I may get mocked for not having known this earlier, but I just have to share in case there's someone else I can help:

Attention Comcast subscribers: you can get free movies on demand! There are over 50 to choose from at any given time, and they rotate monthly. Most of them are on the older side (mid-nineties and earlier), but there's no commercials and you can pause, rewind, etc. This is seriously going to reduce the amount of money we spend on movie rentals, plus no hassles of returning on time, etc. And unlike Netflix, it's instantaneously on your TV once you pick it.

I suppose that Comcast advertises this service, but whenever I've heard "On Demand" I tuned out because I assumed it was pay-per-view, and I certainly don't want to make Comcast any richer. With these free movies, however, it's like I'm stealing from the rich. A veritable Robin Hood, I am.

I go back to Maine on Monday. Only three days left of Ryan and kitties :/

The kitty condo is pretty much done! We still need to cover the posts with carpet and rope, but it's functional, at least. With the thickness added from the top and bottom, it's actually 5.5 feet tall- crazy! Pics on Flickr (I don't like how when I insert pics here they get pixelated).

I had a very good weekend. This is mainly due to having fun and different things to do, rather than sitting around and wishing there was something fun and different to do. The things that we did? Exactly what we set out to do.

Friday we bought supplies for and started working on our enormous (3' wide x 2' deep x 5' tall) cat condo. We're copying a model that we saw at Petsmart priced at a whopping $299. Thanks to a ton of carpet scraps that came with our house, we are building our own for roughly $40 in lumber and hardware. It's coming along slowly, but we'll definitely finish by next weekend. Pics of the kitties playing on it when it's done, of course.

Saturday I went grocery shopping and mowed the lawn while Ryan went biking. Then we floated down 6 miles of the Delaware on inner tubes. It took almost 4 hours, including a stop for snacks at the snack boat. There were a few fun little rapids, but it was mostly slow, lazy water that was good for relaxing. In my opinion, an excellent recreational opportunity, as it didn't require much energy but allowed me to be surrounded by scenery, nature, and Ryan. More rapids would have been better, but for once I'm trying to be satisfied with what I got. It was a beautiful sunny day, but we slathered on the SPF 30 so there was no painful aftermath.

Sunday we drove the hour and a half up to North Jersey for Scott and Julie's wedding. The ceremony was outside and they got more of the great weather for it. Which made me think to warn people to bring sunglasses to our wedding. Theirs was at 11:30 facing east, so the sun was mostly overhead but still making people squint if they didn't have sunglasses. Ours will be in the evening, facing west, so the sun's angle will put it in peoples' eyes even more. Anyway, back on topic. It felt a little choked up when the bridal party and couple were walking up the aisle, but fortunately didn't actually cry. I guess of the weddings I've been to it's the one where I knew the participants the best. I know Ryan and myself pretty well...I hope I don't cry at mine and mess up my makeup :/ The ceremony had a very personal vibe to it, with the officiant, soloist, and reader all well known to the couple rather than paid strangers.

There was a ton of food at the cocktail hour, and what I had was pretty good. I also had several glasses of wine (spread out over the hour and dinner), which led me to drag Ryan out on the dance floor multiple times, for both slow and fast songs. He resisted, but I think he ended up enjoying it. The couple did a good job of circulating and making sure they talked to everyone, plus it looked like they had time to eat and dance. The wedding magazines say that you'll be too busy to do it all, but I think they pulled it off. Their cake was beautiful...I wanted to dive headfirst into it :P

We hit some traffic on the way home, so we got back around 7:00. We skipped a real dinner and just grazed because we were still full from the late lunch. Then I baked a snail-shaped cake for my labmate who is defending his dissertation today (and studied snails). It turned out very cute...I'll see if I can get someone to take a picture of it today since I forgot to last night.

I am a bad kitten mommy. Kitten mommies are supposed to love all their kittens equally and not play favorites, but I have a favorite: Jibblies. He's been very affectionate since I've been back, and it seems like he really missed me. And his eyes are so expressive- I can tell what kind of mood he's in and when he needs hugs and pets (to be petted). The little ones are too busy wrestling to show much love. Choco "kneads" me to show affection sometimes, but it seems insincere since it's all or none with the love. Jibblies, on the other hand, is about the little gestures sprinkled in between the cuddle-fests. Perhaps as the little ones get older and mellow out a little, plus have the added advantage of spending more time with me (the mere exposure effect) then my love for the three will be more equal.

Choco hit a big growth spurt while I was gone. His body is somewhat bigger, but his legs are a lot longer so he looks a bit lanky. Grem looks quite a bit smaller at a glance, although she's still growing at a steady, healthy rate.

Big fun planned for the weekend. Tonight we're building a cat condo out of wood and carpet scraps, tomorrow we're inner tubing down the Delaware River, and Sunday we're going to Scott and Julie's wedding. I am excited to see what the wedding is like, especially, since it's the first one I've attended while having wedding-on-the-brain syndrome.

Well, I did make it back about 2:15 hours after the scheduled time, which I guess isn't the end of the world, but I was really impatient to see Ryan and the kitties. Ryan lurrrves me, and so do Jibblies and Choco. Grem is pretty much indifferent.

I stayed home yesterday to spend more time with the kitties and unpack the office, which was still in disarray from the move. Ryan did a good job keeping the rest of the house tidy while I was gone, though. Or rather, I don't know how it was several days ago, but he picked up sufficiently the day before I got back :)

Now I'm back at the office, with lots of ideas for paper topics I'd like to look into after poking around on the beaches.

Just wanted to get another state on my blogging list- New Hampshire. I drove to the Manchester airport, then I'm flying the rest of the way. Turns out it may not have been such a great money-saving idea: long term parking is $10/day and I'm gonna be away (or rather, home) for 13 days :(

CRAP- the flight has already been delayed twice. US Airways fills me with homicidal rage. Every single time with the major problems!!! I keep saying that I'm never flying it again, but then I do. Because 1) I have 19,000 FF miles with them and you need 25,000 to get a free trip, and 2) they dominate the Philly airport. But now I'm putting my foot down- after I redeem my free trip for the miles, I am only flying them if absolutely necessary. It's worth paying $50 more for a better trip. (After $1oo more I might reconsider... at least I'd feel like I was "earning" money to sit in the airport). But for this trip I could've flown Southwest for about the same price- but was trying to earn miles.

So, I dunno if Cymfony is gonna pick up on this and report it to the FAA, but US AIRWAYS IS THE DEVIL!!!

Yay! I'll be reunited with my Ryan and the furry ones tomorrow!

There's a new application on Facebook called Catbook...so you can become friends with the kitties if you want. I understand if you want to meet them in person first.

I forget if I ever mentioned that I have a weak wireless signal from the neighbors on the island. I haven't had to go to the library, although it does cut out from time to time.

I got some very exciting and encouraging results from my experiment in progress today, even though it's a different type of data than I plan to collect at the end. Remember the cages with the old versus new seaweed? Well, the point of the experiment is to see how the snails INSIDE the cages grow on the various diets. Checking up on the cages today, however, there were tons of snails on the OUTSIDE of the old seaweed cages, whereas there were almost none on the new seaweed cages. My hypothesis was that the old seaweed would be preferred because its chemical defenses are breaking down as it decomposes. Makes sense, right? Although as humans we would prefer fresher salad to slimy rotten salad. Anyhow, no one has tested this sort of hypothesis with seaweed (as far as I've read), so with further experiments (i.e. other thesis work) I might have a shot at some good journals and get my name out there for something new. Yay!

Of course I'm jumping years ahead here, but the differences between the treatments were so drastic that there has to be some interesting biology going on. Today just might have been my best day of grad school so far :)

I really miss Ryan and the kitties. It wasn't too bad until yesterday, since last week my advisor, a post-doc, and an undergrad were all in the house with me. They left Sunday, though, and now I'm all by myself for the next week.

Ryan was a sweetie, though, and sent me kitty pics that he took (well, I did have to bug him a little to do it). Get thee to Flickr to bask in the cuteness!

2 Maine pics and 2 leftover Jersey pics up on Flickr.

Other than no Ryan and no kitties, I'm having a great time. It feels good to be out on the beach collecting data. Much better than sitting inside all school year. I am a lot less angsty because I didn't particularly enjoy my classes last year. But now that I'm doing my own research, I feel less tempted to drop out of grad school (not that I actually would, but felt like I'd be happier if I did).

Howdy from the island library! Today I started my field work- yay! This afternoon I'll be painting snails with nail polish, just because I can. Then tomorrow I set up my first experiment: will the snails grow well on a diet of yucky old seaweed or just the fresh stuff? I know, I know, the world is hanging in the balance awaiting the answer to this pressing question!

Blogging from another new state- ME! Get it? Me, Cat, I'm blogging from Maine. ME.

I survived all my driving and now I'm waiting in line for the ferry. I was here in time for the last ferry, but there wasn't enough space for all the cars. With all this time to kill, and the universe being against me and all, I was shocked and amazed that there is free (ie, unsecured) internet from my spot in line. It's surprising considering that this is the middle of nowhere and all.

I left home yesterday at 12:30, after getting watery-eyed when saying goodbye to the kitties...they just looked so sad to see me go! The drive yesterday was surprisingly fast through Jersey (no traffic on the turnpike?!?), then slower through NYC and Conn. I hit the rainstorm halfway through Conn, which slowed me down quite a bit. I got to Liz's around 6:30, and we got Chinese delivered with Kathy, who was also there. Then we pretty much watched the Food Network until it was time for bed.

This morning I had leftovers for breakfast and hit the highway (after driving around circles in Somerville) at 8:30. Arrived at the ferry dock at 1:45. It's a long drive, but splitting it over two days made it not that bad. I don't have to make the entire drive again until the end of the summer- I'm flying back for my break in a couple weeks.

Ryan says the house is empty without me. I think that means he should adopt more kitties to fill it up until I come back, but once I'm back we'd keep those kitties too. :P

The kittens had their second visit to the vet yesterday. They've more than doubled in weight- Choco was 2 lb 10 oz and Grem was 2 lb 1 oz. They spend upwards of 3 hours a day wrestling each other.

The house has been keeping us exceedingly busy. I didn't go into the office at all this week; just stayed home and did house stuff. The porch is now white, as I said I'd do earlier, and there's a flowerbed out front with hydrangeas and herbs (basil, parsley, and mint for mojitos) in between.


























Other than that, it's mostly been interior work. The hallway is halfway painted and we're doing two of the bathrooms today. The big excitement yesterday was that a gallon or two of sewage came up and out of our downstairs toilet (yay!). We had Roto-Rooter come out and $300 later the problem (blocked sewer line) is fixed. And an hour later, the bathroom was clean again. Ah, the joys of home ownership!

There's a couple other new pics on Flickr. I probably won't be updating terribly often in the next couple weeks while I'm in Maine. The only place on the island with internet access is the library, and I don't plan to go there every day. I will take pictures and eventually get them up, though. Back in Jersey around the 19th or 20th maybe?