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Tempi posted these two photos on her blog.

She says she and Zoe are well behaved at the vet’s and the people there love them. But Kaitlin wrote,

At the start of the visit the vet asked us who was first. We proceeded to ask the girls “who wants to go first?” Tempi hightailed it over to me and turned away from the vet. Hilarious! So Zoe went first.

Tempi was still extremely good when it was her turn to get her shots. But Zoe was concerned for her,

Zoe sat with her ears flat and a very concerned look on her face staring at Tempi and whimpering until the draw was over for Tempi.

How incredibly sweet is that?

The vet is especially thrilled with Zoe because she’s so healthy — he saved her life a few years ago. I’ll tell you that story tomorrow.

May 11, 2025

They went to the ocean often when they were in California. After the first time Kaitlin could stay dry when Zoe went into the water:

And Tempi only waded:

May 10, 2025

This pup loves water. Click on the picture to see the video.

It reminds me of one of the sweetest videos I have ever seen. Kaitlin is very sensitive to cold, but when they were in California she knew how much Zoe loves water, so she went out into the cold ocean to help Zoe understand how to swim in the new environment. The resolution of the video isn’t good, but it’s one of my favorites.

You can see from the end of the clip that Tempi is not a water-lover.

May 9, 2025

Today is the 80th Anniversary of VE Day, the end of World War II in Europe. Three memories come to mind.

Rationing: Even though I was only five when the war ended, I was aware of rationing. I still remember having a good time skipping up and down the concrete stepping stones in our front yard. I knew that some things were hard to buy and felt grateful that our stones hadn’t been affected, so as I skipped I starting singing,

You can’t buy
stepping stones
in wartime.

I was surprised when my mother said that wasn’t true, they weren’t affected by the war. Concrete seemed so important to me that I couldn’t understand why that would be true. We moved from that house when I was about four and half years old, so that must have been 81 years ago, and I still remember it.

War Movies: I remember watching The March of Time newsreels about the war and world events around that time, and also watching a ton of war movies afterwards. For years when I was playing outside and a plane flew overhead I would partially duck and check to make sure no bombs were being dropped.

The Attitude of Europeans: This was in 1960 when I was in Stanford in Germany from January though June and spent another six weeks hitchhiking with a friend before flying back home. A lot of the people we met went out of their way to be hospitable, mainly because of America’s part in the liberation.

That was a long time ago and things have changed, are changing, a lot.

Most of you are a lot younger than I am, but do you have any feelings/memories connected to the war?

May 8, 2025

We had some snow yesterday! It eventually turned to rain down here, and even though it stayed snow on the land it melted quickly. We’re thrilled that we had some precipitation.

May 7, 2025

I started Duolingo May 6, 2023 after the idea of learning it “struck a motivational nerve.” I spent a lot of time learning it for the first year and a half, but now other things are grabbing my attention. So as I said two weeks ago in Inching Along, I was taking a mini-vacation from Spanish but was still doing a short Duolingo vocabulary drill every day.

Because I’m mostly streaming videos without Spanish subtitles I decided I should probably add something easy to increase my feeling for grammar and sentence structure. So now when I look at the daily email from my Spanish Dictionary app, I write down the sentence of the day and pronounce it out loud. It doesn’t take much time, but it engages more parts of my brain and it should have big results over the course of time if I do it daily. Here are two examples:

It turns out this was a great idea. Not just because I’m learning a few new words and keeping some momentum going, but because it makes me happy. For some reason I get excited when I read a sentence in a foreign language and understand it. In this case it doesn’t take much time at all and it gives me a little jolt of joy. That’s a winner for me.

May 6, 2025

Yesterday’s post reminded me of this one by Tempi.

Tempi says the reason they had to be so close was because their yard is so small.

May 5, 2025

From Quora:

The little orange kitten is named Milo and the larger cat is Toby. When Milo came to the shelter he was terrified and curled up a corner of his crate trembling, so they moved him in with Toby. Toby didn’t hesitate, he went over and embraced Milo in a hug.

May 4, 2025

This is the last video about the new kitten so far. It’s still adorable.

May 3, 2025

May 2, 2025