Broken Arrow

I came home from work and The Kitty was as big around as an ottoman. Something was very wrong. It took me about three steps into the living room to see why.

We had a situation. The baby gate was on the ground, I repeat the baby gate was on the ground!. Dogger was off the reservation.

My first thought was that maybe the sound of the gate falling might have, should have scared her and that there was a chance that she was in her room curled up on her bed, a little freaked out, but where she was supposed to be, in “her” room on her bed. The Kitty safe and my shreddable possessions sound and not in bits and peices. If so, why was The Kitty puffy and pissy?

No. No she wasn’t there. Grrrrrrrr.

Damn.

I was going to go home at lunch and make sure her little stomach issues were well and truly over... As it turns out, her lower GI seems to have gone back to normal, and while she has regained her control of her bowels, she has lost her mind.

The sound and fury of the gate hitting the floor should have rendered her terrified! She should have turned bob tail and hid in her box! Struck by the scope and severity of the bad dog behavior that she had just indulged in. She is not a brave dog and up until this, she hasn’t been an especially adventurous dog either. New things? Not her friends. For the most part, this has been a point in her favor. She’s really too big to be curious and my furniture way too cheap to survive a mild exploration on her part.

But.

She was not in her room. She was lose in house. She’s almost five years old and she’s never been unescorted in the house, She’s with me or she’s behind The Great Wall Of Baby Gate. I know it shows a certain lack of enlightenment on my part, but I can’t afford to buy a new couch every time she gets a little peckish, also, if she were to have an “accident” I would like the “accident" or carpet bombing, to be on the ancient, stained wall-to-wall in "her" room instead of my pretty cherry floors. I’m a bad dog owner.

I took a moment to survey for damage. Nothing looked doggered. The floor wasn’t covered with cushion gore, my magazines weren’t molested and other than The Kitty was standing there with a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other and murder in his eyes - everything looked all right.

But where was Dogger.

Upstairs is where I live. My clothes live up there, my bed, my books, the snow globes, The Kitty’s dust box. All things I don’t want Dogger having unsupervised visits with.

And there was Dogger, curled into a guilty dog ball in the middle of my bed.

Edited add - Dropped a big bomb that I didn't find until later. Had another accident Tuesday night/Wednesday morning after I took her out at 3:15am. Today I am calling the vet.

Ugh.

And what time did you get up this morning? And what were you doing as you were waking up? Shuffling down the hall? Rolling over for another ten minutes? And what time was it? Six? Seven? Eight for you real slug abeds?

I was up at 2:16am.

And I wasn’t bumbling around trying to find the john, no, I was plodding around the front yard with Dogger. In the dark. And? It’s cold at 2:16am and I wasn’t plodding around in a nice carpeted hallway either. No, nothing but cold, wet grass for my tootsys. Nothing but the best for me. Can dogs get the Noa virus? Dogger has a stomach flu. Her stomach hurts and I woke up with grass in my bed. I want credit for remembering to turn off my bugler alarm before I went outside. 2:16 am, in the dark, in my sleep, without my glasses and I remembered to do that. Yay me.

I stayed up too late watching the Oscars (tm). That was my fault. I should have gone to bed earlier but it was the Oscars!(tm) it’s a once a year thing, it’s special. It would be even more special if they could hold them on a night were the audience didn’t have to be up early the next morning.

We all could have got a lot more sleep if they could have forgone some, most, all of the pointless time wasters that the Academy seems to feel we all want to indulge in. Do the awards have to run for hours? Is that a rule? I like montages, but I don’t need to see a thousand of them. They lose their punch after the fourth or fifth or sixth tribute of the evening and by the time you are honoring the contributions of zip lock bags to the film industry - Less is more.

I did like the talking head thing that Errol Morris did a the start. It’s kind of nice to see the nominees as people. In tuxes and gowns they all look the same - the men look like penguins and the women all look like some other kind of bird. An unhappy, uncomfortable bird. And all dressed up lie that, they look useless, totally unable to do the actual work they are being recognized for. Like awarding a penguin for it’s uncanny flying ability.

But as always, George Clooney looked like the very most handsome penguin and probably the only penguin who really could indeed fly. Even if all he did was stand there and flap he would still look better than the rest of the tubby, flightless flock.. I think he should have hosted. He certainly could have pulled off the red suit better than Ellen did. I could have pulled off it off better. You pretty much have to be early nineties Madonna to really pull off the whole chick-in-a- suit thing I know Ellen isn’t into all that, but Girlfriend could have tried. Portia Del Rossi is just as big a lez as she is and she always looks glamorous. She can dress, you would think she would help her girlfriend out, at the very least she could have given her the name of a good tailor or hooked her up with a seamstress, someone anyone.

Anyway, did any of ya’ll notice how well I guessed? I did good. I picked Germany to win for best foreign film...

(Results of the 2007 Oscar Awards)

...And The Oscars (tm) went to:

Best Picture - The Departed
Best Director - Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Best Actor - Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress - Helen Mirren, The Queen
Best Supporting Actor - Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
Best Supporting Actress - Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Foreign Language Film - The Lives of Others, Germany
Cinematography - Pan's Labyrinth
Orginal Screenplay - Little Miss Sunshine
Adapted Screenplay - The Departed
Documentory Feature - An Inconvenient Truth
Documentory Short Subject - Blood of the Yingzhou District
Live Action Short - West Bank Story
Film Editing - Thelma Schonmaker , The Departed
Make Up - Pan's Labyrinth
Art Direction - Pan's Labyrinth
Sound Mixing - Dreamgirls
Sound Editing -Letters from Iwo Jima
Visual Effects - Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Mans Chest
Costume Design - Marie Antoinette
Original Score - Babel
Original Song - An Inconvenient Truth, by Melissa Etheridge from An Inconvenient Truth
Animated Feature - Happy Feet
Animated Short - The Danish Poet

Show begins - @ 8:33 pm eastern
First Award - @ 8:43 pm eastern
Final Award - @ 12:15 am eastern

HAPPY THE OSCAR (TM) GOES TO... SUNDAY !!!!!!

And the Oscar(tm) goes to...

...probably not to who I would give them to, but. I read a lot of entertainment magazines and web sites and so the fact that I saw only four of the 53 nominated film, is really not relevant and that I saw only one of the Best Picture Nominees is also completely besides the point. I do have a subscription to Entertainment Weekly, so I might as well be a voting member of the Academy.

So.

I do have to admit that at first glance, the Entertainment Weekly ballet is a little overwhelming and it isn't even all the categories! 24 different categories to have opinions on! You try it.

But, I persevered and the first lot is who I want to win, or pictures I have heard are very deserving. It would have been easier with the Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Live Action Short Film, Animated Short Film categories if they would just tell us which ones are about the Holocaust, that would make it much easier to know which ones to pick.

Anyway, on with show:

The winners, My Pick , their pick , who actually was picked

Best Picture

The Queen
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Departed

Director

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel
Martin Scorsese, The Departed (still got it!)

Actor

Forest Whitaker, Last King Of Scotland (got it!)

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed

Actress

Kate Winslet, Little Children (I like her! Shut up.)
OR
Helen Mirren, The Queen (I got it!)

Helen Mirren, The Queen

Supporting Actor

Jackie Earl Haley, Little Children

Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Supporting Actress

Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls (got it!)

Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

Foreign Language Film

The Lives of Others, Germany (got it!)

Pan's Labyrinth, Mexico

Cinematography

Vilmos Zsigmond, The Black Dahlia (remember it is not about making the prairie look majestic, it is about making a living room look majestic)

Guillermo Navarro, Pan's Labyrinth (still got it!)

Original Screenplay

Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine (Got it!)

Peter Morgan, The Queen


And as for Best Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Live Action Short Film, Film Editing, Make Up, Art Direction, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects, Costume Design, Original score, Original Song, Animated Feature, and Animated Short film - you know you will be taking the dog out, brushing your teeth, putting the kids to bed, emptying the dishwasher or making a sandwich. If you don't know the nominees or have some technical knowledge about the discipline, these categories are not why you tune in - They are why you have to tune in for four plus hours. May the best nominees win.

Friday Cat Blogging



...and now with special bonus material! Friday Dog Blogging

Umm, yeah

I was planning to dazzle ya'll with an incredibly prescient Oscar(tm) forecast. And I will, over the weekend. Yes, I know, the shock the awe the new content over the weekend!! . Take a breath, it'll be all right.

My plan for the evening was fairly ambitious but not outside the realm of the possible, I was supposed to do the blog thing and then make dog cookies for Dogger. I was pumped.

But then, then I came home from work and passed by the kitchen phone and noticed I had a message . "That must be the Democrats again reminding me of that meeting on the 22nd at 7pm". Gawd! like I would forget about it after all the phone calls!" And then it struck me: it was the 22nd and I had totally forgoten about it.

I rushed Dogger through the park - We usually close the place, other people were looking at me leaving and they were like "Wait, you're leaving? You never leave! It's still light what are you thinking!? WTF?" and I'm all "I know!".
And so I went home and fed Dogger and changed clothes and and drove to the meeting place and - was the first one there. My precinct failed to reach quorum. Again. We needed five people and we got three, our soon to be former precinct chair didn't even show up. We have to have a make up meeting in a couple of weeks. It's going to be me, the two gay guys and their friends the urban pioneers.

Happy Lent ya’ll!!

You might have noticed a sudden influx of fish themed ads, Arby’s has introduced a fish sandwich, the Grotens fisherman is making appearances in prime time and I’ve noticed Burger Yucky wants me to buy two of their fish sandwiches for the price of one.

I feel so loved. It's good to be a targeted demographic.

I had never thought about Arbys as a seafood place, but things change. But you know what they say about change I would bet that things will be back to the same old same old by April 9, and that fish sandwich will swim right back to where it came from and we'll never her from it again until next Lent - you know that is why they trot these fish things out? It's about Lent and fish eating Catholics. Sure, some non-Catholics are being more papist these days, but it's all about Catholics and Lent and our Lenten dietary issues.

I have enjoyed the Grotens ad with the giant shrimp though, but I would bet that by April 9 those ads will be gone too.

The Priest read the gospel that mentions that while one is fasting one should dress well and wash your face and not let on publicly that you are being Pius, and yet the very next thing, we are lining for ashes. Hardly low key. The forhead is such a private and hidden place on our bodies. The inference is that we should take them off as soon as possible, If so, why do we have them on at all? It was a mini-mass, so the Father - who forgot his notes, didn't have time to get into it. The Bishop said the full-length Mass next door, I assume he explained it more fully. Or not. We're Catholics, we don't ask many questions.

Dogger was bathed last night. It was very special for the both of us. I didn’t wind up remembering to wear something dog-bath centric for her walk, but I think I set my sights too high on that aspect of my plan and I also didn’t strip her bedding as I walked in the door, I would but she was still using it. I dreamed too big.

After I finished washing her fur, I conditioned it. I couldn't help it! at the park there are so many dogs to pet, I wanted her to stand out. I could tell right a way that her coat was more shiny and manageable!

I was pretty close to my post-bath plan, I was able to get all her laundry washed and dried and folded and returned to the closet! Not a single towel spent the night in the dryer, not one bit of dog bedding got moldy in the washer! I was very proud of me. I had the whole operation taken care of by 8:30. I was able to watch a very good, brand new Law and Order-Ci! entirely guilt free. My dog was clean and the house evem smelled better, I hadn't realized Dogger made such an environmental impact.

What else?

Netflix delivered two movies to me despite that according to their own site I wouldn’t be getting them until 2/22! and so I had a whole extra night to not watch them. It was very empowering. I might reward them by watching one of them this evening because there isn’t anything on and I all ready washed the dog. Between ’Murrican Idiot and college basketball, my TV watching time is being seriously eroded. It’s so not right! I don’t even watch Idiot and I come from a culture that does not recognize sports played indoors. I would hope in the future or by at least next summer, that satilight TV would give you the option to watch either the regularly scheduled programming (CSI-Tulsa) or whatever they are replacing it with, say for arguments sake, a pointless and stupid college basketball game played by teams you don’t care about. I think that if they can let you pause “live” TV they should give you the choice of watching what you want to watch instead of whatever drek they think some mythical 14 year old boy wants to watch. I think this is do-able

To-Do Today.

If I am very, very smart after work I will immediately prepare the bathroom for dog bathing, change my clothes into things as suitable for dog walking as they are for dog bathing and finally, strip Doggers bedding and take it immediately to the basement for laundering, and then take Dogger for her walk.

I could have Dogger walked, her bedding washed and Dogger bathed all before 6:30pm. It would indeed be a wonderful thing.

It’s never going to happen like that.

What will happen:

Upon entering the house the phone will be ringing and I will trip over The Kitty in my rush to answer it. The call will disconnect before I get to the phone or it will be the fourth recorded reminder of the week from a evangelical mega church in Knightdale asking me to come visit them this week or another reminder the Democrats reminding me of my yearly precinct meeting this Thursday. Also in my rush to the phone I will re-injure my shoulder. The Kitty will find a way to cause me to become distracted, perhaps by throwing up on the new carpet, so that he may rush past me so that he may indulge in some punitive bill chewing to get back at me for tripping over him as I walked in the door.

When I wrestle the mail away from The Kitty, it will turn out that the most seriously chewed items will belong to my neighbors. The only things delivered to the right address will be pre-need fliers and pleas from area pharmacies for my Medicare dollars.

As I do the walk of shame to the neighbors to return their chewed up mail, I will think about bathing Dogger, but the thought of actually immediately preparing the bathroom for dog bathing, changing my clothes into things as suitable for dog walking as they are for dog bathing and finally, stripping Doggers bedding and taking it immediately to the basement for laundering, and then taking Dogger for her walk, will leave me too exhausted to actually do any of it. I mean, I could strip her bedding but it isn’t going downstairs, and in theory, I could break the whole dog bathing/bedding/towel laundering torment into small, easily doable non-torment-y parts and complete the rest of it in dribs and drabs over the rest of the evening because it’s not like I have anything else to do as the banal Murrican’ Idiot will be on instead of the brilliant House.

I will end up taking Dogger to the park again and hoping that anyone who touches her will do so with gloved hands that they will hopefully dispose of upon leaving the park, and that anyone who does come close to her won’t want to get too close to her as not only has she not been bathed in two weeks, I also have fallen behind on her doggy oral hygiene as well...Or I could just think about how much I need to do while Dogger and I doze in front of the TV watching twelve year old Law and Order reruns.

The Constant Reader

A couple of weeks ago I was tooling around Amazon and I found a few titles I thought I needed.

So I stepped back. I was all ready reading something and I do most of my reading over lunch and when you take into account the drive to the food, ordering the food, eating the food - there just isn’t a lot of time left over to actually read anything.. Yeah, I can sit in the car back in the parking lot, but it’s winter time now and it’s cold and not all titles are the page turners that Salt was. I mean, sometimes it can take me a month to finish a book. It is to weep.

I could bring the books inside with me at the end of the day but then I would either finish them too fast or I will forget to take them back out with me in the morning and then I would have nothing to read over lunch at all and that would be terrible.

Okay. So I ordered “some” books. Three. Used. Thank you very much. And then I waited.

And in the fullness of time they began to arrive. First one then another and then the last. I can find two of them. I am almost positive that they all got here. So, where is book number one? I would almost swear that it made it into the house. I can kind of almost remember looking at it, or the cover or something. I know there is an orange pitcher on the front cover. Or I saw the cover online and... I’ve looked for it. I went through the car because I might have decided that it would be the next book so I should just leave it in the car... but, why isn’t it in the car now? There were two books in the car, the book I read after I finished book “A” and the book I started when I finished book “B”. I was just about getting ready to take book “B” out of the car. In my defense, it had been moved to the passenger side floor board. It was really hardly even in the car anymore. Removing it bodily was almost over kill.

I had all ready cleaned out the car. I left Dogger unsupervised in Minnie for a couple of hours and before I did that, I took out everything I thought Dogger might want to play with - and I don’t remember finding the missing book. Dogger hasn’t chewed a book yet - I would like to say it is because she is such a well behave Dog or that even, she just knows not to destroy the written word. Right. Books are just too much work to chew up and Dogger is not really into hard work. The Kitty, on the other hand would go through a library.

The good news is, that while I was searching for The Book, I ran across some other books I had forgotten about. I did a lot of buying at that book fair last fall and not all of them were for Tiny E, The Gulag Arcapeligo is a book I should have read a long time ago. A person who has read as much Martin Cruz Smith as I have, should really read the real thing.

Bin Bushite?

Wonkette had this interesting news item. I followed the link to Ardsley businessman accused of aiding terrorists .

Brrrrr.

I really wanted to sit and watch some random ski competition. But.

Snow is cold.

I am cold.

It’s cold here. Right now it’s pretty and sunny and it looks lovely, but it’s cold! That is so mean. Saturday it looked dreadful. It was cold and nasty and gross. But what you saw was what you got. Nature wasn’t trying to put one over on anyone like it was doing today. I’m a big believer in truth in advertising, if it’s going to be cold and nasty, I would prefer it to actually have the balls to be cold and nasty. Sunshine should be saved for actual warm weather.

I don’t like to feel guilty for staying inside - and I don’t normally, but ... staying inside while it’s sunny just makes me feel guilty. I would watch a movie, but I just can’t. I feel like I should be out doing something... but , if I do venture outside to “do” something, I hate it! I’m cold and sad and I want to go inside. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

I was watching the skiers and it was making my feet cold. It’s not a nice sensation. I usually like watching skiing, but I think I enjoy it more when I am warmer. I’ve been skiing for real and probably the only turn off about it, is the coldness. Even with layers of clothing and goggles and hats and massive gloves - You are always cold. You can’t do anything about it, if you are out playing in the snow you will be cold. I am sitting in my living room under layers of blankets and a hounded pound Dogger and just watching the skiers in the snow was making me cold.

I decided to turn to BBC America . Tara Bernard made me feel cold in a different way. I watched her for a good hour and she only designs spaces that require the home owner to don heavy outer wear before entering the room, I mean the bathroom was lovely but have you ever had to really use the john while wearing a ski bib? Maybe it’s a British thing. And speaking of British designers, a room that smacks of season three of Miami Vice is not “modern” design. Gah.

And the thing is, in a few months my house will be a sauna! I’m going to be hot for months and it will get that way over night. I’ll go to sleep wearing flannel and by morning I’ll be digging out shorts. If the world really loved me they would show skiing in say, July when my house is 8o degrees and I really want to feel chilled. They should show swimming or track in the winter. They could show reruns! I mean, who would know? The hard core track or swimming fans? If they really were all that into there sports they would be out training for them, not sitting on their athletic little ass’ watching other athletes compete.

Ideally, right now, I would like to see the skiers post-ski, swathed in flannel, maybe wrapped in heavy blankets, sitting around a nice fire.

HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!!

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!!!

Friday Cat Blogging

Cha, Cha, Changes....

Yes.

It's different. I know. I was surprised too and I did it. I'm not happy about it, but what can you do? Stay the same and become invisible, change and remain somewhat visible. Not the same though, I would have rathered stay the same. This template was a close as I could come.

Everything changed! It used to be so easy! I wanted to add something, it was easy. Call up the old template and just add whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted. Top of the page, bottom, middle! The sky was the limit!

It used to be manual. I wanted to do something, I had to do it. I had to find out that the HTML and then do it. I made mistakes.

But.

They were things I could fix.

Now?

Now? It's all automatic. It's their way or no way. I really hate that. There are things I can change, for instance, the pictures in the side bar are now too wide and I'm going to have to change the number of them - I'm not happy about it. It would be great if they would let me make the side bar a little wider. But that would be good for me, the end user and Blogger.Com can't have that.

I am also discovering that for whatever reason, my home computer has "applet" issues. Most of the fancy new cut and paste hoops that Blogger.Com wants me to jump through are applet-y. Sure, I can do it at work but oddly, Work would prefer that I work on their projects instead. I could go there over the weekend but that just seems sad and pathetic. But, I'm a blogger, sad and pathetic comes naturally to me. I should just embrace it.

Okay, moving on.

I was at the dog park the other night. Freezing, as per usual. I was standing there wondering if I always could feel my ears or if I was only aware of them because they were getting ready to fall off. I have been aware of them when they were not getting ready to fall off, but it was because I had sunburned them and they they were trying to peel off and they weren't happy then either. You really can't make them happy.. it's too hot, it's too cold. Big whiners, or they have an awful life and they live in like the worst environment on earth.

For the good of our relationship, I decided I needed to get a hat and the longer I thought about it - I had some time to think about it, Dogger could sense that I wanted to go home,and was well into her second wind. She always knows when I want to go home and takes it as her cue to run as far and fast as she can away from where I am. And she doesn't have ear issues - her ears are covered with fur and they are floppy. I think it's her butt that gets cold.

Anyway. I have a hat. I've had a hat for years. I was pretty sure I had a hat. I I ran across every time I was looking for something else, like shoes or that other mitten I can't ever find. It's green, the hat not the missing mitten. The hat makes me look like a fey longshoreman or if my hair is down, a butch Afghan hound.

I came home and looked for my hat, I found my other mitten.

The Newness

Grumble, grumble.The mountain refused to respond to my emails, so I was forced to give in to the mountain. So, out with the old template, in with the new. Grumble, grumble.

Those wacky spammers!


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Um...

Due to technical difficulties, i.e, Blogger.com's lack of interest in dealing with THEIR problem, I still have my problem. I'm sorry. For the three of you you read this page through Netscape, the page can not be read IE, so the other 7 people who also come here - can't see it and neither can I. This will be taken care of and I will be back very soon.

Urban Living

Well, once the wind died down it got a lot more bearable. Now it’s just cold, but it’s a dry cold it’s all right.

I would bet that this shit doesn’t happen to office workers in the private sector.

So not only am I cold, I’m also tired.I was awakened in the middle of the night and for a change it wasn’t The Kitty’s fault. I woke up to the sound of pounding, pounding, pounding. At 3am. At first I thought that I was dreaming but then it started again. I lay there trying to figure out what of mine was being pounded on. It wasn’t metallic so it wasn’t Minnie and if it was the door, I think I would be feeling in the wall and almost for sure, Dogger would be alarmed. I would hope.

And then it stopped.

And I said, Okay. It stopped. I will go back to bed.

And then it started again.

This time I got up. There is a limit to my fear. I have a hardcore burglar alarm and I set it before I went to bed. It did not make the pounding less alarming. At the dog park earlier in the evening, I spoke with a couple of other dog owners who were on their way to a neighborhood watch meeting and they shared fun stories about crime in their neighborhood. I mentioned the Drug Dealer and they raised me a home invasion and a cathouse. I was a little unsettled.

So. Pounding. My first thought was, should I turn every light in the house on? Do I want “them” to know I was awake? Would this make them try harder to get in? (Even scared and in the middle of the night I don’t use Bushspeak – “embolden” is not a word) . I got my flashlight and made absolutely sure it wasn’t The Kitty. It wasn’t, he was asleep in the futon. The banging stopped, again.

Since the banging had stopped, I went down stairs. I opened the door to the office to see what Dogger was doing about all this racket. She was sleeping, curled up in a little dog ball. . This seconded my idea that the banging wasn’t being done on my house. Dogger doesn’t like people coming around her house in the dark. If people had been close enough to bang on my house, she would have been upset or at least not sleeping.

After checking on Dogger I very carefully looked out the front window and then the others. Nada. The security lights hadn’t been tripped in the front or back yards. I turned on the side light and saw nothing amiss.

This isn't the first time I had been startled awake like this, right after I moved in someone thought it would be a good idea to chop wood in the middle of the night. Scared the bejesus out of me.

I also started to think about the nature of the banging, and I decided it wasn’t mere “banging”, it was hammering. Some son of a bitch either next door or behind him was doing construction work at 3am.

I thought about calling 911, but what was I going to say? Yeah, a while ago some SOB was framing something or putting up wallboard. He stopped, why don’t ya’ll drive by and see if he has a permit..

I was feeling pretty good when I took Dogger out this morning. There were no wayward bad guys nailed to my fence and Mini was fine. The only think out of the ordinary was the helicopter hovering over head.

It's not the cold, it's the wind chill

64 degrees in the office and the blowers are blowing cold air. I was warmer when I was outside.

They are what they are

BRUSSELS, Belgium - An animal lover was mauled to death by cheetahs after entering their cage at a zoo in northern Belgium, authorities and zoo officials said Monday.

“Karen loved animals. Unfortunately the cheetahs betrayed her trust". Authorities believe the woman,, a regular visitor to the zoo, hid in the park late Sunday until it closed and managed to find the keys to the cheetah cage.

Animal rights group GAIA called for the immediate closure of the zoo, located 55 miles northeast of Brussels, saying it was unsafe for both visitors and the cats.

full story here

Betrayed her trust? The wild animals didn’t throw a party at her house while she was out of town, they didn’t borrow her car and use it in a robbery, they didn’t bang her boyfriend! The wild animals sensed an intruder and they killed it. It is what they do . You don’t hang out with cheetahs, they aren’t your buds, they don’t want to eat Cheetos with you. They want to chew on you. You = Slow and fat and stupid, Them = Fast and lithe and bored . They really don’t think we’re cute. They don’t look at us through their enclosures and say “Ahhh! Look at the widdle people! Aren’t they cutest things evah! OMG! Bitty little humans! SO sweet!”. They look as us though their enclosures and say ” Nummy, Nummy...One more step... Climb the fence. Come on... A little closer, a littler nearer. Put your arm through the bars... Come to Papa, Mmmmmmmm.”

I watched a show on how big cats kill their prey. They are very efficient killers, very fast. The big cats snap their preys necks and then puncture the carotid. As the prey bleeds out, they move the body and save it for later. Bears on the other hand? No table manners whatsoever, what with the tearing and ripping. I would imagine that even cheetahs living in a long term care situation would still be very good at it. The poor woman probably didn’t suffer for long, hopefully. The cheetahs probably thought she was intrusive manna from heaven. Her poor family.

And as to the animal rights yahoos. I think the zoo was safe for visitors and animals. She had to fail to leave at closing, hide from the staff, steal keys and then bother the animals. The animals were fine. I would hope that in the future, visitor would look around, notice the lack of cameras and realize that they and the cheetahs and the other predators are not staring in another poorly conceived Disney movie.

I love Dogger and the other dogs at the park and they are really cute... right up to when they start playing rough, play- fighting, running as a pack. They morph before your eyes from cute and fluffy puppy rabbits into pack animals. Predators.

On a completely related note. A couple were their with their two dogs. Really, one and a quarter dogs. They just got a new puppy ! A nine week old dachshund/terrier/lab? mix . The other dog owners were lining up to see the baby and we all got a chance to hold her! A leetle, itty bitty, baby puppy! An infant dog. The puppy started to shiver and her people put on her sweater - it was a sock! the puppy could wear a sock! It wasn’t even a big sock. The puppy didn’t even bark yet, she grunted and I swear, when she got cuddled up, she purred.

Busy Work

Saturday I did three things.

1. Walked Dogger all the way around Lake Johnson, see the pictures here

2. Did laundry.

3. Changed over to the “New Blogger”.

Wow. You say, gosh, don’t wear yourself out, take a breath! My Gawd, woman, take a load off! Don’t work so hard.

Ha. Ha. The laundry was easy. The walk was hard. I was tired! It was about a two and a half hour hike and not on the path either. We extreme hiked, thank you very much and we spend a lot of time on the spill way. I decided to read the “Stay Off The Spillway” signs as “Don’t Play In The Water” and I didn’t. I did not actually get into the water. I was always obediently water adjacent. I played near the water not in or with the water itself. It’s an important distinction. It’s important to be able to make such distinctions, on your feet if you have to. If you go beyond the signs it’s important that you are prepared be able to 1) cry 2) speak Swedish or 3) equivocate , on a moments notice.

Here is Dogger plays Our Lady Of The Spillway.



After our hike I brought Dogger home and fed her after she ate she took to her bed for the rest of the evening. Girl dog is out of shape! I thought all that full-speed-ahead-damn-the-torpedoes running she does at the park had done more for her.

Anyway. New Blogger. You might notice that this entry and many others now have some sort of description at the end, this is so you can see other entries with similar themes. categorizing them takes a long time, Blogger does not make this an efficient task. But. But But. I think it’s kind of cool. It would be cooler if there was a list of the different categories, say in the links section, but you know - Free. So.

I have done 300 entries so far. That take us back to the first week of September 2006. And I thought I was a bad, lazy blogger who didn’t post enough. I post enough. So, 300 entries categorized, 2500+ entries over four years, to go. Pray for me.

HAPPY SUNDAY !!!!!!!!

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!

(Blogger was bloggered)

Friday Cat Blogging

Please Lord, don't ever let me get so famous that my body is ordered "preserved"

Judge orders Smith's body preserved at least 11 days

Somewhere she and James Brown are deciding who they're going to haunt.

TGIF

Finally. Longest week ever. Kind of, I mean I’ve had longer weeks, but ya know. I’m getting old. I was tired all week. Two week ends in a row I was busy and now I’m tired. I am so old. I woke up one morning and griped at myself for staying up so “late” the night before – That would be fine, but I asleep by eleven. It’s not like I was up late running around. In bed by eleven. I am so lame. And old.

I blame Eastern Standard Time. See, Central Time ends at 10pm. You can watch your 9:00pm hour long drama and be in bed five minute later. Sure, prime time starts at 7pm, but that means that the kiddies can be put to bed earlier. I think eventually the Nanny State will take over and will make it a law that children under age fill-in-the-blank must be in bed by no later than X time. They’ll quote a bunch of studies saying that children need X hours of sleep a night and how getting less sleep effects test scores and children who report earlier bed times have higher scores than those who report later bed times andthat will get everyone’s attention because the schools live and die by they federal funding and funding is tied to test scores and the schools will start little “Early to Bed Early To Rise” clubs where the kids will report in what time they hit the hay and maybe club members will get free breakfast and then they’ll decided that any child that is eligible for free breakfast has to be an ETBETR club member to maintain eligibility and eventually someone will suggest fining parents who don’t enforce bed times and on and on.

I don’t know how they would enforce this but I’m sure they would find some invasive way to monitor it. And we’ll let them, because by that time we’ll have given up and FAUX News will tell us that we all agree that personal privacy provides aid and comfort to the terrasts.

Whatever. I mean, I’m all in favor of going to bed early and I think children under the age of say, 12 should be in bed no later than 9:00pm – but mostly because I hate going out at night and having to keep an eye out for eight year olds dressed like ninjas riding their bikes in the middle of the street.

Anyway. Eastern Standard Time , bad and contributes to sleep debt and falling test grades. Central Standard Time, good as well as Gawds own time zone.

Next item.

I finally caved and bought a battery powered tooth brush. I thought it would be cooler but it’s really like getting an OTC tooth cleaning – about 85 percent of a “prescription” tooth cleaning. I thought that there would be more there “there”. Sure, it revolves and vibrates and all but…. I don’t know if it’s something I’m going to feel like I need another of when it wears out. I almost got a similar model that played “music” for two minutes. The tooth brush had kind of a faux NASCAR theme so I had my suspicions that the “music” it would play would be Proud to Be a Murrican, so I gave it a pass. If it hadn’t played music I might have gone with it, it was kewl but really, does anyone really need a black toothbrush with flame decals? I mean anyone who isn’t Danny Zuko?

Train of thought

A chip here and chip there, every one of them an opportunity to begin picking, picking, picking at my nail polish. It was lovely but now it’s time for it to go.

I felt bad even thinking about removing the polish while my nails were still flawless. Now? a few days in flaws are staring to show up and I am less precious about removing the polish - one flake at a time if that's what it takes. The last time I did this the polish came off in sheets. Spekaing of polish, how does polish end up scratched? I hadn’t even done anything to them yet and there are these little lines, they almost look like stretch marks? Do nails get stretch marks? Do nails lose weight suddenly? Are my nails doing trim spa and not sharing with me? What does it all mean? Are my nails sending me messages? Can they breathe under there? Did that highly flammable stuff they sprayed on them to make them dry faster, make them ill? I could imagine. I think an alternate use for the nail spray would be as a jet fuel . McGuyver would love it.

As pretty as most of my nails still are, I am starting to get the same sensation I do when I have dried glue on my hands. Am I the only one with that issue? Other people can get down right rhapsodic about the joys of popping bubble wrap – fun, I’ll admit but not as good as picking at glue.

Another car jumps the tracks

The mail guy at work was late today. It makes up for yesterday when he was early. And he didn’t even hang around to let us catch up; he hurried out just like he does when he arrives on time. Today I hurried to get everything ready to go early and he showed up late. I liked it better when he had a set schedule.

The new file manager is making copies. Did you know that there is more than one way to make copies? I had no idea. I did it the right way and she is doing it in a completely different way. It’s taking a great deal of self control to not get up and show her the “right” way to do it. I’m sure we’re getting the same results, maybe. I wasn’t much for chaos when I was making copies. Different strokes I guess. I just prefer having my copies in neat stacks and the originals back in the order I found them. I’m just wacky that way .

Watch out!

I finally bathed Dogger last night. She was really wretched. She was so stinky she all but jumped into the tub and soaped herself up. It’s really sad when you walk into a room and your first thought is Wow. Did I track something in. I didn’t track anything in, I lead it in on a leash and now it was standing there wagging its tailette and wanting to get up on the furniture.

It was time for a bath and she knew it. I should have guessed the way she was going though deodorant. After I finished with her hair, I thought about using my conditioner but she didn’t seem to be feeling it. I thought she would like smelling like a tropical bouquet. She did not. She was like ”I’ll stand here through the baby shampoo and I can understand the flea stuff but I draw the line at you putting “product” on my fur. Paris Hilton you are not and I do not fit in your purse. Tick tock babe, I'm losing patience fast.”.

Since she didn't want the finishing rinse, we were almost done. She could get out of the bath but I had to get her toweled off and then I had to dig out my hair drier and blow dry her coat, what you don't blow dry your dog after it's bath? and after that the weekly brushing of her teeth.

I’m pretty sure I spend more time on her beauty regime then my own.

Shocking. Just Shocking

Three former Army Reserve officers and two civilians indicted with conspiracy, money laundering and bribery in probe of alleged fraudelent use of millions of U.S.
dollars in Iraq.

McNulty added that the defendants smuggled bricks of stolen cash from Iraq back to the United States for personal use.

U.S. government officials working in Iraq are not for sale. We will prosecute anyone who attempts to exploit the reconstruction efforts in Iraq for their personal gain.
CNN.com

So, can we assume that Haliburton will be next up? Isn't "exploiting the reconstruction efforts in Iraq for their personal gain" a part of their misson statement? I'm confused. Do you think they asked the two civilans if they voted for Bush? . The republican culture of corruption goes on and on, on and on, on and on...

Dear Sam’s Club,

If that’s your real name… See, the suspicion? It burns.

I went to your store today, I mean I am assuming it was your store, but that with Identity theft being such a problem these day, it could have been almost anyone's. I blame the internets. I chose your establishment because I could both buy gas for my car and pizza for my lunch at the same place!, I thought How Neat!

Well, I dutifully flashed my membership card to the young lady at the door. I could have flashed my library card at her as much as she cared, but that is beside the point. She didn’t even notice that I walked past a display of plasma screen TVs and didn’t steal any of them.

And then I walked past a huge display of valentines candy and while no one was looking, I didn’t steal any.

I decided to eat lunch first so as to not have gasoline on my hands while I was eating. I’m really into the science of scentology and I know it’s not a scent that facilitates digestion. So, I went to your Bistro and bought a slice of pizza and a soft drink, I paid for it with my Sam’s Club credit card. The counter help gave me my recipt and I found a seat, I mean not everyone lives to ponder the circle of life where you can have cheese pizza and tires sold in the same building. What came first the tire or the cheese, they are both made from the same petroleum based products... Boy were there a lot of empty seats! I had to get up and get a napkin because the pizza was a little greasy – have you thought about selling your excess grease? Does your store do lube jobs? or would the public have to buy those in bulk too? Perhaps marketing towards fleets? Just a suggestion!

I finished my meal and prepared to leave the store. I walked past a huge display of deodorant and while no one was watching, I didn’t steal any.

I was at the door when it struck me that my receipt at become adhered to my napkin and was accidentally thrown away! I felt just awful about it and told the gal at the door right off.

She contacted her manager and the manager took my Sam’s Card.

And I stood there.
And I stood there.
And I stood there.
And I stood there.

I was begin to feel a little bit like I had done something very wrong. They were assuming I would steal from them.

The manager had my card and he had been gone a very long time. I began to wonder what he was doing tapping away at his computer.

And I stood there.
And I stood there.
And I stood there.
And I stood there

And I finally went to his computer and while no one was looking I did not steal their credit card machine

I went to remind him that like Old Glory, I was still there.

He smirked at me. At Me! Old Glory!

He said he was printing out a new receipt for me. I told him I didn’t want my receipt, I wanted to go back to work. He said the gal would ask for it.

I walked back to the door and while no one was looking, did not steal their suggestion box.

The gal looked embarrassed. The only one demanding to see my receipt was him. Anyway, I just wanted to write and share with you a new marketing slogan:

Sam’s Club - Where making you feel small is our business.

Yours Truly,

Girl looks like a Lady

Pwetty, ohhhh! Shiny… I’m sorry; I was totally distracted by the luster and glammer of my nails.

I decided to get them “done” for the baptism. It’s been a while, oh, I don’t know twelve years since I’ve had them professionally painted. They are all shiny now and reflective and I keep trying to see myself in them, but I can't, not really.

After the ceremony I wanted to say “Well, I can’t walk in heels and managed to walk right out of those shoes walking up the stairs to the alter (Does that sound hugely embarrassing? Yes, yes it was! And was this all captured on tape? Yes, yes it was!) . I may look like a total loser but my look how great my nails are!”.

I had the nails of a woman who could not only walk in heels but who also climb stairs in them! And would have never experienced a shoe related mishap. Ever. I walked up to the alter with the nails of a woman who would never buy discount shoes on sale. I walked up to the alter with the nails of a woman wearing Jimmy Chew shoes. Sadly, that woman’s nails were attached to my hands and I wasn't wearing Jimmy Chews.

Shiny, shiny! Prwetty

I think you have to pay more for the truly mirror like finish, but still. I would paint my nails myself, probably more frequently than my once every twelve year schedule that I have been working on, but I suck at it. Not just kind of suck, I mean really, really suck. A three year old would do a better job. A three year child with pink fingernail polish all over their hands and face and clothes and walls and the cat… It’s cute. An issue for your insurance to resolve, but cute. When a grown adult woman can’t put polish on her nails without ending up looking like some sort of Circ de Soloa wannabe, it’s just sad.

Oh, so smoooooth…

Oh, wait, sorry. I had to pet my nails for a second.

All of a sudden I’m noticing my fingers. I spent the weekend with them splayed out on table tops because I was so entranced by their shiny newness and their sudden, tragic fragileness. All it takes is single bad idea and they aren’t perfect anymore and polished nails are all about perfection. I know now why they say ladies don’t drink out of cans. It’s not that ladies shouldn’t drink out of cans, it’s because they can’t open those cans. Those pop tops play havoc on your manicure! I’ve opened hundreds of cans but all of a sudden I had to think about it and I was like Oh my gawd! This is totally going to mess with my nails! Damn.. I was goingto ask for assistance but I was afraid that suddenly setting back the woman's movement by 25 years would cause waves. I don’t really want to get a pissy cease and desist letter from Ms. magazine or a pissy letter of congratulations from the Eagle Forum.

I wonder if I was trying to open a diet coke would the pop top have been more manicure friendly. Maybe they come with a wider pop top or a springier release? Or padding? Or something? I don’t it’s too much to expect. If they can make huge buttons in Dodge trucks to serve guys wearing work gloves, they can make better pop tops for woman wearing nail polish.

While I am really enjoying the new shiny state of my nails I also want to start picking on the polish. I mean, really I want to peel it off in sheets . The longer my nails are covered the more I am beginning to relate to my shiny overlords like they are a particularly insidious form of band aid.

You know the good thing about having your nails painted a really dark color? If you happen to get dirt under your nails? It’s invisible! I mean, not that I have dirt under my nails at present, but it’s an interesting solution. Perhaps during spring planting season I will visit the manicurist again…

Damn, the Colts won.

Whew. What a weekend. What with family in town and Tiny E’s baptism, lovely, by the way, and post-Baptism gatherings and The Puppy Bowl and the Super Bowl and Broskey running into that deer - Gosh. There wasn’t much time for blogging. So I didn’t.

But. I did have a question answered that had been bothering me for some time. I have read many, many stories of hit and run drivers swearing to Gawd that they had no idea that they hit and then ran over that full grown human being. It made me very scared that perhaps I have been running over people for years and not realizing it. I’ve been wanting to ask a cop but I could never find the right opening and then I was afraid they would see my question as well, questionable. Every time I saw a report of a hit and run I would sit there and think if I could have been there. I mean, even if I had not been driving in the area at the time or had even been awake at that hour... even though I am rarely out driving around at four am , when most of these things seem to happen, I worried.

It’s one of the reasons I don’t like driving at night, I was truly afraid of committing a hit and run and not knowing it. People are stupid at night and they don’t pay attention. Drivers and pedestrians. A pedestrian out playing in traffic - late, late at night is likely very, very, stupid.. A driver out late, late at night is likely stupid and have their finger on the trigger of a 1200 pound weapon. It doesn’t take much to figure out who is going to be still be stupid when the lights come up and who is going to be dead.

Well. I know now. If you hit a full grown anything, if you as much as wing a full grown anything - you can tell. There is a sizable impact. It feels like being rear ended. Hard. You may not see what SOB hit you, but know for damn sure you were hit.

We winged a deer and we could tell right off. It was a big thing and we hit it. Hard. Even if we didn’t see the deer the car bore witness. It was slammed. The impact left a big damn dent, smushed the bumper and shattered the headlights. We could tell we hit something. And a good sized human can out weigh a deer and most likely isn’t going to scamper out of the way to go die in the woods. A person is going die on the road and won’t be invisible.

We could have all been drunk off our ass’s ( which we weren’t. Post baptism, the only spirits running though us were Holy) and it would have been perfectly clear that we had just hit a something. A drunk who hits a something knows they hit a something, the drunk would be startled at the very least. For sober people, it was terrifying.

I have my answer and I know I have not been randomly playing chicken with pedestrians The next person who hits a full grown human and claims they couldn’t tell or they didn’t know . I’ll know one thing, they are lieing.

HAPPY SUPER BOWL SUNDAY !!!!!!!

and of course, watch The Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet!!!!

HAPPY SATURDAY !!!!!!

Brief reminder, tomorrow, watch the third annual Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet!!

Friday Cat Blogging

Wake County Schools Suck.

Today it pretended to snow again. The schools took the opportunity to drill what they would do if they actually were faced with a real weather related emergencey and were forced to close the schools.Someday, when we get actual, seriously bad weather - the school cancellation will go really smoothly. No panic, no stressing.

The scool system is damn good at it, all the driling it into the kids that bad weather= stay at home; it's not easy to train good habits out of them. But they do their best to make sure their students have no work ethic whatsoever. Those lessons has to last them into adulthood. They need to learn that if the streets are wet - they just shouldn’t risk it. The kids can’t read or write but damn it, they can deal with classes being cancelled like champs.

So. Since it was wet and cold and nasty and I wasn’t going to go to the park or walk Dogger under the circumstances - Gawd created fenced yards for a reason.

I went shopping instead. I still was looking for an appropriate baptism gift for Tiny E. I was on a mission. So after exhaustive online searches I settled on a old fashioned brick and mortar store for my purchase. The store was even kind enough to provide a handy map and directions. Yes, my old friend online directions. I know they’re always wrong, I know they mean me harm... But.

I printed out the directions. There was a problem right off. While the map mentioned streets that are found on Dix campus, the streets they mentioned didn’t exactly have anything to do with getting off campus. It just seemed to be a random selection of streets. I’m glad they recognized that there are streets on Dix, it was a nice gesture. I wished it hadn’t been a rude gesture.

There is a major street in front of Dix. An artery if you will. It’s big. It runs right through town and it’s hard to get from point D on my map to point E if you don’t use that street. I mean, you could fly, but you’re just going to fly right over it. It’s hard to ignore.

My map did.

Ignored a lot of streets that you really kind of have to use if you are trying to get to where I was trying to get to. It turns out there were a lot of streets that my map just kind of ignored.

It wasn’t all wrong. Once, I found one of the streets and from there I did run across other streets mentioned on the map. They weren’t exactly where the map said they would be but I got excited every time I ran across one. At least I knew I was headed in the right direction. Kind of. I knew I wasn’t going in circles because I never did see a damn thing I recognized.

Against all odds, in the dark, in the rain, in a strange neighborhood and frankly, by accident - I found the store!

And it was closed, on account of the weather. I blame the schools.

Time for Plan B .

Yay!!!

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

Horcruxes and Hallows and Hogwarts, oh my! We know you can't wait to see your favorite wizards. Lucky for you, J.K. Rowling has just announced the date! "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will be released on July 21, 2007. Pre-order your copy today at $18.89, a savings of 46%, and be protected by Amazon.com's Pre-order Price Guarantee*. You'll get your copy faster than you can say "Accio, Book 7!"

FYI

As of 8:30 am we have achieved snow fall.

Jesus! Mary! And Joseph!

With Tiny E’s baptism coming up I thought I would find her something appropriately religious in nature – I take my responsibilities seriously. I thought Baby’s First Rosary would be an easy get, also,not expensive.

Boy,was I wrong. First I have to find a Catholic Oasis in the middle of the King James Desert. This is not easy. In reality your garden variety “Christen” store is actually a Protestant store and they don’t tend to sell rosaries. Books about papists? sure would you like to see one about how Catholics worship statues or the ones about how Catholics don’t read the bible or are witches or some such ignorant clap trap. Whatever. Reason numbers 1-23 for not doing business with those places.

But. There is a Protestant Store in just about ever strip mall and more and more if you go in and ask where the rosaries are, the help is less and less likely to make a face and more and more likely to send you to the jewelry counter. Not the greatest but better than a snort and a comment about statues.

I would like a choice of rosaries. I want shiny ones and wooden ones and since this is for a baptism I want to see cute little pink ones and maybe some wooden ones in primary colors and then I would like to overthink the whole thing. I need choices for that. And I don’t want to pay a lot because I know if I paid more attention at church camp I could make one myself and wouldn't that be special and meaningful?! I suck at godmotherhood all ready! It doesn’t take special beads you know – they don’t have to be blessed or prayed over. It’s just beads. But sadly, I didn’t pay attention at church camp. I played poker for pencils at church camp.

Okay. So I went online. And rosaries were plentiful. Expensive! But plentiful. I was shocked. They wanted upwards of $80 for them. For rosary beads! And did you know there were Men’s and Womans rosaries? I had no idea. I thought one set was like another but apparently there is a difference. I had always seen them as being pretty gender non-specific but maybe I have always had a woman’s rosary? I mean, the stuff you learn online today.

I learned that the kind I’ve always had cord rosaries are what they call “plastic rosaries” in the biz. I also now know why they are the only kind I’ve ever had – they’re cheap.

But if you are too pious for mere plastic beads you can shell out the bucks for ”deluxe” set.. Maybe if you’re Mel Gibson’s wife… are break away, lets-face-it- heretical pseudo- Catholic sects even allowed to use officially sanctioned Roman Catholic Church approved tools or do they have to make their own? I mean how would any one know? I mean sure, Mel does walk around with a flashing "Hi! I'm a Heretic !" sign, but how about the others?

Do you think Mel saw The Da Vinci Code?

I think I found the right gift but am I being a bad Godmother-to-be if I shopped for it online? Do I have to make the pilgrimage to the store? I’ve been to Catholic Bookstores in the past and they are almost as scary as the “Christen” Stores. More so because I can’t blame any of it on “them”. If I saw Priest and Nun dolls at one of “their” stores I would raise holy hell.