TGIF
Well that was unsatisfactory. A whole flock of tiny dogs had taken over the small dog park - Don’t they know? That space isn’t just a small dog park, it’s Doggers dog park sanctuary! And later, when we tried to play at the baseball park? There were a whole bunch of kids waiting to get into play kickball. The nerve. It’s a baseball field or my big dogs park. I am sure a memo went out, people need to check their email more often. Hmmph.
All that means that Dogger did not get an adequate recreation period earlier and I’m going to have to take her out again - Which is fine, we like exercise, but. Still. Now I’m annoyed. It’s not like I don’t have enough to keep myself busy. For instance? I have three shows that are airing at 10pm! I have to plan ahead. I’m going to watch E.R, probably upstairs, tape Ace of Cakes in the living room and Without a Trace in the office. I went months without having three things to watch in a week and now three at one time! That’s not even mentioning that 30 Rock is back finally! and I have all this running around to do because I’m scheduled to leave town after work today so I have all that to do as well. I was hoping to be able to cross off : Exercise Dogger from my list of things to do. But right now she doesn’t look like she really wants to exercise, she was stunned to day to face actual heat when she went outside, she was like What the hell? What is this? I’m panting? That’s it, I’m going back inside and I’m staying there until November. Global warming sucks.. Dogger doesn’t really like being warm, she is at her happiest when things freeze to her nose. That isn’t going to happen, she’s going to be in for a big surprise when it really becomes A/C weather and I still expect her to go outside .
List, list. Like right now for instance? If I had a list, it would probably say that right now I should be making sure I have adequate video tapes for the evening. It’s been months, they might have all rotted away from disuse. Do I have any functioning tapes? If I had a list, I would know this. I suck.
I thought I had packed everything I would need, but then I found out that Bill Clinton him own self is going to be in my parents town on Saturday and so of course I had to find my official Democratic Party Tee-shirt! I packed away most of my tee-shirts a few weeks ago, yeah, well, better late then never and I was pretty sure where it was but then I had to unpack most of my tee shirts and that took time, but I did find it and then, I even remembered after I had found it? to pack it in my bag. Woo. Unusual dedication to follow through for me. I’m not really excited about a HRC rally, but a chance to see The Big Dog? I am so there. I also signed up for the lottery for the presidential debate they are going to hold in Raleigh at some point. I don’t think there is chance one of getting in, but would it be cool? It would also have been cool if there had been a place to write on the application that I am after all my precincts vice chair after all... I think my luck ran out for these things when I got kick ass standing room when Kerry/Edwards came to town the last time around. No, that was a once in a life time thing, no one gets that lucky twice But bad seats are why they invented the zoom function on cameras.
Maybe if I told them I tabled for Dukakis/Benson back in college in the deepest, darkest reddest Frat boy heart of Texas that they may cut me some slack? I still have my tee-shirt. And my scars.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Why we have pets
I took Dogger back to the vet for her third electrolyte check and drum roll please : We don't have to go back for another electrolyte check for three months! Her electrolytes were perfect and the rest of her blood panel was equally wonderful! Her ratio this time was 30.8. The first time it was thirty even and the time before this was 31.0. The vet is just thrilled! She said every other time she has seen an AD dog they had to keep changing the dosage and messing around and it's very frustrating. I feel it's really a blessing that Dogger is doing so well and I am thankful every day.
We did have to add a smidge of pred to her routine after her last check, but that is very common and she's on so little, I figured it out, she's on a point or so less then 2/3s of a milligram a day something like point 73 and a half a day over seven days. A dose that low it doesn't cause any of the undesirable pred side effects she's suffered when she was on the higher doses - But it does effect her, she's got more energy and a lot more stamina then when she was on none at all.
And more Yay for Dogger! Our weight loss plan worked! She's lost three pounds through eating less and exercising more. She could still lose a pound or so more, so we aren't going to slack off yet but we don't have to feel obligated to walk in the rain either anymore. Go Dogger!
The Kitty on the other hand, can be a royal pain in the ass. For real. Boy cat works my nerves, and he does his best work between 1- 3am. He loves the night life, he's got to boogie. I do not love the night life I do not need to boogie.
This is irrelevant to The Kitty. The fact that I need my sleep does not factor into his plans. it doesn't matter when I happen to wake him up in the morning, he's going to go right back to sleep as soon as I leave, or even before if he can. I do get even with him though, he gets a half a pill every morning. He does not love this part of his day, never mind that it repeats every evening, he really hates that morning pill and he will do anything to avoid it. He now spends his mornings running and hiding and cursing me. Over the past few months he has really developed thing about taking his pill. He's been taking this pill twice a day every day for eighteen months? And suddenly I have to play hide and seek with him before I can leave for work in the morning.
This is where all that sleeping at night pays off. I am rested and ready to go, he on the other hand is tired from hopping around for eight hours and doesn't think as quick on his feet as he thinks he does. He also thinks he is invisible - Which a black cat hiding in an unlit room is certainly in the running for, but he forgets, he is too dark! The very dark thing resting on a kind of dark thing is going to stand out, even in the dark. I just look for the slowest moving black hole and make a dive for it. Usually, I miss, but that's when I pull out my secret weapon : Food.
The Kitty can not resist fresh kibble. It doesn't matter he just got up from a meal, new food is new food! There is nothing better than kibble right out of the container. That swill he hoovered up fifteen minutes ago was like an hour old! Survivor Man has nothing on The Kitty, Sure, he'll eat bugs and worms but has he ever tried stale kibble? I think not. Kitty is the man when it comes to bravely facing sub-par rations. He's really hard core.
But I always get him. So far. It's funny, he fights me tooth and nail in the morning but in the evening he submits right away. He's a weird guy. But, yesterday he redeemed himself. I woke up gradually, before my alarm went off, to the sound of song birds trilling in the tree outside my window and The Kitty purring back up in my ear. It was really nice. He pisses me off, wakes me up in the middle of the night and then he goes and pulls the baby kitty card. He's really good.
I took Dogger back to the vet for her third electrolyte check and drum roll please : We don't have to go back for another electrolyte check for three months! Her electrolytes were perfect and the rest of her blood panel was equally wonderful! Her ratio this time was 30.8. The first time it was thirty even and the time before this was 31.0. The vet is just thrilled! She said every other time she has seen an AD dog they had to keep changing the dosage and messing around and it's very frustrating. I feel it's really a blessing that Dogger is doing so well and I am thankful every day.
We did have to add a smidge of pred to her routine after her last check, but that is very common and she's on so little, I figured it out, she's on a point or so less then 2/3s of a milligram a day something like point 73 and a half a day over seven days. A dose that low it doesn't cause any of the undesirable pred side effects she's suffered when she was on the higher doses - But it does effect her, she's got more energy and a lot more stamina then when she was on none at all.
And more Yay for Dogger! Our weight loss plan worked! She's lost three pounds through eating less and exercising more. She could still lose a pound or so more, so we aren't going to slack off yet but we don't have to feel obligated to walk in the rain either anymore. Go Dogger!
The Kitty on the other hand, can be a royal pain in the ass. For real. Boy cat works my nerves, and he does his best work between 1- 3am. He loves the night life, he's got to boogie. I do not love the night life I do not need to boogie.
This is irrelevant to The Kitty. The fact that I need my sleep does not factor into his plans. it doesn't matter when I happen to wake him up in the morning, he's going to go right back to sleep as soon as I leave, or even before if he can. I do get even with him though, he gets a half a pill every morning. He does not love this part of his day, never mind that it repeats every evening, he really hates that morning pill and he will do anything to avoid it. He now spends his mornings running and hiding and cursing me. Over the past few months he has really developed thing about taking his pill. He's been taking this pill twice a day every day for eighteen months? And suddenly I have to play hide and seek with him before I can leave for work in the morning.
This is where all that sleeping at night pays off. I am rested and ready to go, he on the other hand is tired from hopping around for eight hours and doesn't think as quick on his feet as he thinks he does. He also thinks he is invisible - Which a black cat hiding in an unlit room is certainly in the running for, but he forgets, he is too dark! The very dark thing resting on a kind of dark thing is going to stand out, even in the dark. I just look for the slowest moving black hole and make a dive for it. Usually, I miss, but that's when I pull out my secret weapon : Food.
The Kitty can not resist fresh kibble. It doesn't matter he just got up from a meal, new food is new food! There is nothing better than kibble right out of the container. That swill he hoovered up fifteen minutes ago was like an hour old! Survivor Man has nothing on The Kitty, Sure, he'll eat bugs and worms but has he ever tried stale kibble? I think not. Kitty is the man when it comes to bravely facing sub-par rations. He's really hard core.
But I always get him. So far. It's funny, he fights me tooth and nail in the morning but in the evening he submits right away. He's a weird guy. But, yesterday he redeemed himself. I woke up gradually, before my alarm went off, to the sound of song birds trilling in the tree outside my window and The Kitty purring back up in my ear. It was really nice. He pisses me off, wakes me up in the middle of the night and then he goes and pulls the baby kitty card. He's really good.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Food is not Love
I was flipping through the channels Monday night why isn't there anything on? click! why does everything suck? click! why isn't there anything on Monday nights? click! and I ran across Animal Planet.
Fat Pets. Oh Really? They think they know from fat pets? I decided to tune in. It was set in Great Briton, where ,the show told us, is the highest concentration of over weight pets in the world. I don't remember being polled, I could have shown them fat pets. But anyway. One of the fat pets was a fat cat. A very fat cat and it looked just like The Kitty. Just like The Kitty when The Kitty was fat, in fact, I think it may have been fatter then The Kitty. It was hard to say because they kept saying X number of stones - Which was fine for the Brits but the voice over person could have said "X number of pounds" when she was voicing over. They gave the dogs' weight in pounds but not the cats, perhaps because there aren't that many stones. I'm not even the only one to post about it, Tuesday there was a flood of entries about it. It was a veritable pet blogging meme.
The animals they featured, two rottweilers, the kitty's cousin, and some sort of spaniel were all patients of a special clinic for over weight pets and where the pets were getting care and a lot of tough love. The rots were really sad, there is no reason for a rot to be 160 pounds! The spaniel person and one set of rot owners totally took responsibility for their dog being huge. The rot people also were totally having to pay for the dogs new knee (four hours of very expensive, dangerous, surgery) because the old knee couldn't hold up the animals fat body anymore. All the owners except one really felt terrible about their dogs weight and embraced the work to get the pets back into shape. And it is a lot of work. Dogger needed to lose about three pounds just for aesthetic reasons and it's been hard work for both of us. I put her on diet food, cut about 1/3 of a cup out of her daily allotment and started an exercise regime for her. For three pounds! and I'm not sure she has lost it. I know she looks a little better but she may have just tightened up a little, maybe just redistributed the weight. I think she looks better. And girl dog was not fat.
The poor people on the show had to change their lifestyles. Have you ever tried to make a cat work out? Tried to explain about getting up and moving around to a creature that naturally sleeps 23 hours a day? They don't make kitty sweat suits for a reason. Cat beds, cat blankets, cat pillows yes, cat treadmills? cat work out videos? cat Pilate's? Not so much. Once a cat gets fat, it's pretty much going to stay that way. The cat's people didn't let that stop them though, they really did everything they could and it paid off.
I didn't work hard for The Kitty. He had to develop a gluten intolerance on his own, because that was a diet plan that worked for The Kitty. It worked too well. I don't have any pictures of him when he was starving because skeletons don't photograph well. He photographed well when he was fat, mostly because he moved so slowly and couldn't get away from me and if he did manage to waddle away, he never got far because he was too fat and it limited where he could hide, he couldn't fit under anything, behind anything and there was no no space smaller than an open door he could wriggle through. He pretty much flomped in the middle of the room and dared you to pick him up.
Old and Busted
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The New Hottness
The show followed the people and their fat pets through their weight loss program. One of the couples went so far as to hide in their room if they wanted a snack because they didn't want the dog to see them eating! They also stopped buying junk food of any kind for themselves so they could set a good example for their dog. The cat owners also worked really hard for their pet and saw some good results. All the people lost weight too. All except the one dog person who would not stop feeding her dog. The poor animal weighed 180 pounds! She said she didn't want to deprive her dog. She's going to be deprived when the poor thing dies years too fast because it's organs wear out. It's poor eyes were so sad, it's person was too busy stuffing it's mouth to ever bother looking into it's eyes.
I was flipping through the channels Monday night why isn't there anything on? click! why does everything suck? click! why isn't there anything on Monday nights? click! and I ran across Animal Planet.
Fat Pets. Oh Really? They think they know from fat pets? I decided to tune in. It was set in Great Briton, where ,the show told us, is the highest concentration of over weight pets in the world. I don't remember being polled, I could have shown them fat pets. But anyway. One of the fat pets was a fat cat. A very fat cat and it looked just like The Kitty. Just like The Kitty when The Kitty was fat, in fact, I think it may have been fatter then The Kitty. It was hard to say because they kept saying X number of stones - Which was fine for the Brits but the voice over person could have said "X number of pounds" when she was voicing over. They gave the dogs' weight in pounds but not the cats, perhaps because there aren't that many stones. I'm not even the only one to post about it, Tuesday there was a flood of entries about it. It was a veritable pet blogging meme.
The animals they featured, two rottweilers, the kitty's cousin, and some sort of spaniel were all patients of a special clinic for over weight pets and where the pets were getting care and a lot of tough love. The rots were really sad, there is no reason for a rot to be 160 pounds! The spaniel person and one set of rot owners totally took responsibility for their dog being huge. The rot people also were totally having to pay for the dogs new knee (four hours of very expensive, dangerous, surgery) because the old knee couldn't hold up the animals fat body anymore. All the owners except one really felt terrible about their dogs weight and embraced the work to get the pets back into shape. And it is a lot of work. Dogger needed to lose about three pounds just for aesthetic reasons and it's been hard work for both of us. I put her on diet food, cut about 1/3 of a cup out of her daily allotment and started an exercise regime for her. For three pounds! and I'm not sure she has lost it. I know she looks a little better but she may have just tightened up a little, maybe just redistributed the weight. I think she looks better. And girl dog was not fat.
The poor people on the show had to change their lifestyles. Have you ever tried to make a cat work out? Tried to explain about getting up and moving around to a creature that naturally sleeps 23 hours a day? They don't make kitty sweat suits for a reason. Cat beds, cat blankets, cat pillows yes, cat treadmills? cat work out videos? cat Pilate's? Not so much. Once a cat gets fat, it's pretty much going to stay that way. The cat's people didn't let that stop them though, they really did everything they could and it paid off.
I didn't work hard for The Kitty. He had to develop a gluten intolerance on his own, because that was a diet plan that worked for The Kitty. It worked too well. I don't have any pictures of him when he was starving because skeletons don't photograph well. He photographed well when he was fat, mostly because he moved so slowly and couldn't get away from me and if he did manage to waddle away, he never got far because he was too fat and it limited where he could hide, he couldn't fit under anything, behind anything and there was no no space smaller than an open door he could wriggle through. He pretty much flomped in the middle of the room and dared you to pick him up.
.jpg)
The show followed the people and their fat pets through their weight loss program. One of the couples went so far as to hide in their room if they wanted a snack because they didn't want the dog to see them eating! They also stopped buying junk food of any kind for themselves so they could set a good example for their dog. The cat owners also worked really hard for their pet and saw some good results. All the people lost weight too. All except the one dog person who would not stop feeding her dog. The poor animal weighed 180 pounds! She said she didn't want to deprive her dog. She's going to be deprived when the poor thing dies years too fast because it's organs wear out. It's poor eyes were so sad, it's person was too busy stuffing it's mouth to ever bother looking into it's eyes.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Walk
When I was driving home yesterday I wanted to walk in the door with a plan. I have to hit the door with a plain because the park requires a bit of time massaging.
My options as I drove along were:
1. Go to park now.
2. Do nothing and take a short walk later
3. Go play fetch soon.
4. Go to the post office.
If I’m going to the park I have to hit the door running. I decided we were not going to the park. It was Monday, we don’t usually “do” the park on Mondays. That helps me narrow down our options. So. There was a walk in my future. I had scored tennis balls and I was looking forward to popping open the pink ones and going to the baseball field. It was shaping up to be a plan.
I also had bills. Bills that wanted to be paid. Dogger and I didn’t need to play fetch, we could go to the post office... True, it requires a trip down Moderately Mentally Ill and Clearly off Their Meds Street, but Dogger allows me to cut through that mess like a hot knife through butter or like a very big dog through a crowd people having bitter arguments with dumpsters.
Dogger has decided she is afraid of New Bern Avenue, joining clouds, leaves, over head wires, jet trails and cell towers to her list of buzz kills. She will do Edenton though. And I thought about it, but after taking the time to actually pay the bills, I didn’t think I would have the light to make the round trip. Because even with gentrification, I’m not stupid.
Several years ago, pre-gentrification, Dogger and I were coming back from our walk and we had gone down Edenton, at that time it was really Crazed Junkie Street. I had to plan ahead as to which sections of which blocks I felt comfortable being on and which sections of which blocks I needed to avoid at all costs and head back to New Bern Ave., where I felt safer.
Anyway, on that day Dogger and I were almost home and on a section of a block I felt very comfortable on and this huge car came screeching into the parking lot we were crossing. The car came to a stop and the door opened and a voice said What the hell are you doing here? Are you stupid!? and I’m thinking. !@#$, why haven’t I taught Dogger the command for attack? She sits all right and can lay down, what was I thinking wasting my time on manners! Take down! Tear out throat! Eat his heart! or even the classic, kill And the voice repeated Girl, do you know who I am?. And I’m thinking "Death drives a seventy-four caddy?". In reality it was the drug dealers father and he threatened me with a kidnaping if he saw me on Edenton again. He was willing to commit a felony for my safety - Which I know totally came from the heart - I would have made sure he served serious time for it, but he would have done it out of concern for me.
As I drove into my driveway another option presented itself : Mow the Lawn.
When I was driving home yesterday I wanted to walk in the door with a plan. I have to hit the door with a plain because the park requires a bit of time massaging.
My options as I drove along were:
1. Go to park now.
2. Do nothing and take a short walk later
3. Go play fetch soon.
4. Go to the post office.
If I’m going to the park I have to hit the door running. I decided we were not going to the park. It was Monday, we don’t usually “do” the park on Mondays. That helps me narrow down our options. So. There was a walk in my future. I had scored tennis balls and I was looking forward to popping open the pink ones and going to the baseball field. It was shaping up to be a plan.
I also had bills. Bills that wanted to be paid. Dogger and I didn’t need to play fetch, we could go to the post office... True, it requires a trip down Moderately Mentally Ill and Clearly off Their Meds Street, but Dogger allows me to cut through that mess like a hot knife through butter or like a very big dog through a crowd people having bitter arguments with dumpsters.
Dogger has decided she is afraid of New Bern Avenue, joining clouds, leaves, over head wires, jet trails and cell towers to her list of buzz kills. She will do Edenton though. And I thought about it, but after taking the time to actually pay the bills, I didn’t think I would have the light to make the round trip. Because even with gentrification, I’m not stupid.
Several years ago, pre-gentrification, Dogger and I were coming back from our walk and we had gone down Edenton, at that time it was really Crazed Junkie Street. I had to plan ahead as to which sections of which blocks I felt comfortable being on and which sections of which blocks I needed to avoid at all costs and head back to New Bern Ave., where I felt safer.
Anyway, on that day Dogger and I were almost home and on a section of a block I felt very comfortable on and this huge car came screeching into the parking lot we were crossing. The car came to a stop and the door opened and a voice said What the hell are you doing here? Are you stupid!? and I’m thinking. !@#$, why haven’t I taught Dogger the command for attack? She sits all right and can lay down, what was I thinking wasting my time on manners! Take down! Tear out throat! Eat his heart! or even the classic, kill And the voice repeated Girl, do you know who I am?. And I’m thinking "Death drives a seventy-four caddy?". In reality it was the drug dealers father and he threatened me with a kidnaping if he saw me on Edenton again. He was willing to commit a felony for my safety - Which I know totally came from the heart - I would have made sure he served serious time for it, but he would have done it out of concern for me.
As I drove into my driveway another option presented itself : Mow the Lawn.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Monday morning Photoblogging, again
Friday night, Dogger and decided that we didn't just need a walk, we needed an adventure.
Once upon a time I lived next door to Lake Johnson. Literally, it was on the other side of my parking lot. It's a really nice city lake and it's mostly unknown by the city - Which is both a shame and blessing. But Dogger and I weren't going to the lake. Dogger and I were going to the stream.
When I lived in the apartments it didn't take me long to discover this really nice path that ran behind the complex and along the stream. In the spring it was like Disney's greenroom. Rabbits, song birds, deer families, the odd beaver - Not to mention the veritable forest of blooming trees that hid anything less lovely from sight and thickets of pink and yellow and white honeysuckle varieties that made the air smell heavenly and thanks to the burbling stream, the street noise is very effectivly camouflaged. It's gorgeous and no one was ever there.
There is still no one there. Dogger and I were along the stream and on the path for two hours and I saw only five other people and one other dog. If you were walking at Lake Johnson there would have been dozens of other people and twice that number of dogs. The only people in Raleigh who take advantage of Lake Johnson seem to be the a select number of in-the-know dog people and a handful of college kids who live in the student ghetto that surrounds the lake. Damn nice ghetto.
Before I left the house I had a last minute thought that I should take my camera with me. The light was great, but when we left the house we only had about a half hour of viability left. It also reminded me of the weakness of digital cameras. There is no such thing as high speed film in digital photography. When the light fades so does the quality of the images. You can mess with the settings all you want, you can not magically make the camera think it's using 1400 speed film.
But I preserved.
Sadly, most of what I saw looked absolutely gorgeous in situ, I mean stunningly beautiful, like not even real, didn't read the same after I got the images home. Sigh. You have to trust me, it was really beautiful. This is what it looked like after I got those images home.
Friday night, Dogger and decided that we didn't just need a walk, we needed an adventure.
Once upon a time I lived next door to Lake Johnson. Literally, it was on the other side of my parking lot. It's a really nice city lake and it's mostly unknown by the city - Which is both a shame and blessing. But Dogger and I weren't going to the lake. Dogger and I were going to the stream.
When I lived in the apartments it didn't take me long to discover this really nice path that ran behind the complex and along the stream. In the spring it was like Disney's greenroom. Rabbits, song birds, deer families, the odd beaver - Not to mention the veritable forest of blooming trees that hid anything less lovely from sight and thickets of pink and yellow and white honeysuckle varieties that made the air smell heavenly and thanks to the burbling stream, the street noise is very effectivly camouflaged. It's gorgeous and no one was ever there.
There is still no one there. Dogger and I were along the stream and on the path for two hours and I saw only five other people and one other dog. If you were walking at Lake Johnson there would have been dozens of other people and twice that number of dogs. The only people in Raleigh who take advantage of Lake Johnson seem to be the a select number of in-the-know dog people and a handful of college kids who live in the student ghetto that surrounds the lake. Damn nice ghetto.
Before I left the house I had a last minute thought that I should take my camera with me. The light was great, but when we left the house we only had about a half hour of viability left. It also reminded me of the weakness of digital cameras. There is no such thing as high speed film in digital photography. When the light fades so does the quality of the images. You can mess with the settings all you want, you can not magically make the camera think it's using 1400 speed film.
But I preserved.
Sadly, most of what I saw looked absolutely gorgeous in situ, I mean stunningly beautiful, like not even real, didn't read the same after I got the images home. Sigh. You have to trust me, it was really beautiful. This is what it looked like after I got those images home.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
Follow the bouncing ball
I want ya’ll to know that before I had to stir myself to write this, I was luxuriating in the ambient warmth of a big dog in the comfort of the soft chair and now the big warm dog is using that ambient heat to keep her bed warm and my desk chair is not all that soft... I am sad and I am cold. Brr. But I am dedicated. D-e-d-i-c-a-t-e-d. Sadly, dedication does not keep you warm. Wednesday I wore a short sleeved tee-shirt to the dog park and today I had to exploit my dog for her warmth.
While we were at the park, I decided that I was going to get Dogger a new tennis ball. She only has the one and it has a hole in it. It’s a real sad tennis ball, it has some waft to it but it doesn’t bounce anymore. I keep thinking I’ll just pick up the wrong tennis ball at the park and “forget” our tennis ball there on “accident”, but I feel bad about taking a new donated tennis ball and leaving the used, tennis ball in its place. It just seems wrong I’m having real tennis ball issues. I found a brand new one at the baseball field at the rec center but after Dogger was through with it, I threw it back over the fence so its owner could find it again. Tennis balls don’t grow on trees you know. They look like lemons but they don’t grow on tennis ball trees, as nice as that might be. They would resist bugs and disease real well too and they would be very drought resistant as well, I would expect, being tennis balls and not actually living things. But then they wouldn’t “grow” per say, they would just kind of “be”. They would spring out fully formed! Like baby flies only nicer and bouncy and not disgusting. Dogger would love a tennis ball tree though. She would especially like a tennis ball tree that produced pink tennis balls, that’s her favorite flavor of tennis ball. Even when they are kind of old and chewed on and not at all bouncy and with questionable wafting, she likes them as well as the brand new bright yellow ones that still bounce and have superior wafting. I haven’t had a chance to see what she thinks of the more orangy tennis balls. The dog park people who bring and leave tennis balls at the park seem to pretty uniformly favor yellow ones and a handful of the pink ones - And they may have been party favors or something because the few pink balls are baby pink. I’m not sure you could play at Wimbledon with them. But they are pretty and Dogger loves them.
Anyway. I have not one but two Tv shows on at 10pm so I have to keep moving. My plan for Thursday night was to go to Wallgreens and get some pictures then go to Wal-Mart across the street and get some dishwasher detergent and tennis balls. Wal-Mart must seel tennis balls right? Well, I never found out. I went to Wallyworld and obediently picked up some dishwasher detergent, phosphate free thank-you-very-much, imagine at Wallyworld, phosphate free dishwasher detergent. I didn’t think poor white trash really cared that much about water quality. I also noticed as I checked out the frozen desert isle ( trying to remember why I was still in the store post detergent scoring) that the cooler cases at Wallyworld have the cooler lights on an electric eye. The lights only turn on if you are directly in front of the case. When you walk down the aisle they all turn on as you walk past. It made me feel like a Disney princess.
I kept wandering around Wallyworld and I found a couple of things I really needed. One was even not edible. I congratulated myself at sticking to useful things and I got my stuff and went back to the car. No tennis balls! Damn it. Did I mention that it is not only cold but rainy? Have you ever been in a Wallyworld parking lot that was less than 45 acres? Have you ever been able to park within sight of the store? I couldn’t go back. Did I mention that Dogger was waiting in the car for me and that she somehow knew I didn’t have the promised tennis balls? Have you ever seen a grown dog cry? Okay, she wasn’t “crying” but on the way home she turned herself so she was looking out the passenger side of the car. This weekend? I get the tennis balls. 4+4=08!!
I want ya’ll to know that before I had to stir myself to write this, I was luxuriating in the ambient warmth of a big dog in the comfort of the soft chair and now the big warm dog is using that ambient heat to keep her bed warm and my desk chair is not all that soft... I am sad and I am cold. Brr. But I am dedicated. D-e-d-i-c-a-t-e-d. Sadly, dedication does not keep you warm. Wednesday I wore a short sleeved tee-shirt to the dog park and today I had to exploit my dog for her warmth.
While we were at the park, I decided that I was going to get Dogger a new tennis ball. She only has the one and it has a hole in it. It’s a real sad tennis ball, it has some waft to it but it doesn’t bounce anymore. I keep thinking I’ll just pick up the wrong tennis ball at the park and “forget” our tennis ball there on “accident”, but I feel bad about taking a new donated tennis ball and leaving the used, tennis ball in its place. It just seems wrong I’m having real tennis ball issues. I found a brand new one at the baseball field at the rec center but after Dogger was through with it, I threw it back over the fence so its owner could find it again. Tennis balls don’t grow on trees you know. They look like lemons but they don’t grow on tennis ball trees, as nice as that might be. They would resist bugs and disease real well too and they would be very drought resistant as well, I would expect, being tennis balls and not actually living things. But then they wouldn’t “grow” per say, they would just kind of “be”. They would spring out fully formed! Like baby flies only nicer and bouncy and not disgusting. Dogger would love a tennis ball tree though. She would especially like a tennis ball tree that produced pink tennis balls, that’s her favorite flavor of tennis ball. Even when they are kind of old and chewed on and not at all bouncy and with questionable wafting, she likes them as well as the brand new bright yellow ones that still bounce and have superior wafting. I haven’t had a chance to see what she thinks of the more orangy tennis balls. The dog park people who bring and leave tennis balls at the park seem to pretty uniformly favor yellow ones and a handful of the pink ones - And they may have been party favors or something because the few pink balls are baby pink. I’m not sure you could play at Wimbledon with them. But they are pretty and Dogger loves them.
Anyway. I have not one but two Tv shows on at 10pm so I have to keep moving. My plan for Thursday night was to go to Wallgreens and get some pictures then go to Wal-Mart across the street and get some dishwasher detergent and tennis balls. Wal-Mart must seel tennis balls right? Well, I never found out. I went to Wallyworld and obediently picked up some dishwasher detergent, phosphate free thank-you-very-much, imagine at Wallyworld, phosphate free dishwasher detergent. I didn’t think poor white trash really cared that much about water quality. I also noticed as I checked out the frozen desert isle ( trying to remember why I was still in the store post detergent scoring) that the cooler cases at Wallyworld have the cooler lights on an electric eye. The lights only turn on if you are directly in front of the case. When you walk down the aisle they all turn on as you walk past. It made me feel like a Disney princess.
I kept wandering around Wallyworld and I found a couple of things I really needed. One was even not edible. I congratulated myself at sticking to useful things and I got my stuff and went back to the car. No tennis balls! Damn it. Did I mention that it is not only cold but rainy? Have you ever been in a Wallyworld parking lot that was less than 45 acres? Have you ever been able to park within sight of the store? I couldn’t go back. Did I mention that Dogger was waiting in the car for me and that she somehow knew I didn’t have the promised tennis balls? Have you ever seen a grown dog cry? Okay, she wasn’t “crying” but on the way home she turned herself so she was looking out the passenger side of the car. This weekend? I get the tennis balls. 4+4=08!!
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Ya Think!?
Memo Sheds New Light on Torture Issue
A newly disclosed Justice Department legal memorandum, written in March 2003 and authorizing the military’s use of extremely harsh interrogation techniques, offers what could be a revealing clue in an unsolved mystery: What responsibility did top Pentagon and Bush administration officials have for abuses committed by American troops at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and in Afghanistan; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; and elsewhere?
Some legal experts and advocates said Wednesday that the document, written the month that the United States invaded Iraq, adds to evidence that the abuse of prisoners in military custody may have involved signals from higher officials and not just irresponsible actions by low-level personnel.
Memo Sheds New Light on Torture Issue
A newly disclosed Justice Department legal memorandum, written in March 2003 and authorizing the military’s use of extremely harsh interrogation techniques, offers what could be a revealing clue in an unsolved mystery: What responsibility did top Pentagon and Bush administration officials have for abuses committed by American troops at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and in Afghanistan; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; and elsewhere?
Some legal experts and advocates said Wednesday that the document, written the month that the United States invaded Iraq, adds to evidence that the abuse of prisoners in military custody may have involved signals from higher officials and not just irresponsible actions by low-level personnel.
Computer Issues
You can't tell by looking at this but this is being written in Blogger In Draft. I had been hoping for something a little more haute , but sadly, there isn't anything new or interesting or beta to be seen here. Bummer.
Okay. I changed the setting to "compose". This is the setting for people you don't have the HTML-fu that I possess. In this setting the program makes things italic or bold for you. I think this is a pussy setting. If you can't learn to make things bold or italicized your own self, well, AOL is still in business.
I was really hoping for some super secret way cool new things to play with. There isn't anything here that isn't on the non-draft version. How sad.
And I am not sad for thinking there would be. Nope. Not at all.
There would be a real entry today but my computer and I had issues. I was fine, the computer was having seizures or strokes or was possessed or some other malfunction that actual machines suffer from. I had to start and stop the damn thing five times over a couple of hours before it would function. It was like a personality test. How many times will subject repeat the same sequence over and over before before the subject grasps that the sequence is not solve the problem? Very frustrating and it cut deeply into my available entry doing time.
CSI-NY is back tonight. It's about setting priorities and after many, many, many months of reruns and Food Porn, I really need to see some network scripted drama. So. Yeah. Ya know.
You can't tell by looking at this but this is being written in Blogger In Draft. I had been hoping for something a little more haute , but sadly, there isn't anything new or interesting or beta to be seen here. Bummer.
Okay. I changed the setting to "compose". This is the setting for people you don't have the HTML-fu that I possess. In this setting the program makes things italic or bold for you. I think this is a pussy setting. If you can't learn to make things bold or italicized your own self, well, AOL is still in business.
I was really hoping for some super secret way cool new things to play with. There isn't anything here that isn't on the non-draft version. How sad.
And I am not sad for thinking there would be. Nope. Not at all.
There would be a real entry today but my computer and I had issues. I was fine, the computer was having seizures or strokes or was possessed or some other malfunction that actual machines suffer from. I had to start and stop the damn thing five times over a couple of hours before it would function. It was like a personality test. How many times will subject repeat the same sequence over and over before before the subject grasps that the sequence is not solve the problem? Very frustrating and it cut deeply into my available entry doing time.
CSI-NY is back tonight. It's about setting priorities and after many, many, many months of reruns and Food Porn, I really need to see some network scripted drama. So. Yeah. Ya know.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Making a list
Yesterday I praised Netflix, today I’m going to bury them. Not really, but they annoyed me. I have a Que. Gah. I have a list it is a LIST. You have a list of titles you want to see. British people stand in que’s, the rest of us wait in or our New York brothers, on line. ANYWAY.
I have a list. First on my list is the first DVD of the first season of the not-very-good British Lawyer drama. It is marked as “very long wait”. I am assuming that some rabid John Hannah fan has the DVD in a place of honor in her John Hannah shrine and she is not giving it back. I watched DVD 2 and was waiting for DVD 3. I assumed that once I sent back the two DVDs I had, that I would receive the next two DVDs on my list - which would be DVD 3 of season one and DVD 1 of season two. You would think. Neither DVD 3 or DVD 1 of the not-very-good British Lawyer drama is coming to me. The Simpson’s Movie is coming and so is something called Suburban Girl or something like that. I don’t remember why I added SG to my list, sometimes I do little film festivals for myself and I’ll watch a lot of the work of a single actor. Fine. Sometimes you wind up with Brick sometimes you wind up with titles you can’t remember why or for whom you are watching it.
I went to investigate why SB was coming my way and got no satisfaction. It has Sara Michelle Geller and Alec Baldwin. Further research reveals that it may be a treatment of Lolita with Lolita being in her twenties and Humbert being a geeky, glasses wearing Alec Baldwin in full Canteen boy mode - My research being limited to the cover art of the DVD. It looks dreadful . I must have been in an Alec Baldwin place. If so, why didn’t I go with The Hunt for Red October? Buffy as Lolita?! What was I thinking?
Speaking of Baldwin. Where is my TV! Why am I still watching hours of home improvement and food porn every night? Instead of 30 Rock and Boston Legal It’s not fair. And what could I be watching on network TV? Well tonight, I could be watching The Biggest Loser: Couples, Big Brother 9, Just for Laughs, Dancing with The Stars, Beauty and the Geek and CSI-Miami seven hours of reality TV and an hour of CSI-Miami, the single scripted drama on network TV after 8pm on a Tuesday . The strike ended, a good month ago and still it’s six hours of reality every night. I don’t care which set of rich people won the strike, the poor viewers LOST.
If my TV shows would come back I wouldn’t have to spend my free time reading the crews from Anthony Bourdin , No Reservations blog. How sad is that? Reading a blog about back stage goings on at a food porn TV show - on The Travel Channel!. A food show that’s not even on The Food Network! And don’t give me shite about “You should be reading books instead of watching Food Porn!”. I’m a reader, bud, I read a lot. I watch TV for a break from my busy reading schedule, really working on getting the most out of each issue of Entertainment Weekly can be really emotionally draining. I need the break.
Yesterday I praised Netflix, today I’m going to bury them. Not really, but they annoyed me. I have a Que. Gah. I have a list it is a LIST. You have a list of titles you want to see. British people stand in que’s, the rest of us wait in or our New York brothers, on line. ANYWAY.
I have a list. First on my list is the first DVD of the first season of the not-very-good British Lawyer drama. It is marked as “very long wait”. I am assuming that some rabid John Hannah fan has the DVD in a place of honor in her John Hannah shrine and she is not giving it back. I watched DVD 2 and was waiting for DVD 3. I assumed that once I sent back the two DVDs I had, that I would receive the next two DVDs on my list - which would be DVD 3 of season one and DVD 1 of season two. You would think. Neither DVD 3 or DVD 1 of the not-very-good British Lawyer drama is coming to me. The Simpson’s Movie is coming and so is something called Suburban Girl or something like that. I don’t remember why I added SG to my list, sometimes I do little film festivals for myself and I’ll watch a lot of the work of a single actor. Fine. Sometimes you wind up with Brick sometimes you wind up with titles you can’t remember why or for whom you are watching it.
I went to investigate why SB was coming my way and got no satisfaction. It has Sara Michelle Geller and Alec Baldwin. Further research reveals that it may be a treatment of Lolita with Lolita being in her twenties and Humbert being a geeky, glasses wearing Alec Baldwin in full Canteen boy mode - My research being limited to the cover art of the DVD. It looks dreadful . I must have been in an Alec Baldwin place. If so, why didn’t I go with The Hunt for Red October? Buffy as Lolita?! What was I thinking?
Speaking of Baldwin. Where is my TV! Why am I still watching hours of home improvement and food porn every night? Instead of 30 Rock and Boston Legal It’s not fair. And what could I be watching on network TV? Well tonight, I could be watching The Biggest Loser: Couples, Big Brother 9, Just for Laughs, Dancing with The Stars, Beauty and the Geek and CSI-Miami seven hours of reality TV and an hour of CSI-Miami, the single scripted drama on network TV after 8pm on a Tuesday . The strike ended, a good month ago and still it’s six hours of reality every night. I don’t care which set of rich people won the strike, the poor viewers LOST.
If my TV shows would come back I wouldn’t have to spend my free time reading the crews from Anthony Bourdin , No Reservations blog. How sad is that? Reading a blog about back stage goings on at a food porn TV show - on The Travel Channel!. A food show that’s not even on The Food Network! And don’t give me shite about “You should be reading books instead of watching Food Porn!”. I’m a reader, bud, I read a lot. I watch TV for a break from my busy reading schedule, really working on getting the most out of each issue of Entertainment Weekly can be really emotionally draining. I need the break.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
More Power
Did ya’ll remember to turn your lights off Sunday night? Yeah. I totally forgot too. Also, I thought it was kind of dumb - But I was going to do it because it was one of those hands-across-whatever things and I think those are always worthwhile. Dumb, but worthwhile. I totally would have taken part but sadly at 8pm I had just started watching my movie, upstairs and I didn’t think about the outside lights downstairs. In reality, I think I had a lights on that I shouldn’t have, apart from the porch light I was supposed to turn off in solidarity. I was bad.
Canada, though. Canada went dark for an hour and then they all went out en mass and bought energy star appliances and compact florescent light bulbs and rain barrels and electric cars.
Last week I got a letter of apology from Netflix. They were very sorry they didn’t send me a movie as soon as they were supposed to. They had a glitch. Not that I would notice, I’m a long term costumer, my stuff always takes a long time to get to me. I would never have noticed if it didn't appear to be the slowest news day ever. But lets look shall we? What else was going on in the world on March 25, 2008, apart from Netflix getting constipated. Hmm. Some people couldn’t get their season 2, disk 4 of The Ten of Us while other folks:
Iraqi Crackdown on Shiite Forces Sets Off Fighting
By MICHAEL KAMBER and JAMES GLANZ
Heavy fighting broke out in Basra and Baghdad as Iraqi forces mounted a major operation against Shiite militias.
Unrest at Shuttered Gateway to Tibet
By JAKE HOOKER
Chengdu, China, feels like a border outpost, tense and anxious, at the edge of what several Tibetans called a war.
Outlook Remains Bleak for 2 Programs
By ROBERT PEAR
The Bush administration said that Medicare and Social Security are still losing financial ground, but that they had not deteriorated significantly in the last year.
So, not actually the slowest news day ever. The War, unrest in Asia, Bushco sponsored medicare/medicaid issues and so much more! And yet. Netflix having the vapors made CNN
As you may have heard, our shipping system was unexpectedly down for most of Monday. We should have shipped you a DVD but were unable to. Your DVD was shipped today, Tuesday, March 25th, instead.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. We will issue a 5% credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.
Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding
I kind of want to know what really happened and why they feel so bad about it. I think something really bad happened and they tried to get in front of it. But. I think the lady doth protest too much. I would never have noticed! They had to send out a press release to tell everyone they had a boo-boo.. They should have just kept their mouths shut.
A water main breaks and leaves my apartment without water for three days? Nada! A couple of years later, another winter storm took out power all over Raleigh and Durham. I all but cried over the phone to Progress Energy - I wasn’t really crying, but I thought tears or the impression of tears, would help grease the wheels to get the trucks out my way to turn the power back on. I told the unlucky person answering the phone a story about my poor, ill, elderly, bedfast neighbor lady and how this was probably going to hasten her no doubt (for my purposes) imminent death if they didn’t get her and by extension, my power turned back on right now. You use your MBA your way, I use my BFA my way. As long as we use them for good not evil, I don’t see a problem and my electric company still didn’t apologize. No Letter! Nothing but a significantly higher electric bill that month. They dunned us for not using electricity for a week. My neighbor lady did not freeze to death, she waited until the summer to die.
I think I might have been more excited about turning my lights off if I hadn’t all ready spent enough time in the dark.
Did ya’ll remember to turn your lights off Sunday night? Yeah. I totally forgot too. Also, I thought it was kind of dumb - But I was going to do it because it was one of those hands-across-whatever things and I think those are always worthwhile. Dumb, but worthwhile. I totally would have taken part but sadly at 8pm I had just started watching my movie, upstairs and I didn’t think about the outside lights downstairs. In reality, I think I had a lights on that I shouldn’t have, apart from the porch light I was supposed to turn off in solidarity. I was bad.
Canada, though. Canada went dark for an hour and then they all went out en mass and bought energy star appliances and compact florescent light bulbs and rain barrels and electric cars.
Last week I got a letter of apology from Netflix. They were very sorry they didn’t send me a movie as soon as they were supposed to. They had a glitch. Not that I would notice, I’m a long term costumer, my stuff always takes a long time to get to me. I would never have noticed if it didn't appear to be the slowest news day ever. But lets look shall we? What else was going on in the world on March 25, 2008, apart from Netflix getting constipated. Hmm. Some people couldn’t get their season 2, disk 4 of The Ten of Us while other folks:
Iraqi Crackdown on Shiite Forces Sets Off Fighting
By MICHAEL KAMBER and JAMES GLANZ
Heavy fighting broke out in Basra and Baghdad as Iraqi forces mounted a major operation against Shiite militias.
Unrest at Shuttered Gateway to Tibet
By JAKE HOOKER
Chengdu, China, feels like a border outpost, tense and anxious, at the edge of what several Tibetans called a war.
Outlook Remains Bleak for 2 Programs
By ROBERT PEAR
The Bush administration said that Medicare and Social Security are still losing financial ground, but that they had not deteriorated significantly in the last year.
So, not actually the slowest news day ever. The War, unrest in Asia, Bushco sponsored medicare/medicaid issues and so much more! And yet. Netflix having the vapors made CNN
As you may have heard, our shipping system was unexpectedly down for most of Monday. We should have shipped you a DVD but were unable to. Your DVD was shipped today, Tuesday, March 25th, instead.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. We will issue a 5% credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.
Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding
I kind of want to know what really happened and why they feel so bad about it. I think something really bad happened and they tried to get in front of it. But. I think the lady doth protest too much. I would never have noticed! They had to send out a press release to tell everyone they had a boo-boo.. They should have just kept their mouths shut.
A water main breaks and leaves my apartment without water for three days? Nada! A couple of years later, another winter storm took out power all over Raleigh and Durham. I all but cried over the phone to Progress Energy - I wasn’t really crying, but I thought tears or the impression of tears, would help grease the wheels to get the trucks out my way to turn the power back on. I told the unlucky person answering the phone a story about my poor, ill, elderly, bedfast neighbor lady and how this was probably going to hasten her no doubt (for my purposes) imminent death if they didn’t get her and by extension, my power turned back on right now. You use your MBA your way, I use my BFA my way. As long as we use them for good not evil, I don’t see a problem and my electric company still didn’t apologize. No Letter! Nothing but a significantly higher electric bill that month. They dunned us for not using electricity for a week. My neighbor lady did not freeze to death, she waited until the summer to die.
I think I might have been more excited about turning my lights off if I hadn’t all ready spent enough time in the dark.
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