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Tag Archives: diary

Chandler

Chandler’s a good dog. He’s been through a lot in this life and will probably never fully recover.  Never fully trust anyone again.  I know the feeling.  Maybe that’s what we have in common.  Whatever it is, I just love the heck out of that dog.

And now he’s getting old, like me.  Blind in one eye.  Mostly blind, anyway.  Losing his hearing.  You can’t scold him.  Well, go ahead, but he won’t hear you, and if you’re on his left side, he won’t see you.  His favorite thing to do is sleep.  When he’s awake, his favorite thing is peeing on things.  That’s about the only bad habit he has.

He’s better than me that way.

A visit to Wal-Mart

I hate Wal-Mart.  It’s a slimy company frequented by the lowest class of people.  I always feel the need for a shower afterward.  But, this morning it made more sense to go there because they were the closest place that I thought would sell Frontline flea and tick treatment.

I was wrong.  I ended up at the much smaller chain, but unfortunately still a chain, Nashville Pet Products.  At least they’re local, as far as I know.

You know, I was going to post an actual story here, but I lost interest this far into it.  That should make Wal-Mart happy, anyway.  :)

Things that make you say “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Just the other day I had bought a second wi-fi router from a seller on Craigslist to daisy-chain the two together (somehow) to improve the wireless signal throughout my house.  No, it’s not a big house.  Anyway, last night our power went out for about a minute.  No big deal, I thought, other than having to reset all the digital clocks.  I’ll give you one guess which device was the only thing damaged by the power surge.  That’s right, the old wi-fi router.  And yes it was on a surge protector with other devices that were not damaged.

It was as if someone “out/up there” knew what was coming and made me start shopping for a new wi-fi router.  Or, maybe God wanted to make sure I never lost my connection to the Internet … so I could post stupid things like this!  Yeah, that’s it.

Kite flying

Today, it turned out, was a good day for kite flying.  Elizabeth, 6, had been bugging me about flying her new kite since returning from the vet this morning.  We had brought all three pugs in to see Dr. Paula:  Daisy due to recurrent painful skin irritations, which magically disappeared by the time Dr. Paula saw her; and Joey and Chandler to get their nails trimmed.  She didn’t charge anything for Daisy because there ended up being nothing to do.  We were only charged for the nail trimming and some toothpaste for Joey because he has horrendous breath.  You can’t use human toothpaste on dogs.  They make chicken-flavored toothpaste that dogs can just swallow, which works out well because it’s hard to get a dog to rinse their mouth out, let alone gargle.  :)

There was some excitement on the way home, just a quarter mile from Dr. Paula’s.  We had the windows down because it was such a beautiful day, and in flies this bumble bee, bounces off the steering wheel and lands under me, somewhere in the crotch area.  I said, “Holy shit!” and pulled over as soon as possible while trying to keep my ass off the seat, avoiding getting stung, especially down there.  I managed to stop the car and get out, found the bee still buzzing sideways, apparently delirious, right where I’d been sitting, and I flicked him out of the car.  Of course, Elizabeth thought the whole thing was hilarious, and I had to apologize for my foul language.  But hey, when a bee lands in your crotch, your usual composure and decorum tend to suffer.

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New job starting next week

I’m starting a new job next week, so I ran a test of how long it would take to get there after dropping Elizabeth off at school.  It was 7:42 when they started letting the kids inside, allowing me to leave.  I could do like a lot of parents and just drop her off and take off, but I like to make sure she’s safely inside before I go.  Other parents keep their kid in the car as they wait for the doors to open, but Elizabeth likes to get out and hang out with her friends rather than wait in the car with boring old me.  It’s okay.  I would do the same.

Anyway, I took I-24 to Briley Parkway to the area near the airport known as Century City.  Twelve and a half miles later, I was pulling into their parking lot at 8:07.  Twenty-five minutes to go 12-1/2 miles.  Exactly 30 miles per hour.  Not bad in “rush hour” traffic, I guess.  So, it’ll take roughly half an hour to get to work every morning.  Next I need to learn how long it takes to get from work to her school at the end of the day.  I’ve got until 6pm before they start charging, I don’t know, a dollar a minute over-time.  If I take a half-hour lunch, I can leave by 5, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

And now it’s time – two weeks past time, actually – to finally plant the second bed in my multi-faceted “square foot” vegetable garden.  Starting next week, I won’t have time for these chores.

Tour of Nashville

Elizabeth and I played tour guide to my sister Jeannie, her daughter Tiffany, her husband David, and their kids Shayden, 9, and Skyla, 1-1/2.  We started with a late breakfast at Cracker Barrel one exit east of the airport.  My brother Don wanted to go to Shoney’s – like when our other sister, Lucy, visited last year (on May 1st, day 1 of the May floods) – but he was voted down.  He lobbied hard via email, but good sense and common decency prevailed.  They don’t have Cracker Barrel in California, but they had seen billboards while driving to Nashville from Johnson City — where they attended Jeannie’s grandson Finnegan’s first birthday — and they wanted to give them a try.

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Lesson learned

I’ll be spending all week (Spring Break) with my almost-6-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.  Woo hoo!  Yesterday was supposed to be my only “day off,” as she was supposed to be in school (snow make-up day).  But she’s come down with the flu, so she stayed home with me.  I took her to the doctor, and they confirmed she has type A flu.  It’s been going around a lot, they said.

Anyway, today, after returning from the mall (where we went out of sheer boredom), and after I took a nap (yes, I’m getting old), she had an idea.  ”How about if I do something for you and you pay me money?”

“Okay, what?” I asked.  While she thought about it, I had her picking things up and putting them in her room.  After 30 seconds of that, she said, “It would be more funner if I sweeped things.”

“Okay, what do you want to sweep?”

“The kitchen!”

“Okay.”

Once finished sweeping, she had me help with the dust pan.  ”Now it’s time to mop,” she said.

I agreed and sneaked back into the office to “work” on the computer (surf the Internet) while she was in the kitchen, mopping the floor.  I’m thinking, “Man, wait until I tell Tara [my wife] I’ve trained Elizabeth to do housework!  She won’t believe it.” Continue reading →

Monkey Joe’s again

This could get expensive coming here on a regular basis at $9-$10 every time, but Tara had a coupon that made it half price.  We’re at the new one in Brentwood/Cool Springs.  Much better than the one north of town near Rivergate.  Much more professional-looking.  For one thing, all the bouncy houses have the Monkey Joe name, etc., all over them.  Even the wireless connection is better.  And being in a much closer part of town helps.

I just changed seats because I felt like people around me were reading over my shoulder.  Not that I have anything to hide.  I’m not writing anything unseemly, I just don’t like people snooping.  Of course, I’m living in the wrong part of the country being sensitive to that.

I’ve lost track of Elizabeth, but that’s okay.  They don’t let anyone leave without checking their wristband.  At first she wanted me to watch her “do” each bouncy-house thingy, but now she’s on her own with whatever new friends she’s found.  That’s never a problem for her.

I spotted her!  She’s with a younger brown-haired girl.  Well, time to surf the Internet.

She’s just come bawling her eyes out, thinking I’d left her.  She was very upset that I had moved, and made me promise never to do that again.  I should have told her I was moving.  I promised I would never ever leave her.  And now she wants more quarters to play those various games, hoping to get enough tickets to win a “big prize.”

Now, back to my surfing.

Article source: http://friendsnews.com/wordpress/monkey-joes-again/

Couch potato

I’ve been a couch potato all day.  Well, most of the day.  I did finally pull up the dead “crops” in the vegetable garden at one point.  And I did do some recycling, taking the paper, bottles, cans and plastic bags out of the trash cans and putting it into the appropriate recycle bins in the garage.

I tried to accomplish a few things on the computer(s), but everything’s so damned slow, I usually said screw it before it finished whatever it was doing.  Oh wait, how could I forget, I started off the day doing taxes because I have to file self-employment tax by Tuesday night.  And I did take the dogs to the park while Tara took Elizabeth, well, all over town today, apparently.

They went to the Science Center, then McDonald’s, then the movies.  I think there was something else, too.  Tara was being extra nice because Elizabeth has had to endure these past few “snow days” at a particularly dreary school.  We’re both pretty upset about the local school district’s decision to cancel school for THE ENTIRE WEEK last week, even though only Monday and maybe Tuesday saw bad road conditions in 99% of the county.  School board members can’t relate to us non-school-workers who DON’T get the day off to stay home with the kids.

That 2011 Jetta’s intelligent crash response system, or whatever it’s called, looks like a great idea.  Just saw the commercial.  I love great ideas.  Don’t know if I’ll ever buy a Jetta, but you never know.

The Packers are beating up on the Falcons.  I never have liked the Falcons.  Earlier, I watched the Steelers squeak past the Baltimore Ravens.  I don’t really like either of those teams, but it’s the playoffs, so I watch.  If I had to choose, I’m glad the Steelers won.  It was a much higher-scoring game than anyone expected.

I’m probably just paranoid …

… but when I called my wife earlier from Big Lots on my cell phone, she said the caller ID showed it coming from an Anaheim, California number. I wondered why she answered the phone unenthusiastically like she did. ’cause you know she’s normally so ecstatic to see my calls coming in!
Anyway, she said caller ID showed a number, whatever it was, not just the city. It wasn’t my number. We live in Nashville. That’s where we are right now. My cell has a 615 area code.
After I hung up, it occurred to me, naturally, that maybe my phone is being tapped and routed through Anaheim (does the NSA have an office there?), and somehow that re-routing wasn’t hidden like it was supposed to be. Is that crazy? That’s probably just the creative writer in me getting a little too creative. You gotta wonder, though.  :)

Filed under: Diary

Article source: http://friendsnews.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/im-probably-just-paranoid/

Winter has arrived

It’s been snowing all day, at least an inch and a half accumulation.  Earlier, I put some de-icer on the driveway in preparation for tomorrow morning.  Before that, I had to walk the dogs in the snow.  You know, pugs don’t like snow.  It just really throws them off, having to go potty on something white instead of green.

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Lying here now, blogging and watching Sunday Night Football.  I’ve got two of the three pugs and our only cat with me, asleep.  I’m happy to see NBC has at least ONE hit show.  :)   Besides, there’s nothing else on.  I’m not going to watch Brothers and Sisters (chick show) or CSI: Miami (pompous lead actor).