The students are back. Woe is me. Fighting the waves of barbarian hordes at Target on the Friday before classes start is a Very Bad Idea. On the plus side, I found a mixed nuts variety I actually like (pistachio, almond, walnut, hazelnut, pecan, and peanut, but no disgusting Brazil nuts!). On the minus side, I forgot fish food, so I had to go back and do it all over again on Saturday. On that trip, I remembered to pick up butter, but guess what I forgot? So I get to go to Target yet again. Hopefully, I’ll remember fish food this time! It’s a good thing the aquarium kit I bought had a trial package of TetraMin flakes.
Month: August 2007
La Roux
La Roux was abandoned and is being fostered by a friend of mine. I’m guessing she’s about 16 weeks old and about 30lbs. Her coat is deep stag red sable. She’s got the tiniest little line of white hairs on her nose (the world’s smallest blaze!) and small white bib. Her foster mom thinks she’s a GSD mix, but I’m seeing Collie. Maybe Collie x GSD? We don’t know anything for sure about her, though, except that she is growing like a weed. She is pretty mellow, and she’s been sticking to me like a burr ever since I picked her up this afternoon.
Miss Brown’s nose is, surprisingly, not disjointed. However, she wants terribly to play with La Roux, and La Roux is Not Interested, Ma’am, not one little bit. Boxers do not play like herding breeds, so I don’t sense that these two are going to be BFF. I’m just pleased that Harriet did not try to eat La Roux. I wouldn’t trust her for two seconds if my back were turned, though, so I’m watching them like a hawk.
Behold, the cuteness:
Dogs
When we got back from Minnesota, Harriet and I slept for about 24 hours. Harriet lost no time breaking in the fleece blanket Grandma sent back with me.
This is Grandpa’s dog, Nina. This isn’t a good picture, but it’s the best I could do, because she was motoring around like a mad dog. When she plays, she plays hard. Grandpa was playing fetch with her in the house one day, and she slammed into the attic door, trying to catch the ball. I don’t think she even noticed. Yorkies may be tiny, but they are 100% Terrier.
She also has a whole fleet of beach balls outside that she chases around the yard. Grandpa was throwing them over the garage, and Nina would race to the other side to “catch” them and push them around the yard.
Alas, I did not get even a bad picture of Grandma’s mitten kitten. She’s got a black and white kitty with thumbs. Grandma swears she’s a sweet cat, but she’s not–NOT!–fond of strangers, so I’ll have to take Grandma’s word for it. She sure is pretty, though.
The Fish Report
I woke up to no floaters. Yay! Both fishies are doing beautifully. They are active little buggers and spend most of their time zooming around the tank. They zoom together, though, which is cute. They also know that people bring food, so when you approach the tank, they shoot to the surface for snax. And boy are they hungry! I don’t know if half starved fish will over-eat, so I’m not feeding them all that much yet. Last night, they were unimpressed with the short rations, so they started digging in the marbles at the bottom of the tank for left-overs. Since it’s a clean tank, there’s not anything down there for them to eat. The sound of marbles chinking against a glass aquarium is loud.
Also, I think I only was startled by the “Who the hell is peeing?!” noise of the waterfall filter five or six times last night. That’s going to take some getting used to. Poor Harriet. The first time, I yelled, “Hey!” at her, only she was lying quietly on the couch, not peeing on the kitchen floor. As if she’d do such a thing, anyway. How uncouth!
Jazzy and Her Squirrel
Miss Jasmine, looking dignified and ever so slightly disapproving
Please to not be touching mah squirrel, ma’am
You touched it! Gimme back mah squirrel!
Mah squirrel
I loves its tasty belly
And its delectable wee leggies
Om nom nom nom
Tiny Animal Rescue
I just got back from Owen County, where I rescued two fish. Gold fish. The kind you buy for 39¢ each. They ended up costing me $50, by the time I bought an aquarium, non-toxic water, etc. Fifty damned dollars for two fish that probably would have been just as happy being dumped in the pond. But, they were abandoned a month ago, and I just couldn’t stand the thought of them being left to starve or smother to death. Not even boring old goldfish deserve that.
Hopefully the clean water won’t shock them to death.
They were not very cooperative about having their pictures taken, so blurry orange blobs are all you get for now.
The same folks who abandoned the fish abandoned a puppy, too. I’m watching her this weekend, so I will most likely have pee-churs of baby puppy cuteness.
Drivin’ Drivin’ Drivin’
Gallup Park by Matt Callow, published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license
I ended up doing all the driving to Minnesota (you could say that I have control issues). I figured, since I didn’t use the cruise control (again, with the control issues), my leg might be tired or sore, or my back or shoulders might get stiff. Nope. Howsomever, I did have weird dreams. The first night, every time I drifted off to sleep, I started to dream that I was falling asleep while driving, and I’d startle myself back awake. That happened several times before I finally fell asleep for good.
Holga
Holga Alley by Jason Armstrong, published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license
Kill me now! They’ve been drilling and sawing on the outside of the building all summer, but this week, they finally got around to doing our section. Why couldn’t they have done it while I was out of town? The constant grinding and jack-hammering noise is about to drive me over the crazy event horizon. And then there’s the fine limestone dust that is seeping in through the cracks along the windows. I began sneezing about an hour after they started work this morning, and my eyes have been stinging and watering. This cannot be a good thing! If I die of limestone lung, do you think my family could sue the university?
And with that, I shall attempt to refrain from further crankypantsing. Otherwise, I’ll go on and on and on and on, and no one needs to be subjected to that.
In fun news (for me): I ordered five rolls of 120 Fujifilm Neopan 100 Acros black and white film yesterday, so I can finally play with my Holga. I’ve been cruising Flickr for Holga photos, and I just couldn’t stand it any longer. My film should be here next week. Wheee! In the meantime, if I get inspired, I might try loading it with 35mm film. I need a couple of pieces of foam, though, to cushion the film canister. I wonder if memory foam would work? I also need to get up off my butt and play with my pinhole camera. That would be the simplest and cheapest toy right this minute, because it needs no modification and it can take 35mm film (of which I have a metric butt-load).
Cuteness
I’ve been suffering from puppy withdrawal, so I had to take a few photos of my aunt and uncle’s Boston Terrier, Jasmine. She’s ludicrously cute.
Altered Photos
The photo was bleached, rinsed, and dried, then rewet with a baby wipe and incised with a stylus. My doodle compulsion apparently knows no bounds.
This photo was sanded in parts with steel wool, then incised with a stylus, then colored with Neocolors II and RoseArt ColorSharp metallic markers.
And now I really have to finish getting my shit together. I spent the day doing the headless chicken dance (car to shop for oil change and tire/brake check, dog to vet for rabies vax[1], much doing of laundry, and a Target run for road trip essentials). I have a feeling I’m not going to get to vacuuming before I go, but I have to do the dishes and clean the bathroom.
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[1] Harriet never fails to amaze me. She is such a typical Boxer–bratty and bossy and obnoxious at home, but a perfect charmer when she has her visiting manners on. At the vet today, there was a little brindle Staffy Bull (oh. mah. gawd. was he cuuuuute!) who would not sit still. His owner told him several times to sit down and behave like “that other dog.” Haw! Harriet was lying quietly at my feet, like a good girl.
She also fawned all over the vet techs and the vet, who is a grumpy old man. Harriet does not like strange men, so I don’t know what the hell got into her. The most surprising part, though, was that she actually ate the two (two!) cookies that one of the techs gave her. She never eats food from strangers. She always takes it then spits it out.
I think my dog may have been abducted by aliens. I shall immediately commence the search for pods.
red paper boat 