Sunday, May 22, 2005

evening

My Book Reviews - Are Not Here

There was a sucky Google update.  Bah, who needs money anyhow.  The neighbors (the ones wihout the barn in their backyard) are talking about moving.  I don’t think I can ever forgive them for that.  Sure, sneakily get us to like you, then when we’re all comfy with you living next door, then you talk about moving across town.  Unacceptable.  Plus, I hit my head on my desk.  Never mind, that one’s hard to explain.  I didn’t go in the pool.  The chocolate covered cranberries taste just like raisins.  I like chocolate covered raisins as much as the next person, but these are cranberries, man, cranberries.  I have a headache.  I had trouble sleeping last night because Derek jumped over the baby gate into the bedroom just as I was falling asleep and he startled me.  At least I woke up before he jumped on my head this time.  I did clean off my desk.  That’s something, I guess.  Maybe I’ll go and at least get the books I want to review and that’ll be my second accomplishment for the day.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

evening

Random Blatherings of May 21

Wow, I haven’t written anything in quite a while.  I’m really incredibly behind on my book reviews, so I’m going to try doing those tomorrow.  Since I’ve read about 15-20 books since my last review, I imagine my reviews will be brief.  You know, like “it sucked”, “it rocked”, “it was interesting”, blah, blah, blah.  I’m sure you’ll be glued to your seats by the brevity, yet alarming accuracy of my reviews.  So yeah, that’s for tomorrow.  Tomorrow, the first day of pool season!  We checked the temperature today and it was 87 - it’s nearing my perfect 90-92.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, most people say that’s too warm, but those people don’t live in cities where the temperature is usually twenty degrees above that in the summer.

Today we tried to swap the new (used) Santa Fe for a new Aztek.  The Aztek has been sitting on the dealer’s lot for six months and they haven’t been able to sell it.  Even though the price of the car is the same as what we paid for the Santa Fe, they want us to fork over more money.  We like the Santa Fe, but we miss the Aztek and its goodies.  Also, this new Aztek has XM Satellite Radio (free three months) and OnStar free for a year.  We also like the more, uh, unique look of the car.  We realized after driving the Santa Fe around for a while that half the city owns one.  No one else has this - .  It’s like this stroller, which most of the women seem to hate, but both Leigh-Ann and I like.  You’d think with us liking the weirdness of the stroller and the Aztek, that our house would be full of weird modern furniture, huh?  Nope, it’s rustic.  Rustic log dining room set, log bed, rustic bar, etc.  I’ll go upload some pictures after this entry to show our stunning unpredictability.  Uh huh.  Stunning, I say.

Hey, the CEO of SYNlawn found my blog somehow.  I guess he was checking out the misspelling wonder of their competition here in Vegas.  I have to admit, I do have a preference of using a product with a good website, with excellent spelling and sentence structure.  I also think that SYNBlue Premium would look great in our backyard.  I hate that when it rains, the dogs get all gross and muddy, then drag it into the house.  Everyone knows how fanatically clean we are. 

Duh, I forgot to finish telling you, my five readers (up from three!), the rest of the car swap story.  Anyway, we got some bull about being upside down and needing to “help (them)” by giving them another 10k.  Or 8k.  Or 7k.  Or 6k.  He went all the way down to an extra 5k.  Uh, no.  They can’t seem to sell that Aztek.  The Santa Fes are all over the darned place.  If they want the Aztek to sit on their lot for another six months, then that’s okay by me.  They can give me a call when they want to do an even swap.  So, we walked out of the dealership.  We even had a blank check with financing up to 45k (my Murano! my Infiniti FX!), but we walked away like good girls who want to be able to afford their car payment.  Tonight, resigned to keeping the Santa Fe, we got to know it better.  Leigh-Ann changed the headlights to Xenon lights - the bluish ones that BMWs have.  I figured out how to fold down the backseats, found a little storage tray under the flap in the cargo area, figured out where the spare tire/jack were and cleaned up some coffee that someone spilled on the plastic in the back of car.  It was fascinating to see the difference between under the hood of the Aztek and under the hood of the Santa Fe.  You could practically eat off the Santa Fe engine, but the Aztek engine was really gross and dusty.  Speaking of the Aztek engine, it looks like we made the right decision about trading it in.  They obviously found stuff wrong with it because they weren’t even selling it on their lot.  They sent it off to where the unwanted cars go, the independent car seller.  Poor little car.  I hope it finds a good home.  It served us well.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

evening

I Saw A Ghost - isawaghostisawaGHOST!

UPDATE to this entry - I received this email this morning, “Shortly after Grandpa R died, I got a phone call from the same hospital (Kaiser Sunset) and they said that Ben R was ready to be picked up.  I told them that they may have Ben R there, but that wasn’t our Ben R, because he had died a few months before and had already been picked up and buried, but that that would be just like him to play a joke on us and come back.  I can believe that he did show up at your place (don’t know how he got your address?).  Grandpa probably thought that his bird was at your house.  He used to have a love-bird that he taught to say “Esther”.  Mom

UPDATE #2 - weird aside, my Jewish name (don’t know when that’s ever been used, but it was Bubbe R’s name) is Esther.  I also have birds who talk.  Maybe he was just stopping by to see if Blackjack had learned how to say Esther yet.  Not yet, Grandpa, not yet.

ORIGINAL ENTRY - I’m trying to calm down and look at this logically.  No one ever lived in this house before we did.  Cricket will bark at any strange noise.  I am not drunk...yet.  I was standing in the doorway, sort of looking out at Leigh-Ann who was in the hallway, and talking to her, about chocolate tapioca of all things.  Then, I looked back into the bedroom and saw a ghosty (he wasn’t solid) man walk from my bathroom area, right in front of me to my bed, then disappear.  He was dressed like my grandpa dressed.  You know, basic old guy’s boxy black suit from the 50’s or 60’s, with a white shirt.  He didn’t say anything or do anything, he just walked a few steps and disappeared.  It freaked me OUT!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ghost before, and I surely don’t want to see any now.  I liked my grandpa, but he’s been dead since I was a teenager, so I’m thinking that now is not the time to come back.  And if he had anything to impart, business-wise, he um, forgot to do that.  Gah!!!!!!  I’m going to have to be very very sleepy to get to sleep tonight.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

evening

*Allergy Warring! - Adventures in Spelling

It’s official, I’m cautioning you.  Should you eat one of the delicious Boomi Bars; and I admit, they are delicious.  There’s something you should know first - there’s an “*Allergy WARRING:  this producy contacts tree nuts*” I’m not sure if the producy yells really loudly at the tree nuts or if there’s some secret method of contact that is known only to the Boomi Bar producy family.  Also, one of the ingredients is “dattes”, which I’m pretty sure is supposed to be dates, but hey, it’s Boomi, who could say.  Well, whatever they are, I guess I’m not allergic to them.

On another spelling note, we were at the nursery (the one with trees, not babies) and there was a huge sign for artificial grass.  The grass was lovely and we’d like to use some of it when we can afford it.  The stuff we want is about $7 sq yd.  Anyway, the big sign said, “Nu Turf, An Altrenative to Grass” Look, I know I make some typos here, but this is my blog and the font is teeny tiny on my monitor and my eyes are as old as the hills, it’s not my business and I’m not putting up a huge sign trying to get business.  So, Nu Turf, let’s have some proofreading.  And, I’d, uh, check your website too.  I’m just sayin’.  Nice product though.  I wonder how hot it gets in the summer sun.  If you run across yourself in my blog, lemme know.  Is it too hot for the dogs to lay on when it’s 115F outside?

Saturday, May 14, 2005

early evening

A Kitten To Eat Up!

Here’s her ferocious pose. 
and here’s her take me home pose -

The kitten is being fostered at our vet’s office and we thought it was much better to take pictures of her than bring her home into the evil cat menagerie that has suddenly grown four strong with rescues.  It’s amazing how fast they grow, when we saw her last week she was half the size.  I have to admit that even though we rarely use our cell phone, the camera phone purchase was well worth it for these two pictures alone.