Monday, September 21, 2009

Cat TV

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We have created an underwater ecosystem in our bedroom! The decor is vintage dollhouse furniture from the 1960s.


We stocked our 10 gallon tank with two goldfish, one named Sanchez and one named Elise. We also brought home a little catfish named Adeline and an enormous snail named Fredegar (or "Fatty" for you LOTR fans). Here they are before they were released into the tank.


Here's a close up of Fredegar suctioned to the front of the fridge:



Ada has poor eyesight and is also pretty dim, so she is not yet aware that we have fish. Rupert, on the other hand, is entranced.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

A Visit with Nessie

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We recently visited Edinburgh! I was there for only 3 short days, while Eddy stayed longer for the ICFP conference and workshops. Our first (jet lagged) day in the city, we wandered around and saw some Edinburgh sites. The first thing we learned is that the city is built on a steep mountain. Here's a typical Edinburgh view complete with incline. One of my goals while in Scotland was to eat pub food for every meal. While this goal lasted a mere 2 days, we did enjoy tasty pub vittles including the Scottish treat of Haggis with tatties (potatoes) and neeps (turnips). Here's a picture of me taking my first (and only) bite.















Day two we took a tour of the beautiful Scottish countryside on our way to Loch Ness. Here's a picture of me sleeping on the bus. Although every moment was packed with breathtaking scenery including purple heather mountains, rainbows and white woolly sheep, we were en route for a total of 10 hours, so we both dozed off just a little.

Once at Loch Ness, we explored Urqhart Castle, stepped into the loch and took a short cruise. While we didn't come back with any tacky Nessie nick-nacks, we did get Eddy's picture with some curious souvenir shirts we spotted back in Edinburgh.

On our last day in the city, we visited the Edinburgh Book Festival, walked the Royal Mile, and found the most amazing paper store on the face of the earth. We ended the day by attending the Fringe Festival--the largest arts festival in the world. We saw a couple of stand up comedians, one of whom spoke about the history of obscenities.