twisted puppy

The entries are in for the What does RC Mean To You? contest! Take a peek at the sidebar and vote for your favorite by the end of the month. The winner will get a goodie basket from Liberal Collegeville that is guaranteed to be worth your effort. Remember to vote! It is, after all, an Election year. A big thanks to everyone who entered.


And on the subject of election year - our governor ROCKS. When we moved to Kansas a lot of our very liberal California friends were very concerned. This was right about the time of the whole evolution/school board debacle and it didn't look good at all. And now look. As my (very political) mom loves to point out - we have a woman who is a Democrat and they have...the Gubernator.


Speaking of my mom, she sent me a really cute clip that I have to share with all the dog lovers. Even if you're not a dog lover this is incredible.






The dog is amazing with what he does, but...am I the only one slightly disturbed by the imagery of a woman who seems to be trying to seduce her dog? I'm not a prude or anything. I kiss my dogs on the lips all the time and at least one of them is always trying to slip me the tongue. But I don't dress up like Dominatrix Sandy from Grease when I do it.


It kind of reminds me of that Nip/Tuck episode with the jealous man who traveled all the time, the lonely wife, the big guard dog and the jar of peanut butter. It didn't end well for the dog, let me tell you. And the woman was played by Melissa Gilbert who was Laura in the Little House on the Prairie series, for pete's sake. I didn't think it got that lonely out on the prairie.


Kind of gives a new meaning to Those Happy Golden Years, doesn't it?

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UPDATE: New deadline is 8pm tonight. If you have an entry send it to me at rottencorrespondent@gmail.com and I'll set up a second poll. You can pick one entry from each poll and then we'll have a run-off with the winner of each. Easy peasy.

too close for comfort

I think I took care of this guy this past weekend. If it wasn't him it was a close relative.







This is part two of the spiel. I know it by heart.







Now I need some morphine.

make it stop...

For the most part I get along with electronics. I don't watch a lot of TV so I don't normally care when the remote is MIA. As long as my iPod doesn't get stuck in the same ten song loop (like it did recently), I have no complaints. My household appliances are behaving at the moment, my car is running well and I'm no more digital camera challenged than I was a week ago.


But my computer is trying to kill me. And sadly for me, with the advent of blogging in my life, it has the power to do it. Wednesday morning my entire desktop was gone. My screen saver - the southern leaning beach shot - was still there, but all my files, photos, bookmarks and tool bar were gone. Bloglines was gone. Vanished in a puff of smoke. I couldn't even exit off the page since there was nothing to click on. I had to shut down the computer and do a restart.


At first I blamed this on an overindulgence in Champagne at Bunco the night before, so I went to lie down until my vision cleared. When I got the courage up to look again it was unchanged. All my stuff was gone. My headache, however, was still there. And growing by the minute.


The FG tried to figure out what was going on and was unable to. He thought he had at least found my files drifting through the computer cosmos, but they were jacked up, too. Every time I tried to comment on a blog it came out on the FG's account no matter what I did. So I spent the morning trying to comment and then deleting because it looked a little odd when this guy no one had ever heard of started saying things in my voice. Capiche? You've gotta kind of have a history with people before you start abusing them, so this would never work. He'd just look like a stalker, and a mean spirited one at that.


And then there's Bloglines. That wonderful, fabulous invention that keeps all your regularly read blogs in one place so when there's a new post you know it ASAP. Then, one click later, you can read and comment and do all those fun things. I'd resisted Bloglines for a long time, but when laurie and willowtree told me (relatively) nicely to grow up, I gave it a try. And my life was changed. For the better. But now it's gone. And I miss it dreadfully. I can get to it, but if I try to comment off of it it shows up in my husband's name and he doesn't even use Bloglines.


So, back to my blog. Since I'm making Gumby's page my new home base, every time I want to go to my Blogger dashboard I have to google Blogger, then put in my password and navigate that way. The passwords aren't saved because I don't want my kids to be able to easily access composing on my blog. If they could you might one day find an entire post of fart jokes and pictures of dog butts, and we all know where you would go first if you wanted that. Every now and then something he has set up on his page (like a World of Warcraft icon) bursts out of nowhere and scares the hell out of me. Or Neopets. It's like a home invasion gone computer generated.


All the things that were so easy before (because I had everything bookmarked) now take forever. Hyperlinks. Inserting photos. Simply finding a specific blog. I have to stop. I'm tearing up and scaring the dogs.


So...If I seem a little absent, it isn't on purpose. I'm trying. Hopefully we'll get it figured out and my life can continue on its own peculiar course. We may have to get someone in to look at it, but at this point I don't even care. What did Santa bring you, honey? He brought me bookmarks! And files! And comments in my own name!


Hell, at least coal in your stocking is useful.


I'm leaving you with a "video" of my favorite non life or death trouble song. I've sung this through a boatload of trouble and it's bursting forth now, too. I say "video" because there's no stinkin' picture, just music. How very appropriate that there should be a problem. I sang this song so often for so long that my Amazon parrot also sang it. It was cute from him. We even made up a special version that we sang on the way to the vet. (It isn't mandatory to be a dork if you're blogging - but it helps).

Draco the Inquisitor

You'll get a pretty good idea of my frame of mind right about now when I say that I almost fell off my chair laughing at this. It's entirely possible that I've finally gone around the bend.

Disclaimer: It's vintage South Park, language and slurs included. But still...

Seriously Late Awards (and a rap)

I hate to admit how far behind I am on acknowledging some very cool awards that have been sent my way. Can we chalk it up to vacations and holidays or do I have to fess up that I've lived up (or down) to my moniker? The Rotten Acknowledger strikes again.
Also, I apologize in advance, because I have layout issues here that I can't seem to fix. Grr...


Dumdad at The Other Side of Paris designed this The Other Side of Paris salutes you! award on the event of his 99th post, and says:

To celebrate this momentous occasion I am handing out a special award to some fellow bloggers who have made this blogging lark so much fun.

Well, I know just how he feels, because his blog brightens up my life on a regular basis. I'll even overlook the Marmite for him. (You know I have to really like him to say that).

Thanks, Dumdad!




And from Jo Beaufoix comes the first ever I made someone Laugh so much their head fell off Award. Yowzah! For me?
Seriously, thanks, Jo!

This was Jo's reasoning:

Miss RC at Confessions of a Rotten Correspondent for her wit and her ability to find humour in the worst possible situations.

Well, as I always say - if you can't laugh...

Presumably, she's found her head because look what else she's gone and done...



She's passed on this Fab Award as well. Jo continues to humor me in spite of all the opposing evidence. One of these days she'll catch on, but until then I'll just continue to accept these "fab" awards from her - very gratefully.

Thanks, Jo!




But wait! There's more! (Maybe her head really did fall off. Uh.Oh). Also from Jo comes this Community Blogger Award. This award originated with CelloBella at Sultana.Blog and is to acknowledge those bloggers who become part of the blogging community with a vengeance.

Isn't that all of us? As one of many who has spent the better part of the last couple of days mentally traipsing the Australian countryside calling for a lost puppy, I very much feel the community aspect of BlogVille. And when your mother (in California) calls you (in the Midwest) and says "Did you see that Belle (in Australia) is back?" you realize just how strong that community is.

Just the way I like it.


I can't get the photo to show up, but The Spirit of Christmas Award is from Akelamalu at Everything and Nothing. The creators of this award at Santa's Community Blog say this about it:

What is the Spirit of Christmas you ask?

Quite simply it is those that have a generous and giving nature. Those who care about others. Those who have a kind word to say or a broad shoulder to lean on in the times that others need that. Those who display the "Spirit of Christmas".

Again, isn't that all of us? How many of you responded to my "Meltdown" post with broad shoulders and kind words? Hmm?? A lot of you, that's how many.

Thanks, Akelamalu!

This Break Out Blogger Award comes from wakeupandsmellthecoffee
and she passed it on so long ago she's probably forgotten all about it. I'M SORRY!! I am not worthy.


You all thought Rotten Correspondent was just something I made up, didn't you?

Thanks, wakeup! I really do appreciate it!


And in the spirit of the season, if you want one of these awards feel free to take it. (Except for the first two because they really aren't mine to pass on). My thought is that if you've read this far and want it - it's yours! We all deserve them.


As a thank you for sitting through my Awards Show (and navigating the white space), here's a video I stumbled across recently. This was put together by a real ER crew in Alabama as part of a competition, and it is really funny (although maybe a little hard to hear). Enjoy!

It's a Small World after all...

Before you click on this video I have to warn you that if you do you'll hate me for the rest of the day. Trust me. You'll be singing this song until you're ready to track me down and make me listen to an endless loop of KC and the Sunshine Band in retribution. Consider yourselves warned.

Now, that said - it's absolutely perfect for this post. After you read this story I'll bet you agree. (You may or may not stop singing the song long enough to say so, though).




My mother went to lunch Tuesday with a friend she hadn't seen in years. They had worked together for quite a while and kept in touch sporadically. This friend lives way the heck out in the Inland Empire in Southern California, so she and my mom agreed to meet at a restaurant halfway between where they each lived. It was a date.

They met as planned and had a lovely catch-up session. Photos of kids and grandkids were dragged out, husbands and teenagers were trashed, updates on lives were given - the usual things when two women get together. At some point in their meal a group of women came into the restaurant and sat at the table next to them.

My mom says they caught her attention when they started talking about blogs. She heard one of them saying something about a blog with "confessions" in the title, and automatically assumed it was Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, with its 2.4 billion readers. I would have made the same assumption. But then a minute later she heard one of the women say "RC" and that's when her ears really pricked up. (I guess we all know where I get my sticky beak tendencies). She kept listening in casually on their conversation and when she and her friend left the restaurant, she approached the woman she had heard say RC and asked which blog she was talking about.

And the woman said this one. This one. And my mom said, oh do you read it regularly? And the woman said she did and liked it but she wished there were more work stories. Said she was a consistent reader but hadn't commented yet. They chatted briefly and my mom left. She never said a word about how she knew about the blog. She never found out anything else about this woman. And then she told me this story and I about fell off of my chair. Hard. What are the odds on this happening? (I'm pretty sure my mother ditched the psychedelics after the '60's, but I'll look into it when I'm there).

So...if you were having lunch with the gals on Tuesday at Grapevine Restaurant in LaVerne, California and some strange woman asked you questions about your reading habits - thank you. You've made my day. This is truly a first and proves yet again what a small world it really is.

And (as Hugh Grant says in Notting Hill) it was surreal. Surreal but nice.

Very, very nice.

I may even cough up some work stories as a thank you.

worlds of fun

Warning: This is a stinking long post. If I weren't doing Fun Monday tomorrow, I would break it up into two parts, but I am so I won't. And if I wait until Tuesday no one will give a fig about our adventure, so I'm doing it now. (Like anyone really cares now. Riight...)

Consider yourselves warned.

Like most everything else in my life, the amusement park trip was both more and less what I expected. Some things turned out pretty much the way I thought they would, some things turned out better and some things...are just the way my family does things.

The first indication that Control Freak Mom was asleep at the switch was when my friend Stacey, whose family we were going with, called me and said Jules, did you notice that they don't even open until 6 pm today? Somehow, in our zeal to pick the kids up right after school and head out, we had missed that little fact. Quick juggling ensued and a new plan was formulated. We are undisputed Queens of Complicated Logistics, a fact I would like noted on my headstone.

By the time all the kids were home and ready to go, we were already in a state of agitation. Sasquatch had walked in the door with a few friends, even though I had told him to be ready to leave as soon as he got home from school. I made his friends leave, which made him mad and I got a patented Sasquatch tantrum to elevate my blood pressure. (I'm such a big bad mom. I even drove them home, for god's sake). Then Gumby and Surfer Dude were disappointed that we weren't heading right out. They got over it, but they were buzzing they were so excited. Anyone in their range got zapped with static electricity.

Then there was the Film Geek. I had been a little skeptical when he said he was planning to go with us. He had a very busy weekend planned - a model show he was trying to get something ready for, students shooting projects that he had to supervise, and, as the day unfolded, a festering political situation at work that got uglier by the moment, and that he, of course, had been sucked into. He spent the day alternating between the studio with his model and sitting on the computer or cell phone raging about the problem at work. I was asked to read and comment on emails. Department heads were tracked down and roped in. He was, to put it mildly, livid.

Now I love my husband dearly, but there is something about him that has driven me crazy since our second date and really has never changed. The man is late for everything. Everything. When he dies and the mourners are assembled, the car carrying his body will go to the wrong place and we will all sit there for hours waiting for him to show up. And I will not be surprised in the slightest. (I've been predicting it for years, as a matter of fact). His sense of timing has been the single most contributing factor to arguments in our married life because I am a human alarm clock and think it is unspeakably rude to keep people waiting. He thinks I need to lighten up a little bit and, in his words, "take my pack off." He has also, with very few exceptions, managed to end up in work situations where he can get away with it. It infuriates me, but I've learned to work around it. I don't see much change in his future, but I do see a lot of Maalox in mine.

You may be wondering when the hell we're getting to the amusement park stuff. And here's my answer. There's a reason why all the road trip movies like National Lampoon's Vacation and all the others of that ilk start with the planning of the trip. Because the mood you're in when you actually sit your butt in the car to leave is huge. (The mood. And my butt, but that's another post). And affects everything if you let it. If you let it. Do I need to tell you that in my family we let it? Do I really?

I won't bore you with the details, but by the time everyone in my family was in the car and on the way, tempers were hot. I had been screaming and running herd on the whole motley crew. Sasquatch was being dropped off to ride with Stacey, since her son is one of his closest friends. Stacey was in a small state herself, since the plans had changed so many times in the course of the week and she's anal like me (though on a much smaller scale). On the way to drop him off (already late), FG realized he had to go by work, but when we swung (out of the way) for him to do this he realized that he didn't have his work keys (do NOT get me started), and that the only person who could unlock the door for him was the person the entire political brouhaha was about, who was leaving out the back door as we pulled up. He opted not to, but was ticked off. I kept checking my watch and imaging Stacey pacing in her living room waiting for us and I was ticked off. Sasquatch was ticked off in the backseat because I had dragged him out of the house without giving him time to burn a CD for he and Evan to listen to, which meant that they would now have to watch The Princess Diaries (or something like it) with Evan's younger sister and her friend all the way to the park. (And since when do kids need entertainment in the car driving to be entertained?) Gumby and SD were happy about life in general and not ticked about anything. (Never fear. This will change).

And so, tempers high and adrenaline soaring, we hit the highway.

For anyone who needs a bathroom break, this is the ideal place to stop - Installment Style. You could even, if you can't stand anymore, walk away now and come back tomorrow to finish up. Of course then you'd be behind because of Fun Monday, so I don't know what to tell you. It's your own fault for encouraging my diarrhea of the mouth. Who was it who said "I would've written a shorter letter, but I didn't have time"? It wasn't me, but it could have been. It's all in the editing. And the meticulous attention to detail. And the time and desire to do both.Where was I? Oh, yes...

By the time we got to the park we had somehow crossed the line into happy mode. (Maybe it was my husband saying, only half jokingly, After all the money we're spending on this you'd better have fun, damn it!) As we bypassed the admission lines (thanks to mom thinking ahead and buying tickets on line), we were starting to feel positively giddy. For a minute there we looked (minus Sasquatch who was, as figured, with Evan) like a glossy poster for happy amusement park attendees. Freeze this moment in your mind. Now start your stopwatches.

We hit trouble immediately, on the very first ride. It was a low-level roller coaster, not one of the twisty mammoths but not a kiddie ride either. SD saw it and wanted to go on it immediately. We got in line. Gumby refused to go on. SD gave him grief, but he wouldn't budge. He stood and watched as we got on. It was a four person car, two on each side facing each other. The cars ran along the track, going up and down hills and curves. The twist was that the cars themselves spun around in circles while they were running the track. FG and SD were on one side and I was facing them on the other. Everything was fine until the safety bars clicked and the cars lurched forward. At that exact point my youngest child's face morphed into a cross between Linda Blair in The Exorcist and Edvard Munch's The Scream. I spent the whole ride spinning in circles and shouting Are You Okay? SURFER DUDE! ARE YOU OKAY??

He was okay, he just wasn't okay. He stumbled off the ride, his King Of Roller Coaster Rides crown tarnished after one wearing and swore not to set foot on a fast ride until...never. Gumby was relatively nice about it, although he did say it was too bad that SD wasn't as brave as he thought he would be on the roller coasters. Then he asked if we could go through the Haunted House right next door, since he had been looking forward to the Haunted Houses like SD had been looking forward to the roller coasters. So we did. As we approached the sign that warned that this wasn't appropriate for kids under fourteen, my ten and eleven year olds scoffed loudly.

Then we went through the Haunted House. Could we just say that at the end no one was scoffing? (I was laughing hysterically at the sight of the FG screaming like a little girl when a really loud vampire jumped out of a dark corner at him until a nasty little werewolf snuck up on me and took three years off my life). I will carry with me for a long time the vision of Gumby being chased in circles by a demented bloody clown with a shovel. As we walked away from the ghouls, Gumby pitched his Haunted House crown into the discard pile that already contained SD's roller coaster crown. He summed it up pretty aptly - That's It. I'm Done.

So - neither one would go on either one. But...there wasn't much else to choose from, so from then on we improvised. The FG and I went on this





which was really a lot of fun. His vertigo was nowhere to be found, so we hit a couple of other fast rides while the kids ate dinner and sat with Stacey. I kept trying to get the two younger guys over to the more age appropriate attractions, but they didn't want to feel like they were on the "baby rides." It didn't matter how many times I told them they weren't "baby" rides - they wouldn't budge. Then we had a major meltdown from SD saying that this was the worst day of his life because there was "nothing to do" and that he was "bored to death." Sasquatch got all over him, saying he couldn't believe that SD could ruin this for everyone. (The sound you hear is me choking to death on an irony overdose). Even Gumby got mad at SD and for a brief moment it looked like we would be heading home a scant two hours after we arrived.

Then the FG said we should split up and he took the younger two and went to the smaller kid section (over their violent protests), where (of course) they had a blast. I went on all the big coasters with Sasquatch and Evan and had a blast. It was the best time we have had with each other in a long, long time. I had forgotten how much I've always adored roller coasters. There were virtually no lines, the temperature was cool but very comfortable, the moon was full and the entire park was filled with smoke from the smoke machines. As we climbed coaster hills higher and higher we were in smoke clouds and couldn't even see the ground. As the last ride of the night Sasquatch talked me into going on the ride in the video above in the very front seat, which will go down as one of the more unpleasant sixty seconds of my life, but it felt nice to share my terror with my teenager. The fact that he was screaming with me instead of at me was a big improvement on the norm.

By the time we hooked up with the rest of my family it was almost eleven and we were all ready to call it a day. Stacey and her group had already left. We got in our car, wrapped the kids in blankets and headed home. The kids were going on and on about how much fun they had had. The FG and I had faced death together on an inverted loop and come out on the other end still alive, which made us happy with each other. It was all good.

As we turned on the car, this song was on the radio



And you know what? I think that about covered it.

total control

I'm having serious control issues. To be perfectly accurate I probably should say serious lack of control issues. Some of it can be blamed on the weekend, but for the most part this is an ongoing thing recently. And it's gotten to the point where it's about to drive me completely insane. My problem is not that I'm trying to micromanage things into the next millennium, but that I feel I have no grip on what's going on around me. For example -


My house looks like an explosion in a paper factory. Every kind of paper - bills, newspapers, school work, scripts, junk mail, magazines, half finished kid's artwork - name it. It's on my dining room table. And my kitchen counter. And my kitchen table.


My living room is a huge pile of gaming equipment sitting in front of an entertainment hutch with a broken off door that has a chair pulled in front of it because Sasquatch is afraid a dog will hurt his XBox 360. There is an ethernet cord running from the computer room next door through the dining room and into the living room so that the most precious 360 can be internet capable. It is physically impossible to walk from one room to the other without tripping on it.


We've lived here a year and we've only painted five rooms. There is almost nothing on our walls. Our computer room, which you can't get anywhere downstairs without seeing, has become the designated trash dump for orphan furniture and exercise bikes no one uses. There is a huge roll top desk in there which is too big even with ten foot ceilings, but we need the storage because in our lovely Victorian we only have one closet downstairs. And it's tiny. The desk has become the great piling ground for every piece of crap you can imagine and is so loaded down that every time someone walks by something falls off.


I had a list of things to get done last week that all came to a screeching halt when Gumby came home sick from school Wednesday. Luckily he was the only one of my kids to get this bug, although it's tearing through the school and I certainly had a hit of it myself. He was out for the rest of the week, not leaving the house once, including for the annual School Carnival Friday night. I stayed home with him and Sasquatch and Surfer Dude went. It's the first Carnival I've ever missed.


Sasquatch seems to not care a bit that he is having serious difficulties at school and we have not been able to find the magic key to make him care. Everything is a power struggle, even when I refuse to engage. Take the backpack for instance. An innocuous piece of cloth that helps ensure that whatever you need - in class or at home - is where it should be. It should not be a loaded topic, the backpack, and yet he absolutely refuses to carry it. He has a wonderful one that I forced on him at the beginning of the school year, but it has been sitting in his locker ever since. And he is always in the position of having whatever it is he needs somewhere he isn't. I am here to tell you that, like leading a horse to water, you cannot make someone carry a backpack. The question is why in the world should you even need to make them? Why can't he just do it? I'm about to stop trying to help and just let him fall on his ass. He's never going to be the kid who learns anything the easy way, but this is killing me. He's killing me.


And Sunday I found Ratfink, the oldest of our three pet rats, dead in his cage. I had to tell Gumby that his rat had died, and he lost it. The Film Geek is, of course, out of town. Sasquatch was a huge help, and, I have to say, an absolute love to his younger brothers, who were both beside themselves. We carefully laid Ratfink in a shoe box filled with pictures from his younger days that we printed off the computer. Gumby picked out the rat's favorite colors from my Pratt and Lambert sample chips that were sitting there and we all wrote notes on the chips to put in with the rat. Then, in the pouring rain, we buried him in a corner of the yard. (I had better not see a dog anywhere near that corner). It was not an easy day.


And then there's the Fitness Regime with a Monday D-Day. I've actually been looking forward to it because that at least is something I have some control over. I arranged my day so that I could go to the gym as soon as I dropped the younger kids off at school. After that I was going to go pedal to metal on all the errands and grocery shopping and recycling and everything I didn't get done this weekend because of one thing or another. I've not gotten to my regular blog hopping either and I apologize for that.


As I was writing the sixth paragraph of this post I heard a strange noise from the bathroom and walked in to find Surfer Dude sitting on the pot and vomiting all over the floor. As I was cleaning that up Sasquatch came in wrapped in a blanket and said "I don't feel good."


You know what? Neither do I.


I feel like this...

Total Control by Martha Davis (live 2007)

[via FoxyTunes / The Motels]

Seven for Saturday

Our household has been infiltrated by what my husband calls the Creeping Epizutis. (No idea What. So. Ever. how to spell that). Gumby was out of school from Wednesday on with a headache, funky belly and sore throat. He's definitely on the mend, but not quite up to par. Sasquatch slept most of Thursday afternoon with the same headache. And I had been struggling with what to do, since the FG is out of town again and I was supposed to work Friday. Problem answered when my head started to split wide open around five Thursday afternoon. Not the answer I wanted, but the only one that made sense.


So, for today's post, I'm doing a bunch of shorties and catch-ups and things I can manage without an attention span, since I haven't been able to locate my attention span recently, and that's a bad thing to work a twelve hour shift in the ER without. And then I'm going to lay back down on my bed and wish that we didn't have a soccer double header Saturday. Be sure to be here Sunday for the latest installment of The Gabbies.


#1. Is there anybody out there who has not seen this video? It is absolutely hysterical. If you are a mother, have a mother or saw a picture of a mother once this is too close to the truth. How does she remember all the words?






And how did we ever survive without YouTube?


#2. This is a quick little follow-up on the obnoxious OB/GYN yesterday. He happens, god help me, to be in the same practice as my beloved doctor, and I have made sure everyone knows that his hands don't get within three miles of my body, even if I'm dying. One of his kids even played basketball with one of mine, so I see him all the time. Whee. I ran into one of the nurses he works with in a non-work setting and she gave me the update. He is now, several years later, one of the nurse's favorites and is supposedly a pleasure to work with. When I expressed my (bigger than Texas) doubts about this, she smiled evilly and said that it had taken some time to teach him how you do and do not treat people, but that eventually he had gotten the message. I asked how this had happened. She said she preferred not to say. What happens in the hospital stays in the hospital. Oh, man, would I love to hear that story.


#3. I'm seriously - seriously - behind on my Play It Forward hand made gifts. I've considered and rejected more (out of my league) crafty ideas than I can list. So...items are forthcoming, but may not be made by my own two clumsy hands. Or they may be. My angel and devil are still duking it out. The important thing to note is that they're on the way - soon.


#4. Does anyone else have stress dreams about their animals? I had a series of really not good dreams about the dogs last night, especially my very own Most Perfect Dog in the World. Every time I woke up he was in his usual spot on my feet, snoring, drooling and gassy, so all was normal. But still...


#5. This has nothing to do with anything, but it fits right into the theme and I absolutely adore this song, although it does make me a little soggy. You can listen to it while you read and consider that you've gotten your daily numerical requirement satisfied.

I can't embed it, so click here for Five For Fighting.


Embed. A word that never existed for me before blogging.


#6. Not much action going on in the old book circle listed in the sidebar. If you've read any of these listed and have any comments, lets hear them. I'm at the tail end of the pile I got from the library right before this started, but I'll be restocking pretty soon and definitely plan on picking some up from this list. Just hit where it says Click here to participate in the RC Book Club.


#7. For the few who will care, check out the post below...