menomonie... ba baa da bada..

there's a city in wisconsin called menomonie, and every time i hear about it or pass through it, i think of that thing from the muppets....


chicago was fun. i got there about 10pm on wednesday. the house in which i was staying had three dogs-- a pug named thelma, a boston terrier named wilbur, and a pug/jack russell mix named bugsy. adorable.
jb [jesse] just moved there a few weeks ago because this *kind of big* band he knows didn't have a drummer for their u.s. tour this summer and asked him to do it. so he's living there for a month before they leave on tour.
i brought him some stuff he had left in mpls, and in exchange he gave me a window air conditioning unit to use upstairs!
they might be in seattle when we are in seattle, depending on when we go. that would be really neat.
anyway, wednesday night we went to a few bars and that was about it.
on thursday we tried to find the lincoln park zoo but since he doesn't know his way around chicago we ended up driving around for about an hour and a half. we ended up stumbling upon a completely different zoo.
it was closing in a bit over an hour, but we decided to go. in the parking lot there were canadian geese, and i thought they had escaped from the zoo, but apparently canadian geese are native to the midwest. one of them was walking towards me, so i said "hi goose!" and then it started hissing and running towards me, so jesse had to throw a piece of banana to it to save me.
anyway, zoo parking was eight dollars, and they said admission was eleven dollars each, but there was no one at the ticket booths, so we just walked in. free zoo!
the zoo was cute. saw some very cute animals.
then we went back to the house and hung out for a while and then i left for home. so it was a nice adventure.

today is jasper's third birthday. happy birthday jasper.

i just woke up. i had been asleep [duh] for a while, but the dogs needed to go out. it is snowing. it is snowing. it's almost may. i hope my mums don't die.

last night i just went to the triple rock with seth. it was really really crowded, even for a friday night, but we found two seats at the bar so that we could eat.

on wednesday night seth's friend theresa came with him when he let out the dogs, and he said walter was MUCH friendlier with her around than when he cames alone. walter's such a ladies man!

i fell when i was stepping off the deck yesterday and my ankle got scraped and my leg got bruised. i am clumsy.

i suppose that is all.
here is a cute video that kind of makes me sad:


here is a cute video that doesn't make me sad [needs sound]:

possibly the cutest video ever...

watch til the end, trust me.

not to mention...

the first couple i mentioned put their location down as "minneapolis, illinois"....

is it a full moon or something??

this has been a weekend of whacked customers.
i don't know what the hell is going on, but jesus christ....

yesterday, this older woman and her husband barged in and she said "I NEED TO GET MY DOG GROOMED NOW PLEASE!"
and it was a minpin, but i was booked up until six. so i said come back at 6:30 with proof of rabies vaccination and i'll bathe him.
he has vaccinations, right?
"yea, we got it all in a folder at home."
okay well bring proof when you come back because i can't do him without it.
"alright, we need to pick up our grandkids at daycare. we be back."

fast forward to 6:30-ish, they come back, two small children in tow, with a petland folder. the couple reeks of pot. just reeks.
do you have his proof of rabies vaccination?
"yea, it's in that folder."
i thumb through the folder. see a microchip paper, some information pamphlets, and a little sheet that shows the dog was de-wormed and got his da2pl shots. in 2005.
i'm sorry, but he doesn't seem to have his vaccinations. you can come back tomorrow for the low-cost clinic, and i can get you around 3:30 after he gets his shot.
much hemming and hawing ensues, and they leave.
the people were obviously high on more than just marijuana.

they wandered around the store for a while, and it seemed like they were looking for something. then they left.
our assistant manager later found a back with two joints in it on the ground.
ps: they didn't show up today.

then my first dog today was owned by a woman who insisted on watching the entire process through the window. which is annoying, distracting, and did i mention ANNOYING?

then there was a dog that jen was grooming whose owner came back an hour early and was standing in the front waiting. i asked if she and her friend could get out of sight so the dog didn't get excited since that makes it hard to groom.
so they walked out. and stood riiiiiight in front of the window where the dog was getting groomed. great job hiding, you fucking retards. it's GLASS, not a two-way mirror.

also got a phone call from some guy saying that someone was going to bring in a yorkie poo.
"don't do anything to the dog. it's been kidnapped, and i know it is going to end up there."
what?
what?
the dog never showed up.

then there was the "outside" pitbull with a yeast infection all over his body. his owner was on meth or crack or something.
she came in with two little kids. the little boy proceed to kick the dog numerous times, so mom slapped him around in the waiting room.
then the highly dog-aggressive pit bull lifted his flues at me when i was tryiing to put a lead aroudn him. roni washed his harness while i was bathing him, and it was disgusting.
i didn't bother force-drying him, as i like having a face and arms, and i don't like being mauled.

then the huge moose of a lab that i did last jumped off the table, taking the table down with him. on top of me. ouch... leg hurts from that.

and our last phone call of the day was from some guy who had a dead cat and didn't have money to cremated it. so he wanted to know if there was some kind of free disposal service.
for some reason jen and i couldn't stop laughing while talking to the guy. he seemed really nonchalant about the whole thing, not devastated or anything.
we told him to either put it in the freezer and bring it the vet on monday, or bury it under a flower bed. makes good fertilizer.

speaking of which... i need to bury miss bun bun now that the ground isn't frozen.

breaking up

well, seth and i called it quits.
well, actually i made the decision, as seth was quite happy staying together.
i just didn't find it fair to stay in a relationship when it was obvious his feelings for me were much stronger than mine were for him.
we had a talk yesterday about it whic basically was me telling him that he's perfect for me in every way but something doesn't feel right. so he said if i wanted time to think about things, that was fine.
but i felt as though it would be wrong of me to make him wait around if i wasn't sure i was going to stay in the relationship. he could meet "the one" and totally ignore it because he's waiting for me.
anyhow, he was really understanding about it. he has been in the situation before, where he looked great "on paper", so to speak, with the person he was dating, but something didn't feel right.
we went out to eat and got tea and hung out like normal friends, and i certainly haven't ruled out a future with him, but at this point it just isn't right.
i'd much rather have a great friendship with him than a shaky relationship.

so that's where i am currently. i feel good. it was stressing me out so much today that i threw up, but we talked about things and i feel fine.

other than that, nothing too big has happened lately. oh, the package i sent got returned because i am apparently retarded, but i wll resend it again [this time through the post office, so that i know whether it is okay BEFORE i send it out].

the end.

how does your garden grow?

this is my garden so far. do you like the porcelain mushrooms?

something i posted to my friends...

when grooming dogs, it's a regular occurance for an owner to bring in a dog that is matted.


people don't think things through before buying their fuzzy friend and/or don't realize the amount of upkeep required for long-haired dogs.


a few times a week, a dog will come in "pelted". this means that basically all the hair is matted together over the entire body.


while this is sad, most of the time it isn't due to neglect. just ignorance.


my boss chris did something rather amazing the other day with a pelted poodle.


she shaved its entire coat off and kept all the hair attached.


see this:



there was even a butt hole.


this is quite an amazing feat for any groomer and i had to share it.

it is i, your daughter.

jasper was so good yesterday at work. i made him very sily and pretty, and he was mild-mannered and wonderful the entire time.
he's started to realize that when he is good outside and doesn't try to escape, he gets a piece of natural balance roll.

today i went food shopping, cleaned up my yard a little bit-- though it's really really really windy today and hard to pick up leaves in the wind, spend some time outside, and cleaned me house.

i suggest you watch "i know my kid's a star". it's on vh1. it's about showbiz kids and their moms. they are competing for some kind of bullshit.

tomorrow assuming it's still nice and warm out i will buy flowers and plant them.

i am pretty sure i am not meant to be in a relationship. but i don't know. seth isn't doing anything wrong, and we get along great. why do i feel like this?

the kids diagonal to me are little fuckers. yesterday they came up to the fence and the dogs were barking and they were yelling BAD DOGS!!! at them. i was outside obviously [but they didn't see me until walked up] and i was waering a bathrobe and probably looked like a fucking crazy person. but i walked up and said "EXCUSE ME. DON'T YELL AT MY DOG. THAT'S NOT YOUR JOB."
they're young little fuckers. like a 4 year old girl and a 6 year old boy. the little girl didn't really do anything. the little boy is a fucker.
today they came up again and the dogs were barking and i think i saw the little boy throw something at jasper. if it happens again i will go talk to the parents.
however, i have a feeling the parents are just as fucking stupid as the children if their kids act like that.

i'm going to make some brownies.

free food is good.

yesterday we went to a lecture at the u called "from factory farm to fork" which discussed the effects of factory farming on the environment.
it was mostly stuff i knew, but it was still interesting to see how much of a effect the waste from the hundreds of thousands of factory farms just in the united states.
i found out that factory farming contributes more toward global warming than the transportation industry.
so essentially if people stopped eating, or at least cut down on the consumption of, meat and poultry, the fight against global warming would be even stronger than if everyone started riding bicycles or walking more often.

then there was free vegan food afterwards. galactic pizza [which is okay but nothing compared to pizza luce], cookies, and "cheetos".

i was very annoyed at my doctor for trying to talk me out of my surgery, like i'm so sort of moron who can't make decisions for myself.
if twenty two year old women can make the decision to have children without anyone questioning them, then why am i being questioned for my decision NOT to have children?

anyway, she said she can do the procedure in the office. it is a little more painful [like labor cramps, whatever that feels like] but it's quicker. plus if i went to the hospital, they'd put me under, which i don't want done.

hunnee still doesn't know echo is here. i think. if she does, she isn't acting any different. i'm feeding echo every possible thing i can think of in order to add weight to her frame.

i guess i am destined to be chunky like how i am. no amount of exercise or eating right is changing my physique. i guess i don't look *horrible*. i just am annoyed that i can't be as thin as i used to be.
but now i'm too big for my d bras so i'll have to go back to ugly dd bras.

i guess that's all that's going on.

also you will be proud of me.
i found a rat family in my basement [this is apparently common during cold months because they're trying to find someplace warm] and i got rid of them!
even though i believe they have a right to a warm home, it is getting warmer, and i saw the bad stuff that those mice did to my old house.
so i gathered up mommy rat and baby ratlets in a shoe box [they were still itty bitties with their eyes closed so i know i didn't miss any] and brought them far away to woods and put them out there.
i guess i will have to routinely check the storage areas in the basement for rodents.

skinny

echo is so skinny. i can see her ribs and her backbone. i feel horrible about it. i fed her peanut butter and jelly, leftover enchilada, and a bunch of dog treats, plus a huge bowl of food.
i don't want to even think this, but i have heard marya uses food with-holding as a punishment. if echo was pooping on her floor, i'd imagine she probably used that strategy with her.

i am feeling really overwhelmed and i feel like a whiner. why do i find normal life so difficult to deal with?
seriously i sometimes want to drop off teh face of the earth.

tomorrow after i do that kennel thing i have to pick up all the dog poop in the yard that was buried under/in the snow.
and clean. it seems like i am always always cleaning. probably because i am.

sometimes i do wish i had just rehomed some of the dogs and gotten an apartment in the city.
i have too much un-needed stuff just to fill up the house. i don't need two couches. i don't need a million chairs. i don't need two beds. i don't need endtables. i don't need the majority of the space i have. the dogs just need it.

it's a situatoin i put myself in so i shouldn't complain. i just wish i had less to tie me down.
i don't feel the need to collect dogs anymore. i really needed to be surrounded by tons of dogs at that time in my life.

i'm just... gah.

oh my gosh!

http://www.sfoutsidelands.com

i am going to save up all the money i can and go to this in august.
regina spektor, radiohead, beck, jack johnson, tom petty and the heartbreakers, and whole bunch of other good bands that i enjoy are playing at two-day festival in golden gate park.
tickets are $200+ dollars but well worth it considering the bands playing [radiohead is one of the biggest and most influential bands in the world today; regina spektor is my idol; i have liked beck FOREVER and he is my favorite male artist in the world... and tom petty... hello???]

i was considering going to a festival in michigan, or else going to the bonnarroo music festival or else going to coachella... but screw all those... this is the one i want to save up and attend. how exciting!!
not to mention it's in my favorite city i've been to so far!!