Spin Me a Recession
Before Monkey Boy George W. Bush took office, the economy was fine. Fabulous, even. True, the dot-com IPO gold rush was over, but by and large things were fine.

In the weeks between his ill-won victory and the inauguration he began referring to the economy as slowing down. The media was stunned, saying that a president had never spoken of an economic slide that hadn't happened yet.

This week, saying "the warning signs are clear," his Monkeyness announced a massive tax cut that, like all tax cuts, would favor the wealthiest among us. (Though, to be fair, the poorest folks pay little or no taxes so, no a tax cut won't help them.) He emerges looking like a hero, saving us from a recession that he's invented.

His PR people are pretty damn good. And we're chumps for going along with it.

I never thought I cared about lawn mowers. Okay, I didn't since I didn't have a yard to tend to. But now that we have our yardlet, we discovered that while we both grew up with gas-powered mowers that were a bitch to start and of course required repair that we couldn't do, we actually had an opinion. So when we finally invest in a mower (maybe today) it will be a Reel Mowers, you know, the old-school kind that requires a little more effort to push but almost no effort to maintain.

Who knew that I cared enough to have an opinion?

The Silicon Valley climate here has changed. We're not zealots anymore, convinced that what we're working on is the Next Best Thing. We're just a bunch of kids who go to work every day.

For all you Survivor fans, who knew that the goofy host, Jeff Probst, had a rescue beagle (ish)?

For those of you joining us late in the program, Zeus is our crazy new beagle addition. He was found after his owner died, trapped in the house until the cops came to board the place up. When they opened the door, he darted out and was hit by a car so he wound up in a vet's office, who called beagle rescue. I was only supposed to give him a ride from Tracy to Sacramento but he ended up staying overnight and within those 8 hours, we were hooked.

In honor of Wolfie, my friend Sheri's fabulous dog who passed away yesterday. He'd been fighting cancer for a while but in the end the disease got him. I know that Ellie greeted him when he arrived, but his family is heartbroken without him.

Over the weekend, next-door Nanette's 8 year old granddaughter (who apparently lives with her) decided that I'm her new best friend. She was making Valentines on the front stoop of her house and as I was taking our 2 hour foster dog to his new family, told me so. When I returned, she ran up to my car and pounded on the window, announcing that she was making one for me too. I was a little creeped out, but okay, great. I headed into the house, she came running over 5 minutes later with her little friend from up the street. They wanted to play with our dogs (who are old and have less than no interest in the affections of children) so Andrea let them into the backyard, where I was rooting through our crap in the garage and the dogs were roaming thanks to their newly-installed doggie door.

The girl's little friend grew bored and left soon after but next-door Nanette's granddaughter lingered for over 2 hours, following me around as I unpacked, asking what everything was, including her brilliant observation about the chopsticks in our silverware tray being "Chinese stuff."

Kids are cute, I definitely want one of my own, but someone else's bored 8 year old is not a welcome guest in my home. After 10 minutes, I was long over the girl's curiousity and her assertion that she was 'helping' us unpack by keeping the dogs (who were eating grass) busy and her constant questions about our stuff. I think I'm too nice sometimes, and I assume that kids are adults, meaning that when I say "oh we'd better get ready for dinner with my brother and his lovely wife, " that the girl would know enough to leave. She didn't.

At one point, she followed me into my bedroom, noticed that there's only one bed and started asking questions. This bothered me in a very profound way, a way I can't quite explain. Something about not being accountable to 8 year olds, not wanting the neighbors to make judgements about us because we're gay (if I'm an asshole on my own, that's fine, but don't judge me because I sleep with a chick.), and a long-standing belief that it's not polite to trepase through someone's house uninvited and it's sure as shit not polite to ask questions about their private life or their bedroom (although I'm sure my invited friends are bound to ask 'what's up with that blue?!').

I finally kicked the kid out. Afterwards, she peered into our windows, saying 'Ha, ha! I can see you guys.' Now that's way past charming, that's fucking creepy.

True adventures:
Last Friday, I took Alice and Zeus to the vet and stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch before heading back to work. It was only 11 a.m. so there wasn't a big crowd, just me and some shift workers. Until this large man in a motorized scooter (the sit-down kind, not a razor-esque thing) rolls in , bitching loudly that nobody opened the door for him. He rolled up to the counter, still bitching about the door issue and asked if they had tacos. No, I'm not making this up. The Taco Bell employee told him about the various kinds of tacos available at Taco Bell and he thought he'd 'start off with one.' The employees brought his lunch out to him, while he's pulled up to a table, waving frantically and shouting "I'm over here!" across the empty dining room. When his gourmet meal arrives, he discovers that there are no napkins on the tray and shouts to the entire room that he needs some napkins. Thanks for sharing, sir.

At lunch today, I stopped by Walgreen's for my prescription. In front of me at the counter was a skinny woman, decked out in Harley Davidson gear, dragging a young boy (Garret) with her. There was some drama about her Vicodan, something about Kaiser and a snafu but could she please have her Vicodan right now please? She went on and on, telling the entire pharmacy staff and by default, me, about her Vico-drama. Finally she stopped telling her convoluded story to yell at her child that he was driving her crazy. Funny, I hadn't even noticed him.

Good news: a new furnace is covered by our most excellent home warranty, or at least most of it is. We also added the on-it's-last-legs refrigerator to the warranty, so if that dies in the next year, a new one will cost us only $35.