HKG159: Social Sunday and a Blogger Hiatus

waffle's beloved toy mousey...complete with burns and patchy fur. our funniest outtake for today was looking, and looking, and looking for this mouse because our fussy kitty prefers it to any of his other cool (and unburned/fully-furred toys). we found the mouse behind a stack of moving crates...displaced by an especially-exuberant game of fetch with olivia. i fully expect to be darning and repairing this mouse for YEARS to come.

we had a great day on sunday. we took the kids over to the central library and then to lunch at a french deli that's inside the library. in the afternoon, i got out for a nice jog, and josh took the kids down to the pool. we then wrapped up the day with a great visit/dinner with friends.

today, we are heading to GZ for a mini family vacay. blogger and facebook are both blocked in china, so texpat will be silent for a few days. i promise some pics and updates when we get back.

HKG158: Scaredy Cats

gratuitous pic of waffle falafel la fu, our favorite graduate of the SPCA wanchai

this morning, i volunteered at the SPCA with the kitties. this time, i worked in a different cattery...this one is for newbies that have been there only a few days and are working on socialization.

the first room, which contained 15 kitties, included some very sweet and affectionate newbies with a couple that were shy and a tiny bit aggressive. the second room, which contained another 15 kitties, included some of the most heartbreaking kitties i have ever met. almost all of the occupants of the second room were so aggressive and freaked out that they destroyed their cages...they upturned their litter boxes, food, and water...and sometimes their beds, too. several of them had made deposits on the walls and floor of their little rooms. almost all of them growled a very deep, scared-out-of-their wits growl and/or hissed and spit. it was heartbreaking to see these beautiful animals driven to this state. one whole side of room two contained cats that were brought in on a single raid...i could not determine if they were rescued from the street or a building or a hoarding situation (due to language barrier).

i fell pretty much head over heels in love with three of the kitties in the first room, and i am pretty damn proud of myself for not bringing all of them home with me :-) one of these kitties was a short-haired black and white tuxedo kitty with the cutest little mow i have ever heard. he did not me-ow. he mow'd. the next kitty i fell in love with is the SPITTING image of la fu, only she's a girl, has a full-length tail, and looks as though someone put her through a bleach cycle as her orange spots are lighter than la fu's. she has almost identical markings to his, though, and looks to be around the same age. if i could have guaranteed no upset to la fu or the kids and tolerance from josh, i would have packed her up and brought her home with me today. she was super affectionate...kept reaching through her cage to paw at my shirt or hair as i worked on the cages below her and tried to round up some roustabouts from the shelf above her. the roustabouts were these two very tiny (no more than six weeks old) kittens who were extremely mischievous. they scampered up and through and around EVERYTHING. i had a heck of a time catching these two to put them back in their cage. they wore themselves out scampering away from me...as soon as i got them back into their cage, they curled up next to one another in their bed and crashed out.

as hard and stinky and sad as this work was today, i definitely want to work in these rooms again. i think i might even prefer these rooms to the ready-to-adopt cattery. i like to root for the underdog (or undercat, as the case may be).

after i finished up at the SPCA, i grabbed a quick lunch and headed over to a red cross donation site to donate blood. i was trying to participate in a blood drive being organized by some dear friends in wichita falls. i have not tried to donate since before my pregnancy with olivia, and it turns out that i have a lifetime restriction against donating because i rec'd platelets during and after olivia's birth. i find it a bit ironic that i can no longer repay the gift that was given to me, but apparently clotting factor products are not screened the same way that blood is, and there is enough risk of infection from having rec'd clotting factors that recipients can not donate after they've rec'd them. long ago, in my twenties, i donated blood every six weeks because my employer at the time had close ties to a local hospital and had the donation bus come to our building every six weeks. i had NO concept then of what the little bit of blood i donated could mean to someone, but i am so very glad i donated.

**if you are well and able, please please please donate blood as often as you can. you never know when your gift will give someone the chance to live or give their loved ones more time with them.**

HKG157 : Let's Call Her Penance

i have been a slacker for the 5 months that we have lived here. besides walking with the kids, i have not be exercising. i needed to just suck it up and jump back into working out. thank god for muscle memory and retaining some cardio vascular fitness. it hasn't been easy, and i am still ramping up toward a pace/routine/habit that is at maintenance level, but i am pleasantly surprised that my five months of slackerdom did not turn me to 100% mush...just 65% mush ;-p

i started the couch to 5k program the other day, but i forgot to download the app onto my galaxi mini, so i have been winging it. last night was my second run on week 1, and i had some trouble finding a pace and keeping to the prescribed rhythm of running a few minutes and then walking a few minutes. i felt like i should beat up on myself a bit at the end of my workout...as penance. i know myself and my fitness level/strengths/weaknesses well enough to know that running hills/stairs is a quick way to get back into shape. lucky me, we live on the side of a mountain. hills and stairs are EVERYWHERE. there's this one set of stairs right behind our apartment building....they are named the castle steps because they connect a major thoroughfare, robinson road, with a road called castle lane. there are many, many, many flights to this set of stairs. i estimate the angle to be around 65 to 75-degrees.

in an effort to regain some of the muscle mass i have lost since quitting my beloved bootcamp class, i am finding ways to work in some lunges, push ups, and tricep dips while doing housework. this provides ENDLESS entertainment from my hecklers (children), and it also provides opportunities for them to copy me and giggle. livie turned their copycat workout session into a yoga/meditation session...HILARIOUS.

other than exercise and stuff, today was a pretty quiet day. we got out to get food for the waffle kitty and play at the playground. it's always a joy for us to go to the pet store b/c it also is a boarding facility, and there is always someone there who would like some extra snuggles and scratches. today, there was a pretty large yellow lab who was just the softest, sweetest, and funniest thing. she stole a lollipop right out of quinn's mouth, gummed it for a few seconds, and then spit it out with an audible splat. quinn, fortunately, was having too much fun petting her to get too mad at her for stealing his lollipop. while we were there, we got a collar and ordered a name tag for waffle...he keeps trying to escape the apartment, and even though he's microchipped, i want him to have his name/phone number on him. it was a no-go. i put the collar on him and watched him for a few minutes...he was a little agitated, but fine, so i went off to put some laundry away. i was not even halfway down the stack of clothes when i heard that guttural growl/howl an animal makes in fear/pain. i came back out to find waffle with his collar caught around his neck and in his mouth. no more collar for him...it's more dangerous than his possible escape! oddly enough, the vet did not have break-away collars for cats, which i far prefer for safety reasons.

this afternoon, we went to the post office to send goodies to friends in texas, maryland, and michigan. this has potential to be fun...i love sending and receiving mail, but for some reason, the post office provides an opportunity for the kids to just be BAD. they are TERRIBLE every single time we go. *sigh* fortunately, i now know the hong kong post system well enough that we can get out quick enough that the bad-ness is somewhat contained.

after the post office, we went to a grocery store called city super in the IFC mall. i was on a hunt for american snacks. my picky little kids turn there very cute noses up at most of the snacks i can get a the local grocery store. it was time to break down and get some goldfish and cheese-its. josh met us at IFC mall with the intention of us having dinner out while were there. it was a no-go. most of the restaurants were not quinn-proof, and the one that was the most quinn-proof (pizza express) required a reservation in order to not have to wait. um. no. we ordered pizza hut and had it at home.

penance...my new exercise buddy

a view of surrounding sky scrapers from a balcony at the IFC mall

a view of the harbor from a balcony at the IFC mall

another harbor view from a balcony at the IFC mall

cute kids goofing around while we wait to meet up with josh

waffle trying to remove his bling

HKG156: Most Expensive Recycling EVER

today was a pretty low key day. quinn was up super duper early and was tired all morning, so we just played at home, had a little time at the pool, had an early lunch, and then got him down for nap. this afternoon, the plan was to head over to the post office to mail off some goodies AND to mail off the forms we need to finalize our digital mailbox...the forms we had notarized at the u.s. consulate last week. thing is, i accidentally recycled that notarized form. i think. i tore apart the cabinet i swear i remember putting the form in...no dice. i looked through the folder of related paperwork...no dice. i dug through some other "office" areas...no dice. needless to say, it's back to the u.s. consulate for us. bleh! i am so mad at myself for this!! it wasn't exactly cheap to get this form notarized, and to have to pay for it again because of my negligence...well that just pisses me off and makes me cranky!

HKG155: Way-More-Fun Wednesday

aaah...today was THE day...to get the heck out of the apartment. we got out this morning and headed for the play place. the kids had a ball for a few hours, we got some tasty lunch, stopped at a great bakery near the play place, got me some much-needed new running shoes, and then headed home. this afternoon, we headed out to a newly-favorite park and then to the grocery store. once we got home, we found josh was home from china, so the kids got bonus playground time with him while i made some din din. it was a great day...great to get the heck OUT.

today's outtake was making the kids walk home to keep from having to clean puke out of a taxi. on the way home from the play place, q started acting a little strange, letting out some crazy burps, and then telling me that his mouth and stomach hurt. i figured we were about to be sitting in rivers of vomit, so i asked the driver to just stop and let us out. fortunately, we were close-ish to home, so while it was mean of me to make them walk home (especially q), it could have been worse and it kept us from having to clean puke out of a taxi.

q continued to act strange once we got home, so i gave him some pepto. he PUT HIMSELF to bed for his nap, and then he woke up (on his own...rare) an hour or so later all revved up and ready to go. whatever ailed him (suspect bad indigestion (q has a history of severe reflux) or car sickness) was gone and he was back to his super q self.

goofy kids making up their own game on/under the swings...no idea what they were doing!

low blood-sugar crankiness...energy returned shortly, and we went back out for another couple hours of play time.

blurry action shot of the kids playing in the basketball/soccer area. random note: did you know it is VERY hard to hold a 40-pound kid up over your head when he decides to let his shoulders/arms go mushy? q kept asking me to lift him up so he could put a ball through the basketball hoop...then, once i had him up there for a minute or so, he'd just collapse...still holding the ball...wouldn't put it in. arrggghhh!

HKG154: Toned-Down Tuesday

the (un)dynamic duo...this was them at about 9:30 this morning. they did eventually ooze off the couch and go play for a while.

monkey boy quinn going up the slide

monkey girl livie climbing the slide

today was another quiet day...even more quiet than yesterday since we didn't get out of the apartment until this evening. both kids were up super early, so i think keeping it quiet today was the right thing to do. i might be climbing the walls by tomorrow morning, though.

we ran into a friendly acquaintance on the playground tonight, and we developed a tentative plan to go over to playtown candyland with this family tomorrow morning...that should perk up the natives :-)

HKG153: Mellow Monday

mellow kiddos on the swings at a nearby park

today was a super mellow day. we started off by skyping with family and friends, and then we moved right on to having a quiet day at home. we got down to the playground for a while after lunch, and then we headed out to a nearby playground and the wet markets before dinner, but in between we did a whole lotta NOTHING. it was nice :-)