My girls

My sweet little girls. 

At breakfast with my parents:

Dad: there was a car called an Austin?

Me: like an Austin-Healy?

Dad: I don't know. I heard a funny thing when I was a little kid. 

Me: what was it. 

Mom laughs like "here he goes!"

Dad: There once was a young man from Boston

Went to town and bought him an Austin

     He had room for his ass

     And a gallon of gas

But his balls hung low and he lost 'em

*much laughter at table 

Me: why have you never told me this before now?

Mom: he was waiting for you to be mature enough

Me to Dad: I think we've both just been insulted!

I just got grumped at!

Indignant mode. 

I was feeling hot with Chuy sweat-glued to my back, and I shifted in bed and he had the audacity to grump at me!!! He has a rough life.

Still, I love my cheeky little chap. He is so chesty and proud. The boy DOES love his comfort, though!!!

Innocent bystander

The pups are at their cutest when the house is dirtiest, so please excuse the dirty rug!

Here, Praline looks very innocent while Chuy very industriously denudes Miss Mochi of whiskers. 

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

I know that I say it every year, but it's eternally true-- I am richly blessed for parents, and I'm so very proud of my Dad.  Everything that's best about me came directly from Mom and Dad. I'll take credit for my own failings, but I couldn't be more grateful to have such lovely folks.

Throughout life there are people whom you admire and over the years, you come to see their flaws and they seem less heroic, less admirable.  Dad is as heroic as ever. He's an exceptional person, and I'm blessed to be his daughter.  I wouldn't trade my parents for anyone on earth, nor for any thing this world could offer. 

I love you, Dad.

Thunder pups!

Last night there was an enormous crack of thunder about 3AM and Praline stood bolt upright and started barking her brains out as though an intruder were in the house. Then my brown babies joined in, and they were a little raging chorus of puppy fury, ready to kick some thunder butt. 

I like it FIRM AND FRUITY!

I was so sad to hear yesterday of the death of Rik Mayall.  I loved him as the anarchist Rick in The Young Ones, the ubiquitous character in Drop Dead Fred, and of course as Flashheart in Blackadder. So cheeky, silly and funny, he was one of the funniest actors I've ever seen. No one does tongue in cheek (literally!) like Rik:



R.I.P.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: tire toy edition

Mochi just loves her Tuff Gear toy. She's on her second one. It's so cute when she carries it around by the rope. She has endless fun hours gnawing and nomming it. Her favorite toy. 

When I was still in school, the idea of summer stretched before me as a sea of possibilities.

In actuality, I continue extremely busy, though with relatively little of the stress of the school year.

Last weekend, Old NFO came to town, along with Hols and JPG and Sylvilagus Aquaticus and his Mrs. and we had a lovely visit, and lots of good eatin'!  It's such a treasure when we can get together with friends, and it's so restorative to have time with people you love.  Plus I got motivated to put at least part of my house in order, and herds of dust buffalo succumbed to vacuumed air. WHOOSH!

I'm working part time at the old company, and I'm grateful for that opportunity. I applied also for a job at the local hospital, but didn't hear from them, which turned out to be for the best, since my knee was banged up.  My meniscal tear is healing quite nicely, and I have very little pain. I hope to be worked back up to wearing my hooker shoes by the time school is back in session. Anyway, the work is not 40 hours a week, so it's not tiring or boring, and some days I leave a little early, depending on call or paperwork volume. I find it a very satisfactory arrangement.

I went to yoga yesterday morning for the first time in 2 years. I can't believe it's been that long, but it's been an extremely busy two years.  It felt great, but it was the hardest yoga session I've ever done, because I think this is the most out-of-shape I've been in quite a while. I'm going again tomorrow, and we'll soon put this to rights. What's great is the Wednesday class is 7:45 AM, and I go to work at 10 on Wednesdays, so it works well for my schedule. Gives me enough time to get home, shower and go to work. I'll go to yoga tomorrow and Sunday, and I'll start Spinning class on Tuesday.

Oh! When I came home from yoga yesterday morning, I found someone had tried to jimmy my front door open. I always lock the deadbolt, but someone apparently tried to pop the knob unlocked with the button lock.  There were gouge marks in the metal and the rubber was sliced of the weather strip thing around the door frame by the doorknob, but the odd thing is that there was no gouging or indication of wear on the door itself by the knob.  Whatever gouged the metal of the stripping would logically have also made marks on the door. It's a mystery.

It's an unsettling mystery.  I trotted my self down to Home Depot and ordered a door measurement for my house, and chose some pre-hung steel doors, along with security doors.  I live in a small town that's relatively quiet, and though I think of myself as generally situationally aware, I think I may be complacent. I hate to think that putting security doors on (with screens so I can let the breeze flow through during nice weather) will make my house look ghetto, but I feel like I need to take extra measures. Does that sound like overkill?  The front door apparently was forced in some years before I bought the house, and I don't think it would take a tremendous amount of effort to break it in again.

I priced doors and my first instinct was the custom door with the three deadbolt lock mechanism, one at about 18" above the bottom and the third about 12" from the top, but that door is $500 more than the steel door with the standard knob/deadbolt.  Again -does this sound like overkill?  My one care is my own safety and that of my pups.  I don't want my stuff stolen or anything, but my universal truth about stuff is they're always making more, whereas there's only these three pups in the world who are these three pups- their well-being is my one care. I'm leaning toward just having the security door and the steel door and hoping that the two in concert will be sufficient-- that will save me about $1000 overall, which is nothing to be sniffed at. What do you think?

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: my sleepy girls

A particularly marvelous concerto

I listen to soundtracks quite a bit, but I also have a Baroque music channel on Pandora (called "If It Ain't Baroque" - see if you can subscribe- the more the merrier!) and I have often admired a Concerto Grosso for 2 Violins by Geminiani for it's start similarity to the marvelous music of the Pirates of the Caribbean films - indeed, I think this music was the template on which the film's composer embroidered. I love this piece of music.

It's about 12 minutes, but in my opinion is sublime listening for still moments, or while doing other things. Breathtaking, inspiring, and timelessly lovely.  Magnificent. This has made my day beautiful. :)

I hope you will enjoy it, too.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: now I have 3 murder machines

Mochi is killing stuff now. Woe betide the little furballs and birdies who wander into my back yard. Himself was able to get this bird away from her before she ate the rest of it, but the bird was a former parrot at that time. 

That's not it...

I have loads of samples of perfume, and I tried one for the first time today that was primarily a musk. Now, most musk on the market is synthetic, but this may have been civet or somesuch. Went by a friend's house briefly and her 2 of her 3 pit bulls (the big ones) could not get close enough to me. The perfume is actually rather nice, but, uh, pit bulls is not the target audience I'd like to please!!!

I'll be able to wear this several more times, but I'm going to be careful about where and when!

Onwards and Onwards

Two weeks ago school concluded and I miraculously passed everything, and I continue quite busy, though without the extraordinary stress of school. Thursday I went back to the dr about my knee for the results of the MRI, and was told I have a Grade I tear to my meniscus-- not really a complete tear but a bunch of tiny tears to the tissue. He said it's also stretched out which is why it keeps wanting to pop out so easily into that unnatural movement that caused so much pain in the first place.  I will start spinning class on June 2, so yesterday for the first time I went to the gym at school and got on a stationary bike, and it was a revelation. I limped the 150 yards or so from my car to the bike, and after 20 minutes on the bike, my knee actually felt much better and my limp was gone. Looking forward to strengthening my knee and getting back to normal. I haven't worn anything but sensible shoes for two months, a state which feels wholly unnatural to me. I miss all my hooker shoes.  This needs to be ended ASAP.

I'm working part time back at my old job at the salt mine, and I'm grateful to be back there. It's better , though, because I'm doing a broader variety of things. I'm on the phones taking incoming calls and sometimes placing outgoing, but when I arrive, I tidy up the correspondence emails and faxes of paperwork, so I'm able to do those woodshedding things at my own pace. I find I enjoy working steadily at my own pace, and I'm untroubled by boredom or the personal politics that seem to plague office environs. Then again, it's possible that some folk there are not happy about my presence and status, but no one has voiced this to me. It's been generally nice to see everyone again.

Last weekend was the May installment of the antique market where I have a booth. Business was very slow.  One weekend a month from Thursday through Sunday, I'm quite occupied with this task. I enjoy it, but over the next three months, I'm going to need to see a serious profit, or I'm going to have to pull out before the Fall semester. It's one thing for summer, even if I have a job, but I can't afford the time drain from valuable study time if I'm not seeing a bigger return on the time investment.

Today is my first fully free day since school ended, and I have quite a bit of cleaning and organizing to do. I also have a couple of small writing projects I need to work on, so I've got a full roster, if I can but keep myself motivated.

I finished a book I started in the middle of the semester, American Gods by Neil Gaiman.  I bought this book when I still lived in Dallas and a friend a couple months ago mentioned that it's an excellent book.  I was pleased to see a character therein who was pivotal in Gaiman's Anansi Boys, which I loved. If you like fantasy or magical realism, I can't recommend strongly enough the audio version of Anansi Boys read by the brilliant Lenny Henry.  I loved Lenny in the Beeb's Chef!, and he delights with brilliant accents for the many characters in this book.

Today during my first couple hours of cleaning, I'm listening to the movie Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer. The narrator in the film is the ever-compelling John Hurt, and the soundtrack is sublime. The film features passages of overwhelming beauty, but contains some ghastly bits as well, so it's not all sacred, and there is rather much of the profane. Still, it makes for nice listening, and when one of the surpassingly beautiful scenes occurs, I can stop my task and gawp a few minutes. 


Have a great day!