Prepoceros

In the face of an advancing storm, it’s generally a good idea to clear any items sitting around outside that might end up coming through your windows. If you have a good amount of patio furniture you can follow UH’s lead and pull it all into an interior hallway.

In a pinch, if you don’t have much extra room indoors, you can do what my apartment complex did and just pre-tump the furniture into the bushes before the wind gets a chance to.

The apartment folks also left everything in the open-topped dumpster (and the small appliances and other debris sitting near it) right where it was, i.e., next to my car. Even though the junk is inside a wooden enclosure, I’m not so thrilled about this plan.

In related news, the wind is supposed to increase steadily from now until 5 AM, when it will top out at a sustained 60-70 mph. John’s still fast asleep, lucky dog, but I’m thinking I might have to make mine up in naps tomorrow.

It was supposed to be for his birthday back in October, but he didn’t get around to picking one out until yesterday. It’s actually really nice—a Canon Elph something something. Small but powerful.

Here Sam takes in a Sunday afternoon football game with his grandpa, in whose lap he is often found.

The drive took a couple days, so yesterday was our first full day in the condo. The weather here is GORGEOUS. Oh-em-gee, you guys. When we got in on Sunday afternoon the inside of the condo was warmish. The thermostat was set at 60, but it clearly wasn’t running, and we couldn’t find an on/off switch. John called the front desk to ask where the A/C controls were, only to find out that the building doesn’t HAVE air conditioning. We’d never even considered the possibility that you could build a modern building and only put in a heater, but I guess when the average high in August is 71, you can bear a couple warm days here and there.

(more…)

My “Christmas 2005″ photoset is finally up. Click on the picture below to see the rest. Not gonna lie, most of the pictures are about Sam.

I’ve been working on it for the last three hours. I should have gone to bed a while ago, but I didn’t want to leave it half done. So there you are. Enjoy.

I’m going to become one of those people who use their blogs as nothing more than fancypants photo albums for their pet pictures, aren’t I, snoodlywookums?

Click me.

Until I pop out my first mini-me, at least. But for now I’ve got a Flickrload of pictures of nothing but puppy, puppy, and more puppy. He’s much cuter in real life, I swear.

Sam FINALLY got his first post-surgery bath Tuesday night—he was getting to be a bit…rank. I was prepared to wrestle him into the tub and mash shampoo into his fur as he flung dirty water across the room, but he was suprisingly unruffled by, and maybe even bored with, the bath experience. He let me put him into the tub with no struggle, then stood quiet and still as I poured water over him, scrubbed on the shampoo, and rinsed it off. Have I mentioned that Sam is the chillest dog ever?

Tim Sam Wolfgang Jesus Laocoön Ajax Beowulf Marlowe Epsilon Hammurabi Anderson Max!

(Click me to see more pictures.)

I have no idea what my widdle puppy’s name should be, but isn’t he adorable?

I adopted him from Special Pals out in Katy, the same shelter Millie came from, but Tiny Tim (the name the shelter folks gave him) might as well be the anti-Millie. I’m afraid to let them be in the same room, lest they annihilate each other and turn into pure energy (the E=mc^2 kind, not the jumping-up-and-down kind).

When I walked past his cage at the shelter, he didn’t run up to me or bark like the other dogs did, but instead stood against the wall, shaking. Awwwwww. So of course I filled out the paperwork superfast, and we (Wendy, Michael, Tim-Tim, and I) were off to PetSmart to accessorize my new puppy.

I probably shouldn’t call him a puppy—they guessed he was about a year old. Someone found him about a month ago running the streets with a big ol’ Basset Hound, who was also at the shelter. He had an upper respiratory infection and sarcoptic mange, which made all the hair on his ears and hind legs fall out, but it’s mostly grown back now and, besides being generally scruffy, he’s healthy.

He’s apparently a Yorkie mix, but we don’t know with what. Wendy thinks his coloring looks like a Miniature Pinscher’s. His legs aren’t nearly as short as a Yorkie’s, so it must’ve been some normal-sized dog. He also has bristly, curly, sticky-outy hair…who knows where that came from. So he’s basically a mutt, but an adorable one.

I said I wanted a chill dog, and Timmy is by far the chillest I’ve ever met. Since we brought him home, he’s mostly kept to himself. He quietly explored the apartment, then quietly peed on the carpet, then quietly wandered around, looking as though he needed a nap but were afraid to go to sleep. He’s been sleeping off and on for the last couple of hours, just sprawled out in the middle of the floor. Every time someone makes noise outside or comes up the stairs I tense up, expecting him to flip out and bark at the door like Millie does, but he barely notices. I keep looking over at him every couple minutes to make sure he’s still there. Chill TO THE MAX.

I’m betting he’ll perk up in the next few days—today was a big, scary, exciting day for a wee lil dog, plus he was just neutered on Thursday, so he’s probably still a little sore.

I still can’t believe I have a dog. He’s my puppy! I get to keep him! God DAMN he’s adorable—I could just sit and stare at my Timmy-Tim all day. Mommy loves you so much already, sweetiepoo. Welcome home.

My next computer will be a laptop.