And It's Only Monday....

**Was That The Dog??-Meat makes me fart. I don't know how else to put it. And not just your typical laughing-too-hard-toot. This is more like eye-watering-paint-peeling-check-your-shorts-make-the-dog-leave-the-room farts. For a while there I was even grossing myself out. But perhaps I should explain. My father-in-law's birthday was a while ago, and we've been having a hard time trying to find a day when we can all get together to celebrate. Turns out that this past Saturday night was that day. The restaurant of choice was Tapaluna, in downtown DeKalb. This proved to be quite fortunate, given that the generally crappy weather we got Friday night and Saturday morning would have made going anywhere out of town quite difficult. Anyway, the restaurant was pretty nice in a minimalist kinda way. Sheri claimed it was just as bad acoustically as Filo Spinatos, but I didn't agree. The menu is based on the South American idea of tapas, which are smallish portions of food on the order of appetizers. The idea is to have a little plate of food, then some alcohol, then another little plate of food, then more alcohol, etc, etc, etc. Not being a drinker anymore, that part was lost on me, but there were some interesting things on the menu. Unfortunately, once you excluded the deserts, I think there were only two vegetarian choices. Not good for me. I was outnumbered three to one, so meatfood was in my future. Now, Sheri has had to alter her eating since she was diagnosed with diabetes. Trying to keep her carb intake at a reasonable amount proved to be almost impossible on our vegetarian diet, so meat started to make a comeback on her plate. As a consequence, It also started to show up more in my diet, which I wasn't overly fond of. Mind you, I try not to be militant about being a vegetarian. I try not to make things difficult for others when it come to eating, so I do on occasion have something meatish when there are no other options open to me. But I'd rather not, given the choice. Saturday night, I didn't have that choice. I ended up with both beef and pork finding their way onto my plate. And later that night, my body started to register it's displeasure. Now I have a good reason to pass on the hamburgers. Meat gives me necrotic-bowel-dead-and-laying-in-the-sun-for-a-week-smelling farts. So, thanks anyway, I'll just have a salad and some fruit. Unless you want to spend some time in a closed up room with me afterwards.

**Wolf In A Yarmulke-Why the hell was Chris in a dream of mine as a divorced Jewish vegetarian??

**Dreaming Of The Amazon-In another weird dream this week, Morgan was there. I was back at the old house, trying to get moved into the small upstairs room from the main room. Oddly enough, there were now 2 rooms in between (which don't actually exist), one of which seemed to be set up like a disco, and one that I wanted to convert into a tiki bar. Even by my standards, that was a strange dream.

**If the pattern of the past continues to hold true, Jeweltiger is well on her way to meeting the man of her dreams in the near to immediate future.

**Minwax On, Minwax Off-I think I should have gone with the rubbed oil finish. The gel stain isn't giving me the color I was hoping for. Plus it stinks. It doesn't smell immediately bad, like the liquid stains, but saves it's stench for when it starts to dry out. But now that I have the back stained (somewhat), I'm locked into doing the front and hoping the whole thing matches halfway decently. Of course, before I blame the product, I also have to consider the wood I'm applying it to, and my own particular skill level. And, after taking all those things into thought, I still choose to blame the stain. Just hoping that I won't end up thinking that it would have been better if I had just left it unstained. The last thing I need is for this item to go up for auction and just have it tank because the finish looks like crap. That would do nothing for me as the artist, and nothing for TAILS as a means of raising funds. By Friday morning I should know if I need to panic or not.

**Winter Wonderland, My Ass....-As if I couldn't hate the weather here any more than I do already. We are under a freakin blizzard warning. A blizzard warning. A. Blizzard. Warning. What the fuck?? This is not the Yukon. This is not Siberia. This is not even North Dakota. The word blizzard in my life should only apply to a yummy frosty sweet treat from Dairy Queen, not an actual real weather condition that happens where you live. And can make you dead. And then freeze you. This just so sucks. I really need to live somewhere I can have a goddamn mango tree in the yard. And all you freaks who were singing "Let It Snow" last month can just get your happy little eggnog swilling behinds over into my driveway tomorrow morning. And bring your most festive snow shovel.

**Cheese Sticks With Peanuts- No great reaction to Friday's little prank yet. Does kinda leave me wondering how many uses I can come up with for packing peanuts. Next in line is the sleeve gag, which I just happen to have some nice pink peanuts all ready for. I may have let my window of opportunity slip by for the evening though. And she's still not wearing the perfume.

**Can We Crash Here?- Need to check at Panera and Borders to see if either one would be a good place to hold impromptu game nights. At the rate I'm going, I'll never have the downstairs ready to start hosting events again anytime soon, despite all of Sheri's ranting. And I really want to get a semi-stable group going sooner rather than later. I had thought about the House, but their schedule is pretty erratic, and I don't think they really have any decent sized tables. I just kinda like the idea of having somewhere public and a bit more accessible for people to gather. Not that there's even been any issues with having people over to my place, aside from the Thundering Herd, and Forrest didn't seem to care about hosting either, but it's nice to have other options.

**I have broken yet another chain letter/text/e-mail. The penalty the universe will be imposing on me this time is that I will remain single for 13 years. Oh, darn.