Saturday, August 7, 2010; evening

It has been several hours since I made it over the fence and away from my god-forsaken former residence. I hear my lo’taurs calling my name and begging me to return, but I have no intention of doing so. I had to get away from there. The lo’taurs’ servitude continues to be unfit for a regal creature such as myself. Bingley, the zebra-skunk-panda-owl hybrid that dares to call himself a cat, has been getting on my nerves as usual. And on top of it all, I just found out my daughter has a tumor on her jaw, which means she’s going to demand even more maternal attention from me than usual. Seriously, I gave birth to you. What more do you want from me? I won’t have to deal with this whole mothering thing if girl lotar hadn’t brought me home along with my daughter nine years ago from the cat colony where I was on the verge of building an empire.

Nonetheless, I have finally escaped my gilded cage and left behind that horrifying, demeaning life of sunbathing, canned food-eating, and human-administered grooming. What’s next? Hmm. My catnip patch is flourishing again. Perhaps I will take this opportunity to expand my nip-dealing business. I’ve seen those neighborhood cats eyeing my patch from a distance. Off I go on my new business venture.

Sunday, August 8, 2010; mid-morning

Just received a visit from my lo’taurs while I was taking a nap in their neighbors’ flowerbed. Girl lo’taur seemed relieved and happy to see me. Can’t say the feeling is mutual. Can’t a cat take a nap after staying out all night without having groveling humans looming over her? The lo’taurs said something about not wanting to pick me up. I see the scratching and hissing have finally gotten through to them. Perhaps they are not as dimwitted as they look (though I admit I do find humans’ inferior intellect to be … amusing). I heard them say something about waiting for me to return to their slave cabin on my own. Little do they know that I have no intention of doing so. The open air is doing me good, and I am enjoying taunting the neighbors’ cat masters through their sliding door, rolling in their flowers while they look on. Perhaps tomorrow I will come back and tease them with some nip.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010; evening

From my hideout in the woods I spied my lo’taurs going door to door handing out flyers with my likeness on them an hour ago, trying to elicit the assistance of their fellow lo’taurs in locating me. The fools! Given the utter failure of their search thus far, I don’t know why they don’t just give up. I’ve looked on with amusement these past two days while they stumbled through the woods looking for me. Girl lo’taur even almost fell into a dry riverbed when she foolishly tried to cross the chasm on a few fallen trees. I overheard them saying that I must still be in the vicinity. I wonder how they knew, considering they haven’t caught sight of me for two days. Somebody must have squealed. I bet it was that black cat with the red collar from down the street. I’ll fix her good. There isn’t enough room in this neighborhood for two black cats.

Friday, August 11, 2010; night

I remain unshackled from the burdens of lo’taurs and ailing daughters. The lo’taurs continue to search for me every evening, all with the same futility. Yet they keep leaving food out for me on their patio at night. Humans are so born to be a slave race. Even as I continue to scorn their love through my prolonged absence, they grovel and beg for a hint of affection from me in the form of allowing them a glimpse of my magnificence. Boy lo’taur has even pointed some strange contraption at the patio. I think it is an image-recording device meant to capture my movements should I get desperately hungry enough to insult my palate with the wet food they are offering as a token of their everlasting obedience to … Hey! What’s that tabby cat doing?! … How dare he eat the food the lo’taurs have offered up to me?! He has just earned himself a spot on my blacklist. HISSSSS!!

Saturday, August 11, 2010; early morning

Blarrgh! I’m still wet. What kind of incompetent lo’taur accidentally sprays a god while watering the lawn? Stupid neighbor! Here I was, minding my own business, catching some early-morning shuteye in his bushes. Next thing I know, I’m being assaulted with a garden hose. And to think, I did him the honor of staying in his yard for two nights last weekend.

Saturday, August 11, 2010; afternoon

The lo’taurs just left. I think I heard them talking about going to church. It amuses me to no end how pathetic humans keep praying to their false idols. Haven’t they learned by now that there’s only one true god — me? Go ahead, lo’taurs, pray to your “Lord” to send me back to you safely, but we all know I’m the only one with the power to do that. Your “god” zero, me one.

Sunday, August 12, 2010; evening

Uh oh, my cover might’ve just been blown. I was out for my evening scavenging meal when one of the lo’taurs’ nosy neighbors saw me. I think he must’ve recognized me from those damned flyers the lo’taurs were handing out a few days ago. Good thing my lo’taurs are away or … wait, what’s that? Oh no, the lo’taur’s car! Quick, must hide.

…

Ah, this car should provide sufficient cover. What’s that neighbor doing? He’s approaching my lo’taurs … he’s talking to them … and pointing in this direction. You better not be tattling on me, human! I knew you were trouble from the minute you moved in. Anyone who owns two barky Scottish terriers is bound to a shady character. Uh oh, lo’taurs heading this way.

…

Girl lo’taur, stop invoking my name in vain. No, I will not come home. Hey, stop reaching under the car. Fine, I’ll find myself another hiding spot. What’s this? Oh, the lo’taurs and their treacherous neighbor are trying to trap me. Ha! Good luck! What’s this? More lo’taurs showing up? I don’t like the looks of this …

…

[Pant pant] Stop … [pant] chasing me … [pant pant] lo’taurs!! How dare  you!! You shall be eternally punished for your insolence. Ooh, I see woods beyond that fence. SANCTUARY!! Quick, over the fence. Hey, what’s this blanket doing over my head? Ah, I’m falling …

…

To make the steppingstones, we followed the instructions from this video.

After our first attempt, we realized that because our tiles were all former pots, their curved surfaces were allowing the concrete to seep through, so we hit up the Scrap Exchange in Durham and raided their stash of flat tiles. We used those to make a steppingstone mosaic of my parents’ two cats as a Mother’s Day present for my mom.

Mom, of course, loved it. In fact, she likes it so much that she couldn’t bear to put it out in the garden and expose it to the elements, even though we told her we had put concrete sealant on it to protect it.

I had a lot of fun making these first couple steppingstones, and now I’m itching to make more. It’s so easy and cheap. A $6 bag of quick-dry concrete can make about 10 steppingstones, and it only takes a couple days to dry. We’ve been talking about making some more for the garden, and I’m even contemplating making our own concrete tiles to cover the grounds of the yard in our next house.

This bike rack allegedly exists, but we didn’t see it.

UPDATE: Since durhambikeracks.com does have a listing for this location, I decided to go back after work today to take another look. I walked around the plaza for a little bit and lo and behold, BIKE RACK! It was hidden away in an alleyway between two stores and well-concealed behind a couple rows of hedges. Not exactly easy to find, but it’s there. So I hereby recant everything I said below about the absence of said bike rack. However, I think the sentiments in the last paragraph still hold true — we still have a long way to go before we have the infrastructure in place to make it convenient for people to use alternative modes of transportation. Oh, that and the fact that biking to Adam & Eve is hilarious.

There’s a grocery store about a 20-minute bike ride from our house. It’s in a plaza that sits on the trail where we bike several times a week, and we usually ride out to the edge of the plaza and then turn around. I keep wanting to ride to that grocery store on the weekends. I can get my grocery shopping done, get in my workout in the process, and do a teensy bit to help the planet by using a bike for at least one of my regular errands. I even went online last night to look for a bike basket for holding groceries.

There’s just one problem: There is no bike rack in front of the grocery store or really anywhere near it. The only time my wife and I rode out to the store, I had to stand outside and guard our bikes while she went in to pick up a couple items. That’s just not going to work if we’re to do this on a regular basis. We drove around the plaza yesterday evening trying to find a bike rack and came up empty, even though according to durhambikeracks.com, there is one (did we just miss it? Anybody know?). It really is surprising, considering this is a busy shopping center right off a major bike trail. It sits in front of a big apartment complex, where I can see people’s bikes sitting in their balconies. Yet, no bike racks in the plaza. Not in front of the grocery store. Not in front of the Starbucks. Not in front of any of the restaurants.

Ironically, we did see one bike rack on the distant fringes of the plaza property — in front of an Adam & Eve. So if I wanted to ride my bike to get some groceries, I would have to ride to a sex-toy emporium (“No, really, I’m just here to pick up some spicy Italian sausage for dinner …”). Who would’ve thought that living an Al Gore-approved lifestyle would be so naughty and titillating.

This case just underscores how far your typical American town is from being ready for its residents to leave their cars at home and use greener means of transportation. Whether it be the insufficient number of bus routes or the dearth of sidewalks and bike lanes, the infrastructure just isn’t there yet to make alternative means of transportation practical or convenient for people. Until that changes, you’re going to have a hard time convincing people to give up their cars. I mean, look at my example above. You undertake the costly project of building a major bike trail that conveniently goes by a shopping center, yet you neglect to do the much easier and cheaper thing — putting a bike rack in the shopping center — to make that trail useful as an alternative means of transportation. Without a bike rack, the trail will always only serve a recreational purpose. Lots of people will bike on it every day, but when it comes time for them to get groceries, most of them will still climb into their cars even if they, like me, want to bike there instead. The same holds true for making people walk a mile to get to the nearest bus stop or spend 45 minutes on public transit just to accomplish regular daily tasks.

I hate mowing grass, but I do enjoy working in the yard on flowers, shrubberies, and vegetables. My big gardening project this spring is rebuilding my vegetable garden. While I’ve had some pretty good harvests of Chinese long beans and cucumbers every year, maintaining the old garden was a pain. It was was lined with low, ground-hugging bricks, which didn’t do much to keep out weeds. One of my biggest problems during the growing season the last several years has been clearing away overgrown grass that engulf my vegetable vines. This task is made doubly hard by the fact that the old vegetable garden was built right up against the fence between my yard and the neighbor’s, meaning I can’t get on the other side to get rid of weeds on that side.

Two weekends ago, we built a small, raised, stone bed for tomatoes. That went pretty well and got my landscaping juices flowing. So this past weekend, we bought some wood boards and a few bags of soil and compost and set about redoing the entire vegetable garden. I started with digging up the bricks that formed the old one, then leveling the ground. The frames for the new beds were pretty easy to make — just drill a few holes on each board and hammer in a few nails to join them in a rectangle. We put the frames flat on the ground, covered the existing soil inside with a couple layers of newspapers to kill some of the old grass, and dumped soil, compost, and mulch on top. The new beds are about a foot and a half away from the fence, just enough room for me to get behind them to easily weed and harvest vegetables.

We christen one of our new beds with zucchini seedlings, though we planted them way too close together. We’ll have to do some transplanting this week. We planted 12 seedlings in a 2-by-6 bed, only to find out later in the day that you should leave three to four feet between each plant. Oops!

She was probably right. And then a day later, I went and did this:

So, here are the blogs I’ve got going right now:

• Matters of Varying Insignificance: Running since 2008 (though the early months of the blog were lost thanks to a hacked server), this is my first and still primary blog, where I write about anything and everything, but mostly journalism and travel since those are two of my main interests.
• WYSIWYG: A photo blog I started last year as my interest in photography grew. I update this sporadically, usually right after a trip where I take a few hundred pictures.
• JZ’s Posterous Potpourri: An odds & ends blog I started last month as a way to acquaint myself with Posterous. The platform quickly grew on me, and this blog has replaced the Odds & Ends section on Matters of Varying Insignificance, primarily because it’s ridiculously easy to post tidbits to Posterous.
• The Zhus: A blog I started a couple months ago when I decided to start working on a book about the extended family on my father’s side. I wanted to start the blog as a way to keep myself on track with the book. This actually started out as a Tumblr blog before I discovered Posterous, and again, I loved Posterous so much that I decided to move the blog to that platform instead, though the old Tumblr blog remains and still gets an auto update when I post to Posterous.
• Chicken Feet & Clam Chowdah: The aforementioned cooking blog, which sprang to life from our fondness for cooking and eating.

So there you go, five blogs, and somehow, without spending every waking moment blogging, I manage to post to these sites pretty regularly, with the exception of WYSIWYG, where the posts come in spurts (by the way, the feeds for the other four blogs are all in the right sidebar of this blog).

For me, part of the reason for all this blogging is that it’s fun. But it’s also about exploring various platforms and learning more about the way information is distributed, discovered, and shared on the Web — an essential part of my work. I don’t know if my blogging efforts are fragmented to the point where it hurts each individual effort, but I do know that I’ve been learning something with each one. I started this blog two years ago to learn about blogging, and the experience has taught me a ton about the craft and about attracting readers, working with CMSes, designing WordPress sites, promoting your work, constructing my digital presence, and grooming some semblance of an online community.

Notice how my blog-creating pace picked up considerably after I discovered Posterous. I know I’m sounding like a shill for the company, but the platform really has impressed me with its ease of use. It’s so easy to post stuff that I don’t even have to think about it; just send a quick e-mail or click the bookmarklet in my browser and it’s done. Heck, it’s even easier than Twitter since you don’t need to sit there boiling everything down to 140 characters. That’s why I’ve written before that I think it’s going to be platforms like Posterous that will make blogging truly ubiquitous among the general population.

Now, somebody take my keyboard away before I start another blog!! (Hmm … I could do a blog about our pottery making …)

I’ve started working on a book about the history of my father’s side of the family. It’s an idea that I’ve been toying with for a few years now, and our trip back to China in 2008-09 convinced me to do it. I’ve started a Tumblr blog to post updates about my progress with the book, and I’m hoping having to post to that blog on a regular basis will help keep me on track with the book. I don’t know if the book will have mass appeal or not, though I’m writing it for a broader audience than just my family. In any case, even if my family and I are the only people to read it, I would still want to do this. I’ve put up an introductory post on the Tumblr blog giving more details about the book and why I want to write it. I’m going to add a widget on the side of this blog to pipe in the updates from that blog. Stay tuned for more.

We also took some video of the snow, including a couple clips of our cats tentatively venturing to the edge of the snow:

A clip of our yard covered in snow and a giant icicle that formed on our gutter:

Bongo decided to flop down in front of the door after his walk one afternoon and refused to budge. Our walks were always … adventuresome.

A week before Christmas, I found out that my friend Ryan’s beagle, Bongo, had lung cancer. I found out last night that they had to put him down on Wednesday. Bongo wasn’t my dog, but Ryan and I shared a townhouse right after I had graduated from college when he adopted the beagle, so I helped raise him for a couple years, and I certainly had a strong attachment to him.

One of my earliest memories of Bongo was the morning after Ryan brought him home. I had gone to work shortly after he brought Bongo home the evening before, so I saw little of the beagle. The next morning, while I was still fast asleep, the beagle pushed open my door, darted into the room, jumped onto my bed, and stuck his nose in my face to say hi. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, though it took some doing for the beagle and me to get comfortable with each other. Bongo was the first large pet I lived with, and it took a while for me to adjust to him. Before that, my strongest memories of dogs was being snapped at by one on my first night in the United States and being chased by two of them while at a garage sale when I was young. After we got Bongo, I had to learn to beagle-proof the house (he loved getting into trash cans and looted the pantry on multiple occasions when we didn’t close the door all the way). He wasn’t exactly the smartest dog, he frequently tried to steal food from your plate when you weren’t looking, and we didn’t exactly get off to a great start as he was quite territorial for a while while trying to declare himself second-in-command of the house behind Ryan.

Our walks were almost always adventuresome, as ol’ beagle tended to follow his nose and pay heed to little else. On one of the first times I took him out for a walk, someone had thrown out a Bojangles bag in the middle the road with a biscuit still inside, and the moment Bongo caught whiff of that crack-seasoning goodness, he made a bee line for it with such determination and will that he dragged me with him, and I simply couldn’t pull him away from the bag. Eventually all I could do was stand there and greet passing vehicles — which had to veer into the other lane to go around us — with a sheepish grin. Yet, over time, Bongo and I grew close, and even years after I had moved away, he was always excited to see me whenever I visited.

Finding out that Bongo had cancer left me stunned, and though I had accepted that the probable end was likely soon to come, it still doesn’t make it any easier to lose an old friend. I hadn’t had a chance to touch base with Ryan since the holidays, and now I wish I had gone to see Bongo sometime in the last couple weeks. At least I can find a little bit of comfort in knowing that he is no longer suffering from his ailment, and that he led a very pampered life after he was adopted. Ever since I lived with Bongo, every time I see someone walking a beagle while I’m driving/biking/walking, I can’t help but smile and think of my old beagle pal, and it’ll be even more so now.

A few more Bongo pictures from over the years:

From left: JC, Ryan, Bongo, and me after a few drinks, circa 2006.

Bongo loved his  milkbones.

Here’s the front, back, and inside flaps of the dust jacket for the book:

On Sunday, we drove to Salisbury to visit the Old Stone Winery, which we’ve been wanting to do for a few months since getting a taste of their sweet muscadine wine at a relative’s home. We did a wine tasting and sampled nine varieties, and that was just their sweet wines (they also have 10 dry wines). We ended up taking home six bottles. If you like wine and are driving past Salisbury, this place is definitely worth checking out.

Picking Grapes Pictures

Old Stone Winery Pictures

We’ve kept mostly to the neighborhoods and are staying off the main roads until we shake off the rust (I hadn’t ridden a bike since high school). I’m loving it. We aren’t exactly racing or anything, and most likely never will, but it’s good exercise, and the time just seems to fly by, whereas when I ride an exercise bike, I’m literally counting the minutes. I guess I’m just not much for indoor, simulated exercises. In addition to the workout I’ve been getting, I’ve also really enjoyed checking out the different neighborhoods near us, some of which I had never really explored. We do need to go get a gel seat soon though. Ouch.

Some pictures of us tooling around on the bikes:

I’ve been on one of those kicks lately. We are currently clicking our way through Star Trek: A Final Unity, about as good a Star Trek game as I’ve seen. I also dug out Star Trek: Judgment Rites. It comes on 14 3.5-inch floppy disks, which just seems hilarious in retrospect. I remember when I had to delete a bunch of files off a really old computer just so I could install this game, and then spending the next hour checking back intermittently to switch disks. I also rediscovered my copy of Earl Weaver Baseball II, which comes on two floppy disks. I spent many an hour in my teenage years leading the Negro League All-Stars to victory over their pasty counterparts with one 600-foot homer after another by Josh Gibson.

I have to admit, part of me admires the programming skills it took to write fun and (for that time) visually appealing games that fit in as little as 3 MB of space. As Courtney pointed out, it takes more space than that to download a new dress or a piece of furniture for your Sim. And these were games from which we have derived hours of enjoyment, even more than a decade later. I guess it goes to show that the really important things that make a game great don’t require oodles of disk space, killer graphic cards, or massive amounts of memory.

So what’s your favorite old-timey game?

I think Wickham will be a good fit for my parents as well, as he is ridiculously friendly and pretty low-maintenance. Despite likely having been a stray his whole life, he hasn’t really shown many bad habits. He did get on the kitchen counter and destroy a bag of bagels a couple days after he moved in with us, and he still goes a bit crazy when it’s feeding time, but he has been smart enough to learn what’s not allowed after being scolded. It’s a good thing my parents are taking him off our hands now, because if he had stayed with us a few more months, I’m sure we would’ve just given in and adopted him permanently. We’ll miss having him in our house, but we’ll be able to visit anytime as my folks live very close by.

UPDATE

One weekend into his new life at my parents’ house, and Wickham is already adjusting in nicely. Some pictures:

We took in a stray orange kitten on Saturday afternoon, or rather, he showed up at our doorstep and subdued us with his cuteness and displays of unbridled affection. We filled out an in-take form on the Goathouse Cat Refuge Web site for him, but have not heard back yet. In the mean time, the newest member of our household now has a name: Wickham, as in the devious heartthrob from Pride & Prejudice. This comes on the heels of our adopting Bingley last summer,  giving us two cats named after Jane Austen characters.

After being quarantined in a separate room over the weekend and Monday night, Wickham took a trip to the vet Tuesday, where he got a clean bill of health and received flea and tick treatment. The vet also placed him between eight months and a year old and was surprised at how incredibly friendly he was despite likely having been a stray his whole life. After being declared healthy, Wickham was released into the general cat population in our house. The three resident cats were not too pleased with the addition, even if it is only temporary. They spent much of Tuesday night hiding under the bed even though Wickham has been acting like a perfect gentleman. We are hoping they will warm up to him soon.

Meanwhile, Wickham has certainly been warm and fuzzy toward us, rubbing his head against our legs every chance he gets and jumping into our laps when we sit down at the computer. He’s basically doing everything he can to make us adopt him, but we’ve admitted to ourselves that three cats is the limit for our current house, so it’s either find a new home for us or find a new home for him, and alas, this is a horrible time to be trying to sell our house. Courtney is taking Wickham in for neutering and vaccination today. Once that’s done, we can get him into the adoption process at the Independent Animal Rescue. We’ll be his foster family until someone claims him. I think if someone sees him in person, he would get adopted in no time. He’s just that sweet. Heck, as I write this, my parents just called (they were there when Wickham first came to the house) and said we should just keep him because he’s so adorable. Yeah, Wickham is a pretty apt name for him.

So … any takers?

This kitten was so sweet. He actually jumped into the neighbors’ car just as they were about to leave. After being jettisoned, he hung around our house and meowed non-stop. He was extremely friendly and allowed us to pet him and even pick him up and hold him. He has no collar and hasn’t been neutered, so he’s likely a stray. We didn’t feel comfortable having him roam around the neighborhood, dodging cars and potentially adding to the cat population, so we took him in for the night. As much as we would like to keep him, seeing that we have three cats in our little house already, we can’t take on any more. We’ve contacted the Goathouse Cat Refuge and are hoping the good people there can take him in (they have more than 160 cats, so what’s one more?).

In the mean time, if you live in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area and are interested in adopting this sweet kitten, contact us. He looks like he’s less than a year old and is very affectionate, rubbing against our legs all the time, begging for petting, and even sitting on Courtney’s lap. We’ve got him separated from our cats for the time being and are planning to take him to the vet today or tomorrow to give him a checkup and make sure he’s healthy.

Here’s a short video clip of him. C’mon, you know you want to take him home.

Three acres of wilderness filled with cats, a pottery studio on the grounds, and beautiful gardens all around. It’s basically everything Courtney wants (well, maybe throw in a library and a coffee house). We found it all on Saturday at the Goathouse Refuge, a huge animal shelter in Pittsboro, N.C., that’s home to more than 160 cats.

The refuge is owned by Siglinda Scarpa, an Italian sculptor and potter based in North Carolina. Its vast grounds include a 3-acre outdoor enclosure for cats to roam, a handful of pens for goats, and a small pond on the edge of which roam flocks of turkeys and geese (and the geese were jerks that tried to intimidate you when you walk into their turf). All the critters are rescued animals, and from the looks of things, they have landed in a very comfy situation. As Scarpa writes on the refuge’s Web site:

This would be another chance; a safe haven for cats that were dispossessed or scheduled for euthanasia by public shelters. In my dream, no cat would be euthanized unless it was suffering with no hope of recovery. The Refuge would be a place where even cats that were unadoptable could live in comfort, with the care, attention and love they deserve. No cat would be refused due to age, illness or disposition. The ultimate goal for each cat would be adoption into a loving home. But the Refuge would be designed so that they could spend ample periods of time living comfortably, awaiting adoption. In fact, it would be designed so that a cat could spend years, or its entire lifetime, at the Refuge. This meant that the cats would be cage-free. Groups of cats would live in large rooms, where they could roam and play without restraint. And, of course, all of the cats would be given human attention and interaction, along with high-quality food and on-site medical care.

As soon as we parked and began walking toward the entrance, we spotted cats on the other side of the wire fencing surrounding the outdoor enclosure. One black kitten came up to us and rubbed its head against the fence, indicating to us it wanted petting. After getting some attention, it followed us all the way to the entrance, scampering along the logs at the foot of the fence.

The refuge has two main structures — a building that houses cat kennels and supplies and another building that serves as a pottery studio and shop. There were a bunch of cats lounging around in the first building, soaking up attention from visitors and hamming it up for the camera. One of the volunteers told us that they go through 30 cups of cat food a day, so you can just imagine how much it costs to keep the place running. They are also looking for volunteers, and if we lived closer, we definitely would. I can think of worse volunteering gigs than sitting on a bed and petting cats.