We lost our Marmalade today. It was sudden and she went quickly so she didn't suffer too much. She was a good kitty. She kept to herself a lot but when she was in the mood to cuddle she would cuddle like crazy. She was found in a cardboard box on the side of the road as a very tiny kitten with her brothers and sisters. A friend of my parents cared for them and we took Marm home. Marm lived a good 13 years. I'll miss her.

Rain

It rained today. Below is a map that shows what happens when it rains. Each diamond is an accident which may cause traffic backup. It took me from 3:00 to 4:40 to get home from work today. But I did see two rainbows. Very pretty.

On the topic of traffic.... You've heard me rant about lane splitting by motorcycles. Here's an example of it. You see this alllllll the time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cQvcZlo2yo

Rearrange

We rearranged our living room yesterday. It opened up the room a lot. We also did a lot of Christmas decoration shopping. We finally have a house we can light up. Yay. My parents are coming out in a couple weeks. That'll be fun too.

We took Milo outside on the leash very shortly. He liked it. After we brought him back in, he sat at the door and meowed at it because he wanted to go back out. It was cute.

Driving

Ha. I drive a lot. So I like this article because it is so true. http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=726147&topart=passenger Ten most annoying driving habits. I like # 1, 4 and 5 the most.
But they left out a few of my major gripes.
1. Tailgating. How does driving an inch from someone's back bumper get you anywhere faster? If they are trying to pressure me to go faster, it won't work because I'll usually go slower because of it. I want a license plate that reads "the closer you tailgate, the slower I drive".
2. Queue jumpers. The freeway is busy and cars are backed up and moving slowly. The lane on the right is an exit only lane. Most cars stick to the main lanes and leave the right lane for the exiters. The people that drive me CRAZY are the ones who don't want to wait in the line of cars like the rest of us and drive the exit lane all the way down and then cut back into main traffic at the last possible second. That just backs up people more. Ugh drives me crazy and I won't let someone in who tries to cut in front of me.
3. Extremely fast or extremely slow drivers. The fast drivers whip through traffic weaving in and out of every lane back and forth around every car. I just want them to get a speeding ticket so badly. Then there is the opposite. People who drive so slow, way below speed limit. They are even more of a traffic hazzard. And it backs up traffic, especially in rush hour.
4. Motorcycles driving between lanes. Don't even get me started on them!
Ah Los Angeles. :)

Wind and fire

The wind has been really strong yesterday and today. Gusts up to 65mph. You can hear it blowing against the house really strong. It is also warm out...in the 80's. When there's wind and warm temps, there's usually fire. And that is the case this time. Yesterday there was a fire near Santa Barbara that burned over 100 houses. And today there is a fire in Sylmar. That is right where the freeways meet that seperate San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita. All the roads are closed. It is a good thing this happened on a weekend because I take those routes to work everyday and I wouldn't be able to get to or from work at all. So far they can't contain it because it is so windy out. The fire is also threatening power blackouts for Los Angeles. Today Rob and I had plans to drive to Pasadena to go to a neat Christmas store. Well that's out of the question now... bummer.

Here's a picture of what the wind did to our fence.

V-Day

Happy Veteran's Day. Yup.

Election day

Election day is finally here which means no more having to listen to all the campaign stuff thats been going on for months and months and months. Unfortunately, before polls even close in California, they'll know who the next president is already. Makes it seem sort of pointless ya know? But nonetheless I'm gonna vote. I'm voting more for all the CA propositions than for the actual president.


UPDATE:
It is now 7:30 pacific time. The polls are still open for another half hour. No polling place can report their totals yet here in CA. However, the news is already saying that Obama won. So I guess not everyone's vote really matters huh. Oh well. Here's to hoping Obama is a good president!! I think he'll be fine.

Rain

It rained on Saturday! At 6am there was thunder and lightning. It was great. It also thundered a bit later in the day too. I love thunderstorms and they are so rare here.

Halloween II

Here are some pictures

As neat as our house looked, guess how many trick-or-treaters we got..... ONE!!!!!! One little trick-or-treater with his parents. We were sitting there all night with our bowl of candy waiting for kids. The problem is that we are at the end of a cul-de-sac and noone could see our house. The other neighbors around us all had no lights on so all the trick-or-treaters ignored our cul-de-sac and cut over to another street that starts several houses down from ours. I took a drive and there were indeed kids going up to all the houses.... just not ours. Pout pout.