Early to Rise

6:30 AM: Wake-up to begin new dog routine. After an interesting chat with the trainer I learned two things: we have unwittingly been putting Mr. Jones in harm's way by letting him devour his rawhide bones. Ok, for those of you smirking and saying . . . "well, no shit!" just keep it to yourself. I feel like a big enough dumb ass as it is. Gees. Cats were never this fucking complicated for me. Anyway, I also discovered we haven't been feeding him correctly (apparently, this has to do with dominance, hierarchy, etc) so as pack leader I cleared out the cats this morning and let him eat breakfast at 6:40. And, by god, he munched and munched.

7:00 AM: Dog back on leash, coffee in hand, I march back to the bedroom so he can "digest" and I can lay back down and zone out watching "Washington Journal" on C-Span. I typically catch this show on the weekends, but I enjoyed it a great deal this morning because they were discussing Bush's "surprise" visit to Iraq. It's interesting (and despicable) that some of his minions claimed the 3 Guantanamo suicides were a "PR" stunt last week, but viewed his trip to Iraq as "courageous" and "daring" (um, they never let him in a car, he's in the most fortified zone of the country, and he's in and out within 5 hours) and get ruffled if you dare call it a PR move to help the Republicans in time for the mid-term elections. Sorry for the run-on sentence . . . too tired to rephrase. Anyway, some wacko called in and said he thought George Bush was a "wimp" just like his father and instructed people to google his name along with someone else to learn about his "gay" relationship!! What the fuck? It was funny to see the host squrim, thank the nutbar for his "commentary", and cut him off.

8:30 AM: Time for a brisk, 2 mile walk at Smith's favorite park.

9:15 AM: Breakfast (a delicious egg and cheese sandwich on english muffin).

9:30 AM: Deal with the dreaded gas weed-eater. Oh, how I hate small engines that won't start when you want them to!! Being a chick sucks for these reasons . . .after fixing its string, filling it with gas, and pushing the choke button 18 times, vrooom! My arm is now killing me from all of my weed whacking. I'll finish tomorrow--but as usual, I had to stop because we are now out of string.

10-ish: Destroy mushroom that was threatening to take over front yard. Seriously, that shroom sprung up after 6 days of solid rain last week. Fuck. I started to feel embarrassed by it because I could spot it down the road while driving. It took a shovel and filled a garbage bag to destroy--but mushroom be damned!

I've lost track of time: Mow an acre of grass and pray I have enough gas. My John Deere did not fail me! How I love our riding lawn mower. I should write a blog just about it one day . . .

12:30-ish: Hand weed our garden. Perhaps the most despicable outdoor chore I have to do. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to get every, single blade of grass and clump of clover out of there, but after 30 minutes I'm spent. Whatever. There are no major weeds choking the garden and I can walk down the rows with ease--seems good enough for me.

1:00 PM: Rest, relax, blog. I need to work on a document for school that's due Friday, and I need to hit the grocery store (yay, our local store has opened up, so it's just around the corner) for some grub this evening. Not sure if either will get accomplished.

Until tomorrow . . . I'm out.