Un-Meet Arleigh

Fortunately, with dogs (unlike children), you can always give them back if it doesn't work out the way you expected. John and I spoke about it for about 2 hours tonight and came to the realization that two dogs just wasn't in the cards for us right now in our lives. Arleigh is a handful and is not nearly as intelligent as Bailey. It's very hard to train a dog that has no concept of listening skills or consequences. In fact, every time we'd tell him "no", Bailey would run over and bark to enforce what we were telling him... it was almost as if Bailey knew we weren't getting through to him!

At any rate, the shelter has been very supportive and we'll be bringing him back tomorrow.

It just wasn't meant to be, I guess.

Meet Arleigh

Well, as all of our friends are now entering the phase in their lives where they are having 2 children, John and I decided to get on the bandwagon and adopt our second "child" as well. Meet Arleigh. He arrived home today, 8 months, 39 pounds, 0 ounces.

3rd Grade Racism

I'm sure a lot of you have heard of this widely known 3rd grade experiment conducted by a teacher in the 1970s to help her class learn what it feels like to be discriminated against. I was very pleased to recently find out that Frontline is posting more and more of its episodes online, to include this famous airing.

If you have an extra 45 minutes, I highly recommend watching it.

The Dog and The Bounty Hunter

So I was walking Bailey this morning when a guy in a GTO drove up to me and asked me for directions. (Poor guy -- he had no clue that I am direction challenged). He was trying to get to one of the millions of South Riding streets and I had no idea how to help him. I finally asked him if he had a cell phone so he could call the person he was trying to meet. He then explained that he was a bounty hunter and was looking for a fugitive and giving the guy advanced warning wasn't the best of ideas.

I'm not sure why, but that made my day (although it should have skeeved me out that there was a fugitive in my neighborhood).

First Veggie of the Summer

I planted yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers and pumpkins this year in my backyard. This was the first zucchini I picked the other day -- not a bad size!

Congrats Em and Jim!

Cogitate

While getting ready for work this morning, I was watching Fox News and they were showing the unveiling of the new White House Press Room. President Bush was there for the ribbon cutting and was joking around with the press about various things. During the briefing, he used the word, "cogitate". I had never heard this word before so I decided to look it up on dictionary.com to see if it was a real word or a "Bushism". Lo and behold, it's a real word! I didn't realize Bush used those!

I wonder if the press will say anything about it...

From the Mouths of Babes...

My Mom just sent me this email regarding my 8 year old nephew:

Riding to Mass yesterday Jacob wanted to know if when we go back home if he could invite Aunt Michelle over to the house. I told him you are a working woman and have only two days off and it was so generous of you to take them to her house for games, McDonalds and a visit with friends. I told him you have chores to do, clean your house, weed, take care of Bailey, and help Uncle John.

He said NO, he had spent the night at your house and you don't have a lot to do . "After you eat breakfast you load the dish washer then you play video games!"

He said he saw you with his own eyes!

Love mom

The July 4th Cheese Fry Challenge -- Documented

John and I spent our July 4th at Outback watching our friends single handedly* eat a plate of layered cheese fries. Then we went to the parking lot and watched the Vienna fireworks.

Here are timelines of the two finishers:

MIKEY

JOE

*With the exception that Joe did share one or two fries with Laura and Maggie