Greta’s weird eating habits

After reading this hilarious account called "I has a sweet potato" @ http://littera-abactor.livejournal.com/7748.html (linked from dooce.com)
I was thinking of all the things Greta has eaten:
· 45 sticks of butter (with wrappers) (not all at one time)
· 125 pears (she will knock you down for a pear)
· 2 pounds of raw chicken (at one time)
· Pizza (she can open a pizza box and get pizza and let the lid close back and you'll never know she was there - really - I've seen her do it)
· 2 boxes of liquor-filled chocolates
· 3 tubes of $25 Clarins lip remedy (two of which she managed to get out of my snapped or zipped purse) *
· An alleve **
· Several Ibuprofen **
· A zoloft (ok in her defense, we accidentally gave her a zoloft because it looked exactly like her thyrozine) *
· A bottle of steriod eyedrops (5 minutes after we got home from Jason's eye surgery) *
· 5 Mocha Lattes (Chocolate coffee + big beard = mess)
· A bag of flour (Flour + water = Glue) (See recently posted pics)
· A few bags of oranges, she doesn't bother apples much
· 2 tubes of antibiotic salve *
· A tube of anti-fungal cream *
· A rock (wait - you need a visual of this. Jason has a collection of mineral specimens that Greta has sniffed a couple of times but generally leaves alone. One night she started going crazy with a toy, jumping around, spinning in circles, running back and forth, and then she went "spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, EAT A ROCK") WTF?!? It was too fast for us to get the rock out of her mouth.
· Fish out of a hot pan (another one you need a visual for - she actually got the spatula from the pan STUCK IN HER COLLAR)
· 5 bags of garlic bread (with the foil bag)
· A jar of peanut butter (that's a plastic jar which she managed to get the lid off of)
· Who knows how many chocolate bars, crackers, etc.

* = prompted a call to poison control
** = prompted a call to the vet or pharmacist

Money vest

I live in the Garden District, which happens to be the third oldest neighborhood in Baton Rouge. We have over 400 structures on the national historic register. I love it here, and part of why I love it is that there are lots and lots of "characters". You know - people who inherited the houses and never had to work and so just wander around doing whatever. Artists, writers, lots of LSU professors, people of alternative life-styles....it's an eclectic place. Being on the board of the Civic Association lets me in on more of the stories and happenings. It's been quite interesting.

Here's one of the best: We are sitting at a Civic Association meeting and the security liason (off-duty police officer) tells us there's been an incident with one of our well-known, beloved "characters" (one who is pretty high on the "eccentricity/cuckoo scale"). Seems that he wandered into one of the more iffy neighborhoods closer to downtown and started beating on the door of a house which turned out to belong to a cousin of his housekeeper. Mind you, it was about 3a.m. The exact words to 911 were something like "there's a naked white man on my porch banging on my door and yelling!!".
The cops arrive, and sure enough, there's our friendly neighbor, but he's not naked. He's wearing a MONEY-VEST. That's right - a vest, sewn together, made of MONEY. And nothing else. In the Ghetto. In the middle of the night. The cops (knowing him well) called his Mom and Dad and took him back home and all was well.
Now - that's not the funny part.

The funny part is this: When the security liason finished telling this story, one of the long-time board members sighed and said..."Oh no....he did that AGAIN?"

Perfect breakfast

Last Saturday Jason woke me up at 8am to go get breakfast. 8. am. as in, in the morning. But he promised me waffles so I was in. We went to waffle house because LAST time we went to eat breakfast he SAID waffle house, but he MEANT Ihop, and I was all disappointed. SO we went to waffle house, and it was as smelly and greasy as he said it was and there was a wait, so we left and went to i-hop, but there was a longer wait, so we went to Louie's. Louie's is a local dive near LSU campus and it's usually hard to get in, but we got seats at the counter pretty fast.

It was the best waffle I EVER had. Perfect. AND - to make it even better, there was CANE SYRUP. REAL cane syrup. Which I would like to take a bath in. And the coffee was perfect to the point that Jason even liked it and he's more of a tea person.

And the fruit had watermelon in it. In February. But it was still good.

And all that made me think about a weekend that Jason and I spent with my friend Charlotte at her family's sugar plantation in St. Martinsville and how much I loved the little biscuits with fig preserves and cane syrup they had for us for breakfast every morning. And there were other parts of that weekend that were great too, but did I mention the biscuits and fig preserves and cane syrup?

Car cabin fever

Wednesday - Drove to New Orleans Wednesday morning. Finished listening to my last book-on-tape (Mirror, Mirror). Stayed overnight @ the loverly Hampton Inn.

Thursday - Left New Orleans @ 3:30pm for a 5pm board meeting in Denham Springs. Got to Metairie @ 4:15. Got to Millerville Road in Baton Rouge @ 5:30, and finally just pulled into a parking lot and conducted my joint conference from the car. Turned around @ 6pm and drove BACK to New Orleans, stayed overnight @ Hampton. Remember that all this time I DID NOT HAVE A BOOK to listen too. AND - it was dark so I couldn't very well read my "real" book. AND - WWL had SPORTS RADIO on. AND - I was already too far out of New Orleans to listen to that "reading to the blind" radio station., so I was forced to listen to NPR, even though usually I'd rather poke my eyes out.

Friday - Left downtown New Orleans @ 3:40pm, got to Kenner at 5:30. That's right. FIVE THIRTY. As in almost TWO HOURS later. Got home a little before 7pm. Again - NO BOOK ON TAPE - TOO DARK TO READ. I finally actually plugged in my i-pod, which I don't have any books on right now, and listened to music. I won't get into a long explanation here about why I generally don't listen to music while I drive. It actually wasn't too bad, and maybe (just maybe) I'll do it again sometime.

STINKY?

So, I was working in an office building in downtown New Orleans this week. The bathroom is on the second floor. You need a code to get it, so the users are limited. It has 3 sinks and 4 stalls. It also has SIX (6) cans of air freshener, NINE (as in not 8 but 9) of those "sit-around" air fresheners, and three signs that say "Do not remove the air fresheners from this restroom."

What is UP with that?

I didn't find it particularly dirty or smelly. I wonder if they are trying to give somebody a hint?

Greta waits for her walk at the front fence. Today we practiced "Calm Submission" ala the dog whisperer. In other words, whenever a biker rode by I threw myself onto Greta and made her sit down until they were far enough away for her to be calm again. I'm not sure this is exactly what Cesar Millan has in mind...

Mom and me after church Sunday. I need lipstick.

Confusion in my garden 2/9/2008

These things (Loropetalum, Sedum, Snow Drops, Temple Bells, ) should not be blooming in February.