Painted faces and squeaky wheels

It's been a busy week or so. In chronological order...

I started last Sunday by heading down to San Jose to cheer on a large group of Fitters participating in the Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon. It was a lot of fun, but this guy is pure genius. Granted, I would need a LOT more balloons to make me light enough to make a difference, but it would be worth a try.

Once I got home, the grandkids were hanging out, fresh from a party where they got their faces painted.

Darci loved hers.

Riley did too, but he managed to add some bonus "painting" in the form of chocolate cake (which may be why the shark's eye is so wide open).
 

We headed to the backyard where we came across this awesome spider. We have been seeing a lot of these large things around here - they make the best webs and may be helping control the neighborhood's squirrel population.

The grandkids wanted to trim something, so I gave each a pair of clippers and set them loose on the agapanthus, whose blooms long ago ceased being pretty. This kept them busy for a long time, and it's even possible the plants will survive this "trimming."

At some point during the week, this hamster showed up on the dining room table. Apparently Mrs Notthat volunteered to babysit the thing while its owner went on a vacation. The only annoying aspect of this was that its hamster wheel squeaked when Pokey ran on it, and she had a knack for doing this while others were trying to watch TV.

Friday night, The Boy opened the cage and removed the wheel. Unfortunately, when he closed the cage back up, he didn't secure the lid properly.

This is what we found Saturday morning - Pokey had managed to muscle the lid open enough to escape. Mrs Notthat and I were meeting others for a hike, so there was nothing we could do about it right away.

We headed to Sanborn Park outside of Saratoga, the site of a future Brazen event. While it's reasonably close, we had never been there. As we started out, we saw this deer laying down in the grass, looking like a dog guarding the front yard.

Joining us on the walk was Nna (in white, on the left), Uidualc (bent over, looking for a sandwich in his backpack), and Mrs Uidualc (who knows there is no sandwich).

And a rare picture of The Blog on the hike, with Uidualc still looking for the sandwich. It was a fine hike (although that park needs to take a class in Trail Marking 101 - there were many needlessly confusing intersections).

Once we got home, we searched for the hamster, but failed to find even a clue as to where she might be. We were just about ready to give up on ever finding this thing. And then this morning, while I was sitting in the kitchen reading the paper, a brown furry streak lumbered past me towards the laundry room. I was able to lock it in there and went to work designing an elaborate plan to catch her.

The elaborate plan mostly involved moving the washing machine out from the wall a bit. She squeaked at me "How rude!" in her little hamster voice, then climbed into the back of the washer, giggling at her cleverness. I ended up luring her out with a carrot, blocked her way back into the washer, and then grabbed her as she bolted for the kitchen. Pokey squeaked a lot of unprintable words at me as I carried her back to her enclosure, where she made a rude gesture then curled up and took a nap.

And for good measure, I oiled the wheel before I put it back in.

That's it - move along...