DogSitting My FourFooted Brother

Mom asked me to dogsit Riley this Saturday. I arranged to have one of my co-workers bring their dog, Sophie (the super mellow boxer) over. After some extreme butt-sniffing greeting and some wrestling to determine the alpha dog (who turned out to be Sophie, no surprise there!), the playdate went wonderfully. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

This is one happy dog! And a kick-ass picture!

The Doors are Finally Finito!

Here are my new fantabulous doors!

The side door with deadbolt and really lock. See how it totally matches my windows.

The new screen door out to my deck. One side is stationary and the other opens all the way (the door will go to the stationary part) with a sliding screen. Awesome and again, matches my windows.

Not to mention, very weather proof and resistant. So going to need for winter!

The Moomer at Play

An afternoon of Mr. Moomiepants playing til dinner.

You better watch out, I'm gonna pounce!

I'm trying my dangdest to choke on this here plastic thing. Either that or bite a chunk off it.

How do you like my dreadlocks?

The mysterious paw beckons, er snatches, the helpless bunnyfur octopus!

Check out his back paw on this one. He's such a gaum.

Some Recent Photo Experiments

I decided to mess around with some puddles in my driveway. I like the effect of reflection-me trying to grab something from this side of the puddle or trying to break thru. It's interesting and I'm gonna play with this idea some more.

I have to say the middle one is my favorite so far. It's rather surreal.

My HomeGrown Crop O' Pumpkins

I managed to grow 8 pumpkins this year. One huge one, 4 medium sized one, 2 little ones, and one itty bitty one. The 4 orange ones and the lopsided greeny-orange one were expected, the others were surprises that I found when I ripped out the dead/dying pumpkin vines. Yeah me, or rather, Yeah my kick-ass compost!

My decorating this season is on the restrained side. This is all I'm doing until I carve my pumpkins.

Hot Time In The Old Town Tonite!

Pictures are tribute to the squirrels who didn't make it through this week!

I off early from work, did some errands, got home, and my mom called me. The power was off on her street and she couldn't get into the house and needed my key.

Hey, totally funny thing just now happened. Doodle the wonder cat just brought me the plastic cat food can cover. Brought it to me and dropped it at my feet and then headbutted my knee to get my attention. She is sooo smart but soooo not so smart as I'm not feeding them furry critters two dinners. Apparently my homecoming, no matter the time or how many times, is a signal for eating. So are my showers no matter what time of day I take them.

I got to mom's and she said she heard that a squirrel played and lost against electricity. Yup. Transformer a la fried squirrel. Poor thing. Same thing happened on my street earlier this week. I came home and couldn't figure out why the garage door wouldn't open.

Long Time, No Bloggin'

Sorry about the hiatus. Here's a wonderfully funny picture that is circling my work's email...

Drunken Pumpkin

Love it!

I've been making some changes around the home. Had two new doors (replaced the 20 yr old sliding glass door with French paned door and replaced acrylic windowed side door with thermally smart door) installed. Major major improvement. Not only do they match my windows making my house look "finished" and home-y and no more skeleton keys now that I have real locks and deadbolts, but I haven't had to put the heat on yet and the basement dehumidifier hasn't had to be emptied since Friday. Amazing!

A "thing" I've been working on is stopping and thinking when someone asks me to join them, try something, or do something and say "yes" instead of knee-jerk reaction "no"-ing. I've yessed myself into taking a knitting class with co-worker C. This is a good way to spend time in her gigglicious company one evening a week for 6 weeks and when someone asks if I like knitting I can give an honest answer as I will have tried it. We'll be starting the end of Oct and beginning with a dishtowel. I'd rather make a scarf. C pointed out today that a scarf is a dishtowel that didn't end when it should. Then she said there was some basic math involved but not to worry as it's not physics formulas or calculus. Great. Math is incomprehensible to me regardless of it's level.

Some observations:
If you ride a Harley, shouldn't your arms be thicker than your handle bars?

Don't you think the Prius looks like a Penis, or is it just me?

Why is it 50 year old men think I'm the greatest thing?

My car is averaging 40-43 miles per gallon. Whoo hoo!!!

Is there anybody left to read me?

"Get Yerself a Frosty Ball and Pop A Squat"*

It's a good thing I don't have children.

To have kids, I think I'd have to come back as a mother cat so I could bop my kittens on their cute little noses when they get out of line and pick them up by the scruff of their furry little necks with my mouth to haul their furry little hindparts over the proverbial flames. You expect a kitten to have ADHD but then they grow out of it, get given away, develop an inclination for catnip, and end up sleeping A LOT when they're grown.

Downside would be licking their furry little hindparts and runny noses that they've most likely jammed up one of their siblings' butts or their own.

So, no, I prefer to be the mother of no children, thank you very much.

*Direct quote from tonight's episode of WipeOut.

WipeOut

So maybe it's the withdrawal from no longer having access to 60-something channels.

Maybe it's because I'm tired.

Maybe it's because there's absolutely nothing on but channel surfing becomes so compulsive and hard to stop, you know, the "something has to got to get better or change in 30 seconds" attitude.

It could be the underground need for pre-teen pull-my-finger boyish humor.

But let me tell you what...

Tonight, WipeOut made me belly-laugh out loud 5, FIVE, five times, people!

That just does NOT happen.

I totally did not mean to watch this show, I made fun of the previews when it first came out, and I mentally pshawed it to the nth degree.

But OMG!

This show is hilarious. Jim Henson (not the muppet Jim, but TV personality Jim) is a riot.

Tonight's show had this burly firefighter with thick Viking mustachios. Jim commented psuedo-enviously on them and after a commercial break, he was sporting a big-ass pair of "manly stashes" as he called them. I about fell off the couch laughing, good thing I had two cats pinning me down! Two contestents had pants issues - one had to pull hers up so much she earned a hitch-her-pants counter and the other just pulled them off before his hitch counter could be activated. One guy did a major split on top of the first of the big red balls before he richocheted off the second one and into the water. That slow motion shot was excellent fun. Ouch tho!

And the obstacles... the balls, the slide with the mini ball firework explosion at the bottom, and Jim's random comments that are so sarcastic and biting and voiced-overed the action. He gives the contestents nicknames, he makes puns, he's thoroughly evil!

Not to mention the butt jiggly slo-mo shots when the contestents are wearing inappropriate work-out wear and covered in wet mud. Priceless!

I believe I will be tuning in again for some truly mindless belly laughing next week. God I hope it's on.

Oh, and I think I may have to give Stylista a try because there may be many a moment to snarkily blog about. We'll see.

BusyBusy Post B'day

Yesterday was great! It was a good b'day. I found some finds at the book sale I went to (got more than I bargined for as there was a farter in the crowd - eeuuuwww, I tried really hard to stay out of his vicinity, damn he should NOT have been out in public), got some cute capris at Eddie Bauer (half price with my gift certificate), restrained myself in Barnes&Noble (really, I did, coz...), my brother got me a Borders book card, parents gave me a Jamie Oliver T-fal pan (which I can't wait to use), took a nap, went out with parents for b'day Chinese food dinner (YUM), was treated to a ThinMint blizzard, and came home to read myself into a pre-bed stupor.

Today, I procrastinated a bit this morning before I mowed the lawn.

Also I washed and waxed the new car.

Now I'm butt tired.

Tomorrow I gotta get up mega-early so I can drive a van for 4 hours. I'm too excited for words.

Can't you just tell?

Right now, the cats are hovering and circling like furry attractive vultures for their bed time snack. Duty calls.

Celebrating My B'Day Hotness

I tried to pre-prepare for my birthday celebration.

On Wednesday, I called my best friend's daughter, M, to see if she was available to go out at the local venue Friday evening and celebrate. She told me she thought she'd made plans with someone and would check and call me back.

I hadn't heard back from her by today and I left a message earlier. By tonight, I was a tad worried as I had not heard back from her (she's usually prompt in returning messages) and I left a message and tried to call 3 other times. I tried really hard not to be a pest.

So to err on the optimistic side, I found an outfit, put my hair in curlers, spent alot of time putting a face on, painted my nails to match my Angelina Jolie sweater (it just has that feeling), and called once more at 10pm. Her voice mail picked right up again. I figured (hoped) something was wrong with her phone.

I decided to drive to the local venue to see if I saw M's car. No see'um. I listened to my intuition and drove to her apartment. M was there. She apologized for not getting back to me and said her phone was uncharged. She and her boyfriend R asked me what I would like to do. I told them that I was flexible, but since I already had 10 oz of make-up on, I'd like go out tonight if they were willing. M took 3 minutes and R took 1 minute (I hate guys!). They piled into my car and off we went.

I had such a fun time!! People watching is so interesting. Quite the drama with Vagina Chick 2.0 happening next to our table. Vagina Chick 1.0 was this obnoxious blonde who suctioned cupped her Vahjayjay to the dance floor mirror during J's and my party days. 2.0 looked similar with her kinky white blonde hair, leopard print thong, white jeans, and slutty attitude. All the guys passing her table would roll their eyes or make a face. M says V. Chick 2.0 is a piece of work and not a nice one at that.

The bartender made me and R very strong Grateful Deads which I managed to make that last the entire evening.

I saw two blast from the pasts. I can't wait to tell J about the first one and the second was BoobTube Lady from our past in the '90s. Doing the same damn thing she was when I first started going out with J - dressing inappropriately for her age (she's probably a grandmother 10 times over) and attempting to dance to the live band with her skeezy old guy boyfriend or significant other. When J and I first started going dancing, BoobTube Lady was wearing exactly that, an orange one to be precise, and very short satin gym shorts from the 80's with the three stripes up the side. Yeah. She was a visual treat. Tonight she just had tight stuff on and was getting her old groove thang on. Not in a cute old person way either, more in a white trash missing teeth redneck icky way.

I'm such a happy camper. A guy said I was HOT. I'm hot!!! Makes the muffin topping that was invisibly happening under the Angelina Jolie sweater seem like small stuff!

Third Book's A Charm

I started reading a book Saturday morning that I bought several months ago. I got to the bottom of page 22 and went up to what I thought was page 23.

At first I couldn't figure out why the paragraph I was reading didn't make sense. After going back to the bottom of page 22 and to the top of the next page several times, it hit me that there wasn't anything wrong with me, but there was with the book. I checked the page numbers and found they numbered 22 and skipped to page 55. An entire section missing. That's why my paragraph didn't make sense. I flipped ahead to see if 23-54 were somewhere else in the book, it happens sometimes, a printing mix-up.

No go. Just pages 55-75 repeated twice.

So I went to Borders to swap which they were nice enough to do, after all it had their sticker on it.

Sunday night, I'm reading in bed before going to sleep. I get to page 342 and the same damn thing happens. I discover the book jumps from page 342 to 372. A section completely missing again, what are the chances of that? I fumed for a really short time, there was nothing for me to do as I was PJed, in bed, and it was 11pm. I started a new book.

Today after work, I went to Borders again with my second defective book. I suggested to the DooBee that he bring them all to the counter because this did not seem to be an isolated incident. Sure enough, I found another with the same pages missing as Book#2.

I did manage to find a complete edition and the DooBee said he was going to go thru them all to see if there were any more defective books.

As an aside, I just about got the Dump Guy put in the hospital. I arranged to have him come to take my 2-3 year brush pile, 4 rail road ties, 2 rooms of carpet, and a broken up walkway of asphalt. Apparently when he lifted the first layer of the rolled-up carpeting, a swarm of yellow jackets occurred. He had some Raid and he didn't get stung, but he'll have to come back when the weather is cold to pick up the rest of the carpet. I felt bad but he said it was a typical hazard of the job. So I'm left with carpeting that's become the Section 8 housing of wasps. I may experiment and spray them, but chances are I'll just wait them out til the brisk snappy cold days of Fall and then have them carted off once they are "sleeping". Oh, and the Dump Guy was a hottiepants.

Heavy Rain, Possums, Fog, and Frogs Oh My!

I went to a dog party yesterday evening at my friend J2's. She was celebrating having two greyhounds, so it technically wasn't a birthday party but more of a celebration of their adoptions.

J2 made homemade dog cake, dog treats, and had an array of other healthy dog foods on the table so guests could treat their dogs. She was worried humans would try to eat the dog food so she had all these little bone labels to help clueless humans look before they put anything in their mouths. The humans had their own table with hamburger fixings and salads, lots of salads.

Frisky and Lizzie (her two greyhounds) were completely spoiled and learned very fast to hover by the fence anytime anyone walked by because they might have treats and they usually did. While the humans had pie and ice-cream, all the dogs had doggie sundaes. It was so cute to see the dogs jamming their noses down into the cups to get the treat wedged in the bottom after all the ice-cream was gone.

Unfortunately the vast majority of people who said they were coming, didn't show due to the cloudy cold clammy weather (it didn't rain until it got dark). There were only about 12 people + one dog out of 70 invited. J2 made me up a big plate of goodies for my parents' dog who was supposed to go but was out gallivanting with my parents instead. It's probably best he didn't go, I stayed way past his bedtime.

J2 and I spent some time playing Wii. This game we tried called "Defend Your Castle" was strangely addictive. It was high tech disguised with low tech graphics. The defenders (us) were plastic bread tabs, the enemies were stick people, battering rams were popsicle sticks, the clouds went by on strings, and the Pit of Conversion was a paint can. Don't ask, we never did figure out how to use the Pit of Conversion although we bought one.We also bought an archery tower which we couldn't figure out how to use. We used the bread tabs to pick up the stick figures so they didn't beat on our castle which made us lose health points (as shown in burberry and plaid, if you had too much plaid, you were getting unhealthy and soon the game would be over). I discovered if you picked the stick people up and FLUNG them off the top of the screen, when they finally landed you got more points for being more... vicious? They made this excellent splat sound regardless. Towards the end, the wheels of red plastic caps (for cap guns) would explode into a festive rainbow it you hit them just right, taking many enemies with them as well.

When I finally decided I had to go, the rain was pouring down in buckets, with no sign of slowing down. I made a mad dash for my car, soaked my jeans, filled my sandals, and had water in my hood. I got in and realized this would be my first night drive in the new car.

What an adventure! Heavy rain in the dark makes it difficult to see the stripes on the road which have either not yet been re-painted or have been indifferently painted with cheap paint that disappears whenever the road gets the slightest bit wet.

Not to mention the real-life Frogger game! The whole way home I was trying to avoid the little buggers trying to cross the road. I saw plenty who didn't make it, gross. What possesses them to cross the road in the dead of night in pouring rain is beyond me.

And then, coming carefully around a turn, coz it was also getting foggy as well, a possum ambles across the road, sees my headlights, and puts on a bit more speed.

I was glad to make it home in one piece! With dry dog treats for Riley.

My kittos were happy to see me as well, they wanted their very belated dinner!

Holy Freakin' Garden, Batman!*

*See June 22, 2008 post for comparison!

Here's the garden so far... The tomaters are taller than me, the beans are trying to take over every other plant's space, the pepper is making two peppers, the squash finally fell over the edges of the barrells, and I'm trying to train the pumpkin vine (1) to go into the compost area.

This pumpkin vine (2) has pretty much taken over the allotted area before the forsythia.

This other-side-of-the-forsythia pumpkin vine (3) is going around the corner.

This pumpkin is on (2) vine. My hand is for scale. I've NEVER had a pumpkin this big before the end of July so I'm looking forward to what it's big destiny will be!

I finally got my second pumpkin this weekend on vine (3). The fertilization gods must have smiled down on this baby. My finger is for scale.

And those never-can-remember plants out front are finally sporting some flowers.

Optimistic Commitments

As I was comtemplating my garden and my navel yesterday pre-rain storm while having a plant epiphany (it suddenly came to me that pumpkin plant leaves are actually big ass green funnels, the reason they are so wide and have that notch by their stem is so they can catch rain and direct the water to stream down the stem to the rootlets the vine puts down because there is no way in hell the original root ball is going to be able to take care of the miles of vine they put out), I realized that having my three cats is a valiant show of optimism.

What I mean is, having a pet means you are positively expecting to live long enough to take care of them and have them predecease you. Now I don't mean to dwell on their dying before me, but I've made the commitment that I will be here to take care of them for the duration of their nine lives.

I am their momma and I'm expecting to be here for them.

Hobbes is 11, Doodle is 8, and Moomin is 2. When Hobbes is 20, I will be 47. When Doodle is 20, I will be 50. When Moomin is 20, I will be 56.

The sheer optimism of this blew me away yesterday. It just never occurred to me. I never thought about it, taking the three of them for granted. Shame on me. I guess parents feel this much more intensely.

Sure I make tentative plans a couple weeks ahead of time, my job has me plan a month ahead, and I just bought a new car. Yes I look forward to coming home, to the weekend, to holidays, to time with friends, to new books, and to other things that don't happen right away.

But making the commitment to say yes to having a pet is more serious than that. It means you are expecting to watch over their health and well being and it's going to be YOU.

So having marveled that I could be so optimistic and how much they add to my life, the pendulum then swung the other way and I engaged in some major pessimism by trying to figure out who would care for my kittos if I wasn't here. That made me majorly depressed and I had to go take a deep reading break to get my mind off of the subject.

After giving each furry kid a kiss and telling them I loved them dearly.

Peas and Brownies

My next door neighbor is FINALLY home! YEAH!

I don't have to water her plants anymore.

So about 3-4 weeks ago she asked me if I would water her garden, her landscaping, and her porch/deck plants while she was away on vacation.

Immediately I hear the knee-jerk reaction voice inside my head yell "NO, I can barely keep up with my own garden, landscaping, and other high maintenance plants!"

But the pleasant neighborly coming-out-of-my-mouth voice said "sure, just so you know there might be a few losses. Show me what you want watered." She said she was fine if something didn't make it.

She showed me around and left the next day. The first week and a half I managed to water every other day, sometimes once every two days. Then I hit a really busy patch at work and it got hot and stayed hot and I got super cranky and came home tired from work and quite frankly I really wasn't doing a consistent job with watering my stuff and I forgot to water hers for about 4-5 days in a row.

When the guilt and obligation got too much for me, I dragged my unhappy ass out to her yard and discovered her dahlias were SUPER unhappy with me. They were all drooping forward over their mini gates and some had even slipped under the gates. Her veggie garden on the other hand was SUPER happy, everything was tall, fat, and taking over each other's spaces.

I gave everything a good soaking, even the fat and happy garden, but especially the dahlias. They got watered 3 times. Then I tried to straighten them out and get them propped back up again. In the process of doing that I managed to break at least three of them. So then the original guilty feeling of neglect was compounded by actual accidental plant murder. Great. Let's just say I was back on track with the every other day or two of watering.

Yesterday I got home from work and my neighbor was walking around her yard taking a survey. I showed her my boo-boos and apologized. She said she was thrilled to see everything and amazed at her veggie garden and pointed out the huge sunflower she hadn't known about. I said I thought it was supposed to be there. She laughed and said I could have the pick of her garden, just tell her what I wanted, and she had something for me.

I told her that I'd been eyeing her peas so she said she'd pick me a baggie full and leave it for me on my stoop. Then she went in and came back out with a tiny sampler of Simply Divine Brownies as a thank you. I told her she shouldn't have and she said she wanted to.

I'm going to have the peas for lunch tomorrow and I had a brownie tonight with milk. YUM!

I Got It! Got My FIT!

Finally!

Isn't it's snaggle-tooth grin the cutest thing ever?

Isn't this the cutest car butt ever?

My new cute car makes me look cute too!

I bought my car today! And I certainly got a crash course in getting to know the newbie! Driving it home, it rained the whole way. Nothing like having to juggle new car vibes, new windshield wiper set up, new back windshield wiper that have never dealt with before, defrost, lights, whole new dashboard, and seating. But she handles great, has TONS more chutzpah than my old car, and she's fun to drive. I already showed her off to my parents. Now to just see my co-workers drool over her. Sigh.

I have lots of room left over in my garage. Who knew a four-door would be smaller than my old two-door?

Incredibly Sheddy

Update: photo put in!

I've been brushing my three kittos every other day in a vain attempt to stem the tide of shedding fur. I'm losing. Everything in the house has a layer of cat fur instead of dust. The gremlins under the bed have enough to make their own cat if they were interested in doing so, but they're more interested in driving me crazy by hiding my stuff.

Hobbes and Moomin adore being Safari-combed (pictured above). Doodle on the other hand makes me follow her around the house and then after about 5 minutes, she does this back twitch to let me know if I continue, she's gonna whip around any second to grab and bite the shit out of me. Moomin does the same thing only he attacks the comb after awhile. I've developed a tri-universal technique that works for all three cats in different ways. I hold a left-over plastic cable tie over their heads. Hobbes likes to rub his face on it while I comb him. Moomin will rub his face, grab it, or bite it and it serves as a suitable distraction from the comb which I do not allow him to play with or attack. Doodle will play with it, but again, her attention span and tolerance are MUCH shorter than the boyz and I have to watch for the "zooy look" which again means if I don't stop I'm gonna get grabbed and bit real fast.

I basically Safari-comb a small two-week-old-kitten-sized ball of fur from each of them each time. The tape dispenser in the picture is for size comparison! Imagine the ginormous hairballs they'd be trying to ingest if I wasn't combing them. As it is, Doodle yarfed up the mother of all hairballs last night. Holy moly. No wonder she yarfed up her snack, that damn hairball was the size of my thumb which is bigger then the size of her tummy!

Today I took Moo and Doo to their annual check-up at the vet. I let them know this morning they were going and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, Doodle slunk out of the room and did not come out to get her job or say goodbye to me. Then when I came home after work to get them, Moomin and Hobbes greeted me but Doodle was nowhere to be found. She KNEW and stayed hidden, praying I wouldn't find her. Moomin jumped right in one of the carrying cases and I zipped him in. I found Doodle in an unreachable position under my bed. So I did a bad thing. I tricked her into coming out by shaking the treat container. Oooh was she mad when I popped her in the other case. She howled the whole way to the vet. I tried to reassure her that she was not going to get anymore shaved spots or any blood taken. I did NOT mention the shot she was getting.

Anyway, Dr. W checked her out first and stated she looks good and squeezed her innards "which felt good". After getting poked and prodded and pried, Doodle got her shot, leaped back into her case, and dug herself under her blanket. Moomin climbed up on Dr. W's shoulder after she weighed him and launched himself onto me while she was notating. She said he's quite the acrobat. I said he certainly was along with living up to his nickname "Sir Chompsalot". Dr. W laughed and laughed. While she was shining the light into Moo's eyes, she told him he had very beautiful eyes. He didn't even notice he got a shot. He's so oblivious at times.

At the end of their appointment, I was covered in fur. I could barely see the color of my shirt.

Back to the Safari-comb.

I gave them all treats after they got out of the cases. It was the least I could do for tricking my smarty party girl.

Two Fabulous Evenings

Evening No.1

I wanted to go see "Wanted" again (it was so fast, this time I could see things I missed the first time around) and I wanted to go OUT. So I called J's daughter, M, to see what she was doing on a Friday evening. She said she'd be out for a couple of drinks. I asked how late she'd be out and she said "a couple of drinks usually means til 1am". I laughed and asked I could join her and her boyfriend after the movie ended. She said sure. So I spent the next hour getting ready. Not for the movie, but for going OUT. So many decisions. I really miss the times J and I lived together. It was great having a friend around, getting ready together, making sure your clothes and make-up were fine and not going to put you on the receiving end of being made fun of. It was hard putting together an outfit that was subtly sexy but not screaming "I'm alone at the movie theater, try to pick me up" or "Check out this poor-going-by-herself-to-the-movies chick". I finally landed on a tightish pair of jeans, black belt, black platform sandals, and a black zipped shirt. I wore my hair in a loose twist for the movie, betting on the hair products keeping the wavy curls made by the clip once I got to the venue and took the clip out (which worked by the way). My make-up went on smoothly except for some mascara issues which always happen. I hopped in my car, arrived at the movie theater, stood up straight and walked confidently (and trying to be somewhat mysterious), got my ticket, and watched my movie. First one out the door and back to my car, drove to the local venue, saw that M's car was there, and proceeded to do the "just looking for my friend" act. I found her and thus began a very fun evening full of laughs and chat. I think some guy may have been checking me out, not sure so I had to ask M. She said most likely he was checking me out as I caught him looking at me three times. I told her I had to ask coz it has been a VERY long time since I've been out and about and checked out. I saw one of J's old flames at the end of the evening. We reminisced. I drove home, fed the kitties their snack, fed myself a snack (missed dinner I was so busy getting ready), and fell fast asleep.

Evening No.2

Today J2 called to see if I still wanted to see "Wall*E". I said yes and she said that if her husband could get TJ to nap, she'd bring him to pick me up to see the 4:30pm show. This would be his very first big screen movie experience and she wasn't sure how it would go, but if he napped we had more chance of it being successful. TJ napped and I could tell he was in a good mood when they got to my house. We drove to the theater and J2 said she'd talked to TJ about what seeing a movie was like. TJ waited in line great, I gave him the tickets to hold, J2 held her breath and TJ didn't even look or ask for any refreshments, he asked if there were any elevators as we went down the hallway which we were able to reassure him that there were none, and we opened the door of the theater. TJ was a little nervous of the floor lighting but once we turned the corner and he got a load of the screen, he was in silent awe. We sat down with him between us, watched one preview, watched the Pixar cartoon (which was awesome), and then the movie started. There were a couple times the movie was too loud and he had to cover his ears (EVE liked to blow shit up), or it got too dark, or the action lagged a bit, or a scene got just a tad too scary and TJ would say "I don't want to watch this movie anymore". J2 and I were always ready to point out something interesting on the screen or explain something so that he quickly got back into it again. One of the funniest moments was when Wall*E and EVE were trying to say each other's names and TJ sang out in a clear loud voice "HE'S WALL*E!!!". Thank goodness it was a kid's movie, coz that loud singing out happened more than a couple times. After the movie finished and we were walking out, I asked him how he liked his very first movie. TJ said "it was great". Out in the lobby he zoomed over to the refreshments and asked for popcorn. We got him the small bag coz he did such a great job. He held onto that bag all the way out to the car he was so thrilled. J2 got a very cute sound/video bite on her cellphone of TJ answering questions about his first movie experience while he held his popcorn bag with two hands and grazed off the top. We then went to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner and afterwards walked the market around the corner from my house for old-fashioned ice-cream treats which we ate as an ice-cream picnic on my drive-way. TJ had to problem solve how to eat his ice-cream, it was one of those with the wooden pik and frozen solid. By the time he was done, he had ice-cream up to his hairline and down the front of his shirt. TJ waved goodbye out the window the entire time J2 was pulling out.

I had such a good time.

You Don't See That Every Day

And I haven't ever in the 17 years I've been living here.

Except finally today.

I saw my first MOOSE!!!!!

I can't really count the fleeting glimpse of midnight moose butt several years ago as my first sighting because it was so quick and blurry. But this morning definitely counts.

I was on my way to a rather far away meeting with a client when the client's mother waved in the direction of the left side and said "isn't that a fabulous fake moose over there?"

I turned to take a look, realized she was very wrong, and said loudly "that's no fake, that's the real deal!"

We both turned and stared as long as safely possible in a moving vehicle that one of us was driving. Of course, neither of us had a camera.

The she-moose (she didn't have a rack on her head, so we figured she was a girl) was standing in a grassy vacant lot between two businesses back from the side of the very highwayish street we were driving on. She had her head up sniffing the wind, watching traffic, and soaking up the morning sun (it was around 8am). When we picked up my supervisor, my supervisor said the moose come out of the forest/boggy areas they live in early in the morning and at dusk to escape the hoards of mosquitos and lick the salt off the roads. Well, our moose seemed very relaxed and happy to maybe have several mosquitos around her rather than a cloud. As for licking the road or side of the road, she wasn't making any moves to do that when we passed her, but who knows about afterwards. She was gorgeous tho. I know moose are not the most attractive animals, but she was the color of melted chocolate, shiny in the sun, and just had a confident calm charisma about her. And she was HUGE, bigger than a pick-up truck.

So I've officially been welcomed to Maine. It's taken 17 years, but I've finally seen my first Maine moose.