Perspective

Last Friday night we went to the annual business meeting of our electric co-op, mainly to hang out and listen to our friends play (fiddle/guitars/mandolin) but also to see if we'd win the car they were giving away as a door prize. We didn't win the car, but I did win $100! I put the bill carefully in my wallet, thinking I might deposit it in the bank (to help with bills) but leaving my options open in case I decided to let myself splurge a bit.

Wednesday morning, as I was hanging out laundry, I heard the dogs wimpering -- they never wimper; they always bark happily when they see me -- and looked over to see two very pained prickly faces. Apparently they'd tangled with a porcupine the night before and came out on the sore end of things. They also smelled of skunk -- talk about a bad night. So I called the vet and said I couldn't pull many of the quills out because they were in pretty deep. She said to bring them the dogs in to have the quills removed under anesthesia. We went, the dogs are fine now, and it cost me $97.11.

So... I still came out $2.89 ahead of where I was last week. Heh.

And now for the entertainment news. We have (nearly) live footage of more monkey-boy eating adventures:



He's so proud of himself. He managed to cram a whole handful of cat food in his mouth without dropping one piece. *Sigh.* How do you like the haircut? It's a real one (professional) -- we all went into town for haircuts on Tuesday, and I joked with Karolyn that we were like wild people coming down out of the hills for our yearly haircut. Considering I haven't had a real cut and style since last July, that's not too far off. Lazarus howled and fought the whole time, but Karolyn persevered and did a good job. She also paused while cutting my hair to let me bring Maggie up under the cape for some nursing. Now that's my kind of place.

Maggie smiled big at me this morning, and I am enchanted. Haven't managed to capture it on camera yet, but I will soon. Here she is, a few days ago, lounging around like babies do:



I'm still on dial-up, and will remain so for at least another month. And perhaps beyond that -- I'm seriously considering not renewing the Starband contract in May. Turns out the modem wasn't bad; the satellite dish got kicked out of alignment, probably during the recent winds. To get it back, I'd have to call the installer and have him come out to realign it, to the tune of $200 or so. I'd have to call him again to set the whole thing up when we move in June, for another $200. And I'd have to keep the dial-up account because I can't work with the seemingly constant service disruptions. So... I think I'll bail out when my year is up. It's too pricey and too unreliable -- definitely not ready for prime time.

We start moving a month from today. I'm getting impatient, especially since the flower and vegetable seeds I ordered arrived today... but we can hang on for a while longer.