This and That...

You know how you go about your daily business and things strike you as blog-worthy, but you somehow you don’t end up finding the time to create that post you concocted in your head? Oh, you do know that feeling? Well, great, because that is exactly what it has been for me.

When I magically have some available time, I use it to sleep or perhaps take a shower. I am not even kidding. No reason to go into crazy details at this point, but just know that at this moment I am wearing one brown high heel and one black high heel. And, I had to shower at work today. Yay me!

Anyhoo, a few posts that I’ve been “working” on & other miscellaneous stuff…

---A post about my favorite animals of Blogistan and why I love them…ETA is TBD…..mainly because the list is so freaking long!!!

---I recently reconnected with a very dear friend from my late teens/early 20s. Her name is Wendy and I’m thrilled to have her back in my life, especially now. We have some amazing, fun, CRAAAAZY memories from our “younger days” and I hope we can create millions and millions more. She lives in Minnesota now (somehow I think Laura and Wendy would swap great “I hate Minnesota” stories…) with her gorgeous baby kitties, Abby and Quincy.

I didn’t know she had a blog until I saw her post a comment on Dudley’s Diary. (Bad Wendy!) Just kidding! :-) She has her Hebrew name on her blog and she was brave enough to move to our little neighborhood here in Blogistan, so be a great neighbor, stop by "A Tail of Two Kitties", say hello, and maybe bring a martini or two with you. .... http://atailoftwokitties.blogspot.com/

---Speaking of Blogistanimals, I can’t stay away from Dudley’s Diary and Diaries of Diva. One is a handsome, energetic abandoned kitty, and the other is a gorgeous, also energetic, chocolate lab puppy! Yay for kittens and puppies!!! Diva belongs to Ruby and her human family… http://diariesofdiva.blogspot.com/

---I haven’t found time yet to complete the update of my blog’s “summer look”…

---I want to walk Torrey Pines again so badly! It is so good for my soul. Time! I need more!

---Speaking of walking, Achilles fell twice on his walk today. It broke my heart. He is fine now and More Mommy is lovingly caring for him, but I haven’t been able to get his sweet face out of my memory. He looked so stunned and I’m sure he’ll be sore tomorrow.

---Milo is a goofball. I love that about him. He does a dance I call the “booty bop”.

---Two weeks from today it will be the one year anniversary of Nick’s death. It was Tuesday, July 10th, 12:35 p.m. when he took his last breath in our arms, in our home. He was our first beloved pet, and then God sent two more Golden angels to our home to fill our hearts with love, all the while healing our hearts.

Losing Nick was such a tremendous watershed moment in our lives. Yes, he was our dog, and I know that it is not the same as losing family or loved friends, but in our life losing Nick will always be a defined turning point for us, especially for me. I loved that sweet boy beyond description and I felt singed and burned with grief.

I honestly did not believe I would recover. In many ways I never will, but that is the beauty of life. In never fully being able to recover from his loss, I am able to more fully appreciate and more fully love my sweet animals now and for all my future time.

---Blogistan has brought me an entirely new family of friends. I want to post about that when I can give it the attention it deserves. Karen, Suz Buzy Bee, Happy Wife, Mags, Engine of the Family, Christina…I can go on and on…but you know who you are and I love the little window into your lives you allow me to have. Thank you. Which reminds me of yet another thing….I need to update my blogroll….

---I’m hungry.

---Jamei had a baby girl, little Angelina. She’s precious. I’ve known Jamei since I arrived in the U.S. I have to find some time to get up there and visit the new arrival.

---Feel better soon Laura…. Wrigley and Chumley, you’ll be receiving your paychecks for being such great nursemaids. :-)

---Amanda, Mary Beth, and Helen, my condolences on the passing of your uncle and I'm grateful your mother is well. I'm sorry I haven't commented...

---Suz, may your family's soldier return in health and good spirits. Thank him for us.

---Our engagement/wedding party is coming up on 7/19 and I am so touched that so many of our friends are coming from so very far away, and from right here in San Diego, to support and join in our celebration. It makes me so happy. My dearest friend Anna is hosting the grand soiree and I cannot ever thank her enough. Tomorrow the "ladies" will lunch on sushi... me, Anna, and her beautiful Zoe girl. I love that little daughter of hers.

---Last, but most definitely and most certainly not least, I would like to kindly request that you include my father and my grandmother in your prayers. I am flying back out to Chicago next week for an operation that my father will have. It is delicate and dangerous, but unavoidable and very necessary. My parents sacrificed their world as they knew it to bring me & my sisters to safety in the golden land that is America. I can never repay them and whenever God decides to call them home I will miss them something fierce. Please pray that the call will not be anytime soon for my father, my Baba Jaan.

---My grandmother, Bobo, suffered a very minor heart attack a couple of days ago. She is resting and doing fine now, but at 93 years old, I know that we are witnessing a twilight. It is so very hard to know that her body is now frail and that her organs are beginning their descent. I pray fervently every daily chance I get that she will be granted health and peace for as long as possible. She took care of me in Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded and my parents were stuck in Iran for two years.

When our backyard is ready for planting, a pomegranate tree will be included to honor the courtyard of my grandmother’s home, the courtyard of my memories. My Golden-hearted friend Lynne actually suggested it and it reminded of my dream to create “Little Kabul” in my backyard. Thanks Lynne, for that reminder, and for much more. Oh so much more.

Soooo much more I want to vent about, write about, share, and just randomly throw out…but I gotta run for now.

P.S. I still have one fuzzy leg and I’m hoping my boss won’t notice my different color heeled sandals.

P.P.S. I know I'm forgetting to mention a shitload of stuff. Forgive me!!!

P.P.P..S. I miss my Belov-Ed. He'll be home tomorrow and I cannot wait to gather him up in my arms and smother him with slobbery kisses. Oh, how I love him.

Fuzzy leg

Remind me to never, ever complain about mundane again. Seriously, please do….because mundane = SANE. Period.

Wanna know why? Because I have a fuzzy leg. The right one to be precise.

You see, I found a spare moment to wax my legs last night. Or so I thought.

Things were somewhat insane and un-mundane last night, lots of tasks and assignments to be completed ASAP. One of the things NOT completed? Yup, you guessed it. My right leg. Completely forgot to wax it.

Today, I was wondering why my pant legs felt different on my skin. Now, I know why. And so does all of Blogistan.

Attractive, huh?

I was in a client meeting this morning. I realized that I was probably the only one in the room with one fuzzy leg. Awesome. I almost took a survey around the conference table, but thought better of it. I am so cool.

My dogs have...

......no concept of a choke point. God bless them, they make me laugh every single day.

Goofballls.

Summer has arrived.

Officially.

And here in San Diego we had a rather unusual start to the first weekend of summer. It was actually H.O.T.!!! Yesterday was the hottest day I have EVER experienced in San Diego. It hit 89 degrees in central and coastal San Diego, and the inland part of the county hit 116! Our only saving grace was that there wasn't a lot of humidity.

There is a misconception that San Diego gets as hot as L.A. and Orange County does in the summertime, but that is actually not true. San Diego is south and west of the Santa Ana Mountains, so the way the wind brings in ocean cooled air makes the county cooler than northern counties in the summer.

It is not unusual to be 10 to 25 degrees cooler than northern counties, no matter what the season. Most summers it stays between 70 and 85 degrees pretty much the whole summer, especially in the coastal areas. So, this weekend has been pretty reminiscent of my years growing up in the intolerable summer heat of Chicago, although not as humid.

But, I would be an ungrateful person if I complained about a few days of heat. Listening to the news and hearing about homes swept up in floods around the Mississippi, I quickly thank God that I only have to contend with a few days of heat. It is a horrible start to their summers, for sure.

In our little 150 square feet of shared space, we have become kind of a precision driven unit, by necessity no doubt. It feels as if we're in some kind of a bunker. Without television, we resort to reading, talking, napping, laughing, occasionally "debating", working on the house, and more reading, when we're home. Otherwise, we have plenty to occupy our time.

Speaking of reading, I was in Chicago for Father's Day weekend and I had to go through 3,000+ books of mine and pick ones I wanted to keep and ones I had to donate to the library because my parents are selling our Chicago home. It was a trip down memory lane and it was so difficult having to pick between my books. I saved about 200 of them and will have to find bookshelves or something for them when they arrive out here to San Diego. I'm sure Ed will be thrilled. Great, more of my crap to fill up the newly remodeled home. Ha!

Let's see....shopping for tile, wood flooring, carpet, paint, shower heads, fixtures, and all kinds of home stuff pretty much took up our entire day yesterday. When we arrived home we found a couple of HOT dogs waiting for a cool treat. I quickly whipped up a smoothie of peanut butter, crushed ice, a wee bit of vanilla ice cream, and frozen banana. Achilles & Milo slurped their treat bowls clean. I swear, I heard an audible sigh of relief from them, "Aaaaaah, that was sooo refreshing Momma!"

Today, I walked my boys early in the morning on the shady side of the street. We then decided to take Stinker Butt and Fish Head to the dog wash. It has been a while for them. Two purposes served: 1) get them clean and 2) cool them off. So, off to Noah's Ark in Pacific Beach we went.

Stinker Butt and Fish Head packed up and movin' to the dog wash.
Stinker Butt gets a whole dog's worth of undercoat brushed out of his fur. That should cool him down some, huh? WOW. I was drenched in sweat after completing this task since Stinker Butt Milo kept hopping around the tub trying to escape the evil villain that is the undercoat comb. Oooh, scary!
But, I figured brushing Milo out was probably a whole lot better than having the task of doing so for this snowball. Let me introduce you to Maako. His papa spent over an hour brushing him out, and then about another hour bathing him, and then a half hour blowing him out. DOUBLE WOW. His face looks like a sweet cookie in this picture and I wanted to gobble him up he was so cute! Adorable!

Back to Stinker Butt, with the undercoat brush out complete, it was time for papa to get to work. Our boys were diiiiiirty. Two bottles of shampoo were needed for each. All the dust and debris of the remodel really settled into their coats.
Stinker Butt no more! Papa made *very sure* of that!
Meanwhile, Fish Head only likes mama bathing him. He looks so scrawny and puppy-like when he's wet.
"Hey mama, what's up!? Ready to lather me up?"
Towel massage time. This is Achilles' favorite part. Sometimes he'll lean his head into my belly and just remain there for 3 or 4 minutes as I massage him with the towel. I need to hire someone like that for own self!
Sweaty, hot Mama and scrubbed, shiny Achilles. No more Fish Head!
Finally, it was time to head home. Dog was our co-pilot.
Co-pilot wanted to shift for papa sometimes, but he tends to ruin the clutch so we don't really let him drive much.

Normally we take the boys out for lunch at a patio grill and then for frozen yogurt after their baths, but it was too hot today. We brought them home and I whipped another smoothie for them instead. They're both crashed now, sleeping off another tiring trip to Noah's Ark.

Now, I'm waiting for it to cool down a bit so I can attack the clean up of one of our spare bedrooms. Since it is the official beginning of summer, I decided to change up the colors of my blog. I went with a cool, oceanic/aquatic color. It felt soothing to me on such a hot day. I also need to add some blogs to my links and update some pictures. Of course, I got as far as changing some of the colors and then decided to take a "break" and post instead. Hence, this post.

Before I go, just wanted to gush over our Captain Morgan. I feel he gets the short end of the blog attention stick, when in reality he is a major part of our every day interactions. This morning I had cold ravioli and broccoli for breakfast. Don't ask why, I just had a taste for it. El Capitan happens to love broccoli. I love how he holds and eats it.

Lest you think that El Capitan is some kind of a vegetarian health freak, I'll let you watch him decimate a Cheez-it. He is very precise in how he eats his food. A Cheez-it requires exact, geometrical gnawing. He eats each corner of the sqare first, and then continues circling the cracker in his foot as he eats until finally he has a tiny little circle of cracker left to gulp. One day I'll capture him eating a strand of spaghetti. Let me just say it is HILARIOUS.

He is such a sweet soul. Someone in Blogistan asked if El Capitan gets along with our doggies, and the answer is yes!

But, that is not to say that all Goldens will get along with birds since they are bred to retrieve birds. We actually took El Capitan up to Orange County to see how well Achilles reacted to him before we adopted Achilles. Same for Milo. We got lucky that both of our puppies peacefully coexist with CM. That's not to say that Milo wasn't "curious" at first, but he has since outgrown that and they are now BFFs.

Our bunker at bedtime. All the animals snuggled in and getting ready to snooze.

You know, it has been a challenge coexisting in this space, but I've got to say that I will actually miss it a little bit. It has been close, cozy, humorous, affectionate and pretty fun most of the times. We've certainly had our share of laughs as we bumped past each other and slid behind walls of boxes. A bit like "I Love Lucy", especially when something comes sliding off the wall of boxes and one of us says something like,

"Oh, oops. I thought I'd secured that."