I'm not sure if Squatty Dog approves of this message

...but I hope he's flattered!

The website is kind of cool too.

Say what you will about politics

I'm still a huge fan of this! 

It hurts my brain

I found a nail in my tire, and while the tire hadn't gone flat in the probable weeks the nail had been lodged in there, Dad said it had to come out. I kept putting it off so that I have only myself to blame for what happened next. The day I had finally put aside hours for some quality time at the tire place fell two days after that first big snow storm here.

I made my way to Les Schwab thinking it would be an hour or so, but it ended up being three and a half hours before I finally drove outta there! It was amusing in a sad sort of way to watch the patrons freak out over the wait. It's not like the workers were slacking, there were just a lot of people! Besides, they provided free wifi- a nice service (too bad I didn't bring the laptop). So as I sat there idly playing with the dog, reading magazines and my book, and people watching, I basically had all the posters and tire displays memorized. 

There was one particular poster, though. It was like a train wreck- so awful you can't look away. It makes me cringe on the inside every time I look at this photograph, and yet I can't stop... 

The EKG tracing is backwards! I can't handle these kinds of things.

End note: turns out the screw was so tiny that it hadn't actually punctured through all the way. The guy was nice enough to just smile at me and wave me away, no charge. 

It was bound to happen eventually

Sitting at a stoplight, the turn lane to my left had three cars lined up. All three were green Subaru Outbacks. I'd say what are the chances... but I guess it's not really a surprise. Welcome to Seattle!

A mystery

It's been established that Munoz has introduced me to the joy of candles, more specifically tea lights. I love, love, love spending quiet nights at home with Gazza while the fire is going, hot chocolate is steaming, Vivaldi is playing, and the candles are flickering.

I find it interesting to see which tea light makes it the longest. You would think that because the tree has the most tea light holders, statistically the last candle would most often be on it, but I've found that not to be the case (there, um, may or may not have been a calculator involved). Instead the lone light keeping late hours with the fire usually is on the votif on top of the fireplace.

Why would this be? Yes, its closer to the cracked door, and arguably maybe that slows down the burn rate, but at the same time its on top of the fireplace. To state the obvious, it's not exactly in the coldest part of the house.

Couch hog as well

As I've mentioned (numerous times) before, The Beast always has be be near me. Sometimes when I'm up late at night or she knows I'll be leaving shortly, she not only has to be near me, but also has to be touching me. This way I'm sure to wake her up if I get up. More recently she's begun to stay on the couch when I move around at those late hours, and she even went to bed (on my pillow...) without me the other night! This is one of my favorite couch shots, though:

When I was getting a midnight snack, she must have been too tired to pad over to the kitchen and keep an eye on me. Instead she just peeked up over the back of the couch and rested her chin there until I came back. Baby steps...

Sadly, I haven't seen her nearly as often as either of us would like. Fortunately being back on twelve hour shifts is better. She sleeps all day with me, with the exception of running with Bob for a few hours, spends an hour or so with me getting ready for work, and then spends the night burrowed under the covers with either Katie and Ellie or Megan, Jeff, and Violet. I hear there are pictures soon to follow from the latter crowded bed! 

I sure miss her out here in Indiana. 

December 22

The winter solstice. It's the most bittersweet day in my book. Why? Because it's the shortest day of the year and the point at which the days only get longer.

Ready, set, go!

Happy gotcha day Gazza!

Today, December 21st, is the day Woofda Gucci Ragazza (aka: Caboodles) came home. I worked that night then drove down to Portland. Picking her up, I had only two pictures to go on (and several hours on the phone with the breeder), so when it came time to actually claim her, I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing. We spent the long drive home in the car checking each other out, not quite sure what to think. I couldn't believe I had an animal living with me.

One year later, I can't imagine life without her. Gazza with the three inch fauxhawk. My Beast.

(all pictures shamelessly "borrowed" from Katie/Ellie and Megan/Jeff/Violet- two of her surrogate families)

Yes, she still takes Prozac (though much less). Often she stays in the car. She still has some anxiety about being home alone (but merely sleeps on my pillows and tackles me when I come home). It's a small price to pay compared to one year ago. It's worth everything when we go for walks around Greenlake, spend hours at the beaches and parks, and hike in the silence of the Northwest forests. It's worth it because she's not only acting like a dog now, but she's a happy dog.

Beast? I don't think you'll ever understand how desperate I was for this to work and how close you came to being put down ("not adoptable" indeed). But then again, I wouldn't want you to. All I want is for you to sleep peacefully when I'm gone, cuddle when I'm home, obsess over your ball at the park, and jump around smiling like you do when we're outside. The rest is just details.

Update: I put a link on the left side of this page titled "The Beast" for periodically updated photos of her for those of you who are curious...

Word play

Our pastor used Wordle last week to give a cool illustration related the parable of the prodigal son. The way Wordle works is that you plug in a block of text, tell it how you want it to look, and it spits out a "word cloud" where words are bigger the more frequently they appear in your text block. The biggest words in the Prodigal Son cloud were father, son, and celebrate. Point well made, I think.

I plugged in one of my favorite quotes by an Outward Bound student. I thought my results were pretty cool too:

Always a surprise

A few weeks ago, I stayed up for the entire night. Getting a case of cabin fever and temporarily disobeying doctor's orders (hey, sanity trumps the achilles), I took a stroll with The Beast about 5am. It wasn't exactly cold, but it had been raining for days and was a bit chilly. Gazza always gets excited for these forays into the night, so she was hopping and prancing the entire way at my side (she sometimes gives little kisses so I even got a few of those!). There are only a few people out walking in the midnight/early morning hours this time of year, and that's mostly the reason we don't go as often (rather than the weather). Gazza is somewhat surprisingly a pretty awesome guard dog, but I'm trying to be a bit more proactive (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!).

Anyway, while these city ambles are different than the night walks we'd do at our cabins or at home, they are generally peaceful. I never felt safe going alone in Chicago, so it's another thing I appreciate about Seattle. And while I usually prefer to share the quiet time and idle observations with somebody, perhaps it's for the best that Gazza and I get to spend it together.

Observing a sleeping city is cool because it's indirectly people watching. You get to peruse details without questioning looks or the rest of the world swirling around you. In a non-creepy way, my eyes are always drawn to windows (whose shades are open). People watch tv at odd hours and weekend nights often have lights shining out and silence punctuated by laughter. It makes me smile. I especially love Christmastime because of the lights and Christmas trees. So warm and inviting!

The more mundane sights are fascinating too. For example, on our walk back a few weeks, I noticed one particular house with rotating decorations looked different. In addition to holiday and seasonal yard ornaments, wreathes, address placards, and porch decorations, they always have five fish windsocks hanging from the eaves of the front stoop. As best as I can figure, the two big ones are mama and daddy, flanked by juniors one, two, and three. Cliche... but kinda cute!

Once I got to the major Wallingford through street, I did some window shopping. The wedding store had some very pretty, elegant dresses in the windows silhouetted by some soft lights in the back. The raindrops on the windows twinkled as they slid down and lights flickered. It looked like little diamonds were raining down on the dresses. I stood and watched for a while.

Walking into the Starbucks for a breakfast sandwich, we were greeted by loud music, bright lights, and one rather obnoxious customer. The baristas seemed to like him well enough, a regular I suppose, but I thought he was loud and arrogant. As I was waiting for my sandwich and scratching Gazza's ears, I heard him talk about how he and his wife had moved here from Boston and bought the most expensive house in Wallingford. Rolling my eyes to myself, hep happily continued to boast about the process and money involved. We couldn't get out of there quickly enough.

Nearing home on a particularly quiet street, I noticed something new. There was a brown van, not unlike this one that was backed up to a partial basement garage. The house looked a little sketch, but then again the same could be said for the market, so I don't know if that says much... I'm sure (or at least mostly sure) that it's simply a work van for the family living there, but don't tell me you wouldn't wonder for just a moment...