more Random Stuff on the Random Intertubes
OK, ronnyd’s blog is now open for anyone to post a comment. I’m moderating them, but you are no longer required to log in before commenting. You must include your name and email (which will not be displayed (the email that is, your name will appear).
I’m expecting lots and lots of comment s now. 
I’ve said it before in a recent post, and I’ll say it again, as many times as it hits me: time flies and there isn’t enough of it in a single day.
G-Monkey and SoozDog making the V-Day cupcakes last week.
Tonight I was reading to G-Monkey before bed time, one of the books that we read was Dr. Suess’s A B C and as we got to Z, it’s pretty darn big on the final page, so I traced it, making a “shoo-shoo-shoo” sound a few times. I guess it was kinda like Zorro, but I’m not going to explain Zorro just yet. G-Monkey did the same tracing with her finger saying “Z, shoo-shoo-shoo”. I love these moments. I played with her and T-Rex all day, reaffirming my status in the family as FunDaddy, keeping both the little ones occupied this evening while Mommy made Trader’s Joe’s products into Turkey Taco fixings.
T-Rex is coming for you ... and your camera.
T-Rex is going on 9 months soon and she is getting pretty good with the standing. She almost, almost did something that could technically be called a step, but maybe it’s reaching a bit to do so. She was standing holding herself up with the coffee table and she turned and leaned a bit toward the couch, let herself go from the table and reached over and started holding herself up with the couch cushion. Okay, so none of the descriptive action there involved a step, but BigDaddy was impressed. She’s going to be running around the house with G-Monkey in no time. T-Rex is a speedcrawler too. I found her at Pup’s bowl this morning, with dog food in mouth of course. I guess both of my girls have to eat some dog food at some point.
Speaking of which …
Pup is doing much much much better. Sadly, our plans yesterday and the rain today precluded me from taking her for her normal weekend park activities. The rain stopped the family from our bike excursion too, so I’m sure she understands. Or not. She’s currently, and very audibly I might add, snoring on her bed in the living room. I’m going to try and get a run in in the morning, and if I do and it’s not raining she will come along too. The hair in her shaved area on her side is starting to some back, so it looks like a brash cut more than the clean shave it had been looking like. I called it “hair,” and it is, but when I’m writing about a dog am I required to refer to her hair as “fur”? No, that can’t be. I have a friend who doesn’t like the all of the “dog hair” (and, really, there isn’t much at all) that he finds in my car, and that sounds right. He’s never complaining about the “dog fur.” Though that wouldn’t sound bad either.
She’s feeling much much better and is practically back to normal. We don’t have a definitive answer as to what the problem was, but it’s a pretty good bet that her intestinal lining was bothered by a date pit that caused some extreme aggravation. Yes, a date pit. Now, how did she get that?
She also has an extremely out of whack routing to her intestinal tract coming right out of the stomach, as it actually heads directly north and is attached to the wall of her abdomen near the spine. The Doc says that this could be her “normal” development, or it could be because of some trama that caused the adhesion. There hasn’t been any external trauma that I am aware of to cause something like that. Regardless, I’m to be on the lookout for more vomiting and any other out of normal behavior. Believe me, after the past two weeks I’m watching her like a hawk would watch a mouse. (But I’m not going to eat her like the hawk would the mouse, eventually.)
The Wrapped-Up Pup
Dogs Aren’t Supposed to Get Sick. That’s just in the rules, and you’ve all read the rules, right? So, what’s the deal? Why is she sick? Who made this happen? There is Hell to be paid and you’re going to pay it to me.
You get better soon, pup. We’re watching out for you!
This reminds me of a quote, the author of which I’ve been looking for for a really long time, several years in fact, since we got us this pup here to the left. The quote, and this may not be exact because I can’t remember where it is that I read or heard about it and haven’t seen since is this “The surest evidence that God does not exist is the lifespan of a dog.”
Now, I’m not saying our pup is dying, she certainly is not and had better not be. However, thinking about how I feel knowing that she’s sick reminded me that the time spent with our beloved canines is much too short even if we end up sharing our lives for a long time in … “dog years.”
Don’t believe in miracles? Well, here’s your proof. ronnyd is going to the gym.
A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor
I just finished reading this book the other night, A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor. I’ve never read one of Garrison Keillor’s books before, well, not one of his prose books anyway. I do have a copy of his Good Poems, that I quite liked. And I have listened to him quite a bit on NPR from his show A Prairie Home Companion. It’s amusing, and I’ll leave it on when I catch it, but I don’t actively seek it out.
A few years ago I was subscribed to The Writer’s Almanac podcast, and I quite enjoyed it. Thinking now that I should make sure that I am getting those podcasts again. Everyone needs more poetry in their lives, and not just in the classroom.
Now this book, A Christmas Blizzard, was a fun, quick read. Having listened to him on the radio, the whole time reading I couldn’t help but hear his voice as the narrator. Not that that was a bad thing. He’s got a great radio voice.
Certain aspects of the story are absurd and take a hefty suspension of disbelief, with very colorful characters, or caricatures rather, and amusing situations. This isn’t a fault at all as it was what really kept me reading.
It’s the story of a man who finds out the value of the small kindness paid on another human being. A brief description of the plot is that this very wealthy man is set to take his private jet to Hawaii for Christmas, as we are all known to do from year to year when the fancy strikes, no? Well during his journey he’s required to make a stop in North Dakota, in his old home town, and ends up stranded there by an extremely harsh Midwestern snow storm. No Hawaii for him this Christmas. He’s reunited with old friends and relatives, visits places from his past and reconciles with some inner demons and other issues with his past. It sounds boring when I describe it like that, but I’m not one to give too much away. Read it, I recommend it, it’s a fun little fable, and you’ll see the colors that Mr. Keillor uses to paint his tale are much brighter than the ones that I’ve used here.
I will seek out more of Garrison Keillor’s prose.
There is so much to do, to learn, to feel, to take care of, to accomplish, and to finish. I am not the first, and I am damn certain that I am not going to be the last, to express the exasperation that one feels when one realizes that time is not slowing down but is in fact speeding up and that the days and weeks are passing by much much too quickly.
You suck. That’s all.
I cannot believe that the BBB gives them an “A”
BUT I jsut got a call from them, and the Sales Manager at my local says that she can help with this situation that I’m facing.
My significant other and I watched The Visitor last night and really enjoyed it. Richard Jenkins, whom you may know from Six Feet Under, was great, but so was the rest of the cast. I recommend it.
It’s the story of a somewhat lonely professor who becomes entangled in the lives of some Muslims that he encounters in a way that I will not spoil. He finds meaning in the lives and events of his new friends when there is nothing of the sort left for him in his own.
I haven’t watched much of Thomas and Friends at all, but G-Monkey is getting into it, and loves the small set that she has. We were watching an hour long episode this weekend, or feature length film more accurately, and one thing that I took away was a somewhat anti diesel message. They presented the diesels as scarier, dirtier, and more unfriendly than the steam engines. They puff massive amounts of “black sooty smoke”, which I found hilarious, since the “steamies” must burn massive amounts of coal to get the steam on which they run. There was actually a comparison between the diesels and the steam engines, comparing their output, “just steam” to “black sooty smoke”. I think that the “steamies” were actually frowning in response to the diesel smoke. Oh brother …
As an adult, this omission of the coal smoke mention was hard to miss. The cartoon did mention that the “steamies” burn coal, but not that they produce any thing from the burning of that coal. I guess it’s the new clean-coal tech that powers Thomas and his fellow “steamies”.
Yes, I guess I’m already that parent that’s going to correct the messages delivered through the cartoons. I also see a severe drop off in the amount of Thomas they’ll be watching.
