Dipper, My Birthday, and Other News

It's been about a month since I last wrote on this blog!  I really am not being lazy.  Honestly, not much has happened.

A month ago, Dipper died.  October 20, Jean and I couldn't get him inside that evening because he was struck on the highway.  Jean found Dipper, but didn't want me to see him.  She said that he basically died instantly.  I was really sad when it happened, and I'm going to miss him.  He was my favorite cat out of the three.  It was interesting that I just took some photos of him a day or so before when he had gotten into some iron oxide.  Now only Butterscotch and Lightning are left.  My mighty hunter is gone.

Dipper got into iron oxide somehow!

Lately, Lightning has been acting pretty strangely.  On Wednesday evening and Thursday morning we had a bad windstorm which blew in a snow storm.  Ever since then Lightning hasn't come out of Grandma's bedroom closet.  Yesterday I told Jean at work, "There was an old kitty that lived in a closet.  She had so many worries that she made a 'deposit.' "  Subsequently I moved one of the litter boxes next to the closet so that we wouldn't have this problem in the future.  I don't know what to think about Lightning.  Maybe I need a cat whisperer to figure out why she's so nervous.  Butterscotch doesn't bother her, and there isn't anyone there to do mean things to her.  She is an obsessive licker and has a bare belly with no fur.  Maybe this is related somehow.

This month I've been working a lot on family photos and genealogy.  I recently discovered some cousins on my paternal grandma's side of the family.  I only knew of one that was still living until Jean and I found a wedding invitation from 1952.  I'm in contact with her, and I've been collecting information from her side of the family.

I've seen a lot of photos lately.  We pulled out several portraits of people, one of which was my second great grandfather's wedding photo from 1892.  We're having it professionally digitally rendered since it's bigger than my scanner.  He's one of my favorite ancestors anyway, so I consider this a good investment.  The digital version should be ready by Wednesday, but I don't know if I'll be in Bozeman to get it then!

Tuesday, November 16 was my thirty-first birthday.   I got so many birthday wishes on Facebook!  I celebrated my birthday on Wednesday with Jean.  She and I are so close we're like a brother and sister; I never thought I'd be so close to her.  She took me out to Corino's in Bozeman and we watched a movie together.

By the way, I didn't like Skyline.  They had a good idea for a plot, but the movie never had a conclusion; it ended on a twist.  As well, I found the movie depressing.  I thought the movie was violent enough that it should have been rated R.  Oh well.

Also while we were in Bozeman we did some shopping, mostly related to family genealogy and archiving.  We want to preserve the special things in Grandma's house like photos.  We'll eventually transfer all these things to acid-free media.

We had a big snowstorm on Friday.  In one night we got about 12 inches of snow.  The next day it continued to snow, though we didn't see more than a couple inches Saturday.  Today was pretty clear, but last night it got really cold.  It was 4 degrees last night and warmed up to 21 today.  This is more snow than we got cumulatively last year!  In general we've had more precipitation this year than normal.