Category: Life

Friday Five (a few days late):

1. Name five things in your refrigerator: organic eggs, a pound of unsalted butter (for the coconut cake we’re bringing to Thanksgiving), a partial 12-pack of Diet Coke, bagged salad, leftover chicken stew (I make some excellent chicken stew).

2. Name five things in your freezer: approximately 14 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, asparagus (I’m the only one who likes it), 8 organic whole chickens, brussels sprouts (I’m the only one who hates it), ground turkey.

3. Name five things under your kitchen sink: Brillo pads, extra sponges (the ones where one side is spongy, and the other side has the scrubby green thing on it), oxy-clean, a bag of bird seed, and a half-full bag of potting soil.

4. Name five things around your computer: my "how much shit could a dipshit dip if a dipshit could dip shit?" mug, the series premiere of Felicity (I never saw it, and bought it recently on Ebay), a lovely gift Melissa got for me in Ireland (more about that later), a lovely gift Athena sent me (more about that later as well), and the stuffed mosquito Moira bought in Alaska and sent for the spud, which I stole and claimed as my own.

5. How do you plan to spend your weekend?: I planned to spend it mostly on my ass, and by god, that’s exactly what I did. I wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt – both hugely oversized – and lolled about not doing much but reading and surfing.

So, as I mentioned above, I got a lovely present from Melissa, who recently got back from Ireland:

Like I told Melissa, she could have scoured every store in Ireland and not found anything better! It’s even got the price tag on it, with the price in pounds, and everything! (Like, what, they’re going to have the price in American dollars? Duhhh).

And on the very same day that I received the face cloth in the mail, I also received something from the wonderful Athena, who knows that I LOVE the unexpected mail, and also somehow knew that there was an empty spot on the wall by my desk, and sent me this:

It was a VERY good mail day, believe you me. I also got a couple of Christmas cards. Two days before Thanksgiving, and I’m already getting the Christmas cards. How cool is that?

Sunday night, I dreamed that I was in Survivor, and I cheated.

CHEATED. How the hell can you cheat on Survivor, for the love o’ god?

Apparently I stole a Jeep from the camera crew and went on a joyride. We were filming in Florida, because god knows how dangerous and rough it is on the beaches of Florida, oh yes. So I stole the Jeep and went joyriding, and at some point another crew Jeep caught up with me and made me stop.

Mark Burnett was pissed. PISSED. He was throwing his hat on the ground and yelling at me at high volume.

Damn Mark. Never wants to have any fun.

So they kicked me off and claimed that stealing the Jeep was cheating, because there was some stupid clause in the contract about not stealing the crew’s Jeep.

Like I read the fucking thing before I signed it.

And when I got back to the states – oh wait, Florida IS a state. Why did we refer to it as getting back to the states in my dream? Odd. Anyway, when I got back to the states, they had me on The Early Show, which they always do with the castaways, and all is well. We’re chattin’, we’re laughing, we’re having a good ol’ time, when BRYANT FUCKING GUMBEL turns to me.

"How long have you been having an affair with Ann Robinson?" he says out of the blue.

"Huh?" I say, thinking this is a joke, half-smiling. But Bryant? Not kidding. Dead serious.

"We have it on good authority that you’ve been having an affair with Ann Robinson," he tells me. (She’s the host of The Weakest Link, if you didn’t know)

"What the fuck?" I say, and the people behind the scenes lose their shit because I said "fuck" on a live show. "I’ve never MET the woman, Bryant!" I say.

But you know how it is. Once someone says you’re having an affair with someone, the rest of the world assumes it’s true. Especially if you’re a CELEBRITY like the only one who ever got kicked off Survivor for cheating. It’s on the covers of all the tabloids, even People does an investigation of it (ie, reprints all the bad things people have ever said about me), and Fred gets pissed, and Ann acts all guilty and won’t deny it, damn her, and my life goes straight to hell in a handbasket sometime soon before I wake up.

This is what I want to know – why the hell did my subconscious decide I needed to be accused of having an affair with Ann Robinson? What’s that all about, you s’pose?

Damn subconscious.

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Ignore the hair. I’d just gotten done exercising, and hadn’t yet taken a shower.

Y’all, what the hell’s in cashmere? Gold? Why the fuck’s it so expensive? Damn, $135 for a sweater? I don’t mind spending money on myself, but I won’t be spending that damn much money on a sweater that’ll get covered with cat hair in the end, anyway.

Damn. $135!

Agh! $245! Who pays money like that for a casual type sweater?! Are they CRAZY?

$318! God in heaven, has the WORLD GONE NUTS? Do people really spend that much on clothes when for $10 you could buy a mile-long length of fabric and just drape it over your ass?

I believe I’ll leave the Land’s End page, thankyouverymuch.

I guess you really get what you pay for, though. JustMySize was having an awesome sale, so I purchased a couple of $15 sweaters, and when they got here, I liked them until I wore one for about half an hour, when I realized that if I so much as thought about brushing up against something, thousands of pills appeared on the damn sweater. So I sent them back. I guess I’ll just make do with my one single sweater this winter, since I’d hate to spend $50 or more on a decent sweater and not have it fit for long.

From an email to Moira:

And speaking of Fred, I believe it’s time for you to nominate me for sainthood. His back? Which has been hurting? Which he devoted a few entries to? Perhaps you heard? I heard about NOTHING BUT his back for, like, a WEEK STRAIGHT, and I patiently pretended to listen and nodded sympathetically when he told me EVERY THREE MINUTES “Wow, my back hurts. My back hurts. My back hurts. It’s like an ACHE, and then when I do THIS, it hurts even more. Hm. My back really hurts.” Not once did I scream “DID YOU THINK ABOUT TAKING AN ASPIRIN?!?!”, not even once.

I believe that that right there qualifies me for sainthood, don’t you? And then he was going ON and ON about how he could lift weights if he didn’t target his back (“It hurts when I move this way, but not when I move THAT way”), and it’s been 512 DAYS straight that he’s been exercising, and so finally I went on at length about how he should NOT EXERCISE for JUST A FEW DAYS, and you’d think I’d suggested he kill his mother. The HORROR, Moira, the HORROR of taking a few days off, I thought he was going to divorce me for suggesting such a thing.

And then? He decides to take a few days off. And acts like it was his own idea all along.

I’ll be expecting a call from the Pope here soon, telling me that I may forever be known as Saint Robyn. Hm. Perhaps Saint Bitchypoo would suit me better, ya think?

Man. I can’t believe Thanksgiving is Thursday. How’d that happen?

This year, instead of doing our own little Thanksgiving at home with Fred, the spud, and I, as we have done for the last three years, Fred FOR SOME REASON accepted an invitation to his sister’s house, to have dinner with she and her family and his mom and stepfather. Oh, except maybe not, because his sister then called to suggest that we show up for an early meal with their mom and stepfather, and then sit around her house for several hours, and then have another meal with their dad and stepmother. I love and adore this idea. LOVE IT. Thuh-rilled. Yep. Can’t wait!

I watched Crazy/ Beautiful the other night. It wasn’t bad, though it dragged a little. It was a little better back in ’95 when it starred Drew Barrymore and Chris O’Donnell, I think. We also watched Shrek over the weekend, though I hadn’t planned on watching it with Fred and the spud, but got sucked in while I was eating lunch, and I enjoyed it a lot. Fred pointed out that when they made Princess Fiona ugly, they made her fat as well.

Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, I’d like to say BUH-BYE to the latest castaway voted off Survivor. Nothin’ coulda made me happier.

Did anyone else happen to watch The Bernie Mac Show last week? We hadn’t planned on watching it, but as I recall, there was nothing else on we both wanted to watch, so we thought we’d check out the first few minutes. I was blown away by how damn funny it was! They showed two shows back-to-back, and in the second show, the kids (Bernie’s raising his sister’s three children) got sick, and once they started getting better, Bernie got sick. He was home sick, and had to take care of the youngest child, and he was sitting on the couch with her, and she proclaimed that she was going to read him a story, and as she starting making up her story while looking at the book, they showed the funniest damn scene I’ve ever seen in a sitcom. As she went on and on, the hands of the clock flew around, and the seasons changed, and at the end, an old man was sitting where Bernie had been sitting with a stone-faced, resigned expression on his face, and the little girl was still talking. Fred and I were just howling, because that is EXACTLY WHAT IT’S LIKE.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was a stay-at-home Mom for most of the spud’s childhood, and there were plenty of magical moments, moments that I thought to myself "I’m going to remember this forever!", but there were also many MANY "I’m going to read to you Mommy!" moments, where the child yammered on and on and I sat and pretended to listen while mentally calculating the time remaining until she left for college.

In any case, I hope the show continues to be as entertaining, and I highly recommend it.

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Survivor‘s on tonight, woohoo!

I think I need to get a life…

So, the dog is going back to the Humane Society tomorrow. I will say this about it: It was Fred’s decision to get the dog, and it’s his decision to take her back. I think that a part of her behavioral problems stem from being outside alone for a good part of the day, but part of it may very well also be problems that she brought with her. I’ll also say that sitting in front of the computer and hearing Fred yell like that scared the hell out of me.

(This part added on 11/15/02: the dog went back to the Humane Society because she, Fred, and the spud were out back playing, and the dog made a point of running at the spud – who was laying on a blanket – and running OVER her, leaving a gash on the side of her head. It was the last straw, really – Sadie wouldn’t listen to anyone but Fred, and was so unruly and uncontrollable that we really had no choice. Not to mention that I really hated having her outside all the time. Fred can say what he likes, but I don’t think that a dog should be outside all the time.)

Moving on…

You know, there’s just not a lot more to say. I’m going to end the entry here and there probably won’t be an entry tomorrow, because we have tickets to see Nunsense at the local high school. I have no idea what the story is behind the show, but I do know that we all really like the musicals, so it should be an enjoyable show.

Now, if I could only get him to take me to see Les Miz…

 

 

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Even in my dreams, I can’t catch a break.

Last night, I dreamed that I was on Oprah. It was Dr.! Phil! Tuesday!, and I was there to air my relationship woes.

Yes, it surprised me to find that I HAD relationship woes, but I distinctly recall Oprah intoning "It’s Dr. Phil Tuesday, and we’re talking about Relationship Woes!" before the music started and the audience began clapping.

There was no monkeying around, either – Oprah got right to the point once the music stopped playing and the audience calmed down.

I didn’t get one of those voiceover things where I calmly and intelligently stated my point of view so that everyone would immediately be on my side, though.

"What’s going on?" Dr. Phil demanded, fixing me with a gimlet eye. He looked like he was going to brook no shit from the bitchypoo.

"Well, if he isn’t in bed by 9:41 EVERY night, he bitches and whines and complains about it!" I blurted out. The camera panned to Fred, who was sitting in the front of the audience, looking smug.

"Every night?" Dr. Phil asked, eyebrows raised.

"Every night – even on the weekends!" I said, nodding vigorously. The audience muttered unhappily amongst themselves.

Dr. Phil eyed Fred. "Sounds like YOU are in a RUT, buddy!"

Fred rolled his eyes. "If I’m going to get up at 4:30 every morning to exercise, I need my sleep!"

More eyeing from Dr. Phil. "You get up every morning at FOUR THIRTY?"

And then Fred began telling the story of how he’d dropped 162 pounds over the course of 16 months, and he’d never felt better, and he’d made a commitment to exercise every single day so that he could be a better father and husband and blah blah blah bragcakes.

When Fred finished his story – and stripped off his clothes to pose in his underwear for all and sundry – it was clear that the tide had turned in his favor.

With disapproving looks – even Oprah looked displeased – they all turned to face me.

"The MAN," said Dr. Phil, "HAS to get up every morning to EXERCISE. You would deny him that?"

"Nooooo!" I said defensively. "I just wish he wouldn’t have such a cow if he looked at the clock and it was ONE MINUTE later than 9:41. He looks at the clock, sees how late it is, jumps out of bed, and all but runs out of the room!" Not a sympathetic face in the crowd.

"Wait," Dr. Phil interrupted my pity party. "Why does he run out of the room at bedtime?"

"To go to bed," I said, thinking to myself that Dr. Phil wasn’t all that bright.

"He jumps out of bed to go to bed?" Confusion on the faces of all and sundry.

"Oh," I said, "Yeah, we sleep in separate rooms. I grind my teeth in my sleep, and he snores. And we like our space."

Dr. Phil looked at me judgmentally, and I began to babble.

"We have to be in our bed by 9, or he has conniptions. And if he’s not headed to his own room by 9:41, he has a fit as well."

"So, y’all go in one room at 9 and then he goes to his own room at 9:41?"

"We lay in bed and talk and snuggle from 9 until 9:41," Fred interjected helpfully.

The audience began muttering loudly, and I could hear more than one "bitch" tossed in my direction.

"So let me get this straight," Dr. Phil said with a predatory gleam in his eye. "The man LAYS down and TALKS to you for 41 minutes every night before going to his OWN room, because he doesn’t want to BOTHER you with his snoring, and he sleeps for a few short hours before exercising his ASS off to be a better father and husband to yourself and your daughter, and THAT IS A WOE TO YOU?"

I sat with my mouth gaping open, trying to find a way to respond. The audience went from muttering to shouting, and the things they shouted weren’t terribly complimentary. Women began tossing their phone numbers at Fred. Fred gave me a smug smile. Oprah sat in her chair and giggled heartily.

"You could put it that way."

Dr. Phil waved his arms around and began pacing. "I think you just did!"

"Phil, what exactly is the problem here?" Oprah asked, humorously moving her chair away from mine to avoid the line of fire.

"The PROBLEM is that if you put the ice in the sink, that dog won’t jump!" He glared at me. "Do you have ANY idea how many women in this audience would DIE to have their husbands devote forty-one minutes to them every single night?!"

Women in the audience were climbing over each other to reach Fred’s side. Fred was sniffling, nodding, and wiping his eyes.

"You don’t appreciate what you have!" Dr. Phil accused, waving his index finger around wildly. "When the going gets TOUGH, it’s time to feed some cattle!"

The sound from the audience was terrifying. They were throwing things at me and clawing at each other to get to Fred.

I woke up screaming, with Dr. Phil’s voice echoing in my head:

"If at first you don’t succeed, turn off the lights!"

 

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Sadie the lapdog.

I think that our dog thinks she’s a Mexican jumping bean. I took her for a walk this morning, and when we got back home, I blew some soap bubbles for her.

BUBBLES!

She was about as thrilled as I’ve ever seen her, racing around, trying to sniff and eat the bubbles, running from one end of the yard to the other. I had just blown a fresh batch of bubbles when she SPRANG up from the ground to try for a particularly large bubble, and the next thing I knew, her hind feet were even with my HEAD, and she was flying through the air with the greatest of ease.

The spud and Sadie greeting each other.

Yesterday, Fred and I were outside (well, maybe it was Sunday. The days kinda run together) and Sadie was all excited, jumping up on me and wagging her tail like hell, when the need to fly came over her, and she SPRANG up into the air (not as high as today, though) next to me, and on her way by tried her damnedest to lick my face. I don’t recall if she was successful in the licking part, though, because I was watching Fred, who was laughing so hard he could hardly breathe.

Belly rub! Belly rub! Gimme belly rub, damnit!

We watched Legally Blond over the weekend, and I enjoyed it, though Fred thought it was stupid, which is no big shock. Is it just me, or was Reese Witherspoon totally channeling Christine Taylor’s Marcia Brady? The way she walked, the way she talked, everything about the character was similar to the extreme, wasn’t it? Or is it just me?

The spud and Miz Poo discussing their day.

I have a rash upon my left arm. It’s got to be dog-related, because it showed up a few days after we adopted her (hey, it’s been a week today, by the way), and it’s itching like hell. I suppose I should try some hydrocortisone or something, instead of just scratching at it and bitching about how much it itches, ya think?

Tubby snoozing his day away on the sweater dryer/ kitty hammock I put there JUST for the kitties.

I had a busy morning today, starting with 20 minutes of High Intensity Interval Cardio, followed by a shower, some laundry, a quick shake, a visit to Target, then to Publix, then the movie store, and finally home. All in the space of two hours, which I thought was pretty good.

Spot, snoozing the day away on the bed. MY side of the bed, of course, where better to drop all those white cat hairs than on the side of the bed belonging to a woman who wears only black pants?

My computer is PISSING ME OFF lately, because it’s gotten all kinds of slow. It IS two years old, after all, and it’s about time for a new computer. Something’s happened to it so that I can’t even burn damn cds, and that just ticks me off. Fred has half-promised that we’ll look into getting new computers next month with the extra money he gets from selling his sick and vacation time back to the company. I need a new scanner too, because the one my parents gave us is adding a lovely yellow-and-green stripe to everything I scan. I need, I need, I need…

Miz Poo doesn’t much care to see the spud playing with that big panting slobbery thing.

I found out over the weekend that I was nominated – well, the diet journal was nominated, and that I is different from the Bitchypoo I, kinda – for an Outstanding Entry award, for my August 27th entry, which is awesomely cool. Honor to be nominated, and all that. I’d like to thank the academy… Oh, except considering the caliber of the entries I’m up against, I’ll have to be happy with the honor of it.

The irony is that I nominated Secra’s entry.

Well, now my isp is pissing me off, because my internet access has been up and down all afternoon, and now it’s down. Fuckers. It makes me mad because it’s never just one day affected by periodic outages, but several days in a row. Always.

I think I’m going to go stir my black beans and pout.

 

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Survivor certainly lived up and exceeded all my expectations last week. Now if they’d only get that little whiny bitch Lindsey off of there…

I know y’all have been wondering how the cats and the dog are getting along. Without further ado, I present photographic evidence:

Here’s Sadie checking out the fancy thing under the tree.

Miz Poo is waiting for that panting thing to make one little move in her direction…

Spot looks a tad leery, doesn’t he? Poor Sadie just wants to plaaaaaay.

Sadie has been into pretty much everything there is in the back yard to get into since we brought her home. We had most of a 40-pound bag of mulch sitting against the fence, and she dragged it halfway across the yard, leaving a big pile by the patio. Here’s Spot digging in said pile of mulch (we suspect he’d just used it as a big litter box):

Luckily, we have an awesome shop-vac, and I vacuumed up most of that pile with no problems. The sound of the vac freaked Sadie out, and she went running back and forth along the fence, occasionally barking. When the vacuuming was done and the shop-vac was put away, she went sniffing around where the mulch had been, whining and acting as if we’d taken something away from her.

Yesterday, Fred got out the catnip bubbles I bought at Target last week and went out to blow bubbles for the dog. She was pretty impressed, and went racing about, trying to eat the bubbles. From the doorway, Miz Poo watched for a few moments until she could bear it no longer, and then she went running out into the yard. Sadie saw her running, and thought "Hey, she wants to PLAY!", and started chasing after her.

Miz Poo just about lost her mind. She bushed up her tail, arched her back, and FLEW into the house faster than I’ve ever seen her run before.

Damn was it funny.

Then today, Fred was out playing with Sadie, and she was very hyper, since it was her first visit from The Man for the day, which gets her very excited. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fancypants and started chasing him, wanting to play. Fancypants lost his fancy little mind and went running into the house, leaving poor Sadie with no one to play with but Fred.

Poor Sadie. Those damn mean cats just refuse to play with her…

 

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How damn excited am I about Survivor tonight?! Pretty damn excited, that’s for sure. I SO hope that tonight is when they break up the two tribes into three, and I canNOT wait to see the looks on Silas and Lindsey’s faces when they find out.

I’ve not found anyone that I particularly like on that show, but I’ve found plenty of people to HATE!

Here we see that Fred is where he belongs.

So yes, we got a doghouse for the dog. I was at Petsmart (where I’m never going to shop again due to ungodly high prices), and saw a doghouse. $129 it was.

"That ridiculous!" Fred said. "The same thing at blahblahblah is only $90! Wait on that, and I’ll stop at Lowe’s on the way home." So he stopped at Lowe’s and got practically the same thing for $80.

And then today at Sam’s, I saw the exact same model for $65. Figures.

Robyn, you’re saying. Unless you’re saying Bitchypoo, that is. Robyn, why are there no pictures of the dog – whose name has been decreed Sadie, by the way – on your site tonight?

Because, dear reader, she’s such a hyper-spaz that every time I go out to take her picture, she wiggles and jiggles and jumps and pants and doesn’t hold still, so I can’t take her damn picture.

I’ve got plenty of pictures of her tail, though.

See something on the floor, sit on it.

The cats continue to be terrified of the big slobbering thing living outside. I keep telling Fred we should toss Fancypants out into the back yard and slam the door shut.

Close your email client RIGHT NOW, we’d never do such a thing. At least not to Fancypants. Tubby is another story.

Miz Poo enjoys sitting and watching the panting, drooling thing out back run back and forth and play with it’s toys and flop down on the patio and then run back and forth some more, but the one time I tried taking her out back, she lost her mind and went running down my back with her tail fluffed out.

Poor Sadie. She’d looooove to play with one of those fluffy little things…

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Thanks, y’all – I am absolutely overwhelmed with suggestions for dog names, and emails about the dog. I won’t respond to each of them, because that would take forever, just take this as a blanket "thank you".

Apparently my readers like suggesting names. As I said (typed) to Athena earlier, I can only imagine what would happen if I were pregnant and asked for name suggestions (I’m not – pregnant or asking, that is. Besides, we picked out the names of our future children before we ever even met in person. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll mention it again – Molly Jayne, and Seth Forrest).

I really like the name Sally for the dog, but Fred is partial to Sadie and, well, she IS his dog, so I guess he gets final say in the matter, though he hasn’t decided for sure. At least, I don’t think he has.

I went to PetSmart this morning and got a couple of bowls – for water and food – a leash, and a couple of toys. $61. I’m a damn idiot for buying pet supplies at a pet store, when Target was RIGHT THERE. I mean, I’m a damn idiot in general, but that’s one specific description of my idiocy. Just so you know. I need to buy a container to keep her food in, but the ones at PetSmart were $36 – that was the least expensive one – and since I can get a covered trash can for less than $10, and that’s what we keep the cat’s food in and it works for us, I believe I’ll be buying the same thing for the dog food.

Which reminds me – Fred opened the bag of dog food last night and offered each of the cats a piece, and Tubby ate his and begged for more. We put the bag in the kitchen closet, and Tubby spent half the evening sniffing at the bottom of the door and trying to figure out how to get in there.

The dog is doing well. She spent last night outside on a comforter (shhhh, I’m still working on Fred about the outside part…) with one of my stuffed animals by her side. This morning she bounded back and forth across the yard, and we heard her bark for the first time. She has a deceptively deep bark for a little skinny thing. Luckily she doesn’t do it much.

I went out after I lifted weights this morning and sat in one of the chairs we have out there, and she settled right in against my legs and seemed happy. I left the back door open, and Spot stood and stared at her for a long time. She spotted (hee!) him and walked toward the door, and he arched his back and backed up in horror. She hasn’t really tried to get inside, and she obviously understands what "no" means.

You know what our adoption of this dog means, don’t you? It means that we’ve transformed from crazy cat people to "those weird people next door with ten thousand animals." Because it was bad enough having FIVE cats, but now we have FIVE cats and a dog. And next, we’ll of COURSE have to get a dog to keep this one company, dogs being social creatures and all, so we’ll have FIVE cats and TWO large-ish dogs, and then the spud will want a parakeet, and an iguana while she’s at it, and how about a couple of fish, and the next thing you know, the health department will be breaking down the door, where they’ll find me dead on the floor, having inhaled more cat hair, dog hair, parakeet feathers, fish goo, and iguana scales (?) than my body can process at one time.

Anyway.

So, we had to drop Fred’s Jeep off yesterday to be worked on, because it was doing all sorts of weird little things that needed taking care of, besides which it needed it’s 50,000 mile tune-up (or whatever the hell they do), and the nice car guy called Fred mid-morning to tell him the many, many things that were wrong with the Jeep – and there were MANY little things wrong with it – and how much it would cost.

$1200.

Gah. I just KNOW that it’s more than likely that all these little things, or at least some of them, were caused by that damn accident he was in a few months ago.

His Jeep wasn’t ready until this afternoon, so I went to pick him up at work, and I was sitting at a red light. Ahead of me was a middle-aged guy in a red convertible, and there was someone trying to get out of the parking lot we were sitting next to. So he waved her out, letting her go in front of him, and she crossed the lane to our left, to get to the left-most lane. Then he waved to the car behind her, to let THEM go as well since our light was still red. She, car #2, also needed to cross the lane to our left, to get to the lane on the other side of that one, and a car was pulling up slowly in that lane, and Mr. Convertible held up his hand to order them to stop. Which they did, since they were stopping to let her go anyway, but Mr. Convertible was FAR too pleased with his traffic-commanding self, and he smiled to himself and checked his three hairs in the rearview mirror.

I briefly considered making a citizen’s arrest. I could have charged him with impersonating a traffic cop. And then I would have left him, cuffed, on the side of the road as I took off in his convertible, which I would have needed to seize as evidence.

Just doing my job as a concerned citizen, ma’am. Nothing to see, move it along…

 

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So, yeah, we seem to have gotten ourselves a dog. It was a sneak attack – I went to pick up Fred at work, since his Jeep is in the shop, and he suggested that we "just go look" at the animal shelter, to which I agreed, with the idea firmly in mind that we’d be bringing no dogs home tonight.

You see how well that worked.

We went in and looked, and there were many 3 month black labs who had all come from the same place, where they were apparently being abused. There was an ultra-friendly guy who yipped and barked and jumped about like a mexican jumping bean. And then there was a dog they’d named "Prance":

She was very sweet and friendly, and took to me right away, jumping up to put her front paws on my chest to be petted. She’s not a large dog – I’d call her medium – and according to the guys at the shelter, she’s 7 months old and not likely to get any bigger.

Fred kept saying "Well? Well? What do you think?" Since our only point of contention in the dog discussion is that he thinks a dog would be fine living out back and I think that that’s cruel, I told him that if the guy answering questions agreed that it was fine to leave a dog outside all the time, I would agree as well.

Expecting, of course, that the guy would be all kinds of horrified at the thought of leaving a dog OUTSIDE.

Instead, when the question was posed to him, he looked at me as if I were perhaps mentally deficient.

"Well, yeah," he said. "She’s a DOG. As long as she has a doghouse and a pillow and plenty of attention, she’ll be fine."

Hmph.

She’s awfully sweet, though, and enjoyed running around the back yard and snacking on things the cats had left out there.

I’ve already had to put a moratorium on discussions of her eating any kind of poo, because Fred and the spud will just talk that sort of thing to death, especially at dinner.

According to the guys at the shelter – it was actually the Humane Society – she’s part shepherd, part lab, and may have some collie in her. When she gets to running (Fred was out throwing a ball around with her), she actually bounds, and it’s awfully cute.

Now she needs a name, which is where y’all come in. It’s got to be a name that starts with "s", since all the cats have names that start with s. Of course, if a non-s alternative is presented that is just perfect for her, we’d probably go with that – the "s" thing isn’t written in stone. So, send me your suggestions, would you?

 

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In lieu of, y’know, a REAL entry today, I’m going to toss up a bunch of pictures I took Saturday when we drove up into Tennessee to drive about and gawk at the Amish people, and call it good enough.

We passed this really cool field where there were hayrolls (is that what they’re called?) as far as the eye could see. This picture doesn’t really do it justice.

The Amish house where we stopped so Fred could get popcorn. A HUGE container for $2. Whattabahgain.

More Amish houses.

Some colorful foliage (for the most part, we seem to have missed the changing of the leaves)

We happened upon a convenience store with 10 or 15 cats and kittens in the parking lot. Apparently, this is where they live, because the owners of the store feed them and provide litter boxes. This orange kitten was attempting to nurse, and mama wasn’t being terribly accomodating.

There were boxes for the cats to sleep in, but this little guy is the only one who was actually sleeping.

These guys were pretty scared. The tabby in the back actually hissed at me (is there anything cuter than a hissing kitten? I think not), and the others let me pet them, but they didn’t like it much. Have I mentioned how much I adore orange cats?

This cutie was really friendly. I called to him, and he came running, and followed me around for the 10 minutes or so that we were there, begging to be petted. Damn, I wanted to load all the cats up in the car and bring them home with us.

Another really friendly one.

More scared little kitties, and the friendly kitten was checking them out. I’m fairly certain there were two different litters and two different mothers.

 
Man, all I wanted was to just pet his little head, but he was so scared I couldn’t get near him.

After we (I) played with the kitties, we drove around the Amish colony some more, and then went to David Crockett State Park, where we ate lunch, and then Fred and the spud went on the swings.

They went on the merry-go-round, too. For that matter, so did I.

The lake at the state park.

Shoal Creek, running alongside the park. I got this picture on the way out of the park.

On the way out of Alabama, we passed "The Fiero Factory", which is surrounded by old Fieros. I don’t know about y’all, but when I was 17, there was nothing more in this world I wanted than a Fiero; I just thought they were the coolest cars ever. Even my Dad’s insistence that they were gas-guzzlers couldn’t sway me. Now, I just think they’re funny-looking ’80s throwbacks.

 

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