Monthly Archive for January, 2004

This was from Murphy’s Mom last Wednesday night (1/21) to friends and family. I’m sharing the latest information I have.

I’m writing this message because I believe in the power of positive thoughts.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I took Murphy (many of you know the famed dog) to the vet for she was walking in an uncomfortable manner. She was treated for a potential muscle sprain with anti-inflamatory medication and bedrest (i.e. no ballplaying….)

At 5:00 AM she was completely paralized in her backside.

Early this morning I took her back to the vet, she had a neurological exam, an MRI and through that it was discovered that she had a disc disease. This meant that disc matter had gotten into the spinal cord region causing swelling and bleeding – therefore the paralysis.

After a 5 minute discussion (that’s all the time the vet gave us to make a decision), we decided to have Murphy go through major surgery which would clean out the disc matter, remove any compression to the spinal cord and clean out from any bleeding. She survived a 5 hour surgery today and the vet said that she did well.

Now is when I need your positive thoughts – she has a 50-50 chance of ever walking again. This will depend upon the recovery of the spinal cord. Fortunately, the vet said she did not see anything wrong with the cord itself. That is good news.

It will be at least a few days to even see if she has any feeling at all.

Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers during this recovery time.

I strongly believe in the power of positive thoughts and I very much believe in you.

Thank you for your kindness.

Hugs,
Murphy’s Mom

UPDATE: Yes, I will try to post some photos of Murphy when I get home.

Yes, it’s a big ass list of links.

Yes, it’s ugly. But it’s finally off my main page.

I really needed to categorize my links, so rather than do it the way I’ve seen others do it (by frequency), I changed it up a bit.

I categorized everything geographically as best as I could.

So take a moment and check it out.

Do I need to add you to my big ass blogroll?
Did I put you in the wrong place?
Am I missing your location?

Let me know what you think! THANKS!

P.S. – Don’t forget to mouseover your link! I tried to make little comments for every link.

Got one to spare?

Ok, I went by to look for some penguins to smack around and I just spent the last few minutes bopping to this; my eyes glued to the screen.

Oh, those Peanuts!

Thanks to Mikey and Keith for the link!

UPDATE: Can’t find the Hey Ya, Charlie Brown (Hey Ya, Peanuts) clip? Try this link.

… that I can not *really* give credit to my high school French class for teaching me that “les poissons” is fish.

I must give props to Pierre from The Little Mermaid for his musical rendition of the song (lyrics below) which not only made me remember one French phrase, but also makes me want to run around saying “Hee hee hee, haw haw haw” to complete strangers.

But I will acknowledge that this fine piece of cinematic animation was indeed screened in my high school French class because of the “educational French aspect” of Pierre’s performance. In fact, we watched many ‘educational films’ to help “round out” our French educations. Either that, or our long-term substitute teacher was too busy working on her Masters thesis during our classtime.

At some point we must have watched the entire closet of French films… everything from Cyrano de Bergerac to Jean de Florette to The Return of Martin Guerre to The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe and The Return of the Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe. I do remember an argument a debate we had with our sub when we ran out of French movies to watch. The “agreement” we came to was that we would be allowed to watch movies in English, so long as they had a “French component.”

And I’m 99.9% sure that French class was where I watched Die Hard. I believe the justification for that was because someone was eating french fries (pomme frits, says Keith… I sure as heck didn’t know the French for that) at the beginning of the movie.

I hope a die hard ‘Die Hard’ fan will either confirm or deny if indeed a french fry scene exists in this movie, because I have no idea if it is true. But I guess it sounded like good enough justification to our sub on why ‘Die Hard’ was an ‘educational French film.’ I’ll admit, I certainly thought sitting in 2nd period and watching ‘Die Hard’ sounded better than conjugating verbs in French.

It occurs to me that this is simply another reason why it’s just an atrocity to rename our tasty fried friends “Freedom Fries.”

WWHSFSW? What Would High School French-learning Students Watch?

And can someone explain to me why Gérard Depardieu’s photo on IMDB is THIS?!!?

Continue reading ‘I just have to clarify something…’

… and I can only count to four & I know that “les poissons” is fish. Oh, and that a young, blonde Emmanuelle Béart danced nude in the fields of France while playing a goat-shepherdess in “Manon of the Spring.”

Soooo… are you able to tell me which is correct?

A) “Je veux mutiler quelqu’un.”

B) “Je voulez mutiler quelqu’un.”

[My question was: What is the French for “I want to maim someone.”?]

And someone said that “Je veux tue quel qu’un.” (or qu’une, if a female; accent in tue is missing) is French for “I want to kill someone.” but that’s not very helpful because I’m thinking I’ll have more reason to use the word “maim” in French.

Except for the driving I did today, I worked the entire day. Oh, I did take a 45 minute nap during my lunch break instead of eating. But even dinner at Prado was a meeting for Job #2.

I hope there is some sort of Chinese New Year Eve superstition/karma thing that says that I will win the Lotto or something for working all of the last day of the year.

I’m not likely to jump in on memes and things at the same time everyone else is doing them because it’s always been like me not to do the “in/trendy/now” thing at the right time. I either do it super-early or super-late.

That being said, here is my fashionably-late Scrabble score:

Pholph’s Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 57. What is your score? Get it here.

Sean: 4, Amber: 9, Krix: 15, Annie: 5, JavaMama: 22, Everything’s Zen: 33, Rilana: 6, Hawq: 19, Raevyn: 12, A Typical Female: 26, Sugarfused: 15, View From the Bench: 37, The Presurfer: 20…

Even cheaters like Busy Mom/Bizzy Momm: 41 can’t beat my score of 57!

Hiii-yahhh!

*Joz does a mock karate chop, pulls a muscle, and slinks away in shame*

… Are you at work or at home today?

Just wondering.

Yoshi has been saying “go to bed” for like 3 hours now.

I wasn’t even working (that much). Uh oh.

Check it out! and send your good wishes!

A “quick bite to eat” for lunch with my friend on Wednesday turned out to be everything but “quick.”

We decided on CPK at Hollywood & Highland and unbeknownst to us, we got there just in time for the taping of On Air with Ryan Seacrest. Our timing rocks [/sarcasm].

There were mobs of people all over the place because John Mayer and Donald Trump were the guests. And there were gaggles of shrieking fans. GAGGLES! SHRIEKING! Loudly! I think they may have punctured my precious eardrums. (I wonder if they were screaming for John, Donald, or Ryan?)

Don’t these people have to work? Go to school? Get their nails done? Something OTHER than hang around and watch TV tapings?

Anyway, we got to the front door of CPK and everyone is staring up at the giant screen with Ryan’s talking head.

“Do you want to sit inside or out?”

Mind you, the last four words of that question from the host were drowned out by the high-pitched wailing of the chicas being filmed while screaming unintelligibly. It didn’t matter because we were already walking through the doors and into the restaurant, the host following quickly behind.

The food was good. We shared the Tuscan Hummus Appetizer*. I had the Grilled Rosemary Chicken on Foccacia Sandwich* with a side salad and my friend had the Smoked Bacon and Gorgonzola Salad*. And we both had lemonade. Mmmmm, lemonade!

Ok, now I’m hungry and I’m stuck buying food from the Roach Coach. Gotta go before they leave.

Oh and click this for something completely unrelated.

CONTINUATION:
Sorry, I had to get something to eat (Chef’s Salad) after seeing all that yummy food. I forgot to say that our waiter got distracted toward the end of our meal and we waited more than 20 minutes to get our check. We were close to walking out without paying. We are pretty certain the distraction was the mobs of people who wanted to eat at CPK after Ryan’s show had wrapped.

And then, we got stuck trying to LEAVE Hollywood & Highland. First, we were blocked in by the crew tearing down the stage. Then, we were stuck in the lines and lines of cars from people trying to leave the parking garage since the show was over.

All in all, my “lunch hour” ended up being longer than the 60 minutes I am allowed.