This is my new baby, Miss Augustina Olympia. "Auggie" for short. She's an Italian Greyhound that was left at a shelter. A friend's daughter was fostering her when Scruffybutt died. We really didn't think we wanted another dog so soon, but ... just look at her. Awwwww...
I really appreciate the emails and comments I've received during my absence from the blogosphere! You guys look great - did you change your hair?
Please stop drooling on my house slippers.
Thank you.
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IF the fat lady sings this time, then one week from today we'll close on the sale of this house. You know, so we could go to North Carolina. Except ... Tomcat just took a new job here and so we're going to stay in the Dallas area for at least another year. The company has an office in NC, so maybe later he can work out a transfer.
In the meantime, we decided to move to an apartment, and wait to buy another house until we're actually in NC. We found an apartment within walking distance to Tom's office. It's been over 20 years since I've lived in an apartment, and boy have things changed. This will be like living in a luxury hotel. Exercise gym, internet cafe with free coffee and danishes every morning and brunch once a month, wi-fi garden, massage therapist, business center with fax and photocopier, etc., parking garage, and that's not even talking about the apartment itself!
So, here's the problem: what to wear? I mean, we're coming from the East Dallas, lower Greenville Avenue area, where we pride ourselves on being laid back. Unlike upper Greenville, we don't have a dress code.
I need a whole new wardrobe, just for walking the dog. No more jeans, T-shirt, and grubby sneakers. Hell, Scruffybutt needs a whole new wardrobe, too. Lookit this pink sweater on her, old and frayed in places and pulled out of shape. This will not do.
Plus, we're both going to have to go to the groomers more often.
Bonus pic:
Here's Scruffybutt on the bed with our two cats, Katy and Shadow. We can only have two pets at the apartment, so fortunately, Katy's previous owner can take her back now that she's living in an apartment that allows pets.
Which leaves us with a dog, a cat, and a lovebird. I'm trying to find a home for the lovebird. Her name is Lisa, and she's the last of four. Here's a pic of her in the aviary Tomcat built for her, which is made out of wood and plexiglass. It's huge - 6' x 6' x 2'. The aviary goes with her if anyone wants it, or we have a regular bird cage for her to live in. No dress code.
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UPDATE: "Henry" doesn't have a micro-chip. I left notes at three area vets' offices, and registered with the local Lost Pets people. Also drove around some more looking for lost-pet signs. Nada.
In the meantime, Scruffybutt is a bit peeved. This is her in her Christmas sweater (yes, I know; I need help.)
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A neighbor found this puppy, but he can't keep him because his landlord won't allow it. He said this puppy looks like a "Henry," so that's what we've been calling it, and that's what the little guy answers to. So now I have this puppy and I need to find a home for it.
The closing on our house is in two weeks and we will be moving into an apartment with our own dog and two cats sometime during the 30 days following closing.
Henry is adorable. I don't know how old he is. He's past the puppy-breath stage (don't you love puppy breath?), but he still pees like a girl and chews everything he can find. He is not neutered. He's full of energy and is cute as hell. He doesn't seem to understand that chasing our cats is not cool. We had to confine the cats to a room upstairs. We will be on their shit list for a long time to come.
I've been driving around the 'hood looking for "lost puppy" signs. Henry has no collar, but that is typical for this neighborhood. Sigh. I need to find someone for him who will keep him as an indoor pet, not left or chained up outside all day.
I need to go to the vets' offices around here now and post notices and look for more "lost puppy" signs. Wish me luck!
This is our new cat, Shadow, who curled up next to Scruffybutt yesterday (on a gorgeous afghan made by my mother-in-law) while Scruffybutt pretends that this is not happening.
Shadow was given to us by Grace, the artist, because we will keep him as an indoor-only cat. He started climbing up on her neighbors' roof. And staying there. Until her husband had to get the Really Long Ladder, climb up, and coax Shadow back down. Repeat. Repeat again. Then the neighbors started complaining. Grace, the artist's, husband pointed out that the hole in the neighbors' roof was attracting the cat. So, the neighbors had the hole patched. With Shadow inside. For three weeks, while everyone could hear him crying up there. The neighbors refused to do anything about it, saying they had "no access" to the attic. One day, Grace, the artist, found Shadow outside, evidently finally set free by the neighbors.
After his rehabilitation, Shadow needed a home where he could stay indoors. That's where we came in. This little guy is so affectionate! Have you ever heard of a lap cat before? I hadn't. I had no idea they existed. He wants to be in my lap Mostly All The Time. When I'm typing, his head pops up, attracted by the clicking noises from the keyboard. Then he starts trying to catch my fingers with his paws. It's adoramous.
Our other cat is Katy. We inherited her with the house. She used to have a roommate, so we thought she would get along with Shadow. We were wrong. She thinks Shadow is the AntiChrist.
This is Katy enjoying her morning saucer of Half 'n Half. (If she doesn't get her morning saucer of Half 'n Half, someone will have to deal with cat shit in their shoe when they least expect it.)
This is Scruffybutt again, helping her daddy get dressed this morning.
She's not so scruffy at the moment because she went to the groomer's recently. I took her picture through the glass. Her groomer's name is also Candace. (This was taken with a real camera instead of the camera phone, btw.)
Have a good day, everyone!
Scruffybutt sez ...
Mommy needs to be seen to.
On Monday, Scruffybutt and I went in for estimates - she to the groomer's, and I to the salons (nail and hair.) I consider this pampering, but she thinks it's torture. To make up for it, yesterday I took her with me to the local burger biggie, just so she won't always associate car trips with "bad" things.
So, there I was, driving home with a sack full of burger and fries on my lap, Scruffybutt next to me in her little car seat - the one that lets her sit up high enough to see out the windows - and I've got one hand on the steering wheel, and the other holding a very hot french fry in front of the cold air blasting from the air-conditioner vent. To cool it off. You know. So it won't be too hot for her little mouthie.
I don't know about you, but I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that Melinda was voted off American Idol last night. Week after week, she blew the competition away. Her gorgeous voice, her power, her versatility, her sheer damn talent, and she's voted out? It ain't right.
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I have my smelling salts ready because this week at Maxwell House, I'm taking estimates on rewiring this whole place. It's a hundred-year-old house, and some of the wiring is (yikes!) original. (The last time we had an electrician out here, he took pictures with his cell phone to show his boss.)
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I was visiting Hoss's b**g today and he was talking about being a bird freak. I am, too. Birds love to talk to each other, and our remaining lovebird, Lisa, chirps away whenever she hears another bird. Or something that she thinks is a bird. Like the beeps from the microwave, timers, answering machines ... She also loves music, especially Pink Floyd and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Rolling Stones? Not so much.
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When you were little, did you have picture books? I can't remember anything like that from my childhood, although sometimes my father would make up stories for me about twins named Millie and Tillie. Anyway, did you have a favorite character? I got to thinking about this because I'll be going to a costume party later in the year for a children's book writers group I belong to. We're supposed to dress up as a favorite book character. I just can't think of any!
****UPDATE****BREAKING NEWS****
Scruffybutt started a new blog - check it out.
****UPDATE****BREAKING NEWS****
I'm starting a new category, called Kitchen Sink, which I stole borrowed from Lavender because I'm lazy today's post is about a bunch of unrelated things.
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Pooks' class was canceled this morning because she's under the weather, and so are a couple of others. So, here I sits, all dressed up, and ... that's when I thought of you! Speaking of dressed up, Tomcat and I went to a banquet Saturday night, and the new picture over there in my Profile is from that.
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Another change: Scruffybutt's blog is no more. She's just too busy running the house and doing dog things to keep up with her blog. She may start a new one over on Wordpress or someplace like that. Blogger, which is now Google-ized, would not let me have two blogs with two different Profiles, so her blog had my picture and my profile on it. She was very upset, and between you and me, I think that's the real reason she stopped posting.
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I went to a (free!) seminar on webpage design, sponsored by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) a while back. Grace, the artist, who is also a member, went with me, and she said the seminar was better than the ($$) course she took at SMU! Grace, the artist, will have no trouble setting up her own webpage because she has Mac. I, however ...
Yesterday I pulled out the materials and started mucking around on the internets to see if I could possibly design my own webpage. Stop laughing!
After I got over that silly notion, I thought I'd look for a free template. There are tons of them out there. I found one that I loved, loved, loved, so I downloaded it. Then, it wouldn't open because I don't have the right software on my computer to open it with. Was there a way I could have known that before I downloaded the dang thing? I checked out the price of the software, and it was over $600!
Finally, reality sinking in, I decided to try using one of the icky templates that come with my web host (yes, I actually did figure out how to get one of those and register my domain.) I don't understand, at all, why it won't do stuff it says it will do. For example, if I want to have a picture on the right side of the template, and there's an option to put it on the right side, why then for the love of god does the picture stay on the left, and I can't move it no matter what I do?
Why am I doing this to myself? Because, if you're a writer and/or illustrator, you just really need to have your own website, that's why.
See, I have a plan. There's going to be an SCBWI conference in October, and I have that YA novel, The Earthquake Doll, sitting around here collecting dust. It really needs to be rewritten, but I put it off because one, that's a lot of work, and two, I was writing the murder mystery, Gino's Law. I'm going to put Gino's Law aside and let it percolate for a few months and work on the YA novel between now and October. That's where the webpage comes in, because I'd like to have that up and running by then, too.
After that, I'll pick up Gino's Law again and see how it wants to end.
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The male lovebird, Bart, died. That left us with just one - his sister, Lisa. I was surprised that she wasn't moping around after that. We decided to get her a companion, anyway, because I couldn't stand the thought of her being lonely. Well, it's a good thing we talked to an expert on the subject before we bought a bird. Did you know that lovebirds are color specific, meaning that they will have nothing to do with another lovebird without the same coloring as their parents (and themselves, of course?) I had already picked out a lovebird who was all by himself at the pet store, but his coloring was different. The bird lady told us that they would fight each other. Who knew that they discriminated like that? The lady suggested getting a mirror. So far, Lisa ignores the mirror completely. I think she's just being coy.
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I heard on CNN last night that during Friday and Saturday, meteorologists reported 125 tornadoes in the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, and Kansas. They said a normal two-day event at this time of year would produce around 50.
We had four small tornado touchdowns around here a few weeks ago, btw. One man was killed in Ft. Worth.
But back to the weekend - a tree across the street was hit by lightening. That's way too close, people. The wind tore up a shade and a gutter on the balcony of our house. The miracle is that it didn't bring down any branches on the humongous pecan tree in the back yard. I'm collecting estimates this week on having that tree trimmed - one huge branch is hanging over wires.
Stay safe, everyone.
Well, fans, tomorrow's the big day! Yes, I'm talking 'bout some football over on the Animal Planet Channel. It's Puppy Bowl III time already - can you believe it?
Puppy Bowl III, with the Kitty Halftime Show, tomorrow at 2:00 CST. Check it out.
Thanks to Dr. Deb's suggestion, Scruffybutt has launched an impeachment movement! Check it out.
For sunny days, I could get a "puppy purse" for Scruffybutt - that way, I just carry her, like a purse!
This one's called "Barkingham Pink," from Doggie Vogue.
... or something like that. I hate coming up with titles for my posts, which is why I've been experimenting with omitting the dang things lately. Read on, and the title becomes clear, I think:
First, Cynthia suggested that Scruffybutt needs a raincoat. I looked for one online because I haven't run across any in the stores. Here's one that will look great on her (Scruffybutt, not Cynthia):
This is from DoggieVogue. I'll order the pink one, of course. For some reason, people always think Scruffybutt is a male. That's why I stopped buying generic-looking sweaters and started putting her in little girly-looking things. Some people still refer to her as a "he." When her groomer did that, I should have given up, I guess.
Next, Pooks tagged me for a book meme. Here it is
You do this:
1) Find the nearest book
2) Open to page 123
3) Type lines 6-8 of said book
4) Tag three others
So here goes:
" ... things as the bar codes used in food stores. Yeah, no kidding! They really are that nuts, and they are armed and extremely dangerous."from Baubles of Blasphemy
I wish you could have seen us this morning, Scruffybutt and me. It's cold and raining, turning to freezing ice later today, so I decided we should go walkies early. I bundled up in my coat, warmly lined, rainproof , black with a hood and all kinds of zippered compartments and cinch-thingies for the cuffs and the hood, the one I got for our first trip to London. That has nothing to do with anything, but I'm just trying to give you a visual.
Scruffybutt was in her pink and black sweater, the one shown on her blog, but which is kind of tattered and worn out now- it's great for keeping her warm and keeping the mud splatters off of her. To complete this picture, you must see me carrying a black umbrella. Over her. See, my hoodie kept the rain of off me, but that little pink sweater isn't waterproof, so ... what was I to do? The tricky part was keeping the umbrella over her while holding her leash and picking up her poop.
No wait, the really tricky part was getting her out the door in the first place. This dog does not do rain or cold. I have to nudge her hind end with my foot and pull on the leash at the same time to make her go through the door. She hates getting her feet wet, so she does this spastic little shaky-feet dance. When a gust of cold wind gets on her face, she shakes her head and growls. It was pretty funny. You should have seen us.
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We're expecting an ice storm, with downed trees and power lines over the weekend and on into Tuesday. The last time we had a serious ice storm was over thirty years ago. Shut the whole city down, not just because of the icy roads, but because trees were blocking the streets. I was living in an apartment back then and was one of the lucky ones because my side of the block didn't lose power.
This time, I'm living in a house heated by gas, so even if the power goes off, we should be fine. It's going to be awfully hard on a lot of other folks, though.
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Poor Tomcat - this is the one day of the year that he has to go in all day on a Saturday - some kind of annual conference-thingy that they do. Why, oh why, did they schedule this on the opening Stock Show Weekend!? For those of you who are not from around these parts, the annual Ft. Worth Stock Show and Rodeo ushers in the coldest, nastiest weather of the year, just as surely as the Annual Byron Nelson Golf Tournament brings us the Spring monsoons.
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Well, now that Scruffybutt and I have had our walk, I'm going to spend the day writing, even if I have to do it the old fashioned way, with pen and paper by candlelight. Stay safe and warm, everyone.
Did you ever stay up late, then oversleep the next morning, and then you wake up, look at the clock, but before you can say "OMG" you realize you absolutely positively have to get to the bathroom or else, and then while you're in there, the phone rings, and they don't leave a message, so then you wonder who the hell called you at that precisely inconvenient moment in time instead of earlier, when you needed to be awakened and weren't in the bathroom? Me neither.
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I'm glad I'm married to a man who, while we're stopping by the store for ice cream cones, will pick up a package of little catnip mousie toys, then come home and gleefully hide them all around the house for Katycat to find on her nightly hunt.
And who also makes Bluebell Homemade Vanilla ice cream cones for us every night.
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Are you going to watch Bush tonight? Me neither.
Actually, I'm going to get the details later on CNN and then email Senator Cornyn (Tex.), who was on CNN yesterday trying to sound supportive of Bush's plan even though he admitted it was a long shot. (That's a gambling term, only he's gambling with lives.)
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Tomcat and I choose a book every once in while to read together, and this time it was Hannibal Rising, Thomas Harris' prequel to Silence of the Lambs. It was excellent, as one would expect from Harris. One of the members of my writers' group has a wonderfully evil character in the novel he's writing, and last week we critiqued a chapter which delved into the character's childhood. I mentioned to him that he might want to read Hannibal Rising for comparison. We all had an interesting discussion about whether a chapter like this was even necessary. One member said that kind of evil cannot be justified. But I don't think either my critique group friend or Thomas Harris was trying to "justify" their characters' action. It was just interesting to read about the events that led the characters to express their inherent evil in a certain way. ("Evil" meaning "sociopathy.")
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My friend Grace, the artist's, daughter turned 14 yesterday. This is not happening. She is wearing makeup. She has her hair highlighted with red and yellow. Red and yellow as in primary colors red and yellow. That's because her father won't let her get blue and purple highlights. This is not happening, either, because in our g-g-g-generation, hair was a huge issue that we used to upset our parents, and now this man is saying okay to red and yellow, but getting upset and putting his foot down at blue and purple. Dear Boomers, don't you remember what we all used to say? IT'S JUST HAIR! But then, as someone once pointed out (I don't remember who), if you remember the 60s, you weren't really there.
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That's all for now. Oh, if you ever call me and don't get an answer? Leave a frickin message already.
Happy Holidays from Scruffybutt and Katycat, who for the moment are behaving themselves in my sleepy presence.
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I'm asking you to believe not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington ... I'm asking you to believe in yours. -Barack Obama
