"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others." Ayn Rand

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

(Fill in the Blank) On An Escalator

The old saying "God helps those that help themselves" comes to mind...This is officially called Democrats on an Escalator, but I think you could change it to Americans on an Escalator, honoring the mindset of the "help-me" people we seem to have become.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Busy Tuesday

Today a lot of things happened, all pretty routine, nothing dramatic or horrible or particularly stressful; it was just a crazy quilt of a day. Lots of snippets of different stuff.


Debbie called today to come and pick up Fink. Ink. She was very very happy to see her mom, and will probably sleep for a few days. I was nice enough to send her back with gas that almost cleared the room. This morning she got to Mookie's dog food faster than I could get to her...and the result was a malodorous dog with a case of gastrointestinal hiccups for most of the morning. We offered to watch her again when Debbie has the baby, but Barbara has already offered, and it'll be right after Mr. Kramer goes to NY for IFT. She's going to be sad, and Ink will keep her occupied and make her smile when she misses Kramer.
But we won't be labless long. We'll have Hawkeye for a week in March; this weekend I'll be watching Hooper, and I'm going to ask Pat if I can try and bring him here. It's going to be four days, and I just feel bad that he'd be alone that long. Mookie gets along with everybody; maybe Hooper will get along with mookie too. We could play ball for hours outside...maybe not hours. But it's fenced, and I'd feel less nervous playing with him in a fenced area. Those of you who know Hooper know that he's go anywhere after his ball...probably even in front of a car. So, fenced is better.
Today, we received Roxanne's portrait, which was a Christmas gift from my parents that we received two years ago. It took us almost a year to pick out the picture to use. It's so wonderful, such a wonderful likeness of her. The artist, Kathryn Bowden, is a lady down in Florida, who has a wonderful talent and can paint animals that look exactly like them...she captures their spirit within the paintings. I look at this picture, and it's her. Cleaner, though. But she captured the triangle eyes, and the "clown nose" as we used to call it. We're trying to decide where to put it; I suggested the kitchen because it was her favorite place in the house. We've all had the same reaction to the picture...silence and then tears. All of us. And it's not an emotion that we "caught" from one another. We've all done this at different times. Max walked in, looked at it, and wept; he said "I miss her so much". I told him that I thought about her every day, and had wondered when the feeling would go away, this sadness. But now I think that it won't ever go away. She'll be with us, in our hearts, and one day we'll all see her again. It's a beautiful portrait. But there is one flaw. There's no drool, and she's way, way too clean!
I am working on a project: this project is cake. I'm making a really neat cake that looks like a little girl's dress. Right now, I'm making the test cake. So far, so good. It's baked, and I've carved it into the shape it needs to be.
Baking it, making a pattern and carving it wasn't too bad...but the next step is coming up. The icing and decorating. That's for tomorrow...but today was the prep work. Fondant. I've always wanted to work with it...it's just so pretty on a cake. But everything I've read about it said not to buy it from Wilton already made...it's expensive and nasty. So, I looked on the internet, found a recipe, and decided to give it a whirl.
It's one pound of marshmallows, a few tablespoons of water and two pounds of confectioners sugar. Oh, and a half cup of crisco to grease your hands and the counter with, so it won't stick. (It stuck anyway, but my hands are soft). I got it made, and it's resting until tomorrow in the refrigerator. I was so excited about it....here's a pitcure, although it just looks like a white blob. But I think that its right, and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with it! By the way, after I got this done, I found out that the cake I'm using as a guide was covered with frosting, not fondant. OK, so I'll make some flowers and a bow. It's going to be cool.
I'm starting to get Richard's cold...the one from Valentines Day and the day after. I started with a bit of a sore throat late this morning, and right now (7 pm) it's progressed into something I'm concerned about. I started on the Zicam therapy right away; I hope it helps. Baby puppy class and then big puppy class is tomorrow night, and I really would like to go and work Kristoff.
Richard has PT three days in a row this week, due to his going to NY on Thursday. It's going to be so strange to have him not here. He's been home every night from Thanksgiving week until now...that's a record. I'm worried about him going by himself, but it's not too far that I can't go up to NY in a couple of hours and help him.
I have lots of things I want to write about...the Barber Shop/Bail Bondsman commercial (in Salisbury, no less), Max's re-animated love life, among other things.
But right now I'm going to take some nighttime cold medicine, and wait for the doorbell to ring. President Obama signed the stimulus bill today and I'm going to try and wait up for the messenger who's going to bring me my bailout check.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Babysitting Miss Ink

Since Friday, we've had a little black one year old guest, Ink. Or, as I've been mis-calling her, Fink (combining Fina and Ink). She's going back home tomorrow, and it's been such a fun couple of days with her. She's a great pup, and Debbie and Christian, her raisers, have done a wonderful job with her. Debbie is pregnant, and due in the beginning of April, so I'm hoping I'll get to have Ink back for awhile then. She and Mookie get along really well, and it was nice to see him running around like a headless chicken for a few days.

She's a small lab, about 10 pounds less then the rest of the class; her strength would fool you. She's almost pulled all of us off the couch while playing tug of war. Her tummy was upset the first two nights she was here, which resulted in not a lot of sleep, but last night she slept through (as did I), and today was a good day of puppy practice and playing with us and with Mookie, who I admit is looking a bit tired after three days of play!

We tried to take a picture of me and Ink, because one of my things for 2009 is to get more pictures of people, and not just animals...of course Mookie and Ink took that opportunity to have a raucous romp in the living room, running and jumping and trying to get each other. I of course was in the middle, trying to (unsuccessfully) regain control.








But we finally got a nice one, albeit one where I'm dressed for housework, puppy walking and yard work! It's been wonderful having her here, and we're going to miss here going home tomorrow.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Commercials and Other Random Things

Valentines Day is Saturday. This is definitely not a post about wanting jewelry (although I wouldn't mind that either)...it's a post about commercials that insult our intelligence.

There's two commercials out there that irk me the most, and it coming up on Valentines Day, I've been hearing them on the radio, and seeing them on television over and over and over. The two are somewhat related, as they are sister companies, linked by their ability to charge incredible amounts for "gifts" that any girl will love! Lord.

The first one is the Vermont Teddy Bear Company. Behold, the "Love Bandit Bear", yours for only $69.95. Oh wait, it comes with a personalized card. And a piece of chocolate. The commercial shows this guy sitting in an office at his desk, listening to a radio. For some reason, even though everyone else is in business attire, he is in jeans and a white tee shirt (better to see his tatto, I guess). Well, one of the girls in the office gets a delivery from the Vermont Teddy Bear Company. All the other women gather around her as she opens the box, and when she takes out the card and the bear, it's like the biggest, loudest, female group orgasm that you've ever heard. These women are losing their minds over this bear, and the women want to know how come they can't find a guy who would send such a fabulous gift???? All the men nod knowingly, and one picks up his cell phone, one gets on the internet and a third dials the office phone, ostensibly all calling to place the orders for bears. The guy in the tee shirt is the one on the internet, and he finds a bear with a tattoo to match his! What freaking luck!!!

The other commercial is for the sister company to Vermont Teddy Bear, the Pajama Gram. Now, we don't have a group of women with their knickers in a bunch over a box containing pajamas, but we do have the announcer telling the men "this will guarantee to get her clothes off". Riiigggghhhhtt. They've even added a scene to make this commercial "funny". A lady throws her bra and it lands on top of a bulldog's head. Only, it's obvious that the bra was on the dogs head, and they removed it, and then showed the film backwards. Oh, ha ha ha. That was so funny that I feel like paying $100.00 for a pair of flannel pajamas that were probably made in a Sri Lankan sweat shop by some 4 year old seamstress.

And the announcer tells all the men listening..."she'll think you spent weeks planning this". Rrrriiiigggghhhhhttttt. Only if she's an idiot.

Oh, this so insults my intelligence...but obviously it must be working, because they've been running these commercials for years, always before holidays. Is this the "Hot Chocolate Set" for men? (You know what I mean...once I got a Hot Chocolate Set from my boss and his wife. Now, she didn't know me very well, but Scott, her husband, did. He knew my situation. I was a single mom struggling to feed, clothe and house her two children. I really could have used a gift certificate for groceries. But I got this big giant box with two mugs with snowmen on them, and two packets of Swiss Miss hot chocolate. I think there might have been a few candy canes in there, and a whole lot of crinkled up paper to take up the rest of the space in the box. It's always kind of represented to me the ultimate in the useless, unthoughtful gift; I've always tried to give a gift that means something, or at least give something someone can use, or something that will make them laugh. There's always thought behind it.)

Anyway, I won't be getting a teddy bear or a pair of pajamas in a hatbox this year. Thank god. I'm married to a man who would never fall for that. Flowers? Great. Love them. New vacuum cleaner or a scooba? Even better. A scooba and a pair of flannel pajamas from Target that has dogs on them? The best. A new longarm quilting machine? I'd jump up and down many many many times.

You want to get a teddy bear for your woman? Go to Hallmark. They have them there. Or goodwill, you can get two for $1 on Thursdays. You want to get pajamas for your squeeze? Go to Walmart. You'll have enough left for a tank of gas and a few beers.

But I'm lucky enough to be married to a man that knows me, and knows what makes me happy. I'm not your typical wife (I got a used tiller for my 44th birthday, and I couldn't have been happier), but he makes the effort. I'm lucky enough to get gifts all the time, not just on Valentines Day. We're not even going to go out on Saturday. We'll go another day when it's not so crowded. We got it like that.

Happy Valentines Day everybody. Hope you don't get a bear.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

It's Almost St. Patricks Day

A New Romance Novel....


If you can't read it, it says Puppy Love, the many romances of Wanda Marie, by Cosmo Cavalluzzo

Sunday Sunday.

I'll start out by saying I got no sleep last night. You know how you toss and turn and toss and turn, and finally get to sleep. Well, the last part didn't happen. That was with PM's too. Richard was moving around quite a bit too, and I finally said that I might as well go downstairs, then maybe he could find a comfortable spot.

I settled in in the couch, and I did manage to clear 3 worlds in super mario. Woo hoo. I'm stuck in world 6 now though. I'll figure it out.

So I've been less than productive today; I had planned on being super productive, due to this wonderful gift of springlike weather. But I'm moving slowly, with a headache, and am gastrologically challenged. :)

Richard's having an uncomfortable day also; physical therapy hurts so much, and we're doing it constantly, almost. I'll see him sitting there, and he's working his fingers back and forth. He's really giving it his all.

We'll both be so much better when we can get back to normal, but I don't see that coming anytime soon. It's such a slow, slow process. But we really, really need to get back to normal. Soon.

As he's recuperating on the couch, I pretty much leave the television for him to choose. I'm in and out. His choice for recuperation tv has been HGTV, and DIY network. Home Improvement Shows. We're seeing reruns of reruns.

So I had finished what I was doing in the guest room, and thought it would be a nice time to sit down with a cup of tea in the den. I walked into the den, and Richard was watching another home improvement show. I made a snarky comment "Haven't we seen all the home improvement shows on tv?" Richard said that there was nothing on, that I could put on what I wanted. I told him that he could choose, but just not home improvement.

So he put on golf.

That's why I'm updating my blog here at 4:03 pm, on Sunday afternoon.

Progress, Progress, Progress

We soldier on. Richard has had his heavy metal off for eight days now, and has been to physical therapy three times. We do physical therapy every day, several times a day. We should do it more...it's a long and involved process which involves him moving his hand and wrist until there is incredible pain for him, and either Billy (the PT guy he sees) or me manipulating his body to achieve said pain. I'm not a trained therapist, but between watching the expert and watching Richard's face, I'm starting to get the hang of it. I just move his fingers, or his hand several different ways until I see him grimace. Honestly, that's how I know how far to go. It sucks, but it's necessary.

Honestly, the lack of movement in his hand and wrist scared me at first. After the first week, I've seen an improvement of almost an inch in bending his fingers down. As for pushing his hand backwards against his wrist, it's only about a half-inch. But anything is good; this has been such a long haul for him. We've both now been on each side of the fence in terms of patient and caregiver, and appreciate how hard it is for each other. As a caregiver, I am much more cranky though. And, as a patient, I'm am much more cranky also. Richard is Richard, and as usual, is almost never cranky. But he does take many more naps than I ever did.

Life is slowly getting back to normal; I went to puppy and big puppy class in Georgetown this week. Debbie is getting more and more pregnant, and I was supposed to help teach baby-puppy class before this all happened...but I went and little baby Kristoff was there without his raiser (she's due to have a baby any minute now). So I took the class with Mr. Kristoff, and I'm in love with him. Even his sharp needle teeth. The raisers are doing a wonderful job with him, and he's sharp as a tack. I've tried to snag babysitting duties when she does have the baby, but I think that everybody wants to sit for Kristoff! I have Miss Ink coming this friday and she'll be with us until Monday, and then at the end of March Jewel will be staying with us for about a week. I'm keeping my hand in...going to the conference with Barbara and Debbie in May...and probably coming home with a new puppy from there. We'll be ready by then, all healed and hearty and ready to go.

It's now 1:16 a.m. Time to try and get some sleep. More closet cleaning, and Freecycling tomorrow.

Nurse Rached signing out.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Hindsight is 20/20

Well, it looks like the orangutans were wrong...their record is now 4 and 1, and 6 and 5, respectively.

I did, however see another video, where a black bear did, in fact, correctly picked the Steelers. I can't find that video right now...and it's a moot point.

The superbowl yesterday was one of the most exciting ones that I've seen: kudos to the Steelers! The Cardinals gave them a run for their money, and kept it interesting all the way up to the end.

Until next year: Go Green Bay!