Dogging the blog

Blogging has felt a lot like homework lately, so I'm sorry I've been less than entertaining in the last few weeks (if you use this site for entertainment. And, if you do, by the way, it's really time to start going outside a bit.). Rest assured I've been busy but not too busy, and we WERE out of town, so that was a valid excuse, at least. Chicago is cold and overcast this time of year, but then again, so were we yesterday. Now I'm sitting here sweating my arse off, stupidly using the first real "hot" day to try out a recipe in the oven.

We haven't had much success with the crockpot lately, so after a semi-failed beef stew, I decided to use the ingredients we bought for crockpot chicken to make dinner in the oven instead. Check in with me or N tomorrow to make sure I didn't kill us!

So, that's all I have to say right now. I know, hardly worth your time, isn't it? But, here's a photo of cute dog that I sure hope was adopted at the big adopt-a-dog (not its real name) fest they had a couple weeks ago at the La Brea Tar Pits. Hundreds of dogs, right down the street! It was a fun day.













Oh, and here's a little pug doing its darndest to keep up with the bigger dogs on the obstacle course (I don't think he needed adopting).

How'd YOU get here?

So, I don't know how search engines work, or even if they all work the same, but I think that recent flurry of activity on the Neil Young post bumped my blog into a higher place for search engine landing pages.

Before Neil Young, I never ever got a hit from someone searching for something and landing on my page. Since then, all manner of searching people out there have landed here. Some of the things are quite surprising, like the person searching for "gassy girls." I also got a number of hits for different variations of "big balls," along with someone searching for "www 99 lezbo" and "candies invented in the 60s." My favorite by far, though, is the one that let me know that I'm number one (number one!!) on a google search for "mu shoo pork" (seriously!: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=mu+shoo+pork). I guess you're supposed to spell it "mu SHU pork," but tell that to the people who ended up here!

I went to a conference and all I got was this lousy post

I just got back from a two-day conference in Irvine, and damn is my brain tired. Not from gaining too much knowledge, though. Oh, no, not me! It was a huge piece of crap, which is too bad because I had high expectations from the 5th Annual Health Literacy Conference (name changed slightly--I think--to protect the innocent), which was to highlight alternatives to printed material in treating low-literacy patients. (That's not sarcasm you're reading there--I know, it's hard to tell with me.) Unfortunately, the conference was full of presenters reading off their not-interesting-to-begin-with PowerPoint slides and telling me things like "the internet is used for emailing, chatting, entertainment, and research." Really?? THAT'S what the internet is used for?? Shit, I've been doing this all wrong!

Anyway, there were two highlights to the conference. One, there was a papillon show going on right in the same hotel. What's a papillon, you ask? Well, it's a yappy little dog that's probably cute when seen alone, but creepingly frightening by the dozens! The highlight was seeing all the showdog moms and dads up close. I wish I'd had the guts to take out my camera and shoot their tables and tables of papillon merchandise, but I did manage to get a shot or two of some dogs hanging out outside.



Highlight two, because I can be kind of mean, was a woman who, for no reason we could figure out (believe me, my coworkers and I read every piece of the conference schedule to see if this was part of the agenda) had with her at all times a box of stuffed animals. She came in each morning and sat the box right in front of her on the table. What is that? Is it a weird form of autism? An assignment for a psycho parenting class? The toys of her long-lost daughter (ooh, that would be sad!). Here's a picture of it. You can't see the woman who they belong to because she's actually to the left of the woman it looks like they belong to. So, I don't feel so bad posting it because her identity is concealed. But, anyone have any idea of what's going on there?


And, here's a bonus conference highlight. Bunnies in the parking lot! Run, bunnies, run! (And why do you live in the parking lot, anyway?)

A Day without...Traffic!

Okay, so I'm driving home from work on Friday listening to NPR, which is talking about today's big "Day without Immigrants" work-walkout/protest/rally thing, and they mention that the mayor is encouraging everyone to go to work, but to join together after work at 4 p.m. (I don't know who that's AFTER work for, by the way) at La Brea Tar Pits. D'oh! Immediately, I panicked. That's right down the street from us! Just last week there was some sort of protest at the Turkish Embassy (which I found out in a hurry is also not too far from us at home) that threw all the local streets around us into chaos. It took me 45 minutes to navigate the two miles around our apartment with much frustration, aggravation, and possible bird-throwing. So you can imagine my panic when I heard the mayor's announcement. I decided, screw it, I'll make up an appointment and leave early today.

Long story short, I'm sitting here a mere 40 minutes after leaving work (a full 10 minutes shorter drive-time than usual), with not one bit of aggravating traffic or parking issue. I've got laundry in the machine, I've changed out of work clothes, taken out the trash, eaten a snack, and talked to the cat. I'm IMing with N right now, I intend to read some magazines, and possibly watch some TV (ha!). Let me tell you, if a day without immigrants means a day without traffic like today, then bring it on!

But I kid, really (I mean, not about the traffic; that's my number one least favorite thing about Los Angeles). I won't go all political on you because that's really not like me, but listen, with so many countries around the world hating us and disagreeing with our politics and actions, isn't it nice that there are people out there who think we're so great that they're risking their lives and leaving everything behind to get here? Should we be pushing away allies at this point in history? Because when you get right down to it, these are the people whose sons and daugthers are going off to fight Bush's stupid war. Am I wrong?