Yeah, right, when cats fly

Well, at least when my cat flies. Some asshat called before I had a chance to, thank you American Airlines, and got their fat assed animals on board. They only take two animals per flight. MY cats’ flight, their stupid animals instead of my brilliant animal. I bet those animals turn out to be yappy little pretend dogs too. They could have gone with class but they went with dogs in “Mama Luvs Me!” tee shirts.

My house is going to trapped with Kitty for two weeks. Unprotected. The only chance the house is going to have is that Broskey and Alphagal may get there before whatever fresh hell the cat planed, gets out of hand.

Poor Kitty! It hurts me to think about him all alone in the house. No dogger, no Me!, not able to go outside and get his Jaguar on in the tall grass. No chance to play with the bugs in the basement, no Me to chew on! WAAAAAHHHHHHH! He is going to experience things with out me!! who is going to explain that his mousy is not going to get found by pulling the CD player off the shelf, that the table cloth is not better served being in a pile on the floor; that while I can support his desire to thwart identity theft by shredding my magazines before I get rid of them, that I usually read the magazines prior to getting rid of them.

Poor itty bitty kitty witty. He gets so lonely when he is left by himself. And he won’t let his caretakers make him feel better either; he prefers to mask his pain by hissing and biting the hands that feed him. That’s how you know he’s unhappy. He bites because he cares.

Right now I should be out walking Daisy. It’s time. It’s absolutely gorgous out side. Not raining or even all that hot. I had dogger out in the dry!yard earlier and in an attempt to have Quantity time with her, I went out to the yard to hang out with her. I should have kept my involvement limited to hammering on the window and shrieking No! No! Dogs Do Not Eat That! No!. With big thanks to one of her many conveintly placed chuckholes - instead of hanging out I got to fall out. It feels like I broke my whole arch. So instead of a fun game of ball throwing and, Daisy’s favorite “No! No! Come Here! That Is Not A Toy!” I got to half limp have hop back into the house while Daisy tried to see if pulling my arm out of socket was as fun when I’m hopping as when I am just walking; with her it is all about Level Of Difficulty.

If this looks kind of one handed? I’m trying to keep a frozen container of brown stuff against my foot. It is rapidly thawing into whatever it was before it was frozen and whatever brown stuff it was, has changed into the brown stuff it is. I’m going to have to find another frozen something soon. I may be using a Sams’ lasagna for purposes not indicated on its packaging.

So, I’m pecking instead of walking. I need to go to the post office too. It’s a nice walk for Daisy. Harrumph.

Both the animals are asleep! They look so cute in their respective corners. Some day I am hoping they cane be asleep in the same corner. The keyboard makes so much more sound then I thought it did. Clacky, clickkity, clack. And it’s so quite outside. No huge car stereos blaring, no sirens in the distance or next door, no motorcycles, no ice cream truck. It sounds like everything is holding its breath.

I still have to pack, get the dogs stuff all together in just one place, get her food allotted for the trip, find her wardrobe of leashes, her weekly beauty treatment (no longer twice a week! No more vet visits!). I all ready packed my stuff but now I have to pack it again, yea me!

HAPPY SATURDAY!!!!

So much work to do, so little time to do It.




I’m going on vacation next week. Two whole weeks away from here. Two Whole Weeks Away From Here My files at work will be unsupervised, my Happy Meal ™ toys will be left to their own devises, my files will be left in the hands of other people. I want to leave here but I want to take my files with me. I can’t trust that the yahoos that are allegedly taking care of them. I know what they do to them when I’m not there.

It isn’t that I have some sort of sick attachment to my work. I have a healthy attachment to my job.

I am a state employee. I am a state employee in a state with out a budget. If I have an unhealthy thing for my job, I have an even more sick thing for my check. No budget, no check. No house payment, no VISA payment, no utilities, no nothing. A quick trip to the Badlands; Bad Credit, Bad Attitude, Bad Oral Hygiene. I’ll have to pawn the animals, sell the cat tree to an arboretum and sublet doggers crate.

I have to pack! I have to decide what I’m bringing with me! I need to do laundries. I need to decide between plastic crates or actual luggage. It'll will come down to what I am able to find first. I don’t actually know what happened to my luggage and I think all my plastic boxes are in use.

Once I track down the hardware I have to think about the software – my clothes. If I bring nothing but sweatshirts and jeans it guarantees that it will be 95 degrees with 96 percent humidity. The lake, usually about 60 degrees, will magically be 72 and I won’t have a swim suite. If I go the other way, and stock up on tee shirts and shorts it will two weeks of 45 degrees and rain. I’ll wander around in layers of tee shirts and a pair of borrowed sweat pants.

When I come to some sort of middle ground I have to make some decisons about what kind of clothes I’m going to need. I have literally boxes of tee shirts. I have categories

Nice - Tailored tee shirts. Clean, bright, solid colors or tastefully decorated with embroidered florals or other tasteful designs. These are Sunday go to Church tee shirts. Tee shirts appropriate for casual dinners out or trips to museums. Not for hiking or rock climbing.

Clever - Clean, bright colors, adorned with thought provoking messages or ideas – not too clever and rated for all audiences. These are appropriate for trips to town or walks on the beach. Too nice to waste on flora and fauna.

Useful - Cleanish, all ready worn this trip, brought it last year too. Less bright, favorite shirts that have had a little of their brightness washed out. These are good for all outside activities that do not included actual mud baths.

Wash Day - Have not worn this shirt for a reason yet and trying to figure out why. Will by end of washday.

Eww - suitable only for the most dirty jobs. Deep woods hiking in the heat, impenetrable to bugs, wears like iron. Not really flattering.

Add a sweatshirt, sweater, a couple of flannel shirts, two pairs of jeans, and a couple pairs of shorts. More then enough underwear and socks.

After I get my stuff packed I have to shift to the animals and their possessions. It makes my head hurt.

Should I use kitty’s hard plastic box or his soft-sided box? The soft sided one is easier to carry but the hard sided one might be safer in a plane crash. Dogger is going by car. They don’t make soft-sided travel boxes for larger dogs, well, U-Haul does, but…

Dog will be fine. It’s kitty where my anxiety lies. The sources I’ve looked at all say that giving kitty a “sleep aid” is not an option. Not an option for other peoples cats. They don’t know Kitty. He is a walking issue. I have all ready left vets because he was such an issue. He’s going to end up a footnote in a vet textbook – and I have to put him on a plane, hang around an airport for two hours. Alone. With a sure to be deeply angry kitty. We haven’t even talked about Kitty and the prop plane. I don’t like prop planes so I can only imagine what fresh hell is waiting for me.

And. I’m leaving my whole house by itself. For two weeks. By. It. Self. Alone like a stone. All alone. With just my burglar alarm to protect it. The alarm and the drug dealers. My alarm can’t actually shoot an intruder, the drug dealers could. Maybe I can arrange to just have one of their dogs in my back yard. Big Dogs, yard dogs, dogs with out pity. I wonder if they would agree to hoist one up to my roof? Nothing is creepier then seeing a dog on a roof.

Too creepy to rob? I can only hope.

Revenge of the Twooth


It has occurred to me that dentistry is becoming the new chiropractics. I broke my tooth, I called around found a dentist and made an appointment. Dr. Teeth confirmed my initial diagnosis and put the equivalent to a band-aid on it. Which promptly fell off. I made another appointment to get the permnent temporary crown, a Tierra if you will, installed. So be it. I made yet another appointment to get the permanent crown.

Three separate office visits in less then a month. I also was coached into making another appointment for a cleaning in another month. It’s some kind of Dentistry-Chiropractic cabal – if everyone makes patients pay for multiple appointments, it won’t look as questionable as it is.

I can see them now; a Golf/Marketing Seminar at an over priced resort near a beach…

Q - How can I make my patients believe that I need to see them every forty-eight hours for six months?

A - Explain to them that it is a process and they must conform to the proscribed plan of treatment if they ever want to be able to perform as they did before they began to see you. Make it their responsibility to make the commitment. It isn’t to you, but the treatment! If they balk at the multiple visits, hammer home that it is only themselves they are hurting – and make sure you highlight the painful and disfiguring results of making fewer appointment over less time.

Q - How can I best draw out the commitment? Some of these are minor procedures?

A - There are no minor procedures! Make procedures into events! . Get creative! Involve as many of your staff as you can. Your patients shouldn’t know that your receptionist isn’t actually a trained medical technician, have her hold a instrument or make some sort of important action just barely out of the sight lines of the patient – she could be making an appliance or running up some sort of bonding agent or just using an old drill to polish her nails! Have a brain storming session with your staff to come up with exciting ideas of your own. If you come up with some really workable options, tell us all! We have a forum online just for that!

Q - How many appointments are too many?

A - Good Question! “Too Many” is not really applicable in most cases. The patient needs to keep coming back as often as the Doctor tells them too. If they do complain, gently explain that it is their health that is at stake. You took an official oath to Do No Harm. It’s your license if something goes wrong at any stage of treatment. Legally, and ethically, you need to see them for as long as you need to see them. Explain that while there are other treatment avenues that could be explored for this particular condition, those avenues could lead to their deaths! .

Q - Help! I’m a podiatrist! How can I make my patients think they are going to die!

A Repeat After me “If This is left untreated, it could lead to amputation”. No one wants to use a peg leg! Most patients have no idea why they are seeing you in the first place! As you know, there are some conditions under the rightconditions that if left untreated could, ultimately, in enough time, lead to amputation. You are not being an alarmist, you are being honest. Another helpful possible side effect of not sticking with treatment can be Sepsis! Even a hangnail can lead to death! One condition leads to another, and all untreated conditions lead to infection!


Q - I’m an optometrist. I didn’t actually go to medical school, how can I put the fear of death into my patients?

A - High Blood Pressure, Brain Tumors! Diabetes! Just because they are so signs of it today, does not mean that they may not be about to show up! You can tell your patients that multiple visits to you to follow these conditions, is much, much more affordable then a visit to a real Doctor.


Q - I’m a dermatologist. My patients aren’t going to die of pimples, what about me?

A - Disfigurement! In your line of work this is a powerful treatment weapon. Just tell your patients if the area is left untreated or worse treated with inexpensive over the counter skin creams, that they will, not can, they will be terminally disfigured. They will never land the job in the career that they want, never marry and end up ugly and probably will end their own lives violently! So, really you can just have them connect the dots! or if they have really watched too much TV, talk to them about Sepsis! They can die of untreated pimples!


Doubt it? I Don’t.

Har de Har, Har, Hair





Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?

People pay for hair like mine. It’s everything your stylist promises you that your hair can be. He or she is a lying sack of shite, but it sounds good. Wavy hair is so cool in pictures. It looks so active and busy; it’s hair that you can leave alone in the living room while you make dinner. In real life, wavy hair has ADD. It is an unhappy, restless hair with attachment issues. Sometimes it wants to be spiky, but it can’t make up its mind so on one side it goes spiky and on the other side it goes flat or fuzzy. Fuzzy is a popular choice for wavy hair. It gets to be all tall and see things; it gets to make you very unhappy. It gets massaged with any number of wonder brushes designed to make it lie down and act right. It doesn’t want to lie down and act right, it wants to be wavy like the ocean, frothy like the sea. It is its destiny. It has way too much to do just to lie on your head and be pretty. It wants to go places and do things. It wants to go to costume parties as Frankenstein or Shrubbery. Wavy hair is not your friend. I have learned that long hair helps to keep the wavy hair in its place. It weighs it down, bums it out to a degree that it can be closer to what you may actually want on your head. Unless, it’s humid.

Wavy hair loves humidity. It is the only time it can really bring out the big guns. It can be Big and not get teased into it. You want wavy hair? Buy a wig.


2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?

I was born bald. I grew hair. Good Hair. I have the pictures to prove it. Long, straight, pretty hair. It was even reddish. I miss that hair. It looked so nice in the pictures; I looked like a brunette Brady. Somewhere along the way I betrayed that hair. I cut it. In my first grade mug shot I am toothless and Mullited. My hair was angry. It became thick and brushy. It laughed at mere hairbrushes and combs. It laughed at simple conditioners. It stopped being my friend and became my adversary. I was young then and didn’t grasp that I had pissed off the hair. I was too young to know how bad I looked. The class pictures were scheduled on days I was sick so I wouldn't mess them up with my hair. The hair was a total attention hog and could be counted on to do something really outrages in pictures. Usually the follicular equivalent to flipping off the camera. In many pictures I appear to be deeply pained, it was my hair pinching my ear or getting caught in the space between my teeth or catching itself in my collar and strangling me .We stayed together for the sake of the eyebrows.



3. How do your normally wear your hair?

In a pony tale. It allows me have long hair and not use it as tooth floss. I like the way ponytails look. I do however draw the line at Pig Tails. Grown women who wear Pig Tails have a Three’s Company fetish and they need to get out more. They also need to examine their need to look like a four year old. I also have an issue with the Ponytail on the side of the head look. It doesn’t work. It is so 1980s, if you wear your hair that way you probably also wear a lot of neon and favor big shirts and reams of fake pearls. It s a whole Alisa Malono Whose the Boss vibe that is disturbing.



4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?

Longer and straighter. It would hang where I wanted it to and possibly be lighter in color. It certainly would not have split ends.


5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?

I call it High school. In my freshman picture it appears my hair was auditioning for the part of Frankenstein in some touring show. It certainly could have gotten the part. The hair along with braces, the largest eyeglass frames made in 1983 and the ugliest blouse ever, just made a horrific picture that unfortunately live on in a yearbook. My sophomore year I had lost the braces, the contacts and the ugly blouse. I had found the worst hair in history. Hair like mine loves being short. Short gives it the opportunity to explore horticulture. It can get in touch with its inner shrub and let it all hang out. In the brushy, shrubby, unmanageable way. The only thing that can kill Shrub Hair is a controlled burn. This was not an option, so I hung on and let it grow. Right into a mullet. As soon as I had a rockin’ mullet I went with the Sun In and just lost my mind. An Orange Mullet. Even worse, brown hair in a mullet with red split ends. Ug.


I got this Bloggers’ Little helper from Friday Five

The People United…




I’m getting a late start on this. Usually I do this earlier when I all bright eyed and bushy tailed. I went out tonight. Yes, me went out to see a man.

Like most of my dates, he wasn’t able to show but was kind enough to leave a taped message. If I’m going to pay for my own dinner, I always appreciate a taped message to the troops.

I’ve never gotten in on the ground floor of a campaign before. Well, I have but I was seven years old the last time and the candidate was my Mother.

This candidate also said all the things I want to hear. So, unlike my Mother, who won, there is no chance in hell of this guy getting further then the nearest primary. The real purpose of his candidacy, being to keep the front runners honest, force them to remember what party they belong to, cause them to talk about things they don't want to talk about and to provoke them to take stands on topics they would rather not have to discuss. It's good to hear the stuff you want to hear, from someone who does not have 23 piercings and green hair.

I feel so validated. And after the meeting, I feel so young. I was sitting with a woman who was shocked that could even have heard of Mondale much less remember who he ran with. I was in High school, I was not daft. I’ve been voting since 1986, so I have gotten my vote on for a while. I’m cynical enough to think that the Oh-So-Ernest folks at the meeting were sweet, but headed for a fall. I’ve just rarely taken the risk to allow myself to get that excited about a candidate. I have onlyhad a handful of pols I supported win. I mean, I’m a Democrat from Dallas! I have backed a few horses that hit the ribbon first, but for the most part, my support has been death kneels for many fine candidates. It’s easier to adjust to a surprise victory then to adjust to a surprise (to no one but you) loss.

Itsless traumatic for me as a voter to go in knowing the candidate doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning. It hurts my feeling less that way when they lose to the devil. I mean, I knew this was going to happen…

I want to vote for someone. I am tired of voting only so that I canagainst someone. I want my own candidate. It’s been a long time. I deserve that. We all deserve a decent candidate. I just want it to be a guy (because who am I kidding) who is not going to do things with out my permission. I am not asking for much. I just want more then what we have now. I don’t want to be made fun of by the people who are supposed to be representing me. I don’t want to he forced to march in the streets to be heard and I do not want to be ignored once I am in the street. I am tired of being marginalized. I am tired of being too timid to have opionions. I am tired of being forced into timidness. I am tired of having fear be my copilot. I want the administration to care that I care. I want to matter.

Now before I went out on this Mission I had to find something to wear.

I thought about what kind of folks were (I thought) going to be there and I wanted to look as much like them as I could. I can’t be 19 again, but I can manage to not look like your average suburban League of Women Voters type either. I need to uphold my Gen X cred

I fished my most Demographically attractive top and my only pair of marginally stylish jeans. They look more stylish on other people then they do on me, but it’s about fitting in.

You know you are getting older when you have to decide if you are young enough to still wear a style, “Hip huggers, yes, baby tees, not so much”. A couple more years and I'll have to switch from Cute to Office Casual for my evenings out. For the time being though, I can still go Cute. The difference between me and the coeds, other then a decade and 20 pounds, is Cute is just one of many options available to me and for them its just about the only one, because no one wants to see a teenager, no matter how cute, in Office Casual.

Is anyone else having Post Harry let down? I spent all weekend reading it and most of the last few months waiting for it, and now its over. There isn’t a next book and the movie doesn’t open until this time next year. Sigh.

Since I was out this evening, I was unable to walk dogger. I took her up stairs and discovered that my upstairs is the same size as my back yard! I can throw the ball up there for her and not have to also worry about digging or mosquitoes!

Are you registered to Vote? You cannot vote if you are not registered. If you don’t vote you can’t bitch.

Pottering around the house



Another weekend, another trip to Poverty Barn. I can’t help it. I cannot stay away from that place. On first glance, it is a store full of garbage. Really trashy stuff, Stuff that Marshals wouldn’t even carry, stuff that T.J Maxx turned their nose up at. Real end of the line, bottom of the retail barrel merchandise.


But

On the bottom of that barrel, at the back, behind that plastic planter in the likeness of some out of favor Mexican futbol star, is the thing you came for. The perfect chochkie for the hall table or guest bath. And its $3. And it’s going home with you.

I spend way too much time in there. I try to go in with an idea what I want, otherwise I just wander around trying to find something I want to want, which even at Poverty Barn can get expensive. There are only so many hand painted Spaghetti bowls, plastic pitchers, and silkesque plants that one woman can use.

And for me, a home filled entirely with silkesque plants probably isn’t good for the chi of the home; even if they are only $5 including a hand painted paper maichea pot. Homes with good chi are a bit picky about what you put in them. Too many plastic plants makes the house depressed which gives it dry skin that translates to a heavy coating of dust on your cheap silkesque plants (there are no more cheap plastic plants. Even the most awful, colors not found in nature, poppyroseytulipy outrages, are silkesque. )

In my house I solve the dust problem by wrapping the cat up in a Pledge ™ drenched dust cloth and letting him run around trying to get it off. If he’s in enough of lather, he will even do the floors.

The stated mission of this week’s trip to the Barn was to find a pig themed gift-bribe for the Mouth that Roars. I didn’t have time before her lunch last week and I haven’t bribed her in a while. So this week we’re having the Cake and Ice cream portion of her Birthday and I figured that gifting – bribing her with a pig thing her would still be okay. Poverty Barn always has interesting ceramics and they are always on sale. I had a significant number of pigs to choose from in several different poses and colors. I ended up with an orange and red pig in a blue swimsuit and goggles; if you’re in the market for a ceramic pig, good taste has all ready become a non-issue for you.

I also wanted to look for fertilizer stakes for my potato plants. It has rained all the dirty goodness out of the soil and I think the plants are looking a bit peaked. Brosky and Alphagal don’t know it yet, but they will be plant sitting my garden. I can just pick up the bins and take them over to their house. There was method to my container garden madness. The down side, they do have beasties in their neighborhood that my more um, urban if not more urbane, location protects me from. Rabbits for the most part aren’t big into playing keep away from city busses and Pit bulls.


Oh, and I read the Harry Potter. 870 pages. In less then two days. It wasn’t as stress inducing as the previous books. I had a number of anxiety dreams while reading the others. I liked it a lot though. I’m glad the kids are getting older and vaguely closer to making me feel less like a pervy adult reading a kids book. By the next book Harry et al will be adults. My question, will the young readers these books are officially aimed at, still be under their spell if the characters themselves stop being young readers? I mean eventually by book 7, these kids will be looking down their twenties.

Despite my heavy reading assignment this weekend I still managed to bend the blade on my lawn mower and create Do It Your Self Crop Circles in my yard. Very attractive.

I was waiting for The Book to arrive and I thought as long as I was just sitting around and as it wasn’t raining, I could mow the lawn. It really needed it as it has been raining almost nonstop for weeks and I was really busy having fun last weekend while it was briefly not raining. So this week it was going to get mowed.

Do you know why so many people mow lawns in strait lines? It’s because if they tried to be clever and mow in circles, they would end up with lots and lots of narrow patches that they would have to then go back and mow again which defeats the whole Do It Once. Do it Right principle that many professional lawn mowers live by. There is also a saying about not mowing over tree roots, but I had forgotten what it said. I’m sure it goes something like “Don’t Mow Over Tree Roots, Dumbass, You’ll Wreak The Blade and Damage The Tree. Do You Want It To Die And Fall On Your House In The Next Hurricane, Currently Scheduled For Sooner Rather Then Later? Did You Learn Nothing From The Tree Carnage Last Winter? Half Those Trees Would Still Be Standing If Some Dumbass Hadn’t Mowed Over Their Roots. Don’t Mow Over Tree Roots. Dumbass”.

Or Something like that.

HAPPY SUNDAY!!!!

HAPPY POTTERDAY!!!!!!

Book ‘em, Diana-o


I am required to point out that the new Harry Potter is being released into the wild this weekend.

It is also being released into my living room, so you know what I will be doing this weekend. It is also not supposed to rain, so if my deck chairs have dried out I may read outside. But I’m going to be reading. All. Weekend.

Dogger and Kitty are going to have to lean on each other for support during this time. If I were wise, I would put the book aside and take it with me for vacation. I am going on vacation. I will not be able to update often, but I’ll try. I am not going to wait to read this book. I am going to read the whole damn thing. This weekend. I can do it.

I will not be dressing up like a Junior Wizard. I may wave my Official Harry Potter Magic Wand around if the UPS guy is tardy, but there will be no hat wearing or cloak involved. I will not be waiting in line at 12:01 to get my copy. I’m waiting, like an adult, for my UPS man to deliver it to my door. I may be in the entryway when it comes, or sitting on my front patio, but I could be doing that anyway. It won’t be raining and I have front yard things to do. I am a grown up. I may be waiting in the driveway for him, but I need to sweep it anyway. I didn’t do a chair dance of joy when I got the email about my package being shipped. Its not like I’m tracking my order compulsively or anything. I might get curious. I don’t have it book marked at work and at home.

Since it is summer and that is when many of us put down our remotes and pick up Stephen King, I went looking for book reviews.

After and exhaustive search of just about everything Google had book review site wise and I found a lot. Here are some that looked the most fun and least corporate.


Books Sluts – Interesting titles, decent reviews. A good professional looking site.

Nabou.com – reviews of classic titles. I only found one site doing this. Go to the beach and look smart.

Curled Up.com – More good titles.

All Readers .com – Many, Many reviews of popular authors and series. Reviews by Joe Reader. Offers forums.

Literature Reviews – Books you should read, but haven’t.


So after you finish The Book and before you reread the earlier titles, go to the site that does the most for you and see what else people are reading.

I could have read a book about gardening and learned that you don’t plant garlic in the spring, you plant it in the fall and harvest in the spring. Smart gardeners put their little garlic’s in the ground in September and ignore them until the spring. A smart gardener then harvests her full-grown garlic’s no later then the first of June. She does not plant them the first of May. I will be planting more garlic in the fall. I will plant Elephant garlic and I will score pretty flowers to boot. And I will have lots and lots of garlic and no vampires.

Alert reader Cousin Chris send me a neat link but the page had expired. It was kewl. If the hyper links don't work, its not for lack of trying. Over and over and over. Go to google.com, put in Review+Books and follow your nose.

Dog Daze


I had to go to the bank after work. I also needed to go to the grocery, so instead of my happy, trusting branch near work I went to the branch in my neighborhood.

Enter, Fort Apache the Bank.

Sign on metal door “One (1) Customer at a time. Wait for the Green Light To Enter”. So I wait. The green lights goes on and I enter a little metal room and walk through a metal detector right into a camera then another locked metal door swings open and I enter Oz.

It felt like the credits for Get Smart.

One of the tellers motions me forward and I walk right into another camera. Is this what it feels like to be on a reality show? I do smile at the camera when it swings around to look at me.

I think the place has been robbed. A Lot.

I guess I should feel lucky I didn’t converse with the teller through bulletproof glass – like a Stop And Rob in a bad neighborhood. Which I guess is what this branch is.

My neighborhood is not that bad. I saw lights in front of the building as I was approaching and the first thing I thought were “Damn. It got robbed. I’m going to have to go all the way to Food Lion to write a check for over”. My neighborhood store only let you write over for $5. Pfft.

Our department is taking the Mouth That Roars to lunch tomorrow and I needed cash to cover my part of her lunch. It’s too hard to figure all that out with plastic, I’m weak in math and always end up getting screwed when the check is split.

I finally get to the grocery to get Dogger more treats and butter for me. Fine. In and Out. It wasn’t to be. I also needed popcicles. I Need more popcicles. The store was also trying to get rid of some plastic bowls, plates and trays. I needed a couple of plastic bowls for kitty’s food and I don’t have a tray. I do now. $2.45. Not bad. It’s purty too.

By the time I got home Dogger was crossing her legs and doing a little dance. Kitty was just sitting on the table with his back to me. I took dog out, fed kitty, fed dogger, took dogger out again and finally, sat down and had my first Popsicle.

I have been jonesing for a little frozen juice on a stick. I love these things. There like frozen heroin. I don’t know what is really in those things but I can’t have just one (or two, or three, or four).

Today is the other day to bathe Dogger. Twice a week. She is a good sport about it, but she wonders why we were doing this again. I can see the little wheels spinning in her head

“I’m not dirty. I didn’t roll in anything, I hardly dug at all. What is with this? Can I get out now? It smells funny. Did I do something wrong? Did the cat out you up to this? I think he has a problem. He licks himself a lot. I mean, a lot. And not only where he needs to, if you get what I’m saying, “

Dogger got three bones for being such a good girl. I got two popcicles.

Five days on antibiotics, two medicated baths. More bald. More itchy. This can’t be what the vet wanted. Or maybe Dr. Gimme wants to ring even more cash out of me. I must find a new vet. A cheaper vet. A vet with a smaller boat.

If it weren’t for the Trial of the Tooth, I would have spent much more on the various animals health care then myself. The State will help you buy health insurance for your naked children, what about my furry child substitutes? I feel discriminated against.

And Poor. My shampoo only costs $3.75 a bottle and I normally only buy it on sale, so really its like $1.50 and I don’t have to use as much and I have long hair. Dogger has very short hair. Dogger is loosing what short hair she has. I am going to have to get a weave for my dog.

She’s never going to find a nice dog to settle down with, she’ll end up with a pit bull / staffordshire terrier mix and he’ll tear her throat out the first time she goes for the food dish. She’ll be all dead and bald. If she had hair she could get a nice Golden Retriever and retire to a big lake with ducks and nasty, fishy mud to role in, Waaaaah!

What am I going to do with my kitty! It’s going to cost me twice what I had originally thought. My poor kitty! What am I going to do?

One woMan’s Trash is …

I grew another coffee table over the weekend. This one joins the four that all ready live here.

They aren’t all actually working as coffee tables and one is actually a wanna be coffee table, and is in fact still just a table top, one has found a new career as a Media Center, another is a fully trained, but as of yet, unemployed coffee table, one is right now working as a coffee table and that leaves us with the old Coffee Table that is now not working at all and is looking for job placement in a new position.

Five Coffee Tables. I can use three Coffee Tables, if one agrees to job retraining, as one did. The wanna be Coffee Table took a placement test and discovered was really better suited to be a Laundry Table! After some grief counseling, it settled down and is looking forward to the new job. Good For It.

I tried to find long-term employment for the old Coffee Table, but the Placement Center only had bathroom and kitchen openings and could not offer Coffee Table a position unless it was also trained as a Shower Curtain or Silverware Separator. The Coffee Table refused retraining in these fields.

The old Coffee Table also had very harsh things to say about the other unemployed Coffee Table as it had been a Street Table and was not bathing as often as it may have liked. The Old Coffee Table does not believe that the other unemployed Coffee Table really came to live with us after it was left in a cardboard box in front of the Grocery marked “Free Tables to a Good Home”. The Old Coffee Table tells the other Tables that the other unemployed table was trash before it was rescued from the curb.

Old Coffee table should not be so snooty, it was itself a freebie.

The New Coffee Table keeps it’s own counsel.

So I am looking for somewhere local to send Old Coffee Table to. It is a nice table, very good sized, tough enough to hold up to being used as a fort by Dogger, yet too dainty to be used as a bench. It is very depressed now; it just sits in the corner and glowers at the new Coffee Table.

I could take out an ad and sell the old Coffee Table, but an ad might run me more then what I could get for the table if I did sell it and I stress over the ethics of taking money for a table I got for free in the first place.

Now that I have the lovely New Coffee Table, the other tables in the room look like they need to be dealt with. I’m going to take the plunge and put clothes on my Naked Furniture. Question, do you clothe the furniture in what ever finish strikes your fancy or do you have to match the floors or do you match the other all ready clothed furniture? Let Me Know.

This is shorter then normal to give you time to play with the new links.

Brave New Shows World


I have so much to do. With the new cable I have so much to watch. It’s like the new season has all ready started and there is so much new TV to choose from (or as it is, new to me). I can watch House Invaders, not about violent robbery at all after all. It’s about home decorating. It really sounded like a Dick Wolfe show or a tasteful BBC version of CSI. Really, its this group of veddy nice British folks who go to a home and redo several rooms with stuff the people at the house all ready have. Those people have all kinds of useful stuff about the house. A suspicious amount of useful stuff.

Newish paint, unused lumber, endless fabric, heretofore forgotten about fireplaces, solariums that had been used as storage so long they homeowners had “forgotten” that the space had been something other then a storage room. A storage room with a glass ceiling and southern exposure!

They all have these back yard sheds with more stuff in them then a Home Depot.

The Decorators move the furniture around, remove the clutter, paint the walls hot pink or bright blue, spray paint the Queen Anne style end tables silver, reuse the existing (ugly) velvet curtains as cunning throws for the aged sofa and matching ugly chair and wahlah it’s 1986 and they all make happy noises about how “modern” the room looks now.

I’m also a Ground Force whore. I love those people! I hate the garden shows on HGTV and TLC. I don’t know why they annoy me so much. It could be that they all feature enormous yards and huge decks larger then my whole backyard. They are just off putting and jealousy causing. And sad making.

The Ground Force yards are always tiny, narrow, muddy holes before they get in there and turn them into tiny, narrow wonder gardens with water features, paths and pergolas. In two days. It gives me hope that some day the Okayfordoggy Swamp could be a nice place.

watch my train of thought leave the tracks!

I’m hoping that someday dogger will uncover some Civil War left overs while she’s digging. If she insists on digging, I think I can insisit that she do it for a purpose. And funding.

There was a civil war hospital about 200 yards away from where my house is now so there must have been soldiers dropping valuable sad yet sweet letters home to their wives, etched silver swords left over from their great granddaddies day in the last war, priceless silver stolen from an abandoned plantation Standard civil war issue flotsam and jetsam.

I’m going to teach her how to use a make up brush to more carefully uncover what she finds. We are going to work on putting a grid out there and keeping track of where she dug what up. I’m going to get her some graduate student slaves to do the tedious fine work and any research that may need to be done. I’m sure that there is some nice colonial refuse out there too. I think that is why she’s digging. She loves shoes and she smells some nice decaying leather. There may also be some forgotten copies of the declaration of independence carefully hidden in the yard too.

The possibilities are endless. She could be an Antiquities Dog. Like a drug sniffer or a corpse finder. I think it could be her big break. I think it’s a whole field that has been unfairly closed to the large dog population.

Beagles and other cute little dogs have had a strangle hold on the whole Fill In The Blank Dog thing for too long. True, Blood Hounds are big dogs, but they are scent hounds. Daisy is a strait a head Digging Dog. She is very good at it; and she doesn’t eat what she finds.

She digs like a Prairie Dog and she won’t give you Monkey Pox.

Doggy Got Blech


I’m never more then about eighteen inches away from Dogger, I didn’t notice the odd little patches on her coat. I did notice the icky rash on her belly. I fixed it. I congratulated myself for being such a good pet owner and saving myself the big ticket vet visit.

I should have congratulated myself on being such a good vet client. I am now paying for big ticket toys for my vets’ sailboat.

Dog has something. It’s not mites or fungus or fleas. She doesn’t itch, lick or shed more hair then normal or display symptoms of discomfort. She’s just going bald one little patch at a time.

So I went to Dr. Gimmy Cash, DVM

There is a theory that you should check out a mechanics waiting room before you let him work on your car. If it’s a nice, clean, comfortable space with magazines, coke machines, comfy couches… Run don’t walk from this guy. You’re going to get screwed. This same theory relates to vets offices as well.

Lots of seating, up to date magazines, separate waiting areas for dogs and cats.Designer pet food, hand made pet toys. Bad signs. Fluffy or Rovers check up is going to cost more then yours. There will be no little problems.

Saturday morning I pack up Dogger and her rash and head off to Dr. Cash’s’ office to empty my checking account and to buy a new depth finder for the doctors sailboat.

After poking, prodding and scratching Dogger the vet declares that Dogger has a rash. A Rash. She ran a little comb through Dogs fur, scratched a little surface skin, She gives me an $18 bottle of dog shampoo and $60 worth of antibiotics, two ten second tests and a sick pet visit surcharge. Total for rash? $170. $170 for a rash. The last rash I had, I scratched myself until I bled and was miserable. It didn’t cost me $170. And it was my rash. Shite. Hint, pink moss? . Don’t pet the “pretty” moss. Green moss good, any other shade of color known to man? Bad.

Have you been feeling pretty full of yourself? Started to think what a cool person you have become? Need a way to bring yourself back to earth? Take a bath with your dog.

Put your bathing suit on; be sure to eat a big meal just prior. Get your dog into the tub. Soak it down. Pull out the very expensive. Medicated dog shampoo out. Apply. Thoroughly work into dogs fur. Just climb right into the tub, scrub, scrub, scrub. Make the dog stay in the tub with the soap on it for 10 minutes.

Think about how long ten minutes is. Think about 10 minutes with a wet, soapy, intermittently highly motivated to escape dog. A big lathered up dog and you in a bath tub with $18 a bottle medicated dog shampoo. For 10 minutes.

You are covered with dog fur, dripping wet and smelling of wet dog and $18 a bottle medicated dog shampoo. You look fat in your bathing suit.

Dog is wet, soapy, balding and looks better then you do.

You are totally in touch with yourself, grounded and deeply at one with your totality. You write a book about your experience and your new self-image, grounding and newfound totality. You never have to bath the dog again.

Only you do. Twice a week for the next month. Because it keeps you in touch with yourself, grounded and deeply at one with your totality.


Found Art

I had planned to attend a very nice Garden Party / Art Show. I did. It was nice. I learned about elephant garlic and I found a Hydrangea variety that I want to plant. On the way to the show we drove through the Historical District. There was a sign that said “Art Show”. This could have been anything. Little Kyle and Jessica showing off their finger paintings or Betty and her portraits of Shelties and she wants to show you what she can do with your dog, as long as your dog is a Sheltie. Betty only paints Shelties. You take your afternoon in your hands when you go into a strangers backyard to look at their "art".

It was an art score. A real artist selling real art and he had the best back yard ever. He had priced the art for Gallery Sale prices instead of Garage Sale prices, but it was so neat. Art just sitting there, up against the fence, under a tent, in the carport. Sculpture, oils, watercolors, collage, photography. Some of the larger pieces were almost murals the smallest were the size of large postage stamps. All in the most gorgeous backyard with lovely music wafting through the trees. What a kewl way to spend the afternoon. I ended up with a new coffee table (not art, just for sale) and a small clay figure of a sitting man in a tank top and jeans. He’s blue and I’m going to call him Steve.

HAPPY SUNDAY!!!

HAPPY SATURDAY!!!

Busy



The parents are arriving this morning and in celebration the animals held some sort of ticker tape parade while I was at work and now the carpet is covered with scraps of shredded paper. It looks like Times Square a half-hour after the ball drops. The kitchen looks like I have food in the house again. Cooking is kind of fun, cleaning up after myself is kind of not. The less said about the bathroom the better. I should have been cleaning all week but I kept taking the dog for walks, updating this, watching TV…

It rained again today. Of course. Today is the day the Dish TV man was supposed to come and see if they could free me from The Evil Empire. When the phone rang right after I got home I was sure it was the guy calling to say that due to the rain and everything that he couldn’t come today and I need to call and make another appointment. I was ready to get flushed. Score! No flushing! He showed up! There was no problem getting me service! Unlike the Direct TV bastards who told me that there was no way they could hook me up, the service guy said that the other service guy just didn’t want to do the job and he probably lied to me. A cable guy lied - and pushed me right back into the arms of the Evil Empire.

Dish TV freed me from The Evil Empires shackles. I am watching BBC America! I can watch Ground Force! I no longer have to watch 12 hours of Law and Order a week. I have choices! Weeeeeeeee!

It’s going to be hard to relearn all my TV. I’m going to have to figure out how to tape how to watch tapes, how to watch DVDs. It’s going to be a challenge.


I have officially been racially profiled! I feel so marginalized. Last night while I was taking dogger out, one of the drug dealers was reading the riot act to a collection of folks outside “Ya’ll have to shut the fuck up and go the hell home. We have white people living here now and they don’t like that shit”

I had no idea. I wish he would get the idea that white people don’t like junked cars in the front yard, an over grown lawn, falling down rain gutters and front yard BBQs that they are not invited to.

It’s too bad they don’t know I try my very hardest to never listen to anything I over hear (unless its really, really interesting) I’m afraid eventually it will be in my best interest to know nothing about what they talk about over there. In my version of real life they are running a church over there and they have services all the time.

Speaking of Johnny Law. As I turned onto my street this afternoon I was greeted by flashing lights and police tape. Something happened at the remaining gas station. By the time I greeted the animals and put dog on a leash and went back down the street, the tape was gone, the cops had left and the crowed had dispersed. I asked the one guy who was still there and he said he didn’t know anything. Humph. Nothing says Rising Property Values like police tape.

I almost forgot. We had some excitement at work yesterday. A resident from the building next door got away. Escaped! I was minding my own business, filing, when I heard a police whistle outside. I looked out the window and saw an office worker chugging across the lawn followed by a nurse with the whistle. I don't know what the whistle was supposed to do. I don't think it was drawing the escapee back to her and the running and whistle blowing was about the end of her. They were followed by a squadron of official looking folks and a campus police cruiser. Who ever the crazy person was, they weren't too crazy as to not know the fastest way off campus. They got them back. I would have appreciated an email follow up on that. I mean the case of the missing earring back was worth at least two DHHS-All emails. I would think a missing resident could should have been good for at least one breathless email.

Mea Culpa

Gentle Readers. Or Um, reader. I have a confession. One of my very first entries was a furious screed about the evils of Reality Television.

I ranted at length of my deep and abiding hatred of all things “Reality”. I wallowed in my disgust in the genre, my repulsion of the hosts and my bitter disregard of the contestants.

Mea Robert Culpa, Mea Nisson Maxima Culpa.


I watched a reality show. It’s all Jay Mohrs fault. Funny Bastard.

To my ever lasting shame and remorse, I enjoyed it.

Last Comic Standing broke my Reality Show cherry and it didn’t even hurt.

Having never watched even a second of the wretched genre I don’t know how it rates along side them. I do know they put the comics, note, not contestants alleged amatures in a house together in Las Vegas – and that does squick me out, but I will allow that. I wouldn’t trust those people alone in their own hotel rooms either, can you imagine the mini-bar charges alone? The pay-per-porn? And since these people are all ready professional attention whores we can be spared the illusion of naivate. Bunking them all together they can at least keep track of them.

At least that’s what I’m telling myself. It’s not to create false drama or make us care about the contestants in any way. I all ready don’t care about the contestants. I don’t need to watcheveryone sit ina circle and take turns remembering the first time they just knew they were funny or tearfully recount the first time they Died on stage. I don’t need to watch them braid each other’s hair or another reality main stay - talk about who they want to hook up with next “Watch next week for Heather and Brian’s bad hook up to end up in both their acts!”

I think it would be really funny if one of them killed another of them and we spent the rest of the run trying to figure out who did it.

I was a comic. I was one of them. I did the cloaking my pain in a punchline . I joked about my boyfriend being more deeply involved with his virtual friends online then he was in his real live girlfriend in his dorm room. I made light of my roommate relating to me like I was nothing more then her answering machine by joking about being treated like an answering machine. I honestly really hated the girl for treating me like that and being ignored by my boyfriend really hurt my feelings. Lot’s of laughs. But that’s the point, the audience will stand in for a therapist and will do so willingly – if you do it right.

I noticed that there weren’t many chicks in the bunch from NYC and LA they took to Vegas. There are only so much self loathing and cat jokes that they could bring themselves to unleash on the viewing public – many of whom may have not been to a Comedy Club since the 80s when the one woman on the bill used her time to bitch about being the one woman on the bill.

None of her jokes included references to her penis or how drunk she was last night, or her bitchy, demanding, evil girlfriend. She seemed funnier and more original then she was. Her act was different from the other five guys on the bill and that’s all that mattered. The five guys on the bill were all doing variations on either half assed, bad Robin Williams (coke jokes and talking penis’) or vile Jerry Seinfield (Have you ever noticed… and what’s with…) so her jokes (about her biological clock, her meddling, grandchild obsessed Mother, and how her cat is just like a little person because…) Killed every night.

More then one chick on the bill was a huge problem for both of them. Your whole act was centered on being the Chick on the bill. The guys all had to have competively bad Williams and Seinfeld knock off acts. Chicks got used to not having to compete with each other. No one really wants to hear two acts about PMS and ungrateful boyfriends. Bad Rosie O’Donnel or Ellen Degenerous knock offs are even worse then not funny, they are boring. Every female comic in the country had the same damn act and every male comic had same damn blazer. Judy Tenute and Emo Phillips were total comic punk rock , their acts wern’t a whole lot different then the others but at least their wardrobe was.

Back to Staged Reality.

Some of the comics were just bad. When you take the stage, Take The Damn Stage. Simpering and giving the mike stand a hand job does not bring the funny. Too many of them tippy toed up there and presided to apologize for being up there in the first place. The comic that followed that wallowed in the undeserved laugher from an audience that was dieing to laugh at anything.

Most audiences are too polite to laugh at a comic that is too timid to make them laugh. Mumble your act or laugh at your own jokes and they smell the fear.The point is to make them laugh as quickly as possible as hard as possible - because you want them to laugh. It’s really a power thing. You are controlling how they feel right now. You can make them feel. They will laugh at what you want them too when you want them too. It is a powerful weapon to weld. Everybody cries at more or less the same thing, laughter is more subjective. Dead puppies are sad for the whole world, your hostile work environment is kind of sad for you.

Buddy Hacket and Colin Quinn, comedy gold.

I feel nessary to point out that I did not watch the whole two hours. I taped the second hour as I had an actual scripted drama with real actors to watch and that took precident. Watch Lucky this and every week and make up for American Stage Mothers being on at all and getting better ratings despite being about tortured children. So, Hot, Sexy Gambler and his Kewl Side Kicks and The Hot, Sexy Gamblers’ Feisty Blond Girlfriend or state sponsored torture of small children. It’s up to you.

Res Ipsa Lawyer


No - as defined by the Oxford American Dictionary as, not any, not a, quite other then, not at all, as a denial or refusal of something

I - as defined by me, me. This person. The keeper of the files.

Will Not - ibid, Not going to, cannot, negitive response to suggestion or request.

Give - As defined by OAD as, To cause another person to receive or have especially something in ones disposal, to supply.

Lawyer Boy as defined by me as, Ambulance chaser, Blood Hound, one who thinks he can scare me into giving (see above) him what he can not have by threatening me with a Subpoena.

Subpoena - OAD - 1) A writ demanding a person appear in a court of law. Me - a way to make me hand over what he should not have.


So Lawyer boy smarts off and says, “Well, we’ve done this before, had to jump through hoops to get the information” and I say “Yeah. They’re called a subpoena. Get One Asshat.

I told him what the what was, that the stuff he wants is confidential, protected by law, not in the public domain… and I sent him off to talk to some one who gets paid more, who then told him that the stuff is confidential, protected by law, not in the public domain.

I went to tell the Mouth That Roars, who was on an interminable personal call, that a subpoena was on the way. She said to make sure they spell her name right.

Lawyers.

So I’m going to drop what I’m doing, copy the file, twice, redact one and put the other aside. I will mail the file to LB and wait for the Marshal or whatever to hand over the paper. The Mouth That Roars will roar. The subpoena will be checked to make sure it isn’t some lame Lawyer signed subpoena as opposed to a Real Subpoena signed by a judge (it’s the difference between a steer and a bull.) Higher ups will be notified, our lawyer will be notified, and lawyers will talk to lawyers.

A court date will be announced. The Mouth that roars and the Woman in Charge will go to court. I will never know whether the judge made us turn over the unredacted documents or not.

Time will be wasted and much of it will be mine.

Happy Talk

I have four new garlic sprouts. I had forgotten about those plantings. I thought all that was in that pot was a lone carrot. The potato plants are doing well. There is a lovely mystery seedling in there as well.

There has been so much rain that my potter plants have suffered erosion. I had to add more dirt to them.

The salvia plants are thriving, the marigolds are doing better but I still lost one last week to slugs. With the slug bait all around. Bastard slugs.

Dog is doing very well. Today she achieved Stay and Come, although she did tend to charge when she thought she saw me reach for the reward cookie. I don’t know whether she was responding to the “Come on girl!” or the vision of me going for the cookie pocket.

I mowed the lawn today. It was looking kind of ragged and it’s going to rain off and on for the rest of the week. Again. I wanted to get it done while I had some chance of it not raining on me mid mow. The down side is that I am now out of lawn mowing sync with my neighbors.

To Fly

Sit! Sit, Stay Oh, wait. Since that is what I say now, all the time. I answer the phone, “Sit! Diana, may I help you? Stay!” My dog is learning.

I have a cat. I am going on vacation. Dog is being chauffeured before I leave on vacation. That leaves Kitty.

I am flying. The dog is driving. Kitty is in limbo. I really want to bring kitty with me. I can’t leave him for two weeks, I can’t afford a pet sitter and the cost of boarding him for two weeks is astronomical. And he’s my baby! I can’t leave my fluffy baby alone in my house while I’m gone.

I can only imagine what he would do while I was gone. Two whole weeks. Alone in my house. He’ll be pissed after awhile, after he figures out I’m not coming home. After he notices the dog is also gone. It won’t take long.

The first to go will be the videos. He knows how to do that and the sound of then clattering on the wooden floor will be very satisfying after he gets over his initial startle after the first one falls. He will get as many of those down as he can reach. That will take at least a couple of hours. He’ll take a nap in celebration.

After he wakes up he will start looking for more things to bring down. He can get up on the back of the chair and start on the mirror. This will take time; first he will bat at it for a while. This will cause the paint to scratch. He won’t notice this, but I’m sure he’ll approve. He’ll spin the mirror before it finally goes down. It will most likely hit the chair and stay there. The plaster will be damaged.

Then he’ll go for the CD player. He all ready knows how to get the remote for it down. The loose CD cases will follow. Clatter. Clatter

He will stand on the coffee table and launch himself at the higher shelves. This will take a few tries.

Now its personal. There are breakables in the game now. Picture frames, chotchkies, stuff I have taken away from the dog. This will make a mess. He’ll chase pieces under the couch and across the room. Ummmmm, broken glass! Shiny!

Figuring that Kitty won’t eat the glass, we move on to the fireplace mantel. I have the shells I collected when I went to the beach arranged in somewhat of a pattern. I really like these shells. I brought them home, put about a thousand coats of clear polish on them and moved them carefully. They would smash.

The TV is too big to push over. Thank God.

The magazines on the coffee table would get knocked off at his leisure.

Now, I would have a minder for him. Someone to come in everyday and feed him and clean out his box. He will meet them at the door and mew in a very blameless, fluffy, way. The living room will be dark and most of his bad deeds will be covered in shadow.

Kitty will move to the office. It will be ugly.

I can’t leave him.

The boarding option, while very unattractive and expensive and disease -y might have to be the solution. Cat Jail.

My little baby in a lock down with hardened Feline criminals. Baby biters, couch shredders, carpet pee-ers. They all have kennel cough and they can’t wait to give it to kitty.

By the time I get back, Kitty is wearing a tiny bandana and a jailhouse tattoo. He smokes and he’s sharpened his claws into, well, sharper claws. He’s missing an eye and one of his ears is torn. He has been working out and won’t wear a collar anymore.

He will only drink out of the dogs bowl and he’ll use my leg as a scratching post while I sleep.

I take the kitty on the plane with me.

The web search I did on Cats + Traveling + Flying. Came up with a couple of how to sites. They suggest that kitty not be sedated. This is counter intuitive to me. Traveling with a cat, in an enclosed space, for hours unsedated? Are they mad? Have they met Tex? They use respiratory distress as an excuse. One site alluded to Pet Travel horror stories; the other claimed that the Airlines have an “excellent record” on pet safety. They both suggest that kitty fly in the cabin. I agree, but what of the screeching of an unhappy, freaked out, possibly hurting from the pressure changes kitty? But what of a kitty left in the baggage cabin if the plane? Left on the tarmac, sent to the wrong destination? Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

and, I think he knows.

So in conclusion

1) Left in house, pet sitter, very, very expensive, very sad kitty, (probable destroyed house)
2) Boarded, very, expensive, very sad kitty (probable diseased kitty)
3) Fur of Flying, less expensive, very sad kitty (probable demented kitty).
What should I do? What have you done?

Operation Lassie

It is time for young Daisy Dog to learn the ropes. I have two How To Make Your Dog Act Right books. Neither of them can make her act right now.

She walks on a leash very well. A real leash champ. She will sit on command and she doesn’t pull – she wears a pinch collar so the pulling is not really optimal for her. The few times she was pinch collar free she tried her best to pull my arm out of socket, and that was when she was a little puppy, um, a smaller puppy. Daisy was never a little anything. She was a big zygote.

So I finally pulled out the books. I’ve had them since I got dogger and I should have been reading these all along. But I was too busy taking her out to pee. The only training focus was toilet training. This has been reasonably successful. She has mistakes. Occasionally. We are working on it.

When I finally read one of the books it said that some dogs take longer then others. It does not stipulate what longer is. It doesn’t have a timetable for potty training.

At first with Daisy we really hit the potty training hard. We went outside every half hour. We stayed outside until she did something. Anything. No go-y, no housey.

We did a lot of running out the door


Me – Daisy! Lets go outside, gogogogo!

Daisy – Outside? Outside!outside!outside! peee!

Me – Damn it! No peeing on the floor! Outside.
Daisy – Outside! Goody! So excited!

Me - Okay, pee now. Wee-wee.

Daisy – Outside! Sniffing, snuffing, ooooooh plastic! Plastic!plastic!

Me – No! Not a toy! Nonono! Damn it! Where did you get that?

Daisy – It’s a toy! It tastes like a toy! Toytoytoy!

Me - Pee! Go wee-wee. Please! Play with your ball.

Daisy – Ball? Ball! Snuffsnuffsnuff.

Me – Pee! Go wee-wee!

Daisy – Wee-Wee? What is this wee-wee? Play now!

Me - Damn it! The commercials over. Go Pee!

Daisy – peeeee!

Me – finally. Inside! Inside!


Every half hour for months.

Now I read that I should make her do something before she goes outside. And I’m supposed to go first. I am the larger dog. I go first.

So now before we do anything, Daisy does something. She must sit. She is good at this.

Daisy is good at everything on her leash. Put the leash on and she’s Lassie . Sans leash? Worlds Dumbest Dog. Today we braved the rain; because if I waited for it to not be raining I would never leave the house.

So we head out in the rain.

We head towards the Big Field. I have her on a much longer lead then usual so that we can work on Stay. This will be easy. She’s really into learning. She's smart. She’s going to do this easy. She’ll be all over sitting, staying, rolling over. Hell, by this time next week she’ll be bringing me my slipper and fetching the newspaper.

Still raining.

Me – Daisy firm voice, eye contact Stay.

Daisy – Follow you! To where it is not raining?

Me – NO! Stay! Stay.

Daisy – Stay? Means what? It’s raining. I want to go where it is dry. We can’t do this at home because? Is it too dry in the living room?

Me - Okay. sit. Good Girl! Have a cookie.

Daisy – Sitting. Cookie! wet cookie.

Me - Good Girl. Stay! No. Staaaaaayyyyyy.

Daisy – The ground is wet. My butt is wet. My fur is wet. I Am Wet. How much longer are you going to make me stay out here in the wet?

Me - Okay! Good Girl! Have a cookie!

Lather rinse repeat.

It rained the whole time.

She can now stay until I am 26 inches away. It’s the first day.

HAPPY SUNDAY!!!

HAPPY SATURDAY!!!!

Random bloggery

What a pretty day. It turned out all sunny and dry. A whole day with out rain. Not even the threat. And it’s not humid, I mean it was the morning but it got over it by the time I got home.

Daisy and I blew our walk off and instead puttered in the front yard. Daisy puttered, I read a book. It would have been a great day for a walk to the historic district, but I didn’t feel like trekking. We came in after Kitty stood inside the front door and cried at me. He does piteous very well.

Daisy currently hanging out in the back yard. I’m afraid that something out there is giving her a rash. Its gross. It looks like prickly heat or bug bites. Chigger’s maybe. Can digging in the dirt give a dog a rash?

I’m thinking about dumping my cable and getting Dish TV. It is the same price and I would get 130 channels. BBC America! At my house! Anytime I want. Here it is summer and there’s no decent TV and renting DVDs or videos could get expensive if I really got into it. The problem being that months ago when I moved in here the satellite guy came over and sniffed around and told me because my tree, or a tree, was too big and the only way I could score the good TV was to put a pole in my front yard with a dish on it. I don’t want that and I know my neighbors wouldn’t want it. And there is always the fear that I would miss judge and drive my car into it.

I got my hopes up earlier. A flat bed pulled up in front of the drug dealers’ house in front of the squashed car that has been parked in front of the house for the last month.

I really want that car gone. It’s very ugly and it causes the customers to block my driveway. I really have a problem with that. I have to hope that their look out notices me fuming in the street and goes and gets who ever owns the drive way blocker to make him move his car. Because they try to be good neighbors, they comply before I think of other avenues to get the offending car away from my drive way. I want the squashed car to move too but I don’t have a compeling reason to make them move it. I can't call a wreaker and say "it's ugly, take it away" I can hear my property values dropping as it falls apart out there. It looks like a boulder fell on the drivers’ side rear. It doesn’t looks crashed into. It looks squashed, like someone stepped on it.

The Ice Cream Man came to my street! I’ve heard him tooling around the neighborhood on walks with Daisy but he’s never come down my street. He actually sells Slushies, but I saw a girl with a Popsicle walking away from it. By the time I shook myself out of myicecream truck! it's an icecream truck!! reverie and got money to get something from the truck, it had left.

Sad.

Speaking of sad. I brought Daisy in. I had to first spray her stomach off. I think this may be a good thing for her, to get off what ever it is that causes her to get all rashy. The good news was that when I was spraying her off I noticed her belly was as pink and healthy looking as it has in a while. Maybe it isn’t the backyard, maybe it’is something back there and its waiting to strike until later. I’m prepared though; I have triple antibiotic ointment and a benadryl cream that seem to clear it up. Poor puppy.

I may have guests later the summer and it’s making me really want to get the rest of the house painted. The office and bedroom really need to be taking care of. The bathroom because of the vile wallpaper is going to be a bigger project then I think I can get excited about. I’m into quick fixes. Painting is quick compared to whatever I’m going to have to do with that mess. I know the office is going to be Mint with white sheers and the bedroom is going to a blue. I haven’t worked on it past a blue. The carpet is a rose pink, so I’ll have to work on that angle.

I could also probably polish my wood floors. I have a floor buffer and I should use it. The floors are really nice and it’s a shame to let them go. I need to be more diligent.

On the garden front. The potatoes seem to be doing well and the garlic is getting growy and mature, the carrots, someone is eating my greens and I’m really unhappy about that. I poison regularly. I kissed green farming off the first time one of my marigolds disappeared into the flowerpot. With the various pesticides and weed poison I’ve dumped in those pots I should have beautiful greenery and a superfund site.

Speaking of growing. There is someone farming in the big field down the street from me. I had noticed that the ground was turned and I saw what looked like a plowing device. But nothing for weeks.

Then, the other day I saw an old woman and a toddler milling around by the churned up area. When I got closer to see what they were doing, I saw they were planting, I went across the field to talk the lady to about urban farmer issues – they disappeared into the trees.

The Lady Of The Field. Instead of leaving her sweater in your car she leaves seedlings in your yard.

Nova cain do


What does $880 taste like? A lot like wet plastic and tooth grit.

I went back to the dentist today. This time it took a lot less time to get there, as I did not read my yahoo directions as closely as I did last time. They could just say Go To The Right, instead of Turn At Blah Street. Blah Street goes both ways, but only the left way says Blah Street.

This was the first major dental experience with out the aid of gas. I like gas. It is soothing and it keeps those fiends out of my mouth for a little longer. I think I liked the whole thing better when I’m high. This time the drill was just very loud and very close to things that did not want to be drilled. And they drilled and drilled and drilled. I think I can now store extra luggage in my molar. The sound was also eerily close to the sound the workmen had been making under my building every day for several weeks. Those guys have found the secret to job security – State Contracts. They just put a 12-foot cyclone fence around the chiller; it doesn’t have a gate on it, so it’s open on one side. I guess they don’t want to make the chiller feel punished.

The dentist is a very nice man and explained what he was doing. The impression goo they use to get casts of your teeth tasted like burning rubber. They explained that the stuff that tastes good doesn’t work very well. I grew up with bubble gum flavored stuff and it always worked well enough. They did tell me my teeth were not all that yellow at all. They held up a little card and compared it with my teeth so the crown will match. My other crown is very white.

So. Now I have a very lovely teairah and I go back in three weeks for the Crown.
I don’t remember that last time. They drilled, they picked, they did dental magic and I walked out with a new tooth. I guess it’s the color matching or something. A crown is like a getting your tooth recovered. The temp crown is like a slipcover.

Speaking of home improvement

Martha Stewart got indicted. Multiple counts of lying and acting like a princess. She plead innocent. Of course she did! In her mind she did nothing wrong. It was business and Martha Stewart is a Business. It was a conversation between two entities that ended in a benefit for MSO. Why is that not a Good Thing? Could it be because it’s Against The Law! My dentist mentioned he lost money on her conversation. While he was drilling my teeth. I don’t need hostility while my teeth are being drilled. Martha Stewart Ominmedia also said that it was a publicly stunt on the part of the prosecutors and she was being picked on. If she were being picked on she would have been led away in handcuffs like the Insider traders were back in the day. I’m sure she remembers that footage. I’m sure she thought about that footage a lot lately. She forgets her co-conspirator was also indicted and he doesn’t have a television empire or a deal with Kmart.

It is my fervent hope that some day Martha actually has to deal with Kmart. To have to shop there, stand in line there, stick to the floor there. And I would really like someone to shove their version of good taste down her throat. That would be a Good Thing.

A Very Good Thing

That rat bastard Eric Rudolph finally surfaced. Kinda. As if hanging out in some trailer for the past few years is really being underground. He looked better in the middle of the night knocking over a Stop and Rob then most people look on a good day. He wasn’t roughing it out in the wilderness. He had a fresh haircut and clean clothes. He was well fed. Who did that? The birds? Did he get those clothes from a team of mice and spiders? Bull shit. He wasn’t living in a cave anymore then I am. He killed people then went straight into the arms of his racist brothers and sisters. I’d arrest the whole damn town and charge them with collusion and sheltering a fugitive. He kicked back and watched while that poor shlub in Atlanta got racked over the coals and his live ruined. I hope that guy is there to watch this son of a bitch die.

He plead innocent too. He doesn’t think anything he did was wrong. He’s special. He’s Eric Rudolph Omni Terrorist.

America hates terrorists, This SOB is a terrorist. Why isn’t he being held at Camp X-ray? Why isn’t he being questioned for hours? Why is he allowed to sleep on a soft bed and eat apples and cookies? Why are they treating him so well? He robbed a Stop and Rob? What do they do to Bubba when he does that? Give him cookies? Doubtful.

Why isn’t he being tortured? Why does he get a trial? We know he did it! We hate terrorists. Cowards that set bombs and leave are terrorists, it’s part of how we define terrorist. He spread terror thus, Terrorist. Rudolph was and is anti - government. I bet this guy didn’t support the troops either.

A Day in the Life


6:05 am - Eeeep, Eeeep. Eee-

I am woken up from a dream about dirt. More specifically, wrapping dirt up in black plastic.

This may harken back to doggers walk earlier when we came across an ominously shaped object wrapped in plastic in the lot behind the gas station. When I kicked it, it was solid. I thought it was a body. For real. It really looked like a body.

I should have known though, dogger didn’t care about it and according to the cop shows on TV, it should have smelled. It didn’t and it wasn’t, Thank Gawd. Because some chick shrieking outside might or might not attract attention. It would probably cause windows and doors to slam shut and a heretofore-unknown outbreak of Sudden Deafness with acute Blindness.

I would have to make the dog freak to really get attention. I am Daisy’s’ walker, no one knows who I am but they all know Daisy. So I think that what was the wrapped dirt was about. Still. Dreaming of dirt.

6:06 am – Blinded by the unusually bright bathroom light. The room reeks of cat box. Good Morning Diana! First thought, alarm!alarm!alarm! Must remember to turn off the alarm! Major anxiety about the alarm. The only good thing about poor vision is that I can’t really see how bad I look first thing in the morning. As long as what I’m not seeing in the morning looks more or less, with no new additions as what I saw the night before. I do all right.

6:10 am – Dress. Black pants or Navy pants? Can I tell? Does it even matter? Today, its black pants. Shirt, vest, shoes – make sure it is the same pair. Going by color doesn’t help. I have an orphan shoe under the bed that periodically migrates up to the end of the bed and the shoes on active duty.

6:12 am – To kitchen, run into swinging door. Turn alarm off, unlock back door so as to facilatate getting back into the house should I lock myself out when I take Daisy out.

6:13 am – Daisy! Out the front door. Sniff, Sniff, Sniff. Pee. Back indoors for breakfast.

6:15 am – Daisy finishes breakfast and we go outside again. This doesn’t sound like a good idea but it works for dogger and it gives me time to walk the grounds and visit my garden. I think some one is eating my carrot greens.

6:20 am – Read morning paper. Local paper sucks ass. American Idol was front page above the fold news. NASCAR makes the front page.

6:30 am – Make up and hair. And now I even look awake.

6:40 am – Let the sun shine in! Open the blinds. It’s fine for now but it will get warmer and they will have to remain closed. Pity. It looks nicer when they are all open. It’s nice for Kitty and dogger to see out.

6:43 am – Daisy goes out again. Hops around . Not at all productive.

6:45 am – Daisy back into box.

6:48 am – read the rest of the paper. Check front door to make sure it’s locked.

6:58 am – say goodbyes to furry little animals. Check front door to make sure it’s locked.

6:59 am – Step in dogs water dish.

7:00 am – Discover small run in stocking, find hole in slacks while removing lint from cuffs.

7:02 am – Leave, squinting because I left my sunglasses on my desk.

7: 14 am – Arrive at work. Yay! Computer works! Yesterday the server was down and it was 8 am before it was up again - it made me tense.

7:45 am – The Mouth That Roars is moving offices. She is painting the new one. She didn’t get the promotion, but she did get the office with the private bathroom. From the Nominal Boss I find out that TMTRs the painting the office a bright yellow. Very restful. Not. I go down to see what color it really is and the door is closed. I return to my office to see what I am going to do today. I am going to make copies today.

8: 15 am – coworker comes by to share that the office door is open and I can see the color. It’s adobe. It looks like the interior of a Taco Hell. Wow. I find something complimentary to say, It’s a very warm color.

(The woman who runs the office took one look and told TMTRs that they would be making a run to the store before the end of business and that she would be supervising TMTRs next color choice.)

10:00 am – The secretaries need the copy machine and I need to sit down. Make about a thousand copies before I remember that I could be covering the names with sticky notes thus saving time later while redacting.

10:30 am – Return to copy machine. Copy, Copy, Copy. Why do they have to talk to the entire facility? Dayum.

11:30 am – Lunch. Yesterday I choked on a meatball. Not cute little coughing choking. Choking. No air. How do you call for help when you cannot speak? Even after I, um, dislodged the little murderer and disposed of it, I could still feel it.
Remember to cut your food into small pieces. I returned my movies, went to the bank, and on to McDonalds. The new Happy Meals are in. The new toys make sound and spit water. They are fish. I get lucky and end up with a toy I don’t have yet. Score!

12:30 – 3:30 pm - The same as before lunch, now with more redacting!

3:40 pm – I take my Happy Office Professionals Day plant to the sink to water it. On the way back it loses a leaf. A surveyor finds the leaf, holds it up and says

“This looks like someone’s tongue”,

I respond, “It’s a leaf, it came from my plant”

He says “Well, it looks like a tongue. I’m going to throw it away”.

It looks like a leaf.

4:00 pm – Tick, tick, tick.

4:25 pm – Find a file for a surveyor and tidy my desk.

4:30 pm – out the door and in my car.

I love my job.

Straight up. I love it when my coworkers pitch into help me. I really love it when Good and Plenty lowers herself to help me. She has an interesting version of filing. It’s kind of in the deconstructionist school of filing. She does file. She just doesn’t file a traditional manner.

I have this habit of putting things in the files they belong in. It’s not a radical interpretation of the text. I know she’s been filing when I find say a “B” item in an “R” file. And yet she is so much faster at it then I am. I am inept and lazy not to mention a really, really slow filer. It’s all that bothering to put the stuff where it belongs and purging files and again putting things where they belong, that takes me so damn long. She isn’t into that, she’s into results, it needs to be filed, so it is filed. Not in the right place but that is irrelevant to her. She is filing damn it. It makes looking for things later a real adventure. I hate an adventure. But hey, she is helping me do my job. I should be grateful for her bad filing, because after all, it was filed and that is what I need help with.

I like boring. I like stuff being where they are supposed to be. I also like it when she leaves with out warning and then finally comes back and states that she doesn’t see “much progress being made”. I hate her.

You know, she went to College? She has a degree… So this whole filing thing is really beneath her. She only does it when The Nominal Boss reminds her of her job description. I went to college too and I have a degree myself. Filing isn’t beneath me for some reason. She does Data Entry.

I hate her.

This was just not a good day. We had a birthday breakfast today. I brought juice. No one called me to tell me we were ready to eat. Cold pancakes and luke warm biscuits are just not the breakfast I was looking for. The organizer was sorry she forgot to call me. All she had to do was look at the damn sign up sheet. Beyotch.

It was such a fun day. I love having some one in my office messing with my files. I had the guy from the AGs office come by to finish going over the file he was looking at. I had it out for him. Good and Plenty moved it. So I couldn’t find it.

I love coming back from lunch to find someone violating my files. Abusing my cabinet doors and sifting through my things. And she is so damn high and mighty while she’s doing it. It’s just filing! It’s not brain surgery. I would much rather have The Zombie stalking about. At least she isn’t hostile. She’s passive aggressive. Good and Plenty got a whole afternoon of The Zombies issues. It makes the whole job go such much slower when you have to stop every few minutes to punch holes in something

At least G&P and I have worked out a system. I do one end of the alphabet and she does the other. I know she doesn’t want to be there any more then I want her there. I want her back in her office IMing, painting her nails and talking on her cell phone as much as she wants to be back in her office IMing, painting her nails and talking on her cell phone. Of course I want her out of my office with the heat of a thousand suns and she only hates it.

My Happy Office Professionals Day plant is dieing.


Deep Cleansing Breath.


My friend came back from vacation and brought me a fabulous Happy Meal Toy. I didn’t know that Finding Nemo was Happy Mealed. I know what I’m having for lunch for a while. The one I have now giggles and spits water. I must have more talking toys.

I watched a Keanu movie (Ummmmm Keanu) this weekend. It was made in 98 I think. It featured Cam Diaz before every movie had to be about her Ass. It’s the sweetest thing ya know. She did a little mugging for the camera but not like what she gets away with now. Mmmm Keanu was very cute through out. I call that a successful movie.

The Mouth That Roars is moving her office down the hall. I no longer will have to walk past her office to go to and fro.

It has been dry and sunny for two whole days in a row.

It’s Tuesday. Lucky is on 9 pm central/10 pm Eastern. It’s not a repeat, it’s on F/X and it needs you to watch it.

Location, Location, Location


It stopped raining long enough for me to mow both yards. That sound you heard was the good neighbors breaking out the noise makers and champagne to celebrate not having to look at my over grown back yard anymore.

Sadly. It looks better over grown then freshly sheared. The muddy, patchy quality really comes out when there isn’t a, um, lush covering of grass to cover it up.

After dogger and I came back from our walk in the historical district “Where inflated real estate values meet inflated historical value”, and their very lovely cemetery “Where history meets fate”. I put dogger into the back yard. She didn’t know where she was.

She gets a rash every time I put her back there, but it’s been so long since either of us have used it, and she is freshly tick and flea prevented, I figure it will be a nice change of pace for her. I haven’t mopped the kitchen floor in a couple of months so maybe it will be a good thing for me to. After I bring dogger in I’m going to put Kitty out there.

Daisy was out there for forty – five minutes and dug a hole the size of the Chunnel. I am so proud.

Speaking of things in the ground. My potatoes finally sprung! I was really concerned that they were not going to grow at all and now I seem to have two plants! Yay! It would be even more cool if they would produce some produce but I’m not done being happy that I was right about just cutting up an existing potato and putting it in the ground. In actuality you don’t even have to put them in dirt to get potatoes; you can plant them in hay as well. I won’t be trying that, but it can be done.

Daisy is right now destroying her monkey toy. So far she has removed its brain and is working on eviscerating it. She didn’t kill her old one for months and she’s had this one for like an hour. She also finished off her Kong toy. She is one destroyed toy away from me just giving her a log to chew on.


Earlier, while dog and I were touring the historical district, I passed a couple of homes for sale. I want to know how a place that’s 400 scare feet smaller then mine with fewer bathrooms and a smaller kitchen on a lot that isn’t even as big as mine can be worth $130,500 more and have the nerve to take the landscaping with them. It’s a nice place, but dayum pave the drive way at least.

That was place number two. Place number one is even nicer and comes with a view of the opulent historical cemetery, established 18 “oh My God they freed the slaves we can’t possibly be forced to be buried with them as well”69 (it isn’t even all that historical, the city cemetery was established in 1789).

Back to place number two . It is $200,000 more then my house. Its sheet came with color pictures of the interior and back yard. Lets see, built 1930, hard wood through out, mine too! original windows, mine too! Side porch entrance ( no garage) me too! Modern eat in kitchen, check! French doors, check! Whoa! Like twins! Built ins, generous closets, abundant storage! Wow me too! , I have all that too. $299,500 for a place that isn’t even 2000 square feet.

I think it is the proximity to drug dealers that makes the difference. It’s the difference between having a drug dealer or living next door to a drug dealer They add $5000 for every block further away they are. This place is swanky, but it’s within blocks of Fort Apache South. The area where I get hassled by street people and wandering speed freaks in closer to this house then to mine. One block past the sign marking the Historical District is a burned out four plex and a neighborhood the cops won’t go to.

The people in that house probably don’t even know where the drug dealers live. Fortunately for them their real estate person does know and she added $199,500 to price.


Something else that caused me stress.

They are changing the name of my college. They did it several times in the past going from a Normal School to a Teachers College to a University. Fine. Time marches on. But,

The Texas House of Representatives passed the third reading of Senate Bill 1942 changing the name of SWT to ”Texas State University – San Marcos” last night. Since there were no changes to the bill, the bill will be sent to Governor Perry for his consideration.

That is a stupid name. They couldn’t come up with anything better?

True, the school is not technically south or west of anything, but the new name is dopey and you know they aren’t going to issue me a new diploma either. I’m going to have to change my resume to read “Texas State University – San Marcos, nee’ Southwest Texas State University. Blech.

There was a popular tee shirt while I was there it read - “Fuck You, We’re From Southwest Texas State”. Concise and to the point, it said what you could do and where you could find us if you had a problem with it. It roles so pleasingly off the tongue, while “Fuck You, We’re From Texas State University - San Marcos” doesn’t role so much as trips over its own feet and splashes it’s beer all over. It’s the difference between, “We’ve come to party, we’ve come to get down” and “We’ve crashed your party, we’re here to fall down”.

I’m so glad I got out when it was still SWTSU – the University of Shiner at San Marcos.