Flowers, just because

Look what I got sent today!

Someone checked out my blog!

Whoot! I am moving up in the world... someone looked at my blog. Heather emailed me to say that she might have to call this blog the "scat" blog (sc-uba, c-at). Did you know there was actually such a thing as scat? And it has more than one meaning:

1. Jazz singing in which improvised, meaningless syllables are sung to a melody.

2. Excrement, especially of an animal; dung.

3. To go away hastily; leave at once.

Definition taken from: Dictionary.com

Although Ella Fitzgerald made scat popular , number two is the definition I find most interesting. In fact, check out this website and see if you can identify a scat from a snack: scat or snack .

Getty center

Paul and I had plans to take his Grandma (aka Miss Pickle and Gee) to the Getty Center. First stop was her house, where I had a planned swimming lesson for the great-grandchild, Ryan. He is very serious at the somber age of 19 months and always has his two eyebrows in little furrows. He was terribly cute and not a bad swimmer at except for the dependency on mom. After the dip in the salt water pool (how cool is that set-up?), we ran over to Arby's for a bite to eat. Yummy.

Next stop (1.5 hours later- traffic), THE GETTY CENTER!

Here I tried to snap a nice photo of Paul and his g-ma, but instead every picture I took was mid-word. If only the need to say "Cheese" could be stopped!




Then Grandma took a good picture of Paul and I (the best one of me that I have seen in a while):

Crush and climb

I headed down to Venice beach early this morning to try out my surf entry skills. They are still a little weak, but over the course of 4 hours, I was able to learn when to dive under some waves and just had some fun in the ocean and sun!

We then went to a JPL Cassini group party where we had some excellent food and meet some of Paul's co-workers.

Since it was in the valley, we stopped by the place where Paul wants to take me rock climbing. I cannot wait to try out my shoes on this wall.

Redondo beach dive

Yesterday I took off of work early to catch some waves down at Vet' park in the Redando Beach area. It turns out that there were barely any waves: 1-2 ft swells. I got to practice fin-on entries, putting fins on in the water, diving under waves, and crawling back out. While the rest of the gang did a dive, I got comfortable just playing in the waves. And I even body surfed on ALL the way back to the shore! Granted, I had free diving fins on, and it was barely a wave, but I cannot let those little details derail my sense of accomplishment! I caught a wave!!!

Scuba Open Water

Tonight I held an Open Water lecture (physiology and dive tables) and Teresa brought a little friend:



I think our cats were not as thrilled. So here I am writing a blog about scuba AND cats!

Water and Waves

Yesterday morning I got up early, at least for the weekend, to meet Bill out at Venice Pier in Santa Monica. He was kind enough to spend the majority of his morning teaching me how to enter surf, dive under waves, and then body surf back in! I had a great time.

This Thursday I am going to play hooky from work and meet a dive buddy for "chiqua beach diving camp." I will try to conquer the waves again and maybe go out for some more body surfing next week.

After a day at the beach, I needed a nap! Then to Gary's birthday party at Kari and Jay's house. Paul and I stayed to close down the party. We ended the day with a long swim in the hot tub and then a cool off in the 85 degree pool; it was great!

An introduction to the zoo

Alright, every other post will not be cats or scuba. However, Paul asked me if I had posted a picture of ALL the cats. Since we don't have kids, I guess I can put pictures of our animals on the blog.

Here is all three of them- Whicket, Woton, and Wookie. Anyone notice a naming scheme or two?

Surf entries

This weekend is booking up fast with more scuba activities. I am going to give beach entries and body surfing a shot on Saturday morning. If all goes well, I might give a second attempt at beach diving in southern California. My first experience in 3ft surf went over so well that I left my fins in the ocean as a monument of my success and even donated my weight belt to the corrosive power of salt water. So before I attempt this thing called shore entries, I am going to learn how to work with the water and not against it!

Cats

The obligatory cat picture...

Woton is our 22lb cat. He can open drawers, doors, and cabinets. He can also jump about 5ft in the air. Notice how there is nothing around the Curio Cabinet for him to launch from?

This is a picture of Woton's favorite napping spot... on top!

Catalina Dives

This weekend Paul and I went to Catalina to help out a DIR-F class (Mike needed a video monkey.) I quickly offered up Paul as the person who fit best into the monkey/bee-och category, so he got the camera and I got to goof off. I spent both dives trying to avoid getting on camera, running into Paul (he often backup kicked my way, making me backup kick double time), and trying to segregate myself from teacher and students all while keeping an eye on my "buddy." The vis was awesome (40ft give or take a little stirring by some goof ball OW students) and the wildlife was neat. I saw a school of silver fish (possibly Perch) that made and illusion that the surface was at 35 ft. I also saw a school of striped fish, but I have no idea what kind they were. I also saw one lone sea cucumber on the sandy bottom.