Sunday, October 31, 2004
Pics for the evening
Friday, October 29, 2004
Wednesday Roller Coaster
Hmm, I see I haven't posted anything non-linky since last Friday. Well, we can fix THAT!
Sadly, most of whatever it was I did this past week was so stunningly boring I can't remember it.
Yesterday (Wednesday) made up for it by being a regular roller coaster of fun and Not. We got up extra early, (bleargh!) because our state candidate for the Senate was coming to town, and we thought a good turn-out of the local Dems was the least we could do. I asked Mike if he wanted to come along, and he said yes, especially since it involved a special breakfast out.
Mike took this picture himself!
Lucky we brought the camera, because the lazy ol' Lamar Daily Snooze didn't bother to show up. So I took a few snaps, plus one for Mike's growing collection of him posing with politicians. Damaris made the save of the day, though. She was heading back home to change for work as the rest of us (minus Caro and Mike, who were off to school) entouraged after Ken Salazar, who had a radio interview. As she turned on her van's radio, she heard the announcers mention Ken was on the way, and one joked, "If he's any kind of candidate, he'll bring doughnuts!" So she yelled and honked until she got my attention. The group was still in the doughnut shop, so I passed the message to one of his staffers, and that very splendid and worthwhile fellow coughed up for a dozen doughtnuts for DJs. And that, my friends, is how important and necessary volunteers are to the political process!
All of that, pretty much an up.
Back at home, I tweaked up the pics, forced my sulky CD drive to deign to copy them to a disk, then drove back into town. After dropping them off IN PERSON at the newspaper, so they couldn't pretend they never got them, I stopped by the Credit Union, in order to delve into the mystery of why on earth they were sending me bouncing check notices, as though we had no money in the account or something!
Back at home AGAIN with a print out of our account activity, I was chagrined to see that in all the hustle and bustle the October fairy has brought so far, I had not only failed to note several debit card transactions, but I had also optimistically entered the deposit of a birthday check from my mum twice. Ooopsy. Big Downturn of Attitude.
We are expecting another cold snap sometime this week, so I decided it was definitely time to round up the fish herd and move them to winter pasture. That would be the 55 gallon tank at Damaris and Nigel's home, which was currently unpopulated after their move (and the tragic fish-tastrophy where all fins perished, including their dear lamented algae eater 'Sucks-to-be-you').
With Mike's help, I got all the goldfish and most of the snails transferred into a 5 gallon bucket. I tried to put in as little water as I thought would still sustain life for 10 rather large individuals of the carp and koi persuasion. Mike steadied it between his legs as he headed out, and I TRIED to take the bumps and turns gently. But Dreamcloud just isn't a perch-wagon. I have to say, Mike took it pretty well. He didn't gripe me out at all, just repeatedly said, "SLOWLY! Slow DOWN!" and gave me a few Looks. Mainly when he had to lift his feet up to the dashboard to let the water pour back out of his shoes....
The fish looked great in the big tank (pics to come) and seemed to be happy, so on the whole I was feeling pretty up again.
Wednesday had started out very foggy, but turned warm and bright by noon. Breezy, too, but the breeze was oddly warm, even after sunset. Mike stayed outside playing in the light of the full moon right up until time to get ready for bed, drawing chalk railroads for his wooden trains, and occasionally looking through the binoculars with me at the steadily progressing eclipse. Which was very cool looking. That part of the evening was just nice.
But then!
Mike has a tendency to both dawdle at bedtime, and FIDDLE with things when he is busy dawdling. After sending him in to shower, and not hearing any water start for a good long while, I went to check.
*drumroll of Doom*
For reasons that no doubt seemed sane and sensible to Our Boy, he had tried to hang a flyswatter from the shower head fixture. This somehow caused a very necessary flange to fall off AND somehow raised a sliver of metal in the hole that the connecting bolt runs through. Now, Tab A utterly refused to fit into Slot B.
I was so very very very Not Happy.
So there was a bit of a fluff-up, and for a time, it looked like Mr. Mike was NOT going to get to attend the Trick or Treat Street at the local nursing home Friday night. But I thought of an alternate plan, and today he cheerfully washed the dishes and did a few other chores for free, to make up for the extra time I had to spend fixing the darn shower. (Which I did manage to do, eventually. Me and my Hammer are good at household stuff!)
So today, in between this and that, I have been crafting a giraffe costume.
Oh, yes...there WILL be pictures!
ETA: I tried to post this last night, but Centurytel, our ISP, was having connection convulsions, and I gave up after an hour. I am now up at this ghastly hour because it is Crazy Hair Day at Mike's school, and my expertise was required in slathering him with hair goo and glitter. I didn't totally mind waking up from dreaming of a concert where Keith Richards, Dick Cheney and Pee Wee Herman were performing fake stage fights. Y'know, that Keith Richards is pretty agile for an old geezer!
Sadly, most of whatever it was I did this past week was so stunningly boring I can't remember it.
Yesterday (Wednesday) made up for it by being a regular roller coaster of fun and Not. We got up extra early, (bleargh!) because our state candidate for the Senate was coming to town, and we thought a good turn-out of the local Dems was the least we could do. I asked Mike if he wanted to come along, and he said yes, especially since it involved a special breakfast out.
Mike took this picture himself!
Lucky we brought the camera, because the lazy ol' Lamar Daily Snooze didn't bother to show up. So I took a few snaps, plus one for Mike's growing collection of him posing with politicians. Damaris made the save of the day, though. She was heading back home to change for work as the rest of us (minus Caro and Mike, who were off to school) entouraged after Ken Salazar, who had a radio interview. As she turned on her van's radio, she heard the announcers mention Ken was on the way, and one joked, "If he's any kind of candidate, he'll bring doughnuts!" So she yelled and honked until she got my attention. The group was still in the doughnut shop, so I passed the message to one of his staffers, and that very splendid and worthwhile fellow coughed up for a dozen doughtnuts for DJs. And that, my friends, is how important and necessary volunteers are to the political process!
All of that, pretty much an up.
Back at home, I tweaked up the pics, forced my sulky CD drive to deign to copy them to a disk, then drove back into town. After dropping them off IN PERSON at the newspaper, so they couldn't pretend they never got them, I stopped by the Credit Union, in order to delve into the mystery of why on earth they were sending me bouncing check notices, as though we had no money in the account or something!
Back at home AGAIN with a print out of our account activity, I was chagrined to see that in all the hustle and bustle the October fairy has brought so far, I had not only failed to note several debit card transactions, but I had also optimistically entered the deposit of a birthday check from my mum twice. Ooopsy. Big Downturn of Attitude.
We are expecting another cold snap sometime this week, so I decided it was definitely time to round up the fish herd and move them to winter pasture. That would be the 55 gallon tank at Damaris and Nigel's home, which was currently unpopulated after their move (and the tragic fish-tastrophy where all fins perished, including their dear lamented algae eater 'Sucks-to-be-you').
With Mike's help, I got all the goldfish and most of the snails transferred into a 5 gallon bucket. I tried to put in as little water as I thought would still sustain life for 10 rather large individuals of the carp and koi persuasion. Mike steadied it between his legs as he headed out, and I TRIED to take the bumps and turns gently. But Dreamcloud just isn't a perch-wagon. I have to say, Mike took it pretty well. He didn't gripe me out at all, just repeatedly said, "SLOWLY! Slow DOWN!" and gave me a few Looks. Mainly when he had to lift his feet up to the dashboard to let the water pour back out of his shoes....
The fish looked great in the big tank (pics to come) and seemed to be happy, so on the whole I was feeling pretty up again.
Wednesday had started out very foggy, but turned warm and bright by noon. Breezy, too, but the breeze was oddly warm, even after sunset. Mike stayed outside playing in the light of the full moon right up until time to get ready for bed, drawing chalk railroads for his wooden trains, and occasionally looking through the binoculars with me at the steadily progressing eclipse. Which was very cool looking. That part of the evening was just nice.
But then!
Mike has a tendency to both dawdle at bedtime, and FIDDLE with things when he is busy dawdling. After sending him in to shower, and not hearing any water start for a good long while, I went to check.
*drumroll of Doom*
For reasons that no doubt seemed sane and sensible to Our Boy, he had tried to hang a flyswatter from the shower head fixture. This somehow caused a very necessary flange to fall off AND somehow raised a sliver of metal in the hole that the connecting bolt runs through. Now, Tab A utterly refused to fit into Slot B.
I was so very very very Not Happy.
So there was a bit of a fluff-up, and for a time, it looked like Mr. Mike was NOT going to get to attend the Trick or Treat Street at the local nursing home Friday night. But I thought of an alternate plan, and today he cheerfully washed the dishes and did a few other chores for free, to make up for the extra time I had to spend fixing the darn shower. (Which I did manage to do, eventually. Me and my Hammer are good at household stuff!)
So today, in between this and that, I have been crafting a giraffe costume.
Oh, yes...there WILL be pictures!
ETA: I tried to post this last night, but Centurytel, our ISP, was having connection convulsions, and I gave up after an hour. I am now up at this ghastly hour because it is Crazy Hair Day at Mike's school, and my expertise was required in slathering him with hair goo and glitter. I didn't totally mind waking up from dreaming of a concert where Keith Richards, Dick Cheney and Pee Wee Herman were performing fake stage fights. Y'know, that Keith Richards is pretty agile for an old geezer!
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Are you ready for the eclipse??
I am! And here is a TOTALLY cool site that shows what to look for, what it will be like, and all kinds of nifty things!
http://www.shadowandsubstance.com/
http://www.shadowandsubstance.com/
Friday, October 22, 2004
Just an entry
Looks like we are finally getting into some fall weather, maybe. It's true that two weeks ago I had to light the furnace, which we used for a day and a half before things turned balmy again. And we HAVE been getting light showers and waking up to a view of fog obscuring the fields all around. But TODAY we are talking fall on the high plains. 73 degrees, winds out of the south to west at 30-40 mph.... Might freeze tonight, might not.
Of course they have been skiing in the high country since last weekend, but I live in the FLAT part of Colorado. Cowboys, not skiers.
So I have just come in from harvesting any tomato showing the slightest hint of other-than-green, and if I can find the tarp that WAS on the sidewalk this morning I will batten it down over the one tomato plant that holds the BIG ones. I've already made one batch of seedy but tasty tomato sauce from the boatload of cherry tomatoes we got this summer, and looks like I'll be doing more of that over the weekend.
It turned out to be a good thing I decided to do the picking now (I have trouble seeing in the slant of the late afternoon sun--growing cataracts is a dumb hobby), because I was kind of surprised to find wasps are also busy harvesting in my tomato tangles, and they are similar enough in color to the yellow fruits peeking through the vines that it would be easy to accidentally grab one....
OK, now I am going to go pick a few flowers, and then get back to work!
Of course they have been skiing in the high country since last weekend, but I live in the FLAT part of Colorado. Cowboys, not skiers.
So I have just come in from harvesting any tomato showing the slightest hint of other-than-green, and if I can find the tarp that WAS on the sidewalk this morning I will batten it down over the one tomato plant that holds the BIG ones. I've already made one batch of seedy but tasty tomato sauce from the boatload of cherry tomatoes we got this summer, and looks like I'll be doing more of that over the weekend.
It turned out to be a good thing I decided to do the picking now (I have trouble seeing in the slant of the late afternoon sun--growing cataracts is a dumb hobby), because I was kind of surprised to find wasps are also busy harvesting in my tomato tangles, and they are similar enough in color to the yellow fruits peeking through the vines that it would be easy to accidentally grab one....
OK, now I am going to go pick a few flowers, and then get back to work!
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
If you find its outlet store, let me know
I subscribe to a mailing list called Top 5, where people contribute humorous ideas on topics of the day. They also have a list for Ruminations, which is kind of like Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts. Just felt like sharing one:
The saleswoman at Macy's said they didn't have any
jeans that would make me 20 years younger, four
sizes smaller and four inches taller, with the butt
of J.Lo and the legs of Cindy Crawford. She was
nice enough, however, to refer me to a different
store. Now if I can just find this Lourdes place.
(Katherine Wertheim)
The saleswoman at Macy's said they didn't have any
jeans that would make me 20 years younger, four
sizes smaller and four inches taller, with the butt
of J.Lo and the legs of Cindy Crawford. She was
nice enough, however, to refer me to a different
store. Now if I can just find this Lourdes place.
(Katherine Wertheim)
Odd things please me
Did you know there was such a thing as the Spirograph Nebula?
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041017.html
It's like a tribute to my generation!
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041017.html
It's like a tribute to my generation!
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Small d
Yesterday turned out to be busier than I planned--some kind of holiday or sumpthin', you know how that can be. :) So I didn't get to go take part in early voting (which started yesterday in Colorado) until today.
That worked out even better, though, because I got to drag my grandkids and Mike along, and immerse them in the small d democratic process. First we dropped off a string of blue and white lights to Dem headquarters (so they can light up the posters in the window at night), then we headed over to the county courthouse.
Parts of this edifice, which stands on Main Street in the more or less middle of town, are older than me and the four kids galloping alongside me put together. So they marveled at war monuments, the big brass doors, the marble steps and fancy trim that led to the County Clerk's office on the second floor...as I rode up in the elevator, which is also fairly ancient for its kind, but still wheezing along.
The four election ladies are pillars of our little community who have been active in this sort of thing a LONG time. Like most busy, community service minded matriarchal types (something I hope to be when I grow up), they were delighted to have some adorable children to explain things to. Several little pairs of big blue eyes studied me closely as I darkly colored in my ovals on the PAPER BALLOT. (Mock us ruralites if you will, but at least our votes will count. Probably.)
And after all that civics and history, we went to Wal-mart.
That worked out even better, though, because I got to drag my grandkids and Mike along, and immerse them in the small d democratic process. First we dropped off a string of blue and white lights to Dem headquarters (so they can light up the posters in the window at night), then we headed over to the county courthouse.
Parts of this edifice, which stands on Main Street in the more or less middle of town, are older than me and the four kids galloping alongside me put together. So they marveled at war monuments, the big brass doors, the marble steps and fancy trim that led to the County Clerk's office on the second floor...as I rode up in the elevator, which is also fairly ancient for its kind, but still wheezing along.
The four election ladies are pillars of our little community who have been active in this sort of thing a LONG time. Like most busy, community service minded matriarchal types (something I hope to be when I grow up), they were delighted to have some adorable children to explain things to. Several little pairs of big blue eyes studied me closely as I darkly colored in my ovals on the PAPER BALLOT. (Mock us ruralites if you will, but at least our votes will count. Probably.)
And after all that civics and history, we went to Wal-mart.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Some fun miscellanea
Howard Dean made a radio commercial for Yahoo!Local. It's hysterical!
http://www.ysearchblog.com/files/howard_dean_ylocal.mp3
I don't know how many of my Flist like country music, but here is a link to a 'must hear' song. My clone Caro HATES country, and she loved it! The title is "Takin' My Country Back". The writer and singer are not named, which is interesting--I am about half sure I recognize something about the voice. And whoever wrote it is a GENIUS--he hits all the tropes perfectly. It's free to download and pass around, so have at it!
http://takinmycountryback.com/main.htm
http://www.ysearchblog.com/files/howard_dean_ylocal.mp3
I don't know how many of my Flist like country music, but here is a link to a 'must hear' song. My clone Caro HATES country, and she loved it! The title is "Takin' My Country Back". The writer and singer are not named, which is interesting--I am about half sure I recognize something about the voice. And whoever wrote it is a GENIUS--he hits all the tropes perfectly. It's free to download and pass around, so have at it!
http://takinmycountryback.com/main.htm
Monday, October 11, 2004
Dog days, and other out of time experiences
Yes, another exciting weekend in the bag, and I have the exhaustion to prove it!
Saturday, every dog on the place went insane. Corky, the goofy Lab mix we are dog-sitting for Damaris and fam, first broke the hook on his chain, and then after I fixed THAT, he pulled off his collar to continue his mad rompz. Once that situation was under control, the four dogs outside discovered a way to get out of their turn-out pen. Twice. (Then we found out the next day our trigger-happy neighbor had thought they were a pack and considered shooting them, until his daughter recognized them. Not that they called us to say they were out or anything. No, it was Climber tattling on them that alerted me.)
Actually, Climber did not go insane--she is always that way, so it would be pointless. And Cubby-pup, our other dog-sittee, was only insanely cute. Although *I* went briefly mental when she made a little puppy mistake (not a big deal) and then Mike did not see it and tracked it all through the house (BIG deal).
In other Saturday news, we attended a meet-and-greet picnic for Wes McKinley, who is running for State Rep from our area, and got free organically raised hamburgers and a wagon ride. I also got to pass him a check from Democracy for America and talk on the radio. I just love being generous with other people's money!
Saturday night we went to see Shark Tale, one of Mike's must see movies this season. It was actually okay, about a B-. In fact, I liked it a little bit better than Finding Nemo. The Rasta jellyfish enforcers were my favorites, and the end credits are a stitch. If you have kid entertaining on your plate, you could do a lot worse.
Today I worked hard at being Productive. I don't think I mentioned this yet, but HOWARD DEAN!!!!!!!!!! is coming to Denver for a quick fund-raising thing on Thursday. I am helping long distance with a few bits of the project, plus these, as the Democracy For Colorado's resident eBay wonk:
Clicky
I am very very very very very very excited about getting to actually meet him in person! What a perfect 4 days before my birthday present!
More squeeeing about this in the next few days!
Saturday, every dog on the place went insane. Corky, the goofy Lab mix we are dog-sitting for Damaris and fam, first broke the hook on his chain, and then after I fixed THAT, he pulled off his collar to continue his mad rompz. Once that situation was under control, the four dogs outside discovered a way to get out of their turn-out pen. Twice. (Then we found out the next day our trigger-happy neighbor had thought they were a pack and considered shooting them, until his daughter recognized them. Not that they called us to say they were out or anything. No, it was Climber tattling on them that alerted me.)
Actually, Climber did not go insane--she is always that way, so it would be pointless. And Cubby-pup, our other dog-sittee, was only insanely cute. Although *I* went briefly mental when she made a little puppy mistake (not a big deal) and then Mike did not see it and tracked it all through the house (BIG deal).
In other Saturday news, we attended a meet-and-greet picnic for Wes McKinley, who is running for State Rep from our area, and got free organically raised hamburgers and a wagon ride. I also got to pass him a check from Democracy for America and talk on the radio. I just love being generous with other people's money!
Saturday night we went to see Shark Tale, one of Mike's must see movies this season. It was actually okay, about a B-. In fact, I liked it a little bit better than Finding Nemo. The Rasta jellyfish enforcers were my favorites, and the end credits are a stitch. If you have kid entertaining on your plate, you could do a lot worse.
Today I worked hard at being Productive. I don't think I mentioned this yet, but HOWARD DEAN!!!!!!!!!! is coming to Denver for a quick fund-raising thing on Thursday. I am helping long distance with a few bits of the project, plus these, as the Democracy For Colorado's resident eBay wonk:
Clicky
I am very very very very very very excited about getting to actually meet him in person! What a perfect 4 days before my birthday present!
More squeeeing about this in the next few days!
Friday, October 08, 2004
Thursday already?
No, actually it's now Friday. Yi.
Well, let's see. Tuesday was the Veep Deebate, which was not exhausting in itself. Just hard work reading up all the commentary later (IT'S HARD WORK!!), not to mention trying to keep from being blown out past Jupiter by the GOP Spin Machine.
Wednesday was pretty busy, with the add-on of a dentist appointment for Mike, and also me going back to the booksale for Bargain Day ($2 a bag!!). I always find stuff I either missed, or that got put out mid-sale, or that I didn't want to spend a whole 50 cents on but would take a chance with at about a nickel.
That evening I was helping Mike with his homework. He gets to use a cute little device called an Alpha-smart, basically a self-contained word processor in laptop form that can download the contents to a regular computer. He is much better at typing than writing by hand, and can make a good stab at lots of words.
So we discussed his assignment, which was to answer five questions about how snakes (the animal he chose to report about) live in their "web of life". The last question was "How do they care for their young?"
Because we do a lot of story-telling and such, Mike's guess was that the mother snake fiercely guards her nest of babies. So I explained that wasn't the case. Baby snakes could take care of themselves as soon as they were hatched, and so all the mom snake needed to do was find the safest place she could to bury her eggs in the sand. So his answer to "How do they care for their young?" was:
It dont.
Today I was busy again. Went to a training meeting for the medical flavor of the Emergency Response teams being built up in our county. We were GOING to have a big mass inoculation practice, as if in response to some bio-terror event, and Jackie, our head of County Nursing, had intended it to double as a flu shot drive. She had scored a bunch of free vaccine and everything...until this big contamination disaster. So now we have about 1500 vials for a roughly 15,000 person catchment area. :/ We will still be having the drill, but my shift, the afternoon one, is very likely to be canceled due to running out of stuff to shoot people up with.
Tomorrow I am very likely to be inflicting puppy pictures upon you. Damaris and fam are adding Cubby, an Australian Shepherd mix, to their entourage, but due to assorted mix-ups, her former owners passed her over to US, just as my descendants were fixing to head to Denver for the weekend. So we are pup-sitting TWO dogs, which is not a problem except that Cubby is barely 6 weeks old (Yes, I know. The former owners are weirdos.) and thus somewhat more labor intensive than good old laid back Corky.
As you will see from tomorrow's massive cuteness spammage, though, she's worth it.
Well, let's see. Tuesday was the Veep Deebate, which was not exhausting in itself. Just hard work reading up all the commentary later (IT'S HARD WORK!!), not to mention trying to keep from being blown out past Jupiter by the GOP Spin Machine.
Wednesday was pretty busy, with the add-on of a dentist appointment for Mike, and also me going back to the booksale for Bargain Day ($2 a bag!!). I always find stuff I either missed, or that got put out mid-sale, or that I didn't want to spend a whole 50 cents on but would take a chance with at about a nickel.
That evening I was helping Mike with his homework. He gets to use a cute little device called an Alpha-smart, basically a self-contained word processor in laptop form that can download the contents to a regular computer. He is much better at typing than writing by hand, and can make a good stab at lots of words.
So we discussed his assignment, which was to answer five questions about how snakes (the animal he chose to report about) live in their "web of life". The last question was "How do they care for their young?"
Because we do a lot of story-telling and such, Mike's guess was that the mother snake fiercely guards her nest of babies. So I explained that wasn't the case. Baby snakes could take care of themselves as soon as they were hatched, and so all the mom snake needed to do was find the safest place she could to bury her eggs in the sand. So his answer to "How do they care for their young?" was:
It dont.
Today I was busy again. Went to a training meeting for the medical flavor of the Emergency Response teams being built up in our county. We were GOING to have a big mass inoculation practice, as if in response to some bio-terror event, and Jackie, our head of County Nursing, had intended it to double as a flu shot drive. She had scored a bunch of free vaccine and everything...until this big contamination disaster. So now we have about 1500 vials for a roughly 15,000 person catchment area. :/ We will still be having the drill, but my shift, the afternoon one, is very likely to be canceled due to running out of stuff to shoot people up with.
Tomorrow I am very likely to be inflicting puppy pictures upon you. Damaris and fam are adding Cubby, an Australian Shepherd mix, to their entourage, but due to assorted mix-ups, her former owners passed her over to US, just as my descendants were fixing to head to Denver for the weekend. So we are pup-sitting TWO dogs, which is not a problem except that Cubby is barely 6 weeks old (Yes, I know. The former owners are weirdos.) and thus somewhat more labor intensive than good old laid back Corky.
As you will see from tomorrow's massive cuteness spammage, though, she's worth it.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
The Greatest Dog Show On Earth
Well, it was for a few minutes, anyway.
Mike got the idea over the weekend to set up a dog show. More of a circus act, really, with Climber as the main attraction. What with one thing and another, it didn't work out for a full family attendance until tonight. (And sadly, Nigel missed it, as he is still working in Denver M through F.)
Damaris and the kids were over, and Mike enthusiastically let the girls join his troupe. At one point as I was fixing dinner, Marisa came and asked me for paper so we could all have number cards to hold up and score Climber on her tricks. She also confided that they had wanted to teach her to roll over, but didn't have time. I convinced her to go with voice scoring, in hopes the Olympic Circus Dog Show wouldn't last all night....
So after dinner we all went out to be entertained. Mike had pulled up lawn chairs and the swing for seating the crowd, and was himself perched on top of the stepladder, waving a former highway road work sign that says Stop on one side and Slow on the other. The girlies put Climber through her paces, which mainly consisted of getting her to scamper from the top of the covered sandbox shaped like a little ship to the good metal bench, then the rickety bench, and then through a cardboard box tunnel. She did this with great verve and elan, being that sort of crazy little Border Collie cross.
I think the best part was when she picked up her stick (the one she will only fetch a few times before getting disgusted with you for being such a silly as to keep throwing it away) and carried it along a few jumps. Morrissey tried to take it while Marisa was steerng Climber back the other way. Tug O War time! So one girl was pulling the leash and the other the stick, while Climber growled and fought from atop the plastic ship's deck. We were all laughing so hard by this point we could hardly see for the tears in our eyes, so we almost missed the finale when Climber said, 'Fine, have it, then!' and let go, sending both girls tumbling backwards!
You just can't get that kind of quality entertainment in the big city!
Mike got the idea over the weekend to set up a dog show. More of a circus act, really, with Climber as the main attraction. What with one thing and another, it didn't work out for a full family attendance until tonight. (And sadly, Nigel missed it, as he is still working in Denver M through F.)
Damaris and the kids were over, and Mike enthusiastically let the girls join his troupe. At one point as I was fixing dinner, Marisa came and asked me for paper so we could all have number cards to hold up and score Climber on her tricks. She also confided that they had wanted to teach her to roll over, but didn't have time. I convinced her to go with voice scoring, in hopes the Olympic Circus Dog Show wouldn't last all night....
So after dinner we all went out to be entertained. Mike had pulled up lawn chairs and the swing for seating the crowd, and was himself perched on top of the stepladder, waving a former highway road work sign that says Stop on one side and Slow on the other. The girlies put Climber through her paces, which mainly consisted of getting her to scamper from the top of the covered sandbox shaped like a little ship to the good metal bench, then the rickety bench, and then through a cardboard box tunnel. She did this with great verve and elan, being that sort of crazy little Border Collie cross.
I think the best part was when she picked up her stick (the one she will only fetch a few times before getting disgusted with you for being such a silly as to keep throwing it away) and carried it along a few jumps. Morrissey tried to take it while Marisa was steerng Climber back the other way. Tug O War time! So one girl was pulling the leash and the other the stick, while Climber growled and fought from atop the plastic ship's deck. We were all laughing so hard by this point we could hardly see for the tears in our eyes, so we almost missed the finale when Climber said, 'Fine, have it, then!' and let go, sending both girls tumbling backwards!
You just can't get that kind of quality entertainment in the big city!
Sunday, October 03, 2004
Just what I needed, more book!
A library book sale day is always jolly. Today's was at our hometown Lamar library, in the lovely new renovated facility that just opened in August.
We have a whole new scheme for these sales, now that I have MINIONS! It's great! I roll along, scanning the books with my eagle eye and book-data enriched brain, while Damaris follows along, accepting each chosen volume, boxing it, and toting it away to a safe spot where Zach, today's Grand-minion, guards it and its fellows with his young life. So we scored 3-400 books in just a hair over 3 hours. One of them was a rare paperback I have sold copies of several times before for over $100. So color me pleased.
But don't worry about our library. I also spent a few hours last week checking out some of the nicer looking donations, and pulled a boxful that should bring them a few thou, which I sell for them for free as a sort of thank you. So we all win!
We have a whole new scheme for these sales, now that I have MINIONS! It's great! I roll along, scanning the books with my eagle eye and book-data enriched brain, while Damaris follows along, accepting each chosen volume, boxing it, and toting it away to a safe spot where Zach, today's Grand-minion, guards it and its fellows with his young life. So we scored 3-400 books in just a hair over 3 hours. One of them was a rare paperback I have sold copies of several times before for over $100. So color me pleased.
But don't worry about our library. I also spent a few hours last week checking out some of the nicer looking donations, and pulled a boxful that should bring them a few thou, which I sell for them for free as a sort of thank you. So we all win!
So far, so good.
Here is my plan. No, not to take over the world. (That one is Sekrit.) Right now I have a few hundred assorted emails that need answering, or maybe tossing if I can convince myself that no, people are NOT still hanging on my words, waiting for a year or so just to hear my sparkling opinion on whatever it was.
1. I am going to TRY to answer today's messages today, and not let them add to the backlog. Sounds crazy, but it just might work!
2. My goal is to catch up this month. So each day I will divide the total of messages to be answered by the days left in the month, and try to answer that many backlogged ones. It's only a few a day, I can surely do that!
3. If I am a good little correspondent, then I will reward myself by posting something new on the blog!
And therefore here I am!
I got up a little later than I meant to today. I had packages to mail, and the PO is only open from 11-1 on Saturday. So the late start means I didn't get them all packaged up, just the easy stuff like books and videos.
Mike went with me to town, and after the mailing was done, we went to the Oktoberfest and walked around trying to hand out voter registration forms. We had done this earlier in the week, at one of the apartment complexes, but I am very sorry to say my flesh is WAY weak, especially in one knee, and climbing up a whole bunch of flights of stairs turned out to be a kind of bad idea. Caro just plain refused to shoot me and put me out of my misery, too! So walking around on the flat was a much more do-able idea, and once again I found a few people who had been MEANING to get registered and just not done it yet, so that was worthwhile.
Damaris and family came by later in the day and invited Mike to go to the rodeo, meaning Caro and I had a sudden child-free night! We decided to take advantage by catching up on some entertainment we weren't quite sure was suitable for Mike. Heh. Yes, we FINALLY watched Pirates of the Caribbean!!
Now I can finally go catch up on the fic my various friends have been writing in that universe!
1. I am going to TRY to answer today's messages today, and not let them add to the backlog. Sounds crazy, but it just might work!
2. My goal is to catch up this month. So each day I will divide the total of messages to be answered by the days left in the month, and try to answer that many backlogged ones. It's only a few a day, I can surely do that!
3. If I am a good little correspondent, then I will reward myself by posting something new on the blog!
And therefore here I am!
I got up a little later than I meant to today. I had packages to mail, and the PO is only open from 11-1 on Saturday. So the late start means I didn't get them all packaged up, just the easy stuff like books and videos.
Mike went with me to town, and after the mailing was done, we went to the Oktoberfest and walked around trying to hand out voter registration forms. We had done this earlier in the week, at one of the apartment complexes, but I am very sorry to say my flesh is WAY weak, especially in one knee, and climbing up a whole bunch of flights of stairs turned out to be a kind of bad idea. Caro just plain refused to shoot me and put me out of my misery, too! So walking around on the flat was a much more do-able idea, and once again I found a few people who had been MEANING to get registered and just not done it yet, so that was worthwhile.
Damaris and family came by later in the day and invited Mike to go to the rodeo, meaning Caro and I had a sudden child-free night! We decided to take advantage by catching up on some entertainment we weren't quite sure was suitable for Mike. Heh. Yes, we FINALLY watched Pirates of the Caribbean!!
Now I can finally go catch up on the fic my various friends have been writing in that universe!
