Good plan, bad execution

I present to you, the prop.

The cat found it while I was setting up the shoot:

Note the immediate loss of the left wing.

This had to be done so as not to threaten his manhood with the girlie cat toy.

The following pictures are obviously straight out of the camera shots.  

I put the camera on Action, then held the button down.  I didn't even have time to focus the camera.  

The whole process probably took 30 seconds, and you're seeing one out of about every 6-7 shots.

For the record, that butt's floofy, not fat.

And yes, you did hear an audible pop.

The cat toy was a bare nub at this point, and has since been laid to rest in the recycle bin.
It was perhaps not the best $4.99 that I've ever spent, but it was fun while it lasted.

The mind... it's gone.

I got a postcard from the post office today, requesting that I please go there at my earliest convenience.  I went, and apparently last week I picked up a package that I don't remember ordering, and then left it behind on the counter and walked away.  I have no recollection of even going there, but that's not to say that it didn't happen. Either way, the result is that I now have four new books from Amazon that I don't remember ordering.  And the people at the post office think I'm a blithering idiot.

On the TMI front, I was looking up my last time I got my legs waxed so that I'd know when to book the next appointment, and it occurred to me that my dogs need to get groomed fairly soon too.  I then started riffling through my stuff, looking for their next appointment and discovered a card that says they had an appointment on June 26th.  Holy Shit, I thought; that means that I forgot to take the dogs in AGAIN for another appointment and now the groomer's definitely going to fire us as a client.  I was just about to have a panic attack about where I'd possibly take the dogs to get groomed because good groomers around here are such a rare commodity.   Then I remembered that I took the dogs in last week.  She practically skinned Cotton.  She cut his hair so short that his freckles are showing, and he has to wear a shirt when he goes outside so that he doesn't get a sun burn.   And yet, I forgot about that.  You know, because that's not memorable at all.

The brain just isn't working lately.  Apparently it went on summer holidays without me.

As an aside and possible explanation, in "Back to the Future", Doc set the clock in the DeLorean to a day 25 years in the future.  Today is that day, and I think that makes me officially old.

The lesser of the evil neighbours

I have these neighbours, who have lived in the house a few doors down for about four years.  There's so many people who come and go from the house that I still can't figure out who lives there and who is visiting.  The only one who I know lives there full time is the dog; and I actually think he should be rehomed.  (He's the dog that gets out of the yard all the time because they're too lazy to close the gate; but then he gets punished for wandering.)

On top of being a revolving door of people, there's also a lot of jacked up trucks that have those mufflers that really don't muffle any noises  They tend to leave them running outside with the radio blaring at top volume while they do yard work or whatever it is that they do in the garage that they never park in.  There's also a hot tub.  The hot tub is used a lot, and apparently it only works when accompanied by very loud rap and a fair quantity of alcohol.

If you guessed that the common thread for all the many people that come and go from this house is that they're selfish and loud, you guessed right.  You might also have guessed that these aren't my favourite neighbours, and you'd be on the mark on that one too.

Last night, they had another party.  Just as I was drifting off at 12:30, the music was cranked so loud that I could hear it clearly as though it was being blared in my house. Closing the windows did nothing to muffle it.  I considered going over and talking to them, but really don't feel safe approaching a fairly large group of drunk rig pigs so I hoped that somebody else would do it for me.  There are 4 houses that are closer to them than I am, and I can't imagine that they weren't bothered by the noises too.

I considered calling the cops, but that hasn't helped in the past.  The cops take an hour or more to arrive, and they're the sort of people who turn the music right back up after the cops leave.  Also, I don't know that I want to be known as the neighbour who called the cops on them.  I don't know these people, but what I've seen and heard from them tells me that I don't want to be on their bad sides.

So, at 3:00am, I finally got up and rummaged around until I found a pair of ear plugs and put them in.  I find ear plugs to be uncomfortable and they really only muffle the noise instead of blocking it; but I did eventually drift off around 4:00.

The problem is that my dogs went to bed at a reasonable time, and they apparently had no trouble sleeping.  They  - and their bladders - woke up with the sun, and they bugged me to get up and take them out until I finally did at 7:00.  So, there I was in my back yard in my mismatched pj's, puffy eyes and bed head, doing a mental check of all the things I'm supposed to get done today and wondering how I could possibly find the energy after only getting three hours of sleep.

I looked down the road at the party house, and it occurred to me that they were all probably in bed right then, and that they'd probably all be sleeping like babies until at least noon.   It took everything I've got not to fill a paper bag with dog poop, light it on fire and leave it on their front door step.

Work Attire

I was in a meeting the other day, and after we finished talking about all of our worky stuff, we somehow veered off onto the wardrobe tangent.  We started off by talking about the inequity between work attire for men and women around here.  Women here can get away with a lot more than men .  We can wear skirts, shorts, capris or pants.  We can have sleeveless shirts (although spaghetti straps are frowned upon) , short sleeves or long sleeves.  We can have collars or not, and we can wear nicer knit shirts.  When it comes to shoes, you see women here wearing everything from flip flops to platform shoes and stilettos.

The men around here?  Long pants, button up shirts and dress shoes.  Whether or not they wear a tie is about the only wardrobe choice they've got.

In the room with me were three men and another woman.   The men said that they did notice the discrepancy, and I was ready to comment that when they shaved their legs and polished their toes, they could start showing some leg (of feet, as the case may be.)  However, I was surprised to hear that rather than being able to dress more casually themselves, they felt that the women should sharpen up their looks.  No more shorts, and no shoes with bare toes (which is a bit of a health issue, since we work in a hospital.)

This led to us discussing a recent capitulation in the dress code that allows us to start wearing jeans on Fridays.    It's only been in place for a few months, and apparently, too many people have taken jean days too far by dressing too casually.  The powers that be are giving serious thoughts to banning jeans again.  The loss of jean days got mixed reviews at the table, but what really surprised me is the bitterness about not being allowed to wear scrubs.

We are part of a large IT department in the health care field.  Our offices are in a building that is attached to a hospital, and many of us travel frequently to and around other health care facilities in the province.   In health care, IT staff are the only ones who can't/don't wear scrubs.  Dr's and nurses obviously wear scrubs, as do most clinicians.  Unit clerks, kitchen staff, mail staff and house keeping all wear scrubs too.  IT geeks?  We wear professional attire, and apparently we're pretty bitter about it.

Honestly, I thought I was the only one who secretly coveted the scrubs.  Apparently, I'm not alone.  It was unanimous around the table that, given the option, we'd all wear scrubs to work every day.  They'd be cheaper and lower maintenance for us all, and they'd be more equitable for both men and women.    More importantly, though, they'd be more comfortable.   They'd be like wearing our pajamas to work every day; and really,  how could having a daily pajama party at the office not be a good thing?

What?!?

Where else would a cat hang out?

Oh, well.  At least he's pointing in the right direction.

More roof changes...

The front of the house:

Not a poppy

Another peony plant is blooming:

And to prove that I did actually plant something that isn't pink,

Technically, those flowers on the right are "tangerine" coloured.