My Doxie, My Hero

There has been one fly that’s been buzzing around in our apartment for the last three days and driving me nutso.   I’ve been trying to swat it whenever it’s been within an arm’s reach but my one good leg is no match for the ever elusive insect.  Stupid fly.

Anyway, who would have thought that my short-legged furry friend would come to the rescue.  I was doing some more laundry when I noticed that Olie was playing with some little black thing.  She dropped it as soon as she saw me looking at her, almost in guilt.  A closer look revealed a near lifeless fly… with one missing wing.  I could barely hear a tiny voice saying, “You got me now but don’t you worry.  I’ve got millions of brothers and sisters out there willing to finish my work.  Ugh (imagining it’s numerous eyes closing slowly and tongue falling out).”

 

Olie posing like the proud hunter that she is.

Inspecting her near-kill. Ready to pounce if the fly ended up being a faker.

I don’t miss it anymore

My pinky toe, that is.  I went back to the doctor last week and had my punctured blister rechecked for an infection.  Looked good!  The cast guy created a nice cast for me with a toe rest!  You may seem some sneak peeks in some future photos.

So, it’s been approximately two weeks since my last post, which makes me a week late in my goal review.  But I promise, I’ve been productive, in little spurts.

Let’s review…

Goals of the week:

1. Organize the closet.

Not as hard as I thought.  Done and done. 

2. Organize our bookshelves… which includes throwing out exam review books and magazines that I no longer need.

This took a looooooooooooong time.  I hate throwing things out because I can somehow convince myself that I’ll need  that Martha Stewart Living magazine from July 2009  so that I can always have the satisfaction of knowing that I can read how to make those red, white and blue pinwheels to go with the red-white and delicious desserts for that that 4th of July picnic I have planned  for sometime this decade.  Anyway, this is done… threw away all of my Living magazines, even the old Blueprint magazines that they no longer publish… such a shame. 

3. Learn how to cut my maltese’s hair

Ok, this is a FAIL but only because I have discovered something that is way more fun!  Ladies and gentlemen or no one (according to my site stats), I now present the many bedheads of Bomi!

 

 

 

 

This girl is getting old and taking lots of naps.  Bomi’s getting old too.  Anyway, she’s been getting some majorly wonked out bedhead, the kind that no amount of pomade can recreate.  This is too fun to cut off for now so I’m gonna have to postpone this goal. 

4. Make a cute container for grocery bags to keep by our door so that I don’t have to crawl through the kitchen before I take the dogs out.

I was looking online and saw that all the cute ones required a sewing machine.  Psh…cmon now.  Anyway, I got bored of this idea.  So, I decided that this goal never existed.  

Daily Goals:

1. Get the mail

This has been much easier since I’ve been carrying my messenger bag to the mailbox, great for holding mail and plastic bags!

2. Take the dogs out at least 2x before E gets home

(Shining my nails on my nonexistent lapel) My dogs have been getting their Vitamin D three times a day. 

3. Make dinner.

I cooked dinner tonight!  So, that makes it a grand total of  one time since I wrote the original post.  Tonight, I made some kick-ass kimchi fried rice thanks to http://www.aeriskitchen.com.  This girl, Aeri, really knows how to cook.   She makes me want to be a better Korean.  I’ve been inspired… again.  Let’s revisit and see how I do with this.    

4. Take my aspirin.

Mostly good about it.

5. Take a shower.

Mostly good about it.  Let’s not go into this any further. 

Since I was semi-successful, time for new goals.

1. Clean the fridge.  I am NOT looking forward to this.  I don’t think a deep cleaning has been done since we moved in June 2007.  Gross, I know.  Judge all you want.  But we are Koreans… fermented, be it intentional or not, our stomachs can handle it!  Ok, no seriously, it’s fugly in there.  I think I’m going to have to pull out the do-rag.

2. Read a book, at least one per week.  Is that too weak a goal for a girl who sits around at home all day long?  Anyway, currently, I’m reading  The Partly Cloudy Patriot.

The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell

It’s a history lesson and a partial autobiography. I’m only 9% through it (according to my Kindle) so I can’t say much about it now.   Ms. Vowell does guest spots on NPR and you may recognize her voice as that of Violet from the Disney movie, The Incredibles.   I discovered her when she was a guest on Conan O’Brien.  Conan is one of my heroes and intermittently, has random nonmovie star guests on his show who I assume are personal favorites of his.  So, since he likes her, she MUST be awesome.  Speaking of Conan, I got tickets to his show.  Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!  Ginja ninja, here we come!

 

I’m feeling particularly avolitional (I’m not schizophrenic, officially at least) so I think that’ll be it.  I think the idea of cleaning out the fridge has gotten me feeling overwhelmed…

Anyway, til next time.  Peace.

September 13… That’s the day I’m scheduled to get my cast off.  There should be some sort of ticker widget that I can place… hmmm… gotta look into that.

Anyway, so, I wrote in a previous post that we’re people who treat our dogs like children and today was no exception.

I had wanted to go to Disneyland before my injury/surgery/cast.  Based on some websites, I think it’s still doable so I gotta keep that in mind.  For now, I decided to bring Disneyland home using my dogs.

Guess which attraction I was trying to reenact.

Here’s my little Maltese lounging…

 

 

 

 

 

 

while hanging precariously on a tortuous guitar case!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which attraction?   If you guessed, The Haunted Mansion, you’re absolutely right!  Poor doggie.  She was too scared to move.  Reason #409835 why dogs bite humans.

The other doggie decided that she wanted to provide some entertainment as well.  The name of the game is, “Find my weiner (yeah, I have 8th grade boy humor)”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you see her?   Okay, here’s a semi-close-up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you see her beady little eyes now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There she is!  So, how did she end up there?  I promise it wasn’t me.  I try to limit my animal torturing to one per day.   Her toys had some major stinkage so I tossed them into the washer.  She saw me doing that and had a sad look on her face (funny how some dogs are so expressive).  So, I showed her what the toys were doing there.  I think she processed what she saw as the toys being stuck behind the washer so she went on a search around it to no avail and got herself stuck. So, at her beckoning, I got her out and closed the door behind her.    Then she did this.

 

 

 

 

 

She was trying to get back in!  Silly dog…

 

 

Change in subject: today, I organized our closet.  Thumbs up for achieving goals!  But before I took on this task, I powered up with some Nong Shim ramen.  Love that stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know it looks incredibly lazy to eat out of the pot but there was good reason behind it.  I wanted to sit in the bedroom so that I couldn’t use food coma as an excuse to not hop there after my meal.  Anyway, hopping equals splashing and I thought that using a bowl would predispose to stained carpets and burnt hands.  No bueno.

On another note, do you remember in yesteryear, when chopsticks were used to determine who loved whom more in the relationship based on which chopstick was bigger?  So stupid (and yet, I was secretly ruing that the wooden fortune tellers revealed I love E more ).

Anyway, during my closet organization, I watched two movies, both were hits for me.

First one was a movie called Shades of Ray.  Zachary Levi (Chuck from the TV show Chuck) played a half Pakistani half Caucasian guy who had been to told to wait after proposing to his Caucasian girlfriend while she went away on a trip with her family.  While she’s gone, he is reluctantly set up by his Pakistani father (played by the very talented Brian George) with another girl (who,  btw, is gorgeous) with the same cultural background and ends up liking her.  Kinda cheesy at some points but overall, I thought it was a great movie.

Second movie was called Saving Grace which is a British movie about a widow who is left with a mega debt by her late husband (who also was having an affair, the bastard).  She happened to be an excellent gardener and with her hired gardener (played by Craig Ferguson!), comes up with a scheme to grow enough marijuana  in her greenhouse to get rid of both of their debts.  I was surprised to find out that Doc Martin (wonderful British TV series)  was a spin-off/prequel to this movie.  Another great movie.

Got all of my daily goals and one of my weekly goals done (patting self on back).

Perhaps, there is some relationship between feel-good movies and productivity.

Goals

I have to say something.  I can’t wait until these Final Destination previews are taken off TV.  It seriously freaks me out to watch those things.

Anyway, I went to the doctor yesterday to get my cast off for a glorious 20 minutes (can you say, scratching frenzy?).  I was having some discomfort around the incision site so I thought it could just be some of the nonabsorbable stitches digging into my skin or at worst, a wound infection.  Oh but I was wrong… so wrong.

Warning… gross picture of my leg to follow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have you seen a blister that ginormous?   It was a blister worthy of medical textbooks, big enough to distract E from his iPad… that’s big!  The doc said it’s because I haven’t been elevating my leg enough (dangit, I hate it when there’s evidence against me).  So, I’ve decided to be a better patient and take my aspirin daily to prevent clots and elevate my leg above the level of my heart for at least 2 hours a day (not including sleep time).

Anyway, my decision to be good inspired me to also be more productive.  Lying around has been driving me crazy.

I’ve written out my goals… somehow, writing it on paper helps me to better accomplish them.  I don’t know… maybe it feels more official.

So, I separated them into daily goals and weekly goals.

Goals of the week:

1. Organize the closet.

2. Organize our bookshelves… which includes throwing out exam review books and magazines that I no longer need.

3. Learn how to cut my maltese’s hair… haven’t been too successful in my search for tutorials on YouTube but I think I can piece some information together and get it done.

4. Make a cute container for grocery bags to keep by our door so that I don’t have to crawl through the kitchen before I take the dogs out.

I’ll have to review these goals in a week to see how successful I was.

Daily Goals:

1. Get the mail (so not impressive, I know… but remember, I’m on crutches)

2. Take the dogs out at least 2x before E gets home

3. Make dinner.  This one is tricky.  I was never good at planning out meals ahead of time so when I got the rare itch to cook, I’d just go out that day and get whatever ingredients I needed for the meal.  Hmmm… this may have to be a weekly goal.

4. Take my aspirin.

5. Take a shower.  OK, I know that last one is gross… but seriously, with a leg cast, I have been questioning whether I really need to use the bathroom that badly or if I’m truly that hungry.  The thought of hobbling or crawling to the bathroom or kitchen alone makes me feel tired.  Anyway, thankfully, I’ve been pretty good about taking my daily shower for the past week.  The week of surgery… not so good but no need to linger on the past.

So, we’ll see how this goes.

 

Mental/Cyber Note of the Day

I just got back from a little therapy at ULTA.

I was trying to find a better blending brush and asked one of the associates for her advice.  Two times during our conversation, she started her sentence with “Like I said” and it kinda bothered me… just a itty bit.  Isn’t it a little off-putting to you?  While she was essentially saying, “Dude, are you listening to anything I’m saying?”, I was responding with, “I hear you loud and clear but you aren’t answering my questions to my liking.”

Then I thought to myself, how many times have I uttered that phrase at work?  I can tell you a lot more than just twice. So many times, I found myself frustrated that people didn’t seem to be listening to what I was telling them and all the while, never even considered that it could possibly be and probably was me falling short in my explanations.  (Is that humble pie I see coming my way?)

So mental note of the day, avoid using that phrase, because, like I said, it’s not cool.

=)

=)

I remember watching a commercial on tv making fun of adults who still use emoticons… I don’t care.  Today is a =) day and it’s only 12:26.

My day started out with another episode of “curb your dogs” except I had E (i before e except after c?) there for help.. much easier.  As we waited for the little ones to do their deeds, I got to sit at our complex’s outdoor fireplace while he thumbed through the latest issue of his Golf magazine.  By the way, early morning fresh air (as we know it in the Inland Empire/Smog Town) does a body good.  I think I should make an effort to get out qAM and do some good breathing rather than make a beeline for the tv as soon as I wake up.

Next, E decided to place the inaugural signature on my cast with the help of our mini doxie.  I’ll let the pics do the talking/writing.

   

A couple things (and by a couple, I’m referring to the lesser known nontraditional meaning of 4) I’d like to address because these are thoughts that may run through your mind as you look at these photos

1. Non-toxic ink was used for the stamping… it says so on the packaging.  Once the stamping was completed, we rinsed off any residual ink.

2. Yes, the paw print looks more like a stain than it does an image… but you know, it’s still really cute for what it is.

3.  Yes, we are THAT couple (of the  “don’t be THAT guy” notoriety) that treats our dogs like our children.  Judge away, we are not ashamed.

4. The last picture shows me resting my cast on a hairy leg.  Now, nobody can be faulted for thinking that this leg is my own, with the camera angle and this blog’s url… but that’s E’s leg (I promise).  The “myhairyleg” address refers to the hair that is sprouting away freely underneath the cast, scoffing at the limited reaches of my useless lady blades (Mark my words.  I’ll get you one day… in 6 weeks).

Before I go, last bit of sunshine, rainbow and all things that glitter…  I just found out that I passed my written boards.   Yahoo!

Anyway, if somehow you’ve found this page, thanks for reading and I hope your day is going even better than mine!

Peace.

My faith in women…

Today was a good day.  I had my first meal since Sunday that wasn’t immediately vomited.  The pain in my right foot wasn’t so bad when I woke up.  More importantly, I was motivated to do something!  I was willing to brave taking the dogs out not just for a little “wee” bit (haha) but long enought,  to let them take a poop before E got home.  No biggie, right?  WRONG!

Turns out curbing your dogs when you have only functional leg is pretty difficult.  Leaning down to pick up your dog’s doings (haha) with one functional leg requires that you brace yourself with two hands, like a pseudo-runner’s stance.  So anyway, it wasn’t that I was eventually successful that made me happy but that while I was out, I had two women offer their help.  One was while I flailing my cast in mid-air, looking like I was looking for my contact lens on the lawn.  She even offered a prayer for me.  I declined her offer which I feel bad about. I’ve never been one to reject a conversation with God but I’ve been in a weird place for the past… umm… 8 years … and so I felt weird about initiating with a bag of poop in my hand.  I must have looked like a hot mess for her to offer so randomly.  The other offer was from a lady who was out walking with her toddler.  I had passed by her maybe 5 minutes earlier and she went out of her way to find me to offer her poopy scoopy abilities (How nice, right??).  She said she felt bad because she remembered having such a hard time cleaning up after her dog when she was pregnant.

Now, why does it matter that two women showed kindness to me today?  Well, even though this cast has been on for only 5 days and it was my first day out and about since my surgery, I’ve actually been on crutches for 2 weeks now and it has been an eye-opening (also,  a sweaty, wrist-tweaking and back-breaking) experience.  People who are in the service industry have been the most accommodating to me but, you know, that was to be expected because this is what what they do.  Actually, the two people who were the greatest were the two zipline tour guides we had last week on our vacation to Whistler (more on that in a later post, if I keep this blogging up).  During this time, the thing that was most surprising and equally disappointing was that the people who had my back the least were the ladies!  I’ve been on subways, buses, long lines in bathrooms, etc.  The people who were the most unyielding were women!  I was fine with standing on the bus and waiting my turn for the bathroom but yeesh, not one woman in Whistler or in Vancouver offered a helping hand.

BUT today, today was a good day.  I salute those two women who were willing to pick up after my dogs… for they have restored my faith in the double X chromosomes!

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. After you read this, you should delete and write your own post, with a new title above. Or hit Add New on the left (of the admin dashboard) to start a fresh post.

Here are some suggestions for your first post.

1. You can find new ideas for what to blog about by reading the Daily Post.
2. Add PressThis to your browser. It creates a new blog post for you about any interesting  page you read on the web.
3. Make some changes to this page, and then hit preview on the right. You can always preview any post or edit it before you share it to the world.