morning mix

Yes. It has been crazy around here. I'm finding mornings to be especially difficult - like it's 2 pm before I finally fully awaken. So I made this. I put it on while I'm checking my email, then by the time I start moving around and cleaning up and getting things done, I'm no longer dragging my exhausted butt around. works for me, anyway.

And maybe with enough mornings of this, I'll get enough of my life in order to get a real blog posted again. ha ha.

here.

(the embedding isn't working quite yet, so there's the link)

in which i inherit a doggy

at grandpa's this weekend, grinning over snagging his seat

I honestly don't think of myself as a dog person. I mean, not as much of a non-dog-person as my friend Beth is a non-kid-person, and ninja rolls out of the way every time a drooling chubbikins toddles within 5 feet of her... but still. I've never been the person who's all "oooooh, show me your pet pictures! Ooh, look at this calender I bought, it's got puppies on it!" and such like. I love kids, but but I've never really "gotten" the people who have pictures of their animals everywherrrre and dress them up in little doggy clothes and buy accessories with their dog pictured on it... and such strange nonsense. I don't even do that with my children. Other than the clothes, that is. Though I do enjoy a chubby naked toddler here and there.

I mean, I like dogs, I do. Some of them. Not all of them. So when my husband started nagging several months ago to get a family pet, I smiled and agreed, then proceeded to find every imaginable excuse to put off the actual getting of said dog. We went to the local shelter several times with the girls and gazed at the pups and laughed at Peep running nervously from them to the shelter of my calves.There were several close calls, too. Very cute puppies, yes, but I have a five year old and a two year old and already have impending toilet training (after working full time when Kyla should have been training, there is little I look forward to LESS than toilet training. Seriously, it took years.) Meh, I don't need to go into all my excuses. I had lots.

So I suppose the only way to get us a dog was for him to TRICK me into it. He surreptitiously contacted a posting on Craigslist for a german shepherd terrier mix, free to good home, and arranged a surprise (to me) meeting with her owners on our way up to vacation at my dad's this past weekend. I was trying my best not to be grouchy about that. Come on. It's a 4 hour road trip. We don't need to stop and meet some dog on our way up to vacation, for crying out loud. I don't think I was entirely successfully un-grouchy, either. I had a sort of "hmph!" face right up until the moment we got out of the car and saw her.

At first she pulled a Peep, and hid behind her mom's calves when she saw us, but within about 2 minutes she walked out and sniffsniffsniffed and decided she liked my smell enough to try a taste, too. Apparently my face tastes great, and we all got lots of kisses. (and like I clarified earlier - not a dog person. She is the first dog I've ever encountered whose tongue I totally don't mind on my face)
Her name is Biscuit, and since she's 8 months old, we figure a change of environment and change of name is a little much. Kyla finally left her side for the first time since we got her last night, and Biscuit decided now is her chance to take a much-needed nap. It's only 3 pm, but she's been running and playing and splashing and being giggled at and hugged and petted since 7 am.

You'd think I'd be irritable over the fact that I now have yet MORE poop in my life to clean up (for instance, the giant pile of separation anxiety-fueled feces left on my kitchen floor this morning... after taking her outside for 45 minutes to an utter refusal to urinate)... but actually, she is exactly what I would have her be (though she'd better cut out the kitchen crapping. Not cool, Bisky.) and the girls are nuts about her, too. So I guess we're smitten. Welcome to our home, Bisky.

and you thought I'd just keep procrastinating. hmph.

Well, the shop is listed! Here's a welcome sign I did today, the only one finished and photo'd out of 6 currently in production. I have a bad case of the tireds now, just wanted to let everyone know the shop is officially back up! Again.

Hopefully I'll get several more listed tomorrow night. If you have any phrases or quotes you'd love to see on one of my signs, by all means, comment.

I am going to bed now. *yawn*

stirring up trouble

Several days ago, in my morning msn perusal before opening my email inbox, I noted an article. I'll link it, but to sum up, it was about how french vacationers are considered the absolute worst in the world. In their defense, Expedia Marketing Director Timothee de Roux claimed that, since France has such diverse countryside and is so lovely, it's inhabitants aren't in the habit of travelling, and are unaware of necessary etiquette. I was more amused by the article than anything else, and moved on, noting it mentally as just another typical msn filler story. You know, along with the "who's hotter?" stories and the "10 tips for a great summer!" (wear sunblock, eat outside often... etc) kind of stories. Useless nonsense that's there more to give you a short chuckle than to inform you of anything. I must say though, I've seen several of these reports on msn. (I like the travel section)
here, here and here.
look! Three articles about the French being arrogant and tight fisted! Does this mean MSN is an anti-french company? Are they... prejudiced against the french? Miquelon might think so.

The very next day, on Bastille Day, this fellow was hard at work arguing with "french-haters". Aaaand that included me. Here are our tweets as follows:

beornica: According to msn yesterday, the French are the worst vacationers, worse even than americans. Turns out they're arrogant. Who'd have thunk?

miquelon: @beornica Happy you found a shoddy study to support your prejudice?

beornica: @miquelon ha! now there's an odd new bias. I can see it now: "you're NOT allowed to date that Jean Michel! He's one of THOSE PEOPLE."."

miquelon: More French Bashing on twitter: @kmore @GenXer @cphilley @ryantate @jamesconlee @ghart1098 @oge_mek @beornica @LordLindley

(look! I'm a french basher! I was like "whaaaaaa?")

and THEN TODAY, he STILL couldn't drop it! I felt like when you step in gum and it just wont. come. off.

miquelon@beornica @johnnysummerton Great Article About Stereotypes: http://bit.ly/19hIDy & A site about French Bashing: http://www.miquelon.org/

is that passive aggressive or what?? So I responded in form, as passive-aggressively as I could bear:

beornica:@miquelon okay, thanks for the reference. I found a great article for you, too! http://personalethics.suite...

(that's an article I found about taking offense to things too easily, and how very often our being that way is worse than what we took offense to. Something I wish I could share with lotttts of people I've known who get their panties in a bunch all too easily.) And the immediate response...

miquelon@beornica Thanks for the article, no personal offence, working on behalf of my community which was the scapegoat of the Bush Cheney Admin

No personal offense! Does this mean he'll lay off? Probably not, but hopefully. However, I STILL am reeling over this whole thing. Seriously, you should check out this guy's tweets. French prejudice? Give me a break. I'd like to know what this community is he works so diligently for. Is it like... the french panthers? I did read some articles he cited on twitter, which claim Bastille Day as being used by other nationalities as a French Hatred day of sorts. The whole thing is Twilight Zone.

I'd like to submit his entire site and all those tweets of his to this site.

for technorati. To anyone else, nothin' to see here. move along.

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