Olive the cat before grooming. Look at all that fur!
Poor Olive! First we left her for four days while we visited friends in Salt Lake City. (We did have a cat sitter check up on her.) Then Monday morning, our first morning home, a mobile cat groomer arrived.
We’ve been dealing with Olive shedding hair all over the house, Olive spitting up hair balls, and looking uncared for.
Maureen the cat groomer arrived with a folding table topped with a rubber mat and a backpack full of various tools. I had confined Olive to a bathroom so I could easily find her. As soon as I opened the door, Olive shot out the door down the hall. I spent the next 10 minutes searching for her. Once I spotted Olive, I had to dive on top of her.
With Olive on the table, Maureen spent the next hour and a half with various cat brushes and combs, pulling out matted knots and Olive’s heavy undercoat. I stood at the table holding onto Olive, while telling her what a good girl she was.
This was the first time in Olive’s 11-year life that she’s been groomed. I try to brush her and she puts up with it for about 30 seconds before taking off.
I asked Maureen about shaving the cat, if that would be better than trying to brush and comb her out. Hubby wanted Olive shaved.
“That’s up to you,” Maureen answered. From her tone, I gathered shaving a cat was not something she was keen on.
“Since this is her first time being groomed, lets keep going with combing,” I said. “I think an electric razor would freak her out.”
In case you didn’t know, Olive is a scaredy cat. I had a friend’s daughter take care of her for three or four years whenever we left town. She said, “I don’t believe you have a cat.” My friend’s daughter never saw her. Except for the food being eaten and the litter box being used, there was no evidence that Olive existed.
The sheers did come out for Olive’s underside. The hair was thick, long and matted. Maureen said she’s never groomed a dog or cat that liked their hair being pulled out of their armpits or tummy.
When a large black trash bag was filled with cat hair and Olive’s polydactyl claws had been trimmed, we were done. Olive immediately leaped off the table and ran down the hall never to be seen again that day.
Olive wearing her lighter summer do.
If you have a dog or cat, do they like being groomed?
We had a great time revisiting Salt Lake City. The little big city has a special place in my heart because of my daughter’s four years living there for college. It’s filled with memories from our many visits. Plus, we saw my husband’s best friend from fourth grade through high school and his wife. We wish we had many more hours talking and laughing together! Every second was full. Our friend showed us a paper he wrote in fourth grade where he referenced my husband. Then he gave us a joint project they wrote together! Priceless!
Oh yes, Matteo’s restaurant owned by a former international student from Italy and swim teammate of my daughter’s at the “U” was amazing! The food and service was incredible. You can look at Matteo’s menu HERE. (Matteo is the handsome guy in the middle row photos that I linked for the menu.)
Here are a few views from our getaway in Salt Lake City:
No trip to Utah (in my opinion) is complete without a Freshie’s lobster roll. We’ve been to their Park City location, but now they have a Salt Lake City restaurant a mile from the hotel we stay at — the Little America. If you’re wondering how lobster rolls could be a thing in Utah, read this archived article “Utah restaurant stomps coastal competition, takes home ‘World’s Best Lobster Roll’ award.” Every bite of lobster was a major chunk from claws to hunks of tail meat. There was no sketchy filler. The roll was drizzled with warm butter, garnished with perhaps parsley in a grilled bun. Oh my!
Photo of the Little America tower I took during a morning walk. The Little America has two-story buildings surrounding the tower with garden and courtside rooms. (FYI, The Little America was founded by Stephen Mack Covey, grandfather to Stephen Covey of “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” who in turn is grandfather to Britain Covey of the Philadelphia Eagles.
An example of the two-story buildings surrounding the tower that I borrowed from their website.
View of the Wasatch mountains from our 12th floor room. The apartment buildings below did not exist last time we visited Salt Lake City.
We walked to City Creek Center from the hotel. It was about a mile away. It’s an indoor-outdoor shopping center downtown and fills two city blocks. To get from one side to another you can cross the street, or use their skybridge. (We were on a mission to get new earbuds for my husband’s iphone at the Apple Store there. A story for another day!)
View from the skybridge walking from one City Creek Center building to another. Notice the train tracks lined with yellow? That’s TRAX, the light rail system that makes getting around SLC so easy and convenient. It’s free downtown.
Our daughter said she took TRAX from campus to football games, to downtown or wherever — all free as a student. She’d swipe her student ID. How convenient would that be going to a football game at the Rice Eccles stadium that seats more than 50,000 people and is sold out for every game? Or for everyday life? We used TRAX this past weekend.
City lights from our hotel room with the pool and garden and courtside rooms below.
The view of the Grand America from our deck. That’s the grander sister hotel across the street.
Thanks for coming along for highlights of my weekend.
Where you live, do you have a light rail system like TRAX? I wish we had that in Scottsdale!
Do you have any favorite go to places where you live or visit — like Freshie’s that I visit in SLC?
Soon, we’ll be headed to Salt Lake City, Utah for a few days. We’re going to visit my husband’s childhood best friend and wife. While my daughter was at the U of U, we’d see them regularly. But we’ve only seen them a couple times since my daughter graduated. We’re making the trek to spend some time with them.
I looked up what I wrote in the past about SLC and this post popped up from 2018:
The last dual meet for these senior Utes.
After four years of visiting our daughter at the University of Utah, my love affair with Salt Lake City is sadly over. She left the great state of Utah to start a career in Arizona. Although my husband said we can always go back, I wonder, how often will we? My bet is that on a rare occasion we will trek up to see our friends the McKinneys or maybe go to an alumni swim meet. But, other than that, I will miss the gorgeous city surrounded by mountain peaks. Salt Lake City is a vibrant, clean, friendly yet small city.
Another thing that is amazing is the community spirit of rooting for the Utes. Everywhere you see “Go Utes!” murals, flags and signs. The football stadium is always sold out–rain or shine. The gymnastics team is the most attended women’s collegiate sport in the country with more than 15,000 fans in the Huntsman Dome.
A friend asked my daughter and me to put together a list of things to do in SLC for her niece who’s a freshman at the University of Utah. Most of our things to do revolved around food. But, all in all it’s a list of our favorite memories during four years of being Ute fans. Here’s our Salt Lake City guide for UTE students, parents and visitors:
Hotels
A view of the Grand America from the pool deck of the Little America Hotel.
The Grand America Hotel — nicest in SLC, fun to walk through, even if you don’t stay there. I never made it to Sunday Brunch, but it’s supposed to be amazing.
The Little America — same company, Sun Valley Company, owns both the Little and Grand America hotels. It’s very nice but a little more low key than the Grand America. Restaurants are great, try the Coffee Shop for comfort food and amazing hot rolls with butter. I loved the gym and pool and big rooms at a great price. Our home away from home in Salt Lake City.
FYI, we’ll be returning to our home away from home on our upcoming trip.
Restaurants
A sandwich and salad at Les Madeleines.
Valter’s Osteria — fine Italian, special occasion, delicious and great atmosphere. The owner Valter is so personable!
Market Street Grill — Pacific Northwest seafood flown in daily. Great for big parties or family lunch and dinner.
Sushi:
Takashi My favorite sushi restaurant. They have an excellent menu with many hot dishes, too.
Sapa My daughter’s favorite sushi restaurant. I think she and her friends liked the “all you can eat” special. Plus it was exciting for them their freshman and sophomore years, because you aren’t allowed in unless you’re with someone 21 years old or older.
Other Favorites:
Les Madeleines — small Parisian bakery/cafe for breakfast and lunch. I love the tomato basil soup with salad!
Freshies Lobster Co. — Park City must! Casual restaurant that started as a food truck serving lobster rolls and lobster salad, amazing! The best meal I ever had in Utah! So simple but delicious. Here’s a review by the Salt Lake Tribune which says they opened a Salt Lake City restaurant blocks away from my daughter’s old house.
Italian — Antica Sicilia and Doce Sicilia. Recommended by Matteo Songe, swimmer from Italy on the Utah Swim team. He said this was authentic Sicilian. The Carbonara pasta is prepared with flames in a cheese wheel tableside!
Aristo’s — family-operated Greek. Delicious. Outdoor seating on the patio in the summer.
We are trying a new Italian restaurant this trip.Matteo’s. Matteo was the swimmer and friend of our daughter’s I mentioned above. He was a distance and open water swimmer along with our daughter. We got to know him at Open Water Nationals one year. Our daughter said he stayed in the US and opened up this restaurant — which is now the place to go for special occasions.
City Creek Center — nicest mall with the most stores including Nordstrom, Lush, Apple, Sephora, etc. Shop Friday or Saturday if you’re there for a weekend, since the entire mall is closed on Sunday!
Sports at UTAH — go to football, gymnastics, basketball, swimming, etc. The crowds at football and student MUSS section are so enthusiastic. Red Rocks Gymnastics is a top five NCAA team consistently and they have 15,000 plus in attendance at meets — the most attended Olympic sport for collegiate women in the U.S.
Church — CenterPoint in Orem. Pastor Scott McKinney. Scott and my husband were best friends from grade school through high school. It was so nice to reconnect with Scott and his wife Sara. They provided our daughter with a home away from home. She was invited into their home for Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and whenever she wanted.
Downtown Salt Lake City, UT
Where your favorite places to visit and do you have any recommendations?
Olive the cat gives me the look that it’s time to eat.
Thank you to all my fellow bloggers who I follow as well as friends who follow me. Every day, I get joy from reading your posts. I love interacting with you through comments. I realize that is part of what I look forward to every morning.
It’s a bit of sanity in an ever changing, crazy world.
Most of the blogs I read are positive and you share recipes, birds, deer, pets, and relationships with your loved ones. Each of you has a unique personality. You add to the structure and fabric of my days.
Thank you!
Here’s a bit of joy in a video of Olive watching quail through the window:
More cactus blooms in our yard. Isn’t that amazing for July in Arizona?
I wash my hands a lot. Every time I go outside and come back into the house, I wash my hands. I realized that my constant handwashing was a habit I picked up during COVID. I get up from typing on my laptop or using my phone and wash my hands some more.
I remembered other things that changed from the COVID shutdown days when we didn’t know much about how the virus was being spread that stick with me today.
Washing hands is number one.
Number two is I don’t like being in crowds like going to big sporting events or the movies.
Three is I’m not as social as I was before.
I worry about travel on airplanes. I’ve gotten sick from COVID after travel twice.
I was very confused about masks. In CA, masks and vaccination cards were required to go in public spaces like restaurants. After we moved to AZ, you rarely saw anyone in masks and no vaccination cards were required — even through we got vaccinated in huge stadiums in AZ with thousands of others driving through the parking lots of the State Farm Stadium where the Cardinals play and the AZ state fairgrounds. After visiting our kids in Berkeley, I’d be back home and realize I was the only one wearing a mask at the grocery store.
I had a close friend in Palm Springs whose daughter was working for a grocery delivery app. They’d have her strip at the backdoor after work and put her clothes in the washing machine, shower and then enter the rest of the house. They also took their groceries out of their car and wiped them down with alcohol wipes before bringing things into the house.
I have friends who traveled to visit family in Michigan and Ontario Canada this week who got COVID. They are holed up in a hotel recovering, but are not very sick.
Last summer, during our beach trip to Santa Barbara, we had several friends cancel getting together with us because they all got COVID. It was eerie. We ended up leaving early because of it. We checked websites and local news and COVID was breaking out everywhere in that area. We decided to go back home to our wildlife of Arizona.
I did lose my mother to COVID on January 1, 2023, so I so know COVID is a real threat to our health. I have to say, I was more worried about cancer after my daughter-in-law’s diagnosis of stage 3C colon cancer during last summer’s vacation. That was way more on our minds than our friends in Santa Barbara getting COVID. Thankfully, everyone, including our DIL and Santa Barbara friends are doing well!
Has COVID from 2020 to today changed any of your actions or behaviors? If so, what has changed?
Desert view from a morning walk outside the McDowell Sonoran Preserve.
I was asked a few months ago if I’d like to join the Board of Directors of the women’s group I belong to. The focus of the group is to raise funds for a residential facility for women who have been sex trafficked. We also clean out our closets, donate our clothes and purchase any items they need like deodorant and new underwear. I’ve written about the Dream Center HERE and HERE. The center provides medical care, eye care, clothing, psychologists, education and religious services if wanted.
The sad thing about my group of women is the club used to have 250 members. Now we’re at about 35. There’s not a whole lot of money raised by 35 people. What happened? COVID shutdowns plus an aging membership. I’m one of the new and young members — in my 60s!
In the end, I said yes and a neighbor friend also agreed to be on the board. Our first meeting was last month and I immediately knew what I would do. I agreed to be in charge of communication. My first project was to create a new brochure. Now I’m working on a sponsorship packet. After that it will be press releases. Back to my old career in the PR Biz.
I could see that communication was an area that could be improved. I’m glad I have experience and who knows? Maybe we can grow our organization back to where it will have a greater impact on the human trafficked teens and young women.
Then I saw this article:
42 arrested in Scottsdale human trafficking operation
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – A human trafficking operation in Scottsdale led to the arrest of dozens of suspects, police said.
I knew exactly what I wanted to write about for today. But it involved my daughter, so I called her to ask permission. Her response, “Mom, I’m a person. I’m not content.”
Well, so then I didn’t know what to write about. So, I looked back on old posts and found this one from 2017 when we lived in Palm Springs. I find many of these little things in life make me happy –even though my views may have changed.
The view from our pool makes me happy.
I’m proud of myself today, because I started off the week with 5:30 a.m. practice. I’ve been trying to get up, half-heartedly I’ll admit, for the past month but the comfort of bed is just too much for me at 5 a.m. An extra hour of sleep usually wins out. But, today I did it. I made it to practice on time, began my workout in the dark and found joy in watching the views of the sunrise and pink-hued mountain change color during my workout.
I find a lot of happiness and excitement in the little things in my days. Our lives are made of small moments strung together and if we spend too much time worrying or focusing on the past or future, we miss the little bits of joy in the present.
Happiness is my daughter with her puppy.
Here’s a list of moments that make me truly happy:
Hearing the birds sing early in the morning.
My fourth flip turn during my second 200 at practice this morning. I nailed it.
Having lunch yesterday with a good friend and spending a few hours catching up with our lives.
Noticing that a family member got their dish off the table, into the sink and miracle of miracles—into the dishwasher.
Olive the cat honoring me with her presence and stretching out for a cat nap while I’m laying on my side. I have to be careful not to move, so she doesn’t fall off.
Olive the cat in our back yard.
My kids calling just to talk. They aren’t asking for anything and there’s nothing big going on.
Sitting under an orange tree in my back yard reading a really good book.
Walking with my husband and marveling at the beauty surrounding us on a weekend morning.
Reading a positive comment on one of my articles.
Checking things off my to-do list and feeling productive.
Beautiful views of bougainvillea.
What little things in your life make you happy? What little things in your life make your day?
The view from our pool makes me happy.
Beautiful views of bougainvillea.