Author Archives: LA Blogger Gal

He Did It!!

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Yay for my little guy! He passed his interview. Personally, I think he wowed the behavior gal by loving her to death. He can be charming like that. From what I saw on the webcam he seemed to do okay with the other dogs. We’re going to drop him off for daycare for a couple of hours later this week to make sure he gets more comfortable with being around that many dogs.

I did learn that on a webcam, well, he looks just like every other small black dog. I only knew it was him because all the other dogs were swarmed about him and the behavior lady was right there next to him. So I guess when we leave him, we’ll leave him with a bandanna so we’ll be able to recognize him quickly.

Even that little time he was there must have tired him out some. He’s been lounging about all day. More than usual. So I’m sure if he’s comfortable and playing, he’ll be even more tuckered. And this is good to know.

So once we get back from our vacations, he can look like this…

How Much is that Doggie in the Mirror

Today is the Day

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Later today the little guy goes for his doggy sleepaway camp interview. I’m so nervous. I was asked over dinner last night if I was one of those dog moms. You know, the way over the top kind of moms? I might have been slightly offended, but then I realized that no, I’m honestly not one of those moms.

I think I’m just nervous because well, I want this to work. This place seems cool and is much more fun and accommodating compared to our regular boarder. At his regular place, he just has an outdoor run and doesn’t really get to socialize with any other dogs and I doubt the owner goes outside to visit all that much. But, he loves it there. He goes crazy as soon as we turn the corner and is so happy and jumpy when the owner opens the door. But his regular place is really, really strict about pick up and drop off times (between 8:00 and 9:00 AM only!). And well, those of you that know me, know that that’s way too early for us, but we do it.

This new place is open 9:00 to 9:00. It’s free reign with crazy pups everywhere. It’s staffed 24-hours so there’s always a human looking over things. It’s half indoors and half outdoors – with misters when it gets hot and heat when it gets cold (this is huge since his old place is just outdoors with nothing and well we typically have over 100 degree summers and our winter nights can get down in the 30’s). They also have webcams where you can check out your little one to see what’s going on – 24 hours. And if you were one of those moms (or quite possibly in this case, dads), you can call and they’ll get your little one and bring him to the phone. How fun is that?!?!

So yeah, we’re really hoping he does well at his interview. I think this would be a much more enjoyable experience for him. Especially when we’re gone to Ireland in November. I just hope and pray he doesn’t snap at anyone while he’s there. Feel free to send some good vibes our way around 2:00PM Pacific time.

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Okay, enough of that. The past couple of days I’ve been on a bit of a cleaning kick. First my closet and a couple of drawers. Then the back room/office (we’ve since been drinking us some wine!) And yesterday it was the bathroom. I finally cleaned the glass doors in the shower. Man, what a huge difference that makes! I also finally managed to vacuum. I’d been putting it off because I kept telling myself that I was going to get a cleaning lady (I still am, at some point). But I just couldn’t take it any more. I won’t freak you out by telling you just how full the Dyson canister was with cat hair – just remember it’s shedding season. But really, things look quite lovely! I think today I might even go on stain patrol in the living room.

Today’s focus will be on stopping my eyes from this damn allergy-induced tearing; shaking what seems to be a migraine before it evolves; writing up some blog posts for my site (though I can’t seem to think of any particular topics right now – any suggestions?); writing a professional review for a friend that’s up for an entreprenurial award; sending out some author interview questions; and doing some more basic cleaning here in the office. Here’s hoping that it all goes as planned.

Those Dog Days

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While I could be addressing our early, unseasonable heat wave (we’ve been in the 90’s the past couple of days) I’m really just talking about the pupster. I’ve got to take him out today to get his shots updated and pick up some flea meds for the pupster and the kitkat.

You see, the little guy has his interview tomorrow with the folks at his soon-to-be doggy sleepaway camp. We’ve decided to reach out and try a new place for our upcoming Memorial Day weekend to Sonoma trip. But before you can leave your dog in a free-range facility, he needs to go through an extensive interview process. I’m actually quite nervous.

While he has a great knowledge of many commands, well, we’ve all gotten lazy here and haven’t really enforced the whole single command thing. So while he knows exactly what “sit” means, he’ll just look at you like you’re crazy instead of just sitting his butt down. Though more often, if you have a treat in hand, he skips “sit” and goes right to “beg”. Then of course, there’s “down” – man, as a pup in class he was the example of how to break your dog and teach him who is in charge (he peed he got so scared). So to this day, if you say “down”, he’ll talk back. Eventually, he’ll get down, but not after some complaining and it will be totally half-assed. Funny thing, if he’s in bed or on the couch, he will totally do “down” the first time you ask, and even understands “head down”. But on the floor, he hates it.

So do you think they’ll be impressed that his best command is “no squeak”? I mean, he loves those squeaky toys and they drive me crazy. So he knows when we say “no squeak” that he drops it and grabs a silent toy instead. It’s actually pretty cute to see. But I’m guessing it’s not an official command so it probably won’t win him any points, huh?

Oh well, I guess I’ll just continue to work with him. I have until 2:00PM tomorrow to get him to listen on the first command. It could happen. I mean, if he wasn’t so damn contrary – let’s home they welcome contrary at their facility.

Imagine this little face being the model for contrary pups back in his school days…

My Griffin.JPG

Songs Birds Serenade Us to Sleep

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We noticed it for the first time last night, beautiful bird songs after we turned off SNL.  Funny thing, we all noticed it at once, including the boys.  Then they started up again tonight around 11:30 PM.  Again, both boys lifted their heads to listen and then looked to us as if to say “huh? What’s that?”

See, we don’t even have song birds during the day. We have pigeons.  We have crows.  From time to time we even have ducks and doves.  Oh and once I saw a hawk or a falcon or some bird eating prey in our front yard (we’re close enough to the mountains).  But nope, no song birds here.  At least until now, that is.

I don’t know what made it so sudden.  I don’t know why we’ve never heard them before.  But I will say, it’s the most amazing and peaceful sound – something to be thankful for.  The calls change up and I can’t really tell if there’s more than one or just one looking for their mate.  But either way, it’s beautiful.  And yet another thing to love about living in SoCal (in NM, we had roadrunners and well, they didn’t even say “meepmeep”).

Wishing you all beautiful songs to serenade you to sleep or equally beautiful songs to wake you each day…

Cleaning the Office…Finally

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This was a long time in the works here. Besides the piles of boxes of wine, there was also the piles of papers that needed to be shredded. On top of all of that, there’s still the fact that I need to empty out last year’s files and actually file this year’s files.

Did I mention the bags full of swag? There’s still stuff from the husband’s trip to SXSW both last year and this year. And NAMM. And the leftover Grammy week stuff that was passed on to me. Yes, we have bags of free shit just lying around. Don’t be too impressed, since most of it (like SXSW & NAMM is mostly crappy CDs and press-related stuff). But um, there’s, well, bags full of upcoming Christmas gifts lying around as well since I shop all year for the friends that I know well (and again, the swag that I tell myself I’m saving for Christmas gifts).

Which of course leads us to the mass amounts of CDs that we have in this house. My husband can get anywhere from 5-15 CDs a week between here and his office. Complete with their PR packet. The majority of them sit around unopened. Sometimes we luck out and find a band that the nieces or nephews are into (about 6 or so months after the CD has been lying about collecting dust) and we can pass it along. Most of the time, not so lucky. It sits. And sits some more collecting dust. Eventually, it gets moved into the office to join the other piles of dusty CDs. Yeah, that’s the plan – not the most effective plan, mind you.

Let’s not forget the guitars. I believe he has six lying around. Granted, due to the crazy old lady that lives next door he can barely plug in the electric ones, but that doesn’t stop him too much. At least there’s only one broken one in the office. That one I could squeeze in the out of the way space between the bookshelf and the wine rack. How do you ladies with kids manage?? Seriously.

Oh yeah, and then there are the books. Books that I need to ship out to contest winners. Books that I still need to read so that I can interview the author for my site. Books that I still need to give away. Books that I’ve read. Books that I’ve yet to read. The books the husband is using. The books he no longer needs and just wants me to get rid of. Well, just books, piles of books (in all the rooms, but more so here in the office).

But back to the issue at hand. Both yesterday and today, the focus has been on cleaning up this back room already. I’m totally clearing away the clutter to open the channels and energy to bring us something more fun, exciting and fulfilling than, well, clutter and junk. I figure if I can get this room into shape, it will be a lot easier to keep things clean down the road (especially when I get the cleaning lady). I have high hopes for us.

Between cleaning out my closet & drawers, cleaning up the rest of the living spaces and now the office…hoorah!  I’m opening the door wide open for something amazing to come along, I tell ya.  So watch this space because I’m sure it’s going to be BIG (and good…very, very good!) 😉

Is There Such a Thing As Too Much Wine?

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Too Much Wine?

I only ask because, well, as I finally got around to cleaning out the office, I realized that we have 64 bottles in the rack there, three more cases (18 if you’re keeping count) and the four more I just put in the fridge.  And well, I could be wrong, but damn that sure seems like a LOT of wine.  Make that a lot of RED wine since nearly everything in the rack is red.

I can dump a couple of bottles tomorrow at a friend’s “bring a bottle” birthday party.  But um, I’m kind of concerned since we’re heading up to Sonoma over Memorial Day weekend.  It’s hard to taste and not buy.  If only I had some housewarmings in my future!

I think the goal tonight is to find restaurant that does BYOB 😉

Question For My Bookish Friends…

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I recently bought a biz book.  I’ve tried reading it, but seriously, it keeps putting me to sleep.  I’m only on page 34 and I’ve tried in earnest, to read this book like 10 times already.  Dull, dull, dull.  Which actually surprised me since I found it to be such an interesting topic during his NPR interview that we headed out to the local bookstore that day to buy it (it was wasn’t yet in stock).

So I’m thinking of returning it.  Since it’s a biz book, I still have the receipt.  It’s not a matter of reading it  and then trying to return it.  I buy (and read) a lot of books, so I’ll more than likely be making an exchange right then and there.  But I wonder, have any of you you ever returned a book that turns out just wasn’t for you?

Why Do We Wear Belts? And Other Random Thoughts

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I bought one for the first time last week.  My girlfriend kept giving me a hard time for my (brand new) jeans being too big and my always pulling them up.  So I figured what the hell, I’ll buy a belt.  Um…why?  I mean I love that my jeans now stay up and joy of joy, they don’t drag on the floor any more.  But what’s the point if my belt keeps riding above the loops of the jeans and sticks to me?  I’ve already loosened it as much as I can.  Any looser and well, no need for the belt.  I just don’t really get it, but oh well.

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Onto the next topic…crazies on the road!  No really, each time I went out today, some crazy driver did something stupid or totally inconsiderate.

At the farmer’s market, all these big SUVs that barely missed scrapting the ceiling of the parking garages would crawl like a snail through the garage, taking forever.  The would inch over the speed bumps, hanging out their windows hoping they won’t scrape the ceiling.  Maybe they shouldn’t park in parking garages then.  And when I finally did manage to find a parking space, I have to pass it by since some SUV took up all of their space and some of the space next to them to park their monstrosity so it’s not like I could park after all.

At the grocery store, same weirdness.  First, some kid on a bike, talking on a cell phone total whizzes by completely disregarding the 4-way stops that the we all have to stop for.  So you go to make your turn, at your turn, only to have this kid, not paying attention, yammering away on the phone, blow by so you have to slam on your breaks.

Then when it’s finally time to park, I pull into the lane, empty spaces on both sides.  The gal in front of me turns WIDE making me think that she’s going to park her itty bitty car on the right side, so I wait to park on the left side.  She starts waving for me to go around…hello, spots on both sides here, I’ve got on a blinker, either way, I wouldn’t be going around.  I motion that I’m taking the spot on the left so I can’t go around, she pulls up, then proceeds to back into the space on the left.  What?!?  Two spots, wide open on the other side, and yet she still feels the need to swing all the way, nearly into the spot only to back into a space on the left.  Whatever.  I was parked and out of my car before she even managed to finish parking.

On the way home, some chick decides not to take the turn on the yellow and sit through the red.  That’s fine, no need to risk a ticket or whatever.  But she doesn’t even pull up to the line.  She’s half a car length away.  I toot my horn and motion for her to move up so that I can make the right on red (totally legal).  Nothing.  I wait a minute and toot again.  Again, nothing.  One more toot, the passenger in the backseat turns to look at me, I motion to move up, I’m already half into the turn lane so it’s not like they don’t know what’s going on.  Again, nothing.  I give up.  Right before the light changes, she finally pulls up to the line and I pass to make my turn.  The woman is glaring at me.  What?!?

So yeah, seems like there just might be some crazy, inconsiderate people on the road today. Don’t even get me started on our wacky neighbors and how little they understand the basics of street parking.

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And today’s much happier and final topic…I found workshop space!  I kept telling myself that since things with LWL took off so quickly and without my thought behind the process (it’s all about timing), that I was going to spend the month of May figuring how to get more business.  In particular, how to find the right space to teach workshops.  Well, I seem to have lucked out yesterday and found a whole slew of affordable (and local) spaces.  Can’t wait!  Things are really beginning to take off and I’m loving that feeling.