Month: January 2008

Sleeping Dogs

An old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard. I could tell from his collar (though no tags) and well-fed belly and how clean he was that he had a home.

He followed me into the house, down the hall, and promptly fell asleep on the couch.

My dogs didn’t seem to mind him. He seemed like a good dog and I was OK with him, so I let him nap. An hour later he ambled to the door and I let him out.

The next day he was back, resumed his position on the couch, and slept for an hour.

This continued for days. Curious, I pinned a note to his collar: “Every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap. I don’t mind but want to be sure it’s OK with you.”

The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar.

“He lives in a home with six children — all boys. I’m sure he’s just trying to catch up on his sleep. May I come with him tomorrow?”

Posting the (sister’s) dog

Okay, this is the cutest picture I’ve seen in ages.

Angus - Pensive

I think he’s depressed because he has to go outside and pee in this:

Snow 1

or this:

Snow 2

Thank Jeebus I live in California.   I don’t care if I never see another flake of snow in person.

Blues Review

We went to the Sierra Nevada Brewery Big Room last night for Mark Hummel’s Harmonica blow out. We had a great time. Drank lots of Pale Ale and listened to live music. What could be better?

The basic band is Mark Hummel on vocals and harp, Charles Wheal and Rusty Zinn (AWESOME, both of ’em) with a bass player and drummer I didn’t get the names of, dammit.

The extra harp players were John Mayall, Lazy Lester, Kenny Neal, Fingers Taylor, and the guy who puts on the show at the brewery. I don’t know his name but if were less Lazy, I could look it up.

My favorite part of the whole night was when Lazy Lester did a song called “Five Long Years.” It was as good as it gets.  The band got into that old song and got into a blues groove that made my hair stand on end. Seriously great. I didn’t record that one, naturally.

Anyway, John Mayall played. He played songs off his old Laurel Canyon album, and some off his newest album, “Palace of the King.” He was very good. Older and slower, but aren’t we all? I could have watched more of him and less of some of the others, but everybody was good. I really enjoyed the whole show.

Mark Hummel’s Harmonica Blowout – Chico

Here’s the longest video created by my new little Christmas camera. I thought it did pretty well, considering I didn’t know how to use it and was trying to figure it out in the dark. Also, it’s my first uploaded video. It’s John Mayall, Kenny Neil, Lazy Lester, Fingers Taylor, the Blues Survivors band and Mark Hummel.

I’m trying to upload a shorter one (or two) but they’re really not worth watching. I just like to torture you with home movies. Here it is now!
[Later that same night: I give up. Half the time the embedded video screws up the whole page, so to hell with it. Just click the link and get your torture straight from YouTube. ]

Robots and Housework

I don’t much like cleaning house, but I like my house when it’s clean.  To this end we bought a Roomba, one of those little robot vacuum cleaners.  Found a smashing deal on a refurb.

Bob set it up to go off by itself at 2:00 p.m. so it would work while we were gone.  He was going to work late so he sent me an e-mail asking me to look for it when I got home – to make sure that it got back to it’s little recharging base successfully.

Well, the first thing I did when I got home was look at the base.  No Roomba.

I walked around, noting the dog and cat hair drifting at my feet, like it was when I left.  I started looking for the Roomba in earnest, checking obscure corners and under furniture.  I looked in every room in the house, albeit cursorily.  I wasn’t making it my life’s work, but I checked every room.  No Roomba.

I called Bob and told him the vacuum was nowhere to be found.  He said, “Was the front door open?  Maybe it snuck out.”  Ha ha.

sneaking out

No.  Bob came home and looked around for it, too, later that same evening.   No Roomba.

We forgot about it for a couple of days, and then Bob went on a hands-and-knees tour of the house look for the Roomba.  He found the little rascal in the front bedroom in the folds of the bedskirt.  It had tried to vacuum up a sock and choked, and, apparently ashamed of itself went into hiding.  The battery wasn’t dead, it was just unconscious.  We dislodged the sock, hit the power, and it started right up.

Anyway, we learned that you can’t leave anything on the floor.  And that maybe we’ll just  have the Roomba do the front half of the house.  Not so many square feet to search.

Will Ferrell

The Landlord, with Will Ferrell and his daughter Pearl.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/74

Have you already seen this?  Of course you have.  It’s kind of old, but I just watched it again and it made me laugh.   I want to know how they did it w/out warping Pearl for life.  Also, are they going to spank her when she calls daddy an asshole when she’s older?

Misc. on a Sunday

In other news this week:

1. Ants invaded my bed for two nights. That was unpleasant. Waking up because you have ants in your hair is not a good way to wake up. They freaked out the new cat, too, who has been sleeping on my head. She saw one on the pillow and jumped straight up. It would have been amusing had it not been *my* pillow.  This house is built on the roots of an old walnut orchard.  Ants live in the roots.  They like to come into the house when it rains.

2. I am such a spaz. I just had a good cry over someone [no idea who they were, I got there via a damned google ad in my gmail] who built an expensive new mission style house and then bought and transplanted some big old grandad Manzanillo olive trees to the property. The part that made me cry was happy – I’m always so sad when the old olive trees around here get bulldozed down to make room for progress. So somebody is saving them, somewhere. And probably making big bucks on it.

3. We get to go see live music tomorrow night. Mark Hummel, Kenny Neal, and John Fucking Mayall [w00t!11!!] at the Sierra Nevada Brewery Big Room, one of my ATF venues for live music. I am even going to take the last John Mayall CD I bought and have him autograph it, fan-grrl that I am. It’s going to be great, even if it is on a school night. Luckily I’m working from home on Tuesday so I don’t have to get up too early.

4. God, but it’s gloomy here today. Raining off and on, but not too too hard. We finally cut that tree up that fell during the big storm earlier this month. Bob got to try out his new chainsaw. He cut, I dragged branches over to the cement pad to await further chopping and and hauling. Didn’t take all that long. Couple of hours, maybe. The whole time we were doing it the hummingbirds were chiding us loudly for upsetting the status quo. They’ve been very happy with the tree down, it gave excellent perching places convenient to the feeder.

Last week I was looking out the kitchen window at the tree and a really beautiful big woodpecker or maybe flicker was there, not six feet away. It was pecking away (sideways) at the downed trunk. I’ve seen them numerous times on the far side of the yard but could never get a good look. See, now I’m sorry we’re disposing of the tree.

flicker

Bob’s been out there fighting to get the stump out for the last three hours. I went and helped push until I saw stars, with no effect. I’m all for tying it to Andrew’s truck bumper and giving it a yank but Bob says that’s a good way to have a weird accident and he’d just as soon not have to redo the siding on the house. Spoilsport.

Muddy yard, cutting up the fallen tree

Help Desk Policy Change

I felt this way at work yesterday. I wonder if anyone would object if I stuck a sign like this to my door? Normally I’m very patient but some days it just gets to me having to explain the same thing over and over to the same people. Could they ever write it down?  Hellz Nah.

Sigh. Keeps me employed, I guess.

helpdesk

Quote O’ The Day

We say that if a temple, or a symbol, or an image helps you realize the divine within, you are welcome to it.  Have two hundred images if you like.  If certain forms and formulas help you to realize the divine, have, by all means, whatever forms, temples, whatever ceremonies you want to bring you nearer to God.  But do not quarrel about them:  the moment you quarrel, you are not going Godward; you are going backward toward the brutes.

— Swami Vivekananda