New Grill!!

We decided we had too much fun at our July 4 BBQ so we went out and bought a grill on Sunday. Actually we had been looking at grills for a few weeks, and there was a sale. We bought one that came in a 75-lb box and a million pieces so my Studly Hubby grabbed his Studly Hammer and devoted a pretty large chunk of time on Sunday to putting it all together. He put it together in our kitchen so he wouldn't lose any screws and when it was finished we left it in our kitchen overnight while we hemmed and hawed about where to put it in our backyard.


You can see that our kitchen isn't really bg enough for a grill. Right behind the grill you can see a red bottle of carpet cleaner - Max the Pig-Dog ate an unsettling bone while he was visiting us and puked all over the carpet Saturday night. Poor Max! But more importantly, poor us!! We were so exhausted from our crazy weekend we could hardly get to work on Monday.

But Monday night we felt well enough to put the grill outside (and lock it to the deck with a bike lock), and I uncovered some more of the garden. I found a pretty rose bush back there! We still have to fill the propane tank and then buy some food to grill but we're almost there...

Max Potter

We baby-sat Max the Pig-Dog again this weekend. His definition of 'morning' is WAY different from ours, so we take turns getting up and entertaining him in the wee hours of the morning. Saturday it was my turn, and after a romp around the block and some breakfast (amazingly I saw TWO different neighbors out at the horrifying hour of 5 am), I settled in to read some Harry Potter on the couch. I think I may have started hallucinating because by the time the Studly Hubby woke up I had come up with an entire new slant on the Harry Potter series:

Max Potter, the Magic Pig Dog

In the first book, 'Hairy Max Potter and the Sorcerer's Bone', we meet an amazing and very hairy dog named Max Potter that looks like a pig and can make bones appear out of thin air. Hairy Max Potter is fighting an evil force led by the Dog-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. On his way to the dog groomer's, Hairy Max Potter meets an ordinary boy named Harry and they decide to team up, since the boy has opposable thumbs and can carry a wand.

Six books later, after many adventures, Max Potter and his boy are against the Dog-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named in the fight of their life. Max Potter has developed a reputation for being a small but mighty force against all evil (and anything else that moves) and struts around on his leash when he goes out with his boy for his 'poop-walk'. One day while they were out walking, Max and his boy see Dog-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named who is also out on a 'poop-walk.' As the two dogs approach each other they growl fiercely. Then Dog-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named lunges at Max and his boy, and Max narrowly avoids death by conjuring up a big bone to distract Dog-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named so he runs in another direction. When Max gets back home he happily eats his dinner and boasts about how fierce he is to all the neighbor dogs, who keep a wary distance.

What flower am I?

I am a Canna What Flower Are You?

"You stand up for what you believe in, even if it gets in the way of what other people think. You are proud of yourself and your accomplishments and you enjoy letting people know that."

I guess I'm a Canna! I had no idea they stood up for what they believed in and were proud of their accomplishments - we are truly sisters!

Thanks to Newt for cluing me in on the webisite.

More Harry Potter Madness

I had a dream last night I was trying to stupify two Death Eaters by pointing my finger at them and yelling "Stupify!" as they ran evasively around the room. One of them finally stopped running around long enough to tell me I would probably have better luck if I got the pH of the curse just right. I nodded knowingly and then went at it again. After I woke up I realized what I really needed was a wand. Silly me!!

I have the POWER

Today just before lunch I mused outloud,

"Wouldn't it be great if we had a big bowl full of M&Ms to share?"

My rather uncreative co-workers were confused so I explained to them the idea of manifestation: go ahead and admit when you want something, and form a nice clear picture of it in your mind so that the powers that be see it and help you attain it.

And THEN,

I got some M&M's!

Some sales reps stopped by early this afternoon and delivered a bag full of candy and a tube of M&Ms was in there. My labmates were shocked that I had such power and let me have all of them.

Yay!

The New 7-Eleven: Kwik-E-Mart

The new Simpsons movie is coming out this weekend and 7-Eleven took part in a mega-marketing campaign involving the conversion of all of their stores to Kwik-E-Marts. We walked past one on Sunday (I guess there are only 11 in the country, and we got one here in Seattle!).

It was packed. I think the marketing campaign will be good for both sides. I was surprised at how far they took it. There were Slurpee machines (which were so popular there was a line), cases of Buzz soda (being bought by collectors and soda drinkers alike), pink glazed donuts, Krusty-O's, and Simpsons slogans and paraphernielia everywhere. Many of the packaged items had been outfitted with Simpsons themes (a homer face and the text: 'Mmmmm.... sandwich!!'). There were also lots of Simpsons collectibles for sale. The outside of the building had even been repainted to look like the cartoon Kwik-E-Mart, and there were two East Indian guys running the cash register (but no 'thank you, come again!').

I bought a bottle of water.

I kind of want to go back.

Montana Revisited

For some reason I always have a hard time getting the posts up with pictures. We just bought a card reader so hopefully that will help. Anyways here's a much belated recap of our awesome trip to Montana last weekend.

We went to visit a friend who lives in Missoula. He lives just outside town and we rolled in late so didn't see the view out his window until the next day...It's very Montana, eh? I'm not sure if you can really see it in the picture but it was quite hazy due to forest fires going on all around us (my eyes were watering!). We took off straight away Saturday morning for Glacier National Park, which is only 100-some miles away but took hours because everyone and their mom is vacationing in Montana in July. Fortunately we took our friend's sweet new car and he drove.This was a lake we hiked to, which was in the middle of the park and at about 6,000 feet. Although the two boys I was with did not seem to mind the altitude and difficulty of the hike (of course it was cited as an "easy" hike in our hike book), I was dying and was tempted to drink all the water out of the lake once we got down there.

Glacier National Park is not only beautiful but it has two other features I really liked: 1) it has a 50-mile road snaking right through it so you can easily cruise through and check everything out and 2) there are abundant wild animals all over the park, some even hang out in the parking lots. We saw mostly mountain goats and rams, very close up. We even saw some babies!

After we drove through the park we went out for dinner at a local diner called the Park Cafe. You would think out there that everyplace would be a tourist trap but in fact it was excellent (although the building itself is a bit of a hole-in-the-wall). They had really unique, yummy meals, I had the Gypsy Burrito, and they have homemade pie to die for.

This is definitely a place to go. Hopefully we'll get another chance to go back. I feel like we barely scratched the surface and was really motivated to bring my tent next time so we can really wander around (with a map of course).