Day of the Dog

We here at the de Gallo homestead have been watching alot of "The Dog Whisperer". We have a dog, and that dog needs whispering. Because honestly all of the yelling Sarge is doing is not exactly helping.

Dog de Gallo is actually a very good dog. She does not jump up to get to food on counter tops, she does not eat everything in the house. She is trusted to stay at home alone for long periods of time, and can be relied on to not destroy anything. She knows where to poop and where to pee, and she loves to fetch and have ear rubs. She is a great bed warmer in the mornings when Sarge has left for work. Dog and Piko get along pretty well, although I think that Dog de G is a bit jealous of Piko de G, since she was here first, and Piko basically usurped her.

HOWEVER.

She barks. ALOT. OFTEN. She sometimes eats her poo, and then comes in the house and throws up on my feet. Dog de Gallo is also very food aggressive, yikes! She even bit Sarge's hand once...ONCE. She is also an excited pee-er, which is not all that bad I guess. And oh yeah, she weighs about 85 lbs, and the hair, don't even get me started on the hair. What's up with dog hair? How does it get into everything, and it weaves it's way into fabrics somehow, like it's alive! Whenever I take food anywhere, I always warn that there might be dog hair in it, and I'm very sorry.

Anyway, back to the Dog Whisperer. Sarge was watching with Piko de Gallo the other morning, and Caesar was helping a dog that had severe separation anxiety. One of the things that he suggested would help was to get "friend" for that dog. He kept the dog at his dog center and picked out a new dog at a shelter to be the friend. They got along great, and it went a long way to helping that poor dog.

Lately Sarge has been talking about getting a "friend" for Dog de Gallo. I guess he thinks that because Piko de Gallo and I are so busy with school and other activities, Dog de Gallo is alone much more often than she is used to. He thinks that she is lonely. I guess, she might be. So I have agreed to get another dog.

Yes Librarian, I can hear you laughing from your new place in Seattle.

HOWEVER!

I told Sarge that we can only get a "friend" for Dog de Gallo IF, Caesar Milan himself comes to Maryland and picks the dog out for us.



And, I get to name it "Otter". Because then we will have Dog de Gallo, and the "Otter" dog.

TMC

Hello, my name is Mommy de Gallo, and I suffer from "Too Much Crafts".

Yet somehow I missed the mental memo that the internets are a great place to find craft ideas and yeah, HELLO!! CRAFTING BLOGS!!! I've been up till all hours looking at sites, following links, and creating bookmarks. (I found this awesome site called Etsy, where people sell all their crafts. An excellent place to buy one of a kind gifts.) I used to have the UTC (Urge To Craft) under control, and stuck mainly to cross stitching, and the occasional one off craft on the side. Then I hit a boom, I started knitting, and it was all down hill from there. I think at this point the only thing that I do not do is paper crafts (so not a scrapper, and The Librarian is the card maker), and needlepoint(I just don't get it, and it's way too expensive). I suppose in a way I'm making use of my 5 years at college earning that Fine Arts degree.

I have declared this "The Year of ME Crafting". I'm clearing my backlog of owed craftings, and unfinished projects, and then I'm only working on learning new techniques, and crafts, and working on my own projects.

The problem is that I have such a backlog of projects it's overwhelming. I really want to start on the new ideas and techniques I'm seeing when looking at all of those other blogs.

Here is proof that crafts have taken over the de Gallo household.


My dining table, chairs, and sideboard.
I love my sewing case. I bought a
train case style makeup case from
Wall-Mart, and use that.
We all had to eat in the living
room this weekend, because I had
taken over the table with craft
stuff, and e-bay mail outs.


"My" side of the couch.
Yes, overflowing would be a
good adjective to use.





Sarge gives me the "rolls eyes" whenever I try to get Piko de Gallo to clean up after herself. I think that he thinks I'm not setting a good example.

And of course much of this got sidetracked today because of SNOW!




Ebay and crafts be damned, when your kid says "Work can wait mommy, let's go outside!",
what can you do? Besides, you know I had shoveling to do.

Dear "Healthy" smoker,

It's really quite fantastic that you are here at the gym at 8am on a Sunday morning. I'm here too, and I think it's fabulous that there are about 15 open treadmills. No I don't mind that you are using the one right next to me, this is not the movie theatre, and there is no need for the "personal space seat", well treadmill in this case.

HOWEVER!!!! And you know there is going to be a "HOWEVER!!!!"

I would really appreciate it if you would refrain from smoking directly before you enter the gym. I know that it is your right to smoke, and I certainly appreciate the fact that you are not smoking inside the gym, and hey, it's great you're off setting your unhealthy habits with some healthy ones. I'm like that with my eating. But that smell, you know that cigarette smell, yeah, IT STINKS! YOU STINK!!! And not in that good working out sweaty way. And because I was halfway through my run, and breathing quite heavily, ALL I COULD SMELL WAS YOU IN ALL YOUR GLORY! On second thought, you should have maintained the "personal space treadmill".

And you six guys hogging the bench press, seriously you guys were there when I got there, and were still there when I left. What kind of work out are you really getting when you only do 3 sets per hour? Yes I see that mind boggling number of plates on the barbell, but really, you're waiting WAY too long between sets.

Many thanks,
MdeG, who dragged her ass out of bed at 7:30 to go to the fracking gym.

In which being passive-aggressive bites me in the butt

So the other day I was ranting about my crappy neighbors and their lack of snow shoveling etiquette.

So yeah, in a bit of immature passive-aggressive retaliation, I only shoveled my bit.

Later in the day I'm out there when neighbor #2 is out as well. He apologized about the snow piling, and explained that he had helped 2 of his other neighbors clear their cars and was late for work, so he did not have a chance to take care of the walk. Oh Crap! Now I feel bad.

But it gets worse.

I find out that his wife is due to pop with their third kid any day now, and he was rushing off to work to make sure that his paternity leave paperwork was completed.

AND!!!!

Now the snow on their walk is frozen into a slippery sheet of ice 3 inches thick, and she might have to rush out to the hospital any minute.

I should have just sucked it up and shoveled the whole damn thing.

Dear Neighbors,

YOU ALL SUCK! That's right. YOU. ALL. SUCK!!!

Every time it snows, I take the time to shovel the walk that runs along the front of ALL OF OUR parking spaces, and sometimes your walkways when I'm feeling extra frisky. I don't have to do it, I do it to be nice, and so that our wonderful mailman does not fall and break his head. And also since it is guaranteed to be a snow day, I don't get to go to the gym, so this is my workout.

HOWEVER!!!

It pisses me off to come outside later than usual on a snow day (due to a child with a fever) to find that you neighbor on the end, only saw fit to shovel from your door to your car! You're lucky, and it's nice for you that your parking space is directly in front of your unit, unlike mine which is 3 spaces down. You suck! And you neighbor on the other side, yes I saw you this morning cleaning your car, and shoveling a path on the drivers side. And what the f-ing F?!?! You shoveled all that snow into a pile next to my passenger side door?! Well, F-you very much! You suck too!

Why must you all suck so?
Happy Valentines day,
Mommy de Gallo

PS. Sarge you kind of suck too, I think that you used all the salt last night as a pre-emptive strike against the ice. However what happened is that the first layer of snow hit the salt, melted, and then a fresh layer of snow fell. Meaning that I encountered a LAYER OF ICE 1/2" thick under the snow I was trying to clear. Didn't you grow up in Maine?!

Putting the Asian in Caucasian

So every time I call my mom and tell her what new activities Piko de Gallo is participating in she gets all excited. But in a very predictable way.

For example, Sarge bought Piko de G a golf set this fall, and they have been going to the driving range a couple times a month, whenever it is warm enough. So I tell Grandma this, and she says "Oh great! She can be the next Michell Wie!!".

Uh-huh

This week I got to call her to tell her that we have started going to the ice rink for the cutely named "Totsicles" class. Basically just a bunch of toddlers slipping and sliding around the rink, trying not to fall on their 'tocks. Grandma finds this also very exciting, and exclaims "That's wonderful! She'll be the next Michelle Kwan!"

Huh, I never noticed this before I just typed that, but the two prominent female Asian athletic figures my mom watches are both named Michelle. Maybe we should have named her "Michelle de Gallo".

Ooooohkay mom. Way to focus on the ethnic aspect. And I should point out that we are not Chinese.

I'm wondering if when I call her next week to tell her that Piko has been registered to play soccer this spring she will know who Sun Wen is.

Piko de Gallo rollin' at the links and rinks.

300 redux

Several places on the internets there is a bit of hoopla regarding the upcoming release of the movie "300". Folks are calling it terrible for depicting a war, a violent, bloody, one sided war. I suppose creating propaganda and parallels to the war the US is currently engaged in. And causing much fandom wankage.

I suppose that these are all valid arguments. EXCEPT that this movie is based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller that was written back in 1999. And it is obviously not a historically accurate retelling of the actual battle of Thermopylae. As Amazon.com puts it, the Persians did not scatter, and the Spartans were strangely homophobic for such a gay society (there was a bit of man love in that culture right?). And I'm thinking that the Persians were probably not so much into the whole body piercing.

Anyhoo, who cares about all that?!?!? I love Frank Miller's books, and as I have said before, I especially love this.
Sarge says "Body makeup", I say "Who cares?!?!"



















And I'm pretty confident I will have not problems with the rest of the leather clad Spartans. All 300 of them.

Whenever the trailer comes on the TV Sarge just rolls his eyes while I wipe the drool from my chin. I'm pretty sure I have a babysitter lined up because I'm thinking that Piko de Gallo will not be enjoying the 3 hour blood bath. David Wenham, or no David Wenham.