To Serve.

Today was Pancake Day! I was very excited about Pancake Day because apparently it means that at IHOP t means that you get free pancakes, at least between 7a and 7p and I had every intention of claiming my free stack, carbs be damned, free pancakes!

I picked up the dog at daycare, rushed home, all the while planning my meal and picking my sides out. The pancakes are free but man can not and should not live by carbs alone, what kind and how many sausages do I want to order? How about some veggies? Do I want to order some de-caf?

 I needed to rush because of a staff meeting ran over, I fed the dog, and then quickly put the dog back in the car and went to my semi-nearest Ihop. I would have gone to my nearest Ihop, and that one is much nicer and newer and cooler but that one has NO PARKING and I knew that today was going to be a big day at the IHOP and parking was going to be important.

So I toughed it out and went to my next nearest, a much less nice and new and significantly less cool IHOP in Knightdale, thinking how many people are going to be still there at 6:30?

Everyone in Knightdale was still there at 6:30! The parking lot was full and there was a line out the door at 6:30 and people were still arriving.I was shocked and horrified and knew I was not going to get my pancakes before 7p.

They must have advertised the hell out Pancake day! There must be some secret channel that IHOP fans have access to, because  I saw one brief thing about it on Facebook and that was it. Who were all those people?! Could that have been a regular Tuesday night at the IHOP?

I left, now really, really hungry and went to KFC, where I ordered extra crispy and they were out. I was now left with rather limp regular recipe and no pancakes.

Monday

I was going to walk the dog after work. I mean I was going to walk the dog his regular nice long walk to and from downtown. But then I actually went outside and discovered that it was cold and wet and windy and gross and I had to change my plans. And my clothes. I needed more and warmer

I radically changed them my clothes and my plans. For a few minutes I wasn't going to walk the dog at all. It was too gross. But I knew better, I was going to walk this dog, damn it and it was not going to be me just taking the dog out to dog his business and then locking ourselves inside in front of my fake fireplace for the the night. I do not get that lucky

 But I was hopeful, sometimes I get lucky, and I am hopeful. And then he did not do his business. All hope is lost. No, I do not get lucky. I am not a lucky person, I've never have been, they say you make your own luck but I've never had the recipe.

And we had to go for a walk. A short walk, around the the block. Do you know how long "around the block" is when it is 40 degrees colder, windier and rainier than when you went to lunch? It is a really long walk! It is significantly longer than the stated .30, I can tell you that much. Significantly longer. And wetter and windier. And no fun. At all.  I've done that walk in all kinds of weather and its always about the same distance, but it has never been longer.

By the time we got back, colder, wetter and more windswept than when we left, we were not happy and the dog all but through himself at the door. He also felt significantly "better", so it was not a wasted trip. Dog ownership is not for lazy people or for people afraid to get wet or cold or wind swept.

Cats do not require so much from you. Kitties, love them.

Then, now cold and wet and windswept, I decided I needed to change clothes. The dog and cats and went upstairs and due to the cold and wet and windy-ness of the walk, we were forced to take a nap. A very nice nap.  It was necessary for our recovery and is most likely what stood between us and the flu. So it was completely necessary that we took that nap.

And then we had dinner.  I made spaghetti squash and ground meat with red sauce for Sunday dinner and it was even more outstanding on day two.

Friday Cats Blogging

TGIF

For those of you keeping track, Rocket has safely gotten his bordetella shot and is once again street legal and fit for public consumption. His daycare requires he get it twice a year but other facilities are okay with once a year.  He's good for another six months.

Go us. And so fast forward walk, dinner, rerun watching, trying to decide what I'm wearing to work tomorrow, already thinking about what about lunch tomorrow -  do I go to my regular Chinese place and try out their unfamiliar to me fish options and waste valuable lunch time dickering over choices or do I just go with my McDonalds fish burger, that I know I like and have a proper lunch hour? I like to do my worrying ahead of time.

Right now I am watching Olympics, Drag Race and Project Runway. I can't actually watch three shows at once, so I had to jettison PR and set it to tape later.   

Finally! Ladies ice skating! This is why we all tuned in! Not to watch Finns and Chinese speed skate! No one wants to see that, we are watching because everyone wants to see the ladies  ice skating, this is The Winter Olympics! This is why we watch and it is insulting that they keep putting it on later and later and putting it on off-channels and online only.

If you are going to hide something, hide curling or one of the 400 different speed skating varieties or long distance skiing. And really? Its nice that NBC is being good about showing sports we have no chance in hell at ( kind of like ladies ice skating, when I think about it) but stop cutting away from skating to really dull sports we aren't even pretending to be competitive at so they can say how many sports they are covering.  I even want to see ice skaters from Jamaica!

But. I won't be able to see the really, really good skaters because they won't hit the ice until way after my bed time and I know if I tape it, I won't watch it because I'll already have the results. and I'm mad at the Russians and their non-team anyway. They shouldn't be there anyway. Drug fiends.

Gah.

Whoopsy! Didn't do an entry for Wednesday, just didn't do it. Watched TV instead. Sorry not sorry, I watched Olympics and  The Alienist instead. 

I think you guys lived.

Oh no, I think I just head fireworks outside, so you can be garundamnteeded that someone on Nextdoor is going to be screaming about gunshots any minute.... And I was right! They "saw the car that did it", and AGAIN I would ask if I wanted to be attacked for being mean, "what were they "shooting" at exactly? Bullets are expensive. Okay then, "Did you see a firearm?, Did you see the flash of the discharge of the weapon?  "Are there spent shells in the street?" or,  Did you actually hear fireworks being thrown from the vehicle?" .

I wouldn't have a problem with their white fear  but its their actual racism I have an issue with, because let's be real here, they are are racists,  they really don't like the neighbors and they did not know there would be black people when they moved here. They are really not happy, so they call the cops. A lot. Its their racism that's a problem.

I would say, fine, bother the cops, be you - if they would just keep the hysteria to themselves. They don't need to post it online. They call the cops every time they hear a sound louder than a humming bird fart and they wonder why it takes so long for the cops to come when they call about a harmless drunk on their porch.

They admitted the drunk white guy was just standing there. They were watching him on their security camera ( they all have security cameras), they knew he was just standing there. They admitted they didn't confront the drunk with as much as blinking their porch light or telling him to get off their porch. And then they got pissed that it took the cops ten whole minutes to get there! another poster claimed the cops "should have been there in two minutes!".  In a significantly less than life or death situation?  Scaring off a drunk? Yeah they will be a huge hurry to get there. Two minutes. You can suck my dick.

I'm sure they were somewhere else following up on fireworks and couldn't get there as fast as they might have. Sorry. These people are so obnoxious I can't even with them. I can't  understand this level of entitlement and self delusion . Its like they think they live in North Raleigh.

I'm getting to where I really have no patience for other white people.

Tuesday

Things I think should be a Thing -  If you wake up and its raining and dark, you should be able to go back to bed. Really. Especially if its a federal holiday, the Olympics are on, there is a Without a Trace marathon scheduled, your cats have no food left, and you need to get someone to replace your headlight.

Its a pretty specialized requirement and very few people would make the cut. So I don't think it would get abused.

Cats really, really, really like to be fed on a schedule. Very focused, very OCD. If you go to bed without feeding them they do really cute things to remind you to feed them, or they would be really cute things if they were not being done at 2:15am, like camping out on your face and purring for an hour, its cute, its warm and kind of fun - the first time. And then its not. It's like why don't you go to sleep, and they say "Why don't you feed us" and I say "Because there is no food" and they go "Why didn't you go buy some earlier?" and I say "Well, because it looked like there was more than it was and frankly, I don't want to abuse the script I have for the food because the small print limits me to only six refills and if I can just go to the vets, I want to just go to the vets, which I can do. Tomorrow." And they say "I'm hungry NOW" and I say "Hey, fatty, I think you can suck it up for a few hours". And they say "Hey, lets go chase something loud across the floor for a couple of hours!"

I didn't get a lot of really good sleep Sunday night. I got sleep but not sleep-sleep. I kept getting woken up by cats looking for the kibble I had hidden somewhere on my person. Because I do that, hide cat food in my pajamas and in my hair. Just to be mean to my cats.

SIgnificantly later, I got the cats there food. I thought I was going to get food immediately when I had lunch, but I noticed that  I had no gas and while I might be able to get the cat food I would not be able to get the cat food to the cats - and irony they would not appreciate . 

The car gassed up, I was able to score the cat food and make an appointment for Rocket to get his bordetella shot on, note to self: THURSDAY AT 5PM.

Oh, and after work, I got my light changed. I had really wanted to do it myself, but, I would need supervision the first time or at least watch someone. But, I can say I watched someone do it and it doesn't look that hard. In any case it cost me all of $6.  Its a done job and I'm happy.

Um. Ice dancing is on, if I had a choice between watching snowboarding and Ice Dancing, I think I'd rather watch ice dancing. Are we going to medal in snow boarding though? I mean if there is a chance, I can see why we are here, because I think there is like between no and  not a chance in hell in ice skating  . But do we have to watch all of them? Can't we switch back and forth? What if we don't want to stay up all night?  NBC Fail.

Sunday.

The dog got his first walk in a week , in a week. Sunday was the first day in a week hat it wasn't too cold and rainy to take the dog for a walk. Or I wasn't having a toilet installed or thought I  was having a toilet installed. It is supposed to rain on Monday. Because of course it is.

I also noticed this morning, that my backyard wants to be mowed! In February, and that my big tree in the front has broken out in bloom. I think it will live to regret that decision,  and I don't want to mow the yard yet! I mean for real! It was fine and then it got very warm and all the weeds woke up and thought it was significantly later in the season than it is and now I'm going to have to mow them much earlier in the season that either of us are prepared for.

I'm going to have to move things around and  pull out the mower and extension cords and pick up dog bombs and the  dog will not get a walk that day and it just seems so wrong to be mowing anything this early in February. I blame 45. I used to just say "I blame George Bush", and I did, for everything, it was so easy, it just rolled off the tongue and it was inevitably his fault because he was just such a little fucker , but he was at least not directly making a profit on it. Except for oil, he was directly making a profit on that.

This guy, 45, is making a profit, directly on everything he does to screw us over, him and his Russian buddies. He is a criminal, not just a political- morally questionable criminal, it would be really hard to prove that Shrub broke actual black letter laws. But 45 is an actual orange jumpsuit criminal bad guy . 45 is a criminal, a mobbed up guy. You don't think he built buildings in NYC without the help of guys in white ties do you? Who do you think went to those senators offices? Has anyone checked on their pets and family members? Its not the Russians who are keeping them in line. 

TGIF

My day:

 Old 

New

Thursday

If I didn't have to buy a new toilet, I would very likely entertain thoughts of buying two of these

Do you know the stress these babies would save me? I could feed Tex food that would not make him fat, I could save money by not have to feed  expensive vet food to two cats, I could not have to scream at the dog when he eats the cats very expensive cat food. But sadly, these feeders are very expensive. Very, very expensive. But jeebus, the stress relief!

It is to dream the impossible dream. Because I am buying a new toilet because my old toilet has cost me $340 over the last two months and it should have cost me $128.


And I'm not even going to waste my time and yours with thoughts and prayers for the poor kids in Florida. The Republican leadership doesn't care and doesn't want those episodes to stop. They don't care. They don't care about adults, they don't care about children, they don't care about Americans. Lord have mercy on our souls. The Republicans certainly will not.

Ash Wednesday

Okay Lent. Bring . It.

Fat Tuesday

To prove that I do not just bake for dogs

Pumpkin chocolate chip bread/cake. Its so good! I wish I had greased the bunt cake pan though, I could have and I didn't because for whatever reason, I thought that because the bottom came out that it was like a auto-out thing. It is not. Well. It will taste good, it is baked the fake sugar and almond flour so it's almost not entirely bad for you as well.  It is a little brown, but it's so dense that it takes forever to bake and it just got darker than I would like on the road to not batter.

Little known fact, bundt cake pans were a huge fundraiser for Hadassah back in the day.


This weekend, I did more cooking, also, not for dogs

That is a very nice Pork Wellington. Thank you Buzzfeed and Tasty. com.

Today after work and before getting my bake on, I visited with my friendly plumber and my friendly vender plumber. I have a leak, a bad leak OR I have a bad toilet. The vender plumber was at the house when I came home, I had been expecting a phone call not so much a guy in a van in my drive way, but there he was. He needed to get under my house but I couldn't get the door open because I haven't know where the keys were in years. He wanted to see if the pipe that feeds my house with waster was leaking, long story short, if it is, its not leaking under the house. It may be leaking, but not very much the yard is not sodden or artificially green. My friendly plumber stopped by because he saw a strange plumber at my house and got jealous. He hung around after vender plumber left because there was no way to get into the underhouse.

The leak may be the toilet. The fixed toilet. However, it is an old toilet that doesn't flush very well, actually, its very embarrassing how badly it does not flush - which could be linked to a leak of air somewhere, we agreed to replace the bad, old toilet with a new toilet. The bad toilet also auto flushes itself, which is not okay and could be why the bill is so high. We don't know. I'm still going to have the vender do his thing.

Monday.

SO, what are you doing? I'm watching the Olympics. I'm so much more into skiing than I thought I was. But who isn't into Giant Slalom? I mean, not all skiing, cross county isn't even fun to do much less watch. so there are limits and I am not going to watch curling, so  I  do have standards.

Now I am watching ladies skating. I love this, but I don't watch if it isn't he Olympics, its been on random Saturday afternoons and I'm like Eh, I'm just not that interested in watching if it doesn't mean anything and I'm going to have to watch falling. I don't wanna watch people fall. It makes me sad and worried.

If I'm going to be worried about a person competitor its going to be because they are going to die, not just from embarrassment. There are so many ways to die at the Olympics, I mean those skiers take their eyes or their minds off their tasks for one moment they can more then just loss the run. Its a very scary thing these people do.

The Canadian girl is skating now. I am so over the piece of music. I get bad concession flash backs. It was on the soundtrack to "An American in Paris" and it was played at my movie theatre all the time. The projectionists were in charge of the music and they would forget the CD was in the machine and we would listen to it over and over and over. The projectionists didn't have to listen to it and would only complain if they had to hear the same thing when they came down stairs twice a day. Eventually our hero projectionist took the CD and snapped it in half. We had two projectionists, our hero was the one who was not allegedly  a pedophile. The boys were not supposed to go up the projection both when that one was up there, not that there were many reasons for any of us to go up the both. However, I think the boxes where we kept the letters for the outdoor sign were kept up there, and the doormen were in charge of changing the sign every week. A task that as a not-male, I was forbidden from pursuing, see also, popping popcorn. 

And they let the Russians skate why? I thought they weren't supposed to be here at all?  Druggies. God, she was good. Fucking Russians.

Friday Cat Blogging

Thursday

Tired. I went to work at 6:30am and went to work right away and finished up wednesday - I hate not having the day finished on the day, I have standards and getting my wednesday work done on wednesday is important to me. It wasn't my fault, it wasn't my lack of focus or diligence, it was my boss and her issues that made my day start late and caused me to not finish, but it was my work and it was my responsibility to get it done. I had to get it done and I did. I came in early and then stayed late to get even more work done to help out a co-worker who won't be in tomorrow due to a family funeral . I am such a team player I should wear a jersey to work.

 I finally got home and walked the dog, and came home and started my dinner and got it into the toaster oven and onto the stove and settled in to watch some TV and then my phone rang...it was my friend from work who escaped and we talked and talked and talked and my oven beeped and we talked and talked and talked and by the time we hung up, while my dinner was cold, my heart was warm. It was a trade off I could live with.

With my dinner back in the oven, I changed into my pjs - Thursday is a very busy TV night so better to not waste time with multiple costume changes. The less time I have to spend messing around with changes the more time I can spend with Project Runway All Stars and Ru Pauls Drag Race All Stars .

Best day ever.

Wednesday

The weather people lied! It was supposed to rain all day and then the wind was supposed to pick up and  I planned accordingly. I didn't bring my lunch to work because I didn't want to sit in the car in the rain and eat lunch, so I went to Sam's instead and got more tea - in the weather peoples defence, it was raining lightly then. I congratulated myself  for wearing a rain coat to work despite the fact it wasn't actually raining in the morning

But it never really focused on the raining. It tried but it couldn't make it work. My co-worker said it was supposed to get really windy too, thirty mile an hour gusts! Those never happened either, and I'm pretty sure that she didn't hear the warnings from her phone either, she got that news from the actual real news from an actual real weather professional.  It did manage to rain again, very briefly, when I came home from work, so dog did not get a walk, poor dog! but then it stopped. My phone also lied about the rain. My phone still claims its raining. It is not raining.

I should have gone to the store tonight and bought a few things I didn't want to buy in bulk while on the Sam's trip today, but frankly, I'm in a "I don't like going out at night phase". I like it much better if I can just shut the door and stay in the house once I'm home. I don't have to go out again, I don't need to go out again, I'm not going to go out again. They invented the lunch hour for a reason.

Wally is much less busy over lunch and I can get in and get out much faster than I can in the evening. The whole experience is just so much less distasteful than it is normally. The evenings are so crazy at Wally that it might as well be a Saturday afternoon and no one wants to go to Wally on Saturday afternoon, its just too much to deal with. I would much rather get it over with at lunch, so I will.

Tuesday

No entry. I accidentally had a life and had to go out and do something, my nephew had a birthday over the weekend and I wasn't invited, but we had family birthday last night. Then I went home and tried to play  Police Girl with a drunk. 

Its really hard in the dark to keep your eyes on the both the road and a drunk and find your phone at the bottom of your purse. You also can not throw the purse at the dog with the command "Find my Phone!" and have them know what to do. The drunk is not going to call the cops on himself while he is weaving widely across the road.

Fortunately, someone else, possibly one of the cars he came within a hair of sideswiping, was able to find their phone and right after one of his more sloppy trips across the median and three lanes of traffic, a cop showed up behind us and turned on his lights and sirens. I have never been so happy to be startled by a cop behind me in traffic.

But, I got home late, and that is why I have no entry.

Monday

I would have had a written entry on Friday but I would have had to have a working keyboard when I sat down to write it and I did not, so there you go, I had a working keyboard Sunday night but I was watching the Super Bowl. Deal.

So,tonight, while I have a few minutes before The Alienist comes on, and my keyboard is working, I spent Saturday running errands before it starting raining and then Sunday, once the rain settled in, I made some very nice chicken soup, that turned quite good, by-the-way, even with the store bought chicken broth, and finally put my tree in the attic. I did a lot. So to reward myself, I watched a lot of TV.

The dog and I did get a walk on Saturday while it was nice and while my soup was simmering, but I made my fitbit very sad on Sunday. Because it rained all day, without stopping. There was no break from the rain all day. It wasn't even all that cold out, but it managed to be so damp and wretched that it made the inside of the house colder by comparison.

My fitbit has been very disappointed with me lately, I expect any day now to see some sort of "See Me" email to arrive from it asking if there is anything it can do for me and reminding me of my goals.  Sometimes my fitbit can really go to hell, I am not going to walk in the driving rain or the bitter cold, I'm just not going to to. I also am not going to walk in the dark - but you can't explain that to it. It doesn't care. It is heartless . It does its job and it fully expects that you are as dedicated to yours as it is to its. It just does not understand why you are not as gungho as it is! It is all about getting in that work out and making sure that you get all of your steps! It really is dedicated to your success and it really wants you to be as dedicated to physical fitness as it is. It forgets that it is a machine and you are not.

Yaaawwwnnn.

Okay, here's the thing, I sat down and stretched out with the dog, post walk, post dinner to watch some TV. I watched some Barney Miller, always funny and then I settled in clear some titles off the DVD, and ran across an episode of BBC's Earth - Deep Sea. It's very, very good.  And I'm listening to the guy go on about the squishy things in the deep sea and then I start thinking that the light is very bright and I turn it off and a few minutes later I start to think that  The TV is very loud and I can watch the squishy things without the narrative just fine. 

And then I fell asleep. I woke up because Tiny was knocking things off the table and it was very annoying. So that's where we are.
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