Troubles McSteans

Much to Ryan's dismay and despite my recent rant, I'm once again going to watch the Oscars. Partially because I can't help myself and partially because I keep hearing things that lead me to believe this year could be a fantastic train wreck. Things like Hugh Jackman, who is not a comedian but who likes to sing and dance, will be hosting. Also there's supposed to be a 'storyline' to tie the award presentations together. Whooo boy. I'm watching it on a slight time delay so I can fast forward through the commercials. And away we go! Red carpet Angelina Jolie looks hilariously miserable Tim Gunn is interviewing. Good call. Kate Winslett. Her dress is gorgeous. Didn't see the Reader, but I did see her in Extras . Josh Brolin is married to Diane Lane? Amy Adams has an...interesting necklace Sarah Jessica P and Matthew Broderick Taraji P. Henson. She looks beautiful. Frank Langella. He was amazing in Frost/Nixon, but I think there were better movies...

This morning I ventured over to the new ** Sunflower Farmer's Market that's just up the street from our house. We've been super excited since construction began, not just for the access to cheap fresh produce, but also because that empty building has been something of an eyesore since we moved back to town. Granted, I think they could have tried harder choosing an exterior paint color but what are you going to do. I waited until this morning as the opening week has seen cars in their parking lot spilling out onto Manchaca and pedestrians dangerously Froggering across the street in search of fresh produce. (Seriously, people? I commend your conservation efforts by walking, but I almost hit 2 people darting out from behind oncoming cars. The crosswalk is like, 50 feet away - use it.) I was shocked at how deserted the parking lot was today, though. Maybe it was because it was a rainy Tuesday morning, but there was NO one there. So, the store's pitch is "Serio...

The first time I saw a roadrunner in real life was in Arizona. I only ever saw them when I was driving because, well, they have a habit of quickly darting in front of your car. Thus the name I suppose. They are quite cute and extremely fast, clocking up to 17 mph. Though you may have been lead to believe otherwise, they are only about 10 inches tall and not the same size as, say, a coyote. Would be terrifying if actually this size Lucy and I, in the spirit of fulfilling our New Year's resolution, have been taking walks around our neighborhood on my non-dialysis days. I've given up trying to train her to walk by my side and instead use her steam train Labrador energy for resistance training by pulling back on the leash. We take a nice, woodsy path that circles our neighborhood that takes about a half hour to complete. The past three times we've walked, without fail as we round a particular curve, we've seen a roadrunner cross the path. In exactly the same place ...

Some of you may remember the series of tests I had done last year as part of my ongoing adventures in Coronary Artery Disease (which was brought on by my ongoing adventures in End Stage Renal Disease). To refresh your memory, my cardiologist felt it may be time to have a defibrillator placed on the off chance my heart should stop and I should not happen to be in the emergency room at that exact moment, though with me this scenario is not as unlikely as it sounds. The test results were a mixed bag. The big test, the electrophysiology study where they tried to get my heart out of rhythm, didn't turn out so great. Not only were they successful in throwing off my groove, they had to shock me to get my heart back into rhythm. On the other hand, I keep getting echocardiograms where the results are borderline. My heart function is clearly less than that of a normal person, but not yet to a critical level. So that's where I've been for the last few months. Data was collected...

The League has posted some questions on his site and because I've been having trouble coming up with content recently, I'm going to answer them here. 1) Kate Winslet or Cate Blanchett? Kate Winslet. 2) What song are you listening to on repeat these days? Since Ryan already mentioned Gnarls Barkley "Run" and TV on the Radio "Halfway Home" I'll go with Spoon "Finer Feelings" and Kenna "Out of Control (State of Emotion)". And I don't know if I'll ever get tired of Gorillaz "19/2000 [Soulchild Remix]". 3) Matt Damon or Daniel Craig? Daniel Craig 4) Ninja or Samurai? Ninja 5) Are we being visited by intelligent extra-terrestrials? Why or why not? Maybe we're being visited by really dumb extra-terrestrials. 6) Would you go see a new Conan movie? And would you be more or less likely to see it if they cast the Governor of California upon his exit from office? Oh God, no. I just can't make myself get into the Conan ...

I am on the verge of requesting some kind of Platinum status with our veterinarian. We've been in and out of there so many times the last time I checked out with Lucy the snarky receptionist said: "See you tomorrow!" The awful week we had saying goodbye to Mel we were literally in there every day, but since then Lucy has had three separate incidents, all of them involving her digestive system. We went to Houston this weekend to visit Ryan's grandfather (he moved to a care facility there last year - it was nice to see him and to visit with Karebear). Anyway, we brought Lucy with us for the first time ever. She's finally old enough to behave herself alone in a strange house, but we left her with a rather large rawhide which it appears she failed to chew before swallowing. That combined with a bit of carsickness led to much barfing last night and this morning, and yet another trip to the vet. Le sigh.