Friday Frolics

As it were…if one has an odd idea of frolicking… 😀

Awaken at 4 a.m. Retrieve the computer, open the new Chinese grad student client’s thesis. Mm HMM. As suspected (since she wept that her dissertation director called her English “appalling”…just think of what that one would think of my Chinese!), yes, as suspected, it’s a tangle of Chinglish. But not too awful: the organization is good, the research is adequate, the methodology…uhm, remains to be seen.

By 6:30 I’m done with Chapter 1 and have sent the references off to my honored associate editor, who very likely will assign them to her underlings. Earned about 30 bucks an hour, so didn’t feel bad about that at-tall.

Figure out that the way to keep the MacBook’s external hard drive from repeatedly falling on the tile floor is to Scotch-tape the USB cable into the drive’s connection. Add this decorative touch to Apple’s fine styling.

Feed the dogs, throw in a load of laundry, walk the dogs, eat not much breakfast, read the newsoid.

Toss a particularly ugly shirt, a recent Costco buy, into the car and head down to the Ghetto Costco outlet, where as usual they take the thing back and return my money, no questions asked. Fill the Dog Chariot’s tank with gas preparatory to tomorrow’s endless jaunt to the far, far, far, FAR west side (approx. half-way to Yuma). Yesh: filled the tank for under twenty dollah!!!!!

In living memory, it has cost $40 to fill that thing when it’s 3/4 empty. Dance to spring!

Next: Over to AJ’s, a local gourmet market. Get the avocado. Get the frozen peas. Do not get the MSG.

MSG, you ask? What would one want with such a discredited, politically incorrect product?

{sigh} Those of you who are not dog owners should avert your eyes. Those of you who live with dogs no doubt are familiar with a particularly annoying doggy quirk, coprophagia. Ruby has, of recent, decided to phage copros. But — this one’s weird — not her own. Cassie’s.

Ugh. Humans hate that.

You can discourage this revolting little habit by adding a light sprinkle of MSG to the dog’s food. Of course, I’ll have to add it to Cassie’s, since Ruby’s not interested in her own product. At least, not so far.

When metabolized in the canine gut, MSG taints the dog’s excreta with a flavor so ghastly that even a dog will not eat it! Works like a charm. Within two or three days, your dog will be convinced that this activity is not worth the effort. It’s a quick and easy way to break a dog of that particular irritant.

But damn. McCormick’s meat tenderizer no longer contains MSG. It’s salt and some other chemical, unrecognized. The store did not have any Accent.

Back home, order a little jar of Accent from Amazon. No shipping charge, now that I’m an Amazon Prime member. This is good, because the cost of shipping 4.7 ounces of the stuff probably would have cost more than the product itself.

More laundry into the washer. Water plants, water plants, water plants, water plants.

Dribble Round-Up on weeds running rampant in front yard and alley, having noticed while driving out that the yard is looking a little tacky. The neighbor’s behind me looks worse. And of course, Manny’s is a jungle, since they like to grow poppies in the gravel each spring. At least they grow their weeds on purpose.

Repair the paper towel holder that fell off the wall, out in the garage. Throw lunch on the grill. Scour pan left to soak in garage work sink.

Dine magnificently while reading New York Review of Books.

Grab Cassie, who has become extravagantly filthy, drag her into the bathroom, and drop her in the bathtub. Scrub dog, scrub dog, scrub dog, scrub dog, rinse dog, rinse dog, rinse dog, rinse dog, rinse dog, dry dog, dry dog, dry dog, dry dog…dog escapes.

Haul wet towels to garage, throw those in the washer with wet bluejeans.

Scrub bathtub. In the process of getting all-purpose cleanser out of the bathroom cupboard, tip over the bottle of toilet cleaner, which tumbles out onto the floor. I can’t get those things open without recourse to a wrench, so once I do manage to break into a bottle of the stuff, I just stick it back in the cabinet, open. Take that, Big Nanny!

Toilet cleaner squirts across the bathroom floor and slops onto bath mat.

Finish the job by squirting the rest of it into the terlet. Wash the caustic cleaner off the bathroom floor. Carry the bathroom rug, which was wet and hairy anyway, out to the garage to go in the washer next. Scrub toilet.

With hair dryer in hand, corner Cassie. Dry dog, dry dog, dry dog, dry dog, dry dog, dry dog…dog escapes.

Clean up kitchen. Hang clothes, load more laundry.

Dog is limping. If you wouldn’t put up such a fight, Dog, that wouldn’t happen. Place dry towel on bed, atop Dog Blanket. Place dog on bed. Place other dog on bed.

Ruby evicts Cassie from the Wet Dog Towel.

Move Ruby. Pick up Cassie and put her back on towel. Repel attack of The Look from Ruby.

Retrieve computer. Climb onto the sack with the dogs. Consider doing a little more work. Nothing very urgent is pending. One thing ought to be done today, right now. But the world will not end if it doesn’t get done today, right now. Read news. Play games at Washington Post site.

The Post‘s collection of online games, BTW, is primo. Check it out if you like benign time-wasters.

Who Said It: Candidate or Beauty Queen? is not to be missed, BTW.

Write this post. Realize it’s 7:00 p.m. Would like to go to sleep, but it’s too early. Besides, the washer’s still running.

Maybe I can get a little more marketing work in.

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