Maxin' and Relaxin', Luna-style

Turns out, when you eat two ample piles of moose droppings that have recently melted out of the yard's snow, you become completely constipated until the middle of the night/mid-morning (must be when someone is not being attentive), at which point you spontaneously combust in your laundry room abode (which, fortunately, your kind hosts have barricaded you into for the night). The fascinating, yes, fascinating part of this process is that the elimination still is most obviously moose nugget, just in the shape of dog excrement.

After your hosts clean things up a few times, cursing you for being so prolific, and, having not yet made the connection between moose nuggets and tastiness, wondering why on earth you're doing this most awful action, you act guilty and sulk around (while at the same time refusing to step on the portions of soiled carpet which have been thoroughly scrubbed).

Then, the hosts have an epiphany about the moose droppings-tastiness correlation. All makes sense in the world! Of course moose nuggets are tasty! It's like chewed up wood! And of course the dog would eat it! Why on earth not?

So, the end result: the droppings that are still identifyable in the yard have either been pitched out of the fence perimeter or sprayed down with a bitter apple/tabasco combination. And, reward of all rewards, a new bed is purchased (since the old one showed signs of severe discomfort):
Yes, we're very pleased with ourselves.

North Carolina

I've recently returned from a bit of a family reunion in North Carolina. I was there for a socioeconomic training course, and in the meantime was able to visit with my grandmother, parents, brother, and brother's gay wife (sorry, Vanessa. Had to spill the beans.)


The transportation between the designated hotel (which I didn't stay at) and the campus where the course was being held was via the Bio Bus - a 1970-something Mercedes Troop Transport bus with these fantastic folding seats. There's a Durham outfit that runs shuttles that had found the bus in someone's old barn with only 15,000 miles on it or something similarly outrageous. They converted it to Biodiesel and voila! we were riding in style. It really was a great way to transport 17 people.

In the meantime, I had this little beaut:

While there, we celebrated Dad's 60th birthday party. He was appropriately humble:
Grandma Bess was looking chipper and likely thinking "60? Try 90, you whippersnapper."All in all, an excellent trip. I was able to enjoy some true springtime weather, see my family whom I adore, and even learn a thing or two. I was also lucky enough to wedge college pal Jennie and new pal Alexis/Loocie into the back seat of my sweet ride:

Wonders in White

After my last session at the DDS, and my shock at how stained my rubber bands were, I decided maybe I should take a wee lesson and work a bit on not staining my new bands quite so quickly. True: I drink coffee. I am not about to stop, so I've taken to developing a bit of a slurp to try and get the coffee past my front teeth and onto my tongue. So far, pretty good. If I put cream in it, I can drink it through a straw (thanks for the tip, ERVA!).

I also drink wine, and prefer red. I thought this might be a good time to explore white wine, since just looking at a glass of deep red wine is enough to make me grip my toothbrush. So far, I've tried chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. The chardonnay gave me a headache, twice. No more chardonnay for me. Sauvignon blanc seems to be a bit more to my liking, though. I need to learn some wine vocabulary so I can accurately describe what it is I like and don't!

More to come, I'm sure.

Iditarod!

Last weekend, Jim and I were downtown in the thick of the action, at the ceremonial start of the Iditarod:Look at that handsome devil!