It's a Girl!!

We bailed her out just this afternoon (maybe that's what grandmother meant?!) 12 weeks old, grey/tan with black stripes, has better than average computer skills, very purr-ey, snuggly, clingy, very stinky (and can't be bathed for 10 days due to yesterday's removal of the femal organs), wants to scratch everything (10 minutes in she'd poked 3 holes in the side of the leather couch) and very nameless. She has to stick around for a couple of days and we'll try on a few of the early bids (Dobby, Bennie, Priscilla, Alice). The naming auction is still open though, and you have gender direction now.

The best part? She's a lap kitty. She likes to stay there while I work. It rocks.

"I've simply had a wonderful Christmas and I'm just so thankful none of us are in jail"

Per the finale of my grandmother's I'm-so-glad-everyone-could-be-together speech just after family Christmas rituals had concluded. My grandmother, queen of all that is inappropriate and untimely. Props to grandmother for pulling through the knee replacement surgery on tuesday with flying colors. She's a tough cookie. Now just a little bit tougher ... watch those groins, gentlemen.

This just one of many delicious nuggets from Christmas 2005. More to come.

Mexican Tuesday

As is our new Tradition, we'll be picked up from DFW airport tomorrow and shuttled directly to a Mexican Restaurant of our choosing. I am quite the ball of excitement about this, all except that I feel like poop and I'm afraid of feeling like poop tomorrow. Wish me luck that I overcome the poopiness before christmas and that I get along swimmingly with my neph-pup (to avoid further confusion on this issue, neph-pup would be my Brother's Dog).

Signing off till next week. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

I'm not even getting paid for this

Coke zero rocks and this is a plug to get more people to drink it so it doesn't find itself in the wasteland of Tab and Pepsi Free. Even Dr. J, the sworn enemy to all that is diet, loves it.

Now that I'm of the late-twenty variety, am I still obligated to report my grades to my parents?

Remember those days of yesteryear when you would go home at the end of a rough semester for the Christmas holidays, indulge on free food and free laundry at Mom's house, maybe go out with some high school friends with a 10-spot from Dad that felt like 100 bucks since you hadn't actually held 10 dollars in your hand that wasn't already predestined for laundry or groceries since the last time you came home to visit the parents? Yeah, me too.

Remember how exhilarating it was to finish your finals, pack up the car and drive home? And how you used to wallow in the freedom of having completed another round of coursework and how you didn't even care how you did on the final because you were just so glad to be done with it? And remember how you would wake up feeling completely relaxed and thrilled with the fact you didn't have to study that day, or do homework, or go to classes ... right up until the day that you could call in on the Automated Phone System that would give you your grade report for the semester and then you wish that you had studied a little more for your finals, and the fret and the praying would start all over again? I probably have a few readers who had to look at Posted Grade Sheets the next semester when they returned, or something very archaic like that. Today the hip kids (I think the mere fact that I call them The Hip Kids makes me Not Hip) are checking those grades online. And the grades pop in as the professor decides to post them. So I don't understand why my one teacher is holding out on me ... UGH! Although I can't imagine how distracted I would be if I still had finals to take and I already had posted grades in other classes ...


I wonder if I'm still entitled to that 10 bucks? Maybe I can finagle an extra 5 bucks since I'm married now. Or does it go down by $5?

The Ultimate in Sell-Out

So today, at my conference, I was having a conversation with a certain someone that is the Assistant Director of a certain organization that funds (or more importantly, doesn't fund) university projects ... potentially my own. Apparently Mrs. Assistant Director's mouth was exceptionally full of fresh saliva because she accidently spit all over me in mid-sentence.

And what did I do?

Nothing.

I simply pretended like Mrs. Assistant Director had not spat on me and that I didn't all of the sudden have droplets of said saliva drying all over my face. I didn't even flinch or consider embarrassing her by wiping it off.

I've sold my soul.

Semester 1. Over and Out

One semester less. Doesn't say much since I only took one class, so I'm 1/6 of the way there. But 1/6 is better than 0 - hooray! This is just a quick hoorah before I skidaddle to Atlanta for the weekend. Don't get too excited, it's for work. However, there is shopping scheduled. At real stores. Some of the many millions they don't have here in the S of C. Be back next week, kiddos.

I absolutely LOVE Christmas

Love the songs, the houses dressed top to bottom with lights, the movies, the wreaths, the jingle bells, the snow (or thought thereof), the mistletoe, the ornaments, the s'mores, the christmas pageants, the egg nog and apple cider, the spicy candles popping up in all the stores, the vacations from work and the days off from school, the holiday sales!, the giving of gifts, the green, the red, the silver, the gold, santa, rudolph and the gang, the family home videos, the lazy days of winter, the smell of fireplaces burning, the holiday cheer. Love it, love it, love it all. Never get a bit tired of any of it.

God Bless You, Everyone!

One Week In

Last set of house photos, I swear. I know some of you are interested and requesting photos but there are still others who could not care less.

Witness. Christmas is in full swing at La Casa, inasmuch as christmas can swing sans Tree.


I can practically hear the reindeer's footsteps clacking on my roof.


That's a little Leonardo Da Vinci via the History Channel in the background. A perfect Advent accompanyment if you ask me.


Yeah! The newly installed refrigerator hosting many a christmas treat (and many a Thanksgiving leftover)


If you squint through the darkness you can see a stack ... ahem ... a mountain of boxes and plastic wrap. That's the trash. Ready as can be to find a new home. Wonder who's job that is.


Unplaced decor stacking up in this room, on the bed and furniture. I'm sure it will be sorted last. It did help in upping the box count in the hallway though.


Forgive the poor photo. It's hard to see from this angle but there are pencil markings surrounding the perimeter of that shelf. That shelf there, the one that almost became the bane of Dr. J's existince.


The official study/work area. We are currently accepting donations in the amount of $25. No personal checks please.