I have always heard that you don’t let dog’s eat chocolate because it will kill them, or at least make them very sick. I guess I thought it was some kind of doggy kryptonite that acted like poison in their system. Turns out not exactly. How do I know this?

My poor ginger Beagle has an allergy to something we haven’t figured out yet that gives her hives all over her body. She scratches herself until she bleeds if it goes untreated so to counteract the hives she has to take a steroid pill every day. Unfortunately steroids do the same things to dogs that they do to humans – they constantly think they’re starving and they are moody beyotches.

Sasha has gone from affectionate but kind of aloof to a needy pet me now, pet me now, pet me NOW lapdog with emotional issues. (anyone that says dogs don’t have emotions and moods has never actually HAD a dog) And she eats anything and everything she can get her face on if we’re not really careful.

Anyway, Monday night I found that she had locked herself in the office. I didn’t think much about it, I just let her out. She likes to go in there and torment Benito, our chinchilla, whenever she has the chance so that door is usually closed to keep her out. This morning hubs came into the bathroom while I was getting ready, because we’re all the mystery is gone like that, with a handful of chocolate wrappers. I had put a bunch of Lindt truffles and a bag of chocolate coins in his Christmas stocking, and mutant that he is, he still hadn’t eaten them all.

Who let’s chocolate just sit around uneaten for two whole months anyway?

At first I thought he was accusing me of raiding his chocolate stash, which was probably a valid thought because there is a statute of limitations on chocolate neglect, and sooner rather than later it becomes fair game for the first person who comes across it. I’m just sayin’.

But no, it wasn’t the fat girl. It was the crazy Beagle with an eating disorder, and the proof was in the pile of fang-punctured wrappers. Apparently Monday night Sasha ninja’d herself into the office to have a little chocolate binge. Because that’s what you do when you’re riding the emotional rollercoaster that goes along with the steroid psychosis, right? That’s what I do anyway. Hubs I don’t know. Anyone who just lets chocolate sit has issues I don’t even want to begin to think about.

Now that it’s two days later and clearly she’s fine I can laugh about it, but I probably would have had a heart attack and rushed her to the emergency vet in the middle of the night to get her stomach pumped had I known about it sooner. I also know now that it’s the caffeine in chocolate that’s bad, that it gives dogs high blood pressure, and that’s what can sicken or kill an older or less healthy dog instead of some poisonous ingredient.

I also know to hide my stash a lot better than hubs because a Beagle who snarfs up my emergency chocolate is going to go down. All the way to Chinatown.

Allow me to introduce little Miss Coco.

Awwww, right?  Currently weighing in at a whopping 4 lbs, Miss Coco Bean is about the size of a beanie baby.

Why hello there!  And who….are you?  The little Coco puff is full of spunk and is quite sure that she can take big sister Sasha any day.

I don’t see you, interloper!  I will ignore you and you will go away.

Maybe I’ll sneak up on you and POUNCE!  Then you’ll be scared and go away.

Awwrrrrr rrorooowwww grooooooowwwlll…. You will be intimidated now!

Battle!

Ruht row…this isn’t going exactly like I planned.  Little one, you have fire in your belly!

Hey!  That’s not one of my toys!

This getting to know you stuff is exhausting!

Surgery made me lazy.  Ok, laziER.

I haven’t cooked dinner more than once a week in I don’t know how long.  The amount of money we’ve spent on take-out and eating out could have purchased a new air conditioner so we wouldn’t have to suffer through another heatwave like we had earlier this summer.

The amount of food that we’ve wasted because I bought the groceries intending to make the dinners that it turned out I was too lazy to make for real is disgusting.  Mostly it’s produce that has been wasted because I have not one but two refrigerators with freezers and another stand alone freezer.  Wanna know the problem with too many freezers?  It is also possible to waste frozen food.  Freezer burn claimed a lot of stuff in my freezer too.

I needed a plan.  A cold-turkey kick the habit nip it in the bud program to stop the insanity.

So this week?  There will be no eating out.  At all.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I know, that doesn’t sound hard for most people.  I realize that most people don’t let themselves get to this degree of lazy, but I always said I was speshul.   You just didn’t know how speshul.

Ok, so really this plan is actually going to be in effect for longer than a week, I just didn’t tell anyone else that so let’s keep that little tidbit to ourselves, mmkay?

In preparation for this turning over of a new leaf I went grocery shopping today, the kind of grocery shopping that requires an advanced clean-out of the fridge, which I did the night before.  Because what makes sense after wasting a colossal amount of food more than going out to buy more, right?  That was my thinking, exactly.

I got up early this morning.  It was only 8:00-ish.  On a Saturday.  Really I deserve a medal just for that because come on.  Who get’s up before 9:00 on Saturday?

Only the truly dedicated, that’s who.

I went to Winco.  That’s right – this was the real deal.  The bag-it-yourself, get shoved out of the way of the lady wanting potatoes, small children with grubby paws in the bulk bins kind of shopping.  It’s not pretty, but it’s effective.

I had my list and I filled that cart.  I mean I filled it.  In my defense, about a quarter of the cart was taken up by my stacks of reusable bags because I?  Am a friend to the environment, yo.  Still, I’m a pro.  I’m such a pro that I had those groceries bagged and tagged in under 10 minutes.  I may be lazy but I got skillz.

On the way home I stopped at another store for the items that I couldn’t get at the Winco.  One of the things I found on sale at this store was chicken bewbs.  For $.77 a pound.  SCORE!  But they were on the bone.  And I’m lazy, remember?  Since I was turning over a new leaf and all I bought two packages, which I schlepped home with the rest of my loot.

It took me 45 minutes just to unpack and put away most of it.  I had to re-arrange the pantry to get the rest crammed in, and there may have been a pair of pliers involved.  I was on such good behavior, partially fueled by the amount of freezer burned food in my trash, that I re-packaged all of the meat I bought so it wouldn’t happen again.  Marked with dates even!

Then I broke out the knives.  I actually took the time to bone and skin around 20 chicken breasts, and I only stabbed myself once.  I packaged those into meal-sized bundles and put them in the freezer.

But wait!  Because waste is my new enemy I tossed all of the bones in the bottom of my stock pot, threw in carrots, celery, onion, water, and a bouquet garni and I made stock from scratch.

Where’s that freaking medal?

My house smelled like yummy goodness all afternoon.  My reward for all of my hard work was that I used some of the stock to make risotto for dinner and it tripped the cheesy fantastic.

It was a grand way to start off the week of no restaurants.  We will see if I keep skipping along with resolve or if I cave to the lure of the easy button.

Last Saturday we celebrated an event near and dear to my heart.  The Boy graduated high school and I couldn’t be more proud. 

As you can see, I was unable to persuade him to get a pre-graduation haircut.  But he’s still awfully handsome, so I’ll forgive him.

He was lucky enough that a family friend, who has known him since birth, was able to give him his diploma.  It was a very nice touch to the evening.

Look how proud hubs is!

The road to graduation has been long, and sometimes kind of rough, but he made it.  He hung in there through thick and thin.  And now he’s officially all growed up.

We had another one of those “rites of passage” days today.  They seem to be coming hot and heavy on the heels of each other lately.

We made the trip to the DMV this morning.  We had all our paperwork, after having to go to the pit of hell health department to get another copy of his birth certificate yesterday.  It appears that my underwear drawer filing system has a few holes in it.

So we all gave up our Saturday morning sleep-in, which is big sacrifice in our house because weekend sleep-in time is sacred, and ventured into the land that time forgot.  The place where old hairstyles go to die – the Department of Motor Vehicles.

You can see all kinds of things at the DMV, including:

• 5 year olds with pacifiers.  What the shit is that?  A complete abdication of parental responsibility?
• Someone try to register a most-likely stolen car.
• Feathered and candlestick-curled hair.
• People in their pajamas.  In public.  Pajamas are not street clothes, people!
• One boy gaining the ability to drive, albeit only under supervision at this point.  Baby steps.

So on the way home, after we got off the freeway, I pulled into a gas station and got out of the car.  I told him he could drive us the rest of the way home.  His eyes got really big and his butt was so puckered he could have made a diamond, but he did well.  Really well!  Now we’re looking at cars because holy shitballs, the price for insurance for him to drive our new-ish cars is highway robbery!  He’s going to be like every other teenager out there and drive a beater until he can afford to pay for his own.  Another rite of passage!

There aren’t going to be many of these left, the rites of passage.  There’s graduation, which is fast approaching.  Then college and graduation from there.  First apartment.  First “real” job.  Getting married.  Babies.  Which means Grandbabies, which means I will be officially OLD.  Because it’s all about me, really.

Meanwhile, I’m going to let him drive my daisy around for a change.

Eighteen years ago today The Boy was born.  He didn’t want to be, his GINORMOUS head made sure that he was stuck tight, but I was tired of him kicking me around so at 12:26 am on this date the doctors pulled him kicking and screaming into this world.

Over the years there have been many things he didn’t want to do, like the potty thing.  That took forever and he still can’t get his aim right.

And school.  Hated it with the passion of a thousand suns until just last year.

But now, he’s going to graduate high school in just a little over a month, and he’s going off to college.  Ha! More school!  He wants to be on his own so bad he can taste it.

Which is exactly how it should be.

My little bug is all growed up now.

I am so proud that he’s grown into the person that he is.  I am so happy that I got to be witness to his life, his transformation from the cutest little bug of a baby to a stunningly handsome young man, and that I get to watch him strike out on his own and create a whole new life for himself.

And yet as I write this, I am crying because those days are all gone.  You always hear people say that they go by in the blink of an eye, but you never believe them.  There are times when parts of it seem to drag on forever, and you think you can’t wait until they’re out of high school and on their own.  But it all happens so soon.

I don’t give out parental advise, almost ever.  But I have two words that I think every parent should know:

Don’t blink.

(yep…that’s cake)

Last week was a week of learning for me.

Thanks to Miss Britt I learned how to upload photos from my iPhone to flickr and have them post automatically to my  Twitter account.  Now I just need to figure out how to do the mobile photos in the sidebar thingie, but one thing at a time.  I don’t want to rush into things.

I also posted my very first item for sale on eBay.  I haven’t done a lot of buying on eBay either, so I am practically an eBay virgin.  Yes Virginia, there really is a 40-year-old virgin!  Keep your fingers crossed because stuff is something I have a lot of, and I would like to have less of it.  Kind of like my ass.  Less is more.

As a sideline to the flickr posting I may have learned how to post new blog posts in TwitterFeed.  There is the chance that  I will end up posting multiple twats between TwitterFeed and Twitpress and end up with a massive Twitter dumping that sends me into a Ben & Jerry’s tailspin.

I also learned how to let go.  I let go of all my anger, pulled up my big girl panties, and was honest with my Mom about why I reached the point of enough is enough.  Granted, I did it in a letter but that’s because I communicate in letters much better than in person.  I even pulled my maturity out of the closet and let my letter percolate for a while before revising it, toning it down, and then finalizing it.  Usually I let my hot-headedness take over and end up tossing the nuclear football around before my better judgement can kick in, and then I have to go in with the haz-mat team to clean it up.  This time I was able to express the things I needed to without anger, guilt, or blame.

Not bad for one week.  How was your week?

Well this is it.  I sent in my email saying that I’m not going to make it to TequilaCon after all this year.  See, that Sunday is my son’s 18th birthday.  That’s kind of a biggie and I don’t want to miss it.  I tried, but I just couldn’t make the flight arrangements work to get back here in time on Sunday.  Plus I would be all assed up hungover and that’s not good.  I’m sad that I’m not going to get to meet all of you, but some things only come around once and it’s more important for me to be here.

I will be girlcationing in Seattle in August, so if anyone would like to meet for drinks or dinner I would love it!  I’ll post dates when it gets closer.

Me to the Boy: When you did the dishes last night you didn’t put the salad dressings and the stuff on the table away.  Did you forget how to do dishes? (since he’s never home for dinner anymore and only is now because his girlfriend is out of town)

The Boy: I didn’t forget!  I just didn’t remember.

*snort*

We’re not all that big on the New Year’s celebrations at out house.  Both of us were asleep on the couch by 10 and only woke up in time to see Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest drop the ball!  Yes, we’re officially old.

I tried to come up with a recap list of last year’s highlights, but most of them were negative.  2008 wasn’t a good year for a lot of us and between falling home prices and layoffs a good portion of us are not in a better position than we were at this time last year.

Last year I:

• Overcame my incident-induced fear of guns and learned to shoot a handgun.
• Lost what used to be a good friend because she got laid off at work and blamed it on me, even though I did everything I could.
• Changed my relationship with a friend who at the time was a good friend, but is now the very best of friends.  This last year would have been much more difficult to take without her unconditional love.
• Learned a lot about myself as a result of the aftermath of the shunning since I refused to back down after setting the boundaries.
• Acted like and adult and traded in our gas-guzzling recreational vehicle, which we never used for recreation anyway, for a fuel-efficient Toyota Corolla that is still cool enough to have earned the nickname the Batmobile.
• Gained 50 lbs because a) I eat my stress and b) my feet were AFU and I could hardly walk, let alone exercise.
• Finally found out what was wrong with my feet (bursitis!) and got it fixed (shots in the feet – ewww!).
• Enriched and added a heretofore unimagined amount of frustration to our lives at the same time by getting a puppy – a hard-headed, obstinate, tail-chasing, window-licking puppy who is cuter than any animal has a right to be – while conveniently forgetting that I am too old for this shit!
• Realized what I want to be when I grow up. I still don’t know how to make it happen, but there is a bakery in my future somehow.

This year I want to:

• Get my CCW permit because it will make me more comfortable to have formal training, and it will be that final step in overcoming the fear.
• Get back to healthy habits. Now that my feet are better I can get back to regular exercise.  I should probably quit with the fried catfish and the burgers too.  Maybe.  We’ll see.  No promises there because that catfish?  Divine.
• Meet bloggers. One of the things I need to get over is my shyness with reaching out and meeting new people, online or in person.  This year if the stars align (and I don’t get fired) I’d like to go to TequilaCon and meet everyone I’m always reading about.
• Make more of an effort to keep my financial house in order. I’ve let depression and stress derail all of my good intentions.  I want to pay off my Jeep this year if possible, which means paying off other things so I can free up the extra funds to plunk on the Jeep.  This means I need to do less of the retail therapy when I’m stressed or just jonesing for something “new”.  You know.
• Get my head screwed on straight. I’ve let the parental schism and work stress, along with what probably amounts to the 3 year itch at home, mess up my head to the point that I am officially a woman on the ledge.  I need to find coping skills that do not include copious amounts of food, alcohol, or shopping.  Drugs maybe.  I haven’t tried that yet.
• Spend more time with meditation practice. Hopefully this will help with the last item, the screwing on of my head.
• Learn to sew. I have a great sewing machine that I don’t use because I have the opposite of talent with the sewing and it makes my head want to explode.  Since I haven’t had any formal learning in this area since the quarter of middle school home-ec devoted to making the world’s ugliest tote bag I’m thinking a class might help with the exploding part.

This is going to be a year of change for us because the Boy graduates from high school (even if I have to sacrifice a baby goat under a full moon!) in the spring.  He will have more independence and we will need to learn to let go.  I don’t see myself having to deal with empty nesting because I don’t think he’s going anywhere soon, but there will definitely be a paradigm shift within the house.

Happy New Year everyone!  May it be better than the last!