November 2004 Archives

I love the holiday season. It's a little annoying to see all sorts of Christmas stuff up in the stores right after Halloween, but in truth I really enjoy that holiday spirit, commercialized as it may be (which reminds me that I need to go get a copy of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" one of these days).

So I think I'll be switching back and forth from the holiday music on 96.5 and sports talk on the radio. This past week or so I've become a sports talk junkie. Maybe it was the whole Pacers/Pistons thing, or the suspense about whether or not Cal is going to go to the Rose Bowl, but I just can't stop listening to it.

Anyways, I haven't put much thought into Christmas presents yet, I'm sorry to say. These things tend to sneak up on me - I think I have plenty of time, and the next thing I know it's Christmas Eve. It's like that every year.

I have plenty ideas for presents for myself though!

Man, I can't believe the 4-day weekend is already over.

Thursday morning Marc and I went to go pick up pies for Thanksgiving dinner. Marc went to Marie Callender's to pick up banana cream, lemon meringue, and apple, and I went to Baker's Square to get their yummy Caramel Pecan Silk Supreme pie. Marc spent most of the day at his brother's house, so I bummed around our house for a while. Then we went to my Aunt Judy's house for dinner.

We had a LOT of food. My mom made the turkey, and it turned out pretty good. We always have a mix of your traditional ham and turkey and Chinese food. Which actually turns out to be a pretty good meal. A couple of my aunts came up from Texas, so we had a pretty big family gathering. Afterwards, us "kids" went and played some 90's Trivial Pursuit before heading home.

Friday is pretty blurry for me...I can't really remember what we did that day. I think we spent a good part of the day at Steve and Erin's house. Which I think is right, because I remember watching the Texas/Texas A&M game there. That's right, Marc's cousin and aunt came by to visit that day.

Saturday morning we got up really early and drove down in the pouring rain to San Jose to meet up with Melanie and her boyfriend. We drove down to Santa Cruz together (thankfully the rain had stopped) to take Lucas and Bandit to the beach. Bandit had a blast chasing the other dogs up and down the beach, while Lucas dug holes in the sand. I felt bad for Lucas because he always gets jealous when Bandit's playing with other dogs, and Bandit always ignores him when other dogs are around. There were a couple times when Bandit was chasing another dog and Lucas would just run up and slam into Bandit. I think one time Bandit got the wind knocked out of him, because he kind of sat down for a bit, lol.

We were there for about an hour when these people showed up with some little kids, so it was time to go. It was fun though - cold, but a blast for the dogs.

After lunch I took Bandit sheep herding while Marc stayed home to nap. I have to admit I got pretty frustrated this week because he just wasn't minding my commands. Jan seems to think we're doing alright though, so I trust her judgement.

In the evening Marc had to go help with his mom, so I went to my parents' house for a post-Thanksgiving dinner. I brought Bandit with me, who was pretty pooped from a long day of fun dog stuff. Harvey was pretty excited to see him.

Dinner was good, although we had some drama (of course) and the party ended a little early. I stayed to help clean up a bit and chatted a while with my brothers and parents. My dad's done more of the house with the Pergo floors, and it's looking pretty good now. I got home around 12:30 am, and the dog and I were both snoozing pretty quickly.

Sunday morning I went down to Steve and Erin's house to help Erin while Marc, Steve and Jacob went to the 49er game. Erin and I played some Scrabble (my best word was "envious," which is what Erin probably was after I beat her, muahahaha ;)) and watched the game on TV. The Niners were playing Miami, so it was a pretty pathetic game.

When the guys got back we had pizza for dinner, and I went home while Marc stayed again overnight. I played on the computer for a while, did laundry, and went to bed.

Oh, and I got two new purses and a new wallet this weekend! I'm very excited, although I can't decide which purse to use first, hehe.

Hope everyone else had a good Thanksgiving. :)

Cal 41, Stanfurd 6

Oh yeah! Kenny came over on Saturday and we watched the Big Game at our house. Leslie managed to get free tickets from his manager, so he went to the game, the big loser. It was loads of fun watching Cal beat up on Stanford...makes up for the mediocrity I had to live through while I went there.

In the evening, we went to Steve and Erin's house, to help Marc babysit the kids. Jacob asked one of us to snuggle with him when we tucked him in for bed, which was really cute.

On the downside, one of the neighbors came over and informed us that his daughter had backed into the driver's side door of our RX-8. Yup, there's a nice big dent in the door now.

I took Bandit to Petsmart on Sunday morning. We had some close encounters with a few kids, but Bandit did pretty well. I think Melanie and I are getting faster with our reaction times and getting his attention sooner. One kid was even swinging his chair around and Bandit stayed down and looked fairly relaxed.

I drove down to Fremont afterwards and Marc and I took his mom out to lunch. Then we kind of just hung around the house until Steve and Erin and the kids came home. We went home and pretty much did chores and stuff the rest of the evening.

All in all, aside from the game, it wasn't a terribly exciting weekend. I'd probably write more, but I've got a lot to do at work this week, and I'm stressed!

Well, I'm just waiting for someone to drop something off for me here at work, and then I'm going home. I feel like I'm going to puke, and I probably wouldn't have come into work if I didn't need to get this thing from this person. I feel bad too, because I hate being sick around people.

Marc and I watched "The Apprentice" at Steve and Erin's house last night, since Marc was staying over. I was surprised at what happened, although it had crossed my mind because I couldn't see how you could pick who was worse between the two. I'll miss Maria's maniacal ways.

So last night I was in bed with Snuggles and Bandit. Bandit actually fell asleep on this bed this time. Now, I've heard him dream before when he was sleeping in his crate. He'll start whimpering in the middle of the night. This time, he'd barely fallen asleep, and he was on the bed next to me. He started inhaling and exhaling really deeply, and his feet twitched, and he would let out whimpers. I don't know what he was dreaming about, but he was really worked up about it!

The freakiest thing was that his eyes were halfway open. I read somewhere that dogs have a third, transparent eyelid, so I guess it's not unusual for him to have his eye partway open while sleeping. Anyways, this whole time I'm watching his eyes twitch around like crazy. His pupils were dilating too. It was pretty freaky.

I wonder what he was dreaming about. Sheep? Cats? Scary little kids?

So, I'm sitting here at work, nursing a latte and feeling pretty darn miserable. I hate coming to work sick, but I had promised to do something for a coworker, and I couldn't leave them hanging. So here I am, a little germ incubator at work.

I was going to leave early today too, but I just got roped into a meeting at 2. I suppose I'll just go home after the meeting.

Isn't sleeping one of the worst things when you're sick? I mean, it's nice to get rest and all, but I kind of dread it. Because really, for 7 or 8 hours, all the junk in your sinuses is just building up in your nose and throat. And in the morning, it's like you don't even know where to start, there's so much junk.

Also, this past week I've been waking up on my own a few minutes before the alarms are set to go off, mostly because I have to pee. Marc says it's a sign I'm getting old. I'm so glad that my ability to sleep like a college student is being compromised by my bladder, of all things.

Marc was home last night, so we watched "Lost" and "West Wing." "Lost" was pretty good this week, but I really want to know what's going on already. It was good to have some humor in this one.

I think I've put on a few pounds this week. I really feel fat. I think it's because we've been eating out almost every night, and I've been eating out for lunch a lot. Last night, I had a burrito that was bigger than Jacob's head.

Okay, I need a nap now.

Well, I've been fending off a cold for the past week, and it hasn't really been bothering me much. But I think today it's worse, and I don't feel so hot. And this may be TMI, but the past few years I've had serious mucus issues when I get sick. It's really gross.

It was Marc's turn to take care of his mom last night, so he stayed over at Steve and Erin's, and I was home alone. I took Bandit to agility class after work (I got stuck at work, so we were a tad late). He did well! We managed to do a nice series of obstacles without him running off, and he did the weave poles very nicely. I think the new tug lead I bought him really helped his motivation.

His is multi-colored, but it's really nice, it doubles as a leash and a toy, and he gets a lot more excited about it than hot dogs.

For dinner I went the joint A&W/KFC restaurant and got two pieces of chicken, cheese fries, and a root beer float. It's the dinner of champions. Actually, it was kind of gross. I probably could've done without the chicken. I think having KFC once every three years is about sufficient.

I spent the rest of my night playing games on the computer. In hindsight, considering my dinner, I really should've gone for a walk or something.

I tried to get Bandit to sleep on the bed again to keep me company with Marc gone, but he only stayed on the bed for a couple minutes before going to his crate to sleep. However, this morning when I rolled over to hit the snooze button on my alarm, I heard a "thump" on the bed, which turned out to be Bandit's head, which had been resting on my chest. I don't know how long he'd been there, but he'd come up in the bed and snuggled up next to me and fallen asleep with his head on my chest.

Well, as pretty much all of you who read this blog know, my father-in-law, Dave Edwards, passed away on Thursday, Nov. 4 of an apparent heart attack. It was completely unexpected, and to be honest, I'm not really sure it's sunk in for me yet even now.

Needless to say, I haven't had much time nor desire to blog. We've all been pretty busy this past week, and everyone is pretty tired. Marc and I have been spending most of our time at Steve and Erin's house to help take care of his mom.

A few days ago we discovered that Marc's dad had been posting very regularly on this cruising message board (they loved to go on cruises). The site put up a very nice tribute to him on their front page, which you can see at CruiseBuggie.com near the middle of the page. We were amazed at the outpouring of emotion on the forums upon hearing the news. It was pretty touching.

Snoopy has been staying with us, and we're starting to visually see him losing weight. We should weigh him at some point.

As for this weekend, Marc and I met up with Leslie on Saturday night and went to see The Incredibles. Terrific movie, I loved it. I can't wait to see it again. They also had the trailer for the new Star Wars movie, which looks like it might be good. I have hope.

Sunday morning I woke up early and took Bandit to sheep herding. Man, he really loves to work now. It used to be that if we asked him to do too much, he'd quit. But now, he's so focused on his sheep, and even when we're taking breaks he's at the gate raring to go back in. It's very cool, even if it is a double-edged sword, because now he's so focused he acts like he doesn't even see or hear me when we're out there.

In the afternoon, Melanie came by and picked me up (she got lost on the way to the house like everyone else does) and we drove up to Richmond for a dog aggression seminar. It was pretty interesting, although after 4 hours our butts were pretty sore. We were laughing about how everyone at the lecture was a woman. There was literally one guy there, and I think he was with someone. It was all very geeky, but fun.

Anyways, I think I'm gonna go home now, because I feel pretty crappy today. Work has at least been busy, so it's been okay.

I should mention that I had written almost this entire entry this morning, only to click on a stupid link in Outlook and have it all disappear. I was none too pleased with that.

Yesterday after work, Marc and I went to Petsmart so that I could do some shopping to drown my sorrows. We bought Bandit a holiday version of his favorite stuffed dog (which as of this AM is now unstuffed), as well as a rope tug. I was looking for a rope leash for agility, but they didn't carry any.

So, feeling a bit better, I've decided that I need to stop being angry and start thinking about the future. It's time to get really involved, and time to start really working for change. Our country has made in-roads on racism, and today a couple like Marc and I can get married. Progress just takes time.

Anyways, we watched "Lost" last night. Pretty good, but not as good as the last few eps. I still have no idea what's going on on that island. I hope it's not cheesy.

This week seems to have gone by pretty fast, thankfully. I'll be glad when the weekend rolls around.

I've got about a million words in my head right now, and all of them are laced with bile. So I'm just going to not say any of it right now, at least not here. All I can say is that when the future for our children and grandchildren comes, people should remember how they voted today, and their accountability in it.

The current cultural climate in this country troubles me greatly. People need to stop legislating their moral opinions upon others. This blog says it best.

Taken from another blog:

Senator-elect Jim DeMint: Thinks that unwed pregnant women and gays are unfit to be schoolteachers.
Senator-elect Tom Coburn: Wants the death penalty for abortion doctors.
Senator-elect John Thune: Mr. School Prayer Amendment.

I particularly love the irony of Mr. Coburn's position.

Sad, sad day.

Don't forget to vote today!

Marc and I voted first thing this morning - we were like the third people in line. I don't know how many times I must have checked and re-checked my ballot. We have way too many initiatives in this state though.

Either way this election turns out, I'll be glad when it's over. I'm so drained by the whole process. I think I'm going to try to volunteer next time, so that I'll actually be doing stuff and not just watching and waiting.

Alright, lots of work to do today, so that's all she wrote!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Marc and I had a small party at our house on Friday night. We carved pumpkins (you can see mine above), and played some Trivial Pursuit. I didn't get to bed until 3 am, I was exhausted! Cynthia won our pumpkin carving contest. Kenny did a great job on his too, but he was exempt from winning since he's family (and he's had lots of practice before).

You can see all the pumpkins and other pictures here. The photos are in the Halloween 2004 album.

I dragged myself out of bed Saturday morning and went to teach. The kid that's the pain in the rear didn't show up (he ended up showing up in Kenny's class later that day). After that I rushed home and took Bandit to his sheep-herding lesson.

In the evening we went to the Cal-ASU game with Kenny and Leslie. I think I read that it was the latest start time ever for a game at Memorial Stadium. I brought a blanket, which was a good thing, since it was freezing at the game. We sat by some families with kids again, but this time the kids were so well behaved. You could totally tell it had a lot to do with the parents. Which makes me feel a little better, heh.

We grabbed some late dinner at Denny's afterwards (I had breakfast, of course), then went home and crashed.

Sunday morning I took Bandit to Petsmart in his sheep costume. Melanie had Lucas' cat costume, and we took some pictures of the dogs. It was hilarious, I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard.

Here's another pic of Bandit in his costume (which he seems to actually like):

It was so funny, totally worth the two weeks it took me to make it. :)

We went over to my parents' house in the evening to help my dad move some furniture - he just finished putting hardwood floors in the living/dining rooms, which looked really good. We had dinner there while Bandit played with Harvey.

After a day of playing with all his friends (Snoopy, Lucas, and Harvey), Bandit was pretty pooped.

We didn't get a single trick-or-treater Sunday night. Talk about a bummer - we had like 5 pumpkins out there!

Anyways, don't forget to vote tomorrow, everyone!