Movie Reviews

I watched a couple of really great movies this weekend and thought I'd share. You've probably seen them already since I wait for stuff to come out on DVD instead of seeing it in the theater, but if not, I give thumbs up on these 3!

Movie #1 The Butterfly Effect
I love movies that make you think. This one plays on the theory of the Butterfly Effect; "If a butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the world, the ripple effect could cause a tempest on the other.” I saw “Dude, Where’s My Car” and believe me, I didn’t have high hopes for Ashton Kusher in this movie. Surprisingly, he was quite good. This movie is about this guy named Evan who has always suffered from something that causes him to "blackout" during times of extreme crisis. All through his childhood he would blank out right before something drastic happens and not remember anything that happened. Now in college, he reads through a journal he used to write as a kid to notice that all of a sudden these harmful memories are coming back to him. When he goes to ask his childhood sweetheart about it she doesn't want to talk about it. He finds out however, that he can actually tap into his past and change what happened in these events. Unfortunately, every time he changes the past, even in the slightest way the future is also affected. I won’t give away the ending, but it was surprising. I totally recommend this movie. I sat down to watch just a few minutes of it while I was eating ice cream before going to bed and ended up watching the whole darned movie. Good thing it was a weekend!

Movie #2 The Island
OMG! This movie is amazing. How did I miss it before? It’s a cross between Logan’s Run, the Matrix, and Coma. It’s about Lincoln Six-Echo who is a resident of a seemingly utopian but contained facility in the mid 21st century. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to the "The Island" - reportedly the last uncontaminated spot on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie. He and all of the other inhabitants of the facility are actually human clones. Lincoln makes a daring escape with a beautiful fellow resident named Jordan Two-Delta. Relentlessly pursued by the forces of the sinister institute that once housed them, Lincoln and Jordan engage in a race for their lives to literally meet their makers. Yeah, okay, I stole that description off of imdb. The whole idea is intriguing. The sets are marvelous, technology fantastic, and there are some truly amazing chase/crash scenes. Greg and I give it 2 thumbs up. I wish I could find a novel of it, but I can’t find any reference to it being a book before a movie. Dang.

And movie #3 Detroit Rock City
You all know that I like those silly high-school coming of age movies. This one fits the bill perfectly. It takes place in 1978 when four members of a high school band called Mystery do everything they can to attend a KISS concert in Detroit. In order to make it to the show they must steal, cheat, strip, deal with an anti-rock mom and generally do whatever it takes to see the band that has inspired them to be musicians. The soundtrack to this movie is so great. They did a good job of suiting the song to what was happening in the movie and keeping it pretty close to the right era. I went to order it on Amazon, and found out that who ever created it totally screwed it up. Instead of using the original versions of songs like “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC, they have Marilyn Manson singing it on the soundtrack. WTF?? I’ll just have to make my own, I think, with the REAL songs. I’m not a huge metal fan, but this movie has a lot of good ones in it.

This is SO COOL!

Guess what I just discovered I could do? I can download letterboxing clues on to my PDA! Isn't technology great?

Whew. It's Back!

Well, LBNA is back up and running. Talk about putting a lot of letterboxers out for a week or so. You should have seen the complaining on the lists! Sheesh. We all need a 12-step program.

Here is one of the clues to a letterbox series I did with my friend Maiden. She carved the stamps and I did the clues. So, can anyone answer the following questions:

Part 1: How many pennies are needed if they are placed on a chessboard as follows: One penny in the first square, two in the second, four in the third, eight in the fourth and so on doubling the amount with each square?

Part 2: 'Here lies Diophantus,' the wonder behold. Through art algebraic, the stone tells how old: 'God gave him his boyhood one-sixth of his life, One twelfth more as youth while whiskers grew rife; And then yet one-seventh ere marriage begun; In five years there came a bouncing new son. Alas, the dear child of master and sage After attaining half the measure of his father's life chill fate took him. After consoling his fate by the science of numbers for four years, he ended his life.' How long did he live?

Part 3: A rabbit puzzle: A rabbit falls into a dry well, thirty meters deep. Since being at the bottom of a well was not her original plan, she decides to climb out. When she attempts to do so she finds that after going up three meters (and this is the sad part) she slips back two. Frustrated, she shops where she is for that day and resumes her efforts the following morning—with the same result. How many days does it take her to get out of the well?

To get the clues to this spectacular box, you must provide me with all three answers. Can you do it?

Pet Update

Cleo lost her collar about a week ago. Greg thinks she teamed up with the dogs and got them to take it off and hide it somewhere. She runs around here in "stealth kitty" mode and is just loving it. I really need to go and get another collar for her. She is very sneaky without a bell.

Carmen hurt her foot somehow. I can't figure out what is wrong with it, when she chases the ball or Frisbee, she keeps coming up lame. She yelps and won't put weight on it. I just can't find anything wrong. No bumps or bruises, nothing noticably wrong, nothing feels hot or broken or torn that I can tell. Guess I'll have to take her to the vet and do a "toss test."

Sophie is fine.

End of update.

The Explanation

Remember my post a week or so ago about the guy who went all crazy at Greg at the dog park? Well, I’m here to tell you the rest of the story today.

Yesterday afternoon Greg took the girls to the park. They always go to the big open area first so the girls can stretch their legs and then wander the trails looking for bunnies. It gives the girls a chance for a good run and Greg gets some exercise too. So after they got in to the park and were in the open off-leash area Greg came upon the crazy guy (Greg just told me his name was Charlie) and his dog (Buddah). Greg went over to talk to him about the “incident” not to start a fight or anything, but just to clear the air. "Are you the gentleman I ran into about a week ago?" he said. Charlie said, (I’m paraphrasing here, these aren’t his exact words), “Well, I wasn't any gentleman. I owe you an apology for acting like I did last week.” Talk about taking the wind right out of Greg’s sails! “How I acted was uncalled for, out of line and very rude. I totally over reacted, but I didn't know what happened until later. I’m deaf as a post and didn’t hear you ask me to grab my dog, I only heard you say ‘well don’t hurry or anything’ and thought you were just rudely trying to get us to hurry up to our cars to get out of your way so you could go down the sidewalk. I talked to my buddy about it later, and realized what you had really said and I felt bad that I had acted the way I did.”

Of course, Greg is totally taken aback by this, since in our experience people never seem to apologize for stuff. He said he didn’t even remember saying “well don’t hurry or anything” and I didn’t until he told me. So he says “Hey, I appreciate that. Both of my dogs have been attacked at this dog park and they feel very vunerable and are very defensive when they are on leash and around other dogs that aren’t. They were feeling threatened by your dog and protective of me and the car and I was just trying to stop a problem before it started.”

I guess Charlie apologized all over the place and they came away good buddies. Isn’t the world a crazy place? Here we thought this guy was totally wacked and it turned out he just misunderstood the situation. He told Greg to be sure and apologize to me for him, too.

I think my faith in people been restored just a tiny bit. It was nice of Charlie to apologize and clear the air. He could have just been a jerk about it and ignored us if we met up at the park, but he didn’t.

We Did Something Fun!

We finally got out of the house on Sunday and did something fun. I know, it’s amazing isn’t it? We did something fun together! We put the dogs in the car and drove up to the north side of Mt. St. Helens. We visited the south side a few years ago and were amazed at how desolate it looked . We chose to go to the north side this time since neither of us had ever visited the visitor’s center or the observatories. It was a really nice drive and some of the views were just breathtaking. It’s amazing how different things look from the other side of the mountain. Since the mountain blew on the north side, nothing in the blast zone survived. It was all washed away in the mudslide and everything else that gushed down the mountain and into the Toutle River. On the south side, it just got the blast part, so there are millions of logs laying on the ground like toothpicks. The Forest Service didn’t replant anything in the blast zone area, but the majority of the land from I-5 about to the edge of the blast zone is owned by Weyerhaeuser. They lost a lot of logging camps, equipment, and trees in the eruption, and had to take out a bazillion dead logs. In 1981 they started replanting millions of little baby trees, so there are all these new trees on the drive up. None of them are older than 25 years, so huge stands of young trees are all about the same size. As we were driving along we’d come to these whole hillsides of these Nobel Firs that are all about the same size. It was a really bizarre sight, because it looks like one of those 3D pictures that you have to squint and cross your eyes to see.

The observatories were nice. Greg said it was amazing how much money could be generated from a natural disaster, as all the observatories had gift shops that sold the usual gift shoppy type things. Happily for me, that included a penny machine in all but one place! So I came home with 12 new Mt. St. Helens smashed pennies. I had to fend off a couple of little kids to get to the machines, though.

Greg got some terrific pictures, which I include here for your viewing pleasure.

This is the bridge at the very edge of the "Blast Zone" (sounds like a ride at Disneyland, doesn't it?).

The land heading up to the mountain. Isn't it amazing how bare it looks?

The view from Johnson Ridge Observatory. The mountain is about 5 miles away from us here.

Old St. Helens put on a little show for us while we were there. This is the lava dome, and yes, that is steam coming out of it. She doesn't like us to forget she's an active volcano!

A lovely over-all view.

These are the 3-D trees. You can kind of get the effect in the picture. Weird, huh?

Okay, I have to go listen to the B52's now. Somehow I have "Hot Lava" stuck in my head. Wonder why?

Letterboxing

You will notice that I have taken the main letterboxing site (www.letterboxing.org) link off my page here. No, I have not decided to give up my favorite hobby. I just took it off temporarily because the site isn't working. Apparently they get too many hits on this site now and the server they are using can't handle it. So the webmasters have had to take the site down. I think they are searching for a new host or something. The new site will be linked here as soon as it is back up and running.

There have been many unhappy letterboxers out there the past couple of days, let me tell you! We can't get our clues that will take us to our "fix" for our addiction! It's terrible!

I have replaced the link with Cute Overload, which is a great website that puts up very cute pictures. It's a nice change from the bad news that's everywhere else on the web.

Too Much Coffee??

We took the dogs to the park today and had the weirdest encounter with a guy there. We had just gotten out of the car and were leashing up the girls, when these two guys were walking towards with their dogs to their cars that were parked in front of ours. These guys were both probably in their late 50s, early 60s. One guy had a Rotteweiler on a leash, and the other one had a Boxer that was leashed, but the guy had dropped the leash and was letting the dog walk about 15 feet in front of him. The Boxer was coming towards us with his head down and ears back and wasn't looking at all friendly (I learned a lot about dog body language in Sophie's class last month, ya know, and this was not friendly dog language). Greg had both the girls on leash by now and they were barking and pulling while he was trying to back away from this dog. I walked ahead and tried to distract the dog, but had no luck. I was just about to say something when Greg said "Hey! Can you get your dog?" This old guy went ballistic on him. He got right up in Greg's face and said "What's your f-ing problem?" Greg said "Your dog is coming at my dogs." And this guy just flipped. "My dog won't hurt your dogs, he's not doing anything!" He yelled.

Greg was just gaping at this guy who had gone from stress level 1 to 10 in an instant and said "Well, they don't know that! They are on a leash and he isn't." And they guy said something else nasty. Greg said, "Don't start something you aren't going to finish." This guy, who wasn't much taller than me goes right up to Greg and says something like "I'm going to finish anything I start!" Greg took a step towards him, and the guy picked up his dog's leash and loaded it in the car.

We just gaped at him. It was so weird. What a stupid thing to freak out about. Usually we try to keep the girls away from other dogs when they are on leash and the other dogs aren't. Dogs just react differently when meeting another dog on a leash than when they are off, and a dog on leash with a dog off leash showing signs of being unfriendly is never a good combination. Besides, Sophie can be quite snotty to dogs when she's on leash, especially when she is resource guarding her car. The weirdo guy didn't even think that MY dogs might have been the problem, not his.

Anyway, it was just weird. You can't even go to the dog park without meeting weirdos anymore. I don't know what the guys problem was, but I think he needs to cut back on the coffee.

Cuuute!

Look! Whippet puppies! Aren't they cuuute?



These are the newest Dreams Whippets puppies. There are 5 boys and 2 girls.

They are related to both my girls, but I'm not clear how. Let's see. Mom is Jazz (Dreams She Got The Jazz). Her dad is Eddy (Ringdove Black Adder) and her Mom is Breeze (Summer Breeze Mirage). Eddy is Sophie's grandpa. Breeze is Sophie's Mom's littermate. What happens when your grandpa and your aunt have kids? Okay, that's just weird. Factor in that I think Eddy is dead, things get even weirder. So that makes these puppies, um, second cousins?

Dad is Buster (Dreams Bustin Loose). His dad is Rusty (O'ochigea's Vitalis) and Mom is Crystal (Winsome Crystal Blue). Crystal is Carmen's mom, so that makes her and Buster half-siblings. So I guess these puppies are cousins to her, too. Luckily, Rusty's lineage is not represented in my girls's line, so we don't have to figure that one out!

Consanguinity is weird, isn't it? I even had a chart and I couldn't figure it out.

Okay, now that I've brought out the big words, my work here is done.

Kris out.

Boring

I know, I've been really boring lately. I just haven't been doing anything worth blogging about. I've been going to work, coming home, doing a few chores, and then going to bed.

Oh, wait! I did do something fun. Three weeks ago I took my grandma to see "42nd Street". This show was our first show of the Broadway Rose Theater Company season, and my friend Julie was in California and couldn't use her ticket. So she gave it to me and I thought my grandma would like to go. We had a lovely "date." I picked her up and took her out to dinner. Nothing fancy, just Sherri's, but she liked it. She loved the play and was so excited to hear all those old familiar tunes. She said she remembered seeing the movie in the theater when it first came out. It came out in 1933, I think, so she would have been really young. I even found out that she used to tap dance! I never knew that. It was a fun evening for both of us.

Then last weekend we had our second play of the season, "Sisters of Swing." The second musical they produce is always a review of some kind. This one was all about the Andrews Sisters. Lots of great music and a terrific story. I had no idea they had started so young or done so much. I know my grandma would have liked this one, too, and I was going to take her for her birthday, but all the rest of the performances are completely sold out for the rest of the run (which isn't that long, really).

So this weekend we are going to our first 2006-07 season plays at the Lakewood Theater. This one a musical version of A Midsummer's Night Dream. Should be interesting. They never do a bad play there.

Okay, so I'm not as boring as I thought. Stay tuned for more excitement!

Sad

This is the saddest thing I have heard about in a long time. Sorry to make you all sad by reading it, but I can't get it out of my mind. Those poor dogs. The poor owners, too! It just breaks my heart.

It just goes to show you that you can't be too careful in this heat.

Thank goodness it is cooling down now, but it doesn't help those poor greyhounds now.

Hot

I'm hot. It's 100 degrees outside. I hate it when it gets this warm. I know, many people have it worse, I appreciate that. I didn't even want to go letterboxing today, that's how hot it was.

Thank goodness I have air conditioning. I bless the person that invented it!

Weird

I bought a little hand-held sudoku game at Walgreens yesterday. It was only $5.99 so I splurged. I pulled it out of the package and found the "user instructions" on the back. In bold all caps, it says "FOR HOUSEHOLD USE ONLY" on the very front, right under the picture of the game. What does this even mean? I can't put it out on the floor for use in Las Vegas? I can't use it professionally? Can you even do sudoku professionally?? Sometimes I really do wonder what happens to cause a company to put such warnings on things.

I got one of those Allied moving kits at Costco and right under the picture of a moving truck it says "MOVING TRUCK NOT INCLUDED". How stupid do you have to be to think there might actually be a real truck in this box?? Okay, maybe you could think there would be a model one, but really.

One Step Closer

We are one step closer to having the floors done! Today we had carpet put on the steps. What do you think?









It's a really short berber. It looks pretty good. We just need to finish the landing and the trim and we can check one more spot off the list!

Here's A Funny Site

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/

I Hate Traffic

Did I mention lately how much I loathe traffic? I drive about 20 miles each way to and from work each day. My route takes me over an expressway, I-205, I-84 and various surface streets. There are rarely any traffic problems when I go to work, and it takes about 40 minutes to get there. If there are problems, it's usually something major.

Coming home is a different story. At least once a week I get stuck in pretty major traffic. It usually takes about an hour to come home. Today it took three. Yes, THREE HOURS. I left work at 4:00. When I got on I-84 traffic was backed up to 181st, which is about 5 miles from the I-205 merge. So I got off the freeway right there and went Airport Way. It took me over an hour to get to Costco on Airport way, which is only about 50 blocks. I was sick of sitting in traffic at that point so I went in to Costco and shopped. I was there about 45 minutes (it's now 5:30) and it took me until 6:45 to get to the onramp. It's only a couple of miles and it took over an hour to get there. GRRRRR!

I still don't know why it was so bad, but this might have something to do with it.

Anyway, that's my traffic rant for the day.

Ode to Bastet

Today would have been Bastet's 11th birthday. We got Bastet in College Station, Texas when she was just a couple of months old. It was sometime in the fall of 1995. Greg & I can't remember the exact date. We both remember that it was the same time Ann came down to stay with us. We adopted her from an animal shelter there in College Station. Her sign said she had been picked up off of the streets and we had to wait three days before we could adopt her, just in case she belonged to someone. They didn't know exactly how old she was, but we figured about 3 or 4 months at that time, and chose July 4th as the day to celebrate her birthday.

We went to the shelter a couple of months after our little Calypso died during surgery. There were many kitties there to be adopted, but Bastet was the one for us. The first time I saw her she was leaning up against the side of her cage looking all sweet and innocent. Somehow we just knew that she was the one.

We had just moved into the duplex when we got her. She was quite the little spitfire. BC didn't know what to make of her at first, and I don't think he was too thrilled to have her around. We never even had to think about what to name her. She was always rather imperious and commanding. I loved the character of The Cat Bastet in the Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody series. So Bastet she became.

Bastet soon became "Stetty." We rarely called her by her real name (we're big on nicknames in this family). I often called her my little princess or the goddess. She had the goddess personality down pat.



As I did with BC, I'm going to list some of the things I loved about Bastet.

1. She loved to take a shower with you. She would sit on the edge of the tub and bat at the water droplets and they flowed down the shower curtain. She liked it if you wiggled your finger and played "shower mouse" with her, too. We had more shower curtains that had to be trashed because of holes from her teeth.

2. She was such a daddy's girl. She would come in and talk to Greg when he was on the computer until he picked her up and held her. She could get very demanding about it if she didn't get her way. She was most content when she was with him.

3. She was a chatterbox. Bastet always had something to say about everything. She had a great meow, too. I loved to hear her talking to us. I really miss that.

4. She was a great slimer. Even though we've repainted much of the house since she left us, there are still Stetty marks on the doors and some of the corners from her rubbing her cheeks against them.

5. When we moved from the duplex we found a bazillion milk jug rings under the washer and dryer. We dubbed these "Stetty rings". She did love to bat those around. She would also play soccer with Greg with bits of rolled up toilet paper.

6. She had a wonderful purr. Very loud.

7. In the last few months of her life she would come in and sleep in me. I think she was using me to stay warm, but I enjoyed it. She'd sleep on my chest and purr when I petted her. She stuck like a limpet when I would roll over or move in the bed. She loved nothing better than someone taking a nap during the day.

8. She had attitude. Or is that cattitude? She was a very cool cat. So much of an individual. So different from BC. So very catlike.

9. From the time we got her she always had to help you make the bed. We made a game out of it. She would play "bed mouse" with us on each piece we put on the bed. She didn't enjoy sleeping under the covers, but she loved to play under them when I was making the bed.

Of course there are many more things that were great about her. I know it's been especially hard on Greg since she died. It was so hard to let her go when her time came. That damned kidney disease. It took her from us too early.

I love you and miss you so much, Stetty. I hope you are healthy and happy and waiting for us with Mr. Bunny over the Rainbow Bridge.




Bastet
July 4, 1994 - July 7, 2005
You are forever in our hearts.

Happy Fourth of July!

It's the Fourth of July. I mean this in the most American way possible, but I really hate this holiday. Everyone in my neighborhood goes nuts with fireworks, firecrackers, and other noisy and irritating ILLEGAL fireworks. Greg hates them, too. He is such a light sleeper that it will be almost impossible for him to get to sleep tonight. And I have to go to work tomorrow. There is nothing like being kept awake until midnight because your neighbors felt the need to burn up a couple of hundred dollars worth of noise makers.

Okay, that's it for my rant. Here are some more pictures of my kids doing what they do best...snoozing.

Maryhill

I went to a letterboxing gathering this weekend in Maryhill, Washington. There is a nice museum there and a replica of Stonehenge. It is about 100 miles from here, and it's amazing how much the landscape changes in that short distance.

I picked up 50 new stamps: 25 letterboxes, 12 travelers, 6 new exchanges, 1 event stamp and 6 cooties. Pretty good haul, huh? Met some great people, and had a great day. Here are some pictures.

This is the Columbia River looking east towards Maryhill.


Looking west downriver towards Portland. That's Mt. Hood there.


Letterboxing buddies, Kuku, Cat's Meow, Campfire Lady, Sarah, and one other girl whose name I can't remember.



There are all these peacocks on the grounds of the Maryhill Museum. Isn't he handsome?

I Forgot

I forgot to tell you that I got a new pair of sunglasses. Costco had a $15.00 off coupon, so I was able to use some birthday money I had set aside to buy them. Here's what they look like:



I totally love them. Here's what the web site says about them:

They feature the best lenses available on any sunglass and offer maximum protection on the road. They feature an extended lens which covers the blind spot perfectly.

In addition to this, they offer skull fit arms which provide maximum comfort especially when combined with the rubber nose pads which prevent the sunglasses slipping on the nose bridge. The great thing about the Monza sunglasses is they come with polarized lenses as standard and the polarization is amazing. Never before has glare been combated so well which gives your eyes a well earned break, even in intense summer light. Premium Polarized ® lenses contain a polarized film embedded into the lens which blocks 99.9% of reflected light and eliminates glare.

As with all Serengeti sunglasses, the lenses feature Serengeti's famous photochromic protection. The lenses lighten in overcast conditions and darken in bright sunlight which give perfect vision at all times. They also feature Serengeti's patented Spectral Control ® Filter which blocks 95% of troublesome blue light waves and reduces eye fatigue.

Besides that they are cool.

Phew! Carmen has really stinky farts tonight. I'd better go take her outside. Ta!

It Truly Is A Small World.

Sophie's class went well on Wednesday. Everyone was very impressed at Sophie's recall story. It was impressive, I just hope it wasn't a fluke. Sophie does seem to enjoy the class. There is a malamute, a German Shepard, a Vizla, and a German Shorthaired Pointer in her class. I really like the German shepherd's mom. We've talked a lot during class, but we just know each other by our dog's names. She's Josie's mom, I'm Sophie's mom. Last week we were chatting about people who have dogs that do sports, and she mentioned she knew a gal that showed and coursed Basenji's. Since one of my friends at work shows & courses Basenjis, I asked who it was.

"Julie Leicht." She said.

I stared at her. "Oh yeah, I know her, too. I work with her. How do you know her?"

She stared at me. "I work with her, too."

"You work with her? Where do you work?" I said, wondering when Julie got a second job I didn't know about.

"City of Gresham." Says Josie's Mom.

More staring in disbelief. "YOU work at the City of Gresham?? I work at the City of Gresham. I'm in the Accounting department. What's your name?"

Okay, to make a long conversation full of staring and repeating the same thing back and forth, we determined we both worked at the City of Gresham. She's a police officer, which explains why I didn't recognize her (Police & Fire are housed in a different building than the rest of the City departments) and she didn't recognize me. We both live in Vancouver, we both take our dogs to A Dog's Life Doggy Daycare, and we both work at the City of Gresham. What are the odds?? She lives about 3 miles from me. It really is a small world!

After class I was craving an ice cream cone, so I went to this little place I had seen near the daycare. I'd never been there before, but they advertised fresh made custard ice cream. They had a drive through, so I didn't have to get out of the car even. I placed my order and got up to the window, and the two young gals working the drive through were admiring Sophie. They gave her a puppy cone, and were impressed at how daintily she licked it. It was funny. Sophie acted like it was no less than her due. I think she likes having an admiring public.

It Might Be Working!

I was across the street tonight talking to my neighbor when all of the sudden Carmen & Sophie came zooming towards me at top speed. They were supposed to be in the house, but I must not have gotten the door shut all the way and the wind blew it open. While they went running down the street chasing another neighbor's cat (sorry, kitty), I flew in the house searching for my car keys. As I ran to the door to get in the car and start the Sophie Chase, Carmen came up to me and went back in the house. I grabbed the clicker and the stinky treats that Sophie likes on my way to the car. I only had to drive down two houses to catch her. I clicked the clicker, called her, and she came up to me. When she realized I had her stinky treats, she actually let me pick her up and throw her in the car! Woo hoo! A Sophie Chase that lasted less than two minutes - and that included finding my car keys!

Yay Sophie! I'm so proud. I can't wait to tell her teacher.

Skunked!

I hate it when I go looking for a letterbox and can't find it. I had dinner with my parents last night and afterwards we went up to Mt. Tabor to find two boxes. Got skunked on both of them. Grrr! So I emailed the planters today. Der Mad Stamper wrote back that he had removed the box for maintenance and forgotten to update the clues, and Calli-K wrote back to say that yes, the box was gone. Sigh. I hate not finding boxes!!!!

Here are some pictures I just took of my kids. Aren't they cute??

Who Thought of This One? They Ought to be Shot.

I went to Costco tonight. It's always so much fun to go there. While I was on the shampoo aisle, there was a lady, her mom, and her toddler, who was just old enough to walk on her own. Cute little kid. Unfortunately, the ladies weren't really watching her. So she's running around all over the shampoo aisle getting into stuff. She has on these little baby sandals that squeak like a squeaky toy ever time she takes a step. Every. Time. Yes. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Maybe you haven't gotten the full horror of the situation. Let me try again. EVERY SINGLE STEP this child took her shoes squeaked.

I want to know who on earth thought that squeaky shoes would be a good idea on a toddler. I figure it must have been a man with no children. Even worse, who would BUY such a thing? "Oooh! Looky, Marsha! Shoes that squeak with each step my child takes! I've got to have those! I don't care WHAT they cost." Right. I was ready to remove her shoes and hide them after two minutes of exposure, and I'm sure if I'd stuck around longer I would have gone completely around the bend.

Okay, all you moms speak up. Would you buy them for your toddler????

I Resisted

My letterboxing girlfriends Maiden1974 and Camp Fire Lady invited me to go letterboxing with them today. Yes, on a workday. Maiden is a teacher so she is out for the summer, and CFL is a "domestic engineer" so they have all this free time to go letterboxing WITHOUT ME. They encouraged me to have the "letterboxing flu" but I managed to avoid it. It was VERY tempting though.

I got my teeth cleaned this morning. I love how teeth feel after getting cleaned. I decided since I was close by that I'd go look for a letterbox, but had no luck. I was going to go up to Mt. Tabor to find the beginning of a trail, but for some unknown reason the City of Portland closes the park to motor vehicles on Wednesdays. WTF? Who closes a park to vehicle traffic on Wednesdays? And why? So the squirrels can have a neighborhood party in the streets? So, no box for me!

Sophie's class was good today. She was really good. We went to the park afterwards and went looking for bunnies. We were stumped, though. No bunnies. Well, we'll try again next week.

Still Using the Back Up Pair

I didn't get a new pair of sunglasses over the weekend. Still using the crappy back-up pair.

Just in case you wanted an update.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there! I went and did a little research and found out how Father's Day actually got started.

Sonora Dodd, of Washington, first had the idea of a "father's day." She thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909.
Sonora wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart. Smart, who was a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife died while giving birth to their sixth child. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state.

After Sonora became an adult she realized the selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.

President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, supported the idea of a national Father's Day. Then in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day. President Richard Nixon signed the law which finally made it permanent in 1972.

Pretty cool, huh?

Oh, and a Couple More

I was having trouble posting my pictures last night on here. I have a couple more pictures of the "supervisors".

Painting the Entry

One more chore has been checked off of the house remodel to-do list. My wonderful parents kindly came over today and helped us paint our entry way. For those of you who don't know, our entry way is open all the way up to the 2nd floor ceiling, so it is pretty darned high. We don't have a ladder, but luckily my dad did and he was nice enough to take his Saturday off (and the day before Father's Day to boot) to come help us.

So here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

The finished entry.






The Painting Team.






The Supervisory Team

So it is all done now and looks great. On to the steps!

Tragedy has struck!

Back when we had money, ‘lo these many years ago, I bought a really good pair of Serengeti driving sunglasses. I’ve had them, oh, I guess four or five years now. I love them. Last night I got in my car to take Sophie to class and found my beloved sunglasses laying on the seat in two pieces! Somehow they snapped right in the middle of the nosepiece. I tried taping them up, but it doesn’t work very well. Besides, I look like a stupid nerd with taped glasses.

Normally, I would never spend money on something so trivial, but Serengeti’s are made for driving and they are awesome. Since I drive so much, I figured it was important to invest in a good pair of sunglasses that cuts the glare, aren’t too dark, and cuts through the rain haze. Here’s what Serengeti says about their lenses:

“Our most versatile lens, Serengeti Drivers enhance your vision regardless of the weather conditions. Automatically adjusting to changing light, they are the ideal choice for any condition from rain or fog to bright sunlight making the Drivers lens a favorite of professional drivers, military and commercial airline pilots all over the world. Not to mention chubby women in Washington who drive 50 miles a day.”

Okay, I added that last sentence, but you get the idea.

The web site also says:

“Made from only the finest materials in the world, Serengeti’s glass lenses provide unsurpassed visual acuity. And because the advanced technology is molecularly engineered into the glass itself, it does not wear out or wear off. In an age of disposables, our lenses can last a lifetime.”

Yeah, but what about the FRAMES???? Ah, but the website has that covered, too:

“Not only are Serengeti’s lenses technically advanced, but so are their frames. Serengeti’s frames are manufactured with the consumer’s facial features in mind for style and for comfort. So when you put on a pair of Serengeti’s, a combination of superior lens technology and craftsmanship make Serengeti clearly the world’s finest.”

Can you tell these people think a lot of themselves? Superior lens technology and craftsmanship blah, blah. Your stupid glasses obviously can’t stand up to a 25 pound whippet walking on them, so they must be CRAP!

Of course, I have a cheap-o back up pair, but I never liked them as much, and they are too dark for driving. This just sucks!

Maybe I can talk Greg in to going to Costco tonight and getting a new pair.

Need a Puppy Fix?

My friend Diane's whippet had puppies! If you want to see something cute, check out the pictures. Whippet puppies are the CUTEST ever!

I Have a New Favorite

I have a new favorite author... Katie MacAlister. I've read a number of her books lately and have been so impressed with all of them. Her stories are funny and sexy and so entertaining. One of the best parts is that she has really unique story lines. The one I'm reading now (Blow Me Down) is about a lady who gets sucked into a virtual reality game. The last one I read (Hard Days Knight) was about a lady who goes to a renaissance fair and meets a jouster. No boring formula romances here!

If you try her books, let me know.

Can you believe it is the middle of June already? This year is just flying by.

Not much going on this weekend. Did some work around the house. Yawn. For a boring weekend it went awfully fast.

Did you read this story? Isn't it an amazing story? I can't imagine what those families must be going through.

So, did any of you solve the Bianry Eyestrain clue that I linked to the other day? Pretty cool, huh?

And We Have A Winner!

Sophie & I had our first training class on Wednesday. She did really well. We are clicker training, which is something new for her. The stinky venison & green-lipped muscle treats were a big hit. She was willing to work for those! We worked on name-recognition, which seems kind of silly since she's 6, but that's okay. She did really good. We also worked on Sit and Place. She's an old pro at sit, and if you give her some of those stinky treats, she'll do it all day (well, at least for a good five minutes). Place is a handy command that tells them to go sit on their blanket or pillow or whatever "place" you designate.

It was kind of weird because we did it all with just clicks and treats. No verbal commands. We'll get to those, but I guess we are starting with the behavior and then putting a name to it, once they are doing it right. Sounds good to me, anyway.

A Dog's Life, the daycare where this class is being held, has a doggycam that you can use to watch your dogs at daycare. They have the cameras on all the time, so if you are ever bored on Wednesday nights around 6:30-7:30 for the next 5 weeks, you can watch me and Sophie on your computer! Isn't technology great?

I didn't end up going to the letterboxing gathering tonight. Oh well. I did manage to FINALLY get the Ace of Fun letterbox. It's only about 30 blocks from where I get my hair cut, so I stopped by and had a cup of hot chocolate and stamped in. The person there had no idea what I was talking about and I made him look for it three times before he came up with the box. I have worked harder to get that damned box than any other letterbox of my acquaintance. But now I have it in my book for ever more.

I Feel So Old

On Sunday I went to Greg’s niece’s graduation party. I can’t believe Paige is graduating! She was born the same year I graduated from high school, so I’ve known her since she was 4. Can that be right? She was born in ’88, and I met Greg in ’92, so that is 4 years, right? Wow. And now she is all grown up, graduated from high school, and off to Western Oregon State in the fall to be a CSI. Ask me how old I felt at that party on Sunday. Pretty darned old. It’s seems like a million years ago since I graduated from high school. Sometimes I wish I could go back to that time, just to start my adult life all over again and maybe make some different choices. Hmm. Maybe I’ll make a top ten out that. That would be kind of interesting, wouldn’t it? I’ll have to think about that.

Hmm, nothing else has been interesting enough to blog about. You don’t want to hear about my chores. Yawn. You don’t want to hear about what I’ve been doing at work, ‘cause that’s boring. I told you about letterboxing on Friday. Just haven’t been doing that much since then. I do have a training class with Sophie tonight so that will be something for tomorrow. And Friday I’m getting my hair cut and going to another letterboxing gathering.

For your amusement, here is a link to a virtual letterbox called Binary Eyestrain. See if you can solve it. You get a prize at the end!

Pinecones & Puzzles Gathering

I went letterboxing on Friday! There is never a bad day when letterboxing is involved, I tell ya.

Some very famous letterboxers, Mark & Sue, came to Portland this week on vacation. I know, it doesn't sound like everyone's dream vacation, but us letterboxers do weird things in pursuit of just one more box. In great Portland letterboxing tradition, we had a gathering for a "meet and greet." It was held at...oh, wait. I can't say because it is a mystery clue. Okay, go look up the clues for the Spirit of Dartmoor box, decode it, then we can come back to the story. Dum de dum dum. Dum de dum dum (this is the Jeopardy music, in case you can't tell). Found it? Decoded it? Know where we are going? Okay then.

So it was held at this place that you just decoded. One of the letterboxers, Gerlfren, that I had met up at the Spring Flinger gathering in April came down from the Seattle area to meet them even. She got together with Maiden1974, Campfire Lady & Calli-K (yes, those are all trail names) in the afternoon to do some boxing around Gresham before heading to the gathering in the evening. I planned to meet up with them after they found Maiden's highly evil Seasonal Anagram and we were going to find another box I didn't have.

So I get a call from Maiden saying "Can you come over to the park and help us? I can't find the deep hole I used in my clues, so we can't find any of the boxes." OMG! I was LMAO. She couldn't find where she had planted her own boxes following her own clues! Of course I had to go over to the park then and rub it in, so I went through McDonald's for a quick snack and drove to the rescue.

I arrived in the park to find that Maiden had left to pick up her kids, and the other three were wandering around in the woods looking around every deep hole in the park. Luckily, it isn't a very big park. I was able to get them pointed in the right direction, and just as we were about to start the skies opened up. It was just pouring! The shower lasted about 10 minutes and we hung out under the trees and got soaked. It was pretty fun.

After that we ran over to Mount...oh, wait. I think these boxes are more mystery clues. Okay, we went to this other place to get more boxes. Found three boxes there (one of which I had tried to find about a million times with no luck. Funny how it helps to have more minds on a clue to make it all become clear).

Once we had gotten our boxes, we headed over to Maiden's house to hang out before it was time to leave for the party. It's always great to go to Maiden's house, because she always has interesting boxes at her house that she will let you stamp in your book. She gave me the new stamp that she carved for me. I'm calling it "If I Only Had a Brain" and will use it as a traveler. You can only get this traveler if you do something brainless while letterboxing in my presence. It got a good workout right away. By the time the night was over, the whole group got to stamp it in their book.

We added Der Mad Stamper to our group while at Maiden's and headed off to...er...the place you decoded earlier. It's a great place and we had a good time. I got to meet a few new local boxers, see a bunch of old friends, and meet a few out-of-towners. A good time was had by all!

Oh Looky! A Two-fer

I love it when I go to the library and don’t have any holds to pick up and no big stack of “to reads” at home and just let myself browse and pick up things that sound interesting. I don’t let myself do it very often because I have such a long list of books to read (over 600) and whenever I find a new author I want to add everything that author has ever written to my list, making it even longer. I also tend to go hog wild and take home as many books as I can carry. A couple of weeks ago I went to the library at Vancouver Mall and let myself wander. Long story short, I came out of there with 10 new, non-list items. I found a great new author, Victoria Houston, who writes a mystery series about people in Loon Lake Wisconsin. The main character’s name is Dr. Osborne. I will admit that is one of the reasons I gave it a try, but they are quite good.

While perusing the books on tape, I stumbled on a really cute kid’s series by E.D. Baker. The first one is called the Frog Princess. It’s a really great story about a princess who is very awkward and clumsy. She goes into the swamp for a walk and meets a frog who tells her he is really a prince and asks her to kiss him to reverse the curse. She does and she becomes a frog, too! The rest of the story is about them trying to get back to being human. It’s very cute and very sweet. Happily, I found out that this is a series of 3 books with one more to come out in the fall. I’ve just finished listening to number two (Dragon’s Breath) and enjoyed it just as much as the first one. I can’t wait to get number 3 (Once Upon a Curse).

I really need to do some updating to my book lists, both to-read and already-read. It’s getting out of control and I’m sure I have a zillion books to both add and subtract. I had this totally boring blank book that I used to keep track of the books I read for the past five years. I hit the last page of that one in December, so was able to get a beautiful new book to record the next five years worth of books in. This one has a Laurel Birch cat pattern on it. It makes me much happier to look at then the old grey one.

At the beginning of the year instead of making some New Year's Resolution that I knew I would break in about 5 days, I decided that I wanted to read 10 books, listen to 10 books on tape, and find 10 letterboxes per month in 2006. I’m up to date so far.

Just for giggles, here are the books I have read in May.

Bump in the Night – Anthology
Flamingo Fatale by Jimmie Ruth Evans
Sex Lies & Vampires by Katie MacAlister
Memory in Death by Nora Roberts
Red Lily by Nora Roberts
Dead Water by Victoria Houston
Back to the Bedroom by Janet Evanovich
Dark Paradise by Tami Hoag
Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris
Dead Frenzy by Victoria Houston
A Girls Guide to Vampires by Katie MacAlister
Hard Days Knight by Katie MacAlister
Poppy Done to Death by Charlaine Harris

Aren't there some great titles in there? The one I'm reading right now is called Crime Brulee.

Okay, that's two whole posts for the day. I'm off to bed to read my book some more.

10 Truths About All Dogs

I am so bummed. Sophie's Household manners class was cancelled for tonight. Stupid instructor is sick. Be sick on your own time, buddy! I have a dog in desperate need of training!! I was so looking forward to taking her to class today.

After I picked the girls up from day care last week, I decided to take Sophie in to Natural Pet on the way home and do some taste tests on treats. Natural Pet is this really yuppie pet store that I like. They carry all kinds of holistic foods and treats, are really nice and friendly, and they are always willing to let you sample before you buy (unlike some of those other pet stores *coughpetsmartcocough*).

I may have mentioned before that my dogs are not really all that motivated by food. When we had Sophie in obedience classes we tried hot dogs, Brie cheese, steak, string cheese, cheddar cheese, liver, and about a zillion other things with limited success. Sophie likes treats, but for the most part, she doesn't get too excited about them. If she doesn't want to do something, no treat we've tried yet is going to change her mind. So when I went into the store, I did not have high hopes we would find anything. But I was willing to try. Usually when we are out in a store or somewhere she will politely take a treat and then spit it out on the floor, completely uninterested. After trying a few different types, I found these treats that she showed some interest in. They are called ZiwiPeak and have venison and green-lipped mussel in them. Sounds icky, doesn't it? They are kind of like a jerky and are really smelly. I offered her a tiny taste and she scarfed it right down and looked to me for more. She liked them so much, in fact, that she sat and then LAY DOWN on the cold cement floor in the store for another one. I was astounded. She NEVER does that. Put her tummy on the cold hard floor??? I don't think so! I bought two packages, so I'm sure when we get to class she'll have decided that she hates them. My little princess.

I had to go look up green-lipped mussels, because I had never heard of them before. I guess they are used as a supplement for arthritis. They are from New Zealand. I'll bet that is way more than you ever wanted to know about a dog treat in your life, isn't it?

I'll let you know next week if they worked in training or not. I have a back up treat, so all is not lost if they don't. These are called Tiny Tots and are a lamb meat treat. She ate those at the Pet & Companion Fair and thinks they are pretty hot stuff, too. If THOSE don't work, I have a back up back up treat. Baby food. If all else fails, I'll try her squeaky toy. I am determined to get this dog interested in coming to me when I call her!! No more running up to the expressway at 3:00 in the morning.

I found my paperwork from the lecture last week and thought I would share with you the 10 Truths About All Dogs as per Shawn, the gay, and sick, dog trainer.

1. Everything is a chew toy. There is no difference between their toy and the remote control to the dog.
2. Totally amoral; no right vs. wrong. There is only safe vs. dangerous
3. Innocently self-interested. Dogs will not do something for you just because you are nice enough to love them
4. Dogs only learn through operant and classical conditioning. They do not learn through observation and insight.
5. They are PREDATORS! This means that search, chase, grab, dissect, and chew are all hardwired behaviors.
6. They have very strong social bonds. They are not born with any ability to inherently deal with isolation.
7. There is a very limited socialization window. If a dog is past 16 weeks old (4 months), than any new situation is fight vs. flee.
8. All dogs are opportunistic scavengers. If it is there eat it now!
9. Ritualized aggression is what keeps real violence from happening. Dogs do not write letters to the editor.
10. They have a very well developed olfactory system and smell in parts per billion. You have to figure out how to more interesting to your dog then all of the rest of the smells in the world.

And that is your dog training lesson for the day.

Two Squirrels, a Robin, and a Butterfly

Doesn't that title just make you wonder? It would be a good title for a book, I think. We'll, I'm going to make you wait to find out what it refers to, so there.

Since I get mail from my fans saying things like "Dude. Update your blog already." I guess I'd better bow to my publics desires and update my blog.

So, let's see, what have I been doing for the past week? Sheesh, has it been almost a week I updated my blog? I'm sure you will all be expecting something terribly exciting with all this time that has passed, but I'm afraid I will have to disappoint you.

Wednesday night was the first Household Manners class at A Dog's Life. The first night was just a lecture, with no dogs in attendance. It was really quite good. Greg was still feeling crappy from his bout with the 'flu, so I went by myself. We talked a lot about dog psyche and how they just aren't children in furry dog suits. It was very interesting to learn how differently primates and dogs reason and learn. We also talked about crate training, being a pack leader and that a tired dog is a good dog. We also talked about how dogs are pack animals, and really aren't meant to be alone. Many behavior problems stem from them trying to get to the pack leader (you), loneliness, and boredom. We talked a lot about ways to keep that boredom at bay. I'll be interested to see what we do in our first dog class on Wednesday.

The weather up here was very cool and damp for this Memorial Day weekend. We spent Saturday cleaning. The goal was to get all the crap out of the living room and put away somewhere, but it just didn't happen. It's so overwhelming. I just stand at the entrance and look at all the stuff that I have to decide what to do with and I just shut down. I can't think, I can't form a coherent sentence, nothing. It's terrible. I finally gave up yesterday and told Greg I just couldn't do it. He's really mad at me because he wanted it to get all done this weekend, but I just couldn't. I tried, I really did. If someone came along and took everything out of our living room I would be so relieved. Then I just wouldn't have to deal with that crap any more. I know that is stupid, but that's how it is. Maybe I just need someone to come and help me. I don't know.

Today I took the dogs to the park for a run. We haven't been going to our favorite dog park up on 164th for the past few months because there has been a lot of construction going on and the big field area where we went for running has been closed. Sophie loved that park because there are a ton of little rabbits that live in the wooded area. We'd go and let them run in the big field and then wander the trails and look for bunnies. I'd say, "Sophie, where are the bunnies? Find the bunnies!" and she put her ears up and go on a bunny-hunt. She'd get really excited when she did manage to flush a rabbit(or whatever the term is) and go chasing off after it at top speed. That's what whippets were bred for, you know. Last time we were there it was around dusk and there were lots of bunnies out and she had a grand time chasing them. Never came close to catching one, but the chasing part was fun. Today we didn't find any bunnies. She and Carmen did manage to tree two squirrels, chase a robin, and go chasing after a butterfly, so the day wasn't a total waste.

Household Manners

I've decided to take to take Greg & Sophie to a Household Manners class. It is supposed to be an overview of basic commands and solutions for common problems for dogs, but I'm hoping I may be able to train Greg to put clothes in the hamper and paper towels in the trash can. Ha ha. Sophie has gone through obedience before, Greg hasn't. Hee hee. Oh, Greg is going to get me for that one.

Last week when I took the girls to daycare, I was talking to the trainers there about how Sophie acts in the dog park. She is so obnoxious to other dogs. Since she's been attacked a couple of times before, she goes on the offensive and has taken to growling, charging, and nipping at dogs that come anywhere near something she regards as hers... the water dish, her toy bag, her toys, a nasty ball that lives at the park, even a poop bag. They tell me this is called “resource guarding” and it’s a pretty common thing. We will cover this in our class, so hopefully I'll learn how to make her stop doing this.

Anyway, the class is six weeks on Wednesdays. We only get to take one dog, so I decided Sophie could benefit most. We can always work with Carmen at home on the same things we cover in class. I really hope there won't be a lot of heeling for 20 minutes each class. Sophie gets so bored with that. I'll give you a report tomorrow or Thursday and let you know how it was. Maybe we'll get some pictures! That would be pretty cool. I'll see how much of a nerd that will make me.

Not Much

Not getting much done this weekend. Greg has the flu and has been miserable for the past few days. Poor guy. We've been taking it easy all weekend. I did manage to work on laundry and dishes, balance the checkbook, and pay bills, but that is about it for excitement.

Julie was better this weekend, so we were able to go see Hello Dolly last night. A wonderful performance, as always, from the Lakewood Theater. I can't believe I've never seen that play before. I watched about the first half hour of the movie on TV a couple of months ago. Just enough to find out that Michael Crawford (of Phantom of the Opera fame) is in it.

When I was on my brownie kick a couple of weeks ago, I saw a box next to the brownie mixes for Almond Roca Buttercrunch Cookie Bar Mix. Since Almond Roca is my all time favorite candy, I had to get a box and try it. OMG! They are AWESOME!! Don't try it if you are on a diet, because you put almost two full sticks of butter in this dessert. They are to DIE for. I think I will go eat another one now.

Ode to Mr. Bunny

Today is BC's birthday. He would have been 13 today. He was born around the middle of May in 1993, so we just picked May 18th to be his celebrated birthday. I asked Greg to journal the story of trying to catch the little grey ball of fluff and get him over to my house so he could give him to me. He's all busy reviewing the days news so I probably won't get it before I finish this post, but I'll include it at some point. I wish I had scanned some of BC's baby pictures so I can post them here. He was the cutest kitten. Unfortunately the pictures are all in photo albums which are in the pile of stuff in the living room and I can't get to them. I'll scan some another time and post them here. I don't have many digital pictures of him, unfortunately.



I wanted to make a scrapbook page of BC and post it, but I didn't get around to doing it. I will eventually.

I'm not entirely sure how we ended up calling him BC. I had just finished my scuba diving classes when Greg gave him to me. I thought, for some unknown reason, that BC (which is a buoyancy compensator in scuba terms) would be a clever name. Turns out it really was kind of dumb, but BC stuck. It was rather amusing to see the looks on the faces of people that asked us what BC stood for. They always thought it was Big Cat.

We hardly ever called him BC, though. I used to tell him he was a funny little bunny when he did something cute (which was often), and a snuggle bunny when he was cuddly, and somehow that turned into calling him Bunny, Mr. Bunny, Buns, Mr. Buns, and various other forms of funny bunny. I often called him Senor Bunny or just Senor. That cat had more nicknames than any other pet or person I know.

Since I'm doing an ode to Mr. Bunny, I thought I'd make a list of just some of the things I loved about him. So here goes (in no particular order).

1. He would chirp at you if you peeked around a corner at him.
2. He loved to lay in front of the fireplace on his back. He would be so hot to the touch, but he would stay there for hours. Sometimes he'd be so close to the glass on the fireplace, that I thought he'd burst into flames. He and Sophie would lay side by side and see who could get the best spot.
3. He loved boxes. No box could come into the house without being checked out by him.

4. He would sleep under the covers with me. I loved to fall asleep when he was purring and had his little head on my arm.
5. Even though it could be really annoying sometimes, I loved how he would lick you. Back when he was a wee little lad he licked Greg's arm so much that it actually took off a couple of layers of skin. Greg had a big scab on his arm from it.
6. I loved how he ran. Since he was a good sized cat much of his life, his tummy would sway back and forth when he ran. It was very cute.
7. I loved how soft the fur on his chest was. It felt like putting your hands in cool flour.
8. When he was a kitten he would play in the sheets while I was making the bed.
9. I remember him as a kitten playing in his litter box. It was like the litter was the most amazing thing ever. I'm sure all kittens go through that stage, but Bunny liked his fresh litter. Even as an adult he would get in the fresh litter and kick it around.
10. Nothing bothered him. When we moved to Texas and drove for many hours in the truck, he'd just sleep or climb up on the dashboard and look out. When we'd get to a hotel, he'd check everything out and just act all cool and collected. He didn't even mind going to the vet too much, at least until he got the kidney disease. When we lived in Texas he had a really bad ear infection and we went to the vet school a lot to have him checked out. He would purr at the vets. One of the vets that we saw several time liked him a lot. The vet was from New Jersey or someplace with an accent similar would tell him "You are so swoooffffttt."

There are many more things I loved about my little Bunny. I think that's enough for today though. I just wanted to share some happy memories of him. He was the coolest cat ever and I miss him.

I love you and miss you so much, Mr. Bunny. I hope you are happy and healthy and waiting for me over the Rainbow Bridge. I know I'll see you again someday.


BC the Cat
May 18, 1993 - April 2, 2005

The Office

Here are some pictures of the office all finished. No furniture yet, but you can get the idea.


Looking at the closet doors.


Looking from the closet to the windows.


Looking towards the door.

I'm Baaaack!

So didja miss me? I've been without internet since Saturday. Can you believe it? Yes, since SATURDAY!!! Somehow I managed to survive, but it was a close thing.

We finished the bonus room on Saturday and spent most of Sunday moving the important stuff back up there. It is now officially the office again. Woo hoo! I do have pictures of the room when we finished it, but at the moment I don't know where the camera is to download them. This room looks gigantic right now. We just have our desks in here with the computers on them, one file cabinet, and the printer stand. It echoes really badly in here, too. I have a terrible headache tonight and Carmen was just barking at Greg to throw the ball for her, and I thought my head was going to fall off from the noise. I am now sitting on the ball so she will quit barking. The things I do for peace and quiet around here.

We kinda took it easy today because it was super hot out. I just checked on the news site and it is still 91 degrees. That's NINETY-ONE degrees. In May. It never gets that hot here that early. Our air conditioning is getting a work out today. Thank GOODNESS we got A/C. This would totally suck if we didn't have it.

Now we need to clean up the former office and go through files and put things away. Sigh. Will this project ever end???

While it was good to get some stuff done on Saturday, it was a majorly disappointing day. I gave up the opportunity to letterboxing in the Columbia River Gorge with a group of letterboxers I really like. Sometimes it's so hard to be a grown-up and make those choices. THEN Julie called to tell me she had the flu and wasn't up to going to our play.

Well, there is always next weekend, right?

Friday

Yay! It's Friday. These three day work weeks are exhausting. Ha ha.

Okay, this weekend we are going to put the finishing touches on the bonus room, paint the hallway, floor the hallway, and put the hallway trim on. It sounds like a lot, but I'm going to be positive. I know we can do it! And if there is time left over, we'll move the desks and computers back up to the bonus room and officially change it back to the office again.

Oh, hey. I almost forgot. I get to play a little tomorrow night. My theater buddy Julie and I are going out to dinner and to a play. What are we seeing tomorrow? Um, oh yeah. We are seeing Hello Dolly! I'm sure it will be awesome. This is our last Lakewood Theater play for the season. We'll be going to some others over the summer with Broadway Rose Theater Co. I'll tell you more about that later.

I think I caught Deb's crabbys. I'm all grouchy today. I'm going to go to bed and read for a bit.

Top Ten Songs That Have Special Meaning

I'm a little behind, but here is my top ten list for the week. These are in no particular order, and I linked you to lyrics where I could find them.

Five O’Clock World – The Vogues.
Yes, an oldie but a goodie. I’ve loved this song ever since I heard it on the Drew Carey Show. It just speaks to me, ya know? I’ve been working since I was 14, and sometimes I just get tired of working all the time.

I Don’t Have to Be Me ( Til Monday) – Steve Azar
Hmm, maybe I have a theme going here. Does someone need a vacation???? I love the feeling of getting off of work and being free for a couple of days to do whatever I want. The anticipation of what can happen.

Any Man of Mine – Shania Twain
I always turn this one up as loud as possible on the radio when it comes on. I love the beat and I love the criteria she has for her man.

So Happy Together – The Turtles
Yes, another oldie but a goodie. Greg & I used to listen to the oldies station a lot when we were dating, and we just loved this song. It’s as close to “our song” as we will ever have.

One Day More – from Les Miserables
Okay, it’s a song about a bunch of people who are going to fight for what they believe in the next day and die trying. I don’t know why I think it’s so wonderful, but it’s very uplifting. Well, uplifting for a bunch of people who are going to die in the next scene, anyway.

The Promise – When in Rome
I remember being in high school and hearing this song on the radio once and loving it. I waited up half the night to hear it again on the radio so I could find out who it was by and went and bought the tape the next day. Here it is, 20 years later and I still love this song.

This is the Moment – from Jekyll & Hyde
I ADORE this song. Okay, yeah, it’s all about this guy that is going to drink this potion and turn into a monster and then go off and kill people in the next scene, but whatever. It’s the feeling of being on the precipice of something big. Something you’ve waited all your life to do. I’ve always thought it would be a terrific song for the Olympics.

Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning) – Alan Jackson
I really do listen to other things besides oldies, country music, and musicals. Honestly. I just like this song because it is all about the 9/11 thing. Our world changed that day forever, and this song does a great job of reminding us of that. I like how it shows that we were all going about our lives as usual and then BAM! Everything is different in the space of a heartbeat. You know how our parent’s generation had the “where were you when Kennedy was shot?” question? (BTW if you remember this, I’d love to hear about it). Our generation has “where were you on 9/11?” I don’t think any of us will ever forget. I was driving to work. I heard about the first plane on the radio just before I got to the locker where Greg was waiting on a paper delivery. I stopped to visit with him for a few minutes and while I was there the second plane hit. We were amazed. How could this happen? How can you miss the twin towers in an airplane? What? It might not be an accident? Terrorists? Terrorists don’t do anything in America! It’s unheard of! It can’t be! Then when I was on Division and Birdsdale in Gresham (yes, I remember EXACTLY where I was), I heard the announcement that the towers fell. I hope we never forget.

Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
Yeah, I think I talked about this one already earlier this week. It’s just such a great song. Soft sweet ballad, head banging rock. It has everything! It always makes me want red licorice too. Thanks “Wayne’s World!”

Quiche Lorraine – B-52s
Like Deb, the B-52s are one of my all time favorite bands. I have so many favorite songs, but Quiche Lorraine is at the top. I love the absurdity of it. I think I’m going to name my next dog Quiche Lorraine in honor of this song. Quiche is a pretty good name for a dog, don’t you think?

Nothing Much

Not much for today. I went to work. I came home. I had dinner. My life is so exciting. Now I'm going to bed.

Comments, Please!

Hey, I only get comments from Deb on here. If anyone else is reading this, speak up!

Pooped (no, not doody!)

Whew! It's been a busy weekend. Let's recap. We finished the floor in the bonus room, bought the trim, painted the trim, cut and attached the trim (which was a PAIN, then caulked the top of the trim and filled in the nail holes. I tell you, I'm bushed. I hurt everywhere and my knees will never be the same again after crawling around on the floor filling in holes.

But the bonus room is almost done and ready to be turned back into the office. We just have to touch up a couple of spots on the trim with paint, mop the floor, clean & hang the closet doors and put on the light & electrical plates. I'll post some pictures when it is all done. It looks awesome!

Seems like we should have been able to get a lot more done in three days ('cause we took Sunday off), but I'm pleased with what we've managed to do. I'm not totally wasting these vacation days after all!

My parents get home from their 18-day cruise tonight. Welcome back, you guys! Hope you had a great time. Can't wait to hear all about it and see pictures and everything. I was thinking about going to the airport to meet them, but their flight doesn't get in until 9:30 tonight, and we all know I turn into a pumpkin at 8:00. Besides, I barely have the energy to put the pizza in the oven and pour the root beer before limping off to bed.

Seven Years

What were you doing on May 8, 1999? Here's a couple of pictures of what I was doing.






Anyone remember this??

Favorite Movie Scenes

I finally gave in to that urge for brownies and went to the store. When I got in my car the radio was playing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." I like that song and I really love the scene in "Wayne's World" where Wayne & Garth and his buddies are driving in the Pinto and singing this song. Whenever they get to that one guitar part in the song, I always make everyone in the car do that head banger thing. I don't know why, but I think it is funny. It made me think of writing a blog of scenes from movies that I like. So here they are in no particular order:

1. Princess Bride - the scene where Westley (as the Man in Black) fights Inigo, Fezzig, and then Vincini.

2. Captain Ron - okay, I love this movie. It's all good, but my favorite scene is when Captain Ron and Ben are playing Monopoly and Ben moves Ron's beer.

Captain Ron: Hey. Get your hands off that.
Benjamin Harvey: I was just moving it. I wasn't gonna drink it.
Captain Ron: You bet your little booty, you wasn't. You want a beer, you get your own beer

I don't know why, but it cracks me up.

3. Captain Ron - I also love the scene where Martin Harvey is bitching about the revolutionaries. Totally makes me laugh every time!

Captain Ron: Stay in the path, Boss! There's gorillas in the woods.
Martin Harvey: If there's one single gorilla around here, I'll eat it.
(SCREECHING)
Gorillas. Right.
He could have said "revolutionaries", "freedom fighters". No."Gorillas". He did it on purpose. You can see it in his eyes...eye.
He said "gorilla". Not "guerrilla".
"Guer", "go".
Huge difference!

4. True Lies - another movie I totally love. But my favorite part is when Harry & Gib are interrogating Simon on top of the dam.

SIMON: No... I sell cars. That's all! Not even foreign cars. Nothing international, I swear. I'm no terrorist. Everything I said was a lie... you have to believe me. I'm actually a complete coward. If I ever even saw a gun I'd-- (Harry whips his pistol out in one liquid motion and snaps the muzzle right in front of Simon's eyes.) -- faint. Aahhh! Don't kill me. I'm not a spy. I'm nothing. I'm navel lint. I have to lie to women to get laid. And I don't score much. It's pathetic. (he looks down) See, look... would a spy pee himself?

5. Independence Day - an all time favorite. In fact, I just watched it this morning. There are so many parts I love, but my favorite is the scene where Steve is dragging the alien carcass over the desert.

Steve Hiller: Y'know, this was supposed to be my weekend off, but noooo. You got me out here draggin' your heavy ass through the burnin' desert with your dreadlocks stickin' out the back of my parachute. You gotta come down here with an attitude, actin' all big and bad... and what the hell is that smell? I could've been at a barbecue! But I ain't mad.

6. Independence Day again. I absolutely love the speech the president gives before the pilots go up to take out the alien spaceships.

The President: Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interest. Perhaps it is fate that today is the fourth of July and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live, to exist! And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!"

7. Office Space. I adore this move. My favorite scene is where Peter takes the drill to his cubical and takes down the walls. This movie has so many great quotes that I can't list them all here, so I'll just give you a website. And yes, I do have a red Swingline stapler. Greg got me one for Christmas.


I'm sure I have more favorites, but I have to go make my brownies now.

So Much For the Floors

So much for working on the floor. I have no energy today. I have a nasty headache, too, that I can't get to go away. So no flooring today. But I can't sit around and do nothing, can I? So I'm on dishes, laundry, and cleaning the bathroom today. Joy. Dishes are done and I'm off to do more laundry now. Could life get any more exciting?

I did my first Hard Sudoku today. Deb was working on one and she emailed me with the challenge to see if I could do it. Ha! Did it!

Congratulations! You solved the Sudoku in 22 minutes, 44 seconds!
Hard puzzles solved: 1
Your average time: 22:44
Your fastest time: 22:44
Puzzles solved on this computer since 4 May 2006.

Okay, laundry calls. Must answer.

Making Progress

We are making progress on the remodel. Today we went to get the trim for the upstairs bonus room and hall. The trim we like only comes in 16 foot lengths at Home Depot, so it is quite an ordeal to get it home. It's not that heavy but it is so long and awkward. It doesn't bend well either. When we put it in the car we had to rest part of it on the dashboard, over the arm rest, over the back seat, through the back and out the window. We still had about 3 feet hanging out. Those buggers are hard to stack, too. How does anyone without a truck get those things home?

Once we got them home we then had to get them out of the car, into the house and upstairs to the bonus room. Suffice it to say it wasn't easy, but it is done. I painted them with a semi-gloss pure white paint while Greg put down the last few boards in the closet and the last strip of flooring in the room.

Now all we need to do is cut the boards and put up the trim and the hard part of that room is done. We'll just have to hang the closet doors and put on all the light and electrical plates and it will be FINISHED! I think that is tomorrow's project.

We'll start in the hall next. Greg sawed the door trim to the right height tonight (the trim around the door was sized for carpet. We aren't changing that trim, but it does have to be cut so the flooring will go under it), so the hardest part is done out there. Now we just need to vacuum it, fill in the holes in the walls, paint, then put down the flooring and that room is done.

Greg is totally trashed tonight from today's work. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but it is for us. His poor ankle really hurts when he has to kneel on the floor for any length of time and that sawing of the door frames was hard on him. He's already tucked up in bed. We may not be able to get a lot done tomorrow, but we'll do what we can.

I'm going to go do a sudoku puzzle or two and maybe make a scrapbook page. I'll put up some pictures tomorrow of our hard work.

Sudoku

Sudoku is evil. It has taken over my mind. I swear it is worse than crack. Must. Fill. In. Stupid. Little. Boxes. Must. Fill. In. Boxes. Can they put subliminal messages in these things to keep me wanting to do more? It's 8:30 at night and I am contemplating going to Walgreens to pick up a Sudoku book so I can go to bed and continue doing them upstairs. Is there a 12-step program for this puzzle? I think I need it if there is. It is a small consolation that I have gotten Deb completely hooked too.

I also want some brownies REALLY badly. With vanilla ice cream. And chocolate sauce. Oh great. Now I have two cravings to try and ignore.

I was doing a Sudoku puzzle before work this morning and had 3 people come up to me and confess their addiction. Diane at work confessed that she and her husband choose the same puzzle off of www.websudoku.com and race to see who can finish it first on the computer. No cheating with paper for them! Michele confessed that she and her dad fight over who gets the Sudoku puzzle in the newspaper each day. Who knew? It's the new rage, I guess.

Oh, damn. I really want those brownies.

Now I want to do another puzzle. Okay, I give in.

Here it is! And look...it's a MEDIUM!

Congratulations! You solved the Sudoku in 20 minutes, 48 seconds!
Medium puzzles solved: 1
Your average time: 20:48
Your fastest time: 20:48
Puzzles solved on this computer since 4 May 2006.

2 9 3 8 7 4 1 5 6
8 1 7 5 2 6 9 3 4
6 5 4 3 1 9 2 7 8
5 2 9 6 3 7 8 4 1
4 3 1 2 9 8 5 6 7
7 6 8 4 5 1 3 9 2
1 8 6 9 4 3 7 2 5
3 4 2 7 8 5 6 1 9
9 7 5 1 6 2 4 8 3


Medium Puzzle 8,774,371,184


Download Sudoku games for your PC or Mac.

To Dos

Okay, let's take a look at how I'm doing with that to-do list (because I know you are all DYING to find out).

1. Call Sleep Center re: mask -- DONE. Got a new mask, too.
2. Get new socks & underwear -- DONE. Got a new bra too. I HATE bra shopping.
3. Change sheets -- DONE.
4. Finish & PUT AWAY all laundry -- This will never be done, but I am closer than I was yesterday to the goal.
5. Pay for water -- DONE.
6. Take smooshed letterbox to Maiden --Tried, but she wasn't home. Will try again.
7. Get CDs -- DONE.
8. Record Beautiful Game & Bombay Dreams for Julie - Would have done but I left them at work today
9. Finish reviewing rental house stuff -- Not quite yet
10. Put patches on letterboxing bag -- Can't find the glue gun
11. Find and return all the silverware I've been taking from work -- um, no.

I found a new addiction today. Someone turned me on to Sudoku. Know what that is? It's a puzzle kind of like a logic problem, crossword, and cryptogram all rolled into one. The puzzle is most frequently a 9×9 grid, made up of 3×3 subgrids. Some cells already contain numerals. The goal is to fill in the empty cells, one numeral in each, so that each column, row, and region contains the numerals 1–9 exactly once (thank you, Wikipedia, for that description).

I've seen books on them, but I thought they involved math, so I never bothered to look any further (math not being my strong point). I adore cryptograms and fill ins, enjoy logic problems and circle-a-words, and am not so good at crosswords, but I love puzzle games like that. Sudoku is a great mixture of the best of puzzles. Since I've only done one, I have to say I totally suck at them, but I imagine I will improve. :-)

Go here for a sample. I warn you, they are addicting! I'm trying to figure out how I can make a letterbox clue out of one of these. I'll have to put my head together with Maiden1974 and come up with something truly evil.

You know, it's a good thing I don't smoke, do drugs, or drink, because I'm pretty sure I have an addictive personality. I get hung up on these stupid puzzles and don't want to do anything else!

If you try one, let me know what you think.

Four Day Weekends ROCK!

Four day weekends ROCK! Man, I feel like I got so much done this weekend. We didn't work on the floor at all, but we did do a bunch of other stuff. I'm sure if I list it all ou here it will look like I didn't do much of anything, so I'm not going to. Suffice it say say I got a bunch of stuff done AND got to veg out a little.

Deb posted her to-do list to her blog a couple of weeks ago and got so much done that I am going to try it and see if it works for me! Here are some things I need to do before Friday: (oh, and Snooky, if you are reading this, I know what you are thinking!!!!)

1. Call Sleep Center re: mask
2. Get new socks & underwear
3. Change sheets
4. Finish & PUT AWAY all laundry
5. Pay for water
6. Take smooshed letterbox to Maiden
7. Get CDs
8. Record Beautiful Game & Bombay Dreams for Julie
9. Finish reviewing rental house stuff
10. Put patches on letterboxing bag
11. Find and return all the silverware I've been taking from work

I'll update you as we go along. I know, I know, nothing could be more interesting. That's just the kind of person I am.

Vacation Days

You know this whole floor thing I've talked (okay, let's be honest...complained endlessly) about? We want to actually finish it someday, mostly so I can quit complaining about it. I was going to take a week off of work so we could dedicate all that time to getting it done, but decided that since Greg's poor back wouldn't be able to work so much without some rest in between days, I would just take a few days off at a time. My wonderful boss was kind enough to allow me to take Mondays and Tuesday in May as vacation days, giving us some four-day weekends to get stuff done.

So this first four-day weekend we didn't work on the floor at all. Yeah, I know. We did get some other stuff done, although it seems pretty small in comparison to what I planned to get done. Anyway, I have clean clothes, clean dishes, a clean kitchen, one clean bathroom, an updated checkbook, all my bills paid, and groceries in the cupboard. I got lots of sleep and feel better than I have in ages. I finished one book on tape and four books. I could get used to this four-day weekend thing.

It's nice out today, so we are in the process of deciding what we will do with the day today. Go to Home Depot and get the trim for the floor upstairs, or go play? Vote now!!!

Top Ten #3

This week's top ten is Top 10 Things You Want to Be Remembered For. So here goes:

1. Sense of humor
2. Thoughtfulness
3. Being there for people when they need someone
4. Animal lover and good pet owner
5. Intelligence
6. Being a good daughter/granddaughter/niece/aunt/wife
7. Being a good friend
8. Love of theater
9. Love of books
10. Creativity