Tattoo Watch - Day 3

Tatt still doing well.

I'm off work this whole week. God, being lazy is really exhausting. How will I find the energy to go exchange the movies and buy more wine?

If you want to feel decadent without the added holiday calories, surf around food network and see those shows with the crazy-assed chocolate and sugar sculptures, as well as the gingerbread fanatics (not to be confused with ginger kids).

Tattoo Watch - Day 1

On day one, post-ink from NY Adorned. That three hours was some pretty intense pain, from my perspective. I'm amazed at how sore the whole area is today. I have some minimal concerns around Ganesh's left ankle area. It appears to be "faded" (you can't see it in the picture), but I'm hoping it may be some focused excretion of the excess ink from that area as well as heightened dehydration of that particular spot. Otherwise, I'm extremely happy with it. Stephanie Tamez was my artist. I took her 6 different illustrations of Ganesh and asked her to draw a composite of my favorite attributes of each. She did an amazing job on the drawing as well as the tattoo.

Merry Christmas from Kirkuk - WTF?

Here's an ironic news flash: I just received word that my 42-yr old brother has arrived safely in Kirkuk, Iraq. That's good news, because I think I just read in the special winter edition of Middle Eastern Travel & Leisure that Kirkuk made their coveted "Top 10 Safest Cities for 2005".

My brother is in the reserves, in the JAG unit for a division. He will have an office job, providing legal assistance to his unit during their tour. If there's any silver shards in this cloud's lining, they would be:

• he is not on foot patrol, so presumably he's a bit safer than he might be in some other role
• they deployed some of the support unit personnel after the main unit, so his tour will likely be around 10 months as opposed to the normal 12

Ok - I'm being facitious. I don't support the war. But I do believe in my brother being safe and coming home soon to us. It was his choice to go, and I don't understand it, but I don't have to. I only have to respect it as he's my brother and I love him. He's also an adult and makes his own decisions.

(all this spoken over a choir humming the holiday classic I'm Dreaming of a Tan Christmas)

Freaked Out, Party of 1? Your holiday table is ready.

Merry Frappin' Christmas!!

Dirty Jobs... Hot

Who knew being literally dirty could be so hot? I didn't until I came across this ditty on the Discovery Channel: Dirty Jobs. Host Mike Rowe knowlingly goes in search of jobs that are dirty and quite often freakin disgusting. But he looks smoldering hot while being paid to perform them. But who knows - maybe you're a girl who prefers a clean cut boy. Give me a hairy-chested man's man any day. mmmm. Is it odd that I Tivo this show, hoping for a glimpse of him shirtless?

(who can tell a) i'm new to blogging and/or b) i'm working from home with not a lot to accomplish today??)

stairs and spacing

Why do stairs have that leading edge, that little lip? I have a life-long history of tripping up (yes...up, not down) stairs. No, I haven't been drinking. I JUST tripped returning from my bodega. I don't understand why that lip is there, other than to cause my already-challenged coordination greater frustration. I'm writing Dateline NBC to see if I can get some answers.

I may be showing my age here, but when did standard spacing change from double- to single-spacing after sentence-ending punctuation? This is a very difficult transition for me. I see so many people using single-spacing in email correspondence. When I look online, I see standards that indicate there has been a shift. balls.

gina loves dogs

One of my dogs is brown. And white. But mostly brown. I know from this picture you're thinking "actually, she is mostly white", but really. She's not. You don't see her back and big butt, which are all representin' the brown side.

She is awesome, but her breath is STANK. NO amount of Greenies in the world is going to correct this, I fear. We may be due for a dental cleaning and a trimming of her fishy mouth tags at the vet.

But dang it if she isn't cute. Of course, ain't nothin' cuter than a fat country baby eatin' peaches off a hardwood floor.