Weekend with Hobbes

Here's a photo of Lucas, Masha, and Hobbes the weekend we took care of him for Fer and Maggi.

They played very well with each other although Masha and Lucas did gang up on Hobbes once outside so we brought him in and let our dogs chase each other for a while. Paul and I were a bit out of our element that night when the 5 of us were going to bed. We realized that we were outnumbered and if the dogs decide to revolt we would probably lose the battle! Yikes! Hobbes was by far the best sleeper of the three, though that is not a hard prize to win in our house between Lucas snoring the whole night and Masha growling at you in the wee hours of the morning when she decides it's time to get up!

The Meandering Melissa By-Way

Oh yeah!

Here's what P did in October/November. Our neighbor Mike, who envisioned and crafted the bamboo railings, named it the Meandering Melissa By-Way, and what do you know, the name has stuck. Instead of walking out our front door and walking all the way around our house to walk up the hill to campus every morning, we now go out the back door and up the By-Way.

Check it out. It Rocks. What did your husband build for you today? Uh huh. I thought so...

October in December

My last post got us to the end of September and since I can't remember for the life of me anything exciting we did in October, I can only suppose it is because we were trudging through very difficult semesters for both of us.

I was "super smart" and decided to take 4 classes while teaching a new course 4 days a week, tutoring two nights a week, and working part time at UNC Press. I am happy to report the semester from Hell will be officially over on Friday (I just have one take home exam to finish)! It was a great semester, albeit busy, and I am looking forward to teaching Spanish and Women's Studies in the spring with only 3 classes and no part time jobs!

Paul successfully defended his dissertation prospectus on Dec. 6 and has the green light to start dissertating as soon as he finishes grading 65 Spanish essays on the "Discovery" of America. I guess I can say good-bye to our lovely-looking yard for a while!

Here are two photos of our October. We had warmer than usual temperatures and I made Paul carry our dining table onto the deck so I could study outdoors. (Today we took the dogs hiking in t-shirts in 80 degree weather. It's December 12th!!)

We didn't do anything for Halloween. I had a busy week that week with a paper due the next day and I had to teach Thursday morning at 8. Ugh! Maybe next year...

More Soon,

M

OMG! Remember me?

Well, as a friend said to me earlier in the semester, "You are usually the busiest person I know, but you have really outdone yourself this semester." Man, she wasn't kidding. After having to quit my tutoring gig that I LOVED and pry myself away from the Press, I hunkered down and did A LOT of work for my 4 classes. Teaching Spanish 4 days a week didn't free up much time. Ugh!

Paul and I had an excellent Thanksgiving Weekend with the 'rents, but I am not going to blog about that. yet. First things first. I am going to start with September. Here goes:

So our "weekend friends" Maggi and Fer invited us to their mountain house (ok, ok, it's Maggi's parents' place) over the summer and we had the BEST time and so did the dogs. I have no idea how, but we got invited back the last week in September and looked forward to the trip for weeks and weeks.

Friday afternoon we set out for the mountains (and remember the incredible heat wave we were having so we were super excited to be CHILLY for a day or two) with not a care in the world. After stopping at Smithfield's for BBQ sandwiches (duh) I drove for a bit so P could grade. Just about out of Winston-Salem the car starts making a very interesting noise. It sounded just like the sound your car makes when the muffler is about to fall off...

I stopped at one of the scenic overlooks near Pilot Mountain and we looked at our dangling muffler, shrugged our shoulders (damn determined to have a fun weekend) and kept going.

When we got off the interstate P was driving and I was navigator. I read the directions: "go on 86 for 12 or so miles...." I looked at the odometer and the last two digits were ...82. So I'm thinking about ...92 we should start looking for our turn onto the Parkway. Chatty chatty, la la we're going to the mountains, more chatty and 10 or 12 minutes later I look down at the odometer again and it says ...82. Still. wtf? The odometer is broken - and who knows how long it has been like this but now that I think about it I thought we should have hit 200,000 miles by now. Foiled! We'll be perpetually stuck at 196,000. Argh!

Luckily we did not miss our turn and made it to the mountain house, dangling muffler and all.

The weather was spectacularly chilly and we had a great time relaxing and sharing education (read: war) stories with each other all night. The next day we got up "early" to go to the Highlands Festival. The Festival was great fun - sunny and chilly again. We bought souvenirs, lots of jams, ate excellent food, and listened to music. On our way back down the mountain, we happened to notice this church sign:

Needless to say, we were giggling pretty hard and Paul wanted to take a picture so Fer turned the car around and on our way back we see the other side of the sign:



Now we are all in convulsive laughter as P takes the photos. A youth group prank? Innocent Biblical quotations? Sexually regressive church? How much Freewill does Grace have? You decide. Either way, it is a funny diptic. We were all very bummed that the church was so far from the mountain house and P and I had to get back to Chapel Hill fairly early on Sunday so we didn't get to go to Sunday service at the church. Darnnit anyway!

We had BBQ for dinner that night and then relaxed by a nice fire all night. Here are the dogs enjoying the mountain house:


On the way home P ingeniously tied the muffler up with Masha's leash (she has a new one now) and off we were. I can't tell you how many miles we drove, but it was a good trip. Maybe we'll even get invited back!

P.S. The muffler is fixed but the odometer is not yet.

October installment coming soon...

The Closer: Valley Park Edition

Monday evenings at 10pm, or whenever a murder is discovered.

This week: Mr. Frog has no legs! Who dunnit?

Story: The lovely Deputy Chief Melissa Leigh Johnson is on the case again. This time Mr. Frog is found in the bedroom and the crime scene is exceptionally gorey. Mr. Frog, the beloved pet of both Masha and Lucas, is found dismembered, gutted, partially eaten, and all in all, well, dead.

The suspects are these:

1. Agent Paul Howard. He claims he has an alibi - studying in the study (as that is what one does in the study), no candlestick, a mere 15 feet away from the awful crime scene. He heard nothing.

2. Det. Masha Gabriel. She claims that she and Mr. Frog were good friends and although she admits she does have a temper and has killed before, her method is much more sucking the life out of stuffed animals than dismembering them and throwing their guts all over the bedroom. She is more of a "go for the jugular" and pull out the voice box kind of girl. Plus, she states in her own defense, she was sleeping in her bed in the living room at the time of the crime, a mere 17 feet away. She heard nothing.

3. Lt. Lucas Provenza. Usually a loving, sweet, and gentle-natured pup, Lucas admits his rough-and-tumble "I was only PLAYING with the bunny wabbit and it stopped playing" side. Although he denies involvement in the crime, he does admit that he and Mr. Frog were not getting along around the time of the murder. Lucas states that Froggy asked about Monkey and what happened to him (Last week's crime) and Lucas became upset becasue it was outed quite quickly that Lucas gutted Monkey and then chewed his voice box into ITTY BITTY WEENSY PIECES. However, anger aside, Lucas denies all involvement in the crime and professes his innocence. He adds that during the time of the crime he was nowhere near the bedroom and was probably in Agent Paul Howard's chair, somewhere he is not supposed to be in the first place.

The lovely Deputy Chief Melissa Leigh Johnson interviews Det. Masha Gabriel secretly (on the deck) to find out if she can corroborate Lucas's "I was sleeping on the couch" story. Masha wanted to know if cookies were involved in the interview and if so, she would happily say whatever needed to be said to get Lt. Lucas Provenza arrested for the crime. Cookies were eaten, but stories were not corroborated.

The lovely Deputy Chief Melissa Leigh Johnson has no other option but to gather her crime scene photos and go over them one more time to try to gleen any new details of the crime. The photos are as follows:

After reviewing the photos, the lovely Deputy Chief Melissa Leigh Johnson backs Lt. Lucas Provenza into a corner and tells him he is VERY, VERY BAAD, to which Lucas wags his tail and licks his chops. Lucas was given his last cookie as a free man, uh pup, and he ate it in one snarf. He was then sent to puppy prison, aka, the fenced yard for at least 15 minutes at which time he wanted to be let in and Agent Paul Howard let him in.

Case Closed.

**This case is dedicated to all of the Mr. Frogs at the Target Dollar Spot that have, or certainly will, meet the same end. May the days (or in our case, hours) of joy you bring to the pup(s) in your family before they rip you to shreds, gut you, disembowel you, decapitate you, and dismember you all together be worth the terrible end you will surely meet. Best of luck Mr. Frogs!

Ooooh! I am so fancy!

I made P do some work on his birthday while his parents and grandma were here installing these fancy contraptions! I had been having to carry the step ladder out to water the boston ferns, but no more! Now I just pull down the chain, water, and push 'em back up! I didn't really know what I was doing at first and I got a little wet because the pots were still dripping when I pushed them back up but I watered them again today with success and did not have to change clothes after! Woohoo! Hope your Labor Day was as successful!

Speaking of leaving Luke out at night, that kid is going to be banned from indoors during sleepy, sleepy time if he pulls what he did last night again. I'll try to set the scene.

A very tired Paul and Melissa (P from giving the ESL placements tests and grading ALL of them and M for going through a week of orientation, still working part-time, and having to teach Spanish in front of her peers) go to bed exhausted Monday night both having to teach the next morning and then both having to finish the placement and exams and then M has to tutor, so a long day ahead. K. with me?
4:29am - All quiet on the valley park front. P and M fast asleep (P because he can naturally, M with eye mask and ear plugs, I'm just that way). K.
4:30 Luke starts barking like some kind of crazy, freak out.
4:31 am P yells at Luke that if he doesn't stop, he's a dead dog.
4:32am (I mean, I'm guessing here) Luke weighs his option, looks over to his big sister who snarls at him *again* (he woke her up too) at which time Luke decides to throw caution to the wind and barks again. and again. and again.
4:34am P yells again, M (get ready) takes out an ear plug (just one), tells Luke to shut the uhhum up, puts ear plug back in and then lays in bed awake until her alarm goes off at 5:45am. Hate that dog. Dammit Lucas.

Anyhow, I taught at 8, made lesson plans for the rest of the week, went to 2 classes, met up with P to finish the placement exams which were done around 5 and then walked home and got ready for tutoring at 7 and now it is 8:40pm and M is going to bed and Luke is sleeping in the living room. His voice box removal surgery is scheduled for August 27th. Goodnight!!

Duh! of course I'm kidding about that!
Sweet dreams. M

Here's a photo of the bunny damage. Not sure why I felt like it needed to be documented. I guess I was feeling like you weren't believing me...

I tried Cayenne Pepper because we had this big jar that is a bit old anyhow. If these rabbits keep eating my caladium we WILL be buying a bb-gun very, very soon. I suppose we could also just leave Luke out at night since he has experience killing rabbits - 2 thus far to be exact. I actually felt BAD for those 2 that died. And then! P and I saved 4 eastern cottontails from certain death from Shiloh, the neighbor's former beagle, and took them to the wildlife center and PAID for them to be REHABILITATED. And these little punks multiply and thank me by eating my prettiest plant. Seriously? You couldn't munch on, oh, I don't know, poison ivy, kudzu, mint? other dog's poop in our yard?

So far (2 days) the pepper is working... I'll keep you informed.

%&#@ the Heck!

Big Dog Shiners

So I woke up Sunday morning all snuggly warm and sleeped-in and I'm all happy and about to make me some tea and Mash jumps on the bed and basically socks me in the eye with her paw. Ok, ok, I might be exagerating a smidge on how it all happened and it might have been a smidge my fault but the point is my dog nearly gave me a black eye! And Paul doesn't believe me when I say she's out to knock me off so she can be queen of the household!

Luckily, as I was just in severe pain for a couple of hours (read: medium pain for a couple of minutes), no blackness resulted, of (?) which P was glad because he rightly pointed out that "no one is going to believe your dog gave you a shiner."

Anyhow, I must have looked quite overcome with shock and it must have been really believable because P in a very serious voice says to me, "Can I make you some tea?" And in this household, if you don't know already, Tea heals all wounds.**

So I hope your Sunday started off better than mine.

Today was my last full day at UNCPress :( Alas, the summer is over and I must return to the humble grumblings of being a grad student. I have moved up in the lowly grad student ranks tho - I'm a big fancy PhD student (I hate the word 'candidate' almost as much as I hate 'fiance'), so LA-TI-DA to you! I'm pretty sure this just means that I am so far removed from the real world that I can never return to it and GASP work summers! ACK!

Oh! I should give props to my homegirl K for inspiring this post. She has a new blog -Yay, more blogs to check when I should be studying!

I guess I'll leave out of here without a pic this time. More to come soon - school starts next week and I'll be procrasting quite a ton!

**Time does NOT heal all wounds in the South. In fact, Time makes someone wronging you fester uncontrollably until you about burst with disgust and growly noises when thinking of said person who wronged you in a cauldron of tongues of fire. In the Mid-West we just tell you you're an asshole and move on, but here - oh no! Bitterness is like a good wine...

MB

not about knitting, wine, or anything else for that matter

Yeah, well, I'm busy and this whole blog thing is getting left by the wayside, huh.



I'll include a funny pic of what happens if you let your dog drink beer and a funny (if you're not us) story about Mash.



So Wed night Mash was acting sort of not herself (i.e. she was quiet and restful). Anyway we took note she was a bit too relaxed and went to bed. The next morning she was being weird some more and she would not walk. Well, that freaked us (read: me) out. We got her to walk a bit but she looked funny scrunching her backside all up and the whole situation was all around alarming. So over-protective mom takes Mash to the vet. Yada yada yada some tests more yada and $350.00 later, the damn dog has gas. She let them rip all the way home. Not so bad you might say? Well, may I remind you that the windows in my car DO NOT roll down. I had to open the car door at a stoplight just to keep from passing out. And we did bloodwork! The little punk had GAS and we did bloodwork! Ugh. She is such a faker.



Oh yeah, here's the beer pic I promised. Welcome to the fiasco that is my life. And school hasn't even started yet! Agghhhhhhhh!

Here is what I look like when I don't get my beauty sleep so don't call me after 10pm and wake me up, yo!

Do I need subtitles, or can you follow the thread ok?

Well, I better get a post in here before June is out. I'm not even gonna apologize for being totally sucky at the blog because I have been SUPER busy making my yard look rockin' awesome. and it does by the way. That and working full time in the always exciting field of copyright, taking the dogs to campus every night, watering all my new and lovely coleus and caladium keeps me pretty busy. so there.

In the style of Mimi Smartypants, here is what I read in the lovely month of June:

Cooking Light magazines - a good read just before bed!

Bed, Bath, and Beyond sale catalogue. It took me two days, but I got through it.

Birthday cards - thank you very much!


Things I'm thinking about reading in July, but probably won't. Can I blame coleus? cypress mulch? our new power drill?

Invisible Man - how dumb is it that I have never read this? Sorry all, at super expensive young republican high school, Donna Tartt was summer reading. I'm totally NOT joking either. I read A Secret History in one evening but took a couple of weeks on The Little Friend.

Spain's Long Shadow - by my director. ok, ok, I'll level with you, I was at a conference in April and someone asked me about this book after finding out that Dr. D is my director. I totally lied and made up some probably really dumb stuff to say about it. I guess reading her book would avoid this embarrassing dilemma in the future. That, and, as much as I hate to admit it, I'm not that good at lying, though I *really* wish I was!

something, anything in Spanish, but not Castellanos. anything else in Spanish. ideas?

*at this moment baseball is on the TV, the yard looks rockin' awesome, Paul is drinking coffee, Lucas is snoring in his bed under the plant table, and Masha is quiet, which must mean she is sleeping on our bed, which is totally forbidden, obviously...*

some thoughts before bed...

Seriously, it doesn't matter how funny I am in print. Why? Because.
I will never be able to compete with the obsessive click-laugh-click-snort-click-"dude that is bat sh!t insane-funny"-click-click-click sounds next to me coming from yet another hour spent reading and posting to, shall we call it, the socially appropriate forum for men (?) to obsess over, all under the convenient guise of fake baseball? And to think I dropped out way back when because Wood and Pryor hosed my should-have-won-first-place-hands-down year. That and cheering for Yanks. ridiculous. click-click. The worst of it is that I can't even complain about it for 2 reasons. 1: because it is so damn funny listening to this stuff and 2: because P cemented rocks into place in the flowerbeds today so we don't have to damn keep picking the frickers up. Hate those stones! Not anymore tho now that they can't move and all. That is so awesome. What did your husband do in between Fantasy Baseball posts? umhum, goodnight!

Seems to be working

Well, after a month of bouncing around from family and friends, we have finally taken back our home and what is left of the yard. We will be busy all summer getting it back in shape but it is great to be back. The dogs are well (Masha's epilepsy seems to be under control) but they are confused that they don't get a cookie every time they look cute. Paul is part-time dissertation writer and part-time landscape architect. His project this week is cementing all the stones along the flowerbeds by the road into place in an effort to curb (ha, ha! get it?) all the weed growth, a tough task in the woods! I am basking in the sweet sunshine of having defended my thesis a month ago and am just now thinking of picking up a book after a month of magazine and other wonderful trash reading. lovely.

I'm not really knitting anything right now although I have a scarf, a sock, and a purse in the works. And, I sweeped my computer clean back to the day I bought it so I have to re-download Picasa and all my photos, so until that happens, no photos, yo. Anyway, I was talking about knitting. It's hard to knit when you spend your evenings unpacking, cleaning, organizing, and such. Plus we go to campus for at least an hour every night with the pups. That takes a lot of time seeing as I am a "working woman" right now but it is worth it and the dogs are passed out by the time we get home. Wow, did you know how guilty you were making me feel about not knitting? I didn't either. The purse is going to be super-cute.

Sooooooo, We have plans to have a BBQ and then catch a Durham Bulls game with fireworks for the big 30 Bday. I'm kind of excited about being old. It means I can be belligerent when I am not treated with respect and I like that idea A LOT. BTW: have only received 2 cards this year, ahem...

Well, I got in the knitting and walking the dogs, I should say sth about baking bread. I successfuly made my first loaves of sourdough bread yesterday! Man, they are good, too. Nancy made me a starter and has been keeping it going until last week. I pretty much forgot to do everything on time, but the starter is forgiving and the bread turned out just fine!

As for the ladies wine clubs, well I hope you read the old blog, otherwise you'll just have to be out of the loop.

Gotta go - the dogs are attacking Paul. Not sure he'll survive, hahahaha, jk.

More soon!

We're Baaaaaack!

so this is a test because if Blogger is not working properly then I'm not gonna type a big post and have it get all lost on me... test, ok?