The Aviary; Dance, Dance, Dance; The Glamorous World of Dog Grooming; Sick Sister 2.0

Currently Reading: A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

A quick note here. You may have noticed that I'm reading Sheep Chase again. This would be the third time I've read it since discovering Murakami's books. There are very few authors that I'll read this often let alone re-read their works so many times. Most of the stories deal with a search of some sort. In many cases the search is real, characters go off on a quest, and along the way at least one character experiences a parallel quest for their own identity. I guess you'd say that someone is always trying to "find themself." I find Murakami's work very comforting. Apart from the obvious plot threads (characters seeking identity) I also like the WAY the books are written. Most are written in the first person so you're being told the story by the main character and you come to learn everything he's thinking but not always what everyone ELSE is thinking (let's face it, that's how life really works). I also like the tone he uses and the constant injections of pop culture and jazz. I've read everything he's written that's been translated into English and I have loved every story. I'm going back to the Dolphin Hotel for a while; starting the summer reading off early with a wild sheep chase.

That said, on with the blog :-)

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This is our first spring in this part of the Memphis area and I have noticed there's a HUGE difference in the number and type of birds you see. Over where my parents live, there are a few little ponds and creeks around so they tend to see birds associated with swampy water. Throw in some sparrows, a few blackbirds and that's about it for them. Nothing really unusual about that of course. They live in a typical, suburban housing area.

Over here in Germantown, things work a little different. The city has very strict rules about which trees you can cut down. As a result, we've got some REALLY tall ones around. We've also got a river across the street and a "natural area" just up the road a little bit. They've gone out of their way to provide little pockets of green mixed in with the city.

You already know about the sparrow that's made a nest in one of our hanging baskets on the patio. CC has posted pictures. But there are SO many birds around here, and so many DIFFERENT kinds of birds, that this weekend I actually bought a book on identifying them. I picked up the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America. And so far, here's what I've found:

We have both field sparrows and chipping sparrows in abundance here. They're simply all over the place. Flying around, with dramatic streaks across the sky are scarlet tangers. These I just identified today. Really pretty red birds with black wings. There were some cardinals out there in the park but they've moved on. Probably found this area over-crowded. Oh yes, we've got quite a few robins but what really throws you off is that there's an orchard oriole mixed in there. They have similar colors but are shaped a bit different. Over by the entrance to the complex we've got some REALLY lovely red-winged blackbirds. Picture a small raven but with a bright patch of red at each shoulder. The rest of our blackbirds are brown-headed cowbirds. We've also got a very large population of northern mocking birds. You see them zipping from building to building all the time. And finally, very cool, the house finch and possibly purple finch. The house finch has a read head and chest, very cool, and the purple finch, I THINK that's what it was, is a wash of rose. That's what was checking out our OTHER hanging pot for a possible nest.

And, of course, since it's breeding season, we get to see all the fancy colors the males put on so it's all a LOT more dramatic.

Oh, almost forgot, we've got a few doves around here too. Mourning doves, which kinda funny seeing that we actually SELL those at the shop. There are other birds out there too but they're hard for me to pin down. Their colors aren't so bold, their shape more basic. I'll have to keep an eye on them or maybe get some pictures to compare with the book.

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Sunday night was our first dancing lesson. Foxtrot and tango. CC's already blogged about it but that's not going to stop me from giving MY version too :-)

Actually her version was just fine but she left out some of the little details that I liked. For example, I was rather shocked that we WEREN'T the only young couple in the group. In fact, there was one couple even younger than WE were, which is saying quite a bit. Ballroom dance tends to attract a MUCH older crowd.

And I'm very happy to report that I wasn't a complete clutz. A long time ago, in what seems another life really, I used to dance quite a bit. I knew the steps to most of the party dances and most of the formal ones too. In Texas you go to a lot of debuts and things like that so you've got to learn how to waltz.

CC wasn't the only filipina there either. We met another couple, the woman was a filipina, the guy was . . . I'm not sure really, some sort of mixed Asian though. They were both very nice and invited us to join in all the Philippine cultural things. We'll have to look into that.

We did have a few rough moments though. I stepped on CC's foot more than once but, as the instructor said, it wasn't my fault :-) In fact, he said it's not the guy's fault when that happens. The woman should be moving her feet at the same time and getting out of the way :-) Mostly though, the problem was that CC likes to lead. She does NOT want to give up control when she dances which made things a little awkward at first. She's trying to move and dodge other couples that she thinks she's going to run into when all she really needs to do is trust me not to hit them. That would lead to her stepping one way, me stepping another way and her toes would get squished. At one point they had us change partners and I danced with a rather nervous, somewhat sweaty Chinese woman. She had never really danced at ALL before so she just went wherever I led her. Never stepped on HER feet :-) That actualy worked out well because it gave us a chance to get the steps down and practice a little more without the power struggle. When CC and I teamed back up for tango, we were much better together.

And I would like it noted for the record that I was part of a pretty damn funny moment with the instructor. We were working on the promanade and I was singled out to go demonstrate with the instructor. He sort of picked people at random, girls actually, but in this case, he wanted to demonstrate how the woman was supposed to do her steps. SO, there I am, right in the middle of the dance floor being the man with the instructor (Judy, you can picture this better. The guy looks like David Bowen in Follies). So he's explaining what's going on and I'm doing my best to follow then he tells me to start. Well I was pretty sure I knew what to do so I turned and took my step. "Excellent!" he tells me :-) Then he jokes that now whenever we need to remember how to do that step, we're going to have that image of he and I in the middle of the dance floor :-)

The hour went by pretty quick and we learned a bit. It was fun, I've got to admit it. Now if I can just keep CC from trying to lead all the time, it'll go MUCH smoother ;-)

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My mother said something that stuck with me the other day. We were talking about my work day and she'd remarked that my job seemed fun. Well, yeah, it is pretty fun sometimes. Sometimes it's just a royal pain in the ass though. For every moment we get to spend playing with or petting really nice dogs, there's also a moment when the little buggers won't stand still for the blow dryer or try to gnaw off your finger while you try to trim their nails. And then there's what happened with Gabby.

Gabby is a male, yellow lab. Very nice dog. Big, but nice. Gabby did pretty well in the bath. Did pretty well in the drying and brushing. But Gabby ate something he shouldn't have and, well, he let loose while he was in our care. I'll spare you the details but in the end I had to clean out TWO cages and clean up his fuzzy butt at least 3 times. And believe it or not, that's not even the WORST that's happened. A few weeks ago I had a dog actually walk up to me and pee on my foot. You have to laugh at that sort of thing though. You just wish they'd happen to OTHER people :-)

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My sister was in the hospital again this weekend. Of course, most of the people reading this already KNEW that but for those of you NOT in the area, she was in for more tests. This thing she's got is pretty persistant and just doesn't want to go away. They had her on a liquid diet all weekend and ran the throat scope on her this morning. The good news is that there's no damage to her esophagus. They've changed her medication and she'll be going home again on Tuesday. I'm hoping she starts to get better soon. This thing has been dragging on for a while now and she hasn't been able to do much for almost a month. Bad enough you have to be sick with something weird like that, even worse that it decides to stick around for a while. So let's all hope she gets better real soon and doesn't need any more hospital stays.

Get better sis!

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One Great Sunday

Just Finished Reading: Cell by Stephen King

Just finished a pretty long, short week. Short week in that I was back on a 4 day work-week but long in that three of those four days were 10 hour shifts. To be honest, it didn't really catch up to me until I STOPPED. I was fine Wednesday, Thurday and Friday. I didn't start to get tired until I hit Saturday, my short day. Go figure.

Another weird week coming up too. One of our groomers is taking a short vacation so naturally we have to adjust the schedules to make sure everything is covered. We bathers will get extra hours during the peak periods to make sure the groomer isn't overwhelmed by the number of dogs. So for just one more week I'm back to the 5 day schedule, then NEXT week back to the 4 day schedule for two weeks, then, I think, back to the 4 day schedule because the OTHER groomer is going on vacation. Confused? Me too. That's why I just write it all down and show up when it says I'm supposed to :-)

To make up for all that, the fates have been kind to me today. I had a great day :-)

Started it off by sleeping in. In fact, I didn't even get out of bed until 10:30. Oh I was awake at around a quarter til 10 but I didn't get UP until after 10:30. CC and the dogs came and kept me company so we just laid there, relaxing, petting the dogs, talking, that sort of thing.

When I finally DID get up, CC made me breakfast. She made toad in the hole for me and for her. I made some cinnamon rolls for a sort of breakfast dessert and that all came out great.

Lazy time after that. We went out onto the patio and watched the birds fly by. The bird that made a nest in our hanging basket is pretty funny. She kept flying by to see if we were gone yet. You'd see her fly past about the height of the basket and if you looked closely, you'd see her slow down just a little bit to check on the eggs before moving on again. CC says she won't come back to the actual basket unless you lay really still, like if you're reading or napping. I'm guessing after a while she'll realize we're not a threat and not bother moving anyway.

I walked the dogs after that. And since it was SUCH a nice day out, I told CC we just HAD to do something. We settled on baseball again. It's really fun and it gets better with practice. CC can hit an overhand pitch now (assuming I can actually throw it accurately) and HER pitching is getting better too. We started off in the batting cage then some kid showed up. We usually give up the cage when a kid shows up because HE actually needs the practice for whichever baseball team he's playing on. We're just doing it for fun. So, while he was in the cage, we decided to try our luck on one of the actual baseball fields.

It's a LOT more fun hitting on the field. True, today it was pretty wet and we ended up slogging through a muddy infield, but it's great watching the balls fly out into the outfield. It's also pretty funny when you pop-up and the ball comes down in soft clay with a THUNK and doesn't even bounce :-)

We stopped off at the car washing area on the way home. Had to rinse out the gear. Everything was covered in clay. While I was doing that, CC thought it'd be a good idea to wash the truck so she walked back to the apartment and got car washing stuff and we did that too. So once again the truck is clean :-)

Home again, we had steak for dinner. CC was craving steak earlier so I suggested we cook the ones in the freezer. I did that while she handled the side dishes of rice, au graten potatoes and veggies. Great dinner :-)

As you can imagine, by this time we've run out of energy. CC wasn't very active the rest of the night. She watched videos online, many of which you'll be seeing over on her site. She's drawing up a playlist of video to run in her sidebar so make sure you check her site from time to time. While she was doing that, I walked the dogs and had a minor adventure myself.

We have kids all over the complex of course. Today the dogs and I ran into some of them. They're pretty cute actually. A few are brave enough to come pet the dogs and the dogs love the attention but there are others who aren't quite so sure. There are two newer kids, also quite younger, who aren't much taller than Katya. They'd walk up while she was looking at something else, sort of sneaking over trying to steal a quick pet, then she'd look at them and they'd RUN back. Some other kids came over and were petting them for a little bit, at which point the little kids finally got brave enough to pet them too. The dogs love the attention. Even Jack didn't mind it so much :-)

The rest of the night, watched some TV and, of course, blogged. Oh, and I worked up those cool baseball card versions of CC and I at the park. Relaxing for me :-)

Well, I've got some more resting and goofing off that I need to cram into the remains of the day. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

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The Reading List

Currently Reading: Cell by Stephen King

In my second or third blog entry I started posting what books I was reading at the time I wrote the post. Every post afterwards included the "currently reading" tag. From time to time people mention that they've either read the same book I was currently reading or they wanted to know if it was good and should they read it.

For no apparent reason this morning, I got it in my head to make a list of all the books I read last year and the ones I've read so far this year and post them in the sidebar. If you'll look just to the right a little bit, below the music video and weather forecast, you'll see last year's reading list. Below that is this year's reading list to date. They aren't linked to anything so clicking on them won't take you to Amazon or one of the other online book sellers. I thought about doing that but once you look at the list and see how long it is, you'll understand why I decided NOT to :-)

One thing that is pretty clear is that going back to work has put a serious crimp in my reading. Just look at how long the 2005 list is. Here we are already half-way through April and I'm nowhere near where I should be to keep pace. Keep in mind that both lists leave out books that I started but never finished. I've had it happen on several occasions where I'll start reading a book, get 3 or 4 chapters into it and lose interest. Most of the time I just set it aside and come back to it later. It's a matter of moods.

Anyway, there's the list. All the books from last year and this year. I'll keep adding to it as I finish more.

Enjoy!

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Batting Practice; One More Normal Week

Currently Reading: Cell by Stephen King

In a rather surprising move this weekend, CC said she wanted to go visit a batting cage. She's not really known for being much of a sports fan. Usually she puts up with it for my sake :-) But Saturday she decided that it looked really nice out there, good for baseball, and that she wanted to go to a batting cage.

Unfortunately, I work on Saturdays so we couldn't go but Sunday I was off so we decided to do it then. We looked up a few places online, knew where we were going, and had our plans all set. But before leaving, I wanted to make sure she wasn't going to hide from the ball when it got shot out of the pitching machine. That would end our fun pretty quick. We went downstairs and out to one of the nearby fields to play catch. I figured that if she had a hard time dealing with something that was lobbed at her, we'd better start with something slower than your usual batting practice.

I am pleased to report that she held up like a trouper. No problem catching the ball, though she did occasionally catch it with the wrong part of the glove a few times and hurt her hand a little. That happens though. You catch that thing wrong, it hits the bones just below your fingers and that STINGS.

Anyway, she did great with the catching so off we went to the batting cage. That's when we ran into the reality of Easter. Easter is one of those odd holidays when you're not really sure what's open. Most places are closed and that's pretty obvious when you're driving around but there are still a LOT of things that are open. At work, for example, we were the only store in our little mini-mall that was open. The parking lot was TOTALLY empty except for the cars of the workers. Anyone driving by would probably think we were closed too. So naturally when we got to the batting cage place, it was closed.

Not to worry, I had a back-up plan. That plan was Walmart. Yes, we went over to Walmart and got a bat (a nice, light, aluminum bat cause CC isn't ready for my heavier, wood bat) and a bag of baseballs. We also got a tee to hit from. We drove over to one of the parks (Germantown has a LOT of parks) and were just setting things up on one of the empty baseball fiends when CC noticed there was an empty batting cage on the other side of the concessions stand. So, we went over there, set the tee up in the cage and let the balls fly.

CC now has a LOT more respect for pro baseball players. She knows how hard it is to hit a baseball. Hell there were even a few funny moments when she missed the baseball on the TEE. That's right, missed the ball that wasn't even moving :-)

After a few rounds using the tee, I asked her if she wanted to try some moving targets. She said yes so we took turns pitching. They had a pitching screen to stand behind so you didn't have to worry about getting hit, which is good because a few of those balls she hit would have smacked me right in the chest. :-)

We kept on taking turns hitting until we were both tired, the packed it all up and came home. After a shower it was time to nap on the balcony in the nice breeze that was blowing. A good, relaxing Sunday if you ask me :-)

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One more normal week for me. Yes, that's right, this is my last 2 day weekend. I'll be happy to be rid of them :-) I got used to having the nice, 3 day weekends. That allowed me to get more done. Even if something came up on Sunday and I spent all day Monday doing housework, that still left me with one more day to rest up and do whatever I had planned for myself. But with the 2 day weekend, can't do it. Best bet is to pack as much into Sunday as possible so Monday is less hectic. So really, when you get right down to it, it's not working 5 days a week that bothers me. That wasn't so bad. What I don't like is only having 2 days off. Hmm, maybe if we went to an 8 day week, that might do it :-)

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No, Really, I'm Straight!

Currently Reading: The Samurai Way of Baseball by Robert Whiting

Boy did I have a day yesterday. It was one of those days when my more creative and artistic side shows I guess you'd say.

CC and I didn't have much planned for this weekend. She wanted to see the new Antonio Bandaras movie Take The Lead but that was it. My mother called her Saturday to say that she was taking my nieces out dress shopping and that she was welcome to join them. She wasn't sure if she wanted to go shopping or not and was I going to go with them and, well it was pretty fuzzy there for a while. Important Rule: Never ask my wife to make a decision when she's on allergy medicine. :-)

Anyway, Sunday rolls around and we're just goofing off, watching TV and playing with the dogs when the phone rings. The girls want to know if we're going to go shopping with them. They're planning to go to a place called The Dress Barn and we can meet them there. Problem is, no one seems to know where this place really is. So before setting out, we had to look it up in the phone book and map it out on Yahoo. No big deal.

Now, if you've ever been clothes shopping with a woman you know it can really be an adventure; a long, slow-moving adventure that takes up the entire day and leaves you wondering what you did to deserve such punishment :-) Afterall, most stores do not go out of their way to make shopping easier and they certainly don't provide any sort of distractions to all the husbands and boyfriends who get dragged along. You never see, for example, women's clothing next to electronics or sporting goods or hardware which are sections that men wouldn't mind browsing while waiting for their spouse.

Knowing this, I like to speed things up by taking a much more aggressive position when I'm out shopping. I don't just stand around or wander, I actually dig into the racks, pull things out, make suggestions, and so forth. It moves things along and you finish faster plus you actually get to voice your opinion of something before it even gets tried on. Let's face it, sometimes you just KNOW that a blouse or dress is going to look hideous on someone before it leaves the rack. You just shake your head and wonder who on earth would wear something so awful.

Getting back to the story, there we were, in The Dress Barn, shopping for Easter dresses. No, make that dresses for Easter. They weren't looking for those frilly sort of dresses some folks wear that have been called Easter dresses.

So there we are, me, my wife, my mother and my sister's three girls, all in their teens, shopping for dresses. Not the way most guys prefer to spend a Sunday. But I wasn't going to just sit there and let them browse. Nope, not going to happen. We were shopping, that's sort of like being on a mission, sort of like combat. We weren't taking prisoners and we were getting the hell out of there as soon as possible with everyone (but me) dressed fabulous. :-)

You've just got to picture this in your mind. The setting is the women's clothing department of any store. Make that, any upscale store, Walmart just won't do for this one. Now, five women, three of them clearly in their teens and clearly related. And me. Short, white guy in jeans, a World Baseball Classic baseball hat and an Ichiro Suzuki baseball jersey (which looks like this).


Keep in mind, I'm not just waiting and watching. I'm grabbing things off the racks, holding them up, occasionally issuing orders like, "Take this, wear it with this, go!" Keep in mind, I'm also the only MALE in the store at this point and I am getting a LOT of looks from the other customers. From time to time a niece would show up with a potential dress and ask what I thought and I'd just say something like, "No! Absolutely not. That dress is too plain. The colors are too pastel and washed out. You need BOLD colors! Something that's THERE! These pastels just don't go with your hair and skin tones. It'll look too bland."

After a little bit of browsing, and letting them try things on their own, I got even MORE aggressive and one by one, started working with them. We started with simple questions like, "What color do you like?" and based on that, we went through the racks trying to find things that would work.

During all of this, I'm also helping my wife find a blouse to go with a skirt she has (she just had NOTHING in her closet that would go with it) and we also picked up a khaki blazer that just looks SUPER with every brown skirt she has in her wardrobe. She's really happy about that too.

Do you have that image now? That's how I spent a good chunk of Sunday. The girls look great though and so does CC. Everyone got new clothes and, I don't think they were the only ones listening to me as I went through the store. I noticed, from time to time, other women putting dresses back on the rack or picking up outfits I'd put together that had been rejected. At one point I was urging the use of a shrug with several of the dresses because there was some concern that the arm openings came down a little low. Well, wearing a shrug would cover that. Problem solved. Apparently that was a problem for some of the other shoppers too because I noticed more than one grabbing a shrug to wear with the dress. Funny thing is, I don't much care for shrugs usually. They just happened to work in this case.

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Two hours later we finished shopping and were back at the apartment. We had just enough time to grab something to eat before heading over to the movie theater. We saw Take The Lead and there again, I swear I was the only guy there. That's actually NOT true. There were at least two other guys sitting towards the back with their wives but you could tell that this was a film more for women.

Was it the best movie ever made? No, but it should have gotten better reviews than it did. As is usually the case, stories where the people are generally nice and the ending is generally happy tend not to get good reviews. Critics seem to like their films with more edge. Me, I liked it. The characters were likeable, the dancing was great and let's face it, Antonio Bandaras is super charming. You can't help but like him and what his character is trying to do.

Ok, so maybe it didn't depict thug life in urban high schools quite harshly enough. So what? Maybe the girls were a little TOO pretty and the guys a little too noble at times. Again, so what? What's wrong with a movie populated with decent people for a change?

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Just a little side note here. My sister was in the hospital Sunday. She had pnumonia a few weeks back and has been getting better but over the weekend she started sliding back. Last I heard they said she was actually getting over the pnumonia and thought maybe something else was causing problems; maybe a reaction to some medication or just a really bad allergy to something in the air. They wanted to keep her overnight to run tests, that sort of thing. Probably no big deal but these days, better to be safe than sorry.

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