Sleepy George

He's so adorable when he's tired :). Most of the pictures show him on my lap (under the blanket) when cuddling up on the couch in the evening. 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Oh, glorious water spray bottle!

So after a few weeks of constant "NO Pepper, leave it." every time when he ran toward Abby to play with her (something that she is not at all fond of), which had little to no effect, really, I decided to give the good old water spray bottle another try. And - *drum roll* - it worked like a charm! 

The scene: Pepper is in the kitchen. Enter Abby. Pepper sees Abby and heads her way, tail wagging wildly (nature is so cruel to give cats and dogs body languages that are almost exact opposites of one another!). Abby is not amused. Abby hisses and paws his face. Pepper thinks "What a fun game!" and continues to follow her. Until a quick squirt of water hits his face out of nowhere. And all of a sudden, that furry thing on the floor is no longer fun at all. VICTORY!

I must admit Abby got a little bit of water as well, but hey, on the scale of things that's probably the lesser of the two evils. 

So let's see how long it lasts. Ever since that incidence he just gives her a quick sniff ("Oh, it's you. Ok.") and otherwise respectfully keeps his distance. Finally, that's what I wanted all along! Respect the kitties and good things happen; play too rough with them and you'll get sprayed.

And welcome new shiny Fit

This time we had a lot more luck with finding a nice Honda Fit for us. It drives really nicely and I thoroughly enjoy it. Plus, it's a hatchback, so driving with Pepper just got a lot easier :).

 

RIP little green car...

so it has finally happened. After surviving 5 Rochester winter with us, travelling all the way to the west coast and making it almost 3 years through the Portland traffic, our little green Honda is now officially dead. It refused to accelerate late last year and we had it fixed. But last Thursday, it did the same thing. So looking at the frequency of this and the potential of sinking a lot of money into an old car, we decided to say goodbye. Here's one last picture of us:

Things are calming down

Abby, George and Pepper are slowly getting more and more used to each other. 

George has learned that by jumping up on the sofa, a cat tree or anything else that is higher than hip-level he can get out of Pepper's way. And he even let Pepper lick his tail for a while!

Abby is still getting annoyed by Pepper: She stays on the floor and walks away, but when Pepper just follows her (tail wagging wildly), she turns around, hisses and paws his face... with little effect so far. I intervene when Pepper gets too annoying. At least this does not prevent her from hanging out with us downstairs, and she does not seem distressed either. Good :).

Pigging out on Sunday morning

Jan and I had a craving for some real breakfast, so this Sunday we went for the real deal: Bacon (turkey bacon, though!), sausage links, egg, hashbrowns, ketchup. Or in one word: YUMMY!

Field trip!

After a decent jogging run this morning (with Pepper of course!) we went on an extended field trip:

First stop - checking out a boarding kennel close by to see if that's an option for Pepper when we go vacation. Short answer - no chance.

Second stop - Grand Central Bakery for some yummy croissants. The gooooood stuff :).

Third stop - Sauvie Island. The first time for all of us. We got a little confused as the drive on the island is a lot longer than anticipated (we thought we got lost). Turns out we were doing just fine, just needed a bit more patience. The beach was beautiful and almost completely empty. We had big stretches without any other people near by, so we could use them to let Pepper roam around on the long leash (and practice the "Come!" some more, he's getting pretty good at it!). Of course, the long leash had its own challenges:

This was also Pepper's first encounter with a large body of water. He was... shall we call it hesitant?