Here it is, 5 pm on Friday and I'm wondering where the week went. I was hardly productive, and it wasn't for the lack of work, I'm just so damn tired. Last week's Road Trip™ took more out of me than I care to admit. Let's face it--I'm getting older. Yes, of course, I'm getting older every day, but this aftermath seems like a new milestone, like it's official, I'm no longer capable of doing something insane like driving cross country in a little over 2 days, without my body giving me the finger afterwards. Sigh.

Girl, you'll be a geezer soon.

Since I'm sure that Andrea isn't the only person who's been wondering about this, here are the words to the love boat TV theme song.

Liz, secret 17th castaway on Survivor island, or just the purveyor of an elaborate hoax? You be the judge.

No comment.

Another gem from the exciting world of Survivor: the Rich Dance. But today's great find comes from my fabulous houseguest Amy (not to be confused with the Big Brother houseguests), Rudy Reigns, which includes audio clips of Rudy's excellent gems of wisdom and more!

Thanks to my fabulous friend Thoma for this gem: Hey, everybody - it's Crazy Drunk Guy!

The Ebay Conceptual Art Gallery is just about the funniest thing ever. Link blatantly stolen from the ever-fabulous Gayle.

Something insanely cool happened on Big Brother last night--they got a dog. Not just any dog, but a rescue pug that will be in foster care with the house guests, then adopted after the show ends. I couldn't be happier about this addition to the show.

Little known fact: my recent travels also took me to the Survivor island.

A truly fabulous page of Rudy (aka Pain in the Ass) of Survivor--Rudy Boesch, SEAL Team TWO , The BullFrog. Caution: this page plays the Gilligan's Island theme song over and over.

Last night I drank way too much Dr. Pepper and got a serious case of the giggles. Just thinking about those pictures of me (see below) that i doctored yesterday got me going, then imagining the power of that as a running gag kept me laughing for a long ass time. Amy would feel the couch shake as my giggling reached a ferocious pace.

The true story of what goes on in animal shelters: View from inside the animal shelter. Working animal rescue means saving some animals, losing more than you save, but most importantly, it's cleaning up messes caused by other people's ignorance or lack of compassion.

Recently, a man I know informed me that he has the gout. Until that moment, I'd assumed that gout was one of those fabled diseases that you only read about since the advent of penicillin. Who knew? But now he has free reign to say, "yup, I've got the gout."

A boarding kennel in the bay area that did some rescue work has been shut down, resulting in a number of typically hard to place dogs becoming homeless. Check these cuties out!

It occured to me that my pictures of my recent Road Trip™ did not include me! So I've doctored a few of them to make it seem like I was there, since, in fact, I was there! That's right! Look at me! I had a great time!

You may think that my whole life is wrapped up in the dogs right now and hell, it may be. But I am still watching TV and can't wait for Survivor tonight. Even Big Brother has once again captured my interest.

So does that mean my whole life is watching TV and dealing with the dogs? No! Amy thought she had a rat in one of her bags last night, so we called Andrea, my brave woman, up to help. She took my oar (don't ask, but no, I don't canoe) and dissected the offending bag while Amy and I cowered in the hallway. There was no rat.

I spoke too soon, Alice is back at the vet's, where they're trying to revive her with fluids. She's breathing okay, but is so sluggish it's unreal. Usually she's quite peppy, especially for a girl who will be 11 in October. I know that worrying about her won't make her feel better but it's the only thing I can do, so that's what I'm doing.

Alice appears to be feeling better but it's like she's on a 5 second tape delay. Example: I dropped some Cookie Crisp on the floor and she didn't move to get it for a full 5 seconds. Normally, she's eaten such a little gem before I realize that I've dropped it.

Finally! The true, long and boring story of Our Road Trip. Okay, maybe it wasn't that boring.

Heard from the vet: Alice is still suffering from some unknown sort of malaise, but the good news is that there's no large foriegn object lodged in her belly. It's a game of wait and see right now so I'm waiting and wondering what we'll see.

Alice felt the urge to root through some of Amy's stuff last night, including the bag with clarinet reeds and razor blades. While I'm reasonably sure that Al is discerning enough to avoid anything that isn't food, I'm not sure that she skipped the reeds. She's getting x-rayed at this very moment.

Sigh.

Ack! My hairstylist is moving. What will I do without her???

The Survivor slide show is hysterical. Of course, if you don't dig Survivor then you won't find it funny.

We've spent a lot of time pondering Ellie's tumor and what to do about it but no matter what we say, we keep coming back to no, we don't want to do the surgery. It's been such a struggle to get her to a stable position, where she (sort of) trusts us and isn't in much pain that I don't want to mess with the precarious balance that every day is for her.

Today, she's happy. That's the best I can do for her.

Watched Anywhere But Here last night. I'd read the book, but not so recently that I sat there being pissed off that the details were different. The movie was different from the book, but entertaining just the same.

More about my trip is coming soon, I promise. I'm still pretty wiped out from the shenanigans.

Been back for two days and while I'm no longer hallucinating that the desk is a road, I still feel exhausted. The trip was good, fun for the most part. I stopped a few more times than I had let myself in the past, at the Greyhound Hall of Fame in Abilene Kansas (yes, Melinda, I got you a great gift!). I spent the whole time at the hall of fame showing off pictures of my niece and nephew, ShyGirl and Pele (who I'm convinced ought to be named Jake) the greyhounds to anyone who would look. We also hit every outlet mall that was open when we passed, and finally, at every little town in Nevada. My goal was to gamble every time we stopped and I did. More later, it's time for another post-trip nap.