RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) We had to get rid of our couch to put up the Christmas tree!  Well, that's kind of misleading, because the couch was WAY past its expiration date and needed to be thrown away anyway.  We'd gotten it a few months before we were married, and it had been thoroughly sat upon in it's time in our house.  It wasn't even in any shape to donate or give away, unless someone wanted to risk tetanus by way of springs.  When we were trying to figure out where we were going to move things so that we could put up the tree, we just decided that it was a good opportunity to finally move it out.  We had a problem, though.  We couldn't remember how it even got into the house in the first place.  It had to be through the front door, as the garage door was broken when we originally bought the house, but try as we might we couldn't wedge it out the door.

(As an aside, I was still dressed for church when we started moving the thing out of the house. I helped move the couch in a dress and church shoes. If I'd been wearing a hat, it would have been perfect.)

We finally realized that since the couch was being thrown away, we didn't have to be careful with it, and so the only way to get it out of the house was to shove it over the stoop railing and into the front yard. Steve guided it over the edge and I pushed it until the point where gravity took over and then shoved it.  About that time, the neighbor lady turned the corner to see a couch being forcefully ejected from our house.  It never fails.  Oy.  We managed to get it to the street and out of our lives forever!  Thank you, couch, for providing seating for so many friends!

Of course, until we manage to get another chair or something, we have nowhere for people to sit comfortably when they come to visit.  Slowly but surely, we are making our house as inhospitable to others as possible!  Maybe next we can get a piranha filled moat!

2) I know I said I wasn't going to talk about Butler anymore, but I lied. I miss him so much.  In some ways, I think his dying has been harder on me than when we had to put Bear down. I honestly think I'd stopped thinking of Butler as a dog (I didn't forget he was a dog, so don't call the men with the nets) but he'd become more like a short, hairy roommate who watched TV with me and who I shared chips with.  We were bros.  I talked to him all the time and we took naps together.  He knew all my secrets.  After Bear died, we spent a lot more time with Butler inside so that he wouldn't get lonely, and I think it kept me from being lonely, too.  Now that he's gone I keep thinking that if I'd just known what was wrong sooner, we could have gotten him to the vet in time. I hate to think his last couple of hours were scary and painful. He tried to let us know he needed help, but we didn't understand in time, so I feel like it was my fault he died.  I feel less like I've lost a pet, and more like I lost a friend or family member and it's really weird because he wasn't human.  Some people understand, but others don't.  His absence is very conspicuous and I feel it every time I'm at home. I even feel bad about vacuuming because I know that his fur will eventually be all gone and as much of a plague as it always was, I don't want it to be gone.  That probably really is weird.

Another strange thing is that people keep trying to give us dogs!  I love that they are trying to help and want us not to be sad, but it's like losing an uncle or something and someone saying "Oh, I'm sorry, but here's this other old guy you can hang out with!"  We can't get another dog until I'm sure that I won't expect him/her to be like Butler, because that would be unfair.

Anyway, I miss him a lot.  Not even otters are helping me.

3) So, enough with that!  Feelings....gross.

4)  Have I ever mentioned how uncomfortable I am to go out with people who are cheap?  I'm not talking about people who are conserving their money for some reason, or who don't have much to begin with, but honestly, outwardly, cheap people. They are so rude and the worst of it usually comes out in those people when you go to restaurants* with them.

The other night, I had dinner with an otherwise delightful friend who asked how much a certain menu item was.  After finding out, they LOUDLY exclaimed that it was a rip off, and that they (the restaurant) could just keep it! Then he went on to talk about how much  it was and how he could make 5 of them at home for that price. He just kept on. I wanted to sink into the floor. I've also had lunch with someone who once got the cheapest thing on the menu, and then literally spent the next 10 minutes after the meal bragging about how cheap the thing they ate was! I wasn't sure if I should congratulate them for being thrifty or if I should smother them with a pillow for bragging.  I don't care how much or how little money a person has, we can all trim our sails in one way or another to hang out together, but seriously, don't talk about your money.  It's crude and embarrassing, and there is never a good way to respond to it.  Also, be nice to your waitress/waiter. Unless they are purposefully treating you badly, you have no reason to take out your frustrations on them!

Sorry.  Bad restaurant etiquette bothers me as much as bad museum etiquette does. Apparently, since I'm practically perfect in every way, I can judge.  Sorry!

*I realize I'm saying this as someone who once left a restaurant because of how much the set menu price was, and I will defend myself by reminding you that if I'd known in advance and was cool about it, we would have stayed and eaten there, it was just too much to spend without planning AND I didn't make a scene about it.

5) We had a guy come by today and ask the pastor about the moral implications of selling weed, as a way to raise money to start a business. I would normally no talk about things I hear at work, but that...  I don't even have anything witty to say.  That's just stupid.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) My ankle is much better, thanks for asking! :)  It's weird how quickly it got better after initially thinking I'd probably really damaged it.  I've sprained my ankle a bunch of times, but it had never hurt like that before.  After taking Jeoff's advice about how to take care of it, and thinking it was just fine, I ended up rolling it again (because of course I did).  It swelled back up, so Steve talked me into going to the Doc-In-The-Box and getting it checked out just in case.  After being in the dreaded clinic for two hours, having 6 X-Rays - three initial and three re-dos, and having the doctor pull and twist my leg into a balloon animal, I was told I was just fine and that I could go back to the gym the next day.  In fact, he gave me the exact same advice that Jeoff gave me to begin with.  He did give me a prescription for some anti-inflammatory pills, and I got a brace with rigid sides to wear the rest of the week, but now my ankle seems back to normal.  Well, sort of.  It feels like the bones in my ankle don't meet up anymore.  I don't think there's anything wrong, because with all the X-Rays, I'm sure they'd have told me if anything was amiss.  So now I just need to watch where I step! :)

2) Oh, and speaking of all of that... I mentioned that I slipped on a puddle at Home Depot in my last post.  I'd assumed at the time that it was water that had leaked from a car that had been parked there, but we had to go back there yesterday and get some stuff, and there was a puddle in the same place!  I guess something must be leaking.  They are so going to get sued.

3) Steve and I are getting our kitchen remodeled! I'm so excited!  Well, I don't know if you would call it getting remodeled, since basically we're just getting some new cabinets and an island, but I'm still excited.  The old cabinets were put in when the house was built in 1949.  None of them are to code, there isn't enough room for our dishes in them, and trying to find hinges or any kind of replacement parts for them has been a nightmare.  Also, we've gone through two counter tops, and while I love the blue tile ones that Steve built for me, it's so hard to keep them clean.  We're getting a local carpenter to build them for us.  We've seen some of his work, and it is beautiful, but the guy looks like he's about 12 years old.  This will be the first major change we've had done on the house since I've lived here, so I'm eager to see how it will look.  The down side to this is that we're going to have to repaint the kitchen walls and ceiling, and I hate painting walls.  Luckily, we're keeping the dark red color, so at least we won't have to spend days and days trying to cover a dark color with a light one.  Woot!

4) I feel so awful!  Last week I volunteered to do a bit of graphics work for a friend of mine.  He needed someone to make a logo for a Facebook page that his group of storm chasers are putting together. Honestly, I wasn't 100% sure what it was he needed, because when he sent me the email about the logo, he said he was drawing a blank and that whatever I could come up with would be fine.  So I worked for a day or two and came up with a few for him to chose from, he picked one out, and we did some tweaking until it was just what he wanted. 

I got another email today saying that he had finally gotten together with the whole group and showed them the logo I created, and they'd vetoed it.  Apparently they thought it would be a bit distasteful to use a logo with a tornado graphic when the Facebook page they were creating was a memorial for some of their friends who'd been killed in the tornadoes that had hit last year!  Oops.  I thought I was creating a logo for the storm chasers themselves that would include mention of their friends, not one specifically for the memorial page.  Eeeesh.  I'm so tacky.   My only saving grace is that my friend, the one who originally picked out the logo, didn't think about that either.  However, all was not lost.  They'd decided what kind of logo they did want and sent me a rough draft and some files, and I managed to get them what they needed.  Still...eeeeeesh.

5)  Butler and Bear tried to kill each other again this weekend.  I have no idea what is wrong with them, because it isn't as if they hate each other!  Seriously, if one of them is away from the other, they have a fit until they are reunited!  But if they are together, they act like a couple of grumpy old men!  It's insane.  The worst part about this fight is that Butler lost yet another tooth!  At least this time it was one of the smaller ones, but jeez.  He either must have the worst teeth in the history of all dogs, or he really bites hard when he and Bear are fighting. Dumb dogs.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I absolutely cannot stand it when I'm talking to someone, and I ask a question, and they just ignore it.  I'm not talking about situations when I ask a question and whomever I'm talking to doesn't give me a straight answer to it, I'm talking about people who just completely act as if the question had never been asked and start talking about something else.  This happened to me again yesterday!  I just don't understand the rudeness of it.

I guess what really bothers me is that they weren't even personal questions.  I know my idea of personal information and other people's ideas are sometimes different, but I generally don't ask knowingly personal questions of people unless we're very good friends and I think they'd be comfortable telling me.  I'll even go a step further and say that I completely understand even when those friends don't want to talk about those things with me, if they are truly personal and uncomfortable to talk about.  They can just tell me they don't want to talk about it or whatever and I'm OK with that.

However, to just ignore a general question (one I'd needed an answer for) in the middle of a conversation is just so flipping rude!  I even repeated myself thinking that they didn't hear me, but I know they did.  Then the person I was talking to just turned around and started talking to someone else (about the same dang subject) as if I had just evaporated.  I sat there, trying to figure out if what I asked was rude or prying in some way (and, hand to God, I can't see how that's possible considering the subject of our talk) but it just flew all over me.  I don't know why it bothers me so much, but I guess I just don't understand how otherwise generally well-bred people can just be so freaking rude for no reason.  I can't imagine ever doing that.  It's like slamming a door in someone's face mid sentence. 

Sorry for being ranty, but people who are blatantly rude just get up my nose.

2) Are there any amateur dog whisperers out there?  Butler has been acting very weird and it's worrying me.

About two weeks ago we had to take him to the vet for his normal "old man" check-up and shots.  As you know, he hates getting in the car and going places, so it was as traumatic as it always is.  He didn't have a complete strip-the-gears checkup, but they did the usual blood work and senior exam stuff, but nothing really out of the ordinary. When we got him home he refused to go outside, which is weird.  It was really weird.  He wanted to come into the house and stay, but we can't let him do that usually because he's very clingy and if he's loose inside the house he basically wants to walk in-between your feet and stay right with you.  That means that you can't really do anything productive.  We eventually had to push him outside, which I hate to do because it makes me fee l so mean, but he seemed fine once he got out there so we didn't worry too much.

Fast forward to that night when we put them to bed.  Both dogs have been trained since they were puppies that they go into their kennels to sleep after they eat.  That's just the way it's always been.  Before we had gone to the vet, Butler had been doing this thing where we'd get him settled into his kennel, and then he'd stand up and scratch at the door.  We finally figured out that it was because he wanted a drink of water, so we had gotten used to letting him out at least once every night to do that.  If he stood up again, we'd just tell him it was time to sleep and he'd lay down again.   But that night he refused to lay down.  He'd bat at the door and whine, and I'd let him out to see if he was thirsty or if he needed to go outside. I wasn't sure if any of the shots had caused him to feel bad or something,  and I didn't want a repeat of the horrible thing that happened in his kennel a while back.  He didn't want to go outside and he didn't want water.  He just started wandering around the house, which really isn't like him at all.  Then he'd come back into the living room and go to kennel again. We'd close it up and the whole thing would start over again.  We finally just went to bed, thinking he'd eventually lay down again, but he wouldn't.  We could hear him scratching at the kennel door and doing that pitiful nose whistling thing that breaks my heart.  I'd get up and let him out, but he'd just wander around again.  I knew that if we kept getting up and letting him out, he'd never stop, so I finally had to just go to bed and try not to listen to him whine. Eventually we just took both dogs outside and let them stay out for the night, just in case he really was feeling sick.

It has been a little over two weeks and he is still doing it.  I don't know what's wrong.  We didn't get back any bad health reports from the vet, and at every other time of the day he seems exactly the same as usual.  He sleeps, barks and pees on things.  That's just how he rolls.  But at night it's like he suddenly has the surge of nervous energy and he can't be still.  We've tried sitting up with him for a while, we've tried sleeping in the living room with him(and I'd like to apologize to anyone who has ever had to sleep on our couch. It's torturous.) to see if he's just suddenly gotten some kind of separation anxiety.  He still wants out while we're in there, and he will eventually lie down, but he jumps up anytime he hears a noise.  I don't even know what to say to the vet if I were to call her.  "Uh, my dog won't sleep at night, even though he sleeps all day.  I know you said he needs more exercise, but we can't take him on walks at 1:00 in the morning!"  He just sounds so pitiful and it also gets aggravating, because Steve and I need to sleep at night.  I don't know.  I just don't want to ignore him if he's got a problem, but it seems less like he's got a problem and more like he's just wanting to piss me off.  Bless him.

3) This is a sad, but beautifully written piece that I think you should read.  A friend of mine wrote it.  It hurts my heart, but it also is a lovely bit of writing.

4) We had ants in our kitchen over the weekend. ANTS.  You know how I feel about bugs of any type being in my house, but ants just tick me off.  They are so tiny and hard to kill!  I had seen one on my kitchen curtain earlier that day, but it was just the one. I can't remember if I killed it or not, but I think I did.  Later that night Steve went to get something off of the counter and they were just...bleh...everywhere.  Apparently I'd spilled some sugar behind the canister, and didn't realize it, and they were having a grand old time nomming away.  The only poison spray we have to kill bugs is this high-octane stuff that is supposed to kill everything in it's path, but I know for a fact it doesn't kill ants. I nearly poisoned myself with it once trying to kill some ants in the cabinet, so I didn't want to spray it on the counters just in case I accidentally get it on something I'll eventually eat (again.)  We ended up having to move everything, spraying bleach and water all over the counter-tops, and going on a stalking mission to hunt down and kill every last one of them.  Our house reeked of bleach, and it ended up fading some of the paint on the wall, and the damned ants still were coming out of the woodwork. Literally, they were coming out of the woodwork.  Apparently we have a breach that can't be fixed until we completely replace a window. Curses.  Anyway, I finally located some of those ant bait things that we had left over from last time we had the ant problem and put them in strategic places.  The ants went in and out of them, and a day later we didn't have anymore ants. So, yay, I guess.

I still feel guilty for using the ant traps.  I mean, yes, I hate the ants and want them to die.  But it's one thing when you're tracking them down and killing them yourself. It's completely another to trick them: "Oooooh, look, I'm providing you with delicious food!  Please take it back to your home and share it with your family!  MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"  I realize how dumb it is to feel guilty for that, but there you go...