Arizona: Land of Amazing Tacos and Popsicles... and other stuff too...

The highlight of our trip to Arizona was without question being able to spend time with our friends Jack and Amanda. It was just icing on the cake to have some amazing food.

I'm not sure if any of my blog audience will be in Phoenix anytime soon, but if any of you out there are planning on it, be certain to go to La Condesa Gourmet Taco Shop. Peak hours are busy, and the place is tiny, but... wow. Just wow. I had no idea tacos and horchata could be that good.

We also went to a great popsicle place in downtown Tempe. Paletas Betty was super delicious, and worth a visit if any of you ever find yourself in Tempe. Moving on from the food...

It's not my instinct to get out the camera while visiting with friends, so the only pictures we have of this trip are those from our visit to Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. We saw quite a bit of desert wildlife (lizards, birds, and rabbits... which I, unsurprisingly, am good at spotting) and the plants were really beautiful. I am fond of cacti and succulents, so I admit I spent a little bit of time lamenting the fact that the climate I've settled in will not allow me to have desert landscaping.

Looming cacti:

I manage to find a patch of shade:

Stately Saguaro:

Pretty pictures of the desert, because I can:

Glass agave-inspired sculpture at the garden entrance:

It's always bittersweet returning home after visiting friends. Since Steve and I don't have any good friends in Santa Cruz, we settle into a quiet, anti-social routine at home. I say so little during the course of a typical day that I can start to lose my voice after just one dinner out with friends. I sometimes manage to convince myself that I don't need, or even enjoy, interacting with other people (other than Steve, of course). Visits like this one remind me how wrong I am. Luckily, I'm getting into my slow season at work, so I should have more time to spend with friends in the coming months, even if they're a seven-hour drive or two-hour flight away.

Like real adults!

Well, sort of.

Steve and I have made enough progress in cleaning up the house to allow us to have dinner sitting at our kitchen island, instead of the living room couch. We set up the laptop and watched Daily Show and Colbert Report while enjoying our lasagna.

I admit, we still end up eating most of our meals on the couch in front of the tv, but at least we can have a meal all official-like at a table if we want to.

Happy birthday, old man!

The title of this blog post was inspired by a text Steve received from his brother-in-law Richard yesterday that made us both smile.

Steve is now 30 years old. He took his birthday off work and we celebrated by having brunch at Cafe Brasil (the best place for brunch in Santa Cruz, hands down), going to the movies (Iron Man 3), drinking some expensive tequila and having a fun dinner out at Louie's.

Oh, and we also had mini-cakes to celebrate:

Seems to me, he gets smarter and better looking every year... I like to jokingly say to him that men age like a fine wine, women age like milk. Before anybody jumps down my throat about that, it's a joke, but even so Steve's definitely got the fine wine aging down. Happy birthday, old man!

Need... more... COLOR!

I love busy visual environments (clutter, as most would say) and lots and lots of color. I felt the subdued (though wonderfully rich) dark blue-grey of our living room was just not sufficient, so I decided I ought to paint the inside of the front door. Steve, wonderful that he is, was supportive and went with me to select the paint color. We settled on one with "mango" in the name... so fair warning, it's bright.

Steve did a marvelous job prepping the door for paint. It's an old door and needed a lot of patching and sanding.

It took four coats of paint to get the color where I wanted it, and I absolutely adore it. I gleefully told Steve it was my favorite thing we've done yet. I suspect he thinks I'm nuts, but luckily he still seems to like me anyway.

It's difficult with the dimness of our place to get a good picture of the true color. As an aside, that dim lighting is by design. I seem to be very sensitive to too much light... a doctor once told me people with very light colored eyes tend to have that problem, but I have no idea if that's actually true. The picture of me painting above was taken with flash, so I think the second picture (with our cardboard safari trophies) is the best reflection of the actual color. At any rate, I think you get the idea... it's coral-ish orange. And awesome.

Housing Upgrade

In our previous rental housing, Steve and I never bothered to try to make the rabbits' housing attractive. We just improvised with whatever space we had to make the furry critters I kept bringing home as comfortable as possible. Now that we own our home, we were definitely hoping to come up with more attractive habitats. I had thought about modifying a piece of furniture, but hadn't come across the right thing. That is, until we took our semi-monthly trip to the Santa Cruz Habitat for Humanity ReStore. There we found this (pictured standing on end since we weren't planning on buying furniture that day and hadn't cleared space): 

I immediately had a vision of what it could be... so off to the hardware store we went.

Using simple wooden trim, small metal brackets and coated fencing designed for garden use, Steve built panels for each open bay in the lower two levels of the shelving unit. 

I used small nails to attach 1/2"x1/2" wooden "stops" in the sides of each bay to prevent the panels from pushing inward. Steve attached half-turn buttons (normally used to hold in window screens) on both sides of each panel to prevent the panels being pushed out, but allow for easy removal of any panel for cleaning or bunny-harassing access.

There is a hinged door on each level, secured with a cupboard latch. We didn't stain or paint the wood in the panels or stops in case the rabbits nibbled on them... which they have.

Finished product:

Kiwi is living in the middle level, a roughly 4' long space, which is at least a foot longer than her previous cage. When we first put her inside, she ran around in circles like a crazy thing (how rabbits express happiness, so I think it's safe to say she approves). Violet is living on the lowest level in a space approximately 6' long, which is comparable in size to her previous "rabbit table" housing, but infinitely more stylish. 

Unfortunately I've got piles of stuff on top of it currently so it's not necessarily evident in the finished picture, but I think it's a beautiful piece of furniture and it makes an awesome rabbit home.

Living Room Painting Complete

After much toil, some of which obnoxiously pointed out that my back isn't quite what it once was...

... the living room paint is done!

There's still a lot of stuff around, so it's a bit messy for final pictures, but here's one of the bookcase area anyway.

I'm in the middle of a massive (hopefully final) attic reorganization, but once that's complete the living room should clean up quickly.

Steve and I put up curtains and they look great (I feel the picture above doesn't do them justice). Steve ordered curtain tie-backs that should arrive soon, giving them a more sophisticated look when opened than the current haphazard bunching. After putting the curtains up, Steve and I agreed that it really made the room look finished. I'm currently wrapping up painting the inside of the front door... orange. More to come on that, as I think it's the coolest thing we've done yet.

Tough Times for Bunnies

It's always exciting to spend my week touring the many veterinary clinics of Santa Cruz County. I suppose I'm being melodramatic... I only talked to four on the phone and visited two in person during a total of three visits last week.

It all started with little Kiwi early this week (who, due to her very dark coat and eyes shows up poorly in pictures, so you won't be seeing her here). Kiwi stopped eating, which is an emergency condition for rabbits (called G.I. stasis, which is fatal if untreated). Luckily her condition was good enough for us to treat her at home with injections 3x daily, meds twice daily and assist feeding. I was incredibly proud of myself that I gave the injections... I'm a little needle phobic and it was actually a big thing for me. At any rate, Kiwi is completely recovered and slowly getting over being angry at us for subjecting her to treatment. 

As Kiwi was shaping up, White Rabbit (pictured below) developed a similar issue, but much more severe. 

Poor White Rabbit spent two days and nights in the veterinary hospital. We just got her home this morning. She's pretty stoned on pain killers, so it's a little hard to tell how well she's doing. She's had a similar episode in the past and recovered completely, so things are likely to be okay. According to the vet, White Rabbit was very (unsurprisingly) uncooperative about her meds... something to look forward to this evening. 

Though similar in presentation, White Rabbit and Kiwi's conditions are likely not related. Their diets are different and they even live in different rooms currently. Stasis just happens with bunnies sometimes, and causality is often not found. I've had rabbits for 10 years now and had 7 incidents of stasis on 6 different bunnies (3 of those rabbits had known underlying medical conditions that contributed). Since White Rabbit has had it before, she may have a defect in her digestive system somewhere. I'll keep playing with her diet to try to keep her as healthy as possible for as long as possible.