clean floors, dirty paws

I have recently started using my iPhone to listen to music in my car. For some reason it never occured to me until recently to plug it in and listen to my iPod or Pandora radio. DUH! Anyway, I was on my way home from work today, listening to Pandora radio, when I reach over to my purse to grab my phone. I realize that it is not in the pouch that I always keep it in so I begin to dig. Now, my purse has a bad habit of eating things so I dig for a good long time while waiting at a red light. When I still can't find my phone I concede that I have probably forgot it at work. Just as I am about to turn around the light bulb in my tiny little brain went off goes off. "YOUR PHONE IS IN OUR LAP DUMB ASS, YOU KNOW, THE THING THAT IS MAKING THE MUSIC!" This is almost as bad as the time I put water in the microwave to boil and then, when I opened the microwave to take it out, the cup was empty. I honestly thought there must have been a slow leak in the cup, or maybe all the wa...

Today is the 3 year anniversary of Ryan and my first date; the date I insist was never a date. Let me explain… Around February of 2007, tickets for Morrissey were going on sale. I was living in Salinas, having just moved back from Los Angeles and some friends of mine in Fresno all wanted to go. One of my friends was supposed to purchase tickets for her and her boyfriend and one for me. Having not heard from her in a few weeks I assumed that everything was a go and my ticket would be waiting for me. Flash forward a few more weeks and I get a phone call from SBI. I assume it is Heather, but to my surprise it is Ryan. I immediately get nervous because I have no idea why he is calling me and I do NOT do well when I am caught off guard. I always knew he would be attending the show with us, but I had no idea it was going to be just us and one other couple. He explained to me that Heather NEVER bought a ticket for me or herself, but that he had an “extra” ticket he would be willing to ...

I just want to chop them up, spread them on a Ritz cracker and eat them!

Our dogs, like "real" children, have a bit of sibling rivalry. If one is getting attention, the other one immediately needs attention. If you give one dog a treat you had better have two, etc. Their latest, and most entertaining game is something I like to call bone swapping. There will be a bone just laying on the floor for hours and one of them will decide to go chew it. Of course the second one chews it the other one wants it. You can offer a different bone or perhaps a nice squeaky toy to the other but they only want THAT bone. I could even offer to let Abner rip the stuffing out of a toy and he would still want THAT bone because suddenly that is the most amazing bone that ever was and no other bone will do. It is really funny to watch because Abner will lay directly in front of Lilly and watch her chew until finally she gives in and lets the bone fall between her feet. Then Abner will S L O W L Y, as not to disturb the lion, sneak the bone from between her legs ...

Every year around this time, a shepherd runs his flock of sheep directly behind my parent’s house. You can look outside on any given day and see thousands of sheep just walking around. It is kind of neat to see the dogs working them and the flock roaming; in fact, I might even enjoy it, if I didn’t hate sheep. They have got to be the most idiotic, worthless animal on earth. Can anyone tell me their purpose? Anyone? I didn’t think so. Anyway, these grass maggots roam around and occasionally one gets the brilliant idea to jump over my parent’s fence and then panic because it can’t get back to its flock. A few years ago one of these geniuses’ jumped the fence and while we were enjoying our morning coffee we got a phone call. It was our neighbor asking if we knew that there was an injured sheep on our front porch. Oh, yeah, of course we knew. We were just letting him hang out and bleed all over our porch while we finished breakfast. Sure enough, we looked out the sidelight and th...

I do not sit still well, never have, never will. I can’t sit through a movie without shifting positions 30 times or shaking my leg so much that Ryan wants to shoot me just to save himself. I can’t fall asleep without moving around for an hour because maybe if I just move my middle toe one centimeter to the left I will be more comfortable. Can’t stay in bed and relax because I notice dust on the nightstand and that dust could kill us all if I don’t get up and clean it RIGHT NOW. My inability to do nothing also makes me a really annoying sick person to everyone but myself. I see nothing wrong with doing everything I would do healthy, sick. I take breaks and sit down when I feel like I’m going to pass out and then complain that I don’t feel good but won’t rest. You know fun stuff like that. I basically do the opposite of what I request of others when they are sick. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard, “just sit down and relax. Rest!” How am I supposed to relax when there...

For no real reason, Ryan and I typically eat dinner at the coffee table rather than the dining room table. It just so happens that the table is chin height for Abner, who likes to rest his head with hopeful eyes, and wait...