Friday, May 13, 2005

early evening

Dog Separation Anxiety Update - Cure?

I truly am a huge skeptic and I thought buying the dog pheromones was going to be a huge waste of money.  Color me very very wrong.  The Farnam Comfort Zone Plug-in with D.A.P. is the most amazing product I’ve ever seen for dogs.  Cricket has been a little monster since her second knee surgery.  She barked constantly while we were downstairs having breakfast, she went nuts when I showered and even looked like I might be leaving the house, she yapped at the cats.  It’s been five days of using Comfort Zone and her behavior has changed dramatically.  You’re probably going to keep hearing me yammer on about how her separation anxiety, uncontrollable barking and her general disposition have improved since using the pheromones.  I keep walking past her with my shoes on just to try to get a reaction and...nothing!  I can’t guarantee that it’ll work for any dog, but we tried Acepromazine on her, plus all of the herbal remedies and nothing else worked.  I wish I could buy stock in the company, but alas, they haven’t gone public.

Stay tuned - we got the Comfort Zone with Feliway for Cats today in the mail.  Since their snarling, hissing, spitting and fighting is worse than Cricket’s barking, I’m hoping for a miracle for them too.  If it works on them, I’m going to walk around Las Vegas with a sandwich board and advertise the product on the streets.  I’ll make an informercial.  Geez, it could help probably millions of pet owners around the world, just with a little plug-in that doesn’t have any scent.  Uh, unless you plug it in upside-down.  Read the directions and don’t do that.  The bottle goes underneath the diffuser...otherwise it smells pretty icky.  We haven’t smelled the doggie diffuser at all.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

evening

How To Change Windshield Wipers - Without Getting Your Hands Dirty

Last night, my Aztek started making loud engine noises and sputtering.  Yes, the very same Aztek I spent over $700 on a couple of weeks ago.  So, back to the dealer I went.  Wheeee.  Just to have them look at the car was going to be $150 and they guessed that there was something wrong with the transmission.  A smoooooooth salesman had me out looking at buying another car.  No, I wasn’t looking for a new car.  Yes, I did need new windshield wipers and kept putting off buying them because frankly, I’d never replaced them on that car and didn’t feel like figuring the nuances of yet another wiper arm blade thingie.  Hey, I barely drive my car and rarely in the rain because we almost always have to stay home when it rains because there might be thunder, and the German Shepherd is terrified of thunder now.  We’ve tried Acepromazine and Valium on her, to no avail.  Our next doggie drug attempt will be Xanax.  Anyway, back to the car.  There was a used 2005 Aztek on the lot, but it didn’t have a lot of the extras we’d grown to like in our fancy schmancy old Aztek.

You’re kinda guessing how this story ends, aren’t you?  (Uh, hi Dad...I know you’re reading this and it was a decent deal, I swear - oh, and tell Mom that it has front & side airbags) We were offered basically double the trade-in value on the Aztek toward a 2004 Hyundai Santa Fe with 7500 miles on it.  The payments are similar, the warranty is 10 years/100,000 miles, and at our rate of about 6,000 miles a year, we can have the car for 16 years and not have to pay for any major mechanical problems.  The salesman was nice (if you’re looking for a car in Las Vegas, let me know), the head guy above him was icky and probably should’ve been named Biff or Skip.  He almost killed the sale.  Must remember to tell the salesman that if he wants to keep being salesman of every single month of every single year, he shouldn’t have Biff meet his customers.  The finance guy - loved, loved, loved him.  Whoever thought you could meet someone at a car dealership and want to be friends with them?  Heh, mostly we talked about weird foreign foods and sports.  And Celine, we talked about balut!  He said it grossed him out and that he’d never eat it, but he told us a place where we can get it.

Why does buying a car have to be practically an all day affair?  I hate all the silly running around and playing with numbers.  I don’t enjoy the thrill of Jewing them down (I’m a Jew, I can say that ), although we did refuse to give him any money, even though he kept saying that he needed us to “help (him) out” by giving him $1000.  He (we’re talking about Biff/Skip here, not the salesman) blabbed on and on about how it was a newer car and yadda yadda yadda, so we needed to add more money.  We said no.  We told him that we liked the Aztek, that we didn’t need a newer car because we only drive to get groceries, to go to Starbucks, Kyle’s baseball games and the occasional hockey game.  We’re not macho dudes who need to brag about our new car.  I mean really, it’s a Hyundai, no one is going to say, “Wow, you guys are so cool, you own a Hyundai.” That might be a selling point for a Hummer or my beloved Infiniti FX, but not a Hyundai Santa Fe.  It’s a nice car.  It’s gotten good reviews and we got a decent deal.  But no extra thousand bucks for Skippy Biff.

Okay, so here’s what the new car looks like.  This is not my car screaming around a corner, but it’s the same model/color.  And so yeah, I don’t need to buy new wiper blades or get my tires rotated or pay for a tune-up for quite some time.  Plus, I can get the new Las Vegas library plates.

Oh, and the last hurrah Aztek picture.  Blurry because I took it with the phone, and because of the glare on the phone, I couldn’t tell whether or not the picture was any good.  Obviously, it wasn’t great.

Oh, and Dad, if you’re reading, we saw a really cool looking Cadillac SRX for you.  I looked for a picture online, but it looks like a boring SUV in pictures and doesn’t show how cool it really is.  It was puuuuuuuur-ty.  Oh, and if you buy it, we get $200.  LOL

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

evening

Body-for-LIFE Challenge

Leigh-Ann and I have decided to take the plunge and attempt to win a million bucks in the Body-for-LIFE Challenge.  No, we don’t really expect to win, but it sure would be nice.  We’re not starting until next month - after Auntie Hilda’s 90th birthday party at N9NE (she’s hip, doncha know?), my brother’s birthday, ZOOperstars at the 51s game and CoffeeFest.  So, we’ll probably be starting somewhere around June 6 and finishing up our twelve weeks on August 29, with our fabulous new bodies.  Unless I win, no one is seeing my “before” picture, and I may not even show my “after” picture either.  I plan to stick to it for the whole twelve weeks though.  I like the idea of one day off every week.  It appeals to the Papa John’s lover in me.  And hey, if you come across my blog and plan on doing it too, leave a comment.  The more the merrier.

It’s Day 3 of the Doggie Pheromone experiment on Cricket’s hyper terrier anxiety issue.  I’m shocked to admit that it’s working.  Today, when we went out, she didn’t bark...at all!  I’m the biggest skeptic of things like this, but I’m seriously impressed so far.  I don’t much like the cost, but it’s worth it for the silence we’re enjoying at breakfast every morning.  No more yipping.  It’s remarkable.  I hope I’m not jinxing it.

Today we also bought the Kitty Pheromone spray to see if it would help the cats mellow the heck out.  Cats are so damned weird.  Frank is so sweet, yet Jackson is such a butthead with him.  Even Derek, who is a cat in dog’s body (he likes having his belly rubbed) is sucky with Frank.  Chelsea just hides, so she isn’t much of a problem.  She did have a funny standoff with Eli, the German Shepherd, the other night.  First, a stare down.  Then, she kept coming out from behind the bar, walking in front of Eli, and then going back behind the bar.  She seemed to be daring Eli to do something about it.  Eli whimpered a bit, but since she likes cats, remained well-behaved.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

evening

Waiting To See The Veronica Mars & Amazing Race Finales

Hey, hamsters are no different than people.  They’re parked inside their tv, waiting for one of the best nights of television ever - the finale of the first season of Veronica Mars (if you’re not watching it, you really should) and The Amazing Race 7.  Both shows did not disappoint, so I hope the hamsters were rooting for Uchenna & Joyce, because they seem really nice.  All that great tv and we still have Gilmore Girls and The Daily Show saved for tomorrow.  Yum!

(forgive the lousy image, I took it with my phone at PetsMart)

evening

Could Pheromones Be The Answer?

Sure, sure, you’re wondering what the question is, I suppose.  Cricket’s loud yippy anxious moments.  Certainly, this morning was worse than yesterday, but the yippy times seemed much shorter and when we actually left the house, she did pretty well.  So, Day 2 of Operation Happy Cricket is going well, thanks to the Comfort Zone Plug-in for Dogs.  Since the cats aren’t all totally in love with each other yet, we’re going to try the cat version for them.  It can’t arrive in the mail any time too soon.  Really.  They’re all lovely cats in their own right, but boy cats just seem to have issues with other boys.  Hmm, not completely unlike regular boys who need to prove how manly they are, only we try not to have snarling and hissing in our house.  To be honest, they’ve been pretty good with each other, but we’d like if they were actually friends.  So, this is on our way to us.  I can’t wait to see if it works wonders on the cats.  Pheromones are obviously very funny things.  Heck, if it works half as well as the catnip does, I’ll be happy.  Man, those kitty drugs are impressive.  They especially like
Little Pink Sock from the Mutts Comics.  They must use super premium catnip because the cats go nuts even before we can get them out of the bag.  Uh, the socks, not the cats.