Remember how we kept Bandito boarded at the vet's office over the weekend? Matt went up Monday afternoon to bring him home.

I talked to Dr. Schiffer when she came in at about 12:30pm.  Bandito was still making improvements on the Milk Thistle, so Matt went up to bring him home.  They showed him how to give him his meds, and they came home with a month's supply.

Matt and Jennifer went to Petco to get a new cage because the doc thought the liver toxin was probably ingested exposed metal from their old cage.  It was old and the coating had been broken in places.  They brought it home and Matt put it together.  Matt ended up separating Bandito and Bethesda because she was bothering him and Bandito still wasn't 100 percent.  Bethesda ended up in the old cage on the dresser, and Bandito was in the new cage on the floor.

Matt gave him his medicine around 9pm.  I had to work later that night and didn't even leave Orem until 9:30pm.  When I got home, the birds were shut in the office to keep the cat and dog out.  I didn't check on them :\

Tuesday morning, Matt had to get up early to take Mocha to the clinic to be spayed.  He checked on the birdies, and came back to the bedroom to tell me Bandito didn't make it.

It saddens us.  I wonder what happened when he had been making improvements.  Was it the new cage?  Was it Bethesda harrassing him?  Was it having the door shut? (It gets hot in the office.)  But in other ways, I'm glad he waited until he could come home.  Even if I didn't get to see him alive again, at least Bethesda could see him and he could be here with us.  We miss our little dude, but Bethesda misses him more.  Now she is in the big new cage all alone.

Later Tuesday morning, we took Bandito up to my parents' house to bury him in their garden near Bhuvan. :(

This last weekend saw lots of activities and little sleep.

I took Friday, Aug. 12th, off of work because we were going down to St. George with Matt's family to see Disney's The Little Mermaid at Tuacahn.  The original plan was to hang out there and spend the night in St. George.  However, it was the same weekend as the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, and Matt decided to invite people to our house to watch the competition.

Friday, we left Payson at about 1:30pm and arrived in St. George a little before 5pm.

Matt napping

So I've always loved guitar.  Maybe that's because my Daddy used to play when I was little. (I always loved when he'd play and sing Summertime.)  When I got older, I really wanted to learn how to play guitar too.  I'd been singing all of my life.  I started violin in 6th grade, and piano shortly followed.  Then in 8th grade, I learned the bagpipes.  It's not like I don't have musical talent here, people.  However, I never got around to learning guitar.

Later in life, my dad bought me a guitar. (It's so pretty- it's blue :))  The plan later became that I would teach him bagpipes and he would teach me guitar.  That didn't last long. 

I did, however, get a 'beginner's book' with my guitar and tried learning on my own a little.  However, let's face it, no one wants to start at the beginning. :)  I wanted to know chords so I could write songs. (And, no I am not a songwriter either. Maybe one day? . . . ha! unlikely)  Fortunately for me, my cute little book has a chord chart in the back :) 

I've tried playing chords.  I fail.  My poor fingers and the guitar strings are not friends.  I have no callouses, and the work it takes to get callouses is painful! So I quit. lol

Well, I bring this up now, years after having tried to really play anything on my guitar, because guess what I did tonight? That's right, I pulled it out.  You see, I ♥ Taylor Swift.  You should all know that by now.  I wish I could be her.  Well, sort of.  Anyway, I thought, I'm going to be Taylor Swift for Halloween this year :) Random, I know. (BTW, this was at the beginning of the year about, so this has been a long time coming.)

Well, to complete the ensemble, I figured I should learn to play one of her songs.  I could learn a few chords enough to be able to play one song, right? HA!  So tonight, after tuning up the guitar (and relearning what each string was :-S) I searched tabs for Speak Now, the song I had picked, and started to learn.

OUCH!

I was even a good girl and cut my nails (cuz there is no way I could attempt it with nails), and picked out some of the chords.  Once I found tabs I liked, I perservered.  For like 10 minutes. My fingers are recuperating now.  However, I'm afraid my hands may not be built for guitar :\  I suppose you'll find out how well this goes in October :)

Let me start this by saying I'm a HUGE fangirl.  I oogle and obsess and 'squee' with the rest of them.  You can thank the rest of the fangirls over on my Dragon Age - Alistair fangroup on FB for my use of 'squee' :p  I learned from the best.
Anyway, my obsessive devotion isn't limited to nearly perfect (albeit imaginary) men, but also to the singer/songwriter men - namely Adam Young :D

Owl City played Utah on Wednesday, July 13th, and I was there!  We bought tickets ages ago, and then a week before, venue moved to In The Venue in Salt Lake, instead of being at the UCCU Center at UVU (would have been so much nicer on lots of levels).  However, I forgive Adam this lapse in judgment and we drove up to Salt Lake. 
We parked right in front of a piano store next to a Hilton hotel - just down from the homeless shelter.  lol  And there were lots of homeless people.  One was even feeding pigeons and other birds - there were lots of pigeons.  We walked up to the back of the line and a few minutes later, we saw an old friend from band with her husband.  We let them join our spot in line and we caught up during the wait.  Another funny coincidence, one of Matt's tenor drummers was also going to the concert, and her group of friends was right in front of us, so we all got to chat - remember my butterly-ness? ;)

The doors opened at 6pm, and the line finally started to move.  By 6:20 we were in the building.  We found a good spot on the bottom floor, and I opted to go to the merch table.  After standing in a ridiculously long and slow-moving line, I bought myself an Owl City shirt and plush owl.  The shirt looks good on me, btw.  I wore it today ;) I got out of line just after 7pm when the concert started - and then had to fight my way through people back to Matt and Janna.  They had blocked the path I used to get out, so I had to go even further around people :p

OMG - In The Venue is HOT. As in literally, dripping sweat going to die without water hot.   Not the most pleasant of experiences (neither is not having a chair to sit in....especially when wearing heels - it's okay though, the heels helped me see over people :))  Ocassionally we did get a breeze though, so that was nice.