New kitty/ Kitteh Hunt special thanks to Mid Hudson Animal Aid in Beacon!

We have decided to get a new kitty friend for our olive- and we are hoping she doesn't mind after a while. No-one expects instant friendship, and she is already not happy about being kept out of the bathroom for the past week- but as of Tuesday New Kitty Ozy will be all neutered and vaccinated and de-wormed and ready to go. Definitely keeping him isolated for a while until we are sure he isn't carrying fleas or this bad stomach flu going around the shelter, and after that we are following cat introductory protocol. Many resources we checked suggested the same steps, so we have a definite plan. Gotta make sure he uses the litter box etc. Since hes a little younger, maybe 10 months to a year, he should retain his kitten energy for a while to tire out our current Resident.

Olive plays like a kitten still.

We opted for a younger boy cat, a little smaller than our Olive to help smooth things over. I've seen some places say that this whole opposite gender getting along better thing is a myth, but whatever we are trying to stack the deck in our favor. Ozy comes from a 'found outside' litter so we expect he will be bouncy and scrappy, but after everything settles down, we think his initial go-with-the-flow attitude will prevail. He had several siblings, but out of the boys we liked his chill attitude, he didn't seem anxious being handled or pet, not too excited and not running away and hiding. Since Olive is kind of a prima donna, alternately annoying and demanding, mixed with pets on 'her terms' we thought the relaxed attitude of this particular kitty would be good- not too demanding and not too competitive, hopefully a little more affectionate (Steve had mentioned he wanted an affectionate kitty when we were driving down since olive is really not much of a lap cat).

Kitteh Hunt: 

First we met my friend J who works at Mid Hudson Animal Aid in Beacon NY, ate lunch at the cool Doctor Who themed restaurant down there (falafel was good) and dove into the kitty meeting.

J has known we've been considering getting another since December and looking since at least May, and knows what we are looking for, so she had some good prospects lined up. First was a little all black kitty named Obsidian, who Steve immediately fell in love with. Obsidian is silky and gorgeous, unfortunately he still needed a lot of work, as he was still fairly afraid of people and was stressed out by us trying to approach him to get a good look; he would however with a kind and patient owner probably be an incredible cat. I brought up the fact that we had already worked hard to rehab our current cat from shyness and he realized this may not be the right match for us. I'm really not up for domesticating a cat right now- too much going on, and it isn't fair to take home a project when we don't have room for one.

The next contender was Gizmo, a really sweet white with black spots cat. He was very confident and sweet, but much bigger than our Olive, and I thought that might be threatening to her. We did play with him for a long time and he had great cat manners. He was probably my favorite personality wise- he looked like he would be a hoot to watch bounce around the house, and seemed like a really cuddly guy. If we didn't already have Olive I would have walked out with him ASAP.

We checked out a few others and played with all the cats for a while, then headed into a staff only section where the new cats are being kept- and in there we were showed some little black males that were being overlooked. Ozy the one we picked turned out to -we hope- have the best match personality wise to our current kitty. Apparently when it's kitten season and you're just not a kitten any more nobody really looks at you too hard. So we were happy to take one of these guys off their hands. Since we've been there my aunt was also able to snap up two adorable Maine coon kittens I sent her pictures of, so that's three cats out the door to my family :)

We have spent the week since cleaning and organizing, and keeping Ollie happy. We are trying to do stuff gradually since she's very about routine and we have a very small apartment. Lots of spaces to jump and climb and get up high, but still small by human standards. Wish us luck next week as our foray into having two kittehs continues.

Vienna, Austria. Early June, 2015

vacation to Vienna in June!

Architecture, cool plants, good food and decent weather. I packed thinking it would be cooler than it was, so I was very hot most of the time. We also both felt a little under dressed- Vienna or "Wien" as they and many other countries call the city- is a pretty swanky city. Kind of like living here and going to NYC. The people that live there are dressed very cute and the visiting people always have awkward sneakers and windbreakers around their waists.

Climbed to the top of this church here- it's off of Karlsplatz and you take an elevator up and then climb for eternity until you get to top of what I'm SURE is a very stable staircase but what feels like a rickety-held together-with duct tape-shamble ladder. Definitely got the wobble knees at the top, and I'm not really afraid of heights. The paintings were really cool- I like the painted rivets and decorations, they look like they are wooden appliques but they are just painted trompe l'oeil.

We also went through several gardens and public parks, all of which are basically trash free and dog friendly and perfectly landscaped and maintained. All the roses in the city were blooming the week we were there. ALSO these ducks. 

 Took the EXCELLENT public transportation to the top of a mountain to see Vienna from above.

 Walked through the wealthy and quaint suburbs back down into Vienna and back towards the bus.

 Roses everywhere. Fun fact we learned on the trip: Roses catch blight before grapes, and that is why they are planted in a prolific manner in vineyards.  If the roses get sick, they know the grapes are next. Also they smell pretty.

We also did a 15 mile bike tour/ wine tasting- wines were pretty good- I am a sweet wine person, so I probably didn't get out of it all I could have. However being very out of shape and also drunk - not to mention not having ridden a bike in ten years easy-didn't help with the bike riding aspect of this trip. The sitting on my butt drinking wine part I had down pat though. I'm sure in time I'll look back and be amazed by the beauty of the countryside instead of remembering that I felt like I was going to pass out/ lose the group the whole time. However, the region we were in was full of vineyards big and small, basically the Napa Valley of that area. 

We also toured Shönbrunn Palace, (one of the palaces, the place is lousy with palaces they are everywhere) below is pictured the back of the palace which faces extensively manicured gardens, tree lined walkways, an insanely large intricate fountain, and high up on a steep hill, some kind of mini palace? There's an amazing view but it was so hot we all took one look at the hill and were like "UMMM nope." Also present back in this area are hedge mazes and a ZOO. A ZOO people. 

 My only good zoo picture. The otters and flying foxes were cute too. It was really hot so most animals were passed out sleeping through the heat. One really cute baby goat was running all around and jumping off rocks and stuff- but he was the only one with energy. They also have a bat room where you walk in and the room is dark and bats are just flying everywhere, around your head and legs and stuff. THEY BRUSHED ME I SWEAR.The zoo cafe had incredible iced tea, or "Eis Tee".

 Also this which I assume is a greenhouse, but we didn't go inside.

 Giant Ferris wheel at the Prater, a kind of permanent carnival area. We hit up a beer garden that was Very Good here as well as saw some creepy clowns and stuff on the facades of various rides. WE went up in the Ferris wheel - at night the whole city lights up under you.

We also went to the Naschmarkt, an open air market with spices, tea, veggies and venders etc. 

This is another palace we visited The Belvedere, which houses the botanical gardens of Vienna as well as I believe a section of a University where plants, botany and biodiversity are studied. 

some cool desert plants

This is a Castle we visited towards the end of our trip, it was reconstructed in the 2800's using various parts of the original castle and other castles. Very cool. 

We obviously did other things on the trip,  most notably eat, drink and be merry.

 Ribs EVERYWHERE. I had to come home and detox my system from all the booze and meat and sodium before my intestines worked totally right again, to me the mark of any good vacation ;).

Iced coffee is coffee and ice cream.

 A little spatzle with some goulash.

SO MUCH GOOD BEERS. we drank a lot of Ottakringer, and Budvar (like budweiser but made there and better tasting) and Radler- which is like a Shandy. I drank my weight in Radlers easily. 

We tried to learn to play poker on one of our nights free hanging out at the house, but the people we went with who taught us were very good so it kinda sucked and we ran out of "money" real fast. Learned to order an ice cream cone in German, Eistüte, and how to be polite and say excuse me, and please and thank you- Bitte, Danke. We picked up a bunch more as well. It was the first country I've been to where they got kind of visibly frustrated when you spoke their language to them- their English is WAY BETTER than our German, so they mostly preferred to converse and interact in English. We spent a lot of time on the subway or the "Ubahn" ( like Boston has 'the T' and London has the 'tube') and we popped up at many of the main hub stops- Stephansplatz, Swedensplatz and Karlsplatz. So many Platzes, so little time.

Pretty awesome once in a lifetime trip- we would have never been able to go if we didn't stay with our friend Kate! Thanks! She helped us not go into massive debt to achieve this trip with our best friends.