Interesting blog - mentions Amitav Ghosh

http://locana.blogspot.com/2005/03/to-stay-is-to-be-nowhere-thought-on.html

http://locana.blogspot.com/2005/01/amu-amitav-ghosh-and-amardeep.html

Family camping time gets pretty wild

By Michelle Koidin Jaffee

Updated 09:42 p.m., Thursday, January 26, 2012

http://www.chron.com/default/article/Family-camping-time-gets-pretty-wild-2736617.php

....

Throm finds a strong argument for being outdoors in a 2005 book cited by Ranger Owen, Last Child in the Woods, in which author Richard Louv coined the term "nature-deficit disorder."

hair color at home:

http://www.haircolorforwomen.com/breakthrough-hair-color-system/?utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=Angry%2BStylist&utm_campaign=Outbrain

School

Intro to Computers class is sucking up all my time! I should have started studying for the mid-term when school started. Trying to read four chapters and memorize terminology in 5 days is wreaking havoc on my schedule. The rest of my school work is suffering, especially the 5-page paper due on Wed. in Contemporary Lit class on The Hungry Tide.

Weather

I hate this heat. On the first day of fall, when it was cool (relatively), I felt so happy and thought that I could certainly stand Houston weather, that I'm getting used to it, that after all these years, I've finally adjusted. Ha! Yesterday was miserable. Hot, humid, goopy weather. My windshield was fogged over and my little Civic just can't handle the goop. How can we have a heat index of 105 in October??? Other people who live in normal places could never comprehend this mess. I hate hate hate it.

Silver kitty disappeared about a month ago. Just disappeared. Now it's just Orange Kitty, Momma Cat, and the daddy, Frankie. His wounds finally healed. He's such a pretty cat. Blonde with blue eyes. Thus, his name. I hate the name, but it was given to him by his previous caretaker who moved away. Orange Kitty is probably a female. She's four months old, so I'll need to try to trap her pretty soon and take her to be spayed. She's still pretty shy, less so of Graham than of me. Maybe next month...

Cats

Let me just say, up front, that I'm NOT a cat person. Or I wasn't. Now, I'm taking care of several cats that live under my house. Momma Cat is a 2-year-old torbie. I know this because I trapped her last week and took her to SNAP to be spayed. Torbie means she's part tortoiseshell and part tabby. She's cute and pretty sweet, for a feral cat. She lets me pet her. Her two kittens, on the other hand, are quite wild. I found them the second Tuesday in June when I lifted a piece of plywood, intending to take it out front for heavy trash pickup. What a surprise to find a momma cat and two little babies. In my ignorance of cats, I tried to move them to a "safe place." Momma cat didn't like that, so she moved them under the house and we didn't see them for about six weeks. Now they are about two months old, still cute, and wild as they can be. They run away as soon as they see me. One day I hid behind a plant and they both came up on the porch, started to eat, then noticed me and scattered. I haven't had the patience to sit out there again. I guess they'll be feral too. I wish I knew an easy way to tame them. I hate to think they'll live under my house for the rest of their lives. Their ears will have to be notched when I take them to SNAP in a couple of months. It's not very pretty. Then what happens to them when I move? I don't plan to retire in Houston, so I will be leaving someday.

The kittens are both tabbies - one silver and one orange. They have nice markings. I can't tell the sex. I wonder if it would be better to trap them now and take them to the ASPCA so they have a chance of being adopted. I hate for them to grow up wild.