Monday, October 03, 2005

early evening

Dante’s Having Surgery

Leigh-Ann wrote about it on her blog, so you can go look at the picture of the lump in Dante’s ear.  It looks like a little boil.  That’s apparently not the technical name of it, go figure.  It’s a canine cutaneous histiocytoma.  Mmm Mmm good.  Blech.  Anyway, so that means we have to get up in the wee hours of Thursday morning to take him in for surgery.  Hopefully, it’ll be quick and easy for him, and not overly expensive for us.  Although, he’s already at $139 for today’s visit, which included a vaccine and bloodwork for the surgery.  That’s why I never go to the doctor - it would just end up costing lots of money, right?

Because the Dante discussion is so incredibly appetizing, I wanted to tell you about my fabulous ice-cream from Cold Stone Creamery.  It’s espresso ice-cream with brownies and raspberries added in.  It’s quite delightful, and odd at the same time.  I think I like it better than the Cheesecake Fantasy I got last time, which still, is pretty darned fabulous.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

lunch time

Day 4 of Birthweek - When The Fun Skids To A Halt

Two of the companies we contract with haven’t/won’t pay us.  People are rude.  My hands are killing me.  Heh, not literally, although that would make for a great video I could sell online.  It was like last week, when I couldn’t control my wireless mouse.  The cursor started moving on its own when I rebooted the computer.  To be honest, it was a little scary.

Here’s something cheery for Expat Chick.

And something cheery for Y.  I’m not rubbing it in...I’m not getting one today.  We’re havin’ Big Train stuff!

This is for Marge & Babe (you guys can duke it out for ownership)

Sunday, July 10, 2005

early evening

My Girlie Rocks, Man

You know in my previous entry, where I said I was going to have Leigh-Ann fix my template so all of my books/music/etc propagated to each page of my template?  I was kinda sorta kidding.  I didn’t expect her to do it for me.  But, perhaps she was tired of seeing the same books there for seven months too and realized that it would take a tremendous burst of energy from me (not likely, ha!) for me to change anything.  Anyway, she fixed it for me and to thank her, I updated my book list.  I’m still listening to the same music.  I love love love Charlotte Martin.  I never even would’ve heard of her except that I accidentally found my friend Keely’s blog once.  Google did a bad bad thing and indexed her blog, which was supposed to be private.  I swear I tried not to read any of the naughty bits, but I did make sure to read the music reviews.  She has fascinatingly eclectic musical tastes.  So, she mentioned Charlotte Martin.  I ordered the first EP.  I was then hooked.  Then Leigh-Ann and I went to see her at the House of Blues in Las Vegas (a great cozy place to see a concert - no bad seats) when she was on the Chicks With Attitude Tour with Liz Phair, Katy Rose and The Cardigans.  They were all pretty good, except for The Cardigans.  The lead singer looked like she was singing while in a coma.  Ironically, a few months afterwards, I was listening to MusicMatch and a song came on that I instantly loved.  Go figure, it was The Cardigans.  I guess as long as you’re not watching the comatose lead singer, she actually sounds pretty good.

Whoops, lost my train of thought.  I just wanted to thank Leigh-Ann for being the best girlie ever, even if she would let our child CIO.  Funny thing, we each talked to our moms about it.  My mom said, “Well yeah, if I knew the baby wasn’t hungry and had a clean diaper, I’d let you cry for a bit.” Leigh-Ann’s mom said that Leigh-Ann never cried.  Her sister, however, couldn’t fall asleep until she worked her blanket over her head.  So, after a while, her mom would just put the blanket over her head.  Since her sister is now thirty-five, I’m guessing the statute of limitations has run out, so don’t go sending any Canadian Mounties after her.  Not to mention, she now has two really cute kids of her own.  They live in Canada, so I have no idea how they get to sleep, but they’re really really cute and happy.  By the way, I don’t get co-sleeping.  I’d be worried I’d squish the baby.  Heck, I’m worried I’ll squish a cat/dog and they’re so not likely to let that happen.  Then, last night we saw an HBO special with Dr. Michael Baden about a woman whose three infants (one baby, then twins) died 2.5 years apart.  His conclusion was that the co-sleeping was at fault and that there’s 20x more risk of infant death with co-sleeping than with sleeping in a crib.  This was a couple of days after I’d seen this story. I don’t have any kids (as was pointedly said to me elsewhere), so do what you think is best.  Many parents are much smaller and tidier sleepers than I.

Uh, lost my train of thought again.  Anyway, I just wanted to thank Leigh-Ann for doing the tedious computer (and other) stuff that I really hate.  She set up my parents’ TiVo the other day.  She put bag balm on the Anatolian’s paw, even though he was a butthead about it.  She catches the really big spiders and takes them across the street and sets them free.  And she writes way better book reviews than I ever could.

Sometimes, I let her sleep.

lunch time

Oh, The Traffic, The Silent Silent Traffic

Melissa, you get LOTS of traffic (my stats are through the roof, you know, relatively speaking), but they’re all so very quiet.  Perhaps I have cooties.  Perhaps they’re Bush lovers (the George/Jeb kind).  Perhaps you’ve secretly told them to spy on me, to make sure the toys I sent weren’t booby-trapped in any way.  Hey, what do you think the ratio is of lurkers vs posters, in general?  95% lurkers?  99%?

Well, I’m off to go put sunblock on my stupid looking knees and then go to the pool to see if I can even out this hideous burn pattern.  While I’m there, I’m going to discuss with Leigh-Ann all of the work I need to do on my sidebars.  Really, those books I’m “reading” - those are from November.  The music - same thing.  I’ve just been too lazy to figure out the nitpicky CSS stuff (ha! that book, I didn’t read) that will make all of my books/music/tv stuff show up on all of my pages, by just typing it in once.  Or, I’ll probably do it an even easier way and have Leigh-Ann figure it out for me. 

An aside, I’m very very proud to have been given my very own link category on the Canadian Expat Blog site.  Thanks, Expat Chick.  It’s true, you Canadians are nice, even when you’re living here, where we think you’re crazy when you say “zed” (the letter ‘z’ and “scawn” (scone).

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

evening

Whomever Outed Valerie Plame - In Prison

Oh, wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if whomever was responsible for releasing Valerie Plame’s name to the press was held responsible?  Why would anyone think releasing an undercover CIA agent’s name was the right thing to do?  Not only does it endanger the agent, but every single person she has ever worked with, in countries where we need informants.  Why would anyone want to trust any agent after that, when their very life is at stake?  Also, why the heck is Robert Novak, who printed her name, getting a free pass on this?  Okay, it’s bad to give an undercover agent’s name to the press, but isn’t it even worse to publish that name?

Of course, after reading Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy by Lindsay Moran, the quality of the CIA’s work is a bit suspect anyway, but that’s no reason to name them all.  Or, any of them, actually.

Okay, enough about politics.  Let’s talk about us (me and Leigh-Ann) and how so very happy we are the 4th of July is over.  Sure, at 5:23am today, there were some firecrackers and then a few more at dusk, but we’ve safely made it through another year of the terrified German Shepherd...with a little help from 10mg (we upped it last night) of Xanax for her.  That and the Comfort Zone Diffusers seemed to help her a little this year.  She actually was able to enter the back yard for a few minutes at a time.  Any improvement over her trembling and peeing in the house is oh so very welcome.

Okay, on to tv.  Anyone else watch the craptastic Being Bobby Brown on Bravo?  It’s so bizarre that I can’t help but to watch.  Plus, with TiVo zipping through all of the commercials, it’s actually very short.  Leigh-Ann says we’re each allowed one craptastic tv show (hers is “MTV’s The ‘70s House” ), so BBB is mine.  Hey, I’m countering it by reading a book about math geniuses before I go to bed.  That must count (heh, I said count) for something.

Oh wait, one more thing - one of my referrers was from a Google search of “tissue Tito Jackson”, where I’m ranked second.  How great is that?  “Tito, get me a tissue.”