A Picture Perfect Evening

On my quest for picture perfection this evening...

The pink elephant in the box gained a friend. (Ripley's quite a good looking cat although you'd never know it from this picture.)

Heaven's most depressed angel:

And this place opened at the end of the street a few months ago. Looks totally legit to me!

Ansel Adams In Training

I think I've mentioned that the little dog doesn't play with dog toys. In fact, none of my dogs have every played with dog toys.

The cats, on the other hand, play with all sorts of things. They have two different stuffed pink elephants that they like to drag around the house. I got a new electric blanked, so naturally the box is a great toy by itself, and this is what I came home to this evening:

I've been thinking that I really ought to start putting more pictures on my blog, so that's my new year's self-suggestion (because it's not really a resolution). I know I suck as a photographer, but maybe if I take enough pictures I can get better. Here's the starting point -- and remember, this is a dog that most people say "she's so cute!" when they first see her...

Try#1: (I don't even know what's going on with her feet. Also, my arm is there to keep her from running away.)

Try #2:

Try #3: (This is not the look of cute...)

So really, I can only get better.

Just Speak English, Dammit!

So I was making this recipe (Sweet Potato and Lentil Pie) and everything seemed to be fairly normal aside from calling a sweet potato a kumara and describing the thing as a flan (which I've never heard used for anything other than dessert), but then I got to the last ingredient, which is

• 1/2 cup cheese, tasty grated

Now... I don't know about you, but I think almost all cheese is pretty darn tasty. I mean, sure, you've got your nasty soft cheeses (brie and blue cheese, I'm looking at you!), but nobody cooks with those.  For cooking, though, there's a world of difference between something like Swiss and feta. (However, there's absolutely no difference between Gruyère and Swiss aside from price, and nobody can convince me otherwise...)

It was such an odd thing that I finally googled it and found out that "tasty" is what they call cheddar in Australia and New Zealand. That's just crazy. It's just begging for a "who's on first" type skit.

So there you go. Maybe you, too, are wiser at the end of this day.

Science!

In tonight's episode of Running with the Zombies, fiction was on par with truth. The "plot" of the run was that the runner was doing the training workout near a chained up zombie in order to determine how the zombie reacted to different movements. Because... science!

In the best practices of experimental science everywhere (foreshadowed by three disclaimers that of course the zombie was secured well enough!), the zombie got loose and gave chase. There was, naturally, no backup containment feature. OSHA would not approve! No wonder these people lose their staff to the zombies on a regular basis.

Anyhow, I survived and also didn't step in the two inches of cold water sitting at the bottom of the handicap ramp, so win-win.

In slightly more relevant news, I called my petsitter today and the little dog made it to the top of the waiting list for boarding, so Christmas vacation is back on. I am now free to join the hordes of people snarling up traffic in Los Angeles. It's enough to make me giggle (like a crazy person who stopped taking their meds).

Keeping the Pro In Procrastination

The lumpy Tofurky gravy that got shoved to the back of the refrigerator has gone bad which means it must be almost Christmas. As usual, I'm completely unprepared.

• Once again I forgot to call my petsitter (for the cats and birds) today.
• My dog is still on the waiting list for boarding during the holidays. If she doesn't make it in, I'll have to take her with me which is less than ideal because she 
• doesn't like strangers, 
• really doesn't like men (but really, who does?),
• detests children (again...),
• hates being outside by herself (and I can't blame her).
• I probably should get my oil changed and the tires checked and all that stuff before driving a few hundred miles.

I also forgot to call the hotline to have the city inspector come out and sign off on the furnace, which means it will have to wait until next week, which probably means it will have to wait until the new year, which really means that I'll eventually forget about it completely.

I think I need a personal assistant.

It's Alive!

Good news! I am not dead in a ditch someplace, and zombies are not feasting on my corpse. The week three run synopsis lied. It was really one minute run - one minute walk cycles with a couple of longer "free-form runs" which means you can walk or run as you see fit. I see fit to walk a lot during those.

One of the hazards of running at night is the increased probability of tripping. The route I run is somewhat boring, but it means I don't have to cross any roads and for the most part the sidewalk is level and reasonably well-lighted. However, there are a couple of driveways and one handicap ramp that I have to be careful on. Also, the bottom of the handicap ramp is below gutter level and holds about two inches of cold water -- I found this out the last time it rained.

The nice thing about running at night, though, is that there is pretty much nobody out to see you doing strange things like running for fifteen seconds and then stopping to do heel lifts, or running for one minute and then jogging in place lifting your knees up as high as you can. And if you do trip and fall on your face (which I did a couple of years ago) you don't have to immediately jump up and pretend that nothing happened. Darkness means your dignity remains intact.

Anyhow, if you see someone running for short periods of time and doing strange exercises immediately afterward, it's probably safe to assume that they are listening to the "Zombies, Run!" app. If you're feeling particularly mean, sneak up behind them and moan like a zombie.

And then run away. Chances are good that you'll be able to run longer than they can...

Do Zombies Dream Of Cephalic Peeps?

Agility tonight -- the little dog was awesome.

As much as I'd like to say it was because I was on top of my game and gave her the right signals at exactly the right time... the truth is that I switched treats and she was really into the weird greasy meat tater tots, or whatever they were. She only went running off to do her own thing once, and even then she came back after fifteen seconds.

In other news, tomorrow starts week three of the "Zombies, Run!" 5k training app. Up until this point it's been reasonable easy because

• Week 1: Repetitions of 15 seconds of running followed by 1 minute of walking
• Week 2: Repetitions of 30 seconds of running followed by 1 minute of walking

Now suddenly on week three, it's five minutes of running. This could be a problem. I mean, I'm pretty sure I could do one minute of running, but five? What kind of logical progression is this?

So yeah, tomorrow night I'll probably be dead in a ditch someplace. And the zombies will be feasting on my corpse. Or I'll be a zombie. I don't quite understand how it's supposed to work from an energy standpoint -- if everyone who gets killed by a zombie turns into a zombie, what is powering the zombies? Is the universe suddenly allowing perpetual motion machines? (In case it's not clear, I came home from agility and opened a bottle of cider.)

Well, now I've brought logic into it. Clearly that's a mistake.

Right. Well, if I survive tomorrow's run, I'll let you know how it went...