It’s a nice lazy Sunday here, started with lots of rain, thunder and lightning – just the way I like it.  So it sounded like a good time to heat up some easy frozen pizzas for lunch.  We have a couple of yummy Fruchetta pizzas that would be yummy.  We picked a 6 cheese and a Hawaiian, and popped the cheese in the oven to get started.

As Craig pulled the Hawaiian out of the package to get it onto a stone, he noticed it didn’t look quite right – see if you can tell what might be wrong with these pictures:

WTH??  Did someone at the pizza factory actually take a bite out of our pie?  All I could think was that it had to be just some kind of funny looking malformation that simply resembled a bite mark, but the longer I looked at it the more it looks like there are grooves where the teeth would have been.  I honestly can’t decide if someone took a bite out of that pizza or not.  We spent a good number of minutes just staring at it….dumbfounded by what we were seeing.

I could understand if I opened a Snickers and found a bite was missing, or some tasty cookies of some kind (really, there’s no need to specify which – they’d ALL be valid choices), or even a granola bar.  But nothing about taking a big bite out of frozen pizza dough could have tasted even remotely appetizing.  Who does that?!

Is it possible this is how Fruchetta is doing QA now?  Instead of checking their ingredients on an individual basis, they just pick a finished product and start munching on the side.  And of course you’d want to leave it like that to ship to the customer.  That way customers KNOW their pizza was specifically tested for (and one would hope passed) their high standards of excellence the company strives for.

Maybe, you know….current economy and such…the company has had to cut back on their benefits.  No more free product or employee discounts.  This might be how their employees are reclaiming their benefits package – one bite at a time.  “No more free dental? Well I’ll get my compensation one way or another!” chomp

Clearly the people at Fruchetta need to find some new ways of engaging their employees, because this is a whole new kind of boredom.

Anyone who knows me KNOOOOWWWWS I love my puppies.  They’re the second favoritest things on the planet to me.  I love anyone’s puppies.  I love animals in general.  In my eyes they’re FAR superior in quality to anything coming from a human – in fact, most animal downfalls are direct results of the evil of humanity.  But this is all completely off point from where I’m going with this (shocker I know…Dottie went on a tangent about something she’s passionate about – I’m sure you’re REELING from the uncharacteristicness of it all………………that’s TOTALLY a word btw).

This is actually more of a comical note jotting, and hopefully brief – as I have to be up at unearthly hours, and to facilitate I’ve quickly downed 3 glasses of wine.

I’m tucking the dogs into their blankets (since it’s been chilly) and giving/getting some love, and getting ready to attempt to crash. In my loopiness the following conversation occurs:

D: I love our puppies soooo much.  It’s like having stuffed animals that walk around.

[long pause]

B: And poop.

And that was the end of that conversation.

He’s SO FUN to live with!  Imma keep him. 

….and the poopin’ pups.

I’m having a nice relaxing weekend…cleaned the house, made lunch, did some work on my knitting experiment, and am now killing huge alien bugs and 300 foot robots with my very cute hubby.

We’re on a particularly tough level, and after bringing down a very frustrating robot, my husband proclaims:

“YEAH!  That one’s for your mother!”

?!?!?!?!

I’m pretty sure we’re not 6, but I guess Craig told HIM!    I laughed very hard.  He’s a fun boy to live with. 

Buck and I were chatting on AIM the other day, and the conversation progressed from one thing to another – and as often happens – it turned into a comical conversation and he made me laugh very hard.  It’s one of my favorite things that he does.  (Well that, and he made me the most amazing Ghiradelli chocolate mousse last week….mmmmm…..chocolate mousse…..).

We got onto the topic of phobias, and while he was reading through a list of them online he decided to list for me allllll of the phobias that he – knowing me as well as he does – doesn’t feel I, in any way, suffer from.  Here is a sampling of what he has deemed non-applicable: (With my side comments added in.  Because it’s my blog.  And I can.)

Bucknkd313: phobias you do not suffer from

Bucknkd313: Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions.

Bucknkd313: Alektorophobia- Fear of chickens.  (ohhhhkaaayyyy)

Bucknkd313: Angrophobia – Fear of anger or of becoming angry.

Bucknkd313: Anthrophobia or Anthophobia- Fear of flowers.

Bucknkd313: Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.

Bucknkd313: Aulophobia- Fear of flutes (please don’t take this to mean there are other instruments I DO fear ….they  all seem pretty harmless to me)

Bucknkd313: Chorophobia- Fear of dancing.  (the boompity boomp is strong in this one)

Bucknkd313: Clinophobia- Fear of going to bed. (I’m the Anti-Clinophobia!)

Bucknkd313: Consecotaleophobia- Fear of chopsticks.  (It’s true – I’m very picky about chop-stick quality)

Bucknkd313: Dentophobia- Fear of dentists.  (I have the two most kick @ss dentists in the world.  LOVE. THEM!)

Bucknkd313: Dutchphobia- Fear of the Dutch.  (I dig my dirndl!)

Bucknkd313: Equinophobia- Fear of horses.

Bucknkd313: Euphobia- Fear of hearing good news.  (LOL!! How can this fear POSSIBLY exist??!)

Bucknkd313: Genuphobia- Fear of knees.  (Hmmm…I have no particular opinion about knees, one way or the other)

Bucknkd313: Hoplophobia- Fear of firearms.  (Mmmmm…….Kimmmmberrrrr…..it just feels SO GOOD in my hand.)

Bucknkd313: Leukophobia- Fear of the color white.

Bucknkd313: Lutraphobia- Fear of otters.  (SEA ODDER ODDER ODDER!!!)

Bucknkd313: Oenophobia- Fear of wines.  (Wine snob.  Guilty.)

Bucknkd313: Philemaphobia or Philematophobia- Fear of kissing.  (We’re REALLY good kissers! Having this phobia would be a crime against humanity indeed!)

Bucknkd313: Plutophobia- Fear of wealth. (Ohhhh Dear Lord yes please!)

Bucknkd313: Scelerophibia- Fear of bad men, burglars. (wtf?)  (Bring. It. On.  I ALWAYS have an ample supply of supressed anger from dealing with complete morons all day just waiting to be unleashed on someone deserving of it.)

Bucknkd313: Tachophobia- Fear of speed.  (LOLOLOL!!!  Ya think??)

Bucknkd313: Teutophobia- Fear of German or German things (I loooovvvve my Germans and German things)

Bucknkd313: Walloonphobia- Fear of the Walloons.  (I…ummm…blink blink…blink blink….)

Bucknkd313: and finally….

Bucknkd313: Zemmiphobia- Fear of the great mole rat. (While I have to say I’ve not ever met the great mole rat, it’s probably safe to say that any such introduction would likely not go well, and there would probably be a fair amount of screaming.  So I may in fact have this phobia.  Sorry honey.)

Bucknkd313: those are fears you do not have

Bucknkd313: the end

And yet…..he loves me!!

I got home late tonight from work, so Craig and I didn’t really have time to gear up and head over to Fantasy Island as planned….and neither of us had the energy or motivation to do a run.  So we decided just to hop on our bikes and tool around our own neighborhood and do some exploring – hoping to find an unknown trail we can use in just such a circumstance.  We didn’t really find any, but spent some time just playing around on the quad trails, riding along the wash, and seeing what we could discover.  It HAS to be better than my over-sized @ss sitting on the couch (though I did miss an hour of football for it).

On an interesting side note (because what would a Dottie blog be without senseless and unrelated digressions), it was pointed out to me by my wonderful husband that at my highest speed today I was still only going half as fast as Adrian Peterson on his 75 yard touchdown.  DAMN!

Back to the point.

We were losing daylight, so we decided to cut through the golf course and take the cart path back to the walking path (we have a lot of paths, I know) of the main road to our house.  No sooner did we hit the walking path, than I slammed on the brakes and made Craig backtrack with me…because SURELY I didn’t just see what I know I saw.  It’s not possible.  I live in the middle of a large planned development on a very nice golf course.

THAT was wishful thinking, because FOR REALS – I saw what I saw.  Three graves – no more than than 5 feet from the walking path – off to the side of like the 11th hole, surrounded by a small chain link fence.

?!?!?!?

We walked up the little 1 foot slope to find they were the graves of 3 babies.  Each one had a small headstone – all uniformly shaped and inscribed, with a little pot of plastic flowers for each.  The first was of Lillian Lively who was born and died in 1898.  Next to her was Edna (I think) Harris who was also was born and had died in 1898, and the last was Mera Harris – born in 1901 and died in 1903.  Each grave was surrounded in a tiny little rock mound.

It was completely surreal.  Like stepping instantly back in time – completely out of the blue.  Not like when you expect it because you’ve driven up to Tombstone to see where the Earp’s and Clanton’s are buried.  Right in the middle of our tiny suburb.  I would imagine that they were discovered during development and the chain link fence was put up and padlocked around them to protect them.  I’m interested to know who is maintaining these after all these years.  Who is putting flowers and pots at the head of each?

I’m going to do some googling and see if I can find anything about the families that lived in this area at that time.  This just isn’t anything you ever expect to find when you’re out wandering the neighborhood.  It makes you wonder about the people, the work they did, the homes they kept, and the pain they must have faced in losing such young children.  And it reminded me about the history of the region in which I’ve lined for so long.  This truly is the wild west, where we still carry guns (and not in a thug way…though we do have that too I guess), where we’re just up the street from old high-noon shootouts, where good guys and bad guys would travel on horseback through what is to me the 4th fairway, going from Tombstone to Bisbee to Tucson and on to Phoenix – a trip that took days…

I’m so very intrigued by this new found history on my street.

I’m just going to say this and get it off my chest. Having stated this I think I’ll feel better, and hopefully others in need (as this particular area relates) will be able to grow – developing to meet their potential in ways they might not have otherwise been possible.

Today’s lesson is simple:

THERE IS NO “U” IN THE WORD EXERCISING!

(((SIGH)))

I feel better already.  Well, that is until I hear the commercial on the radio again.

Idiot.

It’s that time of year again.  Yeessss……that MOST IMPORTANT time of the year again.  The time when we honor Dottie’s favorite holiday :

DOTTIE’S BIRTHWEEK!!!

Now officially, this year’s birthweek wasn’t slated to kick off until tomorrow night (9:00pm at the Cactus Moon, let’s not forget!), but my first happy package arrived from the brown UPS guy today.  He wasn’t brown.  He wears brown.  I don’t know- he may have been brown.  I really only saw his socks.  They were in fact brown.  What’s important is that he left a happy little box for ME!

It was, of course, from my Bubby, who loves me very much – and is usually the one to get the festivities rolling.  I tore open my box to find the sweetest little Twilight charm bracelet.  It has all of the very required elements…a silver coin with the title of each book, the chess piece, the apple, the carved wofly, and MOST importantly….the hand-me-down, “crystal” heart shaped bauble.

And when I wear it, it makes the lightest, prettiest little jingle.  I absolutely love it of course-because it’s AWESOME!

So I guess we’re already into the celebration period known affectionately to me, and all those around me, as Dottie’s Birthweek.  YAY!!!

On tap for this year’s birthweek?  Well we’ll start by hanging out at the Cactus Moon tomorrow night for drinks, dancing and fun.  Freddy is getting in tonight to join in the festivities.

Then on Wednesday, we leave for Northern California for a little thing called MOTOGP BABY!!!!  Oh please, please, PLEASE let God love me enough that I get to meet and get a picture with Valentino Rossi.  There’s just no greater rider in all the world.  EV-ER.

And while we’re up there, we’ll of course hang out with MarkyMark and Judy, doing what we do best – TOUR WINERIES!!!  We’re also spending a day in the city.  THE city.  San Francisco.  Ohhhhh how I love San Francisco.  I took Craig for the first time several years back for his birthday and he really liked it.  Which makes me happy, because it’s one of my favoritest places in the whole world to be.

I can’t wait to get some fresh strawberries from the fruit cart on the pier.  And thanks to Freddy, we’ll have a nice meal at Ghiradelli Square.

It’s just perfectly setup to be an amazing birthweek-and I’m so excited to get an early jump!

IT’S VALENTINO ROSSI!!!  HELLOOOOO?!?!?!

I was up and out of  the house early today.  MUCH earlier than I’ve had to be for a couple of months now.  I’m not a morning person by design, so it’s never much fun for me.  Today I had to get to the renal specialist to see if I’m “fit to be released for duty” blah blah blah.  After that I had to go for blood work (for same reason), stopped off to see Buck on his lunch, made a drop at Goodwill from stuff we weren’t keeping after the move…and finally home again, to do a little cleaning before Phreddy gets in tonight.

I was excited to go home for several reasons.

1. OMG I FEEL LIKE A ZOMBIE.  I now remember why I want to win the lottery most.  This is how I feel every single day I have to go to work.  I’m totally missing the “get up early” gene – and when I have to, I feel as though I’m PHYSICALLY dragging myself through the day.  All day.  EVERY.  DAY.
2. While I was at my game last night, Craig pulled out the nice black matchy matchy dish-not-washer, and replaced it with the less matching white dish washer from our old house, which – get this – ACTUALLY WASHES THE DISHES!!  The dish washer fiasco really is a separate story in and of itself (which I hope to find the motivation to put up here for ya’ll, because really, I don’t find I’m being TOO overly critical when my expectations are that dishes not come out dirtier than when I put them IN!).  So while the kitchen looks goofy, I can now start running loads of dishes, instead of washing them all by hand…with icky chemicals to undo the damage of them having been in the dish ruiner…chemicals which then need to be washed off as well….as if I’m a cave woman.
3. OMG I FEEL LIKE A ZOMBIE!!!

So I get home to find that Copper has been scratching at the sore under his eye (yet another stand alone story, less interesting, no blog will follow) and it’s just oozing junk.  Ick.  At this point we’re pretty sure the antibiotics are doing their thing, and we’ve drained as much ick from it over the last several days as it’s going to yield – meaning it’s best now if it just scabs over and tries to heal.  Well that’s not happening with Mr Scratch-a-lot.  So I call the vet and ask if they can fit him for a cone of shame, grab the dog and head back into town (ish).

Now, here’s where we start to get into the point of all of this (like I would leave you guys without setup information…new here much?).  By the time I got back home, I had an auction that was about an hour away from ending.  As I’m checking that, and trying to do a few last minute things before we leave for vacation next week, my stomach begins to complain loudly about having missed lunch.  Don’t ask me why – there’s a good 3 years worth of nourishment on my hips that the rest of my body could live quite comfortably off of.  Even my innards are lazy.  Sad.

It occurs to me that there is still some leftover Touchdown Taco Dip in the fridge from the party on Saturday.  If you’ve never had it, your life is not yet complete.  It’s unfortunate for you.  If you’ve had it, you know that it would make a FINE missed lunch, midday snack.  So I lug my tubby derriere into the kitchen, and scoop some of the yummy dip into a bowl to pop into the microwave.  Next I go to the pantry to pull out the chips.

Aaaaannnnd we’ve arrived at the point.  Let me show you what my very cute hubby, has put back into the pantry after his snack of chips and salsa last night…..

I added the quarter so you’d have some perspective on the size of these……chipletts.  Why do boys do these things?

THESE ARE NOT CHIPS!

Is there some kind of sentimental value these crumbs hold over men, that they should get such a stay of execution?!  What the hell am I going to dip these with…tweezers?

All I could do was shake my head and throw them in the garbage, as I opened a beautiful bag of huge, hand sized chips.

Mmmmm….Touchdown Taco Dip….

Boys are very odd creatures indeed.  Especially to live with.

My husband - who knows and loves me so well, emailed me a set of
"motivational" posters he knew would make me giddy.  I picked my
two favorite to share with you.  It's how I show my love...educate
with humor.   




Ain't it the truth!

**I know I wanted to wait until ALL of my historical blogs have been ported over before I start writing new ones, but it’s been FAR more slow going that I had hoped – and I’m tired of not being able to blog.  So we’re hereby tossing out that rule.  Because I can.  Because I’m Dottie.  And I’m the boss of my blogs.  Here endeth the disclaimer.**

On Sunday nights, WGN does a cool flash back thinger that I love – Outta Sight Retro Night, or something catchy like that.  They play all of the old TV shows that I grew up on and loved as a kid.  Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Newhart, etc.  The year is now 2009, and I have to say…even in black and white – these shows still KICK @SS!!

I still want to be Samantha, I still love ALL the IDOJ outfits she wears, and even today, Newhart is still funny.  But there are things I’ve learned about these shows that I never knew back then (and especially adding Star Trek as part of this new revelation).

The shows I loved best as a kid – WERE RERUNS!!  (Ok-not so much Newhart…those were new).

I had no freakin clue!

Leave It To Beaver?  The Honeymooners?  Fibber Magee and Molly? Of course those were reruns.  Ok-so Fibber Magee was a rerun even for my parents…but I did love it!  But Bewitched and Star Trek?  Never in a million years, until this very week of my life, did I have any clue what I was watching weren’t actually “mine”. And while we’re here, let me just ask (because IMDB doesn’t say) but when did I dream of Jeannie go from black and white to color?  Because what I’m watching tonight is b&w, but I distinctly remember the pink of her outfit, and the colors of the pillows inside her bottle.

Anyway, we’ve not been apart long enough that any of you will be at all surprised to learn this blog has nothing to do with any of this.  I just had to get it off my chest.

So I’m watching the “old” shows (SHOCKED to see a VERY young Marsha Brady as an extra in tonight’s episode)….wait, wait, wait – first there is something you MUST understand about my husband.

He has this condition.  I can’t even say I think it’s a unique condition.  I’m fairly certain anyone of the male gender within 5 years of his age either way shares the same “problem”.  Never, ever, ever has he been able to get over Barbara Eden in her little pink genie outfit.  All you have to do is mention it, and he gets all glossy-eyed and does that Homer Simpson drooly thing.

So imagine my surprise when, while IDOJ is on, Buck announces that he’s going to finish some racing game he was playing this morning.  “….ohhhkaaayyyy honey, but you’ll be missing Jeannie in a nurse’s outfit.”

And then, as if on cue to help persuade him to stay and watch, Jeannie walks in – wearing said nurses uniform and utters her lines…in her sweet little voice “Hello.  You look lonlely.”  WHILE WEARING A NURSES UNIFORM!!!!  Even I would have a hard time turning away!

He made some off hand comment about my needing to get a nurse’s costume, or even better a genie outfit…and then LEFT!

WTH?!?!?  Is he ill??  Does he have a fever?  Certainly something in the universe has fallen off kilter.

I’m sending him to the doctor tomorrow.  Please pray with me, that it’s not serious.