Woman Crashes When Teaching Dog to Drive

BEIJING — A woman in Hohhot, the capital of north China's Inner Mongolia region, crashed her car while giving her dog a driving lesson, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday. No injuries were reported although both vehicles were slightly damaged, it said.

The woman, identified only be her surname, Li, said her dog "was fond of crouching on the steering wheel and often watched her drive",according to Xinhua. She thought she would let the dog 'have a try' while she operated the accelerator and brake, the report said. They did not make it far before crashing into an oncoming car. Xinhua did not say what kind of dog or vehicles were involved but Li paid for repairs.

Bookshelf Re-org

In a late fit of spring cleaning, I came across my bookshelf.

I have books from my days as an English Lit major, to random classics I bought, but haven't read and my various obsessions (LSAT, Photography, France).

I decided to re-organize my books so they make sense... to me at least. What's funny about the following? From the bottom up the genres blended from "The Art of Raising a Puppy" to "Buying your first Horse" to "Chickens for Dummies" to "Chicken Recipes" then "How to Cook Everything."

Other book groupings I formed were as follows

• Weird books from Brody, or that remind me of Brody (Jimmy Neutron, Zines, "Never Let me Go")
• Kid Books, Parent Magazine
• Books I'm embarrassed to have
• All the Harry Potters
• Random Magazines (Cosmo with Britney Spears, circa 2002, looking clean and perfect; a Japanese mag that Brody gave me one Christmas; a Surfer Girl mag that makes me feel depressingly OLD! "How to Bake Christmas Cookies" which was obviously a gift, but I haven't tossed it.
• And my favorite genre of the moment; all my house books and "Cottage Living" "This Old House" mags.

We're in the process of hiring an architect to remodel our house so I'm dusting off every periodical from "Renovation Style" (my favorite house magazine) to the shamelessly self-promoting "Mary Engelbreit, Home Companion". Mary Engelbreit is right up there in the "Love to hate her" category keeping Marth Stewart company. In fact, I'm going to renew my subscriptions to Home Companion and Living today.

I'm Spring cleaning in August, designing our new remodel and totally 100% neglecting to paint my new picket fence. The clock is ticking and we only have a few weekends of nice weather left... which means SOMEONE is going to have to paint my fence!

Volunteers? I'll trade you a Christmas cookie magazine for labor!

The Office

Today I made a care package with the orchid intern for the producers of The Office TV show.
http://www.tv.com/the-office-us/show/22343/summary.html

A PR manager on my team placed MS Office software on the show.

To say thanks to the producers, we got a bunch of swag together. It looked pretty cool when we were done.

And the update on the intern I had to buy an orchid for; she's great and nice and smart etc. etc.

I learned last week that my title will be changed from "administrator" to "business administrator." And it's almost raise time.

I Can't Afford Handy

So I called the Case handyman service.

They got back to me in under 2 hours, which is exceptional.

Then I learned that they charge $85 per hour and have a 3-hour minimum. The coordinator estimated my jobs to take 8-12 hours!

I am not paying someone $900 to paint my fence and take care of a few other things.

Talk about taking the wind right out of my sails.

Boating Under the Influence

And then there is the darker side of Seafair. I have never heard of a "BUI" until now.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003180332_seafairarrests7m.html

One More Thing

As if finishing my fence and patio projects wern't enough, the Blue Angels flew directly over my house while we were out working.

It was awesome!!!

It's Seafar weekend in Seattle. Most people spend it in or on the water. It's all about the hydro-planes and blue angles. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003178702_seafair06m.html

The weather was gorgeous.

Countdown to Fall Weather

Not that I'm hoping fall weather will arrive soon (because I'm not!), it's just that I have so many projects and so few days of great weather! This month is like a time bomb! Every weekend weather update is like Russian roulette.

I'm slowing down on my projects after this weekend, but have to tie up a few loose ends.

I had to keep the tempo up; crack the whip this weekend. Because it was 80+ degrees my husband and dad wanted to rest... unacceptable! Just kidding, we took frequent breaks for water. I have a nice suntanned back now.

Anyway, as I mentioned in previous blogs, we put up a new picket fence in the front yard so Muppet can run from the back to the front yard. We also added a gate in the front yard and created a flagstone patio.

I am pooped!

Fence Before

Fence Done!

Patio Before

Patio Done!

I bought this overpriced birdhouse, which I will stick on a 4x4 in the front yard.

Last Weekend

Last weekend I started a new project.

We have a big yard, but I felt that our front yard was wasted space because we don't use it for anything. I decided to build a fence so Mupet has more room to ramble. My dear dad came over to assist. We didn't get very far though and had to finish the project this weekend.

Last weekend we doggy-sat Fuzzy Slippers. She was a bundle of energy as always. I took her to get a haircut where Muppet has her haid done. One of the great things about this hair place is that they tire the dogs out. So when I picked Fuzzy up, she was adorable and soft and tired. It was ideal. And of course, she smelled great.

I think I already dog-blogged about this... was that last weekend or am I going nuts? Don't answer that.