Our fabulous and now far-away friend Carol finds the coolest stuff!

Today is quite possibly the slowest day ever.

For all you O-town fans out there, here's a shitload of content. I admit it, I watched every episode of Making the Band. No, I haven't rushed out to buy posters or CD's.

Today, I believe in Christmas again, or at least in fate and miracles.

Our beagle rescue got a call about an old beagle who needed a home pronto. I scrambled and found someone who could pick him up in Sacramento and bring him 1/2 way, where I was supposed to get him and drop him off at a foster family's house. I didn't expect to fall in love with him.

But I did and this morning, just minutes before he was to go to his foster mom's house, Andrea did too. Zeus is the most amazing dog and the nicest boy beagle in the whole world.

So today, we are a family of five. I'd been missing Ellie so much, I think that Mr. Z was a Christmas gift we were meant to have.

Holy shit. Christmas is a mere 4 days away. In terms of getting presents, I'm ready, but as the years go on, I've started to wonder what the point is. If the whole idea behind the holiday is to celebrate the birth and subsequent gift-giving of Jesus then why am I trudging off to Macy's and emerging laden with sweatshirts?

We all bitch about Christmas having lost it's meaning but few people (and certainly not me) dare to break free from the tradition of buying gifts this time of year. A guy I play saxophone with is very religious, when I asked him if he was ready for Christmas he said yes, that they don't do presents on Christmas, but rather, buy something if they need it and keep the Christ in Christmas.

The jury's still out on my actual religious beliefs but I'm starting to think that we're all a bunch of hypocrites (yes, of course, myself included) to be buying all these presents in celebration of a holiday that means little to most of us.

What to do instead?
I really don't know. In an ideal world, I could give the $1500 or so I've spent on gifts to my favorite dog rescue (do you know how many dogs that can feed or provide medical care for? Many). I really wanted to do that, then send cards to everyone on my list telling them that I've donated in their name. But I didn't have the balls.

Maybe because I'm stressed, maybe because it's hard to feel in the spirit when it's 60 degrees and sunny, maybe I'm just too cynical, but this year carries no holiday magic but rather the frustration of buying empty gifts for the people I love and wondering why they don't mean more.

Once, again, I have blogging tourette's. I forgot to mention the highlight of my dinner the night I got stuck in Columbus. We went to the Fujiyama Steak House, similiar to Benihana, but different in that the food actually tastes good. Across from us was the biggest redneck family I'd ever seen, complete with buzz cuts and buck teeth. While examining their menus, the smartest of the bunch says 'filet mingon? Is that steak?'

My keyboard is on the fritz (no, Dan, not you), leaving me with sporadic n,h,y and 6 usage.

The Internet is magic. True? Yes. But... (and there's always a but) all that magic is connected by wires. Wires in the walls, in the ground, anywhere they can get them. What this means is that all this magic can go away in an instant. Say, for example, the moment this morning when someone from PG&E was at work, retrofitting our server racks (no, I'm not kidding) by drilling (yes, this is going where you think it's going) a steel plate onto the side of our rack. During this highly technical drilling process, the technician's hand slipped, causing all the phone and Internet connections to disappear in one motion.

It just doesn't get much cooler than that.

Yesterday was a big day. First, I saw a car accident and when I called 911 to report it, they put me on hold. No shit, on hold with 911 as the recording told me that 911 is not to be used for driving dircetions or weather reports. Don't people know that already? Though I must say that sometimes the line between emergency and non-emergency can be blurred. My mom was alone with my Grandma not too long ago, and tried to get Grandma from her bed to the wheelchair but her hands slipped, gently sliding Grandma to the floor. Mom called 911 and the nice men came and helped Grandma get into bed. Perhaps not a life-threatening moment but still one where help was needed.

But I digress.

We went out for dinner, afterwards we drove by the bank and was on the way home when Andrea remembered that she'd left her cell phone at the resturant. So we headed back there and in the 10 minutes since we'd left, the phone had disappeared. Not only that, the staff was largely unwilling to help (the manager asked why she would want to leave her phone number since that meant he could call her at 3 am. I know, it didn't make any sense to me either but it sure wasn't friendly.)

When stuff like this happens, everyone becomes a suspect. I hate things that make me distrust people, because as a rule, I generally do. Fuckers.

Christmas light displays you may have missed is hilarious. Thanks Thoma

Pork Fat Rules

Working hard on bringing the LizCam back to life. Be patient, my friends. My lovely visage will be back soon, uploaded every 30 seconds for your viewing pleasure.

In the theme of what's hot and what's not, rate my rack offers you booby-lovers a chance to change the world. Thanks Andrea, booby-lover

One of my all-time favorite sites: The Abe Vigoda Staring contest.

Speaking of the packing process, as of now, our current home (aka Rental Unit) is now off limits to visitors from the outside. So if you're one of the 4 people reading this who've actually been to our house, memories will have to suffice. It's just too messy for visitors.

So I show up at our new house today with our realtor and the appraiser in tow. Our realtor hadn't called ahead and it appeared that nobody was home so she used her special realtor key and let herself in. Turns out that the seller's incredibly shy teenage son was in the house but didn't want to answer the door.

The place looks a lot like our house does now, like everything has exploded in the packing process. The woman came home and seemed embarrassed that it was like that but hey, I understand. Our house is a landmine too.

Yesterday, Andrea tackled the closet thing under the stairs. Of course, she stopped after getting everything out into the hallway so there were lots of things for the dogs to get into, including an ant trap (shredded to bits, but not to worry, I'd called poison control about this in the past, Alice would have to eat 8 or more of them to have problems. After all they're built with little ants in mind, not 18 pound dogs) and (this is the one that gets me) our wool duster. Blech.

Today the house was appraised and I think we're getting close to finishing all this financing crap. I met our new next door neighbor, Nanette, (yes, Amy, she'll be next-door Nanette forever more!) who is the official neighborhood busybody. She told me all about every family on the street, denoting each with words like (and I am not kidding) Negro and Mexican.

My guess is, she thought she was safe speaking the secret language of White People, which as you, my fair reader, may know, is not something I'm very fluent in. I can't wait till next-door Nanette meets Chinese (and gay) Andrea.