Maybe the Last Post Before My Kickass 2010 Posts Begin

As I may have warned you, I am turning over a new leaf in 2010. No more Lazy Piglet. Hello, Get Some Shit Done Piglet, and the accompanying Amazing Shit Piglet Has Accomplished.

First New Year's Resolution: Take the impending Rose Bowl Loss In Stride. Gonna start out with an easy one. This one comes standard with all University of Oregon degrees.

Second New Year's Resolution: Go Back To South Beach. The South Beach Diet, that is. It worked in 2007, it has to doubly work in 2010, as I have gained back the 10 pounds I lost in 2007 and added another another 8 for ballast. Leafy green vegetables, here I come (a single tear drops as she finishes off the Christmas candy).

Third New Year's Resolution: Put Down Those Crutches And Walk! Those crutches being the two glasses of wine I have been drinking every night. I'm not sure that yoga and an evening knitting project will patch the personality hole that is my natural twitchiness, which wine serves such a valiant job in soothing, but I need to cure this without (much) chemical medication. The South Beach diet requires that I knock this off anyway, so here goes.

Fourth New Year's Resolution: Shut Off the Noise. Less input, more output. This means a media brown-out. There's just too much - radio, podcasts, TV, and all so easy to vegetate to. I will not go cold turkey - that wouldn't be being a good citizen or a good life scholar - but it does mean that I will have to do a better job of choosing what I spend my time on, and budgeting output time - both writing time and painting time. Remind me of this in March. My instincts are to cuddle up and be entertained. And that's not evil. Input just needs to be balanced with output.

Fifth New Year's Resolution: Be Awesome.

By September, if you remind me how close my accomplishments have come to meeting my own expectations, I will personally stab you.

This is sewius.

I think this is about the Rose Bowl. Not sure.

The Muppets: Ringing of the Bells

Dog Lessons Part II

You know when someone says, "Living with [name here] has taught me patience," you know that [name here] is a pain in the ass.

Annie has taught me patience.

She won't relieve herself in the backyard when it rains, no matter how much it must hurt to hold it in (and she doesn't always succeed at holding it in). I might remind you here that we get 155 days of measurable precipitation a year.

She will pee on other people's lawns when it rains - no problem! - so I try to take her for a walk, but it hurts her to walk (arthritis), and one of our neighbors is a self-satisfied, velour-track-suit-wearing dog hater. We end up walking very slowly in odd dotted lines, kind of like a Family Circle cartoon read in slow motion.

She uses the furniture as her personal napkin and back scratcher, and has taught Scotty to do the same.

She spends all day in bed, getting up only for meals and treats and an occasional romp with Scotty.

In grooming jargon, she "blows" her coat twice a year, completely shedding and rebuilding her coat, top layer, undercoat, everything. To pet her during one of her shedding seasons is to get a handful of dog hair. Not her fault, but still.

Before her arthritis got bad, she would bolt at the first sign of an open door or open fence gate. To what purpose? Even if she could speak English, she would not be able to tell you, because I am pretty sure this is only one of the signs that she was dropped on her head as a puppy. For a dog who likes nothing more than spending the entire day in her fluffy bed, this behavior just does not compute. Yet, I have had to pick her up from the pound once, from the local water treatment plant once, and had to chase her down too often to remember.

But. Scotty likes her. It's fun to watch her outwit Scotty over toys and treats. And who else would put up with her? Besides, she's cute.