A new level of sneaky

It's no secret that Marti loves anything that is forbidden. She loves eating toilet paper and Kleenex. She gets up on chairs to see what's out of her reach. She's ruined several pairs of my shoes and is having a love affair with my new slippers, which I believe is because they are the soft texture of her favorite toys. Yesterday Marti reached a new level of sneakiness to obtain a forbidden piece of cotton ball.

I went to the doctor yesterday and told him about the mid-life type of hot flashes I've been having. Since every female in my family has had a thyroid condition of some sort, he wanted to run a test for it. So I go across the street and have blood drawn. I get home and Marti is of course interested in the new bandage and cotton stuck to my arm. A few minutes after the discovery of my new forbidden attraction, she manages to get hold of the cotton when I'm not looking, get it out from under the bandaid and run off with it. I was actually pretty impressed with her strategery.

Gettin' my kicks lookin' back at '06

What better time than at the end of December to look back on the past year and think of the highlights. Here are some of my favorites from 2006.

Favorite websites: 1) GoFugYourself: Hilarious and pointed commentary on celebrity fashion. Always an enjoyable site to visit, and it doesn't count as celebrity gossip as it is fashion gossip. 2) Da Breakup Song: Great way to break up with your significant other. Just kidding. But truly hilarious. Thanks to Jenn for hounding me until I went there. You can choose a name (my fave is Henry) and then choose reasons to break up with him (bad breath, ugly, blogged too much, smells, etc.) and it'll create a song for you. Try different combinations for the humorous effect. "...like a chicken ate your face..." 3) Google. You can find anything via Google. I'm their number one fan, even if they're not my number one fan. ha! 4) Wikipedia. The Google of information. Enough said.

Weirdest ailment: I never have normal injuries/maladies; I should probably be in a medical journal. This year's winner: A cyst on my lower lip that I had to have removed. Got a big numbing injection that made my lip about the size of an orange. After it had taken effect, the doctor came back in and joked that I was lookin' good and I told him: "Celebrities pay a lot of money for lips like this."

Favorite trips in no particular order:
San Francisco: Got to see where we'll be moving, navigate with my mom, eat at In-N-Out burger for the first time and see the Stanford campus.
Branson: Got to hang with the family, go to Silver Dollar City and relax.
Chicago: Visted Alan several times in his "hometown." Went to Six Flags, Botanic Gardens, museums, and got to navigate into the city by myself one day.
Colorado: Ski trip in February. Took another lesson and improved immensely. I'm apparently, what's the word? Oh yes, a "natural." Skiied confidently on blues and got tricked onto a black. Didn't break any limbs though, so I considered it a success.

Worst fast food idea: KFC's mashed potato bowls. Reminds me of Joey on the Thanksgiving Friends episode where he eats Rachel's "traditional" trifle, but she accidentally puts beef in it. "Potatoes, good. Cheese, good. Chicken, good." But not together.

Best fast-food commercials: Sonic still takes the cake on these. The humor is unstoppable. Spangles, of course, is a close runner up, if only based purely on the fact that they make such an effort even if the commercials a) don't even make sense and b) are rife with speech impediments. They are amusing to say the least.

Color: Green, specifically if it falls into the sage green category. Good thing I don't have a house or it would be uni-color.

Favorite month: October. The best month of the year usually, my birthday and anniversary both fall in this golden block of weeks. This year, it was made even better because I got to go to Chicago and bring Alan back from his internship in the North. It took awhile for his "accent" to fade, but he's finally back to normal.

Favorite nephew: Kenny. Ok, so he's my only nephew, but he is my absolute favorite! You can practically see him learning, even if he hasn't quite learned to say my name yet....and can already say Alan's...and Marti's....but whatever, he's the cutest little bugger around and I love him.

Favorite game to hate: Sudoku. At first I was loving it, trucking along on all of the easy puzzles. As they got progressively harder, I got progressively more angry. I've "quit" several times, but always go back for more abuse.

Worst TV show that I watch: The Bachelor. Someone needs to have a Bachelor intervention, tie me down, and not allow me to watch.

Best TV shows: Grey's Anatomy; Project Runway. Make it work.

Favorite workout: The Biggest Loser workout DVD. The real BL people from Season 2 make you think "I can do it!" and Bob is a great motivator. It'll kick your rear into gear.

Proudest achievement: Running a 4-mile race; reading Anna Karenina.

Worst habit broken: Eating fast food. Alan and I have a pact and we've each only eaten fast food once since our drive back from Chicago mid-October.

Best purchase: Paper, Denim & Cloth jeans. Worth every penny!

Worst purchase: $5 sunglasses at Target. They smash my face and fog up when it's hot.

Best news story: Man bites panda. How much better does it get?

Worst dream: That I was working in a Dairy Queen in California. Actually, I wasn't even hired; I was just hanging out in the back hoping that they would get busy enough to need me and pull me onto the register. Horrifying.

Most predictable celebrity news: The Britney and K-Fed breakup.

Worst library foul: Falling asleep with a library book and waking up to it being chewed to pieces by Marti.

Best husband: Alan. We made it through a year of marriage and had a lot of fun in the meantime. It was rough being apart, but I think it only reminded us of how much we love to be together and how much fun we have. He's a great husband and a great puppy-daddy.

Best pug: Marti, Martikins, Little Grizby, Sister Rita, Gracious B, B Wiggly, whatever you want to call her, she's the best. And here is her countdown....

Marti's favorite things in nature: Pinecones, rabbits


Marti's favorite toy: a stuffed Santa Claus

Number of operations to Santa: At least four

Limbs remaining on Santa: 2. One arm, one leg.

Rolls of toilet paper eaten, total: At least 3

Marti's biggest accomplisment: Roaming free during the day without causing total destruction.

Marti's most amazing talent: Finding chewing gum each time we go for a walk.


Merry Christmas to all! Stay tuned to my next post: resolutions for the coming year!

2PC4ME

If you've ever been annoyed about the political correctness of the world today, you must read this article by Lou Dobbs. It's fantastically written and well worth reading.

Too hot for the sea

Known as the "cow of the sea," the manatee has long been one of my favorite aquatic mammals. Wikipedia describes the herbivorous animal as "slow-moving, non-aggressive and generally curious." Alan and I got to see manatees in person on our honeymoon, and Alan, possibly illegally, got to pet one. They're just these big, floating, lettuce-eating, peaceful creatures. And now, thanks to Conan O'Brien, this "love machine" is the newest internet craze.

I was on The New York Times' website earlier today and couldn't pass up the headline "So This Manatee Walks Into the Internet." The short story is that a joke during a skit mentioned www.hornymanatee.com, which at the time was not a real website. To avoid any legal repercussions or responsibility for anything on the site, NBC bought the website and made it part of the joke. Some would say it's inappropriate; I would say it's hilarious.

You CAN make a difference

At some point we all feel like little fish in a huge pond; a skinny needle in a huge haystack; a tiny speck of dust in a great world full of dirt. But no matter how insignificant we may seem in a world populated by 6 billion other humans, we must remember that even one person can make a difference.

I learned it from my mom: When a company does you wrong, you no longer support said company. Be it the Sears empire or the local grocery store, when they cannot fix your dishwasher after 52 attempts or wrongly accuse you of stealing a 24-pack of Diet Coke, you hit them where it counts: the pocketbook.

I have successfully implemented this valuable lesson in my own life. When SBC charged me ridiculous long-distance fees and screwed up my bill time after time, I went on an anti-SBC rampage for months. Ever since a couch purchase at Nebraska Furniture Mart turned into a 3-month ordeal, I have refused to set foot in the store. And because the cook downstairs at my office deli is just plain MEAN, I have joined forces with a work friend to boycott it completely. The cook’s offenses? Let me make a list. I ask for regular, non-Texas-sized toast, she gives me Texas-sized toast. I want to buy at juice at 7:30 (when she opens) she sighs and says, “I GUESS I can do that.” She “forgot” Jenn’s credit from a partially used gift certificate and thus stole her lunch money. She didn’t let us get soda at 7:28 because two minutes to her makes a huge difference. She scowls, intimidates and in general exudes Soup Nazi-ish behavior.

The big news came on Monday: The deli will no longer be in operation as of Dec. 21. I like to think my few dollars here and there made a difference. And by the way, the local grocery has shut down, Sears has merged with Kmart, and now the deli has closed. Coincidence? I think not.

Upchuck Dog

A couple of days ago I was getting ready for work and I was watching my faithful pug companion in the mirror behind me. As she stuck her rear end up in the air with her front legs out in front of her to get a deep stretch, I noticed that she really did look like the Downward Dog position in yoga. It struck me as extremely funny, little Marti doing yoga.

Cut to yesterday afternoon. After a long, rough day at work, I was excited to go home and try my new Rodney Yee DVD. I grab my yoga mat, give the dog a bone and sit down for a nice "yoga burn" session. I clear my mind and focus on the transition from Staff pose to Cobbler's pose. Then I hear a slight retching sound. Marti has thrown up all over my yoga mat.

Obviously Marti isn't as into yoga as I previously thought.