December 28th

WHERE'S THE BANDWAGON?

I need to climb on.

Let me back up a bit. I've been a Charger fan for a very long time. Since they came to San Diego in fact. My father was an Assistant City Attorney at the time, and his signature is on the lease for the Chargers to use Balboa Stadium. As a very young girl I had a serious crush on Lance Allworth. The day that Buffalo picked up Jack Kemp on injured waivers was a sad day for me. (Although many years later his wife baked me a cake, but that's another story.) My brother still has an authentic (as in worn by him) Keith Lincoln jersey. The "kids" got to go to at least one game a year, my parents had season tickets as long as my father still lived here. Even after he got the big time gummit job and moved to DC he still loved his Chargers. He died one year before their first (and so far, only) trip to the Super Bowl. Even when I lived in Los Angeles (during the time that the Raiders were there) I was a lone blue and gold dot in the sea of black and silver.

Anyway, four weeks ago they were as good as done. Toast. Season over, officially in the crapper. Except they started to win, and Denver started to lose.

They're in the playoffs.

So, I am a fan in search of a bandwagon. I hope there's still some room.

December 26th

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR AND BAH HUMBUG!

That ought to cover it.

I didn't do anything for Christmas. No stress, no mess. This works for me.

SAY, WHAT?

There was some guy on one of the news programs talking about how to avoid catching nasty bugs during the "cold and flu season." He said to cough into your elbow instead of your hand.

WTF? If I'm coughing that means that I'm already sick, so what good will it do me to cough up a big ol' wad of phlegm onto my clothes? I'm not really inclined to soil my clothing so that someone else doesn't get sick.

December 18th

WHAT'S THAT RACKET?

I'm sitting here at the computer, minding my own business, trying to organize the potential dog adopters who need to be contacted and meetings arranged. Then I hear a noise. And, there it is again. There is quite a ruckus going on over my head. The pitter-patter of little feet running back and forth, and back and forth. Except it's paws, and it's more like a rumble than a pitter-patter. Hoping that it was ON the roof, and not in the attic (I had a nice batch of roof rats at the old house) I went outside with a flashlight to investigate.

Two lovely black cats are having a party on my roof. They aren't fighting, they're just chasing each other all over the place.

At least they didn't cross my path. There aren't any bad omens associated with black cats over your head, are there? I don't need any more bad luck.

December 13th

TIMBER-THE ENFORCER!

This is my current foster dog. Handsome boy, no?

He's a really great house guest. Goes potty outside, sleeps quietly on the dog bed, walks well on a leash and rides nicely in the car. He earned the title of The Enforcer because he doesn't like any trouble. If one of the other dogs starts picking on another one he pushes into the middle and tries to keep the peace.

SNIFF, SNIFF

I woke up with a cold. Scratchy throat, runny nose. I took two doses of a homeopathic remedy, so I'll see how long the crud lasts. I still have the scratchy throat, but I feel fine. Good thing I have an ample supply of chicken soup. We have an adoption event tomorrow, and it's going to be cold. I'll bundle up, wear a hat and gloves and maybe hit Starbucks for some hot chocolate. Hmmm, maybe I should snag some peppermint schnapps. It goes very well with hot chocolate.

I'll report back as to whether or not the remedy made a difference. I used to joke about OTC cold remedies-"That should cure that cold in about ten days!" So, if this lasts fewer than ten days I will consider the remedy a success.

December 7th

THE TWEEKER HOUSE-OVER AND OUT!

Quick recap: The house back in December while Tweeker Dude and Tweeker Dudette were still in residence:

Tweeker House after the Tweeker Family left, without taking their tweeker crap with them:

Slowly things began to go away. First the used-to-be-a-motor-home. Followed by the non-operational vehicle. Then, the cavalry came. At first just a work crew and a big dumpster:

When that proved to be ineffective, they brought in machines:

They filled up at least six of those big dumpster things. And, this is the aftermath of the Reign of Tweekerdum and Tweekerdee:











Yes, there are broken windows. The clean-up crew ripped down the fences to be able to get the mounds of junk out. There is no floor covering. It's a POS.

There is a "For Sale" sign in the yard. We'll see what happens next.

November 28th

WON'T HURT TO TRY IT

I signed up for an account at a site where people can purchase prints of my photos. The link is over there --->

Since it's free, I guess it's worth a try. Not that I'm expecting to get rich or anything, but it would be exciting to actually sell a photograph.

Edited to add: I discovered a little secret about the art sale site. If you start to purchase something it will automatically take you to the "Custom Framing" option, where the smallest print will cost $90+. Stupid! (Especially since I don't make money off of their outrageous frame prices, just the prints.) If you click on "Change Product Type" you can buy a print, and take it to someplace cheaper (in other words, reasonable) to have it matted and framed. There is also an option to purchase note cards.

CHANNEL 10 GRAMMAR GOOFS

Since the two worst offenders are no longer there I haven't been picking on the news team much lately, but I have saved a few gems.

Random wrongs:

“This is how it looked like.”
“the no alcohol ban.” If “no alcohol” is banned, does that mean everyone must drink at the beach?
“...a very public safety issue.” (From an anchor person.)
“Behind me you can see some sirens.” (Michael Chin, the dramatic reader.)
“Both men lived together.”

And, from anchor-person KH:

“The man behind the wheel of a deadly bus crash...”
“A man with a bullet still launched in his face....”
“Puppy mills is a flourishing business...”
(All of course delivered with perfect diction. Bad grammar, but perfect diction.)

November 12th

I suck as a blogger lately. Okay, here's what's been happening.

I had a foster dog.

He got adopted. (By a really nice woman who RAW FEEDS! I wish all my fosters would be so lucky.)

I'm picking up a new foster dog tomorrow, but before he comes home I'm meeting someone who wants to adopt him, so he may be gone before he gets here.

There were actually two jobs advertised in my field this week. I applied for both, but haven't heard anything. I imagine that mine was just one of 10,000 applications.

I'm going to have another glass of wine now.

October 26th

I LOVE A PARADE!

Some of our rescue volunteers walked some dogs in a neighborhood Halloween parade yesterday. I love parades. Especially the marching bands. I can do without the beauty queens and celebrities in convertibles, but everything else is fun. Yesterday the crowd was just as entertaining as the parade.

October 11th

NOTHING NEW TO REPORT HERE

Same old shit. No glimmer of hope that mortgage jobs will be coming back. That county job that I applied for in February came up again, I applied again, I meet the requirements again. I fully expect to not hear any more about it again. What's that definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

Some well meaning people tell me to expand my resume, stress accomplishments. They don't get it. If I stress my accomplishments the words mortgage and loan will need to appear. Those words cause resumes to hit the circular file without further ado. Wouldn't matter if I had won a Nobel prize, an unemployed mortgage worker is the new object of blatant discrimination in hiring. I guess I need to hope that my equity line doesn't get frozen and that I can hang on until things turn around.

Some people are bothered by the fact that I'm living off of my home equity loan. Gosh. Got a better idea for someone who's been unemployed for over a year and, despite sending out a gazillion resumes, has had four responses; only two of which resulted in interviews? One was for a temporary job that had over 100 applicants, the other was for a position that was just imaginary. The guy thought that the first economic stimulus package was going to cure the mortgage biz and he was going to get busy. Glass half full type there. The glass has since been knocked over, spilled, and is empty. We're waiting for a new glass, and a water boy.

I did treat myself to a trip to the zoo for my birthday. So, I will share my gift with some photos.

And now I'm going to go watch Iron Man, simply to bask in the hotness that is Robert Downey Jr.

September 28th

LIFE'S MILESTONES

You know, the turning points, the major moments and accomplishments people celebrate.

I am happy to report that in April of 2006 I bought this computer and began playing Free Cell games in order, beginning with #1. Today I won game #10,000.

I knew you'd be impressed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

It's my sister Janet's birthday today. Have a good one!

September 25th

SHOCKED! SIMPLY SHOCKED!

Clay Aiken is gay? Who woulda thunk it?

WHOO HOO!

Thursday night is once again something to look forward to. Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy are back. When Lost starts again I'll be even happier.

September 14th

ANOTHER CRANKY BITCH!

This week to be found at Costco. I bought two large plastic storage containers, and I put them on the belt first because I wanted them to put the rest of my stuff in them. The cashier was so busy yakking that she didn't notice that they had bumped into her register and broke off a piece of plastic. When she finally stopped talking and looked at what was going on she snapped at me "Next time leave the big stuff in the cart!"

Uh, you want to yell at ME because you weren't paying attention and doing your job? Okay, fine. Cranky bitch.

RIP Sweet Dino

Dino with his friend Aria

I wrote about Dino back in March when the rescue first discovered that he had lymphoma. It went into remission, and he was a healthy happy dog until last Friday when he had some swelling in his leg. Apparently he developed some sort of auto-immune disease (which the medicine pushers will never admit was most likely caused by the use of prednisone!) and had blood clots in his spleen. Last night he was wagging his tail and eating like a horse, and then laid down and quietly passed away.

He was a sweet, sweet boy and he had lots of friends who have cried many tears today. He never got adopted, but he spent the last months of his life in a loving foster home, and didn't die alone in a shelter.

September 8th

I WENT TO THE BEACH

This probably won't seem like a remarkable event, since I live in San Diego and the rest of the world thinks that we spend all of our time lounging on the sand and surfing. But, I'm not all that fond of the beach. Damn sand gets into everything. There are THINGS out in the water-like jelly fish and sting rays and slimy seaweed. And now you can't even have a beer. Boring, uncomfortable, and for the most part, why bother? But, I've been playing photographic scavenger hunt, and the hunt for that day was "water", so I figured that the beach was as good a place to find it as any.

You can see my hunt results so far here: Photographic Scavenger Hunt

APOLOGIES TO THE ZONIES

Not only is it time to leave the beach and return to the desert, our moron TV weather man is following you. Now it's your turn to listen to him talk about the weather like an over-emoting actor, never have a Thursday again (it will be "the eve of FRIDAY!!!" from now on) and have to hear him misuse the word forecast daily.

Unfortunately, the defection of the moron to Phoenix might drive more Zonies here next summer so that they can listen to a normal human deliver the weather forecast.

September 1st

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES

A friend and I were having a bit of a chat about some mutual acquaintances (okay, we were being really catty about some people we know) and she came up with a great observation about one of them: She's not at all smart, but she's too stupid to even know it. I love this! I see it all the time-complete morons who don't even know how ignorant they are. If they had a clue they wouldn't spout ridiculous statements, or send out emails to big volunteer or business groups with grammar and spelling errors that someone at a sixth-grade reading/writing level wouldn't make.

Or, in business. This is from a real ad that showed up here: "Effective Way to Keep Squirrels Off Bird Feaders." I don't think I'll be buying a bird feeder from someone who doesn't know how to correctly spell the name of their own product! The problem is, whoever wrote that probably has no clue that they're stupid and should ask someone to proof-read their ads.

TILLY HATES EMU MEAT

Since I bought 40 lbs. of the stuff I've been feeding it a couple of times a week. Kiara loves it, she'll eat anything. Chance will eat it, but only after sitting outside and barking for an hour or two. Bentley will eat about a pound and then give up. Poor Tilly won't eat even a bite, no how, no way. She went without eating for three days before I finally let Kiara eat her emu and fed her pork instead. (Tilly has a few extra pounds to spare, so please don't threaten to report me for animal cruelty. It's perfectly natural for a canine to skip eating for a day or two.) I guess I'll just feed the emu to the other dogs and give Tilly chicken or pork on emu nights.

August 21st

JURASSIC PARK?

There's an emu rancher near here. He raises the big birds for his emu oil business, and is now selling the meat to be fed to dogs and cats. I bought some, 20lbs. of "meaty bones" and 20 lbs. of trim (just pieces of meat). When I was putting the bones in the freezer I came across a bag with emu feet, so I handed them to the dogs for their chewing enjoyment. Unfortunately the dogs have no interest at all in chewing on emu feet. Maybe they're scared:

I probably would be if someone came towards me with one of those. I'm thinking they're going to end up in the trash; strategically placed on top to discourage the trash scroungers from looking any further through the refuse in the can.

Edited to add:

The more I look at this picture the more I wonder if the phrase "flip the bird" derived from the physical aspects of emu feet.

I once knew a parrot named Flip.

Get it? Flip, the bird.

Never mind. I should go to sleep now.

August 17th

FUN DAY TODAY

I went to an adoption event with a different rescue than the one I usually deal with. Oh yeah! THIS is why I wanted to do this! People who are there for the dogs and are polite to each other.

But, why did I think I didn't need sunscreen when I was going to be out in the sun for four hours? I did manage to stay in the shade most of the time, but my face is a little pink.

August 10th

Strange Alien Vine

(I didn't alter the color on this.)

THE OLYMPICS!

I love the Olympics. Well, except for track and field. And boxing, wrestling, weight lifting. Okay, I love gymnastics and diving. Swimming, volleyball and soccer are tolerable. So, I'm going to be glued to the TV for a bit. It's always uncomfortable getting unglued though, especially when I use Crazy Glue.

August 6th

PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION!

You are about to read something that you will very rarely (and may never again) see written here.

I WAS WRONG.

About the unemployment thing. Yes, you are eligible to open a new claim a year after you opened one. Yes, the wages from the last quarter I worked would have counted. But I missed one teeny tiny little sentence. The one that says I had to have worked sometime during the claim year and made a minimum amount of money. Crap! Oh well, I do still qualify for the half-assed federal extension.

Half of something is better than all of nothing.

August 2nd

MOVIE OF THE WEEK

Have a warped sense of humor? Then you should rent Death at a Funeral.

ANOTHER OF MY FAVORITE BLOGS

In keeping with today's theme of Things to Enjoy If You Have a Warped Sense of Humor:

Fake Interviews With Real Celebrities

July 28th

IS THERE A BIRD SEED SHORTAGE?

I was running low on wild bird seed. Those birds can get mean if I don't put something in the feeder for them, so I went to the store to grab a bag of seeds. I went to Vons. No bird seed. Went next door to the Sears-that's-really-a-Kmart. No bird seed. Albertsons. No bird seed. I finally found some at Big Lots. Now, back in the day when they put marijuana seeds in the song bird mixtures I could understand a run on bird seed, but I don't see people buying it up for sunflower and millet seeds. (The poppy seeds you could buy in the spice aisle used to be viable seeds for opium poppies too. Now I think they treat them so they won't germinate.)

July 25th

WEREN'T YOU LISTENING?

Phone rang, I answered it.

"Hello, this is a moron from the (Major Political Party) National Committee."

I quickly interrupted. "If you're calling to ask for money, stop right now. I'm living on borrowed funds, I don't have any extra money to donate to anything."

But he kept on reading (badly) from his little prepared spiel, so I assumed that it wasn't about money.

"Important election year, blah blah blah, need your support, blah blah blah, and can I count on your contribution of...."

WTF? "I said not to ask for money, but you did anyway. Are you nuts?"

"I'm just trying to do my job."

Here's a clue. If someone requests that you don't beg for money, say "Thank you for your time", and hang up.

Am I pissed off enough to vote for the other party's candidate?

No.

I can't in good conscience penalize the entire country for one moron who can barely read, much less listen.

July 24th

I'VE BEEN RELEASED!

From Blogger spam-jail. Thanks to the human who did the deed, whoever you are.

MY FAVORITE BLOGS

Some of them are listed to the right, but there are lots more that I read. I'm going to now-and-then tell you about one of them, and why I like it. Let's start with New York Shitty. Here the delightful Miss Heather regales us with photos of dog poop, abandoned mattresses, and horrible examples of cheap condo conversions (most done without permits). She also examines the history of her 'hood, posts photos of cute cats that need homes, and other fun stuff. Even if you aren't a New Yorker, Miss Heather's tales of Life in the Shitty are quite entertaining.

July 23rd

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BLOG!

Actually, it was yesterday-one year since my first blog post. I didn't notice at the time that it also happened to be my father's birthday. He would have been 86 years old.

It's rather odd also that today something occurred that ties to two old posts. First, my whining that "I never win anything". A couple of weeks before that I mentioned an artist I'd taken a class from.

Today I actually won something. Two tickets to an exhibit at the art museum of photographs by Eleanor Antin.

TWO WEEKS!

It's been two weeks since I asked for a human at Blogger to decide that I'm not a spammer, but I still have to type in the not-a-word to publish a post. Maybe the robots killed all the humans.

July 16th

FINALLY!

The members of Congress have finally pulled their heads out and authorized an extension of unemployment benefits. But, this might not even matter to me, and here's why. It's half of your original benefit, so for me it would be 13 weeks. In a week and a half I will be eligible to open a whole new claim, and should be able to get a full 26 weeks of benefits. If I take the extension now when it runs out I would be past the time frame where the last full quarter I worked would count towards my benefit amount.

So, members of Congress.....

Thanks for nothing! (Unless that extension will still be there in six months and I still haven't found a job.)

The sad thing is that there are probably many people who have been out of work for a year that didn't read the information and have no clue that they can file a new claim, so they're all probably jumping for joy at getting half of what they could get if they would bother to read the directions.

I have an idea for something to try with my resume. I have redone it to emphasize my computer and communication skills, but the experience part still shows that I've worked in the mortgage business, and I've never received a response for a job in a different field. SOOOOOOO, I'm going to eliminate the words "loan" and "mortgage" entirely. I won't say "loan processor", I'll say something like "Client Information Specialist". And, the company names-instead of "Blah Blah Mortgage Corp.", it will now be just "Blah Blah Corp." Nothing will be a lie, just two words will be abolished. It will at least be interesting to see if I get any responses.

DAY FIVE AND COUNTING

It has now been five full business days since I sent my request for a human at Blogger review my blog to verify that I'm not a spammer. No action-I still have to type in my best guess at a nonsense sequence of squished together letters. And there doesn't seem to be any way to contact anyone at Blogger to get to communicate with a human. Phooey!

July 13th

EAT YOUR FRUITS AND VEGGIES!

These are a couple of the photos I took at a little "Farmer's Market" close by. I used the quotes because I'm not sure that there were any real farmers there, but the food did look good. Since I neglected to bring a lot of cash (I am truly a plastic money person, I use credit cards for everything and pay them off every month so that I can get the rewards) the only thing I bought was a jar of olives.

Greek olives. REALLY good Greek olives, and I'm not usually a Greek olive fan. Most of the Greek olives I've had have a really nasty bitter taste. These were being sold by a charming older Greek man who told a customer "Greeks don't need psychiatrists, we have Ouzo". We had a discussion about the Greek man I lived with many years ago, when I told the olive seller that my Greek was from Patras he had one word to say. "Spoiled." Oh boy, was THAT right on the nose.

Just in case anyone wants some of these wondrous fruits, he has a website: The Olive Man (I hope the blogger anti-spam bots don't think I'm spamming by posting this link. I won't make a penny if anyone buys some olives-I just really like them.)

July 10th

Duck!

Duck!

Squirrel!

Oh, that's not right, is it? Okay....

Goose!

ME? A SPAMMER?

Yesterday I noticed that when I wanted to add a post that I had to do one of those annoying word verification things first. I investigated further, and it seems that Blogger has some ill-tempered bots that for some reason decided that this blog has the characteristics of a spam blog.

They define it this way:

Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site.

Irrelevant? Nonsensical? WTF? I do know that sometimes I tend to express complex concepts, and some people don't get the concept so they focus on the words and they misinterpret what I've said. But, nonsensical?

Not to mention that the "word" I have to verify looks like this. Not only is it not a word at all, it's a bunch of letters all squished on top of each other. What looks like a "d" could just as easily be a c and an l having a very close encounter. For instance, in the example-what's that third letter? An o? A c or an a partially obscured by the u? It took me five tries to guess the correct not-a-word in order to publish my post.

NEW ATTITUDE!

I think I will stop letting people who lie, act like simple minded idiots, are rude and play silly junior high school clique games hurt me and make me angry. From now on I will just pity them. I mean, how sad is it that someone feels that they have to lie, twist facts or conceal reality in order to get people to do what they want? Or that some people are so unable to think for themselves that they get defensive when someone tries to help them learn something? People who play little who-hates-who-and-you-have-to-think-like-I-do-to-be-one-of-the-in-crowd games can't be happy, because they have to constantly make sure that the in-crowd is thinking correctly.

What was that old song..."She is more to be pitied than censured"?

Yep, that's my new atti-tude.