Day 136+1

I look like a big red beached whale, but whatcha gonna do?

I had a chicken and black bean quesadilla with a slaw with a southwestern style lime vinaigrette. It was a good lunch. I'm going to have to tweak the vinaigrette a little, but overall I was happy with it.

Today (Day 137) was pretty lazy for me. I woke up at 7 am to 2 dogs screaming to go outside. I let them play for an hour, took a nap, woke up, let the dogs out again, made lunch, watched TV, took another nap, replaced a doorknob, watched TV, ate dinner, snapped a few photos, let the dogs play, went to the gym, came home, had snack, made blog entry...

Yep, that was my day in a nutshell. I was supposed to cut into the ceiling above my refrigerator today, but the person who was going to help me never showed up. I'm a little disappointed because I didn't even get a phone call. So, because of this I can't really say I was productive at all, although my photos turned out quite nice (www.flickr.com/yankee-in-texas). My trip to the gym was my first since mid-March. I know one person who may be reading this that's probably ready to give me a good tongue-lashing. I deserve it and I'm getting back on track.

Yesterday (Day 136) was a little more filled. I pressure-washed my driveway in the morning. Let's just say it was a little overdue. It's amazing how much better the property looks from the outside with a clean driveway. Next weekend I'm going to do as much of the sidewalk as I can (hose and AC cable limitations).

Then we proceeded to take Ozzy and Sharon to the dog park. Sharon had a much better experience this time and even mixed it up in the small dog area. She did ok in the big dog area, but she's still pretty skittish around other dogs. There was another GSD puppy in the park. I talked to the owner for a bit and she told me that her dog was really skittish at first as well, but eventually through good socialization became more confident. Given the improvement I've seen in Sharon I'm confident that she will be more normal socially given time and patience.

I do have one other superficial concern about Sharon. A good chunk of GSD's by her age (about 12 weeks) already have their ears standing erect while Sharon's are flopped. I read that in some GSD's it can take up to 7 months for their ears to stand fully erect as somehow the standing ears is linked to the development of their adult teeth. The 7th month is about the time most large-breed dogs have all of their adult teeth set. I really don't know how to tell if she has soft ears (which is a recessive gene in GSD's, considered by breeders to be a defect) or if possibly there were injuries sustained in the musculature of the ear. Perhaps it's wishful thinking on my part, but it often appears that the ears are standing a little higher than they were the day Sharon became a member of the family. It won't change anything if her ears don't stand up as I will love her just as much, I just wish I could know if it was going to happen or not.

Later that afternoon I met my uncle's new Labrador Retriever named Mickey. Mickey was apparently dropped off at a vet tech's residence. The vet tech couldn't take care of it so he advertised on Craiglist and my uncle took the puppy home that day. The puppy was only about 4 weeks old when it was dropped off (now about 5 weeks old). Mickey is cute. At this point he's about the same size as Ozzy was at 2 months. The dog is going to be big... I would be interested to see which one is bigger at adulthood (my Sharon or Mickey).

After that my day pretty much progressed slowly. I watched Get Smart on cable and then went to the theater to watch Angels and Demons. I must say that I was pretty impressed with the latter. I thought the story flowed much better than the movie adaptation for The DaVinci Code. After reading the hype about how the movie is anti-Catholic, I have to say that I didn't find it in the movie at all. I found the movie telling the story of a flawed man using the power of religion to further a flawed belief in the letter of Catholicism. A key character and his story-line was left out of the movie (thereby changing the motivation used to set the chain of events in motion) but it was adapted well. In the religion vs. science angle, a good job was done in balancing the debate by giving the positives to both sides (something the book really doesn't do). Overall, if you just want to see a good movie with an original plot, by all means go see it. If you're looking for a religion-bashing flick, you may just want to rent a copy of Religulous instead.

I was going to write this last night, but again, late movies = falling asleep on the sofa after turning on the laptop. At this point I will need to wrap it and get some sleep as I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow. So, to all of you, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I bid you goodnight.