While the Chop and I love our new house, the dog is not adjusting well, lol. The people at her daycare say it’s behavioral… basically she’s a teenager who has been moved away from her friends and she’s acting out. How, you might wonder, does a dog act out? She defecates in the basement.

Yeah. It’s awesome. I found it the morning the cleaners were coming to clean the basement carpets, so fortunately I got it picked up, sopped up (pee and poo, fabulous) and was waiting for the carpet cleaners to do their thing all day. They did and the carpet looked great.

I scolded her, the Chop and I watched her like a hawk, we tried to close off the basement and yet, last night, she managed to sneak down and pee down there again. Deep sigh. Upstairs is all hardwoods, but the basement is finished with carpet and none of my animals have ever had carpet in the house, so maybe that’s part of it? I dunno.

For now we’ve invested in a door stop to allow only the cats downstairs and are hoping she quits being a shit biscuit soon. Until then, she has to be crated when we are gone and at night. Idiot teenager!

David Sedaris is one of my favorite authors, so when I heard his lecture series was coming to town I was very excited. Chop got tickets and after a tasty dinner of sushi (and macaroni and cheese, lol), we headed to see him.

When we got there and sat down, we noticed an usher was moving people up and he eventually came over to us and said, “We can move you up to row 13, if you’d like to come with me.”

We weren’t that far back, but 13 moved us up about 20 rows, and who’s going to turn that down? Not us.

Unfortunately, it turns out that greed like that comes with a price. And our price was the most annoying couple on the face of this earth (I SWEAR TO GOD). It wasn’t the oft repeating of his final phrases in his monologues… no, instead it was the piercing, shrieking laughter that made me contemplate homicide. The man, in Chop’s opinion was worse, but the woman was hitting such high notes that now, two hours, vodka and two Tylenol later, I still have a headache.

I finally decided I couldn’t take it anymore and so we decided to move back to our original seats (or any seat far, far away from them). We waited for a break (one story to the next), but unfortunately moving meant saying excuse me to five college students who didn’t get up or move. No, instead they tried to scrunch up their legs.

And alright, the girls were waif-like and so that wasn’t an issue, but the guys were probably Chop’s size and “scrunching” up their knees allotted MAYBE one extra inch of space to move by them. So we both proceeded to say excuse me, step all over them (I almost fell over as I do not have the leg span of Chop) and finally struggle into the aisle.

At this point now I was considering mass homicide. (You go to jail either way, might as well make it count.)

His talk ended about 30 minutes later, and sitting at the far back of the theatre, I realized that proximity to someone reading is not that important, as long as the microphone is turned up high.

My boss emailed me a link she found on a forum today: http://notalwaysright.com. It’s totally hilarious, especially since she (someone who is completely un-funny) sent it to me.

My dryer crapped out on me on Monday. Repair guy came, said it was the motor, and will be back tomorrow to fix it and take $360 (WTF). I now have two loads of wet clothes moldering in the washer. Awesome.

We have put down a deposit for the location and the photographer and chosen most of the menu for the wedding.. progress! Unfortunately I still have no idea what I’m going to wear and am stumped on the design of the wedding site. How hard can it be? VERY, FREAKING HARD.

The Chop is working late again tonight, so the dog is currently sitting at the door, making sad, whiny pitiful sounds. Where is Daddy? Why isn’t he here? I DON’T LIKE YOU AS MUCH AS HIM. The feeling is mutual goob.

About a month ago we found out that the best breakfast place in the area had closed and it’s unclear whether they’ll open again. It’s a crazy story: the renter (owner of the breakfast place downstairs) apparently had issues with the landlord (owner of the dinner place upstairs). The renter had been planning to move to a new location down the street, but was having trouble with getting a liquor license and zoning from the town. But then the renter allegedly ran over the landlord’s King Charles Spaniel “accidentally” and didn’t realize she had done that and drove away (the dog died). She claimed she didn’t hear it or feel it (but she was in a Prius… a silent, small car… wouldn’t you think you’d feel it?), I guess that compounded with all sorts of other things, and the next thing you know, their lease wasn’t renewed.

The week we got back from vacation, we heard another of our favorite spots had closed. It appears now they might be reopening in a few weeks, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.

Last night we headed to another fav and yep, closed. They claim they’ll be open in two weeks.

This morning we drove to get coffee and cars were at a small restaurant that had opened last summer (seasonal, so it’s been closed now for almost 6 months). We stopped to ask when they were opening, and yup, they’re closed permanently. Didn’t make enough money last year, and just can’t take the risk in this economy.

Oh and did I mention my company (who had told us in December there would be a) no bonuses in 2009 and b) no 401K match, among other things), called everyone into their office (and some of us on the phone) and said that in order for them to survive, everyone was getting a 15% pay cut? Across the board, no fighting it, it starts on Monday.

GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING RECESSION.

I woke up this morning to the lovely sound of chainsaws… and it continued until 2PM. Granted they also brought in a backhoe and a tree grinder (chopper? thing they crush shit in?), so really it was a wondrous cacophony of noise that I got to work with today. And yes, it was as crappy as it sounds.

We’ve been back over a week now—I still wish I was there, the Chop just wishes he wasn’t going in to work, lol. We had discussed (for the past several months) eloping in Ireland—getting it out of the way in a gorgeous country. Why not, right? Sadly my mom is dead set on having an actual wedding, and between her normal level of craziness and the menopause, I had to give in. Sigh.

I’ve finally come out of the sheer mountain of work that awaited me when I got home—for more fun I caught some sort of nasty cold on the flight—and now I’m back to wedding plans and work. No fun.

Seriously New England? A Nor’easter? The NIGHT I AM SUPPOSED TO LEAVE?!

As if the buckets of snow already this year weren’t enough, now it has to happen when I’m trying to catch a plane. It’s falling pretty thick where we are, with about an inch on the ground already, but I swear to god, I am leaving this country tonight!

The Chop is starting to get sick, every single client we have has decided to send buckets of work before we go out of town (TODAY—three days before we leave) and Ireland is currently facing a huge worker’s strike.

We picked SUCH an awesome time to go on vacation. Sigh.

Yesterday my cat Ellie decided to kamikaze off the banister at the top of the stairwell. She fell with a shirt that was on the railing, and managed to twist her front leg. She was limping and her leg looked odd, so off we rushed to the vet. After waiting 30 minutes, and a 30 minute exam where she cried, hissed and struggled, the vet determined that she has a bad sprain. She determined that I am a bad mommy and should be avoided at all costs. Dandy.

I brought her back home, packed in a flurry, didn’t finish half the work I was planning too and left the house an hour behind.

We’re in Maine this weekend, checking out the venue, meeting a caterer and the photographer and hoping to solidify most of the plans for the wedding. We’ll see how well that goes, lol.

Last night I stuck dinner in the oven and went back to the living room to work. A few minutes later, some odd noises were coming from the kitchen and the dog and I both sighed and I yelled at Ellie (her normal thing is to knock stuff off counters and be generally annoying). Finally it got so loud the dog got up and I walked into the kitchen… to see the oven aflame.

Part of the heating element on the bottom had melted off and was burning the oven. I flipped it off, pulled open the oven, grabbed the pan and slammed the oven shut. Which was a good thing, because the element was popping and shooting sparks (apparently you should never open an oven if there is some bit of metal burning—yeah, I know, you already knew that. Shut up. If your dinner was in there you’d pull it out too!).

At this point we’re thinking it might be a short, but we’ll spend tomorrow calling oven repair people (is the Maytag man available?) and see if someone can come out and fix it. Anyone ever had this sort of problem? ‘Cause I really don’t want to have to replace the oven, lol.

And, here you go, your moment of zen (yeah I stole that, deal!): possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen. A newborn Madagascar lemur… and his stuffed animal.

Our driveway is probably a little less than a quarter mile long, but with the unbelievably cold weather (15 degrees right now—high of 9 tomorrow) and the lovely two inches of ice that have formed on the ground, I suggested I drive the Chop up the driveway to put out the trash and recycling.

Great idea, all around.

Except for when I slipped on the ice getting into my car and landed on my back. I believe I have an ice burn on my hand, my elbow is killing me and now I have pain in my lower back. For more fun, I’m sure I’ll have some nice bruises on my ass tomorrow.

Awesome. Love this weather.