r o b o t m i n i o n

Things I have Consumed in the Past Week

- Homemade Cincinnati-style Chili cooked for friends
- The finale of Project Runway (Woooo! Jay!)
- Melanie's incredible Pine nut, Pesto, Feta torte
- A Sangria-swirled margarita at Abuelos (desperately needed)
- The movie Sideways (finally got to see it, so good)

I've been so exhausted this week, like the past two or three weeks of constant deadlines for both myself and the boy have caught up. I took a little recuperation time yesterday though, and am feeling much more closely related to the human race. And that last sentence feels better than it sounds.

The F Month

Yesterday morning my Power Mac G4 Mirror-Door died a horrible death before I even had my coffee. This is my primary work computer. It's 2.5 years old, and lately, it has been having some problems. All programs open, but crash. Mail opens, but won't show me any mailboxes. iChat opens, but crashes whenever I click on a person's name to send them a message. Safari opens, but never displays a window. Last week, when the AppleCare tried to have me create a new user, Systems Preferences got all uppity and crashed too.

Last Wednesday, I thought I might have fixed the problem by creating a brand new library, but yesterday morning, everything went to hell. I reinstalled Panther, with a system archive and preserved my settings. Didn't work. So yesterday afternoon, I erased my entire hard-drive and reinstalled. So far, I've spent today piecing the computer back together.

Martin's computer dies 2 weeks ago. Coincidentally, it's the same exact mirror-door G4 that I have.

As I was trying to take stock of the situation yesterday (I was on the AIM Express web app and Webmail through Firefox — the only program that would work on my machine) I kept getting deluged with messages and links pointing out that Hunter S. Thompson died.

If I'm not returning emails right now, there is a good reason for that. It's going to take me a while to dig out from this computer meltdown. Also, I have very little trust in this computer right now. iChat quit twice this morning, and I thought that perhaps that was the end (again). I am treading gingerly with this machine.

I cannot wait for February to end.

Our neighbors think that Turkey is a funny name, Wait until they hear us call him "Lampshade Head"

Poor little guy.

Snip Snip

Tonight we are having a little party for our puppy. We're calling it a "Bris," even though, it's not technically correct, and we're not Jewish. It's still the closest thing we could think of.

We plan to have cocktails, and sit around and watch the Westminster Dog Show so that Turkey may have one last chance to ogle all of the hot bitches. For you see, tomorrow, our dear Turkey will visit his Veterinarian, and leave a little lighter.

Or as my iCal says: "Turkey: snip snip."

We're hoping that this will calm Turk down just a bit. This weekend, he figured out that he can go upstairs. We had two good months of having a ranch-level dog, but now there is no stopping him. Last night, to wear his little puppy-ass out before bedtime, we played Monkey-in-the-Middle with a rope toy on the stairs. He kept at it for a remarkably long time.

Last night at the Westminster, the Wire Fox didn't win the breed but Turk thought she was hot. Enjoy it while you can, buddy.

Do You Like Hockey?

I spent most of this weekend working, taking time out to go to an OSU Hockey game and enjoy some quality libations with friends at The Burgundy Room. Since the NHL has effectively given the finger to hockey fans everywhere this year, we've been mending the boy's broken hockey-starved heart with OSU games. You try picking out an outfit that will look good going from a hockey game to the Burgundy room though. You just try.

Tonight's V-Day plans include dinner at Basi, to be followed by most likely by more work.  (but I'm working on something interesting...)

Wilco at the Mershon

The Wilco show last night was great, but it lasted forever. They played two encores, which was great except that in the upper balcony, it was about 4,000 degrees. And I might be getting old, because 15-minute guitar feedback solos, just don't do it for me any more. So overall, it was a good concert, but the level of fan worship (Jeff Tweedy is a God!!!) and feedback distortion left me feeling a little "eh." They did close the show with the old Thunderclap Newman song, "Something in the Air," which was nice.

Act Like a Lady

I went to the AFPW luncheon today to see Jo Ann Davidson speak. It was a pretty good time, despite the fact that one woman at my table (who peripherally knows me) called me "Amy" the entire lunch. This was annoying, considering the fact that I was wearing a clearly written name tag. She also said that she writes country western songs about her dog.

Jo Ann's speech was interesting. The best part was the advice for women candidates she'd found in a book back in 1965 when she first ran for office.

Think like a man
Work like a dog
Act like a lady
And look like a girl

I'd like to see that on a T-shirt.

When only the strongest dog training collar will do

This weekend, at Turkey's obedience class, they decided that because he only listens about 50% of the time when we correct him, we needed to graduate to a nastier collar.

The last time he was there, they issued the choke collar. On Saturday, the got medieval on his ass.

Enter into our lives the Herm Sprenger Prong Collar, German torture device for dogs.

Theoretically, I have a problem with the collar. It turns out that I am only about 80% hard-ass when it comes to training the dog. I'll correct him, but all I really want to do is let him crawl in my lap and snuggle. And that dog is a snuggler. Luckily for all of us, Turkey's other owner is 100% hard-ass. I think the dog does listen to the boy better than me, and I keep trying to use that as motivation to be a hard(er) ass.

It doesn't help that the only dogs I see in the park wearing those collars are pit bulls, dobermans, and mastiffs. So far, we've only used it on Turkey a handful of times, but he is actually walking correctly on the "Heel" command, and seems to completely forget (at least for awhile) his leash-ninja ways.

I keep waiting for all of the Goodale Park Dog Owners Unsolicited Advice Club to give me horrified looks and tell me how I'm killing my dog. Last week, we were sagely told that "Dogs kept on leashes are naturally meaner because they feel like they have something to prove to the other dogs." That was after the man's dog snapped unprovoked at Turkey. Yeah man, leashes. Dude, they like kill.

Gallery Hop Saturday

Went on a neighborhood date tonight to The Northstar Cafe, our favorite restaurant, which is convenient because it's only two blocks from our house. It was the first Saturday of the month, which meant that there was a Gallery Hop tonight, so the streets were busy. We meant to call it an early night, but I let myself be convinced that we needed desert afterward, and so we ended up at Pistachio. I cannot adequately describe Pistachio, other than to say it is one of my favorite places in Columbus. They have a new Apricot pastry/cake that looks so good, I may have to take it to my Grandmother in Cincinnati for her 82nd birthday later this month. The last time my familt was in town, we took them to Pistachio for desert, and they were just as impressed as we've been. And my Grandmother, she likes her apricots.

I love our neighborhood. We ran into about 10 people that are either our friends or aquaintances while we were out. If we would have stayed at the Hop longer, I am certain we would have run into more. I was talking today with an old friend who was telling me that someone we knew had moved out of their condo on Hubbard and bought a house in Grandview and I was a little shocked. I would have never guessed that this guy would be living in Grandview. Apparently it had taken his wife quite awhile to convince him to move. I'm not sure I would have been convincible.

Sometimes Ohio seems like a small world in general, but I don't think that there are many neighborhoods here that feel as pedestrian and urban and friendly at the same time. That particular neighborhoodiness seems more a quality of living in the Short North and I don't think I would trade for the world.

Supporting Cast

For this past Christmas, the most wonderful boy in the world (a statement completely void of irony) did something that we've been threatening to do since about day three of our relationship. He upped and bought me a dog.

Last year, for my 26th birthday, he came to pick me up for a very nice dinner out, carrying a box with air holes cut out. It was a puppy-sized box. Inside the box was a stuffed dog. While I was glad that I didn't have to kill him for getting a dog without talking to me first, I was also really dissapointed that he hadn't gotten a dog without talking to me first.

This year, after a really hard Autumn Quarter, we just decided that we were going to go for it. We did some research, looked at breeds (we had it narrowed down to two) and found an awesome breeder 2 1/2 hours away in Connorsville, Indiana. We drove through a small snowstorm on a Sunday morning, stayed at this gracious woman's house for almost five hours, and came back with Turkey.

As soon as we were in cell phone range, we called just about every person we knew. Turkey slept the whole way home. He had no idea what he was getting into.