July 2004 Archives

Yesterday, we actually managed to do non-dog stuff! Well, we still did some dog stuff, like take the dog to the park. We also went and bought him some new dog food, which was considerably more expensive than his old food. Part of the regiment for fixing his fear issues is a diet change. So we're changing from Eukanuba Premium Performance to Wellness Super5Mix. It's got human grade deboned chicken, sweet potatoes, potatoes, apples and other fruits and vegetables in it. All in kibble bites! Here's some painful pricing info: a 40 pound bag of Alpo costs $17, a 40 pound bag of Eukanuba costs $36, and a 30 pound bag of Wellness costs $42.

This food better make a difference, lol. I know we raised Betsy on stuff like Alpo and Pedigree, and she was fine for many years (arthritis and a degenerative muscle disease later in life, but that didn't start until she was 12 or 13). So who knows, this may all be voodoo mumbo jumbo. We'll see, heh. (Did I really just blog two paragraphs on dog food? How sad is my life?)

Anyways, we spent most of last night cleaning out some of the trash in our guest bedroom (since our garbage was having a special pick up), since that's kind of been the white elephant in our house. We know it's there, but no one wants to talk about it. We still have a bunch of clothes left to donate, and we need to get a bookshelf for the boxes of books we have in that room, but at least you can walk in there now. It doesn't look great, but it's better. I think we ended up with 4 big bags of trash.

We also watched Kerry's speech at the DNC last night. I was glad to see that it was better than I expected. Even Pat Buchanon said on MSNBC that if he didn't know who Kerry was beforehand, he'd be inclined to vote for him just based on that speech. It was well done.

Last night, Marc and I took Bandit to the playground after work. I try to do this at least a couple times a week, to get him used to the presence and noises of kids. We've been able to get fairly close to the playground with him being pretty relaxed. The only times so far where he's gotten agitated is when a child is running right at him, and even now it seems his agitation is easier to quell than it used to be. We've also spent some time watching kids playing soccer, and he actually gets excited about it, I think because people are running around and there's a ball being kicked around. If only everyone could carry a ball around!

After that, it was more work with the fan. He's improving. I used his tennis ball to get him to retrieve it around the vicinity of the fan. One time it rolled to where it was right under the fan. I tried to encourage him, and he really wanted it, but it was a bit much for him. He crawled up on it one way, then gave up and ran around the couch and tried approaching it from another direction before giving up again. He must have tried like 4 or 5 approaches on the fan, before he finally just lay down and looked at it from afar. So I went and moved the ball out a bit, and he c-r-a-w-l-e-d on his belly and got it at last.

Every day is like therapy for this dog!

Oh, he also has a problem with pica. I think he might be starting to grow out of this.

Insult?

Marc and I carpooled into work this morning, and we were driving in the carpool lane on 680. A few minutes later, right when the traffic started, a big SUV moves into the carpool lane. The person starts driving slower than the regular traffic. Usually this means that the person is either A) an idiot or B) a carpool cheater who is leaving themselves the opportunity to dart back in should a cop show up. Either way, it really defeats to purpose.

So Marc gets back into regular traffic and passes the SUV. I look over, and it's a lady who doesn't have a passenger. Maybe she had a baby in the back seat or something. Whatever, it doesn't make it less annoying. So Marc gets back in the carpool lane in front of the lady (the fact that we're able to pass should say something).

Annoyed, Marc decides to give the lady the finger as we pull in front. However, he raises his hand a tad too high and ends up turning on one of the overhead lights with his middle finger. Then he spends the next few minutes fumbling around trying to find the button to turn off the light.

Smooth, eh?

We're having a big company meeting and lunch today, and the company band is playing at the lunch. I thought I'd share with everyone the Roche Ambeaux. I'm not kidding, that's what the band is called. (There's also another group, called the Side Effects. Go go nerdy pharmaceutical humor!) Anyways, it's pretty funny. Having listened to them, I have to say that the lead singer lady is the weak link in this group. If only Sheryl Crow knew.

Anyways, last night was agility night. Marc stayed home to cook the chicken I marinated (well, I should say, to undercook the chicken I marinated). Bandit was doing great until someone turned on one of the fans. If you remember, a while ago he'd managed to get tangled up in the cord of our standing fan and pulled it down almost on top of himself. It scared him pretty badly.

Once the fan came on, he wanted to be nowhere near it, and unfortunately, our exercise was right next to it. Finally the instructor turned it off, and he was much better. We then moved on to another exercise, which was a few feet further away from the fan. The instructor thought it might be safe to turn the fan back on. It wasn't. This time, Bandit kept running off in the opposite direction of the fan. Even after we turned it off this time, he was just too stressed to do anything. So we ended up having to sit out on the last exercise of the class, just to give him a break.

It's my fault, really, since I'd started working with his fear of the fan a while ago, but didn't really keep up with it. So after class I worked with him a bit on it. I think we made a little progress, but I think it's going to take some time. I did find that treats didn't work as well (he gets suspicious of me when I use treats, because I think he knows now that I use them to bribe him to do something unpleasant). But when I started jumping around the fan, acting loony, and yelling "PUPPY PUPPY PUPPY!" in a high-pitched voice (which he's always loved), while playing with a tennis ball, he was much more relaxed, and more interested in me than in the fan. I may have to try that around strangers too, embarrassing as it may be.

Last little bit for today is to link to Al Franken's blog, where he addresses some of the Kerry "flip flopping" accusations. Also, there's an MP3 of when Sean Hannity called in to Franken's show yesterday, and the two of them go at it for about 20 minutes. It's pretty hilarious. The call occurs about 40 minutes in - you can download it here.

Okay, off to my free lunch! ;)

That's pretty much how I'm feeling this morning. Well, any morning really. Actually, that's how I feel all the time. I think it might be the size of my brain. When you have one as big as mine, it requires a lot of energy. That might be why I'm so sleepy all the time. My brain is ruining my life!

Anyways, remember that stuff I wrote for Dark Age of Camelot that got published? You can see my two pages here: Page 1 and Page 2

Last night Marc and I got our $100 Best Buy gift card (one of those credit card rewards points things). We had a couple coupons that were only good up until yesterday, so we decided to go shopping. It turned out to be harder than we expected to find stuff. What I wanted was too expensive, and Best Buy sells crap for RAM.

We did find this cute little case for Nintendo Gamecube games, which we picked up - 12 games consolidated into one little 3"x3" pouch! Marc was having trouble finding stuff too, but finally settled on getting the Tiger Woods golf game. I considered getting another memory stick for my digital camera, but decided to think about it for a while (don't know if I REALLY need one, even though it would be nice). So we left the store with half the money still on the card.

It was funny, while we were there, some lady was asking one of the employees for advice on computers. She was asking him if HP's were any good, and that she used to have a Dell. The employee was like, "Oh yeah...my favorite brands are HP and Sony." Surprise, surprise, those are the two main brands that Best Buy sells. I know you have to make the sale, but I wonder if he feels just a little scummy. Ever buy a computer from Best Buy? I have - talk about a total nightmare. I think Best Buy's main saving grace is their interest-free financing plans. If Fry's ever did something like that, they'd totally kick Best Buy's ass.

This morning, while I was getting ready for work, Bandit was alternating between chasing and grabbing his tail, and grabbing his dog tags in his mouth and dragging himself around the room. The dog has issues.

I'm starting to realize that my blogs are just becoming daily recounts of what we do, rather than really thoughtful or witty dissertations. I mean, I do have the occassional flashes of brilliance, but it seems like the rest is just about the minutiae of what Marc and I do each day, which must be boring to most. However, it's kind of serving a side purpose of being an online diary for me/us, so it's nice to have this record. I suppose you all could just skip what's boring to you, and read only the truly interesting stuff.

Did anyone of that make sense? I just had my first sip of coffee, and I'm not sure it's kicked in yet.

Anyways, it was another slacker weekend for us. Marc and I watched Mona Lisa Smile on Friday. It was an okay movie. I'm glad I didn't grow up then. We also had sheep herding after work, and some people were there to watch us do a mini demonstration. Of course, Bandit decided to be a complete butthead, so that didn't go so well. But later on we moved into a big field with a lot of sheep, and he did a lot better. Jan says we might be ready to do a small trial soon, which is pretty amazing to me. They must not expect much at the novice trials, lol.

Saturday we didn't have anything planned, so I took Bandit to Petsmart again. Well, no one from Melanie's first class showed up, so the two of us just walked him around the store, letting him see people. She also gave all the employees a bunch of treats, and asked them to give him some when we walked by. There were even some young girls who were volunteering at the adoption fair that were able to give him some treats. It was a good exercise, although I felt kinda bad for Melanie, since she probably could've taken a break or something if it weren't for us.

In the evening, Kenny came over and we went to go see Bourne Supremacy. Well, that was the plan at least. We got there about an hour early, and the showing was already sold out! We definitely weren't going to see Catwoman, so we just went to Blockbuster instead, and rented The Butterfly Effect, which was also okay. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and it was kind of interesting. I have to admit I preferred the "Happy Sappy" alternate ending.

I couldn't sleep that night. It was too hot, and I'd napped earlier in the day, so I wasn't very sleepy. By the time 3 am rolled around, I decided to go play on the computer to try to make myself sleepy. I finally got back into bed and dozed off at around 5 am. No doubt that threw off my clock pretty well, and I think I'm feeling the effects of it this morning....

Sunday I went to Petsmart in the morning and again in the afternoon, and Marc and I did some grocery shopping in between. In the afternoon class, Melanie was explaining to everyone what I was visiting for, and we joked that I basically live at Petsmart now. Which is pathetically starting to feel like the truth. I think I could probably teach an obedience class at this point. I actually kind of enjoy going to these classes, but it's pretty bad when the employees there all know Bandit now, and his hobbies. But the good thing is that he seems to be showing some improvement, and that's the important part.

This morning on my way to work I was listening to the radio, and they were talking about old cartoons. They were playing an old recording of the "He-Man" theme. I used to love He-Man! I remember when I was a little kid, and they released the toys, and my dad would take me to K-Mart when the store would open and the toys were still in their shipping boxes. Those were good times. :) I think I had He-Man, Cringer/Battlecat, Skeletor, Panthor, and She-Ra and her horse, Spirit. I still have those toys somewhere, lol.

Anyways, the He-Man theme was cool. But then they played the She-Ra theme song, which I'd totally forgotten. It was horrible! It was just amazing in its awfulness. They also played the Thundercats theme - "Thundercats, Thundercats, Thundercats, HO!!!" I actually hated that cartoon, because the girl that lived next door loved it, and always wanted to play Thundercats with me. I actually found her annoying, but she still kept coming over to our house. I don't know if my mom remembers, but this girl always came over to our house and ate our rice.

I remember all the cartoons I used to watch - My Little Pony, Care Bears, Transformers, Go-Bots, Bionic Six, Voltron - I miss any? Ah, the good 'ol days. Nowadays, cartoons seem like crap (although I loved Beast Wars, Batman, and Spiderman). I think Barney and the Power Rangers was the start of the downfall of children's television. Of course, I hear the She-Ra song, and wonder if maybe they were just as crummy back then. ;)

Yesterday, as Marc and I were leaving home from work, we got into a little argument about which car to take. He wanted to take the RX-8; I said that we should only drive that car when we really need to, since it gets worse gas mileage and uses only premium gas. He insisted on taking the car, even though he gets to drive it whenever we don't carpool, which happens fairly often. I put on my grumpy face for the drive down to my parents' house.

Later that morning, he sends me and e-mail saying, "Before you get all huffy about me driving the Mazda to work, look at the numbers. There isn't a huge difference in driving the Mazda to work, especially when you consider the haircut you get every 8 weeks or so."

"I'm sure this will put me in the doghouse, but I couldn't resist!"

Attached was this picture:

I replied, "Bandit's not using his crate right now, so that works out well for you."

Incidentally, the story behind Bandit not using his crate is because I sprayed it a couple days ago with a flea and tick spray that he hates, and now the butthead refuses to go inside it.

Games

I came across a couple of games that are kind of neat - you have to try to get yourself out of this room. The second one is the sequel, and kinda creepy.

The first one:

Crimson Room

Note, at one point you'll need a code, and unfortunately that part doesn't work. Highlight after this to see the explanation and for the code: The webpage doesn't work - the code is 1994.

This is the second, tougher room:

Viridian Room

Last night, after work, Marc and I went to see Two Brothers with Vicki and Deepali at the Milpitas super saver theater. It was Tuesday night, which meant that movies were only $1.50, so it was crowded. I'm still amazed at how many people are eager to save a buck.

While Marc and I were in line to get food, this one heavy-set woman standing behind us was like almost on the back of our heels. If we moved an inch, she moved an inch. At one point, I turned ever so slightly, and my elbow hit her boob. She didn't even flinch. Then she stood so close to Marc that her boobs were almost touching his back. He stood really still and kept giving me this "help me!" look.

The movie was pretty good - the tigers were really cute. It's hard for me to watch movies like that though, cause it makes me so mad. But the nice thing was that the theater was packed, so hopefully all the kids (and their parents) went home with a good message about conservation. There wasn't a whole lot of dialogue, and I swear, sometimes it seemed like everyone in the theater was talking. Too many kids, man.

Last night I watched the news and saw the video of the people who were caught abusing the chickens at the plant that provides chickens to KFC. You can read the article here. It was sickening. The people were throwing the live chickens on the ground and then jumping up and down on them, stomping them to death. I swear, if I could, I'd hang those people up by the balls.

Sorry, but things like this just make my blood boil.

Anyways, Marc called me yesterday, lamenting that no one had commented on his little lunch box doodle. Since I added it late, he was sure no one had seen it, so I promised him I'd mention it again here. :)

Marc and I got home from work last night, and didn't feel like cooking (what else is new, really). So we decided to go out for sushi. We went to downtown Pleasanton, but unfortunately, both of the sushi places there were closed on Monday. So no sushi. :( I've been really craving it too. Mmm...unagi...

So instead, we went to TGI Fridays. We ordered up the potato skins appettizer, and each had a burger. For dessert, we got the oreo ice cream sandwiches. Yummy! It was a LOT of food. Our waitress sucked.

After dinner we went to Best Buy to scope out what we were gonna buy with the $100 gift card we're getting from our credit card company. I showed Marc the video card I wanted. He asked me where I was going to get the other $80 from. I didn't have an answer. Fooey, I say.

So finally we got home, and I went upstairs and opened the door to our walk-in closet. Turned on the light, and I'm greeted with a "meow..." and a bleary-eyed Stubby. Yup, poor cat got locked up in the closet again all day. Amazingly, it didn't look like he destroyed anything in the closet. I'm not sure what he did all day. But the first thing he did when I let him out was go eat and poop.

Anyone watching "I Love the 90's" on VH1? It's kind of early for them to be reminiscing on the 90's already, but you gotta jump on the gravy train while it's running, I guess. It's still funny though, and the early ones have a lot of "I remember that!" moments. I'm such an addict for these series.

Also, I've been meaning to note this for some time, but my archiving system for this blog is borked right now. The sidebar only lists the entries for the current month, and going to the archive pages for each month gives you the last entry that month, but the sidebar is still only entries from the current month. I'm trying to find a way to fix it, but right now I'm clueless. So if anyone is familiar with Movable Type, pointers would be great.

I just took this test at selectsmart.com which shows how much you align with the various Presidential candidates. Overall my results weren't surprising, but I'm pretty surprised at how much I DON'T align with Bush. I expected it to be low, but 2% just makes me laugh.

1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%)
2. Nader, Ralph - Independent (93%)
3. Cobb, David - Green Party (93%)
4. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol, IL - Democrat (91%)
5. Clark, Retired General Wesley K., AR - Democrat (87%)
6. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (83%)
7. Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (83%)
8. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (76%)
9. Kucinich, Rep. Dennis, OH - Democrat (75%)
10. Gephardt, Rep. Dick, MO - Democrat (69%)
11. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (67%)
12. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (62%)
13. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (44%)
14. Lieberman, Senator Joe, CT - Democrat (36%)
15. Badnarik, Michael - Libertarian (29%)
16. Hagelin, Dr. John - Natural Law (22%)
17. Peroutka, Michael - Constitution Party (12%)
18. Bush, President George W. - Republican (2%)

11:27 AM

Okay, so every once in a while (emphasis on once in a while), I'm reminded of why I married Marc. So last night, when we came home from dinner, we each had a take-out box. Marc wrote a big "B" and a big "M" on our respective boxes. He thought it was funny.

Just now, I was pulling my box out of the plastic bag I brought it to work in, and I see this on my box:

It brought a big smile to my face. He's such a dork.

Not a particularly exciting weekend - on Friday we had sheep herding after work, and then Deepali and Will came over to watch Cabin Fever, which Marc and I rented since there was nothing else to rent. It was HORRIBLE. I think it's possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. The guy who directed it must have been on crack. It wasn't even scary, we just laughed the whole time because it was so dumb. The guy threw in a whole bunch of homages to different movies, like Deliverance, and homages are fine in movies, but they really ought to make sense, not just be thrown in there for the sake of it. This movie managed to get a "fresh" rating on rottentomatoes.com, which I don't understand, but I guess some of these critics didn't think it was the big steaming pile of poo poo that the four of us did.

On Saturday, I took Bandit to classes again in the afternoon, and then in the evening we went with Kenny and Henry to see I, Robot. I thought it was pretty good. Like summer movie, popcorn flick kinda good.

Sunday was very uneventful. I took Bandit to yet another class in the morning, and then again in the afternoon (some employees at Petsmart know us now, we're there so often). There was one couple that kept bickering throughout their class - Melanie said the husband was saying stuff like, "You get a D in training" to his wife. It was funny watching them fight.

Anyways, slow weekend. I napped a lot. I actually enjoy going to the Petsmart classes, but I think Marc would prefer to do something else (he stays home), so we should probably try to plan more fun things to do. :)

So after work yesterday, while my mom and I were on the way to go pick up the Mazda, my brother calls. Turns out he's stuck in Fremont, and his car won't start. So after I pick up the RX-8, I drive to the Raley's that he's stuck at, to try to help him jump the car. I pull into the parking lot, and spot his car, and luckily, there's a space open opposite it. Of course, some lady beats me to it by a second. So I pull up behind her and wait until she gets out. I say, "Excuse me, but do you think I could park in this space? I need to jump start that car that's right over there, and I need to pull up in front of it." Which I didn't think was a big deal, but the lady huffs and reluctantly gets back in her car. I barely had time to say thanks before she shut the door.

Watching her pull out, I could see why she was reluctant. It took her FOREVER. She had plenty of room, but she was moving so slowly. So finally I was able to pull in, and got close enough to Kenny's car. Unfortunately, we couldn't get it to jump. After a few tries we decided to just give up, since my grandmother was there too, and it was hot. So I took her home first, and then took Kenny home.

After that, I drove to Olive Garden to meet up with Ramona, Marian, Vicki, Cynthia, and Deepali for dinner. Just a bunch of us girls! It was fun to just hang out with everyone. I ate like five breadsticks. We were there for almost two hours. The bill came with a bunch of those Andes mints, and I ate mine and folded the wrapper back up so it looked like there was still a mint in there. I offered it to Deepali, but she said no thanks, and then Vicki, who also declined, and then finally Cynthia, who took it with some surprise, and then threw it back at me when she realized it was empty, lol. All three of them said they were wondering why I was being so nice - am I really so mean? That makes me sad. Okay, not really, hehehe.

By the time I got home, it was pretty late, so I basically gave Marc the three breadsticks I brought home for him (he likes them cold - sometimes I don't know how I could've married a man that prefers those things cold), changed, and plopped into bed.

And now it's Friday! Wahoo!

10:41 AM

I just found out that ESPN and ESPN2 have been showing the Great Outdoor Games this week, which has all these dogs competing in Frisbee and other sports. I can't believe I've been missing this! TiVo's gonna be busy this weekend. :)

11:09 AM

So I just went to go pick up some stuff from a coworker here. I get to his lab, and he says, "Bonnie...is that the same as the little girl from Gone with the Wind?"

I replied, "You mean the one that got thrown off the horse and died? Yeah."

11:23 AM

Okay, I can't seem to finish this blog today. So American Idol raised their age limit to 26! I still have a chance! I can totally go audition! Look out world! Hahaha.

Aside from dropping off the RX-8 at the shop last night (nothing wrong with it, it's just getting that stupid exterior protection crap we paid for), we pretty much did nothing, so there's not a whole lot to write about.

The one thing I did do was take a picture of the three dog toys in our house that have managed to survive. Remember the football? And the basketball? Both are still alive and kicking. And last weekend, Marc secretly bought Bandit the baseball version of those toys. I think because they're round, there's no good place to chew a hole in them. Anyways, he's turning into a regular sports-doggy. Here's the happy family (note Bandit's feet in the photo - he's not-so-patiently waiting for me to be done with his toys):

Oh, one funny thing about Bandit. He gets really agitated when Marc and I pretend to fight. Like we'll pretend to hit each other and yell, "ow!" and he starts to bark at us and paw at my arms and stuff. Lately it's funny, because we do that, and he gives off this agitated bark, and goes and grabs his toy and shoves it at us. It's really cute, haha.

First things first, I finally uploaded one of the videos of the fireworks from the 4th. It's a large file (22MB), and zipped, and you can download it here.

So last night was agility night. This time we actually got to do something new! It's an obstacle called the A-frame, which is basically a long ramp up, and a long ramp down, making the shape of an "A." The dog has to run up and over it.

None the dogs in the class had any problems with it, except for, you guessed it, Bandit. The second we walked up to it, he balked. So the trainer had me put my hand in his collar and gently but firmly guide him up. We had to coax him up by putting treats every few inches up the ramp. It took quite a few minutes before we finally reached the top, and then coming down was easy. The next time was very different - he didn't hesitate at all, and we had no problems going up and over after that. He just needed to realize that it wasn't going to try to eat him or something.

He let the little kid pet him again too. This time the kid was just walking by us and gave Bandit a quick pat on the head. It was funny though, right afterwards, Bandit turned around and looked at me as if to say, "okay Mom, I let him pet me, now where's my treat?" since I've basically been giving him treats anytime he acts nicely around a stranger.

So that was pretty much that for the evening!

We didn't do anything terribly exciting yesterday, so there's not much to write about on that front. I took Bandit to the park after work, and just fed him lots of treats while we watched all the kids playing. He woofed a few times, but other than that, he did okay. The Gentle Leader seemed to help too.

Warning: ranting ahead...

I was reading yesterday about how a man was killed in Australia by a shark while surfing. The article was talking about how his brother was trying to get the authorities to not kill the shark that did it. Now see, I don't get that. Why the hell would these people want to kill that shark? That pisses me off to no end. It's not like another shark in the same situation wouldn't have done the same thing. The one that killed the guy isn't some kind of rogue shark - it's a shark, for crying out loud! You go in the water and you paddle around looking like a goddamn otter, what the hell do you think a shark is gonna do? At least the brother seems to understand that. I swear, I hate people sometimes.

It's like mountain lion attacks too - well, hello, we've encroached so far on their habitat, where do you expect them to go? Maybe we could just stop hiking there - or you know, accept that sometimes when we do things, we take risks, kind of along the lines of swimming in shark-infested waters.

The shark article also has a mention about how the populations of smaller sharks are being decimated by Asian fishermen who catch the sharks, cut off their fins, and then throw them back into the water to die. Which is why I haven't had sharks' fin soup in years now, and I wish people would stop serving/buying it.

People suck. I can't stand the way we rape this planet.

Okay, end of rant.

So on a more light-hearted note, here's an funny EBay auction. Hmm, I wonder if a slightly used Rav4 would buy a decent boob job? ;)

My coworker, Peter, sent me this video of police chasing this guy in a Mustang. It's pretty cool, that guy could drive!

Friday

I took Friday off, since Marc was getting his wisdom teeth removed in the morning. He was lucky though, since all four of his were abrupted, and not impacted. The whole thing took about an hour, and they called me in to the back to help him out to the car. He looked pretty goofy, like he was totally stoned. I wish I'd had a picture.

I had some trouble getting his Vicodin prescription filled, because there was some concern that he might be allergic to it (it's a long story). So while I tried to get ahold of his doctors to clear up the prescription, his anesthetic was wearing off, and the ibuprofen wasn't enough for the pain. I finally managed to get it filled, thank goodness.

For food, Marc bought lemon jell-o, lemon yogurt, and lemon pudding. He really liked the lemon jell-o.

He slept most of the afternoon, and I watched TV for the rest of the day. In the evening, we met up with Deepali, Will, Cynthia, and Vicki for dinner at Fuddruckers. Marc was actually able to eat a cheeseburger! I had to eat rice porridge for days after my wisdom teeth, heh. Then Marc went home, and the rest of us went to see King Arthur (I tried to get Marc to go, but he was convinced he'd be bored, so he refused...sigh). The movie wasn't too bad - it was entertaining for the most part. I actually think Marc might have liked it, since it was pretty similar to Troy, and he liked that movie. During the previews, they showed a preview for the new Resident Evil movie, which is based on a video game. It looked pretty dumb. Some guy in the audience yelled out, "why'd you have to ruin my game?!" I think that was the best part of the preview.

Saturday

Saturday was another early day for us, since we had sheep herding in the morning. We were watching Jan and her dog, Quick, setting up the sheep into the proper pens, when one of the sheep actually broke off and started chasing the dog! The sheep had some guts - it chased the dog for like five minutes. Jan even tried to wave it off, but it just ignored her.

After that, we went down to Milpitas to have lunch with my parents and my aunts. After lunch, we went to visit my grandfather's grave, since it was the anniversary of when he passed away. I don't visit as often as I should, even though I think about him often.

When we got back home I immediately put Bandit in the car, and it was off to Petsmart, to try to make the rest of the class we were supposed to be at that day. Bandit did okay, except for one time when I had my back to the front of the store, and 3 or 4 kids ran up to the training area, and Bandit went berserk. But he did manage to pretty quickly make friends with one of the store workers, who was this big guy that I thought would totally freak him out. The guy was surprised that he was a shy dog at all. At the next class, there was a little girl who out of the blue ran over to where Bandit and I were sitting, but she didn't look at him, and he just sniffed her and didn't freak out.

In the evening Marc and I went back down to Milpitas to watch Saved! at the cheapy theater. It was pretty good! We both thought it was pretty funny.

Sunday

I got to sleep in for the first time in the weekend on Sunday, although I had yet another Petsmart class for Bandit at 11:30. Then Melanie told me there was another class at 2 that we could come back for. I told her I'd have to see if Marc wanted to do anything in the afternoon. She replied, "yeah, he's probably thinking he'd like to have a life outside of doing dog stuff!" But we had some pet things to buy anyways, so Marc went back with me for the 2 pm class. He shopped while I did the class.

After we got back, I took a nap, and had a dream about, of all things, Petsmart. Well, I'm pretty sure it was Petsmart, because Melanie was there. But it was a complete disaster zone, and I'm pretty sure there were monsters there. There was water flowing down this channel, and these people were being swept away. I heroically leapt out and grabbed their legs to save them. Well, I thought I grabbed one leg each, but it turned out to be both legs of the same guy, so I had to ride down the channel to save the other guy. There was also a part of my dream where I was with two other people, and one of them went crazy and started killing people. There was a room where this person was keeping body parts in a big bucket of water. This was right before the Petsmart part. It was a wacky nap.

Marc went to the store and bought more lemon jell-o. I can't figure out which of us is nuttier.

Marc forgot to feed Bandit yesterday, so to ease his guilty conscience he wanted to take the dog to the dog park after dinner. We have a pretty nice one close by, that's a fairly large park.

The more I go to dog parks, the less I start to like them. For Bandit, it's great, because he gets to socialize with other dogs (although he's more interested in us throwing a tennis ball for him). But I hate dealing with the people and politics there. For instance, yesterday, there was this large Great Dane at the park. This dog was a vocal sort, in that he would bark at other dogs - not in any aggressive way, he just stood there and barked. It's not necessarily a desirable thing, and the owner could probably try to curb that behavior, but this guy didn't seem to care. Stupid owner #1.

So this Great Dane goes up to another dog and starts barking at it. It's not attacking or doing anything aggressive, just barking. Well, the other dog's owner doesn't seem to either get this nor like this, so what does he do? He smacks the Great Dane on the face. He's lucky the dog didn't respond aggressively. Stupid owner #2. Now, if the Great Dane's owner decided to squirt his dog with water to curb the barking, that would be one thing. But should you really hit a dog you don't know? He probably felt threatened by it, given that after that he started waving his leash at it, but he was being pretty dumb about it.

Of course, the Great Dane's owner saw this and walked over. I don't know what was said, and the other guy left immediately afterwards (both guys really seemed like jerks). Anyways, stuff like this just annoys me about dog parks. Because not everyone understands dog behavior, and not everyone is the most considerate dog owner. We personally had one dog that was acting a bit aggressively towards Bandit, but he was just ignoring the other dog, and the lady was on top of it, squirting her dog, so we didn't worry too much about it.

After the park, we stopped by Dairy Queen for ice cream. We left Bandit in the RX-8 (he sits on the passenger floor in front of me when we use that car) - when we were placing our order we saw that he had jumped into the driver's seat and was sitting behind the steering wheel. I was cracking up, because it totally looked like he was sitting in the car waiting to pick someone up. I wish I'd had my camera. He stayed like that the whole time we were in there eating.

Anyways, today is my Friday again! Marc is getting his wisdom teeth out tomorrow, so I need to stay home and babysit him. He's being a big 'ol wuss about it, so everyone needs to tell him to suck it up and take it like a man. Hahaha. ;)

Last night was agility class night, and it was just Bandit and I this time, since Marc didn't feel like going. A lot of it was review stuff still, but we did get to go over the whole dogwalk this time, which was new for us. Bandit just flew over that thing.

We have two instructors in the class - Dorothy, who taught our SPCA classes and knows us, and Steve, who's new to us. Steve totally thinks Bandit is a girl. Even after I say "Good Boy!" after an exercise, he still refers to the dog as "she." A lot of people still think he's a girl even though his name is Bandit. I didn't think it was really a girly name, but I guess it is. Or maybe people think we named our girl dog "Bandit" like some people name their daughters "Charlie." Who knows.

We made some progress on socializing yesterday too. There's a lot of little kids in this class, and one of them is this 6 year old boy. We were in line behind them, and the kid was squatting and petting another dog. Bandit actually went up to him and sniffed his ear. I had a good hold on his leash, but I didn't want to pull him away and make him think it was a bad thing to do (I'd been popping treats into his mouth every time the kid had walked by). And he did fine! He continued to sniff the kid's head, and the boy was really good, he stayed still and let Bandit sniff him. I thanked the kid afterwards. A few minutes later, Bandit even let the kid pet him on the head, which is HUGE for him and kids. I've never seen him let a child that small touch him before, nevermind pet him on top of the head. He also let a strange man pet him on the head too, and this guy was even standing. I think being around other dogs definitely helps him feel more confident and at ease. It was really nice progress!

It was pretty late by the time I got home, but Marc waited for me for dinner, and we went and ate at Denny's because we were lazy. Then it was TV for a bit, and time to snooze!

Marc told me this morning that I was singing the Chicken of the Sea song in my sleep. I don't remember dreaming about tuna. Wierd.

That was a long weekend, but not long enough.

Friday

Marc had Friday off, and I took the day off. We woke up really early, and drove down to the Social Security office in Fremont, with all the documents in hand that I needed for my name change. It turned out to be easier than we expected - I think we only waited for like 15 - 20 minutes before we were done. While we waited, I debated on what to do with my middle name. I was thinking about hyphenating it to Shieh-Lau, which I don't even know for sure that you can do. I didn't want to hyphenate the last names, since that's just too complicated and messy. Anyways, we decided that was going to be too complicated, so I just left it as Shieh.

From the SS office, we went to the DMV office, and that wasn't bad either, only took about an hour. And that was that! We went to the bank too, to get that changed, but I still have to take care of all my credit cards and other junk. That's gonna be the biggest PITA probably.

I was telling Marc that it felt kind of wierd not to have my old name anymore - and that it felt like it was a temporary thing, hahaha. I mean, I was born with one name, and now I'm gonna die with another. It's a bit trippy.

After we did all that, we went to Costco, to buy food and stuff for Sunday's party. It was pretty crowded in there - apparently we're not the only ones who decided to take Friday off.

We had Bandit's sheep herding lesson in the evening, which went fairly well. Marc and I rented Secret Window, which was a really wierd, creepy movie.

Saturday

I took Bandit to Petsmart on Saturday, and he did okay. He seems fine with people who are sitting down, and when there's another dog around, he has no problem letting strange people, even kids, pet him.

Bill and Brenda and Hayden came over in the afternoon to hang out, since we hadn't seen them in a while. We ordered out from Armadillo Willy's (got the Belly Buster) for dinner, and played some games on the Gamecube. Hayden is so big now! He's saying some words now, which is so cute. Brenda was trying to teach him how to say "Bandit," which came out kinda like "Bun-dah." It was really adorable.

After they left, we spent the rest of the evening running to and from the store, buying last-minute things, and prepping stuff for Sunday. We'd bought beef ribs to make, but after looking at them and deciding they didn't have a lot of meat on them, we picked up some pork spare ribs instead. At least the beef ribs were super cheap.

Sunday

Sunday morning we got up, gave the dog a bath, and started preparing the grill. I'd boiled the ribs and put on the rub the night before, so it was just a matter of throwing them on the grill. I did them in two batches, since I didn't have enough room on our little charcoal grill, and they need to cook for about 4 hours.

Well, stupid me totally forgot to open the vents on the bottom of the grill, which keeps the fire going. So we kept feeding the stupid thing coals, and it kept cooling off. So for the first batch, some of the leaner pieces came out more like jerky. The bigger, fatter pieces managed to turn out fairly tender. I figured out the vent thing about an hour into cooking the second batch, so luckily those turned out much better. I served those first, of course. I was pretty pleased with how those turned out.

People started showing up a little before 5 pm - my parents and grandmother were the first to arrive. Marc started cooking the chicken on our big gas grill. We also had garlic bread, which he put on the grill for a while, before he realized you were supposed to cook it IN the bag. So he put it back in the bag and cooked it some more, and it ended up being a little overdone (but not bad). My dad thought it was smoked chicken when I cut it up and was bringing it to the table.

We had lots of food!

When it got dark, we got ready to do fireworks. We had about $130 worth of fireworks, heh. Leslie went out and bought a few more, too. It was a good show, although the downside was that it was super windy. Our big finale firework turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, too. We'll have to try something else next year. Marc got some of them on video, but I haven't had a chance to look at them yet - if they turned out, I'll put them up.

Then everyone went home, we cleaned up, and we went to sleep, exhausted!

Monday

We totally slept in on Monday. When we finally woke up, we had some leftovers for lunch, then bummed around the house watching TV for a bit. In the afternoon, Kenny came up, and we went to go see Spiderman 2. There were tons of kids at the movie. One girl behind us insisted on repeating all the lines that she thought were funny. And I know she thought they were funny, because she'd say, "Oh, that's funny!" I wanted to smack her. Other than that (and the many crying babies), it was a really good movie. I think I liked it better than the first one.

We didn't do much the rest of the day. It was kind of a wasted day, I guess, but it was nice to just rest and kick back and do nothing. :)

Our herding trainer, Jan, sent this to me in an e-mail yesterday. I thought it was kind of nice (and kind of apt for Jan) - on a side note, herding lessons are funny, because while I'm out there working the dog and sheep, Marc and Jan are always lounging out there, talking about politics and other random stuff, and just laughing their heads off. Meanwhile, I'm bumbling around with smelly, noisy sheep for company.

Today is my Friday! I took tomorrow off - I was planning on finally doing my name change (yes, I know it's been over a year, but do you really expect any less from Procrastination Bonnie? Heck, my mom's been too lazy to do it for almost 30 years now.). I went to the DMV's website, and the earliest appointment is the end of July, lol. So I may just have to go wait in line, which totally sucks.

Four-day weekend, here I come!