gifts

It was my birthday last week but in light of loosing our cat Kitty to a pack of dogs I didn't feel much like doing anything. If you like you can read Erin's post about Kitty and see a little better why we loved her so much in life. She was the best.

All the same Erin wanted to make my birthday great, and she did.

Here follows an account of the things I wanted to show you guys.


Behold! A new DS, my original one I've nearly played to death. The hinge is cracked and the top is loose, won't stay up, the speakers are going out and it no longer holds a charge. Not unplayable by any stretch, even so the DSi XL has a few pluses that make me very glad for the upgrade. DSiWare (downloadable games and content) almost 100% larger screens (and slightly system larger overall, better to hold) 2 cameras, and this little genius idea -- Flipnote. It's basically the thing I always wanted --


It's small animation program, think of it like an endless collection of digital post it notes that you can animate. I have a couple that I'm working on. Erin and my mom went in on it on the DSi together for me, thank you both.

__________________________

My father-in-law was in town and he gave me this Buzz Lightyear. The best part is the fact that in most cases you can shop for me and my 3 year old nephew at the same time.

He also gave me this little gem,

It's full of everything I wanted to read at age 10. I would have killed to have this book then. It's full of Ralph McQuarrie paintings I've never seen, models, drawings, everything. It's a terrific book. It is unspeakably refreshing to see a book devoid of the prequel trilogy, where Luke on the edge of platform nodding to R2 is truly as exciting as can be.

__________________________

And two sort of tapestries from my little sister, Courtney. Pictured is the Storm Trooper one, the other is Darth Vader in Japanese water lilies.

__________________________

And this isn't birthday related but it is something just as cool -- this morning I got all my frames for my upcoming Alice shows. This whole thing is going to be so fun and so great. Of course as we get closer I'm going to post much about the shows.

__________________________

Thanks very much for all your kind words about Kitty. It's one thing to loose a pet when they're old, it makes sense, it's just what happens. It's still very sad but they had a good run and you can think of that. But to loose a pet in such a violent way still makes me so sad and so angry. Kitty is the second cat I've lost to dogs. The first was my cat I had growing up, Friskey.

One bright spot is after spending a couple days going around my street and the surrounding streets and neighborhoods I've come to believe that it wasn't anyone's pet dogs that did this. There's a large subdivision near us called Montebello and they've had trouble with a pack of reportedly 8 wild dogs that live in their woods. They've hired a trapper and as I understand it he's already caught one. That's small consolation for me because if they had been more serious about catching these animals (after people had been chased and cornered in the last few months there) Kitty might still be here like she ought to be, stomping around the yard and sleeping on the porch.