Tuesday, June 30, 2009

At Last His People Will Stop Calling Me! It's been months of these calls!

Minnesota's Supreme Court has declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of the state's disputed U.S. Senate race.
Just walk on by


I took Dogger to the vet on Saturday to find out why her incision was open again and why there is there stuff coming out of it AGAIN. I was very comfortable with the incision being closed. I shouldn't have gotten comfortable. Now its open, but just a teeny little bit. Just a touch open. Just open enough to weep a little. The incision has a sad.

This was our seventy-third vet visit since March 30th . There are pregnant women in the last weeks of their pregnancies who spend less time in their doctors offices then we do. It’s a nice place and the people are very kind and Dogger loves them. Great. She also loves her other vet, where we also spend too much time.

Where would I be without my fuzzy friends? Not getting up early on Saturday to spend time at the vet, I can tell you that. Anyway, the vet agreed that the incision is indeed open but not very much and the weeping was probably caused by an errant suture that was trying to get out. He gave us more antibiotics because Dogger has been on antibiotics since March and we would both be shocked to not be on antibiotics. He felt around her knee and said it felt really good and very secure and it may just be a teeny bit infected but not very. He told me later he was afraid that he was going to find that there was infected tissue in the wound tract and that he was going to have to go back inside.

So mostly good news. We’re now two for two on that, first just pricy dog flu and not Addison crises and then just reappearance of minor infection and not needing to go back in for surgery! Whooo! Tiny is never going to the vet. Ever. Anyway. The bad news was that he is seeing a lot of wasting in the leg. Lots of it and that is not good and is a permanent condition and it will ultimately cripple her if it isn’t reversed. She is fully 25 pounds lighter than she was last July when she originally injured the other leg and most of what she has lost is muscle mass. Dogger and I needed to get to work on building her muscles up weeks ago. He told me to walk her more often for shorter periods of time because my previously scheduled half-hour-once-a-day schedule was not working out. I think the vet kind of wanted me to walk Dogger home from his office

Instead I drove her home and formulated a plan. We would walk morning, noon and night or something close to it for the foreseeable future.  I decided on a schedule of walking early morning, as-soon-as-I-get-home-after-work and then right before dark. For at least 15 minutes at a go.

We walked five times over the weekend.

Monday morning we went on our first early morning walk. I went into get Dogger and she gave her self a shake and wagged her nub and was all ready for a quick breakfast and her morning nap. Surprise! Before breakfast we went for a walk. At 5:40am. Dogger was not amused, she is not , it turns out, a morning dog. She was cool with her 5pm walk but still seemed a little surprised when we went out again hours later. She’ll get used to it.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Napping is good for you

I am almost embarrassed about how much nothing I did this weekend. Almost . I had two weekends in a row where I went and did and saw and this weekend I did nothing

Well, not really “nothing”. Saturday I started reading The Half Blood Prince ahead of the movie and I went to the vet in the morning and to an exotic, foreign Target with family in the afternoon and then out to dinner. Saturday I was busy. Sunday? I went to Church, hit a buffet to either mark the end of the Year of St. Paul or honor the beginning of The Year of The Priest and went home to nap and I napped most of the day - When I wasn’t taking Dogger on her Doctor ordered “more frequent, less lengthy walks”. And I did a load of laundry. Wow. I rawk hard.

I didn’t even mow the lawn despite the fact that I should have but, we didn’t get any rain last week and it isn’t that bad and I could do it later in the week. I did water my plants and do a second round of tomato plant pruning . Speaking of tomatoes, I harvested two handfuls over the weekend with another handful due in the coming week. I would now like the larger varieties to feel free to ripen up because they are falling behind and beginning to look kind of like wusses. The interesting little white tomatoes can also come ripe and stop being green. It’s not that I have a plan for all these little tomatoes regardless of their color, I don’t honestly know what to do with little tomatoes and I don’t eat salad so I’m kind of at a loss as to how to prepare these things - I do have a couple of ideas, one is to put them into the processor and mix them with some ground meat and go from there, maybe ack, gag buy a bell pepper and use the sausage/tomato mix as a stuffing? And another is Meat loaf. I could make a met loaf and add the tomatoes to it! That would be good and I would get meat loafs out of it. I love a good meat loaf.

The pepper that was growing last week is still perking along and now has been joined by a younger sibling. I have to look up online to see what they are supposed to look like. At present the more mature pepper seems to be long and narrow and yellowish. I’m pretty sure that they pepper selection that I ordered was sweet peppers so I know I’ll enjoy them but I don’t really know what to do with non-bell peppers, I mean sure “Grill them”, you say but I don’t have a grill and like the little tomatoes, I’m not sure what you do with peppers. No, I don’t eat salsa either.

The green beans after a great start have slowed down. The leaves look a little dusty to me and I don’t know what that means. They may be getting taxed by my lazy gardening and lack of desire to thin the herd like I should have or they have one of the 12,987 thousand different plant diseases that happen. I don’t know. I do know that I do actually know what to do with green beans and that I want more of them. The brocs are still in ICU but I haven’t noticed any new infestation, I’m afraid though it doesn’t take many infestations to blow your broc crop for the season.

On a happier note, one of the vines I planted from seed has flowered! Lets hear it for Spanish Flag!

Sunday, June 28, 2009

HAPPY   SUNDAY   !!!!!!

Saturday, June 27, 2009

HAPPY   SATURDAY    !!!!!!

Friday, June 26, 2009

Friday Kitten Blogging

 outside in
Friday Bonus Feral Cat Blogging

Well.

Well. I don't  know what I was going to post before, but Wow. Big day huh? I mean, its terrible for their families and they both left kids, but dayum, the Entertainment News people must have all simultaneously came in their pants.

I hope Jackson's children end up with uncreepy people.  My long term hopes for them would be that they get the gift of real lives and a lot of very high quality psychiatric help.

I get my birthday back. It's always been a burr in my saddle that I shared a birthday with Micheal Jackson.

Poor Farah Fawcett. The upside of the spotlight being pulled away would be that hopefully her family and friends  will be able to mourn her in privacy. You know Mother Theresa went up to her and said "Dude. I totally feel you. I died right round when  Princess Di did. Sucks for us." Of course, I'm paraphrasing.

The news of Jacksons death has pushed Iran off the trending topics on Twiiter. "Good luck with your revolution Iran, but we have to deal with a dead pedo pop star right now. We'll get back to you." We suck.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Obligatory OMGWTFBBQ Post

Michael Jackson is dead. Heart Failure. LA Hospital.
RIP

Farrah Fawcett
In the Hood

The kids across the street have kazoos. At first they were kazooing what I am now guessing were kazoo scales because soon after they began  with Joyful, Joyful, we adore thee interspersed with Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. It's really neat and provided a nice back drop for watering my plants,  before I go outside and while the kazoo scales are being run, Tiny has a look of abject kitty horror on his face as he sat on the coffee table staring at the window. He's never heard of such a thing, Dogger looks amused,  while she isn't much of a music fan she is at least not frightened of it. For her part Dogger seems to prefer ballet overtures to spirituals.

The kazooing was also my cue to wake up. At some point after I came home and got everyone fed, I decided that I needed to be asleep and I stayed that way longer than I would had planed if I were to have planned to take a nap. I got up at some point  and tried out the carpet near Doggers crate, but that didn't last because it disturbed Dogger very much to see me prone. When I got up for good,  I realized that it was much later than it should be and dinner might be more a midnight snack.

I really wish now I hadn't napped. I don't like eating dinner at a quarter to nine and I am especially do not like having to go out to the store at nine on a school night to buy sugar. I don't like going out after dark for stupid errands like that, the store is too bright and there are all these people and noise and colors and its just not what I like to subject myself to when I'm supposed to be getting ready for bed. And? I couldn't take Dogger for her walk, poor Dogger, she lives for her public.

Which means I also missed my daily rounds. I really like my neighborhood, even with the odd gun shots and the sirens and the scary gangster guys who drive too fast and now, these weird white people who are springing up all over and in the oddest places - There may even be some next door. It's really nice to go on walks and have people say Hi and wave from their porches.  People hang out on their porches and visit with each other, the kids play in the yards and run back and forth. There is someone on every block that wants me to stop and chat about Doggers progress, it makes me wish I spent more time sitting on my own porch.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I say impeachment followed up by a quickie crucificacion.

Lets talk about SEX...  I didn't know that "hiking the Appalachian" was a euphemism for "Boinking my hottie Argentine gal pal".
Garden Update 8

We have finally achieved  peppers!



That is the Gypsy Pepper variety for those of you keeping track. Along with my little pepper friend are many tomatoes

objects in photo appear riper than they actually are

 
objects are larger than they appear
 

That was the good news. The bad news, picture NSFW

Those are from four plants


The four plants in question.

If you remember I dropped about a ton of napalm on those little bastards and I thought that it did the trick - and they did disappear for a while but obviously it must have been for maternity leave. This time I picked the little bastards off by hand and killed them, before, I just pitched them over the fence and squished a few as object lessons to the rest. I didn't take any prisoners this time, first I drowned them in alcohol and then I put them in the plastic trash bin.And then I poisoned again.
On to happier things,

 
My beans are very happy...

Family picture

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Sick Puppy, not mine.

This boy loves his dog very much and just wants to have his dog to be whole. The dog has a pricey condition that needs a pricy fix. His family can't afford it and he needs help, I cant afford to help him right now but I thought I would share the link. I know exactly how this kid and his family feel and it hurts like hell.
Letters from Tiny

As I was straightening up Sunday night after I came home and I ran across these notes:

Der Mama

Wher ar u

Tiny iz trying rel hrd to tak care ov teh hoz fir yew, Teh hoz is veri beeg and dark and Tiny iz al lon. Tiny iz scrd and wats u to kom hme to Tiny. Whr is dog, wher is mama. Dog iz not hre and Tiny is lonley. Tiny luke al obr hoz no mama no dog. It is drk and teh opengs are covd and hos maks noz an maks cold blo.

Who wil Tiny lic nose at nite? Him cant lic mama nose. Tiny sad,

I belive it was written with ink made from crushed kibble mixed with kitty tears. Sigh. It may have neen written early in the weekend. I found another note downstairs.

Dear Mama

I'm strongr now. Iv hd time to think and gro and Im not az afrad az I wuz. I know yu arnyt in teh hoz and dog iz not here hideing bekus I luked. Al nite. Im ok tho. R yu comming bac.

That one was written with the pen I keep with the phone.

Dear Mama,

I knoe you gone. I knoe the dog is gon. Ar you with teh dog. I know I am no alone. Teh litle animuls  ply with me al nite. I hnt thm. I am a hntr. Im vry strong. I mz yu so much, Im sori I maed yu mad. Pleaz com hm to me. I'll be ok if yu cant, I am a hntr.

That one was written in lipstick on the bathroom door. I was back by late afternoon Sunday, so he still had time to write this one.

Dear Mama,

Your gone and you aren't coming back. The dog was my friend. Bring dog back,  please come home to Tiny  I'm tired of hunting and I want fresh kibbles. I want to lick your nose. Please come to home to Tiny.

That one was left on my desk top, Tiny rocked the spell check. I think the next time I go out of town I'm going to hook Tiny up with a Twitter account.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Interesting

The situation in Iran in Word Clouds created on Wordel from twitter.
It (was) an Ikea, it (was) an Ikea, Ikea weekend!

Those of you with a store in your town can just suck it. If we want to go to an Ikea and who doesn't, we have to drive hours to get to one. It's better now though because now we don't have to cross state lines for Billy shelves.


Brosky, Alphagal, Tiny E and Baby Nephew made a pilgrimage to Charlotte to go shopping. Along the way I discovered that 1) Charlotte isn't that far away and it has really, really good shopping. A lot. Much. Much. Much better than what is available in Raleigh. They have a BASS WORLD for Gawds sake! I haven't seen a Bass World since I left Dallas! I am going to have to go back to Charlotte so that I can shop at places other than Kohls, Target and Best Buy. It was eye opening and while my eyes were open I didn't see a single Ross, Marshals or TJ Maxx. I almost cried.

After many (two and a half)  hours we arrived at the Promise Land:

 
And as you are approaching the doors you look up and see this
  
Oh, it would, it really would!
And then we shopped. And shopped and shopped. And then we had lunch, the Swedish meatballs were outstanding by the way,  and then we shopped and shopped and shopped some more.  And after all this shopping, Gold Medal level shopping by the way, we went to check out. Did you know that you can get an entire Ikea into the back of a Subaru?
 What is not visible in that shot, are my prizes and the prettiest and least useful of all the things I bought and I bought a lot of things. A lot of useful things, like a can opener and napkins and a carpet protector thingy for my office (pictured above),  hidden among these very useful things were two lamp shades
 
They're so pretty! I couldn't leave them there. Clearly, I didn't "need" these but I really wanted them and how could I come all that way and leave with just a can opener?!
  
detail
 I love Ikea. Who did not love Ikea? Dogger  and Tiny. Dogger did well being boarded and her health has steadily improved since I dropped her off and the staff assured me that she was a very good girl while she was with them. She was okay with the boarding facility but she was still  bounced around like a super ball when I picked her up. 
She doesn't sleep well away from home and clearly getting some sack time was high on her list of priorities when I brought her home. It wasn't possible to let her conk out as soon as we got home because she had to take her her pills, eat some dinner and then go for a walk. She crashed as soon as I brought her inside. Tiny on the other hand, got to stay in his won house all weekend and I think he greeted me with even more joy than Dogger did. I was very pleased with how well he did while he was alone. He was all by himself from Friday night until Sunday afternoon and he did just fine. Lonely, but fine and he didn't make any messes or break anything.
I am going back to Ikea very soon, but not for a whole weekend, my baby animals need me.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

HAPPY      SUNDAY    !!!!!!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

HAPPY    IKEAURDAY    !!!!!!!

Friday, June 19, 2009

Friday Kitten Blogging

Fri, Fri, Friday

 Have you ever gone mano-a-mano with a large, filthy, wet area rug? Did you put a lot of thought into it before you started? Yeah, I didn't either.

When Dogger had her blow out the other day, she blew a lot of it onto the area rug in her room.  Previously I put no value on this rug, it was in the room because I thought it would protect the wall-to-wall in the room in the case of a blow out, which by the way it did not. There is no reason now to  not make this stinky problem go away... So of course I dragged  it outside, hosed it off and then wrestled the now quite heavy, wet, nasty, drippy rug up, over my head and onto a fence so it can dry off  and then hopefully rejoin the rest of the house in some capacity, although I can not promise it it's old position back....because for some reason I have decided that the rug is so very important to me that when it outlived it's usefulness I had to send it to live in the dogs room ... Because I am pathologically attached to this rug.

But now? Now its worth its weight in gold. The.  Most.Valuable. Area . Rug. Ever

On to other, better Dogger news. She ate two quarters of a cup of dog food for a total of one half cup of dog food and she did not throw it back up or suffer explosive lower GI issues! And even better? She hasn't thrown up or suffered serious GI issues since early in the morning and then she was only slightly explosive and in an approved location. Yay!!  I'm not taking any chances though, I have her crate surrounded by newspapers and the couch protected from any of her "issues". When I'm home I take her out every fifteen minutes so that might be helping.

Now that she seems safely on the road to recovery, I'm going to Ikea for the weekend and putting her in Doggy storage. I'm not kidding, I'm boarding my dog and  getting up at dawn on Saturday to drive three hours to Charlotte to go to  Ikea and I can't wait.

I'm boarding her at an animal hospital  so don't look at me like that.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Worlds Best Teacher

Mr. Toulmin
Sick as a Dogger , Spring 2009  edition

Some people use their lunch hour for lunch, I use my lunch hour for unscheduled emergency trips to the vet.

I knew this morning that we were going to have to go to the vet, but I didn't know how soon that was going to happen. I had hoped for the morning but I settled for 4:30 and then I went home for lunch...

Much like first thing in the morning but more so. I called the vet and they said to bring her in and they would work her in. I dropped her off and they said they would call me when they knew something. I spent the rest of the day sticking close to my desk because they were going to call anytime and I didn't want to miss the call.

They never called.

I left for my scheduled appointment and waited. And waited. and Waited. A few minutes after I arrived a man and his son and their sleepy looking cat were called to an exam room. They did not stay long. The cat had to stay, they had to go. And then I really started to wait. A little girl wafts through the office and annoys me for no reason. She's there, she can see my dog and I can't. I hate her.

I'm pacing back and forth and the last image I have is those men leaving and how sad they were. I was under the impression that they had the cat put down. They didn't, the cat was just very, very acutely ill and the doc was in the back working on it. And I'm waiting and my dog is in the back and no one has spoken to me except the receptionist and while she's nice, she's not fixing my dog and giving her back to me.

Wait, wait, wait

I am beginning to really hate the little girl. I'm getting more freaked out by the minute and I'm practically in tears. I know she's dieing and I know I'm going to have to put her down, probably before I leave the office. She's still throwing up and the lower GI issue is still happening. It's the Addison's or a recurrence of the hemorrhagic gastroenteritis. She's doomed. I'm doomed. I notice they have cleaned off their Big Board of Patients. My nephdogs are no longer there but Dogger and Tex are. I'm hoping that Tex is the only late patient on there but I know he isn't, the board is a bad sign. Dogger is doomed.

Wait, wait, wait.

Finally! A tech appears with Dogger! She's alive and bouncing! Dieing dogs don't bounce! The vet goes over the results of her blood draw and everything is good, her electrolytes are actually better than they were last week, her liver panel is flawless and the only concern is that Dogger is very,slightly dehydrated. it turns out that they practice has seen several dogs with flu symptoms since the weekend and she feels that dogger has  Dog Flu. The doc has given her a shot of an anti-nausea med and they gace her 500cc's of fluid and she's good to go. I get a bottle of anti-nausea pills although I would have rathered an antidiarrheal but I was too stoked to ask a lot of questions. I took my Dogger home.

And then it took her hours to throw up again. We had been home about fifteen minutes to remind I should have asked for something for her lower GI. Oh, and lets all thank Gawd for letting us have wet-dry vacs and kitty litter. Really, they are blessings from above. Keep praying for my Dogger, she's not out of the woods yet.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Damn

I went to take Dogger out this morning and found that she had thrown up everything she had eaten over the past two days and then she had a "lower GI"  problem when I took her out to pee. Thinking positively, I'm thinking its Doggy flu, thinking less than positively, it's her Addison's acting up and she might need her dose upped. Her appointment is at 4:30.
Ich bin ein Iranian

Are you following what's happening in Iran? Of course you are. Or not. I'm following it primarily because I'm on Twitter and Twitter is all about Iran right now. In fact, since this afternoon, I "live" in GMT +3.30 and my home town is Tehran.

It's to confuse the Iranian authorities looking for twittering  revolutionaries. I can't believe I'm helping Iranians and Iranian students to boot. I've hated Iran and its students since 1979! I agree that that is a long time to hold a grudge but, frankly, they deserved it. Assholes. 444 days is also a long time. I looked around on Facebook but all I could find was a group called "I Love Iran", I couldn't do it. If it was called "I support the people who voted for the other guy" or "I feel those people in the streets" or "Lets go 2009 Iranian Revolution" or even, "Burn Chaders Burn" ,I could get behind it but I can't "Love Iran", it's not possible. My parents must have let us watch too much news back in the day or maybe hanging all those yellow ribbons up outside my elementary school scarred me but I can't see Iran as a warm and fuzzy place or someone I would want to hang out with. Maybe  I could become a fan of "I tolerate Iran".

And yes, I have read "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and I have an old friend who is Iranian. Yeah, I know "Some of my best friends are Iranian...".  His father was a very high up officer in the Shah's army and he had to get his family and himself out of the country very quickly when the revolution happened, they were loyal to the Shah and that made them enemies of the Revolution. It didn't matter that my friend wasn't part of the revolution or a revolutionary or that he was a child when it all happened, he spent years having to tell people he was from Persia because I wasn't the only one holding a grudge, And you know what? Most of the people who asked were so dumb we didn't know what Persia was or where it was or what it was more commonly known as. He could also be Mexican if he had to, although his Spanish was weak, so was his German, French and Italian. He was multicultural years before it was in vogue.

It was through him that I learned that Iran was not a desert and that they have trees and mountains and even snow! And they had swimming pools.  Not a desert, more like Colorado, with oil and access to a deep water port. It was okay with him if I hated Iran. He hated what had happened to it. Wouldn't it be great if we could all stop hating Iran? Wouldn't it be great if we could be friends with them? If we could turn them from an Axis of Evil into an Allie? If you aren't on Twitter I heartily suggest that you go and sign up now. You can watch history happen 140 words at a time, you can see tonight's news as it is being made by the people who are making it. Be in Tehran. Help the Iranians.

Maybe someday we can all feel comfortable loving Iran.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Garden Update 7

Things are puttering along. All the tomatoes have produced fruits!, all the plants are very tall and all have been tied up. If  everything that is there now gets ripe I'll have a truck load of tomatoes!


 
Big tomatoes
 
Clusters of tomatoes

 Bunches of tomatoes

 Couples of Tomatoes

 
Groups of Tomatoes
 



 Teams of Tomatoes
And last but not least...
 
A single pepper!
  
While the tomatoes are certainly out there working their little seeds to the bone, so far none have even come close to ripening or even coming close to their full size. Everything is green for the time being but at some point in the hopefully not-to-distant future they will be  big reds, little reds, pink, yellow, orangish and white! I can't wait. If my peppers ever get it together they will be red and green and orange and stripped! Fat and skinny and big and little.  It's going to be very exciting. At some point. 
I just have to remain vigilant about those that plot against us, the bugs and worms and slugs and all the rest of the nasty beasties Mother Nature lets eat my things. Thank Gawd for Seven.
Two family Pictures:

Monday, June 15, 2009

Fun in the Sun(burn)

Water park waves are so benign, they want to lift you up, they want you to have fun. Real waves are malevolent, they want to hold you down, they want you to drown. Danger is fun.

A day at the beach.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

HAPPY    SUNDAY   !!!!!!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

HAPPY   SATURDAY    !!!!

Friday, June 12, 2009

Friday Kitten Blogging

Ambition

Today I achieved something few women attempt and fewer care about: Today my purse matched my shoes! I know, I know, its debatable if I will ever achieve such greatness again and I may have reached my peak. It's okay, I'm old, if I hadn't reached it yet, it was too far away. Some people write classic works of literature, other create great art, still others find cures of deadly disease, I matched my bag to my shoes to my bag.

I aimed low and I think I finally caught the Styrofoam  ring. Go Me.

Today was a day without work. We all got up, got dressed, did our morning routines and came to the office to sit at our desks and do nothing. All day. Sure, the phone kept ringing and the complaints came in but there was no where to put them as the programs we put them are down for an upgrade. I think I now understand Internet fatigue, I am actually tired of surfing the web!  My fingers are sore.

It's been a long day, the highlight thus far has been the bell pepper a better gardener friend brought me off her pepper plant. Her peppers are producing. The major difference between our pepper husbandry methods seem to be that hers are being grown in pots and mine are in the ground. Next year its pots for my peppers!  My peppers are doing nada, they are barely producing blooms much less peppers and it is making me sad. Sad and as green eyed as my gift pepper.

On the upside, I was able to change Doggers' 5pm  vet appointment to 4pm so I get to leave work early (!) and  make the appointment and make the board meeting  edited to add, Congratulations Rosa Gill! I can multi-task. edited to add further,I would have more time to work on tasks if it hadn't gone to three ballots to get a winner. In the ten whole minutes I'm going to have free this evening I am going to get my car packed for a trip to my parents and the beach this weekend.

Lets all hold a happy thought for Doggers' appointment. Lets hope everything is okay. edited to add yet again, She's fine, the doc was very happy with her knee and thinks maybe she had a flair up of arthritis and that was why she went lame. She now has a months worth of anti-inflammatories. We're free to start our walks again and she's out of her crate.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Working Out

Pant, pant, Well, I got the yard mowed. It didn't seem that hot when I started or I wound't have started in the first place Gasp. I was kind of looking for some exercise but I had thought I might go by the post office again, I think I would have been less worn out. And it seemed so nice. Nice little breeze, not all that hot, the sun was going down and by the time I was about 2/3 of the way through I wanted to die and I realized my yard was a lot bigger than it looks.Pant, pant

I did get four more beans of the plants though and there are more baby tomatoes than there were yesterday. I haven't found any worms on any of the plants either in days but I still gave a few newly emerged leaves a little pesticide bath to keep them from suffering the same fate as their older siblings. I could strain spaghetti through some of them. The good news is that the stems are now trunks and the plants themselves seem strong and healthy.

Oh and speaking of growth, the morning glories I put in as seeds are now finally starting to grow up the fence! I was afraid that I had someone ended up with dwarf varieties because neither kind seemed very interested in climbing the fence and more interested in clumping on the ground, which is great for ground cover not so great for something that is supposed to grow to ten feet. While they are growing taller and spreading over the fence, the two varites combined have only produced one bloom and that was on one plant while it was still clumping. I can tell though, at some point they will all be very pretty plants and they'll blanket my fence with blooms. I can't wait and even better? those blooms will bring in bees and those bees will help my garden grow and I am all about that. One of the other women at work as her plants in pots and she all ready has a bell pepper! I hate her.

In other parts of the yard my black eyed susan vines are not doing as well, they're climbing a little but they aren't as vigorous as I would like to see after this much time in the ground. I'm a little concerned but I'm holding out hope because they haven't died yet I haven't managed to kill them yet and are still green and pretty and at least giving indications that they will do their thing.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Hmmmm...

Maybe I should rethink  the  traditional urn idea, there are options ...
Shots fired at  Washington Holocaust Museum

Sources: Shooter is a white supremest
HA

Miss California Dethroned.  - for being a beyotch.
Mission Accomplished

Oh. I finally got my purse! Yay. I saw it over the weekend but I was holding out for my Ebay purse and I let it go. I was afraid it wouldn't be at the store anymore and I couldn't find it when I first started pawing through the racks! I almost settled for the same bag in beige but I just couldn't do it! beige, I mean, really.  It took a lot of shopping to talk myself into white as an option, there is no way I could go with beige and it was that yucky builder beige too. I did not want to start the big purse hunt over again, fortunately, I found my purse hiding behind a much less attractive bag. Yay!

But, victory over the forces of bad bags. And there are a lot of bad bags out there. Really, really ugly bags, just shockingly ugly purses that I can not imagine anyone carrying. Not just a little questionable but bags that even if you were carrying it in the most ironic way, would still be ugly - And some of the most ugly are the most expensive. Betseyworld bags for example are fuggly and there are everywhere, well at least they are everywhere I looked but admitedly my shopping options are limited. I have my suspicion's that they are not sold at Nordstrom.

I was really bummed about my purse getting bid out from under my on Ebay though, that was cold. I hate snipers. See, if I had been the one out last minute bag shopping, I would have bypassed the bag because there was only one bidder and that bidder kept upping the price. it would have looked questionable to me, but if the winner wanted to pay $39 for  a bag I wouldn't have paid more than  $19 for, well, that's her loss.

Whatever. If my bag gets dingy all I'm going to have to do is hit it with a little white shoe polish.

I've been trying to get Dogger an earlier appointment to see the surgeon but I have been unsuccessful. How dare he run a thriving practice and not be able to see me on my schedule. I hate that. And now there is a new wrinkle, actually, its a wrinkle that I should have known about but I couldn't be bothered to read my own mail. It turns out that on Thursday I may be double booked. I am on the Wake County Democratic Party Executive Committee and we are meeting at 6pm to decide who is going to get the seat that was opened up when we gave the guy who had the position a promotion to the seat that was vacated when its holder passed on.

That meeting was held at 7pm, it didn't get started until 7:30 because rules don't apply to everyone and some people live in different time zones, there's no time to waste like other peoples. Ass-wipes.

ANYWAY. This meeting starts at 6pm, our appointment is at 5pm and I think I'm going to have issues. The two locations are on totally different sides of town and I don't see how I can get to both and I don't think Dogger wants to go to the meeting. What I should do is just give my proxy to my chair and not worry about it. I don't really want to go waste time at the meeting anyway or I would have made a point to read my mail, and to be honest, I don't really care who gets the seat as long as they are electable and I think we gave the single most electable candidate the last job. What we were left with is not a wildly exciting group and I had pretty much decided to vote for the similarly unexciting lone female candidate until I got a phone call from one of the other candidates and learned she's the only non-white on the school board and I don't know how great it would be for her to leave that position.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

!@#$%^&

Gah. So much frustration. Something not her Addison's, Thank God, is wrong with Dogger. She isn't using her knee knee anymore. She is pulling that leg right up where it was right after the surgery, and she won't put it down when I tell her too and she has done that since she started walking on all fours again. But there was no injury, no Oops moment. I don't understand!

 I also kind of think something may be happening with the other, original injured knee as well. Great.  I was worried about her so I took her into have her electrolytes checked because she was a little off, fortunately, her 'lites are okay, low average, but within normal limits. I called the surgeon too, but he can't see her until Thursday. I'm not thrilled about that. I tried to get her in for Tuesday, their late day but they were fully booked - but I am going to hope for a cancellation and try calling again, maybe I can drop her off at lunch or something. She isn't behaving like she's in pain, but animals are good at hiding their pain. So she's back in her crate full time until we see the doctor. Dogger will be thrilled.

She's was making such good progress too. Sigh.

Another frustration? I had a bid on a really  nice purse on Ebay. it was very cute and no one had any interest in it at all, for weeks.  I had the minimum bid and... waited. But just to be safe, I upped my bid before I left for the day an hour before the auction closed, thinking "Oh, well, if I do get out bid, they will have to pay too much. No one is going to pay that much for that bag and if they do, well, they want it that bad, they can have it." Well, they wanted it bad enough. Feck.

Now, I'm still without a purse. I did see one that I liked over the weekend but it was more than I wanted to pay, but I will carry it for the rest of the summer and it did fill all my requirements, except for the "I don't want a white bag" one. It's white, very very white. It's cute though and I liked it better than all 4200 other purses I have either visited in the store or looked at online.  Hopefully, it will still be at the store and I can go back after work on day.

Another frustration? The computer is being a bitch. It will let me get online but it wasn't letting me go there. I turned it on and off four times before it finally let me do my thing. Hateful, hateful thing.

One good thing?  I rode my bike to the post office for the first time since, well, the last time, last fall and I did it without wanting to die.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Monday.

Over the weekend I went to the Larkspur Party.  There is a family in Raleigh with a huge lot and a beautiful garden and every year they open it for the people of Raleigh to come see, they also have booths for area artists and nurseries so that we too can make our yards beautiful.. Its' very nice. This year I was hopeing to finally find an urn for Tex but I again was not able to find what I wanted. I did get a lovely little bowl though.

Pictures from Larkspur.

I am now absolutely sure that he needs a wooden container the shape of a good sized sugar bowl. In a light wood, birch or aspen I think.  I have two more art fairs to hit, one I can go to and one that  I will have to use a surrogate shopper. But at least now I know what I'm looking for : Roundish, light wood, highly polished, with a lid. I am looking for an artisan piece because like a work of art, Tex was an absolute one of a kind original.

Did any of you get a donut on Friday? I got two. One from Dunkin, where I was the only one in the store and they were almost out of donuts and one from Krispy Kreme, where there was a zillion donuts and I waited in line for 40 minutes! For real. It was totally worth it though.

Oh! Also on Friday! I had my first harvest of the season!

 
Okay, it wasn't exactly a blockbuster harvest, but , I know I was completely overjoyed so it doesn't matter. Right now there are more beans set to be ready within the next few days and my raspberry plants are covered with future berries. The tomatoes are cruising along with new tiny fruits everyday and the rest continue to mature. The peppers and the broccs are still works in progress.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

HAPPY    SUNDAY   !!!!!

Saturday, June 6, 2009

HAPPY    SATURDAY      !!!!!!!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Friday Kitten Blogging


National Donut Day!

There are free donuts out there! Go forth and take advantage.
Friday

If you felt a disturbance in the force, it was because for the first time since I started spraying my plants it didn't rain on my freshly sprayed poison and for the first time in weeks there were no worms on my broccoli plants when I went out to walk the fence line in the morning and again when I surveyed the grounds later when I came home from work.  Seven is the bomb yo.-  Actually is probably really is, there is a list of caveats on the bottle that legally informs the consumer  that the act of buying the product is a war crime in 24 countries and California and I shouldn't try to leave town. Right now it is raining and by the morning there will be worms on my broccoli plants yet again .It's not my fault,  picking the little green bastards off by hand is very stressful to worms. It literally scares the shit out of them,  have you ever experienced  the non-wonder and the non-glory of  having fresh worm shit on your hands? You would turn to chemical weapons too.

 The rain is going to wash my poison off, but this time I'm a less nasty Sarah Palin and they are predatory, plant killing green wolves. Ya Betcha. Also.

No longer speaking of killing things smaller than myself.

You know what I really want to do right now? I want to go purse shopping! I mean, I really, really want to go out and look at purses. I'm obsessed. I spent the afternoon cruising Ebay and I've kind of narrowed down my search. I think I'm either going to go with a patten leather because they are everywhere - Which isn't necessarily a vote in their favor, I don't really want to see my purse on your arm, but at the same time the shiny thing is growing on me. There are lots of colors and many, many of them are not red, black or brown. Some are yellow or pink. I like pink. No white though, white is an open invitation to all sorts of bad things to happen and I don't want to risk it. Also, it makes me think of the Golden Girls, whom I do not aspire to.

My other choice seems to be cotton prints. I like prints. They go with nothing and everything at the same time. No giraffe though or zebra, which thankfully seem to be leaving the purse stage. The purse I'm carrying now has stripes and if it was constructed in a completely different way, I would carry it all summer. In the past I've carried a Flamingo printed bag and that was cool too but I've all ready carried that and now it's time for a new one or a new to me one. I'm not picky about that. Have I mentioned I love purse shopping on Ebay? Love. It. So much fun you have no idea. There are hundreds of thousands of purses there. It's purse nirvana.


If all else fails? I'm just going to start carrying my faux  watering can again. It's a very cute bag and I got lots of compliments on it and even better, I never, ever saw anyone else carrying it. Its main problem being it had no zipper and it was an odd shape. Way, way cool though, definitely cool enough to carry again. But only if there are no alternates. I'm thinking of hitting a purse store downtown that may be promising, it may also be very, very expensive and I'm not in to that. it's locally owned and the designer is from Raleigh. The designs look orginal-ish but a little bland, but I'm willing to give it a chance. Wht I have seen in the windows puts me in the mind of  some of the bags they sell on Etsy, so that is to say expensive, green, well made and one of a kind. Etsy is the anti-Ebay.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Things that grow

I went out and drenched my plants with my fancy new poison. I even used my thus far unused  official looking neato spritzer thingy I bought at Poverty Barn last winter.  I looked like the Orkin man.

So, now its going to rain. Hard. It has to, it is how the world has worked lately. I spray my poor chewed on plants and fifteen minutes later it starts to rain and it rains hard for three days and cleans away all my poison. My plants remain very hydrated, pesticide free and chewed on. It it eventually stops raining, so I poison again and before I even get in the house it begins to rain. So far this has happened four times.  Spray, rain, spray,. rain spray, rain, spray, rain. In this time my broccoli has turned into some of the loveliest Irish lace in nature.

I am not a lace curtain Irish. I feel the green but its the green of my broccoli leaves and I want my broccoli leaves to be whole. I also want the plants to build broccolies that I can eat and the more poison I have to dump on the plants the more that becomes a questionable outcome. I am also not really enjoying picking off worms by hand. They get scared and their little wormy bowels let go. Ew! worm shite. Why are they so scared? How do they know I'm going to squish them against my fence? Do they talk to each other? Do they even have that long a life span? Is the knowledge that they will become squished against a fence it in their DNA?

I need to rid my garden of these pests in one fell swoop so I can stop poisoning and start eating. I need rain to help my plants but I need it to stop raining to help my plants.

Okay, speaking of things that grow.

The other day I was watching TV. Thanks to my DVR I watch a lot of TV.  A lot. It's sad. Anyway. I'm watching TV and not fast forwarding because I don't care enough. Blah. I'm watching this ad for a ladies razor. Blah. I'm watching the happy, ostensibly clean shaven woman stroll down some sort of multilevel catwalk thingy and all along the way are these potted shrubs and as shes' happily strolling by the bushes they magically become sculpted. And I'm watching this and thinking "Why are the shrubs getting  trimmed when she walks past?" First my thought is are they referencing her trim? because that's dirty And then it hit me. Those aren't  shrubs! THOSE ARE BUSHES... OH MY GAWD THEY ARE REFERENCING SHAVING PUBIC HAIR!! and not in a nudge, nudge, wink, wink way either. They are saying "Use our razor and trim your bush"

I  took a quick look online to see if I really saw this  and hat I was not actually imagining the ad, and it was indeed real and other people saw it too!  For reals ya'll. I spent a little more time on online and learned that the razor comes with a battery and looks like a modified BOB. I am all about reusing, recycling, re-purposing but that is not re-purposing we can believe in.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Bubble-headed

Friday at work my friend told  me her trophy. The night before she had scored an Albert Einstein Bobble-head! I had no idea  until that moment that I needed one so badly! It's just exactly what I need! I mean who doesn't need an Albert Einstein bobble-head! I mean, its a must have. So, of course, as soon as I could,  I went immediately to the closest McDs and  went to the counter and asked the register clerk if her store had the bobble-head. And she said

I don't know what that is


 My head exploded.YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT AN ALBERT EINSTEIN IS??!! According to a  prominent display in the lobby, the toys included a monkey in a space ship, a dinosaur, and a number of other objects that are clearly not an Albert Einstein.  My first impulse was to to put her out of her misery on the spot because she was an idiot and she didn't even know how much of an idiot she was. The place was full of wittiness so my next urge was to  wait for her to walk away and then to call her a no-IQ knuckle dragging bottom dweller to her back - I could have called her a no-IQ knuckle dragging bottom dweller to her face and I doubt she would have put together that I was talking to her. I  have no doubt she had spent the last couple of decades under a rock but I would bet cash money she knew who Dale Earnhardt was. She had certainly not spent a lot of time in school  or reading books or watching movies or having any contact with the culture around her. Then I wanted to tell her that Shaw University is right across the street and I'm sure that someone there might take pity on her, but they would probably  want to smack her too. The stupid, it burned.

Instead,  I said The white haired one. The only BOBBLE-HEAD one. The one that is not a dinosaur.  She brought me a handful of plastic and asked me to pick out what I wanted. I wanted a rock to club her with but they don't pack blunt objects into Happy Meals (anymore). I understand that Al Capone was a character in the movie but he does not get a happy meal toy, I think that's for the best. He was a psychopath after all and probably would have used the target audience for the toys as target practice if given the opportunity. I think it was a good call, the psychopath doesn't get on and the genius does. Good call.

But at the same time! Albert Einstein Bobble-head! The man was a genius,  a prophet maybe, the man who helped us see our world and brought other worlds into focus and for this he is introduced  to a new generation as a bobble-head. If I didn't want one so badly, I would feel very sad about it.

But now I have my own now, and I feel much better about it. 

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Garden Update 6

Yay! We have vegetables!

 
True, they are just wee little vegetables but! We have vegetables! The peppers aren't doing anything right now except making little flowers but it's also really early for peppers to be doing much more and my brocs, my poor baby brocs. Deep sigh. They are being eaten alive! By imported cabbage worms! I want to check for their green cards! And you know they never filled out their I9s! Where is Michell "Anchor Baby" Malkins outrage about these aliens? These nasty little green worms of doom or as they are more commonly known; The Spawns of Satan, must be stopped.  The little wormy beasts are so far completely unfazed by the rain of veggie napalm I've rained down on them and when I pick them off by hand (ick) they come back stronger. They are  the  stubborn gray hairs of horticultural pests. I am Lorelle! because thus far the most effect way to fight them to for me to stand over the plants and pick them off by hand, sadly, I do not think my boss would allow me to call in "gardening" - So sorry! I would love to be into day but I've got my hands full (literally) picking off these little green worms! I can't make it in today.

Along with the worms there has been so much growth and development over the last week, the jolly green tomato now taller than I am and has completely outgrown its cage!  I've had to tie it up, along with most of the other tomato plants because they are just going nuts. I did however, prune back my babies because the plants were wasting valuable resources on maintaing too many branches too near the ground. I did some looking online and found directions on how to  better care for my guys : prune everything back that is below the first set of flowers, get those bottom feeders out of there, and while you're at it? get rid of all those suckers and other branches that do not need to be there either. If it looks questionable and it doesn't have flowers attached to it? Make it go away. I made a lot of questionable branches go away and now my plants look better and have more resources to expend on growing fruits. Yay me.
Oh! I almost forgot! Even more awesome then my baby vegetables! 
  
My fully mature raspberries! 

Monday, June 1, 2009

Whatever your bag is

I'm not happy with my purse. Its okay, it's seasonally appropriate but it has issues. It doesn't have issues, I have issues with it. The strap is too short, its too hard to get into and its a little small and I carried it last year. It's a knock off of a purse that was cool last year but isn't being carried this year so I need a new purse. Really.

In years past when it was time to go purse shopping I did my research to see what was popular, in, out whatever and then I looked online and cruised Ebay to see what was already  available and if there was anything vintage that could pass for Now. A "in' purse is an easy way to stay current without having to buy skinny jeans or pseudo maternity tops. Purse shopping also protects me from swim suit shopping - which I also thought about doing but it occurred to me that I had eaten solids with in the last seventy-two hours so trying on suits was out of the question. With purse shopping you can eat,  it takes a very bad purse to make you look fat. It's possible though, always check in a mirror before taking a purse home.

The wrong purse scrunches your sleeve weird, or it doesn't mess up your clothes but it hits in the wrong place or the zipper is dumb or its too hard to get into quickly or the clasp is badly engineered. There are a lot of things to think about when buying a purse. it is impossible to over think this, you have to look at all the angles and try to go down all the annoying places the wrong purse will take you. You must be ever vigilant when purse shopping.

Well, I didn't do my research. I just got a wild hair and decided to look at purses. I had heard that fringe was back and I thought that was intriguing. I like fringe. But I don't know. Tiny might also think fringe is intriguing and I may not want to go there and, I mean, fringe is usually leather and I see leather as being more of a cold weather purse, not really appropriate for summer. But, what if in general, it doesn't matter? I mean I see other women carrying leather purses year round and it doesn't seem to make them sweat more. The world at large is not carrying straw purses. If I were in charge of course, things would be different but it becomes clearer every day that I am not in charge.

So I looked at fringed purses and frankly, they were very cute. They were small though and I need a larger bag. So I kept looking and I found a large enough bag with fringe that seemed really nice, but I put it over my shoulder and it was just so heavy and leathery or more accuratly, pleathery and I just could not imagine carrying this thing through a hot parking lot. I can't do it.  I'm going to need something fabric or woven or and no matter what, no animal prints! I came so close last year to getting  a zebra bag and then I didn't and I'm glad I didn't because they are everywhere now and they aren't cute.

So I looked on. TJ Max does not have the largest selection. I was shocked too. So it was off to Kohl's where I found a better selection but they more expensive and the fringe was tacky. It was not cool.  I'm going to spend the next week doing my homework. I need to know what's in, what's out, the "right" colors, the "right" fabrics the right kind of bling. I'll find out what they're selling at Nostrum and Saks and then I'll see what they're selling at Ross and Marshall's, I'm not going back to TJ Max.