January 2004 Archives

I think we spent a personal record last night. Well, excluding the house and the RX-8. We got home from work and stopped by Connie's Tropical Fish in Castro Valley. We had stumbled upon in Tuesday night, and we found a fish tank that we'd liked. We've been wanting to set one up for some time now, so after some thought, we decided to buy a 70-gallon tank with a stand to set up as a saltwater aquarium. After adding in all the accessories, like the filter, gravel, test kits, etc, we walked out of there $600 lighter in the wallet. And we don't even have fish yet!

We've also been planning to paint our living room, and we realized we would have to do that before we could set up the tank, since 70 pounds of water isn't really going to move easily. So we stopped by Home Depot to buy some paint (we'd already picked out the colors we wanted). The paint turned out to be a little darker/browner than we had planned, but I think it'll turn out okay.

We managed to get the entire back wall (where the tank will go) done, and part of the other wall done. Marc has today off, so he's going to finish some more of it. We'd also bought some paint for the bedrooms in the house, which is actually a darker shade than what we used for the living room, but since the living room paint is already so dark, we're probably going to have to either go lighter or go with a completely different color for the rooms. Oh, and on a side note, I had no idea paint cost like $20 a can! I'd always thought it was $2 a can or something, heh. Go figure!

Once we finished the back wall, we moved the tank and stand inside. I still have to sand and stain the stand before we can get everything set up, and I'll probably do that tomorrow. In the meantime, we have to

decide where we're going to put it along the wall. It's pretty huge, and a bit bigger than we imagined (can you tell we plan things well? ;), so now we're not sure if it'll go better near the kitchen counter (where it is in the picture) or in the corner of the living room. We'll probably move it around and see what feels best.

And speaking of hits, Marc got rear-ended yesterday going to work in the RX-8. It wasn't anything bad, traffic came to a sudden stop on the freeway, and an F150 truck hit him. Luckily they weren't going very fast, and Marc wasn't hurt and the RX-8 had just a small ding. It cracked the bumper a little though, so most likely we'll have to get it replaced.

I took some video of Stubby watching Hammy play in her little hamster ball. Hammy seems pretty unfazed by the cats, and she seems to be settling into her new home pretty well. We're going to have to get a better running wheel than the cheapy plastic one that came with the cage. Click here to see the video.

The zoo just got a little more crowded. And we mean little! As an early Valentine's present, Marc bought me a little hamster. We went to Petsmart last night and picked her out, and bought the cage and one of those hamster balls (which totally freaked the cats out). We named her Hammy, which yeah, isn't that creative, but it stuck. :)

Hammy!

A muddy Bandit checking out the new addition.

Bandit seems to think that Hammy is either a toy or food. The cats, surprisingly, are mostly just curious, and Hammy and Snuggles were sniffing each other through the cage bars.

After we brought Hammy home, Marc went out into the backyard to try to figure out why it was so muddy (it hasn't rained that much, but there's a ton of water back there - we're worried that a pipe burst or something). While he was out there, someone came to the door, which turned out to be some guy selling magazine subscriptions for some charity. I'm soooo bad at turning people away, I just can't do it. So while I was looking at the list of magazines, Marc finally comes in the house, and wasn't much help in getting me out of the situation. The guy said that we could purchase a children's magazine and have it donated to the Children's Hospital in Oakland, and I figured if we were going to buy a magazine, better to donate it to kids than the get another magazine we didn't need. So we bought a subscription for $28 for the Disney magazine. Marc gave me a hard time about it afterwards - his fault for not rescuing me! But it's for a good cause, I say! :)

Yeah yeah, I'm behind. Reason is, I keep meaning to take pictures of stuff that I wanted to put in my updates, but I never get around to doing it. Like for instance, I was going to take pictures of the computer I built (yes, it's nerdy) and put them up, but I never took any. Maybe for next time. Maybe.

Speaking of the computer, I finally got a new CD-RW drive for it, which should be much faster than the old one, which burned CDs so incredibly slowly. Now I can put my old machine back together and finally give it to my parents so they can stop using that hamster-in-a-box they call a computer. That thing has the processing power of like, a Commodore 64. Now they just need a monitor with, you know, color.

Marc and I didn't do a whole lot this weekend - Bandit had another herding lesson, and that was about it. Next lesson, one of us (read: me) is actually going to have to go in and start training with him. I'm going to have to get muck boots I guess, since it gets pretty muddy out there. Should be fun though! I'm looking forward to smelling like sheep.

We also started to look for an aquarium. We've been wanting to set one up for a while, and it's just been a matter of having the funds to do it. ;) Last night we happened to stumble upon this tropical fish store, and the guy who worked there was pretty helpful, and I think we can get a good deal on a tank there. Right now we're thinking of getting this 70 gallon tank, which is way bigger than we'd initially planned, but the shape of it (it's taller than it is wide) should actually fit nicely in our house. We have to decide now if we want to go freshwater or saltwater. I really want to do saltwater, since I've done the freshwater thing before, and the fish kind of bore me now. Saltwater takes a lot more work, but I think it would be a fun challenge.

Once we get it set up, I'll have to take pictures and put them up. Well, maybe.

We had dinner at my parents' house last night, and my brothers cooked for us. It's really sad for me, because they cook better than I do. They made pork chops, cornish game hens, and some vegetables. I don't think Marc has ever complemented my pork chops like he did my brothers'! (Although they were pretty good.) One of these days I'll have to get them to teach me, hehe. For dinner tonight I think we'll try for the beef stroganoff again, just need to go buy the pasta at the store.

Computer Skillz

The other night I installed my new CD-RW drive in my computer. I was glad to finally upgrade from my 24x/4x/2x CD-RW, which I had stolen from my old machine. I didn't get to upgrade it before, because

After that we watched My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee. Gotta love the FOX network. (What do you expect though, from the same company that makes Fox News?) This was some reality show about a woman who comes on and is told that if she can convince her family that she and some random guy are going to get married and can get their blessing, she'll win $500,000. So at first they tell her to pick from like ten hunky guys. But then they tell her that that was all a fake-out, and her real "fiancee" is this other guy, who's also a contestant, and will win $500,000 for himself if he can help her pull it off. Of course this guy is the big fat obnoxious guy. And he's really just an actor, whose job it is to drive her totally nuts. It was pretty funny.

Shopping

Last night we also went to Breuner's after work to look for a kitchen table (since Bandit has destroyed 3 of the 4 chairs we have in our current dining set), but didn't find much that we liked. After that we went to Petsmart, since we needed to get some new Nylabones for Bandit (we made the mistake of getting him the ones for normal chewers last time, and he went through them like they were Milk Bones). So this time we picked up a pack of bones for strong chewers. One was even chocolate flavored. We also picked up some cat food (weight control formula, natch), as well as a little cat tent/bed since the cats like to cozy up in small, dark spots (we didn't realize until AFTER we left the store that it cost $30!). We got them a little toy too, a rod with a string with a mouse attached to the end, which Bandit promptly destroyed when we let him out of our sight for 10 minutes. The mouse was still intact though, so they should still have fun with it. I picked up some more Milk Bones for Bandit, and we got him a new toy, which was this big stuffed dumbbell. He got so excited the minute I took it out of the bag, couldn't even wait for me to cut the tags off. He loved it, kept wanting to play fetch with it all night.

As we were going to bed last night, Stubby was playing with something underneath his cat tree (I say his, because he never lets Snuggles up on top). He was batting it around, and would stalk it from behind the post of his tree before pouncing on it. I got up and looked, and it was the little sample bottle of foundation I had that he was playing with. Those darn cats can never leave my crap alone. It was cute though, so I let him keep playing with it. ;) I did go and bring their mouse into the room, but he was more interested in the makeup. One of these days I'll have to get video of him playing with something under his tree, he really looks like he's nuts.

So last night for dinner we were going to have beef stroganoff. It was just a ready-made thing that we had bought (I'd like to try to make it fresh one of these days). I'm pulling out the package from the fridge, and as I'm reading the directions I realize that it doesn't come with pasta. D'oh! So, no beef stroganoff for us. Instead, I just ordered us two medium pizzas from Amici's. For delivery.

Last night was also the American Idol premiere. The premiere, to me, is the best part, because you get to watch all the people who horribly suck go through the auditions. I don't get if some of these people actually think they're good, let alone good enough to win this contest (if you haven't seen American Idol, it's basically a contest where hundreds of people compete and the audience votes until one person is left, and the winner gets a recording contract). I mean, I can carry a tune, and I think I have a pretty decent voice, but there's no way I'd even consider myself good enough to compete, and some of those people are way worse than me. The best part is watching the judges crack up at some of the really bad people. You feel sorry for some of the people, but some of them get so bitchy too, it's like, "dude, you suck, it's time to realize it!"

After that we watched My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee. Gotta love the FOX network. (What do you expect though, from the same company that makes Fox News?) This was some reality show about a woman who comes on and is told that if she can convince her family that she and some random guy are going to get married and can get their blessing, she'll win $500,000. So at first they tell her to pick from like ten hunky guys. But then they tell her that that was all a fake-out, and her real "fiancee" is this other guy, who's also a contestant, and will win $500,000 for himself if he can help her pull it off. Of course this guy is the big fat obnoxious guy. And he's really just an actor, whose job it is to drive her totally nuts. It was pretty funny.

Shopping

Last night we also went to Breuner's after work to look for a kitchen table (since Bandit has destroyed 3 of the 4 chairs we have in our current dining set), but didn't find much that we liked. After that we went to Petsmart, since we needed to get some new Nylabones for Bandit (we made the mistake of getting him the ones for normal chewers last time, and he went through them like they were Milk Bones). So this time we picked up a pack of bones for strong chewers. One was even chocolate flavored. We also picked up some cat food (weight control formula, natch), as well as a little cat tent/bed since the cats like to cozy up in small, dark spots (we didn't realize until AFTER we left the store that it cost $30!). We got them a little toy too, a rod with a string with a mouse attached to the end, which Bandit promptly destroyed when we let him out of our sight for 10 minutes. The mouse was still intact though, so they should still have fun with it. I picked up some more Milk Bones for Bandit, and we got him a new toy, which was this big stuffed dumbbell. He got so excited the minute I took it out of the bag, couldn't even wait for me to cut the tags off. He loved it, kept wanting to play fetch with it all night.

As we were going to bed last night, Stubby was playing with something underneath his cat tree (I say his, because he never lets Snuggles up on top). He was batting it around, and would stalk it from behind the post of his tree before pouncing on it. I got up and looked, and it was the little sample bottle of foundation I had that he was playing with. Those darn cats can never leave my crap alone. It was cute though, so I let him keep playing with it. ;) I did go and bring their mouse into the room, but he was more interested in the makeup. One of these days I'll have to get video of him playing with something under his tree, he really looks like he's nuts.

This weekend was pretty laid back. On Saturday we went up to Elk Grove to visit Marc's parents for his mom's birthday. We got home around 7ish (in record time as usual, since Marc and his brother always have to race each other home), with every intent to do something that evening, but I ended up just taking a nap.

So I was determined to do something on Sunday, whether it be buying stuff for the house or whatever. Marc and I also needed new cell phones, and our friends Bill and Brenda had told us about this great plan they got, and they were paying a lot less than we were currently paying for AT&T. Since you can now carry over your phone number, we thought we'd look into new plans. So after I woke up at noon :), we went to the mall and looked at different plans, none of which were much cheaper than our current plan. I was set on getting a phone with a camera (I gotta have my gadgets), and the only one I liked was the one offered by Verizon. Normally I'm a Nokia person, since they always make good phones, but the only camera phone they have right now is HUGE and ugly. All their phones lately have been kind of ugly. So we each got the same phone, which has a camera, color screen, picture messaging, and all sorts of other goodies. In the end, I think we ended up getting a plan that was more expensive and with fewer minutes than our current one (we decided we wanted one with free long distance, and I decided I wanted picture messaging for $2.99). Oh well, LOL. We're happy with our new toys.

I also finally got a new wallet to replace my poor departed one. I still haven't called in to get my credit cards replaced, hehe. While I was shopping for that, Marc turns to me and says, "I'm gonna go play with myself." I was like, "WHAT?" Turns out what he actually said was, "I'm gonna go play with my cell phone." I just about died from laughter right there in the middle of Macy's. After that, we decided to not buy anything for the house that day, figuring we'd done enough damage for one weekend. Next weekend maybe, we'll go buy some paint.

Last night we went up to SF to have dinner at Roy's Hawaiian Fusion, since my friend Elaine is going back to New York on Monday. We did the Dine About Town program, which is basically like a set three-course meal for $30. We had eaten at one of the Roy's restaurants when we were on our honeymoon in Maui, and the food was great. They have this awesome chocolate souffle, which has hot melted chocolate in the center. It's like heaven. Needless to say, we were pretty excited to see it was one of the choices on our menu. Anyways, dinner was good, and the souffle was oh-so-good. I should learn how to make that. Haha, yeah right.

A funny thing happened to us after dinner. We walked outside, and were standing around talking for a bit, when this guy walks up to us. He asks to talk to "the gentleman" (Marc), but none of us girls moved, so he said he could talk to all of us. He shows Marc his driver's license and starts going into this long story about how he was visiting friends up here and got kicked out, and had no friends or family, and was kicked in the back which is why he was shaking and stuttering, and whatnot. Which in itself isn't funny, I'm sympathetic to people who are homeless, and I've seen my fair share having lived up in Berkeley (I've also been scammed before).

Anyways, I'm standing there trying hard not to laugh, and I know everyone else is too. At some point in this guy's story, Elaine turns around and walks away, and I know it's because she's trying not to laugh in front of the guy. He looks at her and says, "This isn't funny," at which point she full on bursts into laughter. I'm about to lose it, and the guy goes on for about another 5 minutes until thankfully, Marc pulls out his wallet and hands the guy five bucks.

Oh, about how I got scammed in Berkeley. I was walking downtown late at night with I think Elaine and my other friend Ramona. We're standing around (gotta stop doing that) when this old lady runs up to us, frantic, and tells us that she just found out that her husband was in an accident and is in the hospital and she needs cab fare to go to the hospital. So I give her five bucks (notice how our friends never back us up? Cheapskates!;P), she says thank you, and we go back to talking or whatever we were doing. A minute later, Ramona says, "hey, you notice she's walking a lot slower now?" And sure enough, the lady's now just strolling down the sidewalk. After that, I made it my policy to just buy people a meal instead of giving them cash. Or in that case, help the old lady find a cab.

Although hell, I even had trouble doing that once - like the old lady that I bought vegetable soup for, who yelled at me because, "DON'T YOU KNOW?? THEY PUT MEAT IN THAT!!! I CAN'T EAT MEAT!" Which I already knew, since I'd tried to give her a meatball sandwich earlier, and was the reason I'd gone to get vegetable soup in the first place. I guess her objection was that the restaurant cooked the soup in beef base, which I had no clue, and really, I doubt she knew herself, I think she was just crazy. I ended up just leaving the soup on top of a garbage can, since it was late, and I was too tired to look for someone else to give it to. Plus the whole thing bummed me out.

So anyways, in the future I'll be sure to carry around one of those pads they use to take your order in a restaurant. :P

Yesterday I got to sit in on a surgery in veterinary services here at work. It was a pretty amazing experience. I got there at around 7 am (got a mocha from Caffino on the way in - needed it badly!), and watched the veterinary techs prep the beagle for surgery. After that, they had me change into scrubs and a mask, and they started the surgery at 9 am. I won't go into the details, but it was pretty cool, as I basically got to stand on the other side of the table from the surgeon and watch everything she was doing. They told me to let them know if I felt light-headed at all in case I was going to faint, but I was actually fine the whole time.

One thing that's amazing is how little blood there is inside the actual body cavity. Aside from a little blood when they first cut the skin, the inside is surprisingly clear. She was doing work on the digestive system, so she showed me the stomach, duodenum, spleen, intestines, and other organs.

It was a pretty long process. We ended up not finishing until about 1:30 PM, and at that point I had to go back to my regular lab, so I wasn't able to see any of the post-op procedures. I was pretty tired! It was definitely worth it though. :) I ended up not leaving work until 6:30 PM, so it was a REALLY long day, hehe.

Last night I cooked a rotisserie chicken for dinner. We always cook it in our Ron Popeil Rotisserie, which I love. It's so easy to use. I just dry rub the chicken with salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, thyme and rosemary, stick it in the rotisserie, and an hour later it's done. At the same time, I took my first stab at making Chinese chicken salad, which turned out pretty well. Quite possibly my most productive cooking night ever.

I think Bandit stole a piece of chicken skin off the cutting board though, because last night he had the worst bowel problems. I had to take him outside at like 3 am last night and he was out there for like forever. That dog has such a sensitive digestive system, I swear. Today we brought him to my parents' house so that he could play with Harvey during the day. Extra bonus is that he diarrheas in their yard instead of ours. ;) Hopefully they won't read this update.

Aside from the dog whimpering to go outside in the middle of the night (and later refusing to come back inside, leading to me having to walk outside in my Grumpy sleepshirt, freezing my butt off to go fetch the dog), I had to deal with Marc. Sometime around 2:30 am, he reaches behind his back, while sleeping, and starts whapping me on my leg, yelling, "Bon Bon, time to wake up!" Five minutes later, more whapping, and, "Come ON Bonnie, it's time to get up." This went on for like 10 or 15 minutes before he stopped, which was lucky for him, because I was probably 5 minutes away from whapping him with my pillow and waking HIM up.

I think I should stock up on these Grumpy sleepshirts.

This weekend was, for a change, fairly busy for Marc and I. On Saturday, I woke up at around noon, got ready, and we headed out for Bandit's first sheep herding lesson. Jan had set up a handful of sheep in a different, larger pen than the one she'd done his herding instinct tests in. There was also another dog there taking lessons as well - Jan would alternate the dogs in between sessions so that they could rest. This other dog growled and barked at Bandit when he went to say hi - the owner told the dog to stop, but it wasn't having much effect. The next time the dog did it, Jan wheeled on the dog and SCREAMED, "HEY! NONE OF THAT!" which promptly quieted the dog. Talk about authority.

Bandit started out well, but one time he lunged at the sheep, and Jan brought out this stick with a flag on it and hit the ground in front of him to show him that it wasn't acceptable behavior. Bandit stopped, but being the sensitive little butthead that he is, was pretty hesitant afterwards. Jan put down the flag, but for a few times after that, he'd circle the sheep once, and then go sit in the corner and refuse to come back to the sheep.

Finally though, he really started getting into it. He was running tight circles around the sheep (Jan would walk around the pen, and the sheep would follow her everywhere, with Bandit circling to keep them together). At one point, she let the sheep get up against the fence, and let Bandit wrangle them on his own. He did a pretty good job of picking up the stray sheep and moving them back together. She said he definitely seemed to like to mix it up with the sheep and probably wouldn't be scared to bite them (herding dogs will sometimes bite, or "grip," sheep/cows that are ornery and don't want to move). She said, "hopefully he won't kill any sheep, so you don't have to pay to replace them." We weren't sure if she was joking or not. Guess how much a sheep costs though - we figured what, a few hundred, maybe a thousand? Fifty bucks. How sad to be a sheep.

While we were there, Marc and I talked about what it must be like to be a sheep. Like, what do they think about all day? Do they even really have any kind of thought process other than their immediate sensory perceptions? When they see the dog, are they like, "Is the dog coming my way? Should I move? What's the dog going to do?" Or are they more like, "ohmigod DOG MUST MOVE AWAY." We decided on the latter.

I took more video of the lesson, so at some point I'll get off my lazy butt and get those uploaded and converted and put up on the site. Hopefully tonight, but I won't make any promises. ;)

Auto Show

After we were done with Bandit's lesson, we drove down to San Jose to go to the Auto Show with our friends Bill and Brenda. It was pretty fun as usual, I saw a few cars that I liked. I was disappointed though, that Ford only had the concept model for the 2005 Mustang there - I wanted to see the production model up close, since I really wasn't impressed by the photos I saw. I also sat in a VW Beetle, and decided it was not for me.

One funny thing we saw was at the exotic car showcase, where they had all the Ferraris, Lotuses, and Rolls Royces. Those cars you NEVER get to touch, or sit in. But we saw there were two guys sitting in a Ferrari. One was an older guy in a leather jacket sitting in the driver's seat, talking to one of the reps there. You don't get to sit in those cars unless you show the reps you've got money, so I guess that guy did. Still, it prompted much eye rolling. Some guy behind us sneered, "those guys are the 'high rollers.'" I think most were probably thinking, "geez dude, get out of the picture already."

Weekend Shopping Warriors

Sunday morning, Marc and I went to go help my cousin Henry get some things at IKEA in East Palo Alto. He was picking up a coffee table and a TV stand, and needed our Rav4 to haul them back to his place. We figured it would probably take a half hour, an hour, tops. We were there for THREE HOURS.

There was so much stuff to look at there. I'd been there once before, but at that time we were specifically looking for a futon, so we didn't look around much. This time we browsed the whole store. It was amazing. Henry ended up walking out with 5 or 6 pieces of furniture, instead of the 2 he came to buy. Marc and I ended up doing shopping of our own - buying pictures and frames for the house, as well as a bunch of hangers, candles, and stuff. We ended up spending $205.46 that day. Crazy! But so much fun.

We're picking our brains trying to think of home improvement stuff. The pictures were a nice start, we hung them up in the kitchen and along the staircase. I think our next step is going to be to figure out what colors we want to paint the different rooms. Then we might start thinking about getting some furniture. You know, so the dog can have new things to destroy.

Afternoon Conversation - (4:00 pm PST)

I just had this conversation with Deepali over AOL Instant Messenger regarding this update. We were talking about the interior decorating Marc and I did (I'm Natterjak):

Natterjak: I should take pictures of what we did
Lalaithdr: lol!
Lalaithdr: awesome!
Lalaithdr: visuals to go along with your work
Natterjak: I'll do it tonight if I'm not too lazy haha
Natterjak: I still have to put up the sheep videos
Natterjak: if only I could get paid for this, lol
Lalaithdr: It's nto even laziness though
Lalaithdr: it's hard to find time
Natterjak: no no, it's laziness
Lalaithdr: you finally get home after a long commute
Lalaithdr: then there is dinner and cleaning uop
Lalaithdr: up
Lalaithdr: spending time with marc and the animals
Lalaithdr: and then, it's almost time for bed
Natterjak: no, really, it's laziness :-)
Lalaithdr: LOL!
Natterjak: I get home, let the dog in, we go out and grab fast food, and then I sit down at the computer and play games for the rest of the night :-)
Natterjak: so trust me, it's not a matter of time ;-)
Lalaithdr: Ahahahahaha!

I just found out this morning that next week I get to sit in on one of the animal surgeries here at work! Woohoo! I'm totally looking forward to it. Okay, on to the dog stories. :)

Dog Stories

This is all old news, but I forgot to share it before. This past Saturday, we took Bandit to what was supposed to be his first sheep-herding lesson. We got to the farm, only to find that the gate was locked. So we called Jan (the trainer) and left her a message letting her know we were there. Turns out she had cancelled lessons for the day and had forgotten to contact us. We waited out there for probably a half hour or so. At one point, Bandit started getting antsy, so I took him out to walk him a bit. A few minutes later, Marc points towards the farm (the fence was about 50 feet from where we were standing, and we see that ALL the sheep in the farm had congregated by the part of the fence closest to us, and they were all watching the dog. They hadn't been there a couple minutes ago.

Figuring it was just coincidence, we put the dog back in the car. A couple minutes later, the sheep started to disperse to other parts of the farm. As an experiment, we took the dog out of the car again. The sheep immediately flocked together and came over and bunched up near the fence, watching the dog. It was weird! You'd think sheep would flock away from the dog, but they actually seemed drawn to him. It was kinda cool. Anyways, we didn't get our lesson in, but hopefully this Saturday or next we'll get to start.

Marc and I also learned the difficult lesson that once a dog gets a taste for wallet, he never goes back. Bandit got ahold of Marc's wallet one night and completely tore it to pieces, credit cards and all. The next day, Marc went to Macy's and bought a new one. He left it on top of the kitchen counter thinking it would be safe up there. Later that evening, we were talking, and the dog walks up and lies down at our feet, chewing on something. I say, "tell me that isn't your new wallet." Long story short, Marc needs yet another new wallet. The next day (this past Monday), I was home with the dog, and left him unsupervised for about a half-hour. I come downstairs to check on him, only to find that he had taken my purse off the kitchen counter. I've put my purse in the same spot every day for months, and he'd never touched it until now. Amazingly, he did nothing to the purse, but he had completely destroyed the wallet (and associated credit cards) that was inside. He also managed to chew a corner out of the $20 bill I had.

The next day, when I left him unsupervised again (one of these days I will learn) he completely destroyed the cushions on two of our dining chairs. Apparently having a bajillion toys around the house isn't enough to keep him from trying to find new things to destroy. Such a good dog!

So, I can't believe I forgot to talk about Harvey in my last update! He's a 6-month old pup we adopted for my parents as a Christmas present. Not usually the advised thing to do, but we all felt like my parents missed having a dog around the house after Betsy passed away, and that was back in April, and we knew they'd never go out and get a dog themselves. So we found this very sweet (albeit very strong!) Bull Terrier mix at the Alameda Animal Shelter named Harvey.

I don't have a picture of him yet, but I'll post one soon. It's been so rainy and muddy here that he's been too dirty to be very photogenic. ;) He has a great temperment though, loves all people, and is pretty mellow around the house. And despite both being males, he and Bandit both get along great. It probably helps that they're both young, and both good with other dogs. Watching them play is pretty funny, since Bandit is the "gripper" type, in that he likes to grab a cheek or ear or collar of the dog he's playing with, and Harvey is more the kind that likes to bulldoze the other dog over with his head and tackle them to the ground. Harvey's a bit shorter and not as long as Bandit, but he definitely has a lot more muscle and outweighs him by probably a good 10 pounds. The two of them can go on for hours non-stop.

Christmas Tree

I also forgot to mention that I ended up fixing the Christmas lights. I just stripped the ends that the cats had chewed through, twisted the wires together, and taped it up, and voila! happy tree again. So we got a bit silly and took a picture of us and the pets in front of the tree to put in our Christmas cards. We figured it's only weird and sad if we had like, you know, more than two cats, right? Right. So there you have it, our lovely fake tree in (half of) all its glory. And a dog that's looking miserable in a santa hat because it's like the 30th picture we've taken.

Developmental Biology

Woot! I got my papers and my grade back for the class - A! I'm thinking I may have to take a Nutrition class now, since it seems like a few schools require it, but I have to find out where I can find an animal nutrition class, which I think will be a pain. There's also this Pharmacology class I really need to take for work, but I'm hesitant to because I don't want it to ruin my GPA, and I'm not sure it would look good on my transcripts to take a science course for pass/not pass. Fortunately, I've heard it's an easy class, but on the other hand, I don't know if I want to take two classes in one semester. Decisions, decisions.

On top of that, I'm still trying to find a part time job at a vet hospital, which isn't easy, since I work full time, which pretty much limits me to working at emergency hospitals, and they can't take volunteers. On the bright side though, I'm going to start participating in the "animal enrichment" program here at work, which basically means I go and play with and socialize the dogs we have here, but it counts as experience, and should be fun to do.

Stupid Flu, Part 2

I'm still getting better from this, although the phlegm thing has gotten pretty old at this point. I mean, how much mucus can the human body possibly produce? Seems like I hack up one booger and another one lodges itself in my throat right away. I can feel it everytime I swallow. So gross. Lunch, anyone? ;)

Okay, back to reading this stupid paper for work. :::grumble:::

Whew, talk about a long time since the last update. I've had my reasons, I swear! This is gonna be a longish update, so extra cookies to those who read it to the end. :)

I'm writing this from home, because I've been sick for the past week or so with the flu. I think I'm finally getting to the end, so I should be up for going to work tomorrow. I don't know why, but I always manage to get sick during my vacation. It sucks.

Return of the King

I didn't catch the Wednesday midnight showing for this, but we watched it on IMAX the Friday after it opened. It was soooooo good. The ending was a bit overlong, but I didn't really mind. About an hour and a half into it, Marc asked me what time it was. I showed him it was 10:30 (the show had started at 9). He was like, "ohmigod," and sunk into his chair. I thought he was going to throw a tantrum right there. He whispered to me, "I don't think I can take another 2 hours of this!" Luckily, the movie really picked up the pace at that point, and he survived. ;)

I've seen it twice so far, need to see it at least once more. I've finally watched the extended version of The Two Towers, and I wish they would've left a lot of the footage in. But I guess 4 hours is a long time to sit for a movie. ;)

Merry Christmas!

Marc and I spent the first half of our first week of vacation finishing up our Christmas shopping. We always say every year that we're going to get it done early, but I don't know who we're trying to kid. At least this year we managed to not have to shop on Christmas Eve. I'd say that's progress.

Marc and I exchanged presents early this year. Again. I blame Marc, he has no willpower. I think we exchanged them on the Sunday before Christmas. That's 1...2...3...4 days early. He got me a pair of tickets to the Lion King at the Orpheum in SF, and I got him these M&M ornaments and these fender strakes for the RX-8, which are these expensive 4 little pieces of metal. But they're pretty neat looking.

Christmas Eve, we had dinner at my parents' house. We spent Christmas day with Marc's family, and Christmas night at my aunt's house with my family. All in all, it was fun and relaxing, and it was good to spend time with family.

Stupid Flu

The Saturday before New Year's I started to feel achy all over, and I knew I was getting sick. We were leaving for skiing on Sunday, too. That Saturday we took Bandit to take his second herding instinct test. He did much better this time, as he was a lot less hesitant and more cooperative than last time. I'll have the video up tomorrow. Jan decided that he's ready, so we're going to start taking actual lessons soon. Fun!

Sunday morning we left for skiing with my brothers and my cousin Henry. We stayed at the Horizon Casino Hotel in Lake Tahoe, and Monday morning we went to Heavenly to ski. It was snowing like CRAZY. Only a couple lifts were open since the winds were so heavy, and we ended up leaving halfway through the day because the weather just got so bad. Plus, I was feeling pretty crappy from my cold. On Tuesday, we skiid a half day in the afternoon, which turned out to be really nice, as the weather was clear and the snow was perfect. We drove home that night, and I promptly passed out when we got home.

Anyways, that about wraps it up, the rest of my week was pretty much spent in bed, which sucked. Now I'm better and I think ready for work, which also sucks. Oh! I forgot to talk about Harvey. I'll have to put that in my next update, it's bedtime now. :)