Pwning the n00bs....(I don't even know what that means)....

There are plenty of things that I want to write about at this point, but nothing is coming. Lame.
I made dinner last night for my family. Apparently it turned out well...I honestly think it's the first real forray into cooking that I've made since I've been married. Todd usually does all the cooking and whatever I do is usually lame and easy...he makes masterpieces, I fingerpaint. Whatever. But I did realize just how awful it is to cook in a house without air conditioning. Oof. I had two burners rip roaring hot and the oven on a 350F for well over an hour. It was bloody hot as hell in the kitchen. But nonetheless, we had a successful dinner and then ate cherries and watermelon for dessert.
See? Totally lame post. I have nothing interesting to say right now.

Let's just take a brief journey through the Mind of Micah right now.

Politics -- I'm not sure it's possible for me to be any more sick of heating politicians endorsing religious leaders or religious leaders endorsing politicians. I really don't care. And why is it such a big deal THIS election? I don't remember hearing all this religious gobbledeegook during the last presidential election. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention? I'm not sure. Regardless, it's irritating. It seems to throw additional, unnecessary wrenches into an already complicated and polluted game.

Fashion -- I bought new shoes that are awesome, but have to exchange them for a different size. Not to worry. I'll have the new ones tomorrow and just need to find a box to ship the old ones back in. I bought a "cupcake" dress the other day for only $10...I love love love when Isaac Mizrahi is on sale! It's a perfect light blue herringbone affair with (wait for it................) hidden pockets! I was seriously born in the wrong decade. I have long said it and Chandra said it again today....I should have been born in the late-40s/early-50s. Dang it! I finally found a swimsuit that looks right on me. Enough research about how to buy a swimsuit and one will find the perfect suit. Even if it did come from Wal-mart. Damn you, Sam Walton! Damn you and your affordable, yet cute swimsuits!

Religion -- we're still trying to figure a lot of things out. I think we've found a church that we both enjoy (Pathways), but as always, there will never be one church to satisfy all needs. I was just starting to really love Rachel, the worship leader, when she gave her resignation. She was refreshing and that was something that I really needed. Now we're back to the same ol' and while the guy that leads worship now is clearly and effortlessly talented, it's what I've been doing for 20+ years. I need a break from that. Plus, he uses this seizure-enducing "countdown" clock at the beginning of the service that reminds me of not good things. But Pathways is opening up a site in our neighborhood which would be really amazing...looking forward to checking that out, for sure.

School -- often wondering if I really just half-assed this semester by choosing such an easy topic (Canada) to write about. I'm not sure. I think I did a good job, but I read my classmates' work and get a little down-trodden (this is not a fish for compliments, btw). This one girl, Lauren, is one of the most amazing writers I've read in quite some time. Very fresh and innovative. Very in love with her craft. I want to be able to write like that, but I often come off as far too simplistic and .... boring (in my estimation). I guess we'll see when I get done with the semester and get my final grade.

Work -- can't really get into that at this point.

Travel -- ever a present "concern" of mine, but I'm wondering if it's something that needs to be put on hold for a while? Todd and I really want to buy a house and while everything in the neighborhood we want to live in is far too expensive (I walked by the perfect house today...it was $485,000), we still need to save some money for a down payment when we do decide to buy. Hopefully the market doesn't turn upward again while I'm still in school, though that would be just my luck. Whatever.

So there's the gist.
Lame.

Mommy & Papa take the pups on the WORST CAR RIDE EVER!

Man, having puppies is HARD! Well okay...taking them to the vet is hard. The rest is juuuuuuuuuust fine!

We took Leo and Suki to their new vet for the very first time last night. Aye. Turns out, there was more stuff out-of-date or wrong that I could have possibly anticipated. But the good news is that we're awesome owners and the vet, Dr. Shannon, thinks they're adorable (duh) and that at first glance, they're in pretty top physical condition. Probably comes from walking them twice a day and NOT feeding them table scraps or double-cheeseburgers. Just the puppy food and some occasional treats for the weirdos now! (They got to eat all kinds of crap before they came to live with us...uh-uh. Not anymore. They're dogs...not humans. I digress).

Turns out that Leo needed a new rabies shot, a new distemper shot and a new bordatella shot (which he did NOT enjoy except that he got more treats during those shots than he's gotten in the entire time we've owned him haha!) and had to have his blood drawn so tests could be run to make sure he doesn't have anything internally wrong with him (which I'm pretty sure he doesn't). And his teeth are pretty goobery so we have to get toothbrush and toothpaste this weekend.

Suki is a completely different story. I just want to cuddle her and hold her and protect her from all things bad now. She's got really bad teeth that require more work that just brushing could do. She has at least 4 cracked teeth (which the doc thinks should be fine) and one that's bad enough that the doc is recommending that we bring her in in about six months to do a deep cleaning and to extract that tooth. That means Suki has to go under general anesthesia and has to stay at the vet for at least a day to recover and stay under close watch. Poor baby! She also has a weird sounding heartbeat that is probably nothing, but she had to have an EKG to double check. Her right read knee also pops out of joint pretty much every time she moves, which makes me feel really bad for making her "sit" all the time. But apparently that happens to lots of dogs and doesn't typically affect them so I'm not too worried. Suki loves to run and jump and she doesn't favor her knee so I'm sure she's fine in that regard. She had to have only one shot so that was good. She just kind of stood there the whole time and took it. She's such a good puppy!

Leo was a whiny brat the whole time, shockingly. It's a good thing he's cute!

Oh and they both needed to start heartworm meds back in June so we got them going on that last night...it's a June - November medication they have to take, which is in the form of a treat so the 1st of the month is going to be fun times for the pups! haha!

So what was supposed to be a $125 doctor visit turned quickly into $350 and will cost another $700 in six months when Suki has to get her teeth cleaned. Oof. I'd love to say "This isn't what I signed up for!" but it is...they're our little punkins and we love them so we take care of them and going to the vet is one of those things. We like our vet and they seemed to take kindly to her so we'll keep going.

I just hope Leo and Suki aren't mad at us for the worst car ride EVER!

There IS a God!

I just read an article that explains the names of Nicole Kidman/Keith Urban's daughter and Matthew McConaughey's son.

Remember how we all read that insane story about how Matthew wanted to do what his brother did and name his kid after his favorite beer? Fine, when his bro's favorite beer is Miller Lite (the kid's name is Miller...not too bad...not too weird), but Matthew's favorite beer is Bud Light. Oh God. What a life that kid would have.

Thankfully, God has proven his existence yet again and the child's name is Levi Alves McConaughey. Phew!

The Kidman/Urban kid didn't make out quite as well with the name Sunday (the weird factor is compounded by the fact that she was born on a MONDAY) Rose Kidman Urban.

How is it that some of the brightest, most "with it" people in Hollywood give their kids the dumbest names (Coco, Apple, Phinneaus, etc. ) while whack-jobs like Britters and pot-smoking, naked-bongo-ing Matthew McConaughey choose normal names like Sean, Jayden and Levi? Grass roots, I guess. I dunno.

Rolling Stone: Tell us how you REALLY feel?

In one of the greatest articles I've read in quite some time, Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi sums up pretty succinctly exactly what I think about Joel Osteen, televangelist extraordinaire. The following is a quote, although there are portions that I wish I'd have written.

McCain's transformation is so complete that at a recent town-hall meeting in Nashville, when asked to name an author who inspired him, the candidate — who once described televangelists of the Jerry Falwell genus as "agents of intolerance" — put none other than Joel Osteen at the top of his list. "He's inspirational," McCain said.

Standing at the meeting, I didn't write Osteen's name down in my notebook — apparently because my brain refused on some level to accept that McCain had actually said it. Of all the vile, fake, lying-ass, money-grubbing shyster scumbags on the face of this planet, there is perhaps none more loathsome than Osteen, a human haircut with plastic baseball-size teeth who has made a fortune selling the appalling only-in-America idea that terrestrial greed is actually a form of Christian devotion. "God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us," Osteen once wrote. This is the revolting, snake-oil-selling dickhead that John McCain actually chose to pimp as number one on his list of inspirational authors. So much for "go, sell everything you have and give to the poor," and all that other hippie crap from the New Testament.

The whole article, if you'd like to read it, is about McCain this and McCain that. And because the Rolling Stone is SO unapologetically leftist, I don't really pay too much attention to what they have to say about politics (it's a music magazine after all), much like I don't pay too much attention to FOXNews...very right wing. Really, there's not a new organization that's fair and pointed anymore, but whatever.

More interesting things in the article pop up when the writer talks to some folks from New Orleans about our presidential candidates. One of the most disturbingly accurate sentences in the entire article sums up a particularly heady challenge Obama faces:

McCain has finally decided to sail with the wind at his back by going dumb and courting the same talk-radio demographic that used to despise him. What enables him to do so is a key insight: that while George W. Bush may be unpopular as an individual, fear and hatred in this country have never gone out of style.

Ouch. So much for progression.

4th of July is goin' to the dogs!

I have become one of "those" people. I'm buying our dogs t-shirts to wear tomorrow. No, they won't be dressed up every day, but this is a fun holiday and it's their first one with us, so I think it'll be fun for them to wear 4th of July t-shirts! I'm going to try to get Leo an incredibly cute grey hoodie


and as much as I want to get Suki a red dress that says "Little Miss USA" on it,

I've never really seen her as a girly-girl type dog. She's quite the tomboy..and she's officially Todd's dog and he probably wouldn't be caught dead walking a dog with a dress on. So I need to find her a somewhat girly t-shirt she can wear.



It's going to be an exciting weekend for all four of us. We're heading up to Greeley tomorrow for the Independence Stampede Parade, which has been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember and I have no intention of losing the tradition any time soon. Yes, I know...a parade is a parade is a parade, but tradition is important to me and this one is a ton of fun. It starts with an AirForce fly over and ends with about a billion firetrucks, which Leo will looooooooooooooove!! The trucks used to come down the street and spray everyone with their hoses, but they don't do that anymore. I'm not sure why. Probably someone got bent out of shape and whined and complained and ruined everyone else's fun. What's cool is that the last part of the parade route runs right down the main street of UNC so there's tons of sorority and frat houses along the route and THAT'S why the firemen always hosed down the street....it was just fun to nail all those crazy college kids hahaha! Anyway, right before the parade gets going, we always walk over to this really cute coffee shop and get an iced something-or-other to enjoy during the parade. When I was a kid, my mom would pack a cooler full of bing cherries, graham cracker sticks, waters and other misc. delights for us to enjoy. Now it's evolved ever so slightly and we just bring the cherries and grahams and then go get our coffee drinks. It's so much fun! My parents are in Peru for the holiday this year so it'll just be Todd, me and the pups and I think we'll have a really good time!

We're going to go bowling tomorrow afternoon, which i think is quickly turning into mine and Todd's tradition. It's $1games/shoes/beers so you can't really pass up the price to get out of the heat! Plus, it's a lot of fun and we're being active instead of just sitting around watching a movie or something, which is a good time. We'll probably bowl two or three games and then chill out a bit before heading up to Megan & Paul's new house to barbeque and play with dogs for the rest of the afternoon. Around 7pm, we'll head up to Boulder to watch some fireworks. All the dogs will be staying behind since Lotsi hates fireworks and we're not sure how Leo and Suki will do either. It'll just be easier and more enjoyable to leave them behind for this particular portion of the holiday.

The rest of the weekend will be spent playing, grocery shopping, unpacking Megan & Paul's house and doing homework (that one is reserved specifically for me...goodie). Man, I love summer holidays!

How do I love thee? Let me count the (very specific) ways...

Chocolate and I have a bit of a love/hate relationship. It plays out in various forms, but only one thing truly remains constant. I do not like plain chocolate. Not even a little bit.

I have a bag of misc. chocolate in my desk that I sometimes put in my candy basket to share with co-workers. Right now, I'm not sharing. It's a mix of peanut butter cups, Krackle, Mr. Goodbar, Hershey's Kisses and tiny Hershey's chocolate bars. All of them are tiny version, but whatever. I have polished off every single tiny Mr. Goodbar, am nearly done with the Krackle's and am making my way through the Reese's. Once those are all gone, I'll dump the kisses and boring nasty chocolate into the candy basket.

I really have no idea why it is that I hate plain ol' chocolate. I just don't like it. Not sure if I ever did in the past, but in the last 5 or 6 years, I've noticed my constant disdain for it.

I put coffee in my hot chocolate. Sometimes I even put a spoonful of banana pudding mix in it.
I'd only eat a regular boring Hershey's bar if it was accompanied by graham crackers and marshmallows and even some coconut and/or almonds.
I don't really care for chocolate syrup.
If I have chocolate ice cream, it's usually got bits of something else in it (typically cookie dough).
M&Ms have to be either peanut or penaut butter.
Chocolate cake must have some sort of filling (typically raspberry) for me to be even remotely interested.

And so, while I do love chocolate, it's really a rather conditional love.
Sorry, chocolate.

So if you're pyschologically normal, then call me back....

Just when you think you can guess something about someone, they go and turn you all topsy-turvy.

Case and point: my brother has long had a fascination and adoration for Asian women (and Asian people in general), so when he told us that he was going to move to Japan after graduation to teach, we all figured he'd be there indefinitely and probably wind up just living there and maybe even getting married there. Yesterday, he informs me that he's only staying there for one year. In fact, he's already working on a contract to go back to Colombia after his stint in Japan.

This leaves Todd and me in quite the predicament. We've been dying to go to Japan for a while (Todd's been wanting to go for about 28 years now) and we figured, what better time to go than while Daniel is there? We'd have a place to stay and a tour guide, which is really the most intelligent thing to do when traveling in Asia...they're famous for their scammers and pick-pocketers.

So now, we have to figure out how to get to Japan in March 2009, during my spring break from school. Seriously, if anyone wins the lottery, we'll only need to borrow like $5,000....