Nate introduced me to a beautiful breed of dog the other day. It is called a Boerboel, and it is a type of mastiff. The males can grow to be 150-200 pounds, but they don’t have a lot of the health problems many big dogs have because it is a newer breed, not so inbred yet.

I was reading online to see if there were any rescue groups around here. I can’t afford to get a dog yet, nor do I have the room at my house (big house, tiny yard), but I like to know these things. I found this listing on Petfinder.com:

I’d like to introduce you to Lucy, a 2 year old spayed female African Boerboel/Mastiff mix that I rescued from the Manhattan Shelter. She was surrendered there by her previous family because they said she was too big. I know….did they NOT understand the term “mastiff”?? Sometimes I just bang my head against the wall in utter frustration. Feel free to join me. ANYWAY, despite what they said about her size, Lucy is actually fairly typical female Boerboel size at 95-100 pounds, although she needs to develop some muscle mass to fill her out more. Lucy is currently being fostered by a trainer that I use in west of Albany, NY. Not only is she loving and affectionate to people that she knows, she is very well mannered, in their home, knowing all her basic commands including Sit, Down, Stay, Paw and Come. She also heals well on a leash and does great in the car. Lucy is 100% housebroken. She sleeps each night on a dog bed in their bedroom. Lucy is fine with dog savvy cats. She is a dominant female so would do best as an only dog or with a large submissive male. Lucy is not good with small dogs so will need a home without them. Lucy is very true to the Boerboel breed characteristics (please read thoroughly about them.) She is protective of her home and devoted to her family. Because of that, she needs a home that is not high traffic with strange people coming and going, and she needs a strong leader to manage her natural instincts. She would do best with a home that has a fenced in backyard so that she can play and exercise freely while staying safe. We have not yet had the opportunity to interact Lucy with children, so at this point we feel children over 10 are the best match. I would like to place Lucy into a home with mastiff experience, as she is not for the first time mastiff owner. If you would like to make Lucy a member of your family and home, then please visit our website and fill out an application, making it to my attention (Nanette.) Lucy is spayed, has been updated on her vaccinations and heartworm tested (neg) as well as microchipped.

It’s animal snobs like this who just piss me off. Yes, the original family should have done more research, but maybe they knew how big the dog was going to get, they just overestimated their ability to care for a dog that size. Maybe they got laid off and had to move from a 3 bedroom house in the suburbs to a small apartment in the city, to save on their commute. It’s not always ignorance.

I just get frustrated with these animal shelter people. They are always mean, whether you’re surrendering an animal or adopting one. They assume they know everything there is to know about everything. Ugh.

Can’t shake this dream. Maybe writing it down will get it out of my head. One of those dreams where after you wake up, everything you see reminds you of it and makes your stomach do flips.

Dreamed I died, then was reincarnated. Remembered everything from my previous life, even though I was just a baby. Remember dreaming about being born. That was weird. Then jumped ahead to being about 5. Realized that my new mother was actually related to me in my old life … a neice, maybe? She appeared to me to be about 4 or 5, as that was the age I knew her as when I died. Knew I couldn’t tell her that I knew her as her aunt, as it would freak her out. Also lost a tooth and was mad she wouldn’t let me put it under my pillow. Eveyone saw me as a little kid but if I looked at myself, I saw me as the age I was when I died.

Ugh. I’ve already lost so much of this dream. It totally freaked me out. Didn’t even want to drive today. I think that was how I died in my dream.

former occupants: idiots or just lazy?

Originally uploaded by dianarchy

no joint compound, no tape or mesh, just a piece of drywall approximately the size of the hole, covered with wallpaper

all-in-one doesn’t include water supply lines home depot?

Originally uploaded by dianarchy

it’s after ten and i have to work at 7 tomorrow. toilet is giving me a headache. new toilet is ADA or something so it’s taller than my old toilet. this seemed like a good thing until i realized (5 minutes ago) that this means the water supply line from the old toilet won’t reach. must get a new one tomorrow.

0711091723a

Originally uploaded by dianarchy

I’m not sure why she is giving Nate this look, but I wish I’d taken it with my camera instead of my phone. I left my camera battery in the car :(

Cher and her clutch

Originally uploaded by dianarchy

Click through to see more pictures of her and her eggs. She laid 11 eggs Friday night/Saturday morning, so we’ll have babby snakes around the end of September.

I have been remiss in posting photos of my new house. I did lose my camera for a couple weeks, but it has been found and photographs were taken.

That was what one of the upstairs bedrooms looked like when I moved in. I called it Oxygen Tank Green. It was putrid. It was just paint, though, and it could be painted over.

I knew I wasn’t going to use this room as a bedroom, because it was just too small. It is the only room upstairs with an overhead light, but the door swung open so that it covered the lightswitch. Um. Yeah. The big bay windows and the fact that this is the southwest side of the house means it would be good for Nate’s amateur botany (I have two brown thumbs, and knew those windows would do me no good), so it immediately became his plant room. I thought we should make it a combination plant and computer room, and put the menagerie in the back bedroom, so that Nate did not feel like I was sequestering him to one room of the house, but he wanted the snakes in the same room as the plants, so ok. His mama snake was going to lay eggs soon, which meant that repainting this room had to get done before other projects, so that it’d be ready for her.

We took the door down for easier access to the lightswitch (and with not keeping it as a bedroom, there was no real need for it), but now we’re discovering that it’s more difficult to keep the temperature regulated in there. (Is that why she’s not laying her eggs?) We might do something nontraditional in the doorway to keep it warm in there. Window quilt? I don’t mind if it doesn’t look “normal”, I just don’t want it to look tacky. Thinking, thinking …

I learned a few painting tricks that did me no good until it was too late along the way, but if you look at the other pictures in my photostream, you’ll notice that there’s terrible wallpaper throughout the house and there will be plenty of time to practice!

I bought a house, and I’m finally starting to feel like it’s home. There are still strange smells sometimes, but slowly, this is turning into home. The bedroom with the oxygen-tank-green walls is now a more muted shade of green. The floors upstairs are still all painted. I’m thinking of carpeting my bedroom rather than refinishing it.

It’s frustrating right now, because I need to save money to buy oil. This means NOT spending money on a couch or an entertainment center or a sander to get the floors pretty or art to hang on my walls. I think Nate thinks I’m being lazy because I’m not working around the house.

My arm is still nearly constantly hurting. The neurologist I saw a couple months ago prescribed Elavil, which I did not start taking right away. However, after taking it for a month, I called him and asked him for something else. It didn’t help with the pain at all, but more than that, I’ve been so sleepy all the time, completely unable to concentrate, and just feel fuzzy in my brain. Instead of switching me to something else, like he said was the plan (try it, if I don’t like it, we’ll try another one), he said, “Follow up with your primary care doctor.”

I’m beginning to think that no one wants to help me with this, they’d rather just turf me to someone else.

Just to round out my complaints, I’ve had a headache ever since I stopped the amitriptyline, which a cursory Googling shows to be mainly coincidental, but annoying nonetheless.

More than anything, I want to get better at keeping this up to date. I’ve been lazy about writing. I’ve been lazy about a lot of things. I’ve gained almost all my weight back (I was at a high of 235, then I got down to 186, then back up to 213). Nate bought the Balance Board to go with the Wii, and I’ve lost 3 pounds again … we’ll just cross our fingers I can keep it up. Down. Off. Whatever. But if I keep insisting that I’m going to write, maybe I’ll do some interesting things worth writing about? We’ll see.

I will update soon, promise.

my ceiling is ugly

Originally uploaded by dianarchy

It looks like a drop ceiling but it feels solid. I’m not sure what it’s made of. I guess I could cover it up with ceiling texture, but I’d have to find one that wasn’t uglier than the ceiling that’s already there.

first half of my kitchen things

Originally uploaded by dianarchy

This would be a shitty time to get a flat tire.

I’ve been such a crabapple lately. Everybody has been criticizing the way I’ve been doing things (buying this house, packing, moving) and for the most part I’ve kept quiet about it but I’m tired and I have lost my temper more than once. I wish I could apologize but I’m still stuck in this so-overwhelmed-I-can’t-see-straight mindset and I’m having difficulty forming the words.

I had the hood of my car upnas my landlord’s boyfriend walked past.

“Working on your car? Not running right?”

“Oh no,” I insisted. “Just changing a headlight bulb. Not anything that takes real skill.”

That was ten minutes ago. I’ve given up now because I can’t get the clips off the fender so I can change the bulb.

lightplay

Originally uploaded by dianarchy

i’m not sure what this is reflecting off of. it requires inspection. the sun is coming in my skylight, so it must be reflecting off something on the floor to make this on the ceiling.

If this episode of The Twilight Zone happened to you, what would you do?

What I mean is, you were somehow protected from something that killed everyone off except yourself (it doesn’t necessarily have to be nuclear holocaust). Assuming your resources (food, shelter) would be sufficient for your immediate needs anywhere you were, do you walk, hoping you’ll find someone to keep you company for the rest of your life? Or do you make yourself comfortable and stay near where you were when the disaster struck? After all, while you know your needs will be met where you are, you MIGHT not have the same resources to you all along your journey.

If you decided to head for civilization (let’s say you figured that the city/state/fairly localized region you were in was the only place hit by this disaster and it’s possible that someone on the west coast is still alive?), you might never make it. Personally, I know I could never make it across the country. Heck, I’m not sure I could walk across the state.

But if you decided not to venture out, you might be given up for dead! The outside world might only be 200 miles away (a totally walkable distance, given a couple weeks at a GRUELING pace with MEAGER rations), but they assumed that no one survived the disaster, so they’re not sending anyone in to rescue you. Could you live with the fact that someone might be “just over the next dune” and you just never bothered to look?

Now I just need to find a way to afford it. And no, I don’t want to keep looking, thank you.

Hot Tub Party

Originally uploaded by dianarchy

There’s nothing good for lunch today.

Getting “wedding’d” is a concept I first heard of on Offbeat Bride, and one I wholly support. I know I’ve mentioned my thoughts on weddings before, but the topic came up last night at the party.

Here is, in what I hope are more well-thought-out terms, what I mean.

I do not want my government dictating what is and is not a marriage to me or to my friends, be they gay, straight, or something in between. I’m pro-PDA, and even more so pro-publicly declaring love and commitment. I’m pro-legally defending rights to property, childrearing, and peri-death decision making. But I don’t think any of those things need to be overseen by Gods, Goddesses, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, or anyone but a lawyer. Marriage, in my mind, is merely a contract.

A wedding, on the other hand, is a celebration, and one that I have become minorly obsessed with. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember. I love the glitter, the planning, the love, the pictures … there is not an aspect of wedding planning that I’m not looking forward to. If you gave me a limit-free credit card and two weeks, I could knock out all the details of a wedding. The only reason I need two weeks instead of one is because the dress I’ve picked out is just a pattern, and I’d need a dressmaker to actually create it, rather than going off-the-rack. I know the flowers I want, my attendants, the centerpieces, the seating arrangements, (my half of) the guest list, the venue, the music.

But the parts that really matter, that whole declaration of love part that I mentioned earlier? No, I haven’t got those yet. Those parts are too special to make cookie-cutter, and until I’m with someone who is ready to do that part with me, I’m not even thinking about them yet. Until then, I’m content to spend an extra $8 when I go grocery shopping and see a bridal magazine that I like, and I’m happy to plow through Google Reader and tag things that I think will make my own wedding, whenever it is, more beautiful, welcoming, relaxing and peaceful for our guests.

I went to Kaity’s birthday/superbowl party last night. It was a great excuse to make cupcakes, which are my latest obsession. I’m not fancy about it. I just buy storebought cakemix and frosting, but there’s something about cupcakes which are much more satisfying than making a cake. For one thing, I can make cupcakes and bring them in to work and I don’t need an excuse. Sometimes I just feel like getting domestic.

Not often,  mind you. I’m sitting here writing about making cupcakes rather than doing a hundred other things that need doing in my house. Like changing the lightbulb in the living room, or tackling the mountain of dishes, or just cooking dinner even though I’m starving.

But cupcakes! They are adorable. I bought a cupcake carrier over the weekend that carries 24 cupcakes. 24! Now I don’t have to try to find enough plates. I made lemon cupcakes and topped each with raspberries or blueberries. I could have made a more traditional birthday cake, but the problem with cakes is that I only have 9″ pans, and I don’t like how thin the cakes end up with them. Plus I can’t just make a cake for no reason. There’s only one of me and one of Nate, and people seem to want an excuse for cake if you bring it in to share. No one needs an excuse for cupcakes or muffins. And cupcakes offer decorating practice. I haven’t gotten the nerve up yet, but I’d love to get some piping supplies and try my hand at real decorating, not just color-coordinating berries to storebought frosting.

I should have gotten pictures. They were mighty cute, if I do say so myself.

childhood crush in my hands! he knows me so well.

Originally uploaded by dianarchy

Nate got me WESLEY CRUSHER ACTION FIGURE. Fuck yeah!