Writer, dog mom, living with low-grade serous ovarian cancer
Hooray. My boss is pleased with my pictures.
I tell you, it’s the camera. Nikon D50. My coolpix can’t do anything interesting with depth of field (on purpose), and I couldn’t even get Fuji FinePix pictures to look like this:
If there’s an animal, alive or dead, I’ll shoot it. Too bad this guy has oars sticking out of his head.
That’s a dude standing in the middle of the river.
Where those leaves in the center are…that’s supposed to be a creek.
This is the same river that flooded in Oct. 2003.
I’ve officially crossed the last item from my to-do list.
Unfortunately it’s only 12:30. I’ve got a lunch date at 1 that I suppose I can stretch longer than an hour…and packing up my inflatable seat cushion and plants oughta take me a whole 30 seconds.
Granted I haven’t been here as long as at my last two jobs, but I seem to have a lot less stuff to pack up. Which is weird, since I have my own office. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been permanent. I’ll be bringing boatloads of stuff to the new office.
At the last paper, I had a drawer full of used spiral reporter’s notebooks, which I dumped in the recycle bin on my last day. Didn’t use too many notebooks at this job. I took a box of books and files home on Friday, a bag of personal care and decorative items yesterday, and really, all that’s left is the seat cushion and the plants.
Unfortunately, Rob is accompanying a juvenile offender to a competency hearing two hours south of here, and may not return in time to pick me up, so I could wind up on the bus with the plants.
Today, I will not eat any candy. The dark chocolate and walnut Nectar bar (it’s all natural, organic, made of dates) and chocolate-flavored sugar-free pudding will have to suffice.
The candy eating started with my birthday, when both my mother and Rob gave me bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Then last weekend, we had pinatas at the celebration of Rob’s 25 years in martial arts.
That one got busted open, but the other is still in our garage:
He’s a Kung Fu clown.
Guess Rob’s saving him for something. Is it really bad that I’ve been going into the garage and sneaking candy out of the back of his head? Mini Twix bars, Nestle Crunch, Snickers, Butterfinger, M&Ms, Baby Ruth…
Weight Watchers suggests that for trick-or-treaters, you get candy that you don’t like and won’t be tempted by. A fine plan, except I’ll still eat candy that I don’t like.
For example, Baby Ruths and Butterfingers aren’t my favorites. The week before the party we had an assortment in the house (the leftovers that didn’t fit in the pinatas). The last remaining fun-sized treats were the Butterfingers, ‘cus Rob ate the Baby Ruths. They sat there a few days. Until I ate them. Even though the flaky peanut butter cores got stuck in my teeth and made my jaw ache. I ate them, all right. And I’ll go out to the garage, reach into the clown’s head and eat some more.
But not today. Today I will not eat any candy.
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So that second dog, the guard dog? She’s really cute. The beagle had already been adopted by the time I got to Petco, but that’s OK, it’s not the one I wanted anyway.
Rob refused to go with me to look at puppies. Just look, I said. It’s like buying a house. I should look at lots of puppies to make sure we get the right one. Also to make sure I’m not allergic.
He didn’t trust me enough to not come home with the dog, so it would have made more sense if he insisted on coming with, to make sure I didn’t.
The rott-shepherd was so sweet. I sat with her and played with her for a long time. I can still feel her kisses on my face. I want her. But I can be reasonable. We’re going out of town for Thanksgiving, so we should wait til after that to get a dog. If this dog is still available, I’m totally getting her. We just have to put up a dog run first.
Never mind that we haven’t fenced our yard yet, and that I’m about to start a new job…
I woke up this morning wanting a puppy!
We had a weird drunk guy bang on our door the other week (not a college student), and although my boyfriend’s fists are registered weapons (not really), I started getting excited again about getting guard dog.
There are advantages and disadvantages to getting a puppy, as opposed to a pre-trained adult dog. The disadvantage to a grown dog is that you have no control of where it’s been and what’s been done to it. Puppies need to be trained, but they look like this:
Since we’re talking guard dog, we’ll probably get one more like this:
I’m offended by Ali G’s Borat character, mostly because I know what Kazakh people look like, and that’s not it.
I have to confess, however, that there are aspects of the gag that make me chuckle. If only he’d kept the character Moldovan or Albanian.
The government of Kazakhstan has cried foul, and I’d say rightfully so. But the coolest one of all is the daughter of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who said, “We should not be afraid of humor.”
Doy mi sangre
Remember on Beverly Hills, 90210 when Dylan took Brenda to donate blood on Valentine’s Day? So romantic.
I gave blood today for the first time since high school. For some reason I thought that all the medication I take would make my blood undesirable… how stupid of me. This is a college campus. I probably have a lot fewer drugs in my bloodstream than most of the donors.
Two Minute Maid fruit punch boxes and two Cougar Mountain cookies made it all worthwhile. I’m a little bummed that they didn’t have stickers. I went to the “blood mobile” instead of the room in the student union, just because it seemed more fun, even though it was probably warmer in the student union. When I asked if they had stickers, they told me they would tomorrow, when they were in their “good bus.” What? I went on the wrong day?
Actually I strategically picked Wednesday, because Tuesdays and Thursdays are when more is expected of me in the martial arts class and I can always use the blood donation as an excuse not to be Rob’s grappling dummy tonight.
Ohmygolly, I plum forgot. My Czech “boyfriend” gave blood a lot, and he was always too weak to do anything after. He said he had some extra-superspecial blood that was really in demand. He gave blood on my birthday and used that as an excuse to stand me up. Obviously that wasn’t the real reason. Jerk.
Kari Neumeyer 
