Being petty

I haven’t written since the rainy season started because mostly I wanted to complain about hair.  And that just seemed so petty!  I don’t want someone who stumbles across this blog to think I was so petty as being worried so much about my hair.  So here I am worrying about hair again.  Thank goodness the rain has stopped, on the up side of the rain we have grass this year. 

Tomorrow is the funeral of a friend, someone who was always very kind to my family.  I’m guessing Nick met her at the gates to heaven with grapes to make grape jelly and he will think the grape jelly is whole lot better now.  Thank you for all of the things she did for us over the years.  She will be missed.

Wedding Invites

Daughter and I have been working on invitations, over the phone and by e-mail.  Isn’t technology wonderful?  But we have consulted the occassional print page, and one thing we didn’t find covered was how to warn people their private automobile could be searched on the way to the wedding.  People that live near military post will understand the rules but most people don’t live near army bases.  Believe me when I say that Martha Stewart doesn’t cover where to include this information on the invitation.  We know who might need this info but you can’t just single out people and tell them and for the ones that have no reason to be concerned we didn’t want them to be caught by surprise and think they did something to trigger a search and then there’s the whole thing of we really need license plate numbers of people that don’t have stickers.  We will have to include a map and most people aren’t going to have seen cold war era bomb shelters before and we want them to know what they are seeing.  Jim saids he will draw the map, I’ll make sure you can read it, and there is the whole thing about this is going to be a long way from town.  Because I have no life and had heartburn the other night I looked up the location on google earth.  If you go the I65 bridge over the tennessee river and check the north side of the river back to the east you will find it.  It turns out its a lot closer to the whitesburg bridge than I thought.  I have a gps location I think, I forgot to ask Jim if those numbers are usable for that.  Can you type in numbers on your gps? 

Zoey is at the kennel, Jim sat in the car the other morning while I took her in and then I had to take her and put her in the wire cage.  She looked so scared.  I took treats,  peanut butter and the chew toy to put it in, and other treats for them to bribe her with.  This is the kennel where Basil always stayed and I expect they’ll take really good care of her.

Puppy Crazies

I’ve been in Kentucky for the past 2 weeks.  I don’t have internet and I only ocassionaly have enough signal to send a text message.  Texting was great while Mom was in the hospital I could send out batch updates.  I would send out a message and we would take bets on who would respond first, can you tell we were a little bored.  I had trouble finding signal in the hospital too.  I think some of this could be my phone, but not all because I have had actual service in Irvine this summer just not in my mom’s house.  The neighbors proably got a kick out of me waving my phone around standing on the corner of the deck.

First of all Jim is a wuss, he never took Basil to the kennel, he never took the children to the sitter I always did that.  He had to go to Washington D. C. this last week, Saturday he drove to Kentucky dropped off Zoey and 4 hours later left going to Washington so he wouldn’t have to leave her at the kennel.  Where someday she’s going to have to stay for a few days.  First of all she stayed in the utility room for 13 hours on monday with her legs crossed, I expected she would have had an accident but she didn’t.  I had to take her out at 3 in the morning but that was a small price to pay.  One morning she had an attack of the puppy crazies she was running to the edge of the dining back across the living room and leaping on to the sofa spinning around jumping off and doing it all again, under the wing chair and spinning around and around.  After doing this a few trips, she grabbed my pants leg and was pulling on them as hard as she could. More running, spinning as fast as she can, she can go from flat out to a dead stop in an instant and almost leap sideways onto the sofa (there’s very little forward motion).  I think she scared my mom, and there really is very little you can do to calm her down.  Right now she’s barking at me wanting something but she has water and I took her outside just a few minutes ago maybe she lost the ball she was playing with, gotta go look for it.

Travel

They missed the fedex truck yesterday, so… Jim had to fly the proposal to Colorado Springs early this morning.  It used to be they would just buy the box a seat, someone would put it on the flight and then an employee at the other end would meet the plane.  Today a person has to accompany the box.  So Jim left very early this morning with a layover in Dallas where he still is.  The box is checked so even though he could get on an earlier flight he couldn’t get his luggage and without it he doesn’t need to be there.  He still has time to make it but its getting tighter.  And tomorrow he has to be at the airport at 0400 so he can make it home for a softball game.  I just remembered that will be 0300 our time, should I tell him?  He has a hotel room but he’s not going to have much use for it.  They proably won’t even have slipped his bill under the door when he’s already checked out. 

Zoey has to do summer school for puppy class.  Actually 2 more dogs from her class are repeating, one because the advanced class is just not at a convient time.  Don’t know about the other one.  We have two new dogs, one a gold lab named Milo, He just looks happy and just bounces the other one was late so don’t know his name but he was yippee and jumpy and all over the place.  We were working on heeling and she’s doing better, I don’t know when she’s going to need to do this.  We work on waiting at the doors and the street, this we use every day.  Sometimes I have her sit and wait and sometimes we just stand and wait. 

Suzanne you could deep fat fry your ongiri.  Make them and chill in the fridge for a few minutes to kinda crust over then drop in the hot oil.  I’ m watching simply Ming on tv.

Bad Hair

I’m going to whine about bad hair.  As some of you know North Alabama has experienced a drought the last few years and I had great hair, smooth and silky.  But now that you have to chew the air before you can breathe it, I have fuzzy hair.  I spend time smoothing it out only to have to walk the dog and you can’t tell I did anything to it.  I know this is petty but!  its hair.  I knew when the drought came to an end it would be the end of smooth hair, but I still want the drought hair.  This morning I walked the dog and it was like walking in a cloud it wasn’t  actually raining but the air just felt wet.  On the plus side our lawn is green on the down side of that it has to be mowed more often.  Jim is outside now mowing, by the way Zoey appreciates it that the grass doesn’t interfer with going potty.  She saids a great big thank you.

I love my Kindle

Thursday night I was sitting on my sofa shopping for a sample of a book they had talked about on tv that day.  Found that sample and downloaded it and keep looking.  There is a movie coming out next week that I want to see.  Its the Julia/Julie, about a New York woman who decided to cook all the receipes in Julia Childs first cookbook in a year and write a blog about it.  I had avoided buying the book because I’m usually unhappy with the movie when I’ve read the book,  for instances Jim and I went to see the new Harry Potter.  I had listened to it on Sunday on the way home, after the movie we were making a list of what was missing, what they added, what we would have done differently.  So I didn’t think buying this book was a good idea but.  I was reading the sample friday morning, when I read this I decided to buy the book, Its from a letter that Julia Childs husband is writing to his brother, “If you could see Julie stuffing pepper and lard up the asshole of a dead pigeon”  I was hooked.  The image I got from that,  when I got to the end of the sample I clicked buy now (thank you daughter) and just kept reading.  I finished it last night after reading about food all day I made pudding after we walked the dog.  Some of the recipes sounded interesting, I’ve never looked at that cookbook.  Some of them sounded very gross and disgusting, I leave you to your imagination.  Don’t want to even write about them.

Zoey Milestone

Yesterday Zoey graduated from intermediate puppy class.  But the milestone is she took treats from one of the other people that has a little dog in the class.  She actually came out from under my chair and went to get the treat.  This is a big deal for a dog that is so afraid in class that she doesn’t do much.  But she’s also going to repeat intermediate class, Pet Smart has a policy that you can retake the class for free if you aren’t happy and they are very liberal with the unhappy part.  She also went on a road trip last week.  I took her to see my Mom with me.  Jim had to work late everyday, so I took Zoey.  She travels really well, she just lays in the back seat.  I get her out every couple of hours or so and give her water.  Luckily it wasn’t very hot and my rental car had a moon roof,  I opened windows part way and the roof all the way and ran to the facilities and back.  I picnic in the car with her going up and back, I noticed a lot of families using the picnic tables but I wasn’t welcome with my dog.  It rained one day when we were walking and I had forgotten to put a towel by the back door.  So I had Zoey stand on the rug and I told her to stay and she did while I went to get the towel.  I was surprised she’s never stayed that long before.  She also let Issac touch her, they had eyeballed each other about an hour and Zoey had cleaned the floor after he had cake.  He touched her and went back to his Mom and Zoey moved over where it wouldn’t happen again again a big milestone there was no treat involved.  She also walked with Cody (Cindy’s dog).  Next time we go to WV, we need to allow time to take her down to the river and see what she thinks of the water.  It takes forever for her to dry.  If we had done it Sunday morning I would have been riding home with a wet smelly dog. 

One of the ladies from my sewing group is having real problems remembering anything such has what she orders for lunch.  Whoever sits beside her has to remember and remind her several times because she gets to worrying about it.  Yesterday I ordered Dt. Coke and then she ordered and she ordered diet coke, in about ten years she has never ordered a soft drink.  Last week she went on vacation with her daughter and her family, and her daughter had written out about 2 paragraphs about where they went and what they did. Which she read to us.  I just want to say thank you to her daughter for being so thoughtful.

Tour de France

I’m missing my fix this morning, they have a rest day today.  We started watching several years ago, we had to look up a lot of words and places.  We learned alot more about France.  But I think I am more impressed with all of the stuff, people that keep it going.  Watching a guy work on a bike hanging out of a car window, the dr putting on bandaids hanging out the window of a window. The camera men in the helicoptor and on the back of motorcycles.  I can’t imagine why anyone thought this was a good idea, a sane reasonable person didn’t wake up one morning and go lets take the month of July and try to cover the whole country, and oh by the way include the biggest mountains we can find a way over.  Can you imagine what the roads must have been like a hundred years ago?  Over the years they have convinced people they want to sponsor different things and give a jersey with thier logo on it everyday.   Talk about marketing.  I’m watching a group called Fray? on the today show.  I think I would like their music.  Wouldn’t have seen them without a rest day. 

Our power went out overnight, I just always find the silence deafening.  It went out during the night the only thing on was the ac and fan, other incidentels, but not tv or lights.  Even this morning when I walked the dog it was quieter, no ac units came on.  Its not like we hear the tv etc when we walk, its just a background hum in the air?  When it finally came on I was grateful for the coffee.

Clocks

Are public clocks going to make a comeback?  I don’t wear a watch, I use a pocket watch my cell phone.  Last night in puppy class I turned it off, so the 2 people I know couldn’t call during class.  (by the way one tried and got voice mail.)  This means I didn’t have the time, this was also a problem for puppy trainer and most of the class.  I turn it off at the movie and then I don’t know if they are starting the movie late.  This is a real problem at my mom’s because I don’t have cell coverage, so if I leave it on it stays in search mode and it spends a lot of time tied to the wall.  You’d think I could just borrow a watch from my Mom, but they are to small.

Last night at puppy class I ask how far should I be walking Zoey and the answer was until she comes back and takes a nap, and it doesn’t count if I take the nap.  So in answer to the question I walked her about a mile and half this morning and she still wanted to play ball when we got home.  I didn’t, I needed coffee and a nap.  At night I walk her about a mile.  We’re going to have to add a lap in the morning.  It will be better when it gets cooler and I can have a cup of coffee before we start. 

So what was the google gift and you know who I’m talking too.

movie marathon

Jim is on a Smallville marathon, we’ve watched about a season of episodes.  Last weekend we had a Star Wars marathon. Zoey doesn’t like them, to many sounds.  She usually lays under the computer desk out of the direct line of the speakers.   We’ve watched a couple of the old classic movies that we had never seen except on a TV screen on our big screen.

Yesterday we went to daughters for lunch.  We watched Taken if that movie had come out before she did her semester as  an exchange student I would never have let her go.  We about worried ourselves to death without the movie and waited each day for an e-mail or post on her blog to make sure she was alive and well.  We still worry when we don’t talk, see a post or a text from her every few days.  I think that goes with being a parent. 

George Orwell has started including world events in his diary, along with his egg count.  This week there was a newspaper article included. The link is included on my blog site.