Alabaster Mom

My long-time foster dog, Kaiser, was adopted today. I can't lie - it was tough. Many people have either asked why I didn't adopt Kaiser or just assumed he was already my dog. There is a two-dog limit in my city and I already have two dogs, Gideon and Gretchen. Plus, I like to think there is a home out there for every dog. I have had other long-term foster dogs. Fritz (AKA "Fritty Cent") comes to mind. Arlo de Barlo. There have been quite a few. As a foster mom, my goal is to find that forever home for every dog. There is always another waiting to take that dog's place. It's all for the greater good, the cause. Kaiser was adopted by a youngish guy (I am getting old, so everyone seems young to me) who owns a cross-fit gym and also takes college classes. He seemed to like the pace of an older dog. When he and his roommate came to visit Kaiser at my home, Kaiser appeared to peg the roommate as a potential pushover.  He tested him by jumping on him as he was seat...

Like every other kid on the planet, my daughter received a Rainbow Loom for Christmas. She also received a Fun Loom from her Meemaw.  There are all kinds of looms out there, apparently. As far as I know, they all look somewhat similar: It's basically a peg board. You take tiny little colored rubber bands and stretch and criss-cross them all over the loom. Then, in theory, you end up with a bracelet.  If you're lucky, your kid will make you a bracelet that is too small for your wrist and cuts off your circulation like some unusually colorful tourniquet.  She made one for my mom that would possibly fit a squirrel's wrist - if the squirrel in question was super svelte. As an added bonus, the colors in the bracelet are unlikely to match anything you've ever worn. I have a lime green one, for example. I found an article about the man who invented the Rainbow Loom, in case you'd like to direct your ire at a specific individual. I feel like he needs to come to my...

So, I'm sure you're dying to know how my situation with Time Warner Cable turned out.  I can't get in trouble for this, can I? I recently read an article about a couple who were sued after leaving a bad review for a company that had wronged them. Yikes. If you have time on your hands, you should read some of the Yelp reviews on Time Warner Cable.  TWC earns one-star ratings across the board, and that's only because Yelp doesn't allow you to give a 0-star rating.  You'll find little gems like: "I could have invented the Internet in the time I have spent on hold with Time Warner Cable." "Seriously sucks monkey balls!!!!" "I hate it more than when I get a spaghetti stain on my white t-shirt." Now, granted, I know that few people take the time to leave a review when they are happy.* No one ever calls me at work just to say, "Hey, I just called to say that I love my website and it's running great!" But still, it s...

There may be some truth to the rumor that I just contacted my daughter via Skype (while she was in her bedroom) to ask her to put her pajamas on. I can now confirm that the following forms of communication/coercion do not work on my child: Asking her in person. Yelling at her in person. Yelling at her from another room. Asking her over the phone. Asking her telepathically.  Asking her via video chat. Threatening to take her shit away. Offering a reward if she will just, for the love of God, put her pajamas on.

CeCe the Wild Man was adopted on Friday. A and I took him to his new home and left him in the capable hands of his new mom. My dogs were thrilled to see him go. Don't get me wrong - Cece is a very nice dog. He does not have a mean bone in his body. It's just that he's young and makes bad decisions. An example? He tried to hump Gretchen. That went over about as well as you'd expect. My dogs are old and CeCe is young and never the twain shall meet, I guess. His new home is a couple hours away so the kid and I decided to stay overnight. I used my trusty Priceline account to bid on a hotel. I figured we'd swim and eat junk food and have all kinds of fun. I bid fairly low because I knew there weren't any special events in town or anything like that.  So, what did I get? A room at a very nice four-star hotel. With no pool. The kid cried when I told her. She'd have preferred a room at one-star Best Western as long as it had a pool. Alas, there are no refunds on P...

When I was 16, we moved into a house in Springfield, Virginia.  We did not own it; it was owned by a man named John Long.  He was a petite Asian man with so-so English skills. He mostly left us alone, except to raise the rent every year like clockwork.  I can't recall how many cats we were supposed to have, but I'm pretty sure the number was lower than the actual number of cats we usually had, which was three.  I remember Mr. Long stopping by one time, and the three cats aligning themselves in a row at the top of the stairs, in full view, representing the first time in the history of catdom that three felines had worked together so cooperatively. The downside to having a hands-off landlord was that he also didn't fix anything.  He was pretty determined not to invest any money in the house. We probably would have moved except that real estate in that area is insanely expensive and my mom and stad were pretty determined to keep me and my sisters in the same scho...

So, I got home from work today, ready for a semi-relaxing weekend. I say "semi" because I had to go to the grocery store tonight, which is its own special kind of hell. I grabbed the mail off the kitchen counter and saw that we had a new bill from our friends at Time Warner. Time Warner provides us with internet, cable, home phone, and a couple other services. Our normal monthly invoice is just under $200.00. I opened the envelope and saw that they were expecting to receive just over $400.00. What the????  I scanned the bill and quickly realized that they had not received last month's payment. I logged on to our Chase bank account and confirmed that I had sent a payment on December 19th. Grrrrr. I called Time Warner. I jumped through the various security hoops and was connected with a young man whose native tongue clearly was not English. That's okay. I'm not one of those, "This is 'murica. Ya'll gotta talk 'murican" people. For all I know,...

Hey, it's 2014! The three of us kicked off the new year by going ice skating this afternoon. I figured we'd be in a consult with an orthopedic surgeon shortly thereafter, but we did okay. I don't know why it only occurs to us to go ice skating once a year.  The kid loves it. Within the first half-hour, she ditched the metal holdie thing and was skating freely. She fell a few times, but then . . . so did all the other kids who were there, including some of the hipper-than-thou teens who were clustered on one side of the rink. We didn't do anything too exciting on New Year's Eve. I had to work until 4:30. I developed a blazing headache so I came home, took some aspirin, and spent the next few hours lying in the dark and hoping for some relief. I finally felt better at around 8:30.  We all made it to midnight and then went straight to bed. I wanted to make it to yoga at 8:30 this morning so that was another reason not to get too crazy last night.  It was a good class...