I'm A Spoogehead


Hi. I'm Milo.
Posted by Hello

I like wood. Clog soles, old discarded fence pickets that nobody knew were hiding in the bushes in the back, tree roots, green young branches from shrubs, bed footboards... doesn’t matter the source. I like wood.

I also like slippers, dirty underwear that missed the laundry basket, extension cords, electric blanket cords, video game controller cables, and cashews. I especially like it when the can is left open and on the low table next to the couch. Then I like lots and lots of cashews.

I don’t like Iams puppy food. Well, actually, I like it, but my family doesn’t. It makes them all run away holding their noses when I make funny sounds from under my tail. So now I get to like Purina One. My mom says it smells like saddlesoap, but I don’t mind. It tastes almost as good as wood.

I hated living at the city pound. I’m sure glad my mom let me snuggle into her sweater when she saw me there. She knew I picked her to live with, and as soon as those people at the pound let me, I went to live with her and my new family. I love my family. And they must love me, too, since I chew everything under the sun, trying to get rid of these pesky baby teeth, and they just take it away and tell me I’m bad. I feel awful about it, but these teeth make me feel worse. I’m glad they understand and still love me anyway.

They love me enough to teach me how to be a good dog, since I’m gonna be a big boy when I grow up. I know because my mom tells me that all the time when I try to crawl into her lap or sleep on her feet. She says I can't be a lap dog 'cuz I'm gonna grow up to be big. So I settle for snuggling close to everybody instead.

I’m part German Shorthair Pointer, part Labrador Retreiver (my brother, who got left at the pound because we couldn’t take him home, too, looked a lot more like a Lab than I do), and just enough Pit Bull to show in my ears. My brother’s not there any more. We checked a few days after I came home, and they said he’d been adopted by somebody, too. I hope his family loves him like I know I’m loved here.

I’ve been living here for almost three weeks now, and you know what? I hardly remember being anywhere else. I’m still a little afraid of riding in the car, but if you had gone for a ride down a dirt road and then got shoved out the door in the middle of a desolate, dry mesa, you’d be a little untrusting of that noisy rolling machine, too. Bad car. Bad, bad car.

Well, there’s an old patio chair’s cushion that’s calling my name (they haven’t discovered that I discovered it yet), so I’m gonna go taste some more foam rubber. Mmm. Rubber.

- posted by Stephanie @ 10:31 PM

 
Who Knew?

As I hear more and more Christmas music everywhere I go, my thoughts turn to Christmas lyrics I either misheard or totally misunderstood as a little kid.

I can't help it; I burst into giggles when I hear these songs (and strangers look at me funny, but I'm trying not to care):

Up on the rooftop, reindeer paws... I wondered why reindeer had paws and not hooves like regular deer...


Hark, Harold the angel sings... Well, that's self-explanatory, I guess. (Hark! Harold the angel is singing!) But I did wonder why he found it necessary to drive a little British convertible through the clouds (Find the Triumph in the sky...)

Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree, how very clean your branches... Shouldn't this be sung when you're undecorating the tree? I thought this was such a sad song...

Joyous Christmahanusolstikwanzukkah to us one and all!

- posted by Stephanie @ 9:55 PM

 
Something Lost

Just wish I knew precisely what it was.

Maybe it's more accurate to say something was stolen. A line of code, to be exact.

Hubby downloaded Yahoo Instant Messenger to talk football one day last week. My computer doesn't like Yahoo. The one time period that I got their IM to work, it took five downloads before it stopped doing strange things to my system (like rebooting the computer for no discernible reason whenever I was online).

When I had to reformat a while back, I never redownloaded it. It wasn't worth the trouble. Besides, I have MSN Messenger, if I ever do find the time to chat again.

Long story short, Yahoo did just what I expected it to do, which was to not download/install correctly, and it wouldn't work. So I deleted it. It apparently overwrote something in IE and deleting the program took some crucial bit of Internet Explorer with it, and now I can't get into two websites. (IE shuts down with some crucial error message when I try to leave the splash page.) It might be just two sites, but one of them's a favorite place to be. No more Def Leppard dot com until I have the time to download and reinstall IE6.

I think I'd rather have a virus. At least that I know how to deal with.

Yahoo sucks.

- posted by Stephanie @ 10:31 PM

 
So That's How Car Dealers Make So Much Money

I just can't say enough good things about our (almost) new car. Goes like a bat outta hell while floating along soft as a cloud, all the while just sipping the gas. And it's truly been branded ours now. It, like every other vehicle we've ever owned, was hit by an uninsured driver.

A bit of preamble... The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the belt on my dryer decided to shred. I kinda figured it out when the old appliance just sat there, humming warmly and not moving. So I washed every load and put all of it into baskets to lug off to the closest laudromat for drying. Loaded the baskets into a car trunk big enough to carry a couple of bodies and off we went.

The time at the laundromat passed uneventfully, with Ed and Mason running an errand while I babysat our bank of clothes dryers. Just as they returned, the dryers began shutting off. They found a parking spot right in front of the doors and I told them to stay put, as I had only two more dryerfuls to put into the baskets and I'd be right out. How very nicely everything was working out, I thought.

Wrong.

As I'm bending over to pick up a full basket, Mason ran in, yelling for my cellphone. Someone had attempted to back into the empty space next to our car and apparently hadn't looked behind him... he scraped along the back side of our car and then tried to take off, hooking his truck's bumper into our wheelwell and damn near pulling the wraparound bumper off in the process. We were hopelessly locked together.

The police were called, they helped us get unstuck, and home we went with our drooping bumper to began the insurance claim dance.

The card the other driver showed to the police was for a policy that had lapsed last March. Thank God we carry uninsured motorist coverage with a low deductible (we've learned the hard way). Anyhoo, the dealer where we bought the car has a full body shop, so we took it there to be restored. That was on Monday, November 29. Just twenty-five days after we bought the car.

They told us we should have it back by Friday. One week of frustratingly small rental car hell later, we called to check their progress. "It's getting painted," they said.

Another week passed. Another call (we didn't want to be too much of a pest; much as we wanted our car back, we also wanted it done right and with a proper, dripless paintjob). yielded the same answer. I was beginning to wonder if they were painting it with a one-bristle brush.

Another Friday arrived. Another call. This time the answer was different...

"Mr. Kisner, we lost your car."

Huh?

It left the bodyshop for the paintbooth (both on the dealer's premises) and hadn't been seen since.

Oh, joy.

A few hours later, our car was found. On their used car lot.

Still had all our stuff in it. Except the gas. That was miraculously gone. With only two more miles on the odometer than when we'd dropped it off.

Ed went to pick it up and found several long, visible runs and drips in the paint. There was also paint overspray on the windows. It hadn't been washed yet, either. He asked that they buff out the drips and clean the windows.

They did as he asked while he waited, then brought the car out, still unwashed and now with buffing compound spattered everywhere from the rotating buffer, and smears on the windows from the solvent they used to clean off the mist of paint.

He asked them to wash it and to refill the gas tank. "You sure are being difficult to please," the tech told him.

Excuse me? I don't think it's too much to expect that your car doesn't get, er, misplaced on their used car lot for an extra two weeks after completing a repair.

Or maybe I'm just being too picky.



- posted by Stephanie @ 9:19 PM

 
Some thoughts on turning 39 for the second time...

... microdermabrasion does help get rid of uneven skin tones. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser does a nifty job of microdermabrasion. If you don’t rub too hard. 'Cause then you get scabs in weird places. And strange looks and questions from your co-workers.

... a few silver hairs are no big deal. They prove that I don’t color my hair, for one. They’re also as thick as three of my regular hairs put together. They are also immensely curling-iron resistant and will stick out at all angles, just to make sure everyone can see them quite clearly and admire their silvery sheen.

... no matter what my age, I still can’t find women’s jeans that are cut with the intention of fitting the female figure. ‘Mom’ jeans, fad jeans, doesn’t matter. I could stuff a papoose, a forty pound bag of dog food or a couple of nice pot roasts in the excess fabric in the back of the waist.

... a new flatscreen television is a nice birthday gift. Just proves that it wasn’t my eyes going bad, it was the old, fuzzy picture tube’s fault. Yeah, that’s it. It was the old picture tube, and you can’t get me to say any different.

... chocolate is still the only cake flavor suitable for holding all those candles.

... Forty's just a number. I'm not over the hill. I'm merely cresting the wave...

- posted by Stephanie @ 4:16 PM

 
Couldn't Resist

I saw it in the big baking tater bin at Superwallymartski last night, and I just knew it had to come home with me.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet The Butt-tato.


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Posted by Hello


- posted by Stephanie @ 7:39 PM