We leave for our long vacation one week from today — from last night, actually. Next Tuesday, we drive to LA; we fly from LAX to MCO on Wednesday and the ship sails on Saturday. A neighbor will be house- and cat-sitting for us while we’re gone. We’ve never taken this long of a trip and I’m a bit apprehensive. We’ve had more than a year to prepare, though, and I think we’ve done everything we can possibly do to ensure it goes smoothly. I’m especially looking forward to the Panama Canal transit.

The Monterey Pine tree in our back patio, which was infected with Pine Pitch Canker, was removed yesterday. It was a decision we really didn’t want to make and put off as long as possible, but the base of the trunk was decaying and weakened, and if the tree fell it would have taken out our house. On the bright side, with the tree gone the back patio will get more sun and not be covered in pine needles and sap all the time. In order to remove the tree, the arborist had to chainsaw out some of our back fence — not really a problem since it was rotted and falling apart anyway. Don’t get any ideas, though — we’ve put up a temporary fence and the permanent replacement will be installed next week.

I’m still working for Nokia as a result of the Avvenu acquisition from last year. I’m also on the Board of Directors for the Homeowners Association of Mission Palo Alto, and I put in a lot of time in various capacities at MousePlanet. Jennifer is doing very well at CSAA (though they are apparently changing their name for some reason) and not incidentally gets us great travel deals whenever we go anywhere. She’s also copy-editing some MousePlanet columns.

The cats are doing well. Watson had his lower left fang removed a few months ago because it had started to decay. He’d lost the upper left a few years ago so now his mouth is a little lopsided, but he’s still very cute. Rita and Linus are, after only eight years, finally starting to make friends. Actually it’s Rita who is starting to warm up — Linus has always wanted to be friends but until recently, Rita was having none of it.

This November will mark our tenth wedding anniversary. I know, I’m amazed too.