My Random Thoughts

Everyone likes a good mystery and I had a good one.

For the last couple of days there has been a stench outside of our front door. It smelled like a dead animal. We had this odor once before. It lasted a week and then was gone. I figured that something had died (wow, I am the master of the obvious) there or had been carried in by one of our friendly neighborhood animals.  I didn’t think too much more of it, but I did find it odd that we couldn’t easily identify where the smell was coming from.

So the odor was back. Once again, I was wondering where this dead whatever was. I looked over the area outside of the front door. We have shrubs there, with some red woodchip mulch. The landscapers were just here on Saturday and nothing looked out of the ordinary.  I looked again and saw something that looked like an orange peel. I figured one of the landscapers probably dropped it there after enjoying an afternoon snack. Why he wouldn’t dispose of it properly, I didn’t know. I went over to pick it up and see if I could find the cause of the smell.

Oh, I found the cause of the smell alright – and my supposed orange peel wasn’t a sweet smelling orange peel. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew what it smelled like! The garbage hadn’t gone yet, I scooped that sucker up, dropped it in the can, came in and promptly googled ‘foul smelling fungus’. To my amazement, there was a name for the bane of my existence (okay, that was a little melodramatic). It is (get ready) the Stinkhorn Fungus!

OH MY – I didn’t know something like this existed. After reading this I went looking for the ‘eggs’ I found some. I found another half hatched one. I sent Jeff on a stinkhorn expedition after work. Had I thought about it before (and could have held my breath long enough) I would have taken a couple of pictures. Maybe next time.  Now I’m thinking we should get rid of the mulch and replace with decorative stones. Wonder how much that would cost……

Every day gives me a chance to start over. I have such big ambitions at the start of the day. Even if I don’t get through everything on my list, tomorrow is another day.

I went to the gym today. It was a good workout. I made lasagna for lunch and went to church this evening. I even worked almost 4 hours today (and I’ll never catch up). What I didn’t get finished was sweeping the house, writing, working on my CCP course and my hours for my SPHR recertification. Tomorrow is another day.

I think I’m going to work on my blog tonight and may spend some time on my CCP course. Or maybe I’ll have a glass of wine, pet the cats and channel surf. Maybe I’ll just go to bed early. I’ve been yawning all day.

The guy behind me at church was sick. The priest was sick. Sounds like there is something going around again….great, i hope I don’t get it.

I really like my vet. I called her on Friday to talk about Champagne’s cough and Pheobe’s ongoing problems.  She called the woman who runs the shelter where we got Pheobe. It seems that she (Pheobe) has had chronic problems and has been tested for everything under the sun. The next step would be more invasive (and expensive) diagnostic tests. Inga has offered to take Phoebe back. I’m really torn. While I’d like to have healthy animals and not have to deal with the issues that Pheobe has, we did take her and I feel like for better or worse she’s our responsibility now. If we would take her back, she would be back in the mix with a hundred other cats, wouldn’t be fed a special diet and wouldn’t get the attention that we’re giving her.  Could it be better for her there? Could she get more attenti

So I’m a geek and I enjoy Star Trek, but wow, there are some hard core crazy Star Trek fans. The History Channel showed the story behind the Christie’s auction. The prices some people were paying for a piece of pop culture. They were some impressive pieces, but they were still props.

I think what I found the most impressive was the amount of work Christie’s had to do to catalog the warehouse and prepare for the sale. They had to go through the warehouse, verify each and every piece and figure out value. Amazing.

Welcome to the St. Patrick’s Day Theme! Took me long enough to figure out how to change the colors on the titles.  Now I”ve got to figure out what I’m going to do for an Easter Theme.  I’ll have to look through my photos to see if there are any I can use for a header….might have to go to my summer theme and just put the beach back up there.

American Idol is pretty bad this year. I should have watched Jeherico instead. Would have been more interesting.

I set up OnStar tonight.  I was tickled when the OnStar Advisor said would you like your car’s phone number? Ok, so I know it’s a cell phone system, but my car has its own phone number. I guess it should, afterall it will be sending me monthly emails telling me how its feeling, having a phone number isn’t that far out.

I have to drive to Orlando next week for a class. I hope it drives well. It was comfy tonight when I took Jeff out to dinner.  Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday.  I’m looking forward to Lent, aside from the spiritual time of reflection, I’ve got to stop eating like I have been and get a grip! Too bad the Schwann’s guy just showed up with all of the good ice cream!

Well, but I guess I wasn’t tired until it was over.

We went out to finish our car shopping yesterday. I guess you can infer by finish that we did purchase one last night. Oh yes we did!

We are now the proud owners of a H3. Go ahead, I’m ready for the screams of the environmentalists and those who want to ask me why I’m driving a gas guzzling POS. Because its FUN, that’s why!

It has my minimum requirements – its blue and has a sun roof. It has Jeff’s minimum requirements, it’s 4 wheel drive.  It’s amazing how hard it was to find something like that in Florida. We even had the guy from cars direct.com scouring the country for a chevy equinox with those specs. Yup, didn’t exist. So we were forced (FORCED I tell you) into getting one. Truly.

So the whole experience took damn near 4 hours last night. YIKES. We looked, we took a test drive. First the sales dude took us over their ‘test track’ (no, I’m not kidding, there is a test track at the dealer). It showed off the H3’s stability and off road ability. I can roll over small cars in this thing. I really think I could! You can read all about it at their website. The test track was pretty impressive. The street test drive was pretty nice too. It does drive nice. Its quiet, smooth and gives a pretty good ride.

So after the negotiation and waiting FOREVER we finally sat down with the finance dude and signed a mountain of papers. I think I may have even signed away my children’s future – jokes on them though – I don’t have any! HAH! And i don’t have to save for college for my furry kids.

Jeff took it to work today. He’s such a boy. I’m going to take it out tonight. I’m such a girl. I think i trip to the mall would be a good excuse – Oh wait, it’s Tuesday, it’s American Idol Night – can’t do that. I guess it will have to wait for tomorrow. This may actually get me to the gym more, just to have an excuse to drive it.

I know the novelty will wear off soon, but i’m going to enjoy it as long as the glow lasts!

She did sleep it off….This morning Ms. Champagne was back to herself. She was rolling around on the floor, purring and chirping and her eye showed that she was back! That was good to see. Now she’s asleep on the bed (what a surprise). The nut is sleeping on my arm while I write. She is so cute.

Phoebe has taken to sitting in windows. I wonder if we need to find her a window perch. She certainly seems to like looking out.

I took Champagne in to get her teeth cleaned today.  She had a cavity and had to have one of her molars pulled. I feel so bad for her. I can’t explain what is going on and why she feels so whacked out.

The vet tech said she’d be groggy and probably sleep the rest of the day. Knowing Champagne and how she sleeps anyway, I wondered how I could tell if it was the anesthesia or normal. WELL, after getting her out of her carrier when we got home, it was pretty easy to tell it was the anesthesia! I’ve often joked that with Champagne it was lights on but no one home…..when we got home, it was truly no one home. I’d never seen such blank eyes.

A while later she had jumped (or fallen) off the bed. She tried to walk across the dining room, she stumbled and she fell. She looked like she was drunk. That would have been funny if I didn’t feel so bad for her.  I got her settled back on the bed. She started coming out of it around 5, which really wasn’t all that bad.

I could give Champagne food after 6 tonight (just a little bit at a time). I found a small can of soft food, went to the bedroom and closed the door. She must have been feeling better, she jumped off the bed and came up to me before I even had the can open. She scarfed that little bit of food down like she hadn’t eaten in a year, and for her not eating for a day probably was not eating for a year!

I hope she looks like she’s back to normal by morning and that her extraction doesn’t bother her too much. Got the pain meds ready!

……We’re looking for a new vehicle. This was supposed to be Jeff’s year to get a new truck. Unfortunately (for him), he doesn’t like what Chevy has to offer in this model year or next year as far as he can tell. His thought is to trade mine while it still has some value and get me a new one so when we’re ready to get him one in a couple of years I’ll still have a lot of life left in mine (I like the way this man thinks).

When we were at Disney, we saw a Chevy Equinox. I liked the look of it. Still an SUV, a little smaller than the Trailblazer, but big enough and (here’s the best part) it was PURPLE! I could finally get my purple car. Ok, it wasn’t like screaming in your face purple, but more of an eggplant, or a dark mauve, but still recognizably purple. We get on the web, we build our vehicle. I know what options I want, I know what colors I would consider and off we go to the dealer tonight.

The problem with this whole scenario is that lack of all wheel drive in a vehicle is a deal breaker for Jeff and NONE of the dealers within a 500 mile radius have an AWD vehicle (no kidding, NONE).

So anyhow, MY dealbreaker is the lack of a sunroof. I must have a sunroof in my next car. I’d also like OnStar, but that wouldn’t kill the deal. As we were talking to the salesdude he said we could take this one out, after all options don’t make the car drive any differently……

…..I said, sure they do, they make the difference if the car drives off the lot or not.

And there was silence while he (and Jeff processed that comment). And then the chuckles started….I think he’s going to use that line. I know I’ll be using it again.

It’s 8pm on Tuesday night. That means it’s American Idol night! and it’s Hollywood Week! They are doing the girls first. I’m waiting for the cat fights to begin. They are doing instant cuts today. They get 30 seconds to show their stuff. The first six all got sent home! Its a rough start, but what great television!

WOW – they are really being harsh. Gotta watch the rest of the show.