Monday, June 28, 2010

Wordless Weekend

Friday



Saturday







Sunday



Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Drarweens

Monday, June 21, 2010

The Longest Day of the Year


This weather is killing me. Sure, it says you can see the sun. But really, that just means that it isn't pitch black here. Those little suns, partially hidden by clouds, indicate that it isn't a perpetual midnight here, even if it might feel like it. That is all. It doesn't actually mean sun. As far as I know, there isn't a sun. There is just an oppressive light gray humming light, occasionally broken up by larger, darker, more well defined clouds.

It is June. The summer solstice. The longest day of the year. And it feels that way.

Sunshine. I want it. I need it like a hungry pug needs a treat. Coffee is no longer cutting it. (I've even switched to the real deal after drinking half-caf for several months, still to no effect.)


Maybe my doom and gloom comes from finishing this book this morning:


It wasn't a spirit lifter, that's for sure. But it was compulsively readable. A first person narrative of a year spent in Nazi concentration camps. It was so interesting how he describes how something that horrifying can happen in incremental, reasonable sounding steps. I suppose I had always pictured the camps as their totality, complete and terrifying all at once. I couldn't see past the furnaces and the gassings. But he tells the other stories of the camps, the hunger, the boredom, the random strangeness. The details are amazing and the way he deals with his return to Hungary after the war ends is fascinating. It was just so different from other books I've read on the subject and provided a new perspective for me.

Anyhow, it is a little gloomy here in the House Of Bean. I'm going to have a second cup of coffee and see if that helps.










Friday, June 18, 2010

Friday, the goodness edition

My neighborhood rose garden:





Dieter:




Thursday, June 17, 2010

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Sour Cream Love

This morning, I told the peanut I loved him a lot (not Alot), and he replied:

"I don't love you a lot,
I love you supreme,
Which is love with
a dollop of sour cream"

This is funny for two reasons, actually 3. First, it rhymes. Second, it references a burrito from Tacotime. 3rd, I have been involved in a passionate love affair with sour cream for many years now. So I can see how love with sour cream is better than plain love. It's true.

When I was a kid (and not a little kid, high school age), my mother wouldn't let me serve myself sour cream on burrito nights. She had to ration it out to me, or I would have hogged the whole container.

These days, I can have as much sour cream as I would like. Which is nice. My favorite is Daisy brand, although any brand without guar gum and starch will work for me.



I wanted to take a photo, because the pugs had decided that they both needed a spot on my lap, which doesn't happen very often, but I couldn't get a good shot. On an unrelated note, Gunter has decided that a good place to nap while I am gone is in the bathtub.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Poor Pug



Poor tiny pug. Has to come to work with me today. Gets to eat part of my lunch and go for an afternoon walk. Poor little pug.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Oh Poppies!


This is why I love Oregon (and also why I hate it).

I love the summer in Oregon. Oh, the sunshine. I love the sunshine more because it is so often cloudy and horrible here. But it sweetens the sunshine, the gloom.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Why today was good


The pugs love the BFF (aka Auntie Kellie).

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

I'm seeeck


Curse you, cold!

I haven't had a cold since last Halloween, so I guess I'm doing ok. I don't really get any other maladies, so I suppose I'm lucky. One or two colds a year can be tolerated. My colds generally come from flying on an airplane (at least 75% of my colds are travel induced).

But it sure is miserable. I hate having a cold, it makes me slow and cranky and out of it. When I'm working I need to be focused. When my face is stuffed full of dense (and yet fluffy) clouds of terribleness it is hard to focus on work. incredibly hard. I just want to go home and drink tea in front of my giant computer screen passing the time reading blogs or watching streaming netflix. Any netflix users out there than have recommendations? I'm looking for a new series.

And it is Wednesday already! It's like the week is gone before it even began. What happened to today? It's already 12:22.

Ok, enough about my woes. Here is a brief roundup of what I've been doing/reading/eating etc.

1.) Check out this fantastic blog. I love this girl, Allie Brosh, she is hilarious.

click here:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/


If you are feeling generous you can donate so she can continue drawing funny pictures and not starve to death.


2.) I can never remember how to spell the words convenient, guarantee, or bureau. But I can spell definitely and dining. I think it is hilarious how people spell dining table, dinning table. (I always hear it in my mind rhyming with tin. Dinning. (Definately, defiantly.....hehehehehe)

3.) This is where the Dieter Pug has decided his new favorite spot is. Needless to say, I'm not overly thrilled.



4.) This is what I was doing this last weekend while I wasn't busy being sick.




This tiny one wasn't super happy with my interference. She lost her mind when I prevented her from going over the other side (which was even more precarious than this one).

The conversation:

AB: B come here little tiny, I want to squeeze you and try to get a good picture of myself squeezing you.

B: Okay

AB: *click* *click*.....wait, wait. That one wasn't very flattering, just a couple more...

B: ..... ..... ....

AB: *click* Darnit, my eyes were closed. Just a second and you can go back to your sandbox. ....
*click* *click*

B: Come on strange woman, let me go....

AB: Hold on...*click* *click*

B: Quit touching me! Can't you see I was trying to eat sand. LET ME GOOOOOOO!

AB: Okay, okay. Fine.




And that is it for now. I have to go back to nursing my cold.