Mitch gets happy to see his leash. But he also thinks when Brad puts his belt on in the morning its a leash and will usually do his hoppy dance.



Yesterday was prime rib and yorkshire pudding.
Today left overs, probably tomorrow too.

Watched Little Miss Sunshine, Devil Wears Prada, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and Christmas in the Clouds. Tomorrow plan on watching Suburbia.

More food today.



Today was Dip Day.
Hummus - using left over veggies from the cheese fondue the night before.
7-layer dip - refried beans, salsa, sour cream, cheese, green onion, black olives and cilantro
and I made my blue cheese dip too.
leftover cookies from the day before
Picked on that all day.

Went out for a bit, picked up a roast for tomorrow. Went to a K-Mart and I got the best hat ever! Maybe Brad will post a pic later, one of those huge big fur hats that keep my ears warm. I wore it out of the store.

For such a low key Christmas, I've already gotten a lot of stuff. Lots of cards, cookies from Brad's family, sparkly nail polish and a Bootsy Collins Christmas CD from my sister, coffee we been drinking on everyday since we got it from Irene and a Wing CD from Jason that we listened to today as we went out and ran a few errands in my big fur hat.


Wing is just lovely, so cute and adorable. I might have to check out her AC/DC tribute album

Listen to Wing here

Today was the beginning of our holiday weekend.
Brad had today off from work.

Brad fixed me an egg on toast with cheese for breakfast.
Had a turkey sandwich for lunch with this fabulous pickled mango we picked up from Caputos, I love that stuff on everything.

Before dinner when I let Mitch outside he stepped in poop. But like stepped in and twisted and mushed it in real good. Shoved way up in there...oh yeah! I grabbed his feet with the towel when he came in but he didn't want to give me his foot and kept pulling and fighting, all the pulling starting flinging the poop around, poop on the wall, poop on the floor. Brad came in and held him still while I tried to get it all out. Then we had to Lysol bleach the floor, the wall, and I took him upstairs for a foot bath. Then after our fecal fun we were ready for dinner!

Had cheese fondue for dinner.
Asparagus, mushrooms, red pepper, bread, and broccoli.
Made the strawberry cookies his sister sent us that I loved so much.
(strawberry cake mix, cool whip, 1 egg and coat them in powdered sugar 350 for 10 -12 min or till lightly browned)

We even had the fondue cam going for awhile...

We did our grocery shopping for the next few days and got this



We are planning on visiting a nursing home on Sunday for a few hours with Mitch as holiday cheer.

On-call last week and again on next week.
So trying to take it easy for the most part this week.
Nothing too post-worthy.

Took some pics of Mitch and his "rat king" looking legs.

Rat kings are mythological beasts said to arise when a number of rats become intertwined at the tails, and additionally stuck to each other with blood, dirt, and excrement.

Yes his eyes are rolled back in his head...


No big plans this coming week, partly cause I am on-call and it could be ugly, but also because we like it that way. Our plans mostly consist of what to eat. Brad has Friday off from work, and Monday and Tuesday too. So we planned food for 5 days: cheese fondue, 7 layer dip, blue cheese dip, grapefruit, cupcakes, rib roast, yorkshire pudding, salad, meringues, hummus and pita, and the christmas cookies his sister & mom sent us that we already began digging in. We have a bunch of movies to watch, and will probably get more. So a great holiday for us, is being together at home with Mitch in our pj's eating, and watching movies.
I think what makes it special is no guilt, we plan on doing this. We could do it more often actually but we try to make errands and plans and keep doing things off our lists of stuff. So now we can sit around and we planned it that way, we arent supposed to be doing anything else, and we can sit back and enjoy it.

Might maybe might be going to Seattle in 2 weeks for training, still slightly up in the air, but looking good and I'd really like to go. Never been. Bunch of people I work with there I would like to meet face to face and then I'd hopefully get to see Irene again.

Toying with the idea of dressing up tomorrow, just to run errands and do normal everyday stuff. I like dressing up for non-occasions.

Ready for a haircut...I think...maybe....

and BTW Brad is awesome...as usual.

Channeling Greta Garbo....

Met Irene last night. She was in town from Seattle for work stuff at McCormick Center, so I picked her up there and we went to Michigan Ave to look at Christmasy things. We went into American Girl Doll, she never heard of them and I had never been in the store. It really icked us out. Dolls, clothes, a salon to do your dolls hair in different styles, a hospital to drop your doll off to get fixed is she lost a limb or her head. They have babies, and twins too, DVD's and theater where they do some kind of weird live show, and a cafe where you can eat with your doll in a booster seat hooked up to the table next to you.



We walked around Michigan Ave, then State Street, took a cab to Belmont/Clark and had dinner at Clarke's Diner.



We were gonna go across the street to Ann Sather for dessert, but they close at 3pm on Mon & Tues. So did a little shopping and then took the brown line to Merchandise Mart and walked to Harry Caray's and had dessert and coffee there.

It was cool to finally get to meet her, we have talked online and shared humane society stories for a couple of years now. She is a really cool person.

Last night, ready for bed.







Today he tried on goggles.

I gave Mitch a bath today for his itchy skin.
I got in with him and closed us in the guest bath/shower.
He lost his footing once, and freaked a little but at least he wasnt alone in there and I was able to prop him up, then he was ok.

I towel dried him off, then we both went to my bathroom and let him sit and dry while I took a bath.
Used the drier on him a little, at first he didn't like it, but then when I turned the heat from cool to warm, he liked it better. Brushed him a little as I dried, he liked that too. Then I let him out into our bedroom as I dried my hair. He tried chewing on the door frame again, I yelled at him, we locked eyes, he opened his mouth and slowly inched back to the door frame, I yelled and then he backed away a few feet and laid down while I finished drying my hair.

Went to upload pictures in our office and he went downstairs as Brad called. He was barking, he isn't a barker. Then he barked again so I put Brad on hold. He needed cheerleading to come back up the stairs, so he was standing at the base of the steps upset. A little rah rah go Mitch and he did it.

Ate all his kibble tonight, he usually splits it up.





This is from my cell phone camera while I was in the bath.

We got our new dog Mitch
Retired racer, greyhound
76 pounds
3 years old
brindle

He has been sleeping with us every night, in between us sprawled out, likes squeaky toys. When he doesn't know what to do with himself he might gnaw on wood like our TV stand or a door frame until we yell. Like a nervous biting your nails kind of thing. He gets big parade from us everytime he goes up or down the stairs, he is still not quite used to them. He tried to walk through our back glass sliding door a couple of times, so now we taped up pieces of paper so he knows something is there. Later today I will go look for some sticky window things to put up. He skin is a little itchy, so he will get a coal tar shampoo and bath later today.

This morning was his first day of our regular weekday morning routine. While he was in bed with me, Brad dropped the shampoo while in the shower. 5 seconds later his head shot up, did a circle on the bed, jumped off, did a circle on the floor and then ran out of the room and ran downstairs. I coaxed him back upstairs, but when he would poke his head in our room he kept looking up at the ceiling fan like it was the first time he noticed it. He seemed to think the fan made the noise and was scary. It took 15 minutes of us reassuring him and he went back to bed, laid down and relaxed. But I think he will be keeping his eye on the fan for the next few days.








Brad and Mitch had some time to bond over the weekend. A girlfriend of mine was in town for some work conference thing. She came in late Saturday afternoon. I packed a little bag and took the train into town. I was a bad hostess and had nothing planned. So we walked around to see people shopping, Christmas lights, and decide on what to eat. She is from California, so the cold is a shock to her system. We had a fancy dinner at Sullivans, some drinks to warm us up. Then took a cab to the Belmont Clark area. Went into a Walgreens where she bought a sweatshirt to put on over her sweater, a blanket to wrap up in, and those hot packs you can stick in your gloves. Walking out of Walgreen I saw some Santas so we decided to follow the Santas, which led us to Sheffields. Packed full of drunk Santas, I asked them if it was an office thing, but they said it was a charity thing for cancer. Drunk Santas for cancer. But it was fun cheesy and festive and put me in the holiday spirit, that and some drinks. Watching Santas rock out to Justin Timberlake, a guido Santa really did Justin really well.
We then followed the Santas to John Barleycorn. Stayed there just a little while cause we are both such lightweights when it comes to drinking, that soon we went back to her room and went to bed.
Got up the next day and went to go see Bobby Really good movie.

Drunk Santas




My bundled friend