Happy Halloween

Just because she's cute

Here's a picture of my dog because she's cute.


Here's my daughter because she's pretty cute, too.


I had ever intention of getting my daughter's costume done by Halloween, but I just don't think it's going to happen. But she's OK with it. She's managed to pull together a costume so she can be a Padawan. She's most excited about the fact that I put a little braid at the nape of her neck, off to the left side. She thinks that makes her as official as it gets. I'm not complaining. But now what am I going to do with all the stuff I've cut out for her alien costume. I'll still make it. You never know when you've got to dress up as an alien. By the way, I'm completely addicted to that show Dexter.

Way too much drama.

My daughter's snake escaped last night, so I got to start my morning with my hysterical daughter bursting into the bathroom telling me Mosay was gone. We won't find that snake. We looked around, but we won't find that snake. So I told her we'd go get her another one after school. She said she didn't want another snake, but by the time I dropped her off at school, she'd calmed down and was feeling more favorable towards getting a new one. You'd think we'd learn our lesson after two escaped snakes, but my daughter was so distraught I couldn't deal with it. I'd never seen her get that upset. Anyway, we think the snake escaped through some largish air holes at the top of the tank. We've taped those up so, hopefully, the new snake will stay put.

Decade parent

Well, today marks my tenth year as a parent and I have to say I don't feel as weird as I thought I'd feel about it. I actually feel more old when I hear my nephew's age. When he turned ten, I thought, "Good God, how can it be ten years already?" But with my own daughter, I don't feel so weird. As anyone who is a parent will know, I can't believe it's been ten years because the time has just zipped by. After I pick her up from school, we're going to get her present: a snake. As you may or may not remember, we got her a snake for her birthday a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, that poor snake met its demise when it managed to escape its tank, never to be found again. I'm sure its just a twig somewhere in the house. However, my daughter never quite got over the loss of the snake so I finally broke down and told her she could get another one. She's already got it picked out. It's another corn snake, but more colorful than the last. She named it Mosaic, but calls it Mosay for short. We've been visiting it once a week since she picked it out a month ago. I hope it doesn't freak out the dog too much. That wouldn't be good. That wouldn't be good at all.

Fancy Bartenders

While in Chicago over the weekend, my sister and I went to the TGIFriday next to our hotel one night for a couple of drinks and sister time. When the bartender came over to take our order, I said I wanted a mojito and while he was at it, he could throw stuff around like Tom Cruise for our entertainment. I was totally messing with him, but then he starts doing it. He starts juggling bottles and flipping them around and all this kind of stuff. Then he balanced bottles on his head for us. Anyway, I knew I had something super exciting on my hands when I saw all this go down. The bartender's name is Jason. He told us he's been on the Food Network for some kind of bartender competition in Las Vegas. I have no reason to not believe him, but I think you should all have the chance to experience the magic of Jason the Fancy Bartender. Enjoy.

Going to Chicago.

Well, the entire family is heading to Chicago this weekend for a special memorial service for my grandparents. One of my uncles went to Korea to retrieve my grandparents' remains to save them from being destroyed or lost. Seems that one of my mother's nephews has been selling off the land which includes her family's burial sites. So, her family decided the best thing to do would be to bring the remains to the States, cremate them, and bury them here. I don't know what goes through a person's mind when they decide they'll basically obliterate their ancestors' resting places, but I guess money really does mean everything for some people. It'll be nice to see everyone and since my grandparents have been dead for a long time, it won't be a sad affair, I'm hoping. But, you know, Koreans like their drama, so who knows what will happen this weekend.

Drunken hijinks at a football game

This past weekend, my sister and her husband came out from Montana to watch the BC/ND football game. They came without their children. It was a nice visit and I think we all enjoyed ourselves. Of course, we tailgated before the game and both my sister and I got drunk. I can safely say I was just drunk, but my sister got really, really drunk. In the picture below, you see the two of us in the stadium. We are both drunk. However, since my sister was really, really drunk she did some stuff that she wouldn't normally do, like steal a nacho chip from nacho chip guy when he wasn't looking. I've pointed out nacho chip guy in the photo using a purplish arrow, so you should be able to find him pretty easily. Now when she pinched the nacho chip, glaring lady gave my sister the evil eye, and did so for about five minutes. I think she was just jealous that my sister had the guts to pilfer a nacho chip when she didn't because I think I saw glaring lady eyeballing nacho chip guy's nacho chips a couple of times before the incident in question took place. Now if glaring lady really had a problem with my sister stealing a nacho chip from nacho chip guy, you'd think she'd say, "Hey, this crazy broad behind you just stole one of your nacho chips." But she didn't. She just glared at my sister like she'd been personally wronged or something. I'm not defending my sister stealing the nacho chip, but glaring lady was a bitch of the highest level. OK, Blogger fixed its problem, so here's the picture. You can even tell from glaring lady's hair that she's totally an uptight bitch, can't you?

Chinese horoscope

This is what my Chinese horoscope on Facebook said today:

Good amorous and erotic prospects.

Heh, heh, heh.

I'm sick.

I stayed home today because I'm sick. I usually don't stay home when I'm sick, only when my daughter is sick. But today I stayed home because I'm sick. I took DayQuil. It was good. It was very, very good. It made the world seem like a wonderful place. Which is good because I'm sick. I'm getting ready to take NyQuil, which will be good because it will make my dreamworld seem like a wonderful place. A wonderful dreamworld is great when you are sick, which is what I am. I have a crappy cold. I think it's starting to move into my chest because I'm starting to hear little rumblings if I breathe really deep and I almost want to cough, which means I almost have something to get out. Oh hey, I just had to run upstairs to deal with a minor emergency. Apparently, a turd stuck to my dog's anus as she was attempting to defecate. As it would anyone, it freaked her out, so she ran around the room smearing shit around in an attempt to dislodge the offending feces. Anyway, I had to go up to pull off as much crap from her a-hole as I could so my husband could clean the rest off of her in the sink. I then had to do the Nature's Miracle thing on the bedspread, the pillowcase, and the floor. That was all kind's of fun. Now I'm going to go do a shot of NyQuil and put this all behind me. Because I'm sick.

I can't believe my eyes.

OK, so you know some punk defaced my car by spray painting it while my family was in mass. Anyway, I looked on the internet to see if there was some home remedy to clean off the paint, not really having any high hopes that something would work. A couple of sites said to use a magic eraser, the Mr. Clean thing. So, I figured, eh, why not give it a try. I have a couple at home. What's there to lose? So I took that thing out to the car and I will be damned if the magic eraser didn't work. It actually cleaned off the spray paint and left the clear coat looking fine. I am amazed, but now I'm really curious about what kind of stuff is inside the magic eraser. I think Mr. Clean sold his soul to the devil. It seriously worked.

What in THE hell is the world coming to?

Yesterday, my family came out of mass to find something really interesting. And by interesting, I mean utterly reprehensible. We got to our car to find out someone had spray painted across the right passenger door. I mentioned we were in mass, right? That means someone went to a church parking lot to vandalize our car. Whether or not we were the only car, I don't know because most of the cars parked around us were gone by the time we got out there. But, I have really, really got to wonder about the mentality a work on this one. It's not cool to vandalize no matter what the situtation is, but to go and spray paint a car in a church parking lot seems really, really, really, really low. I know I should feel Christian forgiveness and all that, but screw it. Even though we'll never know who did the deed, I can say I feel no sympathy toward them. Whoever did it is a punk who will probably end up sucking valuable tax dollars from my wallet so they can sit in prison cell getting a college education or building up their body to look like the hulk while a truly deserving person somewhere works their entire life at McDonald's because they can't afford higher education but refuses to let that be an excuse for living a poor life.

My dog is famous.

Here's Mookie in her world debut as a featured "Stuff on My Mutt" star. Follow the link below.

http://www.stuffonmymutt.com/index.php?itemid=1011

Dang, I'm tired.

Well, more like really, really sleepy. I think it's the weather, which has been going from one extreme to the other lately. I'm going to the store to get ingredients for this purifying kashi soup. It has lentils and split peas and kashi and it's good. Plus it's only 1.5 points per serving, which is super awesome. My daughter started learning how to play the trumpet a couple of days ago. This should be interesting. She's joined the band. It's actually a really cool thing because her school and another catholic elementary school partner with the ND marching band to essentially provide a band experience for the kids. Student mentors from the marching bad volunteer their time to teach the kids how to play the instruments they want to learn to play so they can perform in band. If this program didn't exist, there would be no band for the kids to participate in. Plus, the marching band members do this all for free, which is pretty admirable, if you ask me. The only the thing the parents have to pay for is the instrument, whether they buy it or rent it. What did surprise me is that there only seems to be a handful of students from my daughter's school who are doing it. How do you pass up free music lessons? I don't know. People just don't know a good deal when they see it anymore.

Podcast #22

Brenna will kick your ass. Listen to today's podcast to find out how she'll kick your ass.


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This just makes me sick.

I've been posting a lot of news articles lately, which is unintentional, but I just read this and felt sick to my stomach to wonder what kind of monster would do something like this.

M.C. puppy set on fire put to sleep

Police investigate 'heinous crime.'

STAN MADDUX
Tribune Correspondent

MICHIGAN CITY -- Andrea Davis said she woke up to police knocking on her door. Then she spotted her smoldering pit bull on the front porch.

Snoopy, her puppy, was set ablaze, possibly with gasoline, and had to be put to sleep.

Police were given a vague description of a possible culprit but had not made any arrests Wednesday.

"Obviously, we're very concerned. It's a heinous crime committed by someone who has a lot of problems," said Michigan City Assistant Police Chief John Kintzele.

Just before 1 a.m. Wednesday, a woman said she was smoking a cigarette on her front porch in the 300 block of Dewey Street and observed what appeared to be a dog on fire running across the street, according to police.

She also heard what sounded like a dog crying.

The woman called police, and officers located the badly burned 4 1/2-month-old animal coming out of some bushes.

According to police, Snoopy was not on a leash.

But, prior to being set ablaze, Davis said, her dog was on a leash tied to a stake in her fenced backyard.

The stake had been pulled out of the ground.

"I thought this was a nice neighborhood," said Davis, who just moved there about two months ago.

"I don't want another dog if I can't keep him in the backyard," she said.

Davis, 22, said her father took Snoopy to the animal clinic at Purdue University North Central near Westville, but the injuries were too severe.

She got the dog for her sons, ages 1 and 3, just before the start of summer.

"He was a real good dog. I wouldn't have traded him for the world," Davis said.

According to police, a search of the area led officers to a shed just a few doors away.

The doors were open and inside the shed was a gasoline can.

Police, hoping to determine if there was a link, knocked on the door and telephoned the residence but received no answer.

A male, possibly a juvenile, was seen by the witness as she spotted the dog on fire.

And police investigating the scene noticed a similar-looking male possibly on a bicycle.

"It's nothing we can make an arrest on. The investigation is just beginning," Kintzele said.

Davis said she had no idea why this occurred, but someone in the neighborhood reported the dog was regularly kept on a leash outside and barked and cried during all hours of the night, police said.

If only

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who lives in the neighborhood where this explosion occured last night.

Explosion levels house Extent of damage astonishes authorities

TOM MOOR and MICHAEL WANBAUGH
Tribune Staff Writers

SOUTH BEND -- John Ohime was sitting in his Arbor Pointe subdivision home Thursday night when his walls began shaking, and pictures began flying off the wall.

"I thought it was an airplane, so I came outside," Ohime said.

He saw that his quiet neighborhood had been turned upside down.
Tree branches, leaves and debris were scattered across a 100-foot radius. And the house four doors down was completely gone.

"I ran down there to see if we could do anything, but the house was just leveled," Ohime said.

"It was pretty scary. Too close for comfort."

Multiple rescue agencies in St. Joseph County responded to the explosion north of the city.

Rescue units were dispatched to the scene at 22530 Arbor Pointe Drive around 8:15 p.m.

At least one occupant of the house was injured and taken to a local hospital, according to Dave Cherrone, Clay Fire Territory fire marshal. He could not give a condition of the occupant. Cherrone said a neighbor may have pulled him from the home.

The victim was a retired police officer, neighbors told WSBT-TV. The man was flown to a burn center in Kalamazoo. He was not identified as of press deadline.

When units arrived at the scene, Cherrone said the house was "totally demolished." Only a basement remained.

Cherrone said he was shocked by what he saw.

"I haven't seen anything," he added, "that caused this much damage. Our two concerns were containing the hazard and making sure people in the area were safe."

Cherrone said the explosion caused major damage to at least eight nearby houses.

The house to the left of the explosion was missing about half of its garage, while the home across the street also received heavy damage, especially to its garage.

The street in front of the explosion was covered with leaves and debris.

The Arbor Pointe subdivision is just south of the state line and between Portage and Mayflower roads.

Ohime said he saw massive flames when we walked outside.

The blast could reportedly be heard in Niles and Edwardsburg.

When firefighters arrived on the scene, heavy smoke was billowing into the night sky.

While there was initial speculation that the explosion was a result of a gas leak, neither Cherrone nor a NIPSCO spokesman on the scene would confirm that claim late Thursday night.

It was unclear how many houses were evacuated as a result of the explosion, but some residents near the explosion were being allowed back to their homes at 10:15 p.m.

Cherrone said some of the houses would not be livable for at least the near future.

The Red Cross was on the scene to assist with housing for families affected by the explosion.

Tommie Lee lives two houses from the explosion on the same side of the street.

"My entire house shook," Lee said. "I thought a truck had hit the house."

When he walked outside, he said all he saw was fire and smoke.

As he got closer, he was amazed.

"There was no house," he said.

St. Joseph County police spokeswoman Jaimee Thirion was in awe of the damage.

"This is the worst thing I've been out to in four years that wasn't a natural disaster," she said.

Cherrone said rescue units checked multiple houses near the explosion for casualties. He expects units to be on the scene all night.

As tragic as this is, I'm more concerned about my friend right now because she is blaming herself for not calling the gas company when she smelled gas earlier in the day. I tried to tell her she can't blame herself over this, but how do you really get a message like that through to a person who feels that level of guilt. It's because she knows the man who was injured and she thinks she could have prevented the explosion if she just would have picked up the phone. Other people in the neighborhood smelled gas, too, but none of them called either. Still, I guess I'm asking all of you to say a little prayer that a woman you don't know can find some peace in her heart.

I must get on Tim Gunn's new show.

I just finished watching Tim Gunn's new show on Bravo and I think I will live in a dark wasteland of despair if I don't manage to get on it somehow. He and this other lady whose name I don't know come in and basically go through your entire wardrobe and throw out anything that doesn't look good on you, then they basically tell you what does look good on you and then send you out to get those things. They also give you a makeover. I'd do it just for the makeover. And that's exactly what I need: someone to just tell me what looks good on me. I don't buy clothes often. Mainly because I always think there's something more important to spend the money on, but I do love clothes. Even though it's probably hard to guess by just looking at me walking down the street. If I had the money to get the kind of clothes I'd really like to have, then I would, but I don't, so I rarely buy clothes. It's really a very simple equation once you get down to it. The girl I just watched them fix got a bunch of new underwear. I probably just do it for the underwear, too. I really don't know if I'm wearing the right bra size. I'd like to get a bra that fits me exactly the way it should. I just don't have faith that someone who really knows their stuff about bras lives in South Bend. But I have to say they really made this chick look good and just once in my life, I'd like to walk out of the house knowing I look the best that I can.

Podcast #21

Sometimes, boys do stupid things like telling a gal they'll call and then never doing it. Brenna and I discuss the problems this leads to when I a boy flat out lies like this. Listen and learn.


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Padded bras suck

I bought a couple of new bras the other day and inadvertently got a padded one. I just didn't read closely enough and when I got home, I realized my mistake. I've never worn a padded bra before, even though there are some who would suggest that I should (mainly my mother). I've just never felt the need to enhance the size of my breasts. Anyway, since I bought it, I figured I'd give it a try and I really don't like it. It's odd knowing something's touched my boob, but then not actually feeling it on my boob. It feels like I've got a pillow on my chest. I don't know why anyone would wear one of these things on a regular basis. So, that's one bra that will end up dwelling in the far, dark recesses of my underwear drawer.