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good news bad news and a good night sleep

Our neighbor, an original owner, assures us we have a clean out to the sewage in the front yard. The bad news is its not marked and its buried a foot down somewhere on the line, that while marked on the street, is not straight up the yard but bends up and under our front walk. So I'll be heading to the city offices in the coming days to try and get the blue prints our house and maybe luck out and have it marked.

I took such a heavy nap today when Megan napped that now i'm having a hard time settling down for sleep. I thought I'd read a bit but the book I'm reading Outlander is alittle slow moving at the point I'm at, but so far is good.

Anyway I took a melatonin to help me get back on schedule and now that its had alittle time to work, I'm heading to bed.

4:34

clog cleared... they ran over 100 feet of the cable so the clog was near the street. Now they just need to reinstall the toilets and we can goto bed.

Oh yeah and pay them too of course.

4:11 update

Supervisor found the roof vent so they now have "the MACHINE" out back are running it up.... the racket isn't nearly as bad as when the lone guy was trying the toilets. Supervisor is going to try and figure out where the line runs in the front, and how deep since we really need an access out there. Figures installing an access will run 500-700 bucks.

I'm wasting fast, and the toilets still need to be re-installed. Looks like an all nighter.

3:30 update

both toilets are now out, and the supervisor is on his way. no sewer vent on roof. can't find the line in the yard, despite the marking on the street, and sending the largest snake you've ever seen down one toilet hole has it coming up the other. Megan, bless her is sleeping through "the MACHINE" and Jack has just made a pot of coffee. I don't drink anything for fear I'll need to pee .. or worse. So far no neighbors have awoken to see what the hell we are up to.

Oh and Sadie is due at the vet by 8 am. for a round of tests, she's currently freezing her recently shaved butt off in the yard (pictures of the new do I'm sure are coming soon)

late night

Jack and I are currently waiting for a plumber at 1:23 am. After Megan's bath tonight the bathtub backed up. That could have waited till morning, but after drano and a snake, the two toilets decided to join. So we watched the hollywood home game of the world poker tour, and now some trek and I'm looking out the window every 5 secs.

Media musings

Megan is napping late today - so I'm getting to watch the evening news for a change.

Brian Williams is wearing way too much make up tonight - its dripping on his face.. .I wonder what he is hiding. I think he spent too much time in a tanning booth - man he looks funny!

Bush apparently admits he "made a miscalculation in the condition of post war Iraq" - well about time W!

Greenspan is looking old... thats a scary thought. He's warning baby boomers the government won't be able to support them in old age in the manner their parents were accustom to. It was a quick blurb, on a subject that really should be elaborated on.

More on the Swift boats. I guess now Bush is saying he believes Kerry served and served well. Guess that'll be the end of that now... yeah right. I'm still confused - Kerry Volunteered and Served his country, and uh W... well were was he... Daddy was keeping him safe, while he partied. If military service is the issue than Kerry should win hands down. Come on - what am I missing.

Now a story on how people wearing anti-bush shirts got arrested at a Bush rally. Glad they caught the arrest on camera - proves they weren't being disruptive and went away with the police peacefully - the should easily win there lawsuit. Its a scarey police state we live in if you can't even wear a t-shirt against W ... I don't want to imagine the damage Jack and I are doing to our selves just by blogging.

that's all folks - only 30 mins of blurbs ending with the medal ceremony for the Woman's soccer. What a great moment for all women in America!

It's hot!

Mid-ninety's with only 18% humidity... and a forecast for hotter tomorrow. I think We'll be heading to the pool tomorrow.

I know other area's are hotter but we're not used to it ;) glad we had A/C put in... now we finally get to use it with a purpose :)

Busy couple of days...

Don't know how I did it but Megan and I have had such a busy few days. This whole week actually. Today is no different. We're meeting playgroup at Kennedy park in Hayward and I'm online right now to figure out where it is.. instead of course I'm blogging. Then we're meeting up with Pam and Josephine to whom we haven't seen in over a month. I spent the morning stripping beds and straightening the house for the cleaning people to come in and deep clean.

I think adding the urine tests to Sadie's regime and the insulin shots have add stress to my days. We finally figured out that if we lock her in for a few hours before the test she'll usually comply and pee in our presence. But she is getting wise to me and the plastic dish and she usually tries to hold it if I'm walking around behind her with the dish. She seems to be doing very well, but will probably revolt when on monday she has to have a blood draw every hour and there for will have to spend the day at the vets office. First though we'll torture her with a trip to the groomers tomorrow She must have clean underwear for her trip to the ER :)

Megan has been such a trooper. Yesterday I dragged her to Palo Alto to have lunch with a friend. We stopped at the Palo Alto Children's museum and zoo which is so cool, but was so crowded yesterday with big kids who pushed poor Megan around. One boy in particular - I think he was about 10 acted as though he was going to smack Megan when she hit a button on the exhibit he was playing with. Had I not been right there to yell when he pulled back his arm to strick I'm sure he would have. His anger was so visible on his face and down right scary to see in one so young. And his parent was no where to be found.

Megan had no idea why I yelled and needed some serious cuddle time after. I talked with the woman at the front desk as we left and she suggested we come back in 2 weeks when all the local schools are back in session.

No Can Do...

Dad, I can't just goto Type key - I've tried... since I already have an account with my email address it won't let me get another one.

I can't comment!

I can't comment on my own blog, because when Jack updated my OS to OS10.3 last week it erased on my preset passwords etc from Safari. Type Key is case sensitive and I can't figure out what I used as a login name. I never gave them a hint to recover the password so the recovery route doesn't work and because there is already an account with my email address I can't just get a new one. Its a circle.

Chaney not all bad

I'm relieved to hear that Dick Chaney is supporting his gay daughter and not the ignorant hatred of W.

Sucess!

Oh how I love Nordstroms, and what's not to love. After going to 2 Macy's, a Lane Bryant, Avenue and a Catherine's yesterday I was pretty much over the idea of getting a dress for Saturday, but today I took Megan to Stoneridge and started at Nordstroms and had 15 dresses to try on with in a few minutes. I picked a really pretty simple silk dress with a cover up that was on Sale!, and then I found a pair of black strappy sandals to go with it. Megan also got 2 new pairs of shoes, a pair of black shoes and a pair of white sandals. We then had lunch at CPK ASAP and a lovely drive back.

dress blues

Jack Megan and I are going to a wedding on saturday. I spent the afternoon looking for a dress and went to 3 speciality stores and 2 departments stores. Only one store actually carried dresses and they were for someone a few generations older than I feel. I came away from the whole experience rather depressed. Tonight after Megan goes to bed I'll do alittle time shopping in my own closet, which I should have done in the first place. If all else fails then I'll try again tomorrow.

doing good

2 shots down, this morning I did it myself...Sadie has eaten her meals with her meds and i've run around the yard twice to catch her pee in a small container and this morning she had no Ketones which is great. - Ketones are bad!

I still need to pick up one testing strip that humans don't use much anymore because of the advances in blood monitoring!

on another front... I may have found a baby sitter. We shall see.

One Sick Puppy

Sadie isn't doing well. She lost almost 15lbs while i was gone, refusing to eat. and though she is now eating, I took her to the vet today and they diagnosed her as being diabetic, on top her Pancreatic Enzyme disease. So when Jack gets home, I'm off to buy insulin and other stuff to keep her going. She really seems OK but I don't want to loose her so soon after we lost Ripley. That would just be too tough.

we're HOME!

Very few problems yesterday and Megan and I had a great day. We had one incident with a little old lady on the plane who understandably was upset that Megan could reach her seat with her feet, but instead of saying anything to me, 3 hours into the flight she looked over and scowled and when Megan laughed at her she snapped her teeth at her. I apologized knowing what she was pissed about and she told me to switch seats with her...Leaving Megan alone with this crazy woman. I told her I couldn't and to complain to the flight attendants and that they would switch her. She refused that... but the really nice guy next to me offered to switch with her, so She was given an acceptable out. And the beauty of it all was that Megan fell asleep as soon as they switched and never kicked the seat again.

Megan is now playing in her car, and has filled the trunk space with spoons. When she saw the car at the airport she got so excited and it lasted all the way home. The dogs (Sadie and our old foster Russell whom we are dogsitting) gave her a wet sloppy welcome and Russell and Megan started playing ball. Sadie is unbelievable skinny. But she is acting younger and happier than I've seen her in a long time.

Wish us luck...

SO even though its beautiful and sunny outside right now, I can see out over the water and the storm clouds are brewing, I think it must be bands of Bonnie but maybe not - she may be too far away. So we are going to try and get home today. All of the east coast is socked in and atlanta is already having over 1 hr delays and that is were we are connecting to get back to Oakland... so we may be on the east coast a while longer than expected. Hopefully we'll at least get out of tampa today as they are expecting Hurricane Charlie to make landfall right around here tomorrow.

I called Delta this am and after being on hold for 40 mins was told that all the older flights were over booked except one and it only had one seat (and was only 50 mins before our flight) ah well, we shall see...

This morning are watching them spread rocks all over the pool deck down below. I was hoping to get Megan in the pool to use up some energy before our flights but this pool is under construction.
we could take a shuttle to the other Marriott in town and use there pool. Not sure I want to goto the effort.

Wahoo

Just called the hotel in tampa and asked if I could get the AAA discount (which I always forget to ask for) and I saved 9 bucks - yeah baby!

Heading home

Megan and I are heading home on wed. I started packing up and getting ready, took the air out of the pool toys, did some laundry etc - that kind of thing, and tuesday we are going to have grandpa drive us over to tampa and spend the night in a hotel. Well so we thought. Tonight I went to see a movie with Dad's neighbor and while talking she told me the 13th was friday. Can't be I said we fly out on the 12th and that's wed. Well ... I was wrong and we have an extra day. So what to do with an extra day in florida.

FOR SALE

The lovely Seven Sister's Inn that Jack and I stayed in Ocala is for Sale. If you've got a dream to open a B&B and a desire to live in conservative and Hot Ocala Florida, along with $2.5 million this place is for you!

Meaning of LIBERAL

Definition:
[n]  a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties
[n]  a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets
[adj]  tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
[adj]  showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's opinions"
[adj]  not literal; "a loose interpretation of what she had been told"; "a free translation of the poem"
[adj]  given or giving freely; "was a big tipper"; "the bounteous goodness of God"; "bountiful compliments"; "a freehanded host"; "a handsome allowance"; "Saturday's child is loving and giving"; "a liberal backer of the arts"; "a munificent gift"; "her fond and openhanded grandfather"
[adj]  having political or social views favoring reform and progress

Why anyone would choose not to be defined as the above is beyond me. Why liberal has become a bad word is some parts of this country is also beyond me. Today while I was getting gas and guy pulled in behind me, he was nicely dressed and had a cross pin on his tie. Because it is sunday I'm assuming he was either coming or going to church. He smiled at me and nodded his head.

Then after he'd started pumping gas he looked over toward me and noticed the Kerry-Edwards bumpersticker. He leaned down and proceeded to tell the woman in the car with him that a "f..ing liberal" was ahead of them and could she believe the gall of someone to not support this country during a war." Thankfully I was done pumping and just left. I really don't want to confront people, especially when they make such a negative conclusion about me based solely on a bumpersticker supporting the democratic candidate for president.

I do wonder though what is so terrible about being labeled tolerant, and being for the protection of civil liberties.

Harold and Kumar Rocks!

What a riot! We just got back from Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle and i haven't laughed so much in a movie it was great. Certainly offensive for some viewers, but for everyone else- go enjoy. Certainly the best movie of the week.

so much

We are really enjoying our visit in Ocala. So much to report and no energy left to blog. Jack and I have enjoyed some much needed time together. Thanks to my sister Robin we enjoyed a stay at a local B&B called The Seven Sister's Inn . We enjoyed the luxurious Ken Room , and we also enjoyed dinner at The Melting Pot .

We've also snuck off for 3 movies after Megan has gone down for the night, but unfortunately all 3 were flat and I can't really recommend any of them, but just seeing them together made them entertaining. We saw "The Bourne Supremacy", "The Village" and "The Manchurian Candidate" If I were to rank them in order of like I suppose it would be Manchurian, Village, and then Bourne which was just plain dull. We're probably going to see Harold and Kumar tonight. Then tomorrow Jack heads back West, while Megan and I enjoy Grandpas' company for a bit more.

fuzzy shots

Here's some shots from Ocala, Now that Jack is here we should have more and better.