, out PFE road (I recall going looking for car parts out here with 'Bagger some 10-12 years ago), out Watt into Placer county, and then to Fiddyment ranch. We saw some pistachios on the tree, but Fiddyment has sold most of its land, including where the Scouts used to camp, to housing. There's a Sun City out there. I guess woe betide you if you have to take custody of the grandkids!

On the way out, I spied a great blue heron in a tree. Rich was all prepared to argue, as it was "too big", till he realized he was thinking "green heron." Coming back, he saw it in a field and the tree had an egret. I hate seeing this land all going to sprawl.

A couple of quiet days, these, so I did some surfing:

• ReadCalifornia
• Mother Goose Rhymes
• Sacramento Web Design Award Winners
• Tell Candlestick Goodbye San Diego Zoo, and the baby Panda cam
• NASA for kids
• How Stuff Works
• The Seattle Space Needle
• University of Wyoming Geology Museum, which is much bigger than when I was there.
• I really am going to order this book now! There is an exhibit about Dr. Knight. There's a picture at Science Camp, they say 1960. I was trying to figure if it was really three years later, with that blonde in the front seat being me. Possible, but probably not.
• And, speaking about Wyoming, David Broder calls it a state in trouble. Sigh.