Snow!!

This photo shows what passes for "snow" in Houston. The little dusting barely registered on the snow-meters, but it certainly caused havoc on the roads. 

The flurries started in earnest around 3:30 yesterday, or at least that's when the gal from the neighboring office ran into mine and said, "It's SNOWING!" I thought it was a joke, of course, but when I turned it looked like a scene out of White Christmas -- well, if you squinted real hard it did, anyway. 

Nothing really "stuck" until late in the evening, and even then, as you can see from these pix, we didn't have much sticking. As far as the dog is concerned, it was nothing more than thick rain, spoiling her ability to play catch -- because *someone* said it was too cold & wet to play outside. 

Although it was cold as snakes this morning, the snow was all gone from the roads when it was time to drive to work. That's *my* kind of snow.

LOLcanes

In the spirit of LOLcats, Dwight Silverman over at the Chronicle came up with LOLcanes a couple of weeks ago. In honor of Hurricane Gustav, Lakrids & I offer this one:

 

Eddie the Wimp

Here you see Lakrids the Intrepid Storm Chaser, decidedly bored by the whole Edouard thing. It rained all day, but the predicted tropical storm-force winds never materialized. The storm also didn't seem to include any thunder/lightning, at least not in our neck of the woods. We had a scarier, more fierce storm last weekend in a normal quick Texas thundershower.

My impression from radar is that we've seen the worst of what we're going to get. So it was just a quiet, rainy day for us. Others lost power -- some 13,000 people supposedly are dealing with that annoyance right now. We've avoided that problem, unless they do as they did after Rita, and subject us to rolling blackouts for the next few days while they try to get the power grid back online. We'll see....

The good news: The backyard is very green & not a lake. All the work on the drainage did exactly what it was supposed to do -- yay!

First shots

First photo

Because I have the world's best UPS delivery person, I have a new camera today. You can see its handiwork here on the right, the very first (bad) photo I shot with the new Olympus E-510. I've never been very good at flash photograph, so you will have to excuse me. I do like the 'giant dog' shadow effect, though, heh.

The camera was waiting on my porch when I got home, so naturally I ran inside with it & started unpacking the stuff. As with most consumer electronics these days, the stupid battery was uncharged. So I have this cool new light-sensitive toy that I can't even use until after dark!! Aaaagh!

I thought it would be fun to shoot my completely no-tech Kodak Brownie box camera with this amazingly high-tech new camera. So while I was waiting for the stupid battery to charge up, I dug the Brownie out of the back of the closet, where it's been gathering dust for ages alongside my Nikon FG -- also an 'antique' now since I bought that back in 1982. I can't remember the last time I shot film. And that's important to the story because while I was poking around on the Brownie to look for some angle to shoot, I realized it has film in it!

I'm wondering when I might have gotten the silly idea of running out and buying film for the thing, and where I might have found size 120 film in this day & age. And where I could even get it developed. I'm sure it's dead past its expiration date by now, but it would be an awful lot of fun to find out what's on that film, if anything is left.

Meanwhile, please ignore the bad flash photography. I will try to learn how to do better. In fact, I have a lot to learn with this camera, because it is a spaceship compared to my point-and-clicks. Meanwhile, a trip to see the three eagles (mom, dad & baby) at Carlton Woods is in the plan for... tomorrow? I hope.

Shutterfly!

Because I have been a member over at Dogster (well, the dog has...), Shutterfly recently sent me a code for a free 8x10 memory book. You can build any book you want from your own photos, various different photo layouts, add captions, etc. It was fun and easy to build, even with all my special tweaks (they have a 'standard template' for a pets book, but of course I can't do anything the "standard" way.

Anyway, I got the book today in the mail -- it's great fun! For those of you who can't come & see the in-person thing, I'm told that you can view it online. I'm also told that you don't have to be a member of Shutterfly to look. [But if you are mom & dad, and you're only out of town for a couple of weeks, you should just wait and look at it when you can see the real hardcover book!!]

This is 100 times easier than real scrapbooking, but considerably less "creative" overall. Did I mention that I did the whole book in just a few hours? It usually takes me a few hours to do just one scrapbook page, by the time I'm done stamping, embellishing, journaling and all that nonsense. And I think I could embellish these pages just fine if I wanted to do all that work....

Oh yes, this is a fun thing!

Laughter and joy

I always thought having one dog was fun. Now, I'm thinking two dogs is the key to weight loss through laughter.

Lakrids is an "only dog." So maybe she is a little bit spoiled and selfish. In particular, she does not like to share her ball. This morning, she and Little Guy were out in the yard, and she was being a brat. But Little Guy wanted to play. So she'd be chasing her ball, all intense with her Professional Soccer Dog demeanor, showing Little Guy how it's done and guarding the ball from him, and he would just come up behind her & bite her butt. Not a mean bite, but just a little nip like a little brother who wants to play with his bratty big sister. I was laughing so hard I was crying. I think I pulled a muscle in my smile.

Little Guy is camera-shy. He does the cutest things, and then as soon as I pick up the camera he wanders off, like, "Oh no no no, I don't do pictures." Lakrids is the opposite. She sits like a lump until the camera comes out, and then she begins to show off. This photo is part of the Battle for Mom's Lap. One minute before this photo was taken, both dogs were perched photo-perfectly, two front paws up on each leg, happy to share the space. As soon as the camera came out, Lakrids had to be ON my lap, and Little Guy had to be off. It's a giggle.

Repeat after me: I don't *need* another dog. My neighbors had better get home soon.

UPDATE: They got home. Little Guy does belong next door. But I think we'll have some play dates :)

Life update

The 'boot' is off, YAY! Doc says I am healing well, but I have a few weeks before I can run, jump, use the elliptical machine or basically do anything else fun or healthy. The ankles are still very swollen (and not very pretty), and there's a bit of an ache most of the time, but the doc says I should just get used to that because it's going to be around for a while. Great, eh?

I took in another stray dog today. I think he belongs to the neighbor, although I'm not sure how he got out of the fence, and they're not home to confirm that they are missing him. He's a cute little guy and very affectionate, so his owners had better find him soon because I don't *need* another dog.

Lakrids sort of enjoys having another dog to play with. The two of them romped around the yard for an hour or two this afternoon, and I loved watching them play. Then I gave the little visitor a bath because he was a bit stinky. While I'm writing this, they are both trying to get on my lap. But I don't *need* another dog. One pest is enough!!

Playing with the Mac :)

Macs are fun :) See Plasq for more information about the ComicLife software I used to make this little window into my day. I can't seem to convince Blogger to publish it big enough to read it on my screen, but if you click on the image, it will open as a larger (i.e., readable) image.



(Yes, there's a fire in the fireplace. It's freakin' cold here. The Martian -- who is due here on Friday -- reports that it's colder in Houston than in Denmark. That just ain't right.)

I'm still playing with the 30 days of free trial on the Comic Life, but it is fun so far:

A little visitor

Had a nice birthday dinner with mom & dad tonight, then went over to Dad's House o' Movies to watch a movie of my choosing. Birthday girl gets to pick.

Mom & I went this afternoon to run some errands (buy me birthday presents YAY!) and check out Blockbuster's selection. It reminded me why I rarely bother to go rent a movie. I would have liked to see Over the Hedge, but it was out of stock. The Break Up would also have been a good choice, but -- yeah you guessed it -- out of stock. By the time we were thinking about our fifth and sixth choice for movies, I thought, "This is dumb. Why not just look at something I already have at home?"

See, when I bought my (at the time) huge 52-in. tv, I went a little crazy and bought some movies. This would have been, oh, two years ago or so. And I still have not watched some of them. Like tonight's ultimate birthday movie choice: Gladiator.

OK, I know you're thinking like my mom, "Gladiator is sort of bloody for a birthday movie." But I can look past the blood because, nod with me ladies, Russell Crowe is a hottie. Sensitive, heroic, tragic, sweaty, manly hunk o' meat. Oh, and there's also some tasty little allegorical flourishes, something about a fella who is trying (badly) to follow in his daddy's footsteps but not noticing the masses slowly slipping away and hungry for a new hero....

Anyway, after a couple of hours of blood, gore and prurient hunkonomics, I came home to find a little black and white critter chasing me up the driveway, up the sidewalk, right to the front door. I RAN inside, thinking it was a skunk, probably rabid. But no, it was a little dog thing. Well, one of those small yapping things that people call dogs, but which are actually closer to cats than dogs. Being a total anti-small-dog person, I left it out on the porch. Then the angel voice whispered, "Do unto that doggie as you would have its owner do unto your dog if it ever digs a hole under the fence and runs around the neighborhood." (sigh)

So I brought it inside & it did have a tag. Now, understand, it's after 11 (not counting Daylight Savings change), but as before, I thought if my dog were missing & I had been looking for it for the last 3 hours, I'd be frantic and waiting by the phone. So I called the phone number on the tag. The woman who answers is at a party & can barely hear me. Better yet, it turns out that 1) she didn't know the dog was missing, 2) she is quite a ways away from here, and 3) the dog is supposed to be with her daughter, who is staying with her dad (this woman's ex) this weekend in my neighborhood. Oh boy. Anyway, someone will come for the dog.

A minute later, another little voice is calling me back. It's the daughter, and she is just in the next block so they will be at the house in 2 shakes. Everybody is very apologetic about bothering me, but meanwhile, Lakrids and this little cat-dog thing are scampering happily around the house as if they have been best pals forever. Lakrids is fairly fascinated that the other critter can jump basically straight up in the air without any running start. This earns the little dog thing the right to drink from Lakrids' water bowl. Soon thereafter, the gal shows up for the dog, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Except... Blogger doesn't seem to want to publish blog changes today. So You may not read this entry until next week. Ah well.

Science Update + Bonus Adventure

OK, its a little blurry and sort of dark, but you can see the aftermath of the convertible experiment. I tried taking a couple of those shots where you just hold the camera in front of your face and hope for the best, but the flash was so bright you couldn't even see there was sunburn.

The most surprising development of the experiment is that I have not peeled. Based on extensive experimental evidencew from my childhood, I expected that to start pretty much immediately. Apparently old skin reacts differently to such abuse?

Nearly as surprising: Much of the burned area is still tender four days later. (pout) The edge of my neck itches/burns like crazy, and the formerly very white insides of my arms still sting quite a bit. But mostly the burn has turned into what appears to be a very dark tan. Go figure.

Today's bonus adventure, though, was not sunburn-related. I opened the door to let the dog in after her morning toilette, and a little toad decided to come along. Brave dog that she is, Lakrids looked up at me and said, "Uh, is that a toy or is it something scary? I'm not touching it until it stops bouncing around and lets me sniff its butt." After one trip around the kitchen island, the poor little amphibian decided he would accept my kind offer of a ride on the kitchen spatula back out into the rainforest/backyard.

The little visitor and my reaction to him (it must be a male, barging in where he is not wanted...) made me think about critter-visitors, in general. I'm very gentle with lizards & toads because I think of them as bug-eaters. I am not at all gentle or patient with Periplaneta americana or her annoying relatives.

(Note: See on that photo where it purports to show you 'actual size' at about 1-3/4 inches? In real life when they are staring you down from a corner of the bathroom floor, they are about 6 inches long with scary fangs dripping poison and blood from their previous victims. This may be a brain-induced exaggeration, but I'm pretty sure all female Texans see exactly the same thing in that situation; even my female Texan dog will not go near a roach in defensive stance.)

With frogs & lizards, I have a sort of "live & let live" philosophy. Same with spiders. If they don't crawl on me, they are free to go about their skeeter-eating. (Even in Arizona, where the spiders are as big as your head, occasionally eat small children & can poison you with a sidelong glance, I never had a problem with them.) But with roaches, there is but one possible philosopy: Live & Let Flip-Flop. The flip-flop is not only a fine utilitarian shoe, but since I typically have at least one pair in any given room of the house, they also are useful and produce a very satisfying *SPLUT* when they contact a cockroach body at an appropriately high rate of impact.

But we had no roaches today, just a cute, scared little toad, who is now back in the yard -- or perhaps by now already a little brunch-bite for some big bird. (sigh)

Let's get ready to Roooomba!!

The dog thinks it is a scary space alien, but I find the Roomba just way too much fun. How can you not love a vacuum cleaner that 1) works by itself while you play comptuer games, paint the bedroom, sew a table skirt, create a scrapbook page, play with the dog, etc., and 2) Even gets underneath the furniture where the icky bugs and dust bunnies hide??

So far so good on the picking up dog hair, etc.; I did already empty the cassette twice but in fairness to the machine, it's (ahem) been a while since I vacuumed in here.

By the way, there is news on the new flooring front: It's supposed to be delivered tomorrow "between noon and dark." No word on installation, but since the flooring has to sit & stew in my typically humid Houston-area home for at least 72 hours, I can still hope to have a new floor sometime next week -- and maybe to unpack all the living/dining room boxes before August (maybe). [Note in lower picture of Roomba under the furniture that it is still wrapped in plastic, waiting for the new floor before we unwrap.]

One of these days I need to remember to take some pictures of the bad spots on the old floor. Not sure how I'm gonna do that, but it needs doing.

Ear Infection

The sweet little dog has an ear infection. A yeast infection, of all things, from swimming in grandpa's pool. Apparently a dog's ear is a similar environment to other places that can harbor such infections. Go figure.

Anyway, the vet sent me home with one enormous bottle of goo, one small tube of other goo and an instruction sheet. The instructions tell me to simply fill the dog's ear canal with goo from the bottle, massage it around for five minutes or so, then use cotton balls to muck out the now loose/icky goo in the ear canal. Follow that, it says, with a 'small amount' of goo from the squeeze tube, which is apparently steroids & medicine.

"You might," the vet added in a verbal aside, "want to do it outside."

What the vet failed to mention is that the dog will not only hate this, but consider it a personal attack as savage as if you had clubbed her with the bottle instead of just squirting a bit into the ear canal.

The dog is resting up from the wrestling match. I think I won, but I'm not sure. I hope the goo from the big bottle does not kill grass, because it is ALL over the back yard.

Catching Up

Every day or two I think, "Hey, I ought to blog about xxxx." Then I remember that I have not blogged in months, and maybe I won't remember how, or I'll have to spent too much time on this just to catch up...

Excuses, excuses. Here's what's happened since I fell off the Earth in January:

-- Work is great. If I could have written my own job description, it would be this job. It is especially nice to have a 13-mile commute on all back roads with no traffic. Yippee!!

-- The Camaro has gone into foster care, possibly adoption to new handlers. I traded him in on... wait for it... a new Mini Cooper. Yellow, convertible. I always wanted a convertible, and now that I live in a place of eternal summer, I deserve this. In some future blog I will debate whether I have been a good girl to deserve such a fun car or a naughty girl to deserve a car that demands to be driven topless even when it is 97 degrees (F) and 97% humidity. Either way, I am loving it.

-- The wonderful two-story townhouse I had been renting since last summer now has new inhabitants; I have (gasp) bought a house. It's a cute one-story house with huge trees in an established neighborhood, and it is almost exactly (within 0.1 miles) the same distance from work as the townhouse.

--The dog is loving her new backyard with trees & more space to romp. The house is also witin walking distance of one of The Woodlands' great dog parks, if only it were not 97 degrees and 97% humidity.

Pix to come. I moved on 3 June and have not yet managed to hook up the PC for a number of reasons (redoing the flooring shortly, PC hard drive kablooie, dearth of cable/ethernet outlets in old house, etc.) I'm working on the Mac but iPhoto is apparently not equipped to resize photos for the Web (how dumb is that?) and Picasa is not available for the Mac (grrr).

Warm & cuddly, sorta

There's a nice coating of frost on the grass this morning here in beautiful, sunny Houston, which means today may be the day when the sweaters change places with the T-shirts until it warms up again. (This being Houston, however, the change-back date could be tomorrow.)

Cold weather is good sleeping weather and great cuddling weather. It just so happens that although The Martian is some thousands of miles away in his own cold place, I still have a nice warm cuddle machine. Her cold nose, notwithstanding, Lakrids is a marvelous cuddler -- if she can stop wiggling long enough to actually snuggle.

Sleeping with a dog is different from sleeping with a people. If you are having trouble falling asleep, and your dog is happily snoring there just an arm's length away, you can reach over and scritch her between the ears, or just above the tail, and she will wake up with a loving expression on her face. If you wake up & you are chilly and the dog has made a nice, warm spot just an arm's length away, the same scritching technique will allow you to skootch over into the warm spot, and she does not insist that she have it back, as long as she can press her doggie self upon some part of you while she warms up a new spot.

My dad is dumbfounded by the thought of this rambunctious, energy hound as a cuddler: "She sleeps on your bed? Doesn't she wake you up in the morning by pouncing all over you?"

Well, she has done that, but mostly she just curls up in a dog ball & sleeps or watches me sleep until she sees an eyeball. The eyeball, apparently, is the dog's universal signal of "Time to get up & start the very exciting and fun-filled day!" If I can keep my eyes closed, I can cuddle with her until noon. But of course I love to look at her cute face and scritch her belly, so ...

There are people who say that my dog is spoiled. I think they miss the point. If she is spoiled, it's only because she spoils me rotten.

Poor dog

Lakrids went to see Santa over the weekend. The Woodlands Dog Park Club had a "Paws with Claus" event at which some 60-70 pets (one cat) sat on Santa's lap at one of the members' homes.

Small world: "Santa" was a friend from geocaching.

The event was a fund-raiser, as are most of this club's activities. It's a very rescue-oriented group. So I don't feel that I 'wasted' the $10 on a 'photo with Santa,' but the photo on this page is from my own digital camera, not the instant camera that the supposedly professional 'furtographer" was using. Her photo is way too dark, the dog is not looking toward the camera, and Santa has a look of abject fear, as if a vicious dog had just been dumped on his lap. (In mine, he just looks bedraggled, as if a pesty lick-machine was wiggling all over him, which she was.)

I won't blame the 'furtographer' since I'm sure she was not using her own camera. But based on what I saw at this event, it would be more cost-effective (not wasting so much film redoing bad shots) and provide members with higher quality images if they used a digital camera & printed the pictures on a nice computer/printer.

Does anybody really use an instant camera anymore? I think I still have one, but I don't even know if you can buy film for the old thing anymore. Speaking of film... does anybody use that stuff anymore?