Durr. Derp.

Like most dogs, Ollie is a creature of habit. Every morning when I come out of the shower and head to the bedroom to finish getting ready, Ollie grabs a tennis ball and follows me in. As much as I’d love to play with him, I can’t. So he brings in a second ball in order to get his point across.

Play with me.

See that clock? I start work at 8:30. Yeah.

Once Ollie realizes that I won’t be tossing the ball, he decides to have fun solo. Which involves flopping on the bed.

Feel free to toss this ball.

Then when I sit on the bed to put my shoes on, he turns the cute meter to 11.

You can toss that ball anytime now.

Finally, my earrings are a sign to him that, sadly, I can’t play.

Maybe just a belly scratch?

Okay, Olliepeño. Just a belly scratch.

During all of this hullabaloo, Max is enjoying some non-Ollie time to himself in the other room.

This week’s theme is Holy Moly!

1. What gives you the heebie-jeebies?
Being approached from behind. Because of my bum ear, I don’t hear people walking close to me, especially in the office. Then when they start talking, I shoot through the ceiling. I startle so easily. I hate it. It’s not something you want to be when you work in an open plan office, that’s certain.

2. When were you most recently in double trouble?
Now, actually. It’s nonbloggable, so I’m moving on.

3. What puts you in the mood for some hanky-panky?
A sharp dressed man. Suit/suspenders/fedora/kilt, but not all at once, obviously. Also, Dave Matthews Band “Crush” or Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries.” Again, not both at once. But that’d be a neat mashup. Someone go do that for me.

4. What easy-breezy task is still a pain in the neck to accomplish?
Walking the dogs. It’s simple, in theory. The larger, nuttier dog is on a regular leash. The smaller, pokier dog is on a long retractable leash so he can be poky while we walk ahead. I carry my iPhone for tunes and a roll of bags for waste disposal.

In the summer it’s not so bad. But now it’s squirrel season and my dogs love to chase squirrels. I fully accept the responsibility for this bad habit I helped instill in them. But it’s taken my peaceful stroll and turned it into a cavalcade of NO.

5. What area in your life seems especially rife with mumbo-jumbo?
My job! (But I bet yours does too.) Lots of paperwork and arcane ways of doing things. Want to sell a new product? Fill out eighteen sheets of paper and wait forever ’til it gets into the system. They work in inches, not pixels so anything online has to be converted to inches for ordering/billing purposes. “How many pixels in an inch?” “Depends on your resolution. If you’re at 72 dpi then…” (other person passes out)

***
Wanna know how I spent last night? Copiously weeping at YouTube videos of Les Mis songs. I never saw the musical (I know, right?) but I read the book.

SPOILER ALERT (highlight that with your mouse): Almost everyone dies.

I’m glad I never went to see it. I’d be an absolute mess.

Today I think I’m going to live large and go to Old Navy. Tonight, more felt meat! Yay Friday!

Photographer: sloopjohnb via stock.xchng

Ew.

I turned where I always turn for girly advice (the internet) and apparently I’m supposed to use a base coat under dark colors. Good thing Fairy Teal has a base built in. Which didn’t work. Well, now I know. In the meantime I’m leaving them polish free and trying to hide my Statue of Liberty fingernails.

***

The dogs don’t eat unless I’m home. Even on the days that WM isn’t subbing and is home with them all day, they only eat when I’m there. I guess it’s a pack thing – that they’re not comfortable unless all of us are together. In any case, the “Mom’s home, let’s eat!” mentality is a bit disturbing. Charlie, on the other hand, eats constantly.

***

Here’s a newish pet peeve of mine: When somebody wants you to do something for them (or more likely instead of them) so they stand in front of what needs to be done and announce it. Now this is acceptable if the human is a child…

Young child: “Oh! Oh! The phone is ringing!”

But what I mean is…

Grown-ass adult: “Oh! Oh! The printer is beeping! It says it needs paper!”

do i hav 2 moov?

But the weekend itself wasn’t bad. On Saturday we went to the Franklin Institute and saw the Cleopatra exhibit. Two observations:

1) Most of the items on display were items that could have existed during Cleopatra’s reign. Cleopatra “may have used” this bowl.
2) There were placards about that urged us to share our experiences at the exhibit by Tweeting our friends (#Cleopatra), checking in with Foursquare (uh, no) and/or Facebook pages and taking mobile phone photos.

I can take photos? Cool!

Not Cleopatra

Not Cleopatra

Definitely NOT Cleopatra

Flashback!

The best part was a piece of papyrus with Cleopatra’s actual handwriting. She was ordering a tax break for Mark Antony’s friend. (sigh) The more things change…

After we were done with the exhibit, we went to the planetarium to see “The Sky Tonight.” I love the planetarium – I have since I went there on my 3rd grade field trip.

To the north of Leo, you can see the Douchebag Major constellation...

Then we saw the train room…

Come on ride the train, it's the choo-choo train!

Saw the giant pendulum…

Click the picture to learn more about the Foucault Pendulum

And zapped the hell out of each other in the Electricity room. No pictures of that because I was running for my life.

And because it was Space Week, there was a guest of dishonor…

There was a museum guest — a grown man — dressed as a Jedi, light saber and all. I wanted to tell him that the big ComicCon was actually 2 hours north. I mean really, this is a science museum. That was just weird.

Many thanks to Groupon for letting us snag tickets for half-price, too.

This is a park bench.

This is a dog who likes snow. The other dog does not like snow so he is back in the apartment while we play.

It's cold and wet, but gorgeous.

The roads were plowed well AND in a timely fashion — our South Jersey towns got bashed soundly after the December storm for rotten road conditions. The sun was shining, and the snow started to melt. Ah. A little snow is good for the soul, yes?

Yes. But another blizzard three days later is not so fun. This is the scene out my window now:

Ugh.

The warnings on this one are so dire (life-threatening! pack a survival kit if you drive!) that the Courier-Post actually let us out at 12-noon today. They’ve never done that in the 10 years I’ve been there!

I have to go to work tomorrow or else I won’t get paid, but I’m completely enjoying my paid snow day today!

(Sorry for the absence from the blog. Time is FLYING. Back now.)

Here’s their “report card” from their last stay.

None of this surprises me. Max (I can’t believe he’s 7-8 years old already!) loves to be pet and snuggled. He’s my lap dog. Ollie (I wonder if he answered at all to “Oliver” while there since he never hears it at home.) will fetch and fetch until he drops over from exhaustion. Fetching is his job.

I also love the “I was a little messy” part. Atta boys. You trash that hotel room.

They were playing with the stuffed frog next to my feet when I snapped this one.

September marked Ollie’s 2-year-mark with us, and like magic something went off in his brain and he realized there’s a life above him. So now if I’ll be sitting on my chair he’ll walk over, put his two front paws on my chair and get completely excited about seeing what’s on my desk. Weird little dog.

It’s hard to believe that Max is 7 or 8 now and the only sign he shows of slowing down is that he lies down more. Otherwise he’s scheming ways to swipe the cat food without us looking or engaged in knock-down, drag-out, face-eating brawls with Ollie. He’s smaller than Ollie but he holds his own!

walkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalkwalk

Dreams:

1) giGANTic zit in my face and I had to go to work because I had no mire sick days left.

2) World of Warcraft is launching a new dungeon soon. That part is true. In my dream we got to tour the new dungeon. There were souvenir maps, placards indicating where the bad guys would be, and cake & coffee.

Ollie savors it: