yeah, so I have this dog and while I do love him dearly he has cost me an incredible amount of money for a thing so small. Obviously, I don’t begrudge him the cost of his care and feeding, these are to be expected and I want him to be healthy and happy so he gets pricey food and goodly dog treats and more toys than most kids. Beyond these things my dog has still managed to squeeze from me an amazing amount of cash. He chews, he chews a lot and he has this incredible knack for finding those things which actually cost a lot. He has expensive tastes, what can I tell you. Along with the two remote controls, the pillows, the sheets, the clothes, the shoes and the carpet (all the carpet had to be replaced, but to be fair the carpet was old and stained up, but he was the impetus for the replacement), he also chewed up 2 pairs of prescription glasses. So fiday night I went in and had the glasses and the prescription sunglasses replaced. Luckily, they were having a buy one get one free deal going on, but still, i’ve spent so much on glasses this past year it’s not even funny. No, it’s not funny, it’s damned expensive.
ah well, I needed new sunglasses for florida and I needed to replace the regular glasses as I’ve been wearing the ‘funky special occasion’ glasses almost exclusively.
So that was my friday night, dragging David to Pearle Vision to pick out glasses. Um woo? The only sad thing was that I could not get the same pair of sunglasses that I had before as they were hugely expensive, so I went similar but cheaper. I loved those glasses.
Saturday David, Alan and I went to OPH for massive amounts of pancakes and coffee and all that. After, the plan was to clean the house and get ready for the Sunday open house but luckily fate stepped in and we got a call for a showing. We frantically cleaned and straightened things out and grabbed the dog and headed out to spend the rest of the day in the sunshine. So much better to be outside than inside cleaning. We headed northwest ostensible to find the Anoka cat colony, but we never really found it. Instead we explored and drove and ran around. We stopped at a park to let the dog run wild for a bit and he LOVED that. Dogs like to play games or romp or fetch, but Ghengis will shun all these for a full bore, hardcore run. That’s what he loves best, just running like mad.
Then I got the biggest Ghengis scare i’ve had since I got him. He ran up to the semi-frozen pond and in an instant was on an ice chunk, before I could react and call him back he decided to go to the next ice chunk by way of the thin (THIN) sheet of ice between. A split second later he’s under the ice, completely submerged. I thought my heart would stop. With a scream on my lips as I’m running he comes bounding out of the water. He wiped his face all over the grass to get the freezy water off, shook himself off a few times, got a snausage from me and went on his merry way.
Then I cried a little, that quiet relieved cry when the surge of adrenaline seeps out and you’re left feeling a little scared and a lot relieved and when you play it all back you realize that the whole thing took less than a minute and yet every detail adds up to almost an hour.
More driving, exploring, chip eating, laughing, and talking. This is really one of my favorite things to do, get in the car and drive all over the place exploring. We took highway 65 back into town, marvelled at all the ethnic diversity in the restaurants and promised to get up there and sample the food. I don’t know what it is about Central avenue, north of the city but there’s just this huge diveristy, all this stuff going on and you never hear about it. The best part is that things aren’t divided in any way. You don’t have the ‘Indian’ block here and then the ‘East African’ next and the ‘Lebanese’ all bundled together away from the ‘Ukranian’ Corner. It’s all mixed together, one after the other.
We got home, David napped with the dog for a bit and I finished reading my book. The lesson I learned is that if more than one person, completely unrelated people who don’t know each other, tells me that I will not like Robert Heinlein, they are probably right. I read ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ and I absolutely hated it. HATED. It was terrible. If I had to read ‘Thou art God” one more time I was going to rip the book to shreds. Go take your ‘fish out of water’ innocence and your superior grokking skills and stuff them up your own butt. I also hated the hippie style religious commune orgy bullshit and the ‘we never rush anywhere, we don’t hurry’. Hated.
I also learned that if a lot of unrelated peoplee keep telling me that I will like something I should try it out even if it seems like something I wouldn’t like. I finally saw Monsters Inc this weekend and loved it. I thought it was terribly cute and a lot of fun. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but so damned cute and fun to watch. Not as good as Lilo and Stitch, but what can you expect?
In my continuing quest to make vegetarian comfort food (mostly I’m just craving comfort food, it’s what i want to eat and since I have a vegetarian to feed, I have to make comfort food that he can eat) I made a mexican version of shepherd’s pie with tvp. It actually turned out really well, I was happy with it, but I should have added some corn to the base, that would have helped. Yum.
Sunday posted in a bit, I don’t want to make the world’s largest post here!
Chica Mala
And I got the translation I was looking for…
Tú eres el remate de la broma más triste del mundo
Special thanks to David’s roommate, Matt, for the help.
Yeah, so, what’s up my fry babies?
I had this weird bit of musical happiness yesterday. See, I have my iPod and I have my fm transmitter, I seriously love this transmitter, it charges my iPod while I use it so as long as the weather is nice I never have to bring my iPod in except to put new music on it (which I desperately need to do)(also, do not leave your iPod outside over night when it is very very cold, it will not like you so much). Anyway, I make these playlists and I always have 3 or 4 playlists that are almost identical. The first one is huge and the subsequent ones get smaller and smaller as I weed out those things I don’t really want to listen to. Even then, when I get to my pared down version of the playlist the experience goes like this…
skip…skip….skip….maybe..no skip…skip…um…skip…oooooh!
I can name a tune in like 1/2 note, i’m the queen of skipping.
So what I’m saying it that it’s rare for me to actually have two songs in a row that i want to listen to which is damned curious since I made the playlist myself. It also means I need new music.
Yesterday, in an odd turn of events I had 3 (three) (tres) songs in a row that I actually wanted to listed to. ‘Black Cadillacs’ told me to name my children after towns that i’d never been to and to be proud of my hipster heritage, my verb and noun usage. After that I got to ponder assholes and control freaks with Bukowski. So what’s up with the Modest Mouse? I don’t know, they grew on me or something. I always liked them but now they’re getting heavier airplay than before.
Now, I get ready to skip because god knows the idea of a 3 song magic moment isn’t even entering my mind and on comes Staring at the Sun. I’m a HUGE fan of TV on the Radio. The first time I heard them was when I was in DC for New Year’s over a year ago and Mark played them for me. There’s apparently some ongoing debate about whether this song is about orgasm or death (i vote for death) and my first reaction to any debate like that is "What’s the difference?". Then I realize that no one rolls over from death, lights a cigarette and thinks, "yeah, we’ll do THAT again!".
Of course all good things must come to an end and I spent the rest of the trip home flipping through songs.
Went to this last night. Mostly we had gone to see Pablo as David knows him, he hadn’t been to one of his shows in a while, I like his music AND I had yet to see him perform live. He didn’t sing Tina’s Song, but he did sing a song about how you are every childhood story come to life and I thought that was sweet (sadly, the lyrics to that song are not online). The book reading was great as well, she’s a great writer and I do think I’ll be buying the book. The parts she read were visceral and dark and very real.
Then to lighten the mood we headed over to catch "The Life Aquatic" since I am so behind on my movie-seeing. You know, I thought it was okay. Wes Anderson has definitely done better. There were some very beautiful moments, things that visually were very his, but there were also a lot of cheap devices used and obvious tactics employed. The script was not nearly as tight as other movies of his.
I’m looking down the barrel of another very long, not relaxing weekend. I need to get a pair of dog-chewed glasses replaced AND get a new pair of prescription sunglasses to replace the ones that got stolen in chicago. I hate picking thesee out because I can’t see my face in the mirror unless there are lenses in my glasses! Also, pancakes Saturday at OPH in Edina at 9am, for all y’all that keep asking when I’ll go to breakfast with you, this is it. Be there.
oh and…
Memo To the Staff at Symantec, Dublin…
Dáithí is quite possibly one of the most brilliant and confounding minds I’ve ever had the pleasure to tangle with. His razor wit is rivalled only by his taste in trousers. You would do well to listen to his teachings and chew on the meaty gristle of his mind. To disparage the good Mr. M. is to disparage me and to to that will get you a loud, brash, uncouth american punch to the skull. Or something like that.
Jesus D, could I mention you more often?
Alan!! update your damned website or i’ll farmer’s blow into your pancakes.
Stay foamy peeps!
dress code
I’m not allowed to wear a shirt that says “I am a corporate whore” so I wear my Old Navy shirt instead. Wearing a shirt that says Old Navy is a lot like wearing a shirt that says “I am a corporate whore” but without getting sent home for the day to think about your clothes. Funny thing is, I own a ton of old navy clothes (they’re cheap and they fit me) and I own 3 shirts that actually say Old Navy on the front as advertisement. I never personally purchased the shirts with the Old Navy logo, they were given to me as part of a closet clean out.
Today I’m totally dressed for the part of hipster-kid corporate whore with my chunky black sketcher sneakers, my cuffed, flared jeans, white long sleeve t-shirt with dark colored Old Navy t-shirt over it (I know it’s supposed to be a long john type shirt, but that’s just too heavy and warm for me), my nerdy girl glasses and my mussed, spikey hair in bleach blond/trailer trash roots.
To turn in 180 degrees…in the news…
Okay, the cops couldn’t give her a ride or an escort or any sort of help?? The best they could do is call ahead to the hospital? Jesus, guys, she had 2 little kids in the back AND you pull her over at gun point. You didn’t think to help? Granted, what the hell was she doing dealing with all this alone, but still…
And the only reason why this is funny is because the gun didn’t go off. If it had, this would have been a much different story.
I despise, absolutely DESPISE the pictures of Terry Schiavo’s “supporters” mourning. I just want to scream, “This was none of your business in the first place. You don’t deserve to act like you’ve lost something. You added to a media circus that should have never taken place. Go fight for something that matters like keeping gays out of the boyscouts since it’s the gays and not the pedophiles that you need to worry about.”
But, hey, it was taco day at work. Yes, the dates on the list are wrong. We have a top notch intranet.
Hey! Can I post more today? We’ll see!
mi boca es su boca
Today is being described as SPLENDID! by me. I want everyone to be as splendidly happy as I am.
The weather is cool and blustery but the sun is shining and the sky is screaming blue. I’ve got a pile of the happiest emails ever in my inbox. I am someone’s bubbo.
I feel a little guilty being so happy right now. I have a friend going through an ordeal in her relationship, I want very much to help her and I don’t know how. So I offer her my support and friendship. You will get through this and you will survive and we will be there on the other side.
And, sadly, Terry Schiavo did pass on this morning. I am relieved for her and her family. I am relieved that there will be some closure for them. I’m sad it had to take this course, though.
but, back to the brightness and happiness…I’m going to get a little fish tank in my office and get a fish named Digger. Problem is finding a fish named Digger, but I’m persistent, these thing work themselves out.
I’ve been posting a lot lately, I vascillate between more, smaller posts or fewer, longer posts. I just don’t know.
OH HEY! If anyone would like a postcard from the Keys, email me and let me know the address to send it to.
I will leave you for now with a quote from Dáithí, he always describes me so accurately…
You are sweet and charming and pretty and unspeakably rotten.
So there you have it.
some things don’t translate
Who here knows how to say ‘punchline’ in another language? Systran is totally failing me tonight.
‘You are the punchline to the world’s saddest joke’ just isn’t translating. It’s the quote of the day and it livened up lunch considerably.
I was playing with my stats tonight. The two things of interest are where I’m linked from and the search terms people used to find me (it’s good to know that ‘tonsil abscess’ and ‘analworld’ still rank high). Also, a surge of traffic from Denmark, so I guess I give a shout out to my unknown homies over there. Good for you!
I’m still watching ‘Family Guy’ dvd’s. Stewie is still narrating my posts, but oddly, Chris’ voice was narrating a couple other places and it was highly amusing and altogether too fitting.
We have an open house this weekend. Sadly, it’s still going to be on the coolish side or I’d take the boy and the dog on a picnic. Maybe we’ll just go on a hike or something for the day. A hike. Jesus. Who knew I’d ever think of something like that. Granted, my definition of hike is not that same as yours, and probably involves more cookies. Anyway, open house this weekend but only for a couple of hours. The weird thing about having your house on the market is you begin to have this creepy feeling you’re in compton or something for all the cars that drive reeeal slow by the house.
The for sale sign in my front yard fell over this week and I had to call and get that taken care of. Why did it fall down? Could it be because it was installed in a garden in soil that is tilled and has no extensive root system to bind it together? Maybe. The sign was reinstalled on the other side of the driveway this morning and I can rest easy in my smugness.
In one month I’ll have been at this job for 5 years. I’m trying to get some sort of “thanks for keeping department turnover so low” award from my boss. A watch would be nice, but I’ll settle for a beer. Either way my vacation time kicks up to 3 weeks a year and lord knows I deserve all the vacation time I can get; and by ‘Deserve’ I mean ‘Want’.
I write secret messages to people on their bananas!
ps Is it wrong to check cnn.com almost religiously to see if Terry Schiavo died yet? I’m not saying this in a cruel way (which is surprising if you know me), but I’m truly hoping she passes on so that some closure can come to this for her and her family. You know, the funny thing is, as much as I’m an advocate for pulling the plug if I’m ever in that kind of state, I’m actually not keen on the idea of pulling the feeding tube. I can’t quite put my finger on why specifically, but there’s an excess of cruelty there. So stop the machines but leave the feeding tube in unless there’s a follow up plan to morphine me to death or something like that.