The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.*

Posted on June 7, 2004 by Frog

Aside from the uncooperative weather (when did partly cloudy equal mist and rain), we had a great time on Saturday. It was great seeing everyone and it is interesting to take an objective look at how friendships survive.

Background: the 2 families who visited on Saturday–the mothers in the families were my friends/roommates from college.

One of the women I see pretty often. The other one lives in Arizona so we only see her once a year at most. But it had been 2 years since we last saw her. I asked the better-half if he wonders what drew us to each other all those years ago. I think we all hold the same truths to be self-evident but we come at them in very different ways.

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Forgetful or Wise?

Posted on June 4, 2004 by Frog

As you know, we’re having a cookout on Saturday afternoon. It starts at 4–please, just stop on by.

I went to one grocery store this morning for supplies and totally forgot to go over and look in their prepared food area. I was going to buy some interesting side dishes. Since I’ve been home, I’ve pumped myself up that I don’t need “no stinkin’ prepared dishes”. I had already planned to make slaw and cucumber salad so I’ll whip up something else as well. I’m thinking no to the potato salad but I’m not sure. I need to get it figured out before I go back out to the other grocery store. The store where they sell the demon alcohol. Mwahaha.

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Feels Like An Egg

Posted on June 4, 2004 by Frog

Yesterday when I got home from work I saw a turtle laying eggs. I’ve never seen that in real life and I’m not sure why she picked the edge of our driveway to do it, but in 10 weeks or so I’ll have to check out the spot to see if we need to sheppard baby turtles out of harm’s way.

While I was watching the turtle lay her eggs, the usual band of deer headed past. I couldn’t get a picture of them though. They stay just enough in the woods that our camera can’t reach them. Of course, the zoom lens on our camera means I can take pictures of things as far away as the end of my arm.

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Food, Food, Food

Posted on June 3, 2004 by Frog

I really do have a few interests other than food but food is high on my list. This weekend will be filled with food. Since I used to consider Thursdays the beginning of my weekend while in school, I’m counting today as the start of my Weekend of Food™.

I met my friend J. today for lunch. We went to Chipotle. She said she needs to go on a diet. I said we can get started on that task after I hoover down this burrito. She said how about after dessert. We went to Gelati Celesti for ice cream. I think there was enough chocolate in my milkshake to tie me over until Monday.

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Boom, Boom, Ain’t it Great To Be Crazy

Posted on June 3, 2004 by Frog

Yesterday on the way home I had two people wave to me. One guy (on a bike) got a return wave and the other guy got a nod of the head. I don’t know them but I guess there’s still enough rural where we live that you don’t have to know people to wave at them.

When I was a teen we had a house in Lewisetta across the street from where my grandparents lived year-round. Everyone, so it seemed, waved to everyone else in the Northern Neck. We knew we had passed into the Northern Neck when the hand waving started. Usually though it was pretty subtle. People just lifted their hand off the steering wheel–not the waving usually associated with royalty.

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Delicious and not so

Posted on June 2, 2004 by Frog

Last night I made Balsamic Roasted Brussel Sprouts to serve with the mac and cheese and pork chops. I got the recipe off the grub report. The sprouts were pretty awesome. I didn’t have a pound of brussel sprouts so I kind of eye-balled the amounts of the rest of the ingredients. I also think 435 as an oven temperature is a typo because who cooks at that kooky temperature. I set the oven for 425.

I’m not going to spend too much time speaking of the kitty funeral from yesterday but I do want to say there many tears shed and we were glum for the rest of the evening. We buried him with his food bowl (it was his favorite thing on earth), some cat food (for his journey to the other side), a sprig of the wisteria (he liked to sit under it), a flower (he liked to sniff stuff) and a brick from the retaining wall is his marker. He loved, loved, loved to sit on the retaining wall.

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Today is Tuesday You Know What That Means

Posted on June 1, 2004 by Frog

If you watched the original Mickey Mouse Club, then the title of this post will ring a bell. If you didn’t watch, sorry.

Weekend was fine. I had lots of things to share until last night around 10pm when we finally found out which cat has been peeing on the floor. Now, I don’t feel like talking about the weekend at all.

I went downstairs to get a blanket out of the drier and paused to check our scene. Earlier in the evening we focused some lights in the area that usually gets used as a poor-man’s litter box and turned on the security camera. We set up the camera to record when it detected motion. (Technical info: The camera is wireless and sends the image to our PC which then creates an avi file.)

I found pee. I didn’t go get the blanket out of the drier but went straight to the computer upstairs to see the evidence. I had a strong feeling that it was going to be Leon. It was Tac. The one we had suspected all along. Finding the last piece of evidence that he was totally not using the litter box hurt my feelings. I went out to the porch to tell the better-half.

We have an appointment at the vet today for 3pm. We dug the grave this morning. It was kind of morbid doing that in advance but we figured neither of us will be able to do that after the fact. We picked a spot just off the lawn and down the hill a little bit. We decided on that spot because of Tac’s love of taking long traipses around the property. It used to be that he’d be gone for hours walking around in the woods, sleeping on old tree trunks, etc. It is also nearish to where we put our spent christmas trees. Tac loves to sleep under the Christmas tree.

Relating back to the title of the post: our guest today will be the grim reaper.

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Randomly Random

Posted on May 28, 2004 by Frog

What is the deal with Matt Lauer? Is he trying to do serious news on the Today show? Is he the straight-man to everyone else? The other day they did a story on dodgeball. The crew threw balls at the talking heads. Matt’s response: “Nice”. This morning while outside hyping Counting Crows (Adam–the hair was awesome) he refused to wear Shrek ears (although who can blame him) but he barked to the substitute weatherperson to just read the weather. I can only imagine after every show he goes to his office and wonders when cold-hard news will return to morning television.

The movie 28 Days Later was pretty good. I watched it last night and found it to be much better than the typical zombie movie and I think that fact had a lot to do with the fact there were no actual zombies in the movie.

Tonight we’re having what the acronym-loving better-half likes to call TSPV. No, that’s not kinky freaky sex but “Top Secret Polly Visit”. His aunt is coming over for dinner and she’s going to spend the night. We’re pretty psyched about it because Polly is one cool woman. The Top Secret part is that we aren’t telling the MIL because she’d break out with a fit of jealousy. Polly and the better-half actually made plans over the phone to expressly not tell the MIL so it is a Top Secret Visit all around.

I read in the NuYawkThymes yesterday that some people have a real addiction to their blogs. One guy hid in the hotel bathroom while on vacation with his wife so he could blog. She caught him on the john with the laptop over his knees. I think possibly he was on a p0rn site and just used his blog as an excuse but who can know for sure. Anyway, I’ve decided to not blog over this holiday weekend. I’m sure you’ll be sad and dismayed by this information. All 1 of you.

I will have lots to report on Tuesday. Because we’re going to a surprise 50th birthday party for the better-half’s uncle. Because we may sleep on the porch this weekend since finally it isn’t going to be hazy, hot and humid. Because our friends R&J are getting married on June 1st (if Massachusetts doesn’t cop out to peer pressure). Because I will have all kinds of keen observations to pass on.

Please enjoy your long weekend.

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ediets sucks

Posted on May 27, 2004 by Frog

So, I joined ediets at the beginning of the year to see if it would help me with weight-loss. I lost 12 lbs. I discontinued the service when it was time for renewal because it was:
a) expensive
b) I wasn’t using the service to its fullest extent
c) I figured out how to calculate BMI by myself
d) I’m not much of a joiner

I opted out of the emails and I no longer pay them for anything. I keep getting emails from them. I sent my second nasty reply to their help desk today. They are now shafted to my junk mail folder and I’m talking badly about them.

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She’s Officially Official

Posted on May 27, 2004 by Frog

We found out last night that the Niece is officially official. She has her birth certificate and social security card with her american/adoptive name.

We called her this morning to tell her congratulations but since she’s in the middle of potty training she had to cut our call short. Yeah, I know how it is first thing the morning. The endless trips to the bathroom because of the big cup of coffee.

It is pretty funny that it took so long for the government to recognize that she’s official. For us, she was official in the first 3 seconds of meeting her.

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