This evening the dogs had already been out for their evening romp but about 10 minutes ago Cueball was crying at the door and wanted to go out. I let him out and came and sat back down at the puter. He came back in and appeared to be particularly interested in the floor in front of the love seat so I wandered over there, as one does, to see what was up. So there was a possum, a dead possum for all I could see, at which point I gave Cueball a stern talking to "what the hell are you doing bringing a dead possum into the house." He immediately crouched down close to the floor and realized that he was in trouble. I grabbed a towel and approached the possum to grab it and place it in the trash, at which point it moved. Okay, so Possum is doing a possum, it is not dead, it is in fact a live possum in my living room pretending to be dead. I have three dogs and seven cats, if this possum moves, just a hair, then chaos is going to ensue, in fact I would hazard a guess that every breakable object in my entire house will be toast. I go and get a pair of heavy leather gloves, I approach the possum, tentatively, I pick it up, very gently, Cueball comes and sniffs it, "Cueball go away right now" he crouches down again. I coo at the possum, "okay sweetie, just stay dead and we will get you outside" I say, I carry the possum at arms length outside, and place him into the Liriope on the pathway. There are two scenarios tomorrow I will check out there and he will be gone, having miraculously come back to life as possums do and escaped back into the swamp or I am going to find a dead possum at my door in the morning. Can anyone explain why this stuff happens to me?

It is clear to me that I am going to have to buy a lock box for the thermostat. The house is freezing today, I mean really chilly, and while it is not normally roasting seeing as I leave the thermostat on 70 and then if I get cold I wrap myself up in my big pink fluffy monster of a dressing gown, today (seeing as it is going to get down to about 20 degrees tonight) it is really unpleasant. I mentioned this to my husband when I was on the phone with him and his response was "well why don't you turn the heat back on then?" I paused for a moment "what do you mean turn the heat back on?" "Oh I turned it off" he said "I got too warm the other night" so instead of perhaps nudging down the thermostat to say 65 degrees he just turns the heat off entirely, it is going to take forever for this house to warm up.

I spent the weekend doing housework prior to putting up the Christmas decorations which meant I enjoyed minimal if any at all camera time. Still yesterday was rainy and cold which meant that my birds were taking full advantage of the food on the feeders to keep warm so in between everything else I stuck my tripod in the sink, opened the kitchen window and hoped for the best. As it turned out I got some nice shots, but my favorite was one of the brown thrasher, with no "man made" objects in the background (unless you count the suet he is standing on). They are wonderful birds, when they feed down on the ground they "thrash" about among the leaves looking for worms etc., it is amazing the noise they make. When they are on the feeders (they only visit the platform feeders) they "thrash" about looking for their particular favorite seed. The ground feeders (the juncos and the sparrows) absolutely adore them as as opposed to just hanging around under the feeders and hoping that something will fall to the ground or be blown off, the thrasher obliges them and literally scatters the seed everywhere.



Husband asked me what I wanted for Christmas over the weekend as we were driving into town for dinner. I thought for a while. "Some more rechargeable batteries" I said. Silence. We pulled up outside the restaurant "how about another memory card" he said. "Oooooh yes, that would be nice." We sat down in the restaurant and I thought some more. "Well" he said. Silence. "Oooh socks" I said brightly, he rolled his eyes. I thought hard, thought and thought and thought. Couldn't come up with a single thing I needed or wanted other than the things already mentioned. "Does printer ink and photo paper count?" I asked. "No" he responded firmly. I ate my dinner and thought some more. "A lowes gift card" I said "nope" he said "you'll spend it on bird food and feeders or plants." I sipped on my second glass of wine and thought some more. I sighed. "Nanny McPhee" I said, finally coming up with something that I thought would be acceptable to the husband. "Okay" he conceded. He declined dessert and asked for the check. "Is that the best you can do?" he said. I thought some more on the drive home, and yes that was pretty much the best I could do. I know I am pathetic.

This weekend there was a photo in the newspaper that almost broke my heart. It was a photo of a two year old boxer female who was almost the spitting image of my darling Judy. She is in the Onslow County Animal Shelter and looking for a good home. I showed it to the husband and he looked at me "do you think we could survive another Boxer?" at which point I thought and said "I think we could survive another Boxer, I am not sure the house and the furniture could though." Then I said "how could anyone take a look at that face and abandon her?" he agreed with me. Hopefully her 15 minutes of fame will result in her being adopted or at least picked up by Boxer rescue in the near future. Still, just in case I might have to check in the next couple of days. I must have "sucker" tatooed on my forehead.

My boss called in sick today. What is up with that? The boss calling in sick?

If Harry Potter is demonic and all about Devil worship then why do they celebrate Christmas at Hogwarts?

If you were a divorce judge in California (say) or anywhere for that matter would you give custody of two young children under two to a woman that parades around nightclubs on a nightly basis, getting drunk, wearing no underwear and allowing people to photograph her naked crotch, yah know is this a "fit and proper parent". I guess its true what they say, you can take the girl out of the trailer park but you'll never take the trailer park out of the girl.

I stopped off at the grocery store on my way home this evening to get a bottle of wine. The young girl at the cashiers desk (obviously new seeing as all the other girls know me) asked me for my ID, when she could not read my birth date cause my license was in a holder she asked me to remove it "I'm sorry" she said "I said hell no, don't be sorry I am flattered" she looked at my birth date and said "wow you look great for your age" at which point I just simpered as you do. Was that ever an ego boost.

Myspace is a scary place. On it you can post a profile of yourself which is basically total fiction and noone would ever know about it. I think while myspace has been a great boon for alot of teenagers to express their thoughts I think alot of adults have used myspace to post completely false images of themselves, thereby luring children into a complete fantasy world of how things aught to be. I can see there being restrictions placed on myspace here real soon.

One of my clients came in the other day with her new baby, well actually her four month old baby, she was just so precious, she looked like a pixie when she was born with a shock of black hair and big ears, now she no longer has the black hair but gramma said "she doesn't look like a pixie anymore" and I said (as I picked her up and held her in my arms) "yes she does, she is the most perfect of pixies" she is a mixed race baby, which as you recall is the heritage of my sister so I am most fond of her. As it was she came to me in an instant and sat and gurgled in my arms for the longest time. I don't care what anyone else says, she is still a pixie.

Do we really have to watch Ciallis ads on TV I mean really, is this not like emotional abuse? And now the people are in bathtubs in a cornfield. BATHTUBS IN A CORNFIELD? Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Cueball did not enjoy his time in the car with Daddy one little bit, in fact he hated every second of it. Once he got to the vets he started growling at people, so the vet sedated him "no problem" she said "even the biggest dogs within ten minutes they calm down" 25 minutes later Cueball calmed down. He came through his surgery fine, but sulked the minute my husband picked him up "he won't talk to me" my husband said "I have ruined him" When I spoke to my husband after he had dropped him off it was amazing "it was so hard" he said to me "well that is cause you never have to do it, I usually do" "but it was so hard" he said to me "I didn't want to leave him there" so my husband has finally learned what it is like to drop a "child" off at the vets in the morning for major surgery and worry all day. He had one of his students on phone duty all day just in case there was a problem and the vet called, he was besides himself with worry. Now he knows how I feel. As it was (as it always is) Cueball got back home (after crying all the way home) and bounded into the house like nothing had ever happened, he is now sleeping happily on the floor, just the way he has always done. Now the only thing I have to worry about is whether or not he will lick away his "dissolving" stiches....

and for once it is not a train coming the other way. I think (and I say I think) that I have finally (FINALLY) got rid of all of the problems that my co-worker caused me. Yesterday I think I got rid of the final "No Operator's Licence" ticket that was out there and I think I got rid of the final "reinstatement fee" of a person who's driver's licence was revoked due to her negligence. Deep breaths, think calm thoughts, it is finally over. You have no idea how much it means to me for it finally to be over. I have spent a year of waking at 5am and not being to be able to go back to sleep, I spent six months between June 2005 and the end of the year not sleeping at all... I went on vacation the week after christmas and the first day of my vacation I slept 12 hours straight... I kid you not. It is done. And finally the boss and I can go on and live our lives as they were meant to be lived. We can do what we were meant to do and live as we were meant to live. Tomorrow we can finally go on and do what we were supposed to do. Tomorrow life begins again.