Oops!..not again??

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With apologies to Britney Spears, “DRAT!..I did it again”!!

I was trying to cut Darling Doggie’s toenails this afternoon when I accidentally got too close to the quick and made him bleed.

I HATE that!!

The breeder who sold him to me claims a dog’s paws are a long way from its heart, and it won’t bleed to death.

But I’d rather cut myself — any day — than hurt him!

So I tried to stop the blood by putting a paper towel around his paw.

Didn’t work.

Then I wet one of those styptic pencils and gently applied it to the bleeding nail (which happened to be his dew claw, or thumbnail).

It slowed a bit, thank heaven.

I think what helped the most was letting him lick his own wound.

There’s “magic” in a dog’s saliva, you know.

Kind of like when a little kid gets a “boo-boo” and Mom kisses it away.

I didn’t have the heart to nip the rest of his nails.

Not after that.

So I put the grooming bucket away for another day.

And gave him an especially nice treat for being such a good boy and putting up with me.

He’s trying to nap now, but my heart is still aching.

Isn’t it amazing dogs can forgive us so readily when we humans get all bent out of shape at the slightest slights and hold grudges, sometimes for years, at those around us??

By the way, if anybody has a suggestion for making this toenail-cutting job “friendlier” for me and Darling Doggie, we’d BOTH thank you!!

Don’t Worry — Spring is Coming!!

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I moved aside a big flower pot this afternoon and guess what I found?

Spring!!

Yep, a whole crop of daffodils and tulips have poked their noses through the ground (and the snow!), in preparation for their annual display of color.

It’s been a rough winter — everywhere. Mr. Groundhog (the one everybody listens to) says we’re going to have six more weeks of it. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of winter.

Tired of shoveling snow.

Tired of creeping along icy streets.

Tired of gloomy, gray days.

So let’s celebrate. Here’s the photo I took of the posies lurking beneath the warmth of a flower pot.

Spring is coming, and I can’t wait!

Daffodils and tulips in the snow

Bon Mardi Gras!

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My Favorite Domer called last night to announce the Mardi Gras King Cake his grandmother had overnighted him arrived in splendid condition and was a big hit!

Now for those unaware of the tradition, a King Cake actually started in Western Europe before Christianity took hold. Eventually, it morphed into a celebration of the Magi and was brought to Louisiana by French settlers in the 18th century.

The cake features an oval shape and tastes like coffee cake or a cinnamon roll — with lots of sugar!

Bakers take the dough, roll it out, maybe braid it, then twist the ends together. Sometimes they add blueberries, apples, or cream cheese as fillings. They then decorate the top with table sugar in Mardi Gras’s traditional colors of gold (power), purple (justice), and green (faith). Some cakes feature glazed icing on top as well.

Double sugar!

Now it wouldn’t be a true King Cake if it didn’t have a tiny plastic baby inside (Magi, Baby Jesus — get it?)

Usually, bakers place this inch-long baby near the twisted-together ends, and tradition holds that the person getting a piece of cake with the baby inside is the one “crowned” king or queen for the day and must host the next King Cake party the following week.

King Cakes are never served outside of Carnival Season, which runs from Twelfth Night (the Feast of the Epiphany, 12 days after Christmas) through Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday, the day before Christians observe Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent).

Hundreds of thousands of King Cakes are consumed during this five- or six-week period in New Orleans alone! And that doesn’t include the number of cakes shipped throughout the country for displaced sons and daughters of the Big Easy (or those just wanting to get in on the revelry!)

I can’t imagine anyone wanting to bake King Cakes themselves, not when there are so many bakeries proficient at making them, but for those seeking a new challenge, here’s one to try.

Good luck and Happy Mardi Gras!

The Tax Man Cometh

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It’s time to do my income taxes once again.

I don’t know about you, but I hate putting aside Web design or writing (or even just loafing!) to concentrate on credits and debits — even for a short period.

Must be the writer in me!

But tax preparation is a necessary nuisance — at least until somebody wises up and establishes a flat tax for everybody!

Late last year one of my friends showed me a software program that purports to help. You key in everything on a regular basis throughout the year, then when it’s time to visit your accountant (or do it yourself, if you’re into that), you print out a few pages and Voila! taxes done.

Simple, right?

Well, I bought the program, loaded it into the ‘puter, and fiddled with it a few times, but for the life of me, it just seems like going around your elbow to get to your thumb!

Now, maybe it was because I had a lot of other things on my plate at the time.

Maybe the “learning curve” was steeper than I anticipated.

Maybe it was just too cumbersome to enter a whole year’s worth of data at once.

That’s okay, I told myself. I’ll try again when the new year rolls around.

Here it is mid-February, and my data still isn’t entered.

And I want to be able to say, Voila!

So I’ll gather all my folders and notepads and receipts, separate them into a gazillion piles, add and re-add columns of numbers, and transfer everything to a single piece of paper for my accountant, just the way I always do.

It’s not pretty, but it works.

And I’m used to it.

And doggone it, I’d rather be doing something else anyway!

Procrastination

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I think Procrastination is one of a writer’s biggest banes!

Take the first three days of this week, for example.

I had every intention of getting to my computer early, making some insightful revisions to my opus-in-progress, and coming away feeling — well, if nothing else, satisfied that the day hadn’t been for naught.

But did I?

Nope.

On Monday, I “decided” I’d rather play. So I visited all my favorite blogs (hang in there, guys — you’re doing great!), played lots of mindless games (like Mahjong and Who wants to be a Millionaire), caught up with LOLCats and Sporkle, e-mailed everybody I could think of, cleaned out my e-mail boxes when that was done, etc. Now in my defense, I did do a bit of Web Design work and talked to a few clients, but writing — no.

Tuesday rolls around and again my best intentions went by the wayside. I sorted through some stuff and filed papers that had stacked up on my desk, did a bit of research for one of my Web Design clients, played with a new Web Design program, and started gathering stuff for my accountant to prepare my taxes. All of this was necessary, but did I write? No.

By Wednesday, I was feeling ever so guilty at neglecting my writing that I had to sneak off and go shopping! I told myself that the work still would be there when I returned and it was — only then, I couldn’t string sentences together coherently. My Muse must have decided to go shopping, too!

So what does that leave me? Three “wasted” days. Three days when I should have been writing (or at least revising). Three days that, no matter how hard I try, I’ll never get back again.

Sigh.

Today I’m “easing” back into my writing by posting this blog and catching up on correspondence. I’m absolving myself from stealing a mini-vacation from my writing and resolving to focus intently on the work at hand, now that the cobwebs have cleared from my brain.

I’m accepting my humanity and excusing myself with James Norman Hall’s philosophy, “Loafing is the most productive part of a writer’s life.”

Any thoughts you’d like to share on beating procrastination?

Another Ruined Meal

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Permit me to rant for a few minutes.

I just returned from what was supposed to be a nice, relaxing dinner out on a Friday night. It was anything BUT.

First off, for some reason unknown to me, everybody and his brother chose the same restaurant. After waiting for a table to be cleared, we sat down to find we were surrounded by families with little kids.

Kids who couldn’t sit still. Kids who hollered and tossed food on the floor. Kids whose parents thought they were oh-so-cute.

Then I went to the restroom to wash my hands and found the door locked.

Locked.

This is a restroom with private stalls, not a one-toilet affair.

Who needs to lock the door when others could use the facilities and leave?

So we get our salads and try to eat amid all this confusion — people coming in and going out, busboys pushing cleanup carts down the aisles, loud talking, well, you get the idea.

A madhouse.

Just as our food arrives, a young dad at a table near us announces to everybody within earshot that the two kids with him have strep throat.

Strep throat, mind you.

Not a mere sore throat or cold.

Strep throat.

Now the interwebs say strep throat is contagious and caused by a bacteria. They also say people with strep throat need to be on antibiotics and should STAY HOME.

What part of that didn’t these idiots get??

Needless to say, my dinner was ruined, and we wasted good money for nothing, as I left most of my food untouched on the plate in an effort to get out of there FAST.

And the checkout guy dared to ask me how my dinner was.

Next time, I guess I’ll just stay home and eat kibbles with my Sheltie!

In Praise of Technology

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I’ve been a Web Designer for going-on nine years now, and it never ceases to amaze me when I read statistics on worldwide yearly Internet usage.

A blog by the folks at Royal Pingdom says 47 million Web sites were added last year alone, bringing the total number of Web sites to 234 million. Doesn’t that just boggle your mind??

Compare it to 1997, when there were less than 500,000 Web sites around the world — oh, and Google, YouTube, Facebook, and the iPod didn’t even exist!

We’ve become so used to technology today that it’s hard to imagine our world without it.

We go on vacation, but take our laptops so we can check e-mail. We punch in our destinations on a GPS so we won’t get lost. We use “windshield time” stuck in traffic to call family or friends on our cell phones, and we wouldn’t think of setting a tee-time without checking the Internet for weather conditions.

As of September 2009, there were 1.73 billion Internet users worldwide; in addition, there were 126 million blogs on the Internet, 350 million people on Facebook,  30 billion photos uploaded to Facebook per year, and 90 trillion e-mails sent last year alone!

Now Apple has unveiled an iPad tablet computer, which I’m sure the company hopes will become the coolest thing since sliced bread.

Available beginning in March (for at least $499, depending on which version you get), the iPad comes with a touch screen and is designed so you can play games, read e-books, connect to the Internet, watch movies, and so on.

Wonder what the future will bring?

Computer shopping

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My mom got the bright idea she needs a new computer.

Keep in mind, this is a woman who’d much prefer curling up in bed with a book — not a Kindle, not a Sony Reader — a traditional book, with (preferably!) hard cover and paper pages.

So she started browsing the ads for the best “deal.”

She looked in the stores, too, and talked to some of the sales associates, trying to act as if she knew what they meant when they spoke of RAM, hard drive, hardware, software, wireless routers, and all that.

Here’s the thing — she didn’t have a clue!

Nevertheless, Christmas money was burning a hole in her pocket, and she had to find a way to stop it. Purchasing a computer, she thought, would satisfy her need to spend AND give her something new to learn.

(Everybody knows you have to learn new stuff on a regular basis if you want to ward off Alzheimer’s!)

Finally, after much on again-off again debate, she settled on a PC.

Not a laptop, mind you. A desktop. You see, she already had a monitor she was comfortable with, as well as a keyboard and a mouse, so why not “recycle” them into new life?

We had the tech at the store remove the wireless adapter card from the ancient PC we were recycling, and it became my job to reinstall it on the new PC.

I’m not a computer tech, OK? I’m a Web Designer and while I’ve opened up several computers in my day, that’s not my specialty. Nevertheless, I opened ‘er up and tried to find the right slot for the adapter card.

Three phone calls to the tech later, I admit defeat.

So we hauled the entire thing back to the store, where I watched another tech slip in the card — right where I thought it should go! Reminded to install the corresponding program via CD, we returned home, where I looked — to no avail! — for the disc.

Turns out, mom had tossed it out in one of her cleaning frenzies.

Back to the store goes the PC — only this time, she decided she’d rather have a laptop after all!

You just can’t please some people.

Dog Obedience

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Everybody knows one of the first things you’re supposed to teach a dog is how to come when called.

It’s hard to do that when you have a fenced backyard and never take your pooch outside the yard off-lead.

Sure, I realize the “Come here” lesson could save my dog’s life one day; at the very least, it could save me a lot of frustration and time.

But I failed to insist my Sheltie learn it, and I paid for it yesterday.

We’ve been having lots of wet weather — melting snows, freezing fogs, etc. — and the backyard, frankly, looks like a muddy mess. We normally have the spaces between our shrubs covered over with mulch, but mulch doesn’t last forever. You have to keep adding it, or you wind up with bare spots — that become wet dirt.

And wet dirt sticks to puppy paws and fur.

Yesterday, my Sheltie went outside and found all sorts of interesting things to do. He chased birds and squirrels, he raced from one corner to another, he danced through the melting snow, AND he refused to come in when I called him.

I watched as his fur became filthier and his white paws became a nasty shade of brown, yet there was nothing I could say or do to convince him to give up his fun.

Eventually, we lured him inside with a cookie. Then I began the lengthy process of throwing him in the bathtub, washing him down, shampooing, blow-drying, and brushing his fur.

None of which had been on my planning schedule, of course!

So I’ve done a bit of research on this “Come here” command and guess what? I’m as guilty as the next person for actually teaching my dog that “fun times” don’t include me!

Yikes, what have I done?

According to Perfect Paws, my Sheltie thinks:

1) I’m ruining his fun by calling him in, or

2) I’m going to punish him for turning into a mud-dog

Perfect Paws advises that I should never let my dog off-lead (and I suppose this includes his own backyard) unless and until he can reliably come when called.

I have my work cut out for me — he’s become lazy and spoiled, and I can just imagine him looking at me and saying, “You want me to work for a kibble, when all I have to do is look cute and somebody will feed me people-food?”

It promises to be a fun-filled experience.

Where would we be without friends?

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One of my writing friends from Cincy suggested I try something called a neti (or netti) pot for my sinuses.

Having never heard of such a thing, I was skeptical. I mean, I use “ocean spray” or saline on a daily basis, as recommended by my doctor, but a neti pot?

Visions of the hookah pipe scene from “Star Wars” flashed before my mind, and I could imagine how everybody in my small town would carry tales if they heard I was into something like that!

But Kathy doesn’t seem the type for extreme weirdness; in fact, she’s a nurse. Never one to leap before looking, I did a bit of research on neti pots and learned nasal cleansing originated thousands of years ago in India.

Wow, I thought, they must be safe, or I’d have read of somebody dying after using one.

Unless there’s a mass neti pot conspiracy, which I doubt!

According to WebMD, research shows neti pots really do work to thin mucus from the nasal passages. And users all over the Web swear by them as a way to lessen congestion and sinus pain.

But how hard is it to learn how to use one?

It’s actually fairly simple. You mix some specially-made neti pot salt with lukewarm tap water. Then you place the end of the neti pot into your upper nostril, lean over your sink, and let the saline flow out the lower one. Repeat on the other side, turning your head in the opposite direction.

Hmm, I could do that.

But where could I find this “miraculous” contraption?

Back to the Internet, which listed a whole bunch of places, including some drug stores we have right here in town!

I went to my Walgreen’s, bought a neti pot (which looks kind of like Aladdin’s lamp), and gave it a try.

Wonder of wonders, it worked!

I can breathe from both nostrils again!

Wow!

Remember, you’re never too old to learn a new trick — thanks, Kathy!