Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Food for Thought

Do you know why the Marie Calenders  instant chocolate chip cookies were only $2 at Big Lotts? Because they suck. A huge amount. They are really, really not good and I'm pretty sure the instructions are wrong, okay, I'm sure the instructions are wrong. Just say No to Marie Calenders instant chocolate chip cookie mix. It was at Big Lotts for $2 for a reason.

Also? Did you know there is no TV on Tuesday night?! I mean,. for real. There is nothing on Tuesday nights, the programing people at the networks must have some sort of group hysteria or they were hypnotised or something because there is nothing on TV. Nine solid hours of test pattern, actually twelve if you count FAUX and , God, fifteen if you count whatever is The WB now. It's sad, it really is.

I had time to watch the stuff I have DVRed and thank gawd for the DVR.  Modern technology is indeed miraculous. I watched the first two episodes of Community and that was um, scripted television. Love Scripted Television. Love . It.  I'm glad I DVRed it. Totally. I like the guy from Talk Soup, a show I DVR sometimes when I remember to and it has Chevy Chase and a guy from The Daily Show and another girl I think was in a tampon commercial and the lady who plays a DA or something on Bones. A cast, yup, quite a cast.

I did like it though, it made me think of my halcyon days at Junior College and how little of it I actually remember. I do remember that I took English I and one semester the instructor was a Lawyer who was trying out this teaching gig and one day he announced we were going to have someone come in to observe and so he made us read "Death of a Salesman" and then broke us into groups and he assigned each group a character from the show and had us do character analysis of them. And then the observer came in a few group agave their little presentations and then the observer left and we never talked about "Death of a Salesman" again. Ever. It wasn't even on the final.

I also took another class where the instructor gave the same exact lecture two days in a row. Word for word and it took parts of the class almost the whole hour to figure it out. That instructor also said "um or uh" hundreds of times in an hour. I counted.

In another class, possibly a different semester of English I, another group and I wrote a paper about women's prisons - If you are a woman, never, ever, ever do anything bad because you will end up in a women's prison and they are horrible places. Women serve longer sentences then men do for the same crime and they don't get weight rooms or half way decent law libraries and everyone rapes them. Everyone. And no one cares about them because they are Bad Girls and society hates bad girls.

Oh. And over the weekend I bought a rake. The really neat ergonomic rake I wanted is no longer in fashion and is apparently "Soooo 2004" and why did I even bother looking for one because  "everyone" knows that what is in now are adjustable metal rakes or these groovy plastic rakes with new and improved tines that don't get clogged. My rake is not one of the above but it does feature a padded handle and that ergos my nomics.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

There is something about Dogger...

Well. Dogger is fine. I took her in for x-rays Friday morning and the vet told me that there is nothing wrong with her knee and while she does have some arthritis in her hips, its a very small amount. She's fine. Thank You God.

 He had me make an appointment for two weeks hence and he'll re-examine her then. I doubt he's going to find anything because whatever it is will have gone away until the next time.

It makes it hard. Do I ignore the lameness? This time I gave her a week to get better and  now nine days later she's looking a lot better. Is this going to happen a lot?  No explanation for the sudden lameness. Nada.  While I'm very happy that they didn't find anything there, no tumors, breaks,  infections, malformations, scar tissue issues - I don't like that there is no answer. If nothing is broken than nothing can be fixed.  I was hoping that we could fix whatever it is and Dogger wouldn't have to go through this again. She had made so much progress since the summer and now we're back to where we were in May. She's had a few instances of sudden lameness but they have lasted a day or so, this time it's been over a week and its not going away like it has in the past.

The earlier episodes she would limp around for a day or so, I would give her one her pills and then go back to where she was, this time the pills are working but when this happened before they were like magic bullets. They aren't quite blanks yet but... she is getting better but not to where she was and that worries me.

But, she is getting better. We weren't able to walk at all last week but on Sunday we went for two walks and we walked three times on Monday. Short walks, but walks. We went for our third walk Monday night and Dogger really wanted to go further, I had to bribe her with cookies to get her aimed back at the house. Walks  make her tired though, I noticed she was much more perky on Saturday than she was on Sunday but she had all that energy because she had been housebound for over a week and on Sunday she was going on walks and was no longer suffering from cabin fever and was feeling calmer.

She does well on her walks, but around the house she's still hopping around on three feet or walking with a pronounced limp. When she hurry, which she is a lot around the house, she doesn't put weight on it at all. When she's outside she's much better at using all four feet and being weight bearing on the bad leg. I used to call this "June", I would hate to think that all that rehab work and progress was for not.  The everything-is-great-everything-is-shite pattern is not good for Dogger and I'm not happy about it either. The everything-is-good phase artificially gets our hopes up, expesacly when it lasts for months. The few weeks of everything-is-shite phase really bursts our bubble. I again got used to her being good and getting better everyday and making nice progress. This non-good-non-progress thing sucks for us.

 Dogger hadn't been to the vet for her knee since before I left for vacation.

 This is the same pattern that she has displayed in the past, right after her surgery and all those infections and random pieces of jutting plastic and they couldn't find anything then either. If I had a lot of money I would find out what.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Garden Update 12

At this point I thinking I would be posting some sort of Garden 2009 post mortem. I did not think I would still be harvesting much less planting (deep sigh) I was not going to replant the brocs. They were more trouble then they were worth, I did not love picking wormies off them, they were the only plants that required pesticides and they were hardly blockbuster producers, but I did find that they will grow here and more importantly, I can grow them. It would be so awesome to have broccoli from my own garden to serve at Thanksgiving.



I know! And what's worse? They are planted within sight of the brocs I pulled out.



The good news is that the new plants are still too short to see over the bed "walls" and the other ones are too dead to know there are new kids in the ground. There are a couple of other  plants, ones pepper and one tomato, I might be getting rid of soon because they aren't producing and no longer need to be there and need to move on to their new lives as mulch. My other plants are going like gangbusters though.













Wow! And I'm pretty sure that all these fruits are going to mature. I think the plants are really enjoying the cooler-ish weather that we are getting right now and they seem to be taking advantage of it.We've also had a couple of days of light rain and high humidity and it's showing. I was having problems with wilty plants, even with daily watering and that was frustrating to one and all but right now the plants and I would be happy with a few days of sunshine.

The plants are not going to be productive forever though. I was going to pull everything out all at once and put away franken hose and throw out the rubber mulch and think about what I want to do for next season. I all ready know that I am going to say "yes" to another season of Spanish Flag and "no" to more plant strangling morning glories.



family picture

There is more to my garden then just vegetables. I also have managed to keep my flowers alive all summer too. No one is more shocked than I am. I had planned over vacation to immediately rip out my of-course-dead flowers in the front and replant some fall hardy flowers. But then when I came home they hadn't died! And since then they have only gotten better looking. The veggies aren't the only plants enjoying our fall weather.






Sunday, September 27, 2009

HAPPY   SUNDAY  !!!!!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

HAPPY    SATURDAY   !!!!!!

Friday, September 25, 2009

Friday Kitten and Dogger Blogging




I'm taking the day off to take Dogger and myself to doctors appointments. I'm fine but Dogger may not be. If you have a moment think positive thoughts for Dogger and her X-ray results.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Census Worker Lynched

Sparkman was found this month hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest, a law enforcement official said Wednesday, and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.

census worker lynched?

Whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment? They are comfortable with "whether"?. He was hung from a tree and they wrote "fed" on his chest. I don't think "whether" is appropriate. He was lynched because he was from the government. And "they" called us unpatriotic. HA.

An ACORN office, one! Gets railroaded and liberals everywhere are whore mongers. The rightwing KILLS PEOPLE and nothing. Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin and FAUX News made this happen.
Num,num, num

I just finished baking cookies and my house smells so good! I need to bake people cookies more often. Usually when I bake, I bake for dogs and my house reeks of garlic. For days.

The smell was the nicest thing about those cookies. Martha Stewart can kiss my ass. Now I know what the recipe called for belt-and-suspenders coverage when it came to the dough. It called for parchment paper and Pam and flour and it didn't take me long to  figure out why. Gawd. over peanut buttered dog cookie dough has nothing on Martha dough.

Pain in the ass dough. Total pain in the ass dough. Sticky and crumbly AT THE SAME TIME! I think that's quite an accomplishment for dough. A pain in the ass accomplishment. A horror just a horror. I tried really hard to do what Martha wanted to. I refrigerated the dough  over night  which turned the dough in into rocks. Rocks are so easy to roll out. Just fabulous, I  nuked the rocks and got them to a state where they could be rolled out as directed.

Sigh

I worked really on on the first dozen shaped cookies. I was sad. I was tired and  I was sad. Martha's cookies made me sad. Martha was mean to me. Bad Martha.

I called my Mommy and told her to make Martha stop being mean to me. My mother told me to step away from the cookie cutter and to stop the madness. She suggested I get the mess into a lump and then spoon the dough up and then squish it and forget trying to cut it into shapes. I stepped away from the Martha and grabbed a spoon.

The recipe claimed it made eight dozen. It did not. It made about two and a half dozen and even then my cookies were smaller than the suggested 3 1/2  inch cookies that Martha wanted. This made me panicky, when I make dog cookies I average about 144+ per batch so this forty or so cookies seemed really wrong and  wasteful. I had to step away from the dog cookie comparisons and embrace the people cookies I did get and do you know what I got? sugar cookies! they're just sugar cookies! All this for sugar cookies! Martha should burn in hell.



Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Hello!

So, how's Dogger?

Dogger is about the same as she was yesterday. She's a little more annoyed with me today than she was yesterday but frankly, I pay the bills around here and she doesn't. I decided that for her own safety, that she should be crated until we know for sure whats going on. She's happy in her room on her bed but I am  not happy about her falling off her bed as she is want to do when she only has three working legs and I al also afraid of her losing her balance while trying to stand up on her bed and further injuring herself. There is also the matter of her spending too much time on the carpet causing more damage to the skin on her elbows.

I relented a little bit and decided that at night she could be in her room because she sleeps all night and doesn't do a lot of wandering around. During the day, while she's awake and more likely to try to move around, she'll be in her huge, padded crate.

She's eating and drinking well and is "eliminating"  normally too. Yay. Friday I am taking off work to take the both of us to doctors appointments. The vet said I would  need to if Dogger wasn't back to normal by Thursday and I can tell you now, she's not going to be back there by Thursday, that she would need to be brought in for X-rays on Friday.  I am also going to the doctor but I won't be getting sedated or x-rayed.

On non-Dogger-news, I made the cookie dough for my Martha Stewart sugar cookies and I went to a very boring meeting of the party's Wake Country Executive Committee to learn about local races and to elect three folks to some other more important committee. We also learned about the upcoming School Board elections  TO BE HELD OCTOBER 6 WAKE COUNTY and how these are the most important elections of our...  Well, not that important  but pretty damn important because if the Republican slate wins they will re-segregate the Wake County schools.

The sad thing is that no one is going to vote and that always  bodes well for the Rethuglicans and their mouth breathing, racist minions. So we all need to look alive and get out there and GOTV and make people know what is riding on this election. Silence does actually equal death.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Sick Puppy Part 256

Well. How was your weekend? Dogger had a sucky weekend and mine wasn't great either. On the upside, only one of us is limping.

And the one who is limping would not be me.  Dogger may have did have a set back.  We had been so careful for so long and those behaviors had become pretty much second nature. Pretty much.  Now she's limping, holding the leg up and whimpering. That started Friday night, after we had our Oops.

And it wasn't a big accident, it wasn't even an accident. We were on a sidewalk and we were walking along and a lady with baby carriage was approaching us. One one side of the side walk was a very mild embankment and on the other is a busy street. It wasn't going to be a choice of who went into the street. I moved Dogger over and the baby carriage went past. Dogger spent about a tenth of a second on the embankment and we went on our way. As we got to the house the neighbors across the street were outside and so we went to speak with them. The kids love Dogger and I haven't had a chance to speak with their Mother. Dogger got worshiped and the Mother and I had a nice conversation. Okay.

We had been standing there for a while and Dogger decided to lay down. This is normal for her, she doesn't like standing for long periods.  I took the hint and brought her inside for her dinner, as we were walking towards the house she was holding her leg up and limping. This has happened before and it goes away, it didn't go away.

Monday we went to the vet and he did a lot of stretching and manipulating  of her leg. She did not like it. I thought it might be her hip but he wasn't able to find any real problems with the hip, Thank-You-God, and he began to focus on her knee. He discovered a lot of swelling in her knee and couldn't really feel anything in there with that in the way. He put her on anti-inflammatories and gave her a week to get better. If by Thursday she's not back to normal she's getting sedated and and x-rayed on Friday morning. I all ready have a doctors appointment with an actual people doctor on Friday, now I might have to take the day.

Please think happy thoughts for my doggy.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Emmy Awards results 2009
(I stay awake so you don't have to)

(8:00) Doogies' song is not making me happy. He  can  sing  but... Not a win. He does look nice in his white dinner jacket, yes, gentlemen you can wear white after labor day.

Comedy Awards

Best Supporting Actress - (8:10) Kristin Chenowith, Pushing Daisies YAY!!!

I would have been happy with most of the nominees but I really wanted her to win. If you didn't watch PD and lets face it, you did not,  if you had watched it, it would still be on TV. It's on DVD and you should Netflix it. You should have watched it when it was on TV but... Anyway, I'm glad she won.

Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series - (8:19)  30 Rock

Woo! Yay  30 Rock . It can't win enough. Love it.

Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series - (8:23)  Jon Cryer,  Two and a Half Men . Ew. Really? Loved him as Duckie, not fond of him as a Republican.

Its not the obnoxious time wasters from the show that are killing time, its the endless commercials.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a  Comedy Series - (8:32)  Toni Collette,  United States of Tara

Whatevs. Gossip Girl is  really a TV show? I did not know that. I'm old. I don't have to.

Outstanding Direction in a Comedy Series (8:40) - Jeffery Blitz, The Office

The Cowboys are down by 3.  Have I mentioned that I don't think its great that "competitive" Kaitlyn gave her loser brother a hotel? Kaitlyn needs to man up.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series -  Alec Baldwin,  30 Rock.

Tonight is the Loren Michael's appreciation awards. He's been mentioned more than  30 Rock. Is he dieing or something? I hope not.

Reality Awards.

(8:53) I could care less. I call this the portion of the evening where I take the dog out to pee and  then vacuum up the remains of Doggers most recently destroyed toy. I would wait, but Reality.


Touch down Cowboys! Woo. Now that's what I can reality TV. Woo! "Watching" results on my new phone. So cool. Less woo, TD Giants. Oops. I  was away too long, the Awards show started without me and got back to scripted programming.

Mini-Series Awards

Outstanding Actress Mini-Series/Made for TV movie -  Talented Iranian actress House of Sadam
Outstanding Supporting Actor  Mini-Series/Made for TV movie - Ken Howard,  Gray Gardens

Cowboys!  The fuck. These are The Giants. Come on! Giants up by 6.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Mini-Series - Brendon Gleason, Into the storm

The gowns are not impressing me. Prom gowns circa 1986.

Outstanding Writing Mini-Series - Andrew Davis,  Little Dorit. I would also assume, Dickens also gets a statue, maybe the estate gets it.

Outstanding Directing Mini-Series - Davila Walsh,  Little Dorit, pt. 1

Accountants explaining "counting". Ohhh. Dr. Horrible instead. Okay. Cool. It would have been significantly less cool if Doogie had made an appearance. The nights young and he does have a long resume.

Cowboys up by 1! Whoop!

Outstanding  Lead Actress in A Mini-Series/Made for TV Movie - (9:31) Jessica Lang,  Gray Gardens.

Thanks to CBS relentless humping of its shows during the commercial breaks I have learned that there isn't anything on the network I am going to watch.

Outstanding Mini- Series/Made for TV Movie -  (9:40) Gray Gardens.
Outstanding Mini-Series - (9:42)  Little Dorit

I can't tell the difference between Mini-Series and Mini-Series Made for TV Movie.

Variety/Musical/Comedy Awards

Outstanding  Directing Variety/Musical/Comedy -(9:48) Bruce Cowers,  American Idol
Outstanding Writing Varity/Musical/Comedy - (9:52) The Daily Show

Cowboys!? Come on! Are you kidding?

Time waste with Tommy Fallen .

Outstanding Variety/Musical/Comedy Special - 81st Academy Awards Opening number.
Outstanding Variety/Music/Comedy Series -(10:06) The Daily Show

Drama Awards

Outstanding Supporting Actor - Michael Emmerson, Lost
Outstanding Supporting Actress - Cherry Jones, 24
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama - Ellen Burston, Law & Order Special Victims Unit
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama - Micheal J. Fox,  Rescue Me
Outstanding Director Drama - Rod Holcomb, ER
Outstanding Writing for  Drama - Mad Men
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama -(10:39) Glenn Close,  Damages
Outstanding Lead Actor  in a Drama - (10:46) Bryan Cranston,  Breaking Bad

What  again? Come on! What does Hugh Laurie have to do to win this award? It's just not fair.

What  is  fair? Cowboys up by 4!

Giants over the Cowboys 33-31. Blergh.

Outstanding Comedy Series - 30 Rock  Woo!!!
Outstanding Drama Series -  (10:58)  Mad Men
HAPPY    SUNDAY   !!!!!!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

HAPPY   SATURDAY  !!!!!!!

Friday, September 18, 2009



Friday Kitten Blogging

I'm coming for you Sockington.
Mission Unaccomplished.

I used to have a rake. It was nice, padded handle,  early version ergonomic rake end, I really liked it. I really like my leaf blower too but the leave blower just blows and sometimes the leaves need more direction; for it those cases you need a rake. A good rake. A rake with a padded handle and an ergonomic rake end. And then my rake disappeared.

I decided that before we get into All the leaves are brown and the skies are gray territory, that I would be proactive and go and get a new one. I looked online and did some price checking and I learned that very few outlets have rakes at this time of  year. They are all excited about selling halloween costumes, but they don't want to sell leave rakes. I think the cherry picking is ugly.

Its fall it's autumn it's leaves falling and scarecrows and pumpkins and Halloween and sweaters and all that. And do you know what all those things have in common? Rakes! I want my rake. I asked the birthday fairy for a rake and the birthday fairy came up dry, so I went to get a rake. One of the few places that advertised online as having my rake was Target. I did a bad thing. A dangerous thing. I went to Target.

Well. I looked all over that Target. I found three rakes but they were all the wrong rake. How dare online Target lie to me? They said they had the rake and they did not. They had an old fashioned, non-ergonomic version, a new fashioned retractable model, which I'm sure is charming and funny and tells interesting stories but I don't want that kind! I want one that makes me look borderline pretentious. I want one of those rakes. And damn it, Target was supposed to carry it for $25.  And they did not, not for any price. I hope Target doesn't make me wait until all the leaves are brown and piled up in my yard before they get my rake out on the floor. Once I have my future  rake, it could also disappear at some point, but then I see myself going on a killing spree. I'm going to have to take better care of any future rake, for the sake of humanity.

I was in a Target and I was there to spend money and I was thwarted  but I was still going to spend money. Damn it. So I spent money. Instead of a rake, I bought a neat black and purple plastic plate, two solar lights that change color - On sale! and a Snoopy mug for a dollar. I  spent slightly less than what I was going to spend on my rake. I hate Target.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Living

It felt like the day was wearing a wool sweater. It never got light and the air weighed about three tons. I had a headache all day long. I did, however, ride my bike at lunch for the first time since before vacation and it felt great.

Dogger seemed to like it all right too, we went on three walks and she bounded right along. I never know with humid days whether they they are going to bother her or not, I think it depends on how damp it is. Humid and warm and she's okay, humid and cool and she limps. I noticed over vacation where it was cooler and damper than it is here she had some problems with her joints that she didn't have here,I had some pain meds with me from the surgeon those days but I think I'm going to need a different solution for the winter so she doesn't become drug dependent. I could see her bypassing begging at the table to full on panhandling at corners. A canine junkie. Do you think they have veterinary methadone clinics?

But I do need to get the wheels moving on getting her some pain management before we enter winter and Dogger develops pain that needs to be managed.  I don't want her in pain and the added stress that pain brings to her system isn't good for her Addison's. I need to speak to her regular vet and get Dogger in there for a visit and see what she thinks.

I'm pretty sure that Dogger has arthritis in both knees and maybe her one hip and I'm going to ask if the vet would suggest that we start her on.  I'm hoping she gives her okay for doggy or even human Glucosamine or Chondroitin or something like them,  I all ready know that Addison dogs can take those because they have been mentioned on the otherwise alarmist Addison dogs yahoo site and they see death and  potential Addison's Crisis around ever corner. Their poor dogs can't bark at the postman without being rushed to the vet for an emergency electrolyte test. I feel bad for their dogs, because they have people that won't let them be dogs.

The ortho dogs site people have fewer neuroses and more fragile dogs and yet those people let their dogs be dogs.  It seems to be a battle between being the struggle to keep your dog alive and the courage to let the dog live. Poor Dogger is both medically and physically fragile, but shhh, don't tell her, she thinks she's Wonder Dog.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Best laid plans

Before I left for vacation I made an appointment with my doctor for a my Yearly.  I don't love it, but the best way to stay a Well Woman is to make those Well Woman appointments every year to make sure you stay Well. Fine. I'm a grown up and I made the appointment months ago, I would have liked to get in or some time sooner than four months later but what can you do?  Much time passes.

It is now time for the appointment. I told my boss months ago and she scheduled my time off. I took the time off, it was a great day for it too. The boss was busy all morning and  she had my list ( a really short one!) ready when I walked in the door, I got all my daily tasks taken care of  and I felt good about leaving the fort.

I walked in the  doctors office door, early, thank you TomTom!  and went to check in and found out they had been looking for me on Monday! I don't make appointments on Monday's. Mondays are very bad for me at work. I wouldn't schedule anything on a Monday and I know I didn't schedule this. Apparently when the office person said September 15th she really meant September 14th, I heard the 15th and planned accordingly. It was really the fourteenth.

They couldn't get me in on the fifteenth and my doctor wasn't there anyway. Super.

I decided that since I have about seven houndred hours of accrued sick time, that even though I had no appointment that  I wasn't going back to work! Sacrilege. I looked at it as by the time I took lunch since I was starving after having been fasting all day for  non-existent blood work,  that I would go back to work for a total of two hours. I had worked very hard to make sure I got my whole day taken care of before I left, I didn't have anything I needed wanted to do back at my desk anyway so I played hooky. I went to  the nearby Whole Wallet and bought some relatively inexpensive maple syrup for my cookies and even found  something similar to the sugar topping the recipe calls for. I ate my lunch and then I went home. It was 2:30pm.

And my mail wasn't there yet. Monday it didn't arrive at all and I had left a Netflix envelope out so I knew the mail guy never got there. Speaking of mail, I found a box to send the dog cookies to my old friends' new puppy and I decided I was going to mail that and then go investigate my missing mail. I went to post office one and took care of my outgoing mail and then went to post office two to find out what happened with my incoming mail. No, I can't kill two birds with one stone. I could have but I just now put it together, I could have just gone to post office two, my "official" post office and took care of my mailing needs but I didn't do that.

Once at post office two and I was  told the man I needed was down the way. We spoke. I found out my mail route is mail route #9 and that Monday my mail guy was on the job and he didn't bring anything back with him, so maybe I just didn't get any mail. I said that wasn't the problem.  I had mail to post and it wasn't picked up and that was a problem. The guy agreed. He said Monday should have been no problem, today I might have a problem because the "route had been split and is being taken care of by several different carriers". Super, I said. I told the man I just wanted to tattle on his guy and by the way the street has had problems with mail being mis-delivered lately.

When I got back home I still didn't have my mail.

Not being at work is so nice. I got my errands run, I watered the front flowers, picked some peppers, washed the dog and her bedding, and vacuumed her room, emptied and filled the dishwasher and  tattled in the mail guy. I think I still got a good days work

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Diana Stewart

Have I mentioned how much fun I'm having with my new toy? I'm having lot's of fun. So far I've made a meatloaf and a batch of dog cookies! When I play I play hard.

My original idea was to christen my new toy with a people cookie recipe - Wild, I know! because I thought that it would be nice to take my toy out for a test spin with actual people food instead of dog treats. While I was on vacation I found this completely awesome cookie recipe in the back of a seven-month-old Martha Stewart Living and I couldn't wait to try it out. When I got the mixer I thought that it was a match made in heaven -  a new awesome mixer and a  new awesome recipe, what could be better?

And then I started to read the recipe in detail. I don't keep grade A maple syrup - Martha  insists that I use pure maple syrup instead of a lesser imitation, she totally read my pancake syrup substituting thoughts, or light brown sugar or sanding sugar or parchment , which is apparently not the same thing as what the Declaration of Independence is written on around the house and I'm not sure my freezer is big enough for a cookie sheet unless its okay for the cookies to bunk with bags of boneless-skinless chicken breasts.  I bet Martha has a special cookie freezer.

It goes onto say Coat baking sheets with cooking spray, line with parchment and coat parchment. How badly behaved is this dough? I mean what the hell? I've made really badly disciplined over-peanut buttered peanut butter dog treats that weren't that sticky. At the end it says cookies will keep for up to 2 days, again, the hell? Two days? Shit. She must mean "Will will keep for two days if left uncovered on the kitchen counter top in an unconditioned house. In August. With the windows shut.". It says it makes 8 dozen cookies... exactly how many of these does Martha think we can eat in two days? And even if we give them away, do you add a note in the clever-hand made-Martha Stewart-y gift box that the giftee better eat these but fast because in less than forty-eight hours the cookies are going to wilt? I mean come on! She can't tell me these cookies have less of a shelf life than a trout.

Even I can't put away eight dozen cookies in two days and I can put away cookies. I'm a machine.  I'm going to make those damn cookies. The Kitchenaid demands it.

I didn't make the cookies first, I made other things first. I met myself half way though, the first thing I made with the mixer was people food. I made a divine meatloaf - the texture was better when the machine did the stirring,  the ingredients were all evenly integrated and it just tasted better than my last loaf. The next day I got word that an old friend (Thank you Facebook!) just got a new puppy and new puppies need homemade dog cookies. Old puppies need them too, Dogger is getting very spoiled by the store bought cookies I've been giving her, and then I thought about the new next doors and that they have a dog and wouldn't it be neighborly to bring them some dog cookies as well? And sadly, I've lost two dogs from my holiday dog cookie list over the last year and I need to fill those spaces. I'm hoping that these new dogs will like the cookies and I can add them to Aunt Cookies list.

The mixer did a bang up job with the cookie dough. I've never had the opportunity to use a dough hook before and damned if it didn't work like a charm. The dough was much smoother and softer than when I did the kneading by hand. I still had to do some, but the machine took care of about 3/4 of the heavy lifting kneading-wise. I just stood there and added a little more water and a little more flour and the machine did the rest. All I had to do was the "fun part".

And it was fun.  Yay. Small kitchen appliance win!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Garden Update 11

I'm back! I'm still tired but now I don't need twelve hours of sleep a night. I'm good with nine or ten.  Things are looking up, eventually I'm hoping to be able to be able to stay up until after dark.

Anyway. Garden Update 11 Time!

Well. Things have changed.

Things are a little sparser then they used to be, a little less full, a little less fertile a little less.  I think I went on vacation at a critical time for the garden and it suffered while I was gone. I didn't know that it was going to miss me!  I told everyone I know to go and get tomatoes and peppers and brocs but sadly, no one was able to and I think it really hurt the gardens feelings and it just stopped.
I feel really bad about the broccolis. I spent a lot of time worrying on them and picking wormies off them and now they've bolted!... I have failed them.

I was so into them before I left for vacation but three weeks without them and I just lost the plot. The good news is that 1) they do grow here and 2) I can grow them. Knowing that, next spring, I'm not sure I'm going to plant them again because they were the highest maintenance of any of the plants I put in and I'm not into high maintenance. I'm Ms. Green Pinky finger when it comes down to it.

The peppers are still rolling along.

I think all the peppers are producing a good little end-of-season-crop for me. Once this group is harvested though I'm going to pull the plants out. The same goes for the tomatoes and they aren't producing nearly as well as the peppers. I'm not holding my breath for the tomatoes to ripen.
In the defence of the tomatoes, there may very well be more of them out there but there is this gigantic spider web constructed in the airspace over the part of the garden where the tomatoes are planted and I am scared of the spider web. It's huge and I don't want to  meet the maker of it under any circumstances. Also? spiders are supposed to be our friends and eat all the bad bugs? I found a bad bug on one of my pepper plants and that tells me all I need to know about the spider who built that web.
I think the garden has about another two weeks in the ground to produce what it's going to produce because once the peppers are a leetle more mature I'm going to harvest the lot of them and pull the plants out and remove the rubber mulch and figure out how I'm going to store Frankenhose for next year, and later that day? start thinking about what I'm going to plant in the spring.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

HAPPY   SUNDAY  !!!!!!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

HAPPY   SATURDAY   !!!!!!!

Friday, September 11, 2009

Friday Kitten Blogging

Today is September 11, 2009. The eighth anniversary. May The Lord have mercy on us all.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Coming Soon!

-Friday Kitten Blogging!
-Garden Update 11!
-Fun with my new Kitchenaid!

And much. much more!

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

A day without Cat Blogging

In honor of  9-9-09,  A Day Without Cat Pictures on the Internet, I bring you :

Dogger Blogging! All Dogger all the time!!!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

And now for something completely different...

I'm sick. I have a raw throat, a hoarse voice and I feel like crap. I'm feeling  mildly better now,  in that I no linger see tearing my head of at my neck as a workable solution to my issues, but I spent the three day weekend in hell. The beach does not have the curative powers one might imagine. I might have strep throat, H1N1 or just the creeping crud but I feel awful and the best way to feel better is to get rest. To that end, I will be going to bed early - What does this mean to you, a reader? I write these entries in the evening, a time of the day I plan on be asleep until whatever this is runs its course and leaves me the hell alone. I'll still post, but it will be lightly. Please don't abandon me!

I'll be back soon.

Monday, September 7, 2009

HAPPY   LABOR  DAY   !!!!!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

HAPPY     SUNDAY   !!!!!!!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

HAPPY   SATURDAY  !!!!

Friday, September 4, 2009

Friday We Support The Public Option Kitten Blogging

Tiny  fully supports the public option and  says thhrrpt to the haters.
Face Blergh

Today I posted this as my Facebook status

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day

I wasn't the only one, it was a meme and it even hit Wonkette. It was not a big deal. I support health care reform. Period. Well. I  cut and pasted it from another FB friend who all ready had it as her status, posted it and went back to work - about ten minutes later I got a message from yet another friend apologizing for some post she made to my wall.

The Hell? I thought, and I went to go check this out.

Yeah. One of my old  soccer team friends took offence to a positive view on health care reform and spewed right-wing hate all over my page. The other girl had responded in horror and instead of backing off, right-wing hag just kept going. It was not pretty. I finally waded in and responded to a long winded rant about the constitution with "Whatever". It was meant to stop the madness. Fine. I thought we were done. I was.

No. Right-wing hag responded with "Diana, you are better than whatever!" and then  repeated more of her relevant constitutional bull shit  I haven't spoken to this woman in twenty-nine years, who the hell is she to tell me how I should respond to her spew? I mean really! I was all ready to  get all You don' know me beyotch!  The other girl responded back and then I did and ultimately, I decided to end the circus by responding to the hag with : I completely disagree with you but I respect your right to have your opinion.  Donesky. I wanted to say "You are wrong and stupid. DIAF".

The good thing was that after she put her ugly spew on my page the Good Guys came to the rescue and posted many, many responses in support of  health care reform! It was great. And? I noticed a couple of more No one should die... statusi. I started off  pissed and defensive and then ended up feeling all warm and fuzzy.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Happy Birthday to Me!

I got some neat stuff for my birthday. Broskey, Alphagal and my parents were very generous and thoughtful and got me just about everything on my list including things I hadn't thought of.  I got something from everyone but me. I fixed that.


How sexy is that? Now, true, I didn't buy new, I live on a budget after all and these puppies are pricey. But. I got a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer and it is the awesome. And do you know that you can get a universe of stuff for it?  It's like a train set for women.

I did initially want one in a color, they come in all the colors and I thought it would be neat to have one in blue or yellow or orange - it's going to have to sit on the counter so it should make a statement, but the colorful ones don't come up used on ebay for some reason. There was a lovely pine green one that I really wanted but it got expensive really fast and I had to let it go.  There was a  used pink one and a yellow one came up too, but neither of them came with all the parts and they were $50 more to start so  they never went past "watch" status. My machine is a boring white model but it comes with all its parts and it works and I got it for $100! I'm thinking that since it's kind of a blank slate that I can build on that. I'm thinking either cool stickers or beige appliance paint to match my large appliances.

I'm so excited! I knew I wanted one of my own after I borrowed Alphagals last fall for Operation Dog Cookie and I fell in love. Alphagal is also the one who turned me on to the idea of getting a used model. I had thought I was going to have to look everywhere forever for a sale or suck it up and buy a new one - Not likely. I could have waited for the gift fairy but I don't feel comfortable saying Dear Santa, bring  me a  $356 mixer. In robins' egg blue or mint green or bright yellow or burnt orange.   I just don't think I could do that

And now I don't have to!

Dear Santa, 

Please bring me toys for my toy.

That I feel totally comfortable with.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

How the other half lives

I was sitting in Sam's the other day reading Martha Stewart Living, which I'm sure would horrify Martha. There are very few Good Things at Sam's Club.

In the magazine I learned that in Martha's world, we don't get out flower pots from Lowes, we get our flower pots from artisan flower pot makers in rural Vermont or Connecticut who create each pot by hand in a gorgeous rustic barn. These lovely hand thrown pots also come with the name of our manor house engraved in them and while they are pretty, they are hardly winter tolerant and they have to be brought inside. She does admit that amassing a collection of these  beautiful, collectible flower pots is an "investment".

On the other hand, in  Diana's World,  my pots are made by Chinese political prisoners in  ugly, fortress prisons and the pots come engraved with their point of origin. My pots live outside year around and I use them until they snap apart in my hands or they get icky with bugs at which point I either recycle them away or if they are really icky, I throw them away. I do admit that amassing a collection of these cheap, ugly plastic bins is hardly an investment.

Speaking of spending a lot of money for something.  I went to another open house in the nab. I have been watching the property slowly getting renovated over the last couple of months or so and  I noticed in the days before I left for vacation they had  started trying to dial up its non-existant curb appeal. It looks like an orphan piece of base housing but I guess that a more charitable way of describing it would be "mid-century gem".

It's more like a diamel.  I noticed in the literature that they talked up the living/dinning/kitchen spaces and the large deck without mentioning the really, really, really little bedrooms. The place is tiny, but it is a really nice place and they did a remarkable job with it. It does have covered parking and a nice yard and if you are looking for downtown living you could do worse for a lot more.

I had a nice chat with the realtor and I mentioned in passing  that the night her neighbors down the street  needed to dump a body, they went right through her yard to dump it at the end of my street, she countered that they had fenced the yard. And then I asked how how much they were asking ... When I stopped laughing, I told them they weren't going to get that and that it was priced close to my neighbors renovated house that only sold after it was on the market for ten months and the price was reduced $50k from the original asking. The realtor countered with an apocryphal story of a slightly larger house a block over that went for the same price in only four days. I countered with that a block over it was in a historic neighborhood and people are stupid. In the neighborhood she's in, she's going to have to pray for a real moron.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Pot

When I was in Marquette, the last few days of our trip coincided with the college kids coming back to Northern for the fall semester. I thought How cute! Awe. The seasons are changing and the kids are coming back and the leaves are turning. Awe. College kids are awfully cute when they  belong to someone else. The kids coming back to  NCSU are a lot less cute.

These kids use up all the tubes going to the Internet and make it difficult for me to get online. Like really, really hard for me to get online. Bastards. I hate kids. The Northern students are much more polite and don't take up the townies Internet connections and they aren't in the way or hogging parking places I might want or causing lines all over the place. And if they could, those damn kids would probably be on my lawn too.

But it's okay. I'm on now and that's what counts.  Deep breaths.

Since I've been home, I've been thinking  a lot about my raspberry bushes. They were gorgeous and they gave me berries and then they were still mostly gorgeous and then they kind of got less gorgeous and stopped with the berry making and then I pretty much stopped thinking about them - which made me sad -  but they had still had all these really neat leaves and  they blended with my other plants. Then while I was on vacation, the raspberrries noticed it was the end of the summer and they kind of lost interest. And leaves.  I decided that at the end of the season I would replant them in larger pots and hope for the best next spring. Well,  to do this I would need pots. Big pots. Big potentially expensive pots - and so I went to Poverty Barn and  fully expected to hit the mother load of marked down pots. I found a mother load of Christmas decorations and Halloween costumes but no pots. This made me a little tense.

So I went to Wally-World during the time frame I would have taken Dogger on her post-dinner walk but it was raining and we had all ready had our pre-dinner walk in the light rain and I wasn't looking to slog through heavier rain. I was also hoping to make it a quick trip because I  was keeping the hope alive that the rain would stop and we could still go for our walk. It didn't and we didn't. It was still pouring when I left Wally-World with my pots!

Yes, Wally-World still had pots. Not only still had them, they hadn't really marked them down very much - Disappointing but I was able to get some bigger pots and they are pretty. If I had waited for them to go close out there wouldn't be any pretty ones left and I like pretty. The pots I ended up with will still blend beautifully with my theme of "Clearance Table Chic/Cracked and Damaged/Shop Worn" that I have going on now.

I didn't end up getting the ginormous pots I thought I was in the market for, but this way there are still pots that I can move  them up to  when they need to - I think.  I don't know anything about re-potting plants. I don't know if the size of the pot you plant them into matters as long as its larger than the one it came out of. It may not even be that they have outgrown their pots, they may have grubs or grasshoppers or something else that could make them sad. But since they don't appear eaten or  seem to be dieing I'm going with potbound.  When is "the end of the season" exactly?