About

About Texas Blue Lime Productions

Blue Lime is a translation and an anagram of Emil’s name. Emil backwards spells Lime. Luza backwards is azul, which is Spanish for blue. (In Czech, Luza means puddle of water.) We were both born in this fine and friendly state.

Work

Lori is a photographer (and occasional party planner)

As You Wish photography serving the greater Austin area

Emil is a computer geek

Travis County Clerk‘s office

School

Emil

Texas A&M University, BS, Agriculture Systems Management ’89

Lori

University of Miami, BBA, Business Management and Organization ’94 and MSEd, Higher Education Leadership ’95.
and Texas A&M University, coursework toward PhD or EdD (depending on whom you ask), Student Affairs and Faculty Development (biggest waste of money and time ever spent!)

Our Little Family

Kitties

Purrrrrl Abominable LittleThief Luza (2002-)

Purrrrrl’s name (with 5 r’s) was originally Pearl, but her loud motor and key use of it caused us to change the spelling of her name. As a kitten, she of course had a lot of energy, which annoyed Sosta and Mitad. And, she could steal anything. We even caught her trying to steal pieces of chicken that were too big for her to carry!

Marble Panther WorkingOnThisOtherMiddleName Luza (2010-)

Marble is a Bombay kitty, so he makes a Warble sound more often than a purr or meow. Thus he’s Marble ’cause he Warbles. We adopted him from the kill shelter in Austin so we felt we were saving just one more animal. Plus, he was 5 months when we got him. Finally, all black animals are the hardest to adopt out. So, we felt like we took one of the most difficult cases they had. He’s a ball of fun and way more affectionate than any of our other kitties have ever been.

Mitad Intrepido Monster Luza (2000-2008)

Mitad means half price in Spanish (where the accent is on the 2nd syllable and the d is silent). We adopted her on Cinco de Mayo, 2001 during the animal shelter’s half-price adopt-a-thon. We moved the accent and place it on the i to pronounce it ‘MEE ta’ instead of ‘mee TAAH.’. The d is silent in both the her name and in the word. Intrepido means fearless. Very little scared her. She earned many nick names. The most telling of which was ‘MY Way Mitad’.

In 2008, we lost Mitad to a horrible case of lymphoma. It hurt Sosta more than any of the rest of us. She is in our hearts and in our minds and will always be with us.

Sosta Themis Salter Luza (1995-2010)

Sosta (long o sound) means ‘stopover’ in Italian. She used to stop over at Lori’s apartment every night at 8:30.
Themis is the patron goddess of Zeta Tau Alpha and she is the goddess of law and justice. As a big sister to Mitad, that name is quite fitting. When it came down to it, Sosta was boss!

In 2009, after a long battle with an aggressive cancer, we said our necessary goodbyes to Sosta. Letting go of her was the nearly the hardest thing Lori ever had to do.

Sosta & Mitad during playtime.

Mitad and Sosta doing what they do best – lounging

Mitad acting like she wants you to get her belly…..but she really doesn’t!

Sweet Kitties!
They LOVE clean laundry just out of the dryer!

Cat Fight! er, Cat FIGHT!!!

Turtles

Turtleor Testudines Houdini Luza

Backstory: one of the first years we had Crawfish at Easter, we found a red-eared slider in the crawfish! Since we know several people with the critters and know them to be so much fun, Lori wanted to keep it, but Emil gave it to our niece Maegan and told her to take it to the tank. Lori has never let Emil forget that.

In 2008, we rescued two red-eared sliders. Both were close to the cooking pit and were in danger from both the heat and all the foot-traffic. Lori put the first one in an old pan. Because her first stuffed animal was a turtle named Turtle-Urtle, this immediately became his name. He survived the first night with us, sleeping in a pan in the old cast iron bathtub from the old house that burned down years ago.

The next day, our sister-in-law, Becky, found another smaller red-eared slider during lunch. Lori put him in the same pan. Because of a typo in a text message to our friend, Jenn, (“Is a red-eared slider a turtleor a tortise?”), Emil named him Turtleor.

Sadly, ~20 minutes later, Turtle-Urtle was gone. Several of us looked all over for him, but he was no where to be found.

We brought Turtleor home and gave him a bowl, a rock, a lamp, and some baby turtle food. He’s adjusting nicely. As babies (this guy was about the size of a silver dollar), they stay in the water almost all of the time. He wass a good swimmer, of course, and is quite relaxing to watch.

Later we learned that Turtleor is a female.

Valvet (2009-2009)

At Easter, we rescued Valvet, a very tiny, very dehydrated, red-eared slider from the area around the water cut-off valve. She was only with us a short time, but we can tell the Turtleor misses her baby sister.

Our Bigger Families

Lori’s Family Tree

Lori's family "twig"

Emil’s Family Tree

Emil's family tree