Ummm, yeah, about your TPS reports . . .

So, I've been slacking.

But, I have super awesome excuses.

I bought Andy the Ken Burns' Baseball documentary for Christmas.

Hence, if I've been home, it's been on the TV. If there's ever a random baseball trivia game in my future, I'm going to own it.

I bought Andy beer for Christmas. And a new brewery opened up in Grand Rapids. And my friends have been in town and keep inviting me to bars. And my friends keep having birthday celebrations.

Hence, we've imbibing far more than usual. And after a long night of drinking, we purchased tickets to fly to Vegas in January. That's how much we've been imbibing.

Toby had surgery again. For the third time. For the same ACL injury. The vet referred to him as "clunky." As in "if I had realized how clunky he was, I would have added more reinforcements during the first surgery."

Hence, I've been hand feeding him ice cubes, rubbing his hamstring and crumbling Christmas cookies on his food in order to get him to eat.

Eventually though, I'll start blogging again.

Just as soon as Toby is healed, Andy's finished watching the Baseball documentary and they reinstate prohibition, that is.

Learning Something New Everyday

I'm in the bathroom getting ready as Andy gets out of the shower to dry off.

Me: "Why are you using my wet towel?"

Andy: "I always have to use your wet towel."

Me: "Why don't you use the dry one?"

Andy: "They're both wet. You use one for your body and one for your hair."

Me: "No, I use one for my body and then wrap my hair up in that same towel."

Andy: "Oh."

We've lived together for about 4 and a half years now.

4 and a half wet towel years for Andy.

Alger Heights Halloween 5K

On Halloween Eve, before I went to Proctoberfest in the evening and drank beer and ate candy, I decided to do something healthy. Run.

The in-laws happen to leave a few blocks from the race start, so I signed up with the Proctors. Andy's knee is still iffy so he sat this one out. Instead he was on dog duty and brought my two biggest fans to watch the race.

The best part of the race?

Costumes.



I decided to pull out my 2008 costume and throw it on over my running clothes. It was easy enough to run in, but others chose more difficult options.



The race was a lot of fun and entertaining because of the people watching. I was able to post a decent time and it was fun to run with the Proctor Pumpkin family.



Toby was a frog, but the head portion of the costume has difficulty fitting due to him suffereing from elephantitis of the skull.

We all went home and celebrated with Andy's homebrewed Octoberfest and lots of goodies.

Including a banana split.

Driving Conversations.

Driving home one day and passing by a collie playing in a yard.

Andy: Look, a BGB.

Me: Awww. Do you think anyone has actually ever named their collie "Lassie"?

Andy: Probably.

Me: But it's so cliche it seems like nobody would never do it.

Andy: We had 4 beagles and named them all Snoopy.

Point taken.

The Cone.

Hey Toby, why the long face?



Wait, something doesn't seem right here.



Oh no.



It's the dreaded cone.

Off the TV Grid

About a month ago, we received our Comcast bill. As would happen every 6 or so months, our bill had suddenly jumped up $40.

The old woman in me said in an old woman voice, "By jove! I'm tired of Comcast's cockamamy!"

We contacted Comcast to try to work something out that was reasonable.

Instead we found Comcast to be highly unreasonable.

Since we have no other cable providers in our neck of the woods, we decided to try out some tried and true rabbit ears for now.

However, last night the cable was cut and we had not yet purchased rabbit ears.

So what was this young, hip and happening couple to do without any TV?

We did a puzzle while listening to NPR Stories of the Day. In our house without cable. And then we went to bed at 9 pm.

29 is the new 89, kids.

What has 4 paws . . .

. . . and can't run in a straight line?



This guy.

He's been through a lot in the past couple of months. It all started at Disneyland for Dogs, a.k.a. the Dog Park. We were going to be leaving for Ireland soon and I was trying to fit in as many dog park visits as possible. I unloaded the pups and off they went.



Gordie, a dog built for running and athletic prowess, took off like usual in his full sprint.



Toby, a dog built for laying down and eating prowess, attempted to catch his brudder.

Toby failed in his attempt. Instead, I heard a pop, saw his hind leg come up lame, and he limped pathetically over to me.

A few days later, the vet confirmed our suspicions - he had torn his ACL. We had to get him into surgery, but we also were scheduled to leave for Ireland in 4 days. Fortunately, Toby has a great grandma in the form of my Mama, so she was able to care for the guy after his surgery. The vet confirmed during surgery that the tear was a bad one - he completely tore the ACL and his meniscus.

Remember, all he was doing was running in a straight line.



That's our Toby.

All is going well in his recovery to this point. He can't play or run off leash, but he can move around more and he's on schedule to be back to normal by Christmas.

I know he'd enjoy the Christmas present of being able to romp with his brudder again.

At which point I'm sure he'll promptly tear the ACL in his other leg.