happy birthday, little pup!

death match
Originally uploaded by Bluemomar.

today is bella's birthday. by which i mean the day she was born, not the day we got her. we wouldn't get her for about five weeks. she was soooooo small and just slept all the time. she slept on a throw pillow, which was considerably larger than she was at the time.

in this picture, you can see that she is actually much smaller than, and thus physically dominated by, the cat. not so much anymore.

meat and meme

this is fucking incredible. w, who is notoriously hard to please, called it "fantastic." this is the first unqualified compliment that i have ever gotten from him about a meal. he was like "dude, you bought a new piece of equipment to make this meal! it was epic!" awwwww. what a sweetie. usually, he's all "it's good. what?!? what do you want me to say?!? it's good, not phenomenal!" we're both sitting here in the living room, pants unbuttoned, too lazy to even speak to one another (we're IMing, and i'm actually close enough to spit on him at the moment).

and i was tagged by vague to do an incredibly long meme. it's probably going to take me forever to finish, but here goes:

seven movies i have loved:
1. out of africa
2. old school
3. the pillow book
4. the big lebowski
5. the grifters
6. the usual suspects
7. the world according to garp

seven books i like:
1. the fountainhead by ayn rand
2. how to be good by nick hornby
3. the blind assassin by margaret atwood
4. anagrams by lorrie moore
5. the awakening by kate chopin
6. women in love by dh lawrence
7. a prayer for owen meany by john irving

seven things i say:
1. punk!
2. he don't know no better.
3. dogs inside!
4. aw crap.
5. i had something to tell you which i totally just forgot.
6. where y'at, dude.
7. fuck!

seven things that attract me to a city:
1. good food
2. water, preferably swimmable
3. good, fun, cool, educated young people
4. at least one (preferably more than one) great music venue
5. the possibility of celebrity sightings
6. decent public transportation (including a 24 hour taxi service)
7. cops with something better to do

seven things to do before i die:
1. pass the bar exam
2. travel to at least six of the seven continents
3. an extended north american road trip in an airstream trailer
4. argue before the united states supreme court
5. start a dog reserve/hippie commune with my best friends (or at least all live in the same city again)
6. give birth
7. get married in vegas

seven things i can't do:
1. be a vegetarian
2. quit smoking completely
3. backflips
4. keep up with a diet for more than a month
5. quit reading, listening to music or watching movies
6. play any instrument
7. stop obsessively checking blogs and celebrity gossip sites

seven people to tag:
unfortunately i don't know that many people, and the ones i know are already doing this.

that was pretty fun and didn't take me as long as i thought it would. thanks vague, you punk!

more randomness

i bought a slow cooker today to make barbecue. sadly, my texas boyfriend won and it is BEEF barbecue. he can't help it, he don't know no better, and i figured i'd oblige. it should be really good though, if that smell coming from the kitchen means anything. slow cookers RULE. you just dump a bunch of crap into them and leave for like nine hours and your dinner is all done. i have been doing some kind of involved cooking lately (oh yeah, and DO NOT, under any circumstances, try to make that thai noodle stuff i was talking about a few posts ago. it required much doctoring to be edible, and made way too much. we put a ton of it in the freezer, which is where large quantities of food go do to die in our house), an it was nice today to just chop up an onion and some garlic and dump a few other things in and go to school. w says the smell is driving him crazy, and i had to make him promise not to open the slow cooker while i was gone. i think i convinced him pretty easily though, when i told him that opening it would just increase the cook time.

and i think i'm going to order this dress for law school prom. not.

dawgs

bella's first birthday is tomorrow--what should i get her?

and a little more about emma, for the uninitiated. she has the funniest bark i've ever heard, not even really a bark, more like an indignant "roooooooo." and this morning, she chewed up my thermal coffee mug--from ROOOOOOOOOOOOOO de la course in nola. her favorite lettuce is aROOOOOOOOOOgula. and her dream vacation, of course, is to aROOOOOOOOOOOOba (she feels it's still pretty safe in spite of that girl's disappearance).

and speaking of disappearances, remind me to NEVER GO ON A CRUISE!!! we watched some tv news show last night about cruise ship disappearances and it really freaked us out. the most scary, for me, was the guy who fell into the gulf off the ship and was there for 17 hours waiting for rescue. honestly, i think i'd rather whack my head on the side of the ship and just eat it rather that have to go through that. i was born near the ocean and have always loved it, but i haven't been in water deeper than my neck since i was about ten (and that level now would probably be about my waist, so not the same thing). there's just too much shit in the ocean that is designed to fuck you up. people are awkward and graceless in the sea, and woefully underprepared for quick escapes.

this concludes the most random post ever.

rooooooo!

there is a flower pot in the yard next door. emma is most distrustful of the flower pot. she was doing her thing in the yard, and as soon as she noticed it, she started barking like a maniac. she won't turn her back on it. she walks up and sniffs towards it, then backs away all low to the ground like it could come at her with a furious attack at any moment. if i wasn't such a punk, i would take a picture of it. it's literally one of the funniest things i have ever seen.

if that's not enough, i have to buy ANOTHER GODDAM DRESS. the "barrister's ball" (also known as law school prom) is coming up on 2/18 and i need a formal dress. really, i would like to just wear the cute ann taylor dress i got for OTH, but i don't think that will fly. so the question is: do i have to wear taffeta?

you need to stop playin round with all the clowns and the wankstas

yesterday ruled. not only did i see a good popcorn movie AND get to eat the christian chicken, but i also got one of these. i've been eyeballing it for a while and w made me wait until we were "rich" again (his words, not mine). then he won a tourney to the tune of a thousand dollars and could hardly say we were still poor. so i got it. and it rules. i agree with cnet though, that it would be nice to be able to mess with the pictures while still listening to music. but i got it for the music aspects, not the photo aspects. so it's all good. anyway, i've listened to that freaking beyonce track like 27 times and no one can get mad cause i'm the only one who can hear it. i repeat, this rules.

owwww, my feeeeeeeeeeet!

last night was a blast. it took me several hours yesterday, but i found this dress and these shoes and was actually pretty happy with the result. i overshot the comfortable life of the shoes by about 6 hours, and they should certainly never be danced in. but that really awesome beyonce track that crooked got stuck in my head over new years came on and my law school girls called me out on the floor and what choice did i have? i had to dance.