new kitten has a name...

...and it is cadence. commence hate mail re: why we have chosen ridiculous names for our animals. i dare you.

ps...yes, in the photo of her below, all the black around her is dog hair. on our brand new slipcovers. which equals why we're having a housekeeper come tomorrow.

more proof that we have emotional problems

husband and i added a new kitten to the brood last night, because it was necessary, obviously. and isn't she just the cutest little no name you ever did see?
let's not even mention the fact that i am allergic, or that when my previous cat of 15 years passed away, i said i would never again have a cat. these are not important issues. especially when you see how happy this whole situation has made malichai:
now we just need a name before she ends up being called noriega. and yes, that is the direction we are leaning.

champagne thursday: toast #6

i don't know what it is about men, but they just love to defy nature...and then talk and talk and talk about just how they defied nature. case in point: husband and i having grass in arizona. but also this:
that would be my husband and my brother eagerly awaiting their morning coffee our first morning in moab. and this would be all you could hear for miles around our tent: "the percolations are IMMINENT!!"

side note: the coffee was damn good, even with a few grounds. suck it, nature. and cheers to us.

things i love wednesday: internet flip book of the husband

let it be known that i did not realize until about two days before our trip to moab that the husband had never been camping before. how someone who grew up in massachusetts and has a father who fishes and canoes never camped, i simply do not understand. i think the concept has grown on him though, as evidenced by the following virtual flip book of him enjoying his new mummy bag:

back in one piece

got back from our little camping excursion to the desert rocks music fest in moab, utah yesterday. i am exhausted and trying to get things done at work, so i don't have time to update this site right now, but i will post this little photo of the view outside our tent every morning:
pretty ugly stuff out there, eh?

champagne thursday: toast #5

cheers to moab, utah, where i will be enjoying bluegrass and jam bands until sunday. hence, no worries, north royalton and saint louis. i shall return!

things i love wednesday: taking the effing bar exam

so, i guess i've decided to take the bar exam again? as in, i seem to have made this decision without really realizing i'd made this decision? and i can't stop speaking in question marks because of it?

actually, entire decision seems to have hinged upon whether micromash would update the 2300 multiple choice questions you have to answer for their handy dandy little pass/update or pass/refund guarantee.

helpful hint: they do not, at least not for every exam, only for each calendar year.

because i have a nearly-photographic memory when it comes to these kinds of things (and yet, obviously not the volumes upon volumes of law books and exam review guides that you would think would help to garner me a measly damn 13 points), answering the same 2300 questions all over again would be totally pointless.

which is a looooong way of saying, i'm getting a refund for all the money i wasted on that review course in the first place^*, which means i can pay for a new review course (because i just haven't tried them all yet! but almost!), the exam and a hotel stay during the exam, and i will break even.

financially. not emotionally.

somehow, this justification is working for me, so please don't burst my sad little bubble.

^*in all fairness, i should point out that i really liked this review course while i was using it. for some reason, though, i'm not too pleased with the results...

ain't no party like a no dirt party...

previously, i alluded to our weekend "no dirt" party, but i had zero decent pictures of this party because, oddly, massive quantities of alcohol soda and my photo-taking skills do not mix - at least not as well as vodka and tonic. this photo was taken by one of our guests, however, and i think it sums me up pretty damn well:
ah, my mother would be so proud...

hello north royalton! and saint louis! and saint joseph!

i just want to thank you guys for religiously checking this website, even though i talk mostly nonsense and dog-related nonsense, and sometimes more nonsense. i'm pretty sure one of you is jamie...and another is maybe shelley? and i think the other is also jamie. but i love you guys, just for caring. i'll try to be better about posting shite on this site...just for you!

new venture coming soon

so, we had a little "no dirt" party this weekend to celebrate our recently landscaped backyard, and i was struck by entrepreneurial genius.

dog owners everywhere, get ready for "rent-a-kid."

some friends of ours brought their young children, and those kids wore our dogs out to the point that they barely left the bed sunday. it was fantastic. so now i need to figure out how to make them hang out at our house every weeknight and weekend without us picking up kidnapping or false imprisonment charges. anyone know how to start such a business??

and now for something gratuitously expensive

our office had a bit of a triumph yesterday, and this is how the husband decided to celebrate:
looks a little scary, no? so, we tried it again, and this one is much more pleasant:
except, can someone please tell me what is going on with the pant cuff/non-cuff situation there? i'm very concerned...

ps...see those curtains? i made those. with my own two hands. and then i made a perfect pot roast. and i did it all in heels.

words/phrases you never knew your dogs could/should learn

i think i might have mentioned before that the husband and i are little obsessed with our dogs, and that we just might treat them a bit more like people than like the savage beasts they are. to further prove the point, i've compiled the following list of words and phrases the dogs have learned, and what those words mean to them:

1. that is inappropriate = aiko, stop humping teagan. not least because you're both girls.

2. go get the (blank) and bring it inside with you = if you leave that friggin' toy on the lawn and then whine to go back outside to get it in two minutes, we will have you stuffed and use you as a mantel decoration.

3. no, leave that where it is = no, bronson, you absolutely cannot bring the giant tree limb in the house.

4. special = whatever we're describing is going to totally rock your world to the point that you really should start wiggling your whole body right this second.

5. nap = aiko, we want you to go in the bedroom and stop trying to devour whoever is at the front door. also may be used to signal we are about to take an actual nap.

6. was that a good dinner = please use our couches as napkins. if those fail, use our legs.

7. are you finished? = go to the bathroom or get back inside.

8. abso-LUTE-ly not = if you eat any more of the new grass, we will sell you to the glue factory.

9. kennel time, excellent! = bronson, go sit in your kennel and wait patiently for us to lock you in. malichai, get in your kennel while eyeing the door, on the off chance we are going to take you somewhere. once you're in said kennel, immediately exit and run around like a crazy person. then, with the most pathetic face you can muster, return to your kennel. teagan, act like you've never heard the word kennel before, but if everybody else is getting into one, by god, it sounds like a good idea to you too. aiko, go get in the bed, because you're the only one who doesn't destroy anything while we're gone.

10. kill! = jump up and kiss that stranger. [NOTE: they haven't actually learned this yet, but i predict it will be a show stopper. and much appreciated by the neighbors.]

champagne thursday: toast #4

my husband's bright shiny face went up on our office's billboard yesterday, and this is what the billboard looks like:
only, it's cheese on a stick, with more cheese sprinkled on top. and it is FANTASTIC.

and i thought spirit air was bad

i'm not even going to talk about the merits of this guy's case, but i will say that i love knowing that the man reporting on it slept through his news agency's last political correctness and sensitivity training seminar. just listen to how he says "gokhan mutlu," as though this could not possibly be anybody's real name. he's all, "gokhan mutlu, huh? sounds like somebody is headed off to terrorist camp. maybe you should be forced to sit on the toilet during your flight."

29x365: #7 jamie k.

if only i'd never left the maurice river, maybe i could have saved you from cheerleading. babe shoppe all the way, my friend. hope to see you again soon.

make the list at x365.

29x365: #6 christine

i think we made friends on day one of kindergarten. years of flying barbie limbs later, and i still love ya. but i'll totally die before you, damn it.

make the list at x365.

things i love wednesday: animal kitchen products

my day of wallowing in my self-induced misery yesterday caused me to seek some serious retail therapy, and, oddly, it was quite disappointing. helpful hint: when depressed, do not, under any circumstances, try on swimsuits. it's just not a good idea.

the one bright spot was finding these items at target (the target that i have to drive 70 miles roundtrip to get to). the first is an ice cream scoop:

and the second is a bottle opener:

and, again, i am left thinking, why the hell doesn't somebody invent beer-injected ice cream??

made of magic

the other night, aiko started limping around the house looking ultrasadpants, and she just kept coming up to us and holding out her paw and asking us to fix her, because she knows we are magical and can fix anything. and this is what my husband did:

and before you get all, dude, that is not the way to fix a possibly broken dog hoof, just look at how happy that damn dog is.

and notice how malichai is down there in the corner, looking worried? he's trying to figure out what kind of malady he could contract so he gets attention like this.

for the record...#4

i'm really sick to death of having two weeks to decide whether i want to continue the masochistic experiment i like to call the bar exam. every time i get the results, my first instinct is to walk away and go in a different direction, followed closely by the realization that i will, in fact, take the damn thing, most likely up until the day before the world gets swallowed by a giant space octopus. which is then followed by sending in another hefty check to the fine folks at the supreme court and making expensive hotel reservations.

because i am, of course, failing by only a handful of points.

and it seems within reach.

but after taking it four times with nearly the same results, i'm starting to feel like the definition of insanity.

for serious, where did i move?

nearly every day on my way to work, i end up behind this guy:

that's a rhino, which i'm told is some kind of recreational vehicle FOR USE OFF-ROAD. yet, i end up behind these things on major roads all the friggin' time. and do you know why i didn't get closer to the guy to take this photo? because he was traveling far faster than i was! plus, i try to stay far away from anything named after a large animal that could tear my arms off.

and p.s., cyclist on the sidewalk - you're on my list too.

wherein i get (fuzzy) proof

want to know how to attempt total humiliation of your husband? just whip out your iphone in line at safeway and start snapping photos of the john cusack lookalike in the next aisle. so here, in all its unadulterated glory, is my proof that this guy really does look like john cusack:

and here's his profile:

and here's where i'm pretty sure he figured out what i was doing, and i almost lost my shit:

for the record...#3

these are exactly the kinds of people who should not be allowed to procreate. here's a tip: if you end up naming a child "jinger," you need to let go of your sadistic desire to ruin your children's lives by refusing to venture outside of the same-letter-naming phenomenon. (and i'm not even going to talk about "joy-anna" and "johannah." i cannot even imagine that much slackjawness in the world.)

still life with dogs

sometimes, people ask me what it's like to live with four dogs, and i tell them, it's a lot like living at the zoo, except instead of various animals, some aquatic, some swinging from trees, etc., it's a zoo filled with 4,000 swinging, aquatic, furry dinosaur monsters who occasionally do something so cute, you're reminded that you just can't murder them in their sleep.

but then, you buy slipcovers for your two-year-old sofas because they look like 50-year-old sofas after taking the brunt of living with four dogs, and as you're removing the cushions to drape the clean, new contraptions over them, you find something that looks like this:

and then you have to actually stab yourself in the throat, because you can't believe you've been sitting on such filth for so long. and then your husband asks if you're planning on just brushing it all off onto the floor, and then you stab him in the throat for thinking you're FOUR.

and then you brush most of it on the floor, just out of spite. so THERE.

ffllbbbt

i always knew aiko fancied herself superior to me...

29x365: #5 mia

wanted to be friends with you in 7th grade. became friends with you in 9th grade. 15 years has seen many states, schools, boys and shows. trunk photos forever.

make the list at x365.

29x365: #4 jo leigh

my first impression of you was "dumb fuck." i've never been more wrong. you were with me when i met "boston" and saw it all happen. i love ya.

make the list at x365.

champagne thursday: toast #3

kudos to my husband for attempting to use my camera the other day. when i met him, he was terrified of technology. now, we have three computers, two iphones, two ipods, and multiple other little doodads equipped with various levels of microchips. however, these photos prove that, when it comes to advanced machinery, he has a steep learning curve:

it depends on what you mean by 'personify'

some people might think my husband and i have some issues...okay, a lot of people might think that, at least when it comes to our dogs. we tend to talk about them in ways that, if we're out in public, people stop us and ask, "what ages are your children?" and that's okay with us, because we don't try to hide our love for obsession with our dogs.

that said, we might have taken it a bit far last night. we're getting ready for bed, watching lake county, indiana get reamed by an overly tanned hammond mayor, and all four dogs are hanging out in the bed in their usual fashion: malichai is snuggled up to my husband, aiko is at the foot of the bed wondering why we have all these damned dogs, bronson is trying to bully his way up to the head of the bed, and teagan has this "woe is me" look on her face because she's not where malichai or bronson are. yeah, it's that ridiculous in my house.

we often refer to bronson's power plays for bed space as "beaking," because he basically seems to think that if he can get his big old nose into an area, he can fit his whole 65-pound, barrel-chested body into the area too. which leads to what we call "serial crushing," wherein bronson collapses into that tiny space without regard for anyone else's body parts.

apparently overly tired and a bit punchy, we started thinking up future occupations that bronson might look into, starting with being a crusher at a cereal company, because after being told for years by his parents that he is a serial crusher, he would probably be confused.

we then decided that he would be perfect for a job crushing cars at a junkyard or cans at a recycling facility. he could just beak the button and watch things get demolished and then go home and drink some pabst with his crusher buddies. because he's a blue collar kind of guy.

we're on a roll now, so we turn to malichai, who has been spending his time lately chewing on a tree limb shaped like a wishbone and reminding me that we really need to get a cover for the damn wood pile. 

now, though, we realize he is not destroying anything, but rather he is whittling, and he is an artist, and he will travel to the crunchy, granola town of flagstaff on the weekends to sell his wares.

and teagan will travel with him, because she plays the musical saw. (and because she is a bit of a leech.)

and aiko will marry rich and will not have to work, but she might look into founding her own security company.

and this is why someday my husband and i will share a padded cell.

things i love wednesday: lush products

while i was staying with angie at the north pole, i got to steal all of her most fabulous hair products due to the fear that i would go over the 3-ounce limit on the airplane, which by the way was totally unfounded, because i got all of my little travel size containers stuffed into a tiny sandwich bag, because i of course did not have a quart-sized bag, and do you know that not one person ever asked to see my sandwich bag full of liquids that quite possibly could have been really good smelling explosives? 

but anyway, the point is that even though angie was gracious enough to let me use all of her shampoos, gels and so on - products that cost more than a small car - i still really missed my lush products back home.

i missed my shampoo:

and i missed my conditioner:

and i think the next time i go out of town, i might have to warn the husband about our bank account, because being away from these lovely things makes me want to go out and buy crap-tons more and stow them away at my friends' houses across the country on the off chance that i will see said friends before said products expire.

brown son

when i unpacked my new fancy camera, this was one of the first photos i took, and the fact that you could actually tell that bronson is full of brown made the camera's price worth it to my husband.

michigan seems like a dream to me now

i promised my friend angie i would try to scrapbook my weekend with her in michigan, but scrapbook people scare absolutely terrify me, so this is the closest i think i'll get. i'm sure i'll leave a lot out, and i will blame that on alcohol and loss of sleep throughout the weekend.

first, i had to drive to vegas, which is the closest airport to my house, even though i live here. go figure. this is what it looks like for about a zillion miles in any direction:

after a perfectly lovely flight that included far-too-loud-headphones girl and sleeping-grizzly-bear man, who i absolutely did not have to wake up by beating his arm and then did not have to explain that no, we were not under attack in any way and i just needed to use the lavatory that did not smell like a port-a-potty, which smell did not attach itself to me like a fungus and follow me all the way to detroit...crap, where did this sentence start? right. this is what detroit looks like:except that it doesn't look anything like that, and this is only a photo of the view from the airport terminal looking onto what is likely another terminal, and this photo was taken on my way back home, because it was effing 5:30 in the morning (read: pitch black sky) when i got to detroit and procuring coffee was a much more important mission than taking photos of detroit vistas.

after getting coffee, we stopped at lisa's house so somebody could shower off the smell of airplane toilet, and lisa showed us what detroit orange juice looks like:

if safeway does not carry kosher orange juice, i may never drink the stuff again.

then we went to an aveda institute for pedicures, which i must stress is the absolute best cure for airplane body ever, and i don't think i'll ever travel anywhere anymore without booking a salon upon my arrival. also, there was lo. and lo was a R-I-O-T. i don't have a picture of lo, but she looked kind of like this. and she said things like this:

i love disney world. it's where all your dreams come true.

and this:

my sister said, 'why do i need to go on an around the world trip when i can just go to epcot center?'

and this:

i got in a fight with the water hose. AGAIN. and now my pants are all wrinkly.

lo made me yearn for the days when i, too, was 19 years old and a night out ended by stumbling through the door at 4 am and missing class the next morning because you threw your alarm from the top bunk in your dorm room. except that lo lives with her mother and sleeps on the couch when she gets home late, and yes, we did become far too involved in lo's personal life.

so then we went with angie to try on wedding dresses, and i can't post those pictures because i don't know which one she might choose, and i don't want to ruin the surprise for her indentured servant betrothed. but i absolutely will post photos of what i found in the dress shop. let me just say that if i ever have to walk into this restroom again, i will gouge my own eyes out with toothpicks and then pour acid all over my body:

after that nightmare, we went to a sushi place that was not only sushi but also french food, because the two go together so well. it was in a house that looked like it belonged in gone with the wind, which also made sense. but it was fabulous, so i will not poke fun at the frenasians.

then we drove to grand rapids, and this is what angie looks like when she drives:

except that what you don't see is that she is traveling at 118 mph, and she is barely 14 inches behind the car in front of her, and i am sitting next to her with my stomach in my throat and my hands are still clenched to this day, which makes typing extremely difficult.

later, angie showed me what murder houses look like in grand rapids:

and that is pretty much all the photos i took because i fell over dead after being up for 42 hours, drinking five newcastles and approximately 16 vodka tonics and talking until 4 am. which is probably why i said this the next day while eating my butternut squash bisque:

i hate nuts, and if i get one in my mouth, it's going to totally ruin this whole thing for me.

isn't that sexy?

face melting off

so before i left for my weekend trip to the frozen tundra, i attached these little sticky notes to a bunch of things in my house. one said "clean me!" and was on the ferret's cage; one let husband know i was taking all the cash we had in the house, followed by "hahahahahahaha," and so on. this one i stuck to the bathroom mirror at his eye level above his sink. when i returned laaaaaate sunday night, it was still there, and i almost cried, it was so cute.

champagne thursday: toast #2

earlier, i posted this picture of my caveman husband annihilating the wooden rotten porch swing left for us by our house's former owners. last night, due to fears that perhaps the pieces (tossed on our wood pile) contained shards of some sort that were jumping out and causing GIANT HOLES in our dogs' legs, said husband decided to throw the swing into our firepit. and lo, it made for a lovely sight:
but then, husband abandoned his fire tending responsibilities:
(husband is outlined in yellow, watering the lawn and shirking his duties - but just look at our pretty new paint!)

result: burning sparks from old porch swing, coupled with gale force winds, created gaping hole in my brand spankin' new patio furniture that was not cheap and is not completely flame-retardant. lucky for husband that i am leaving town tonight and will not be here to say i told you so 157,000 times.