Oceanskater’s Blog

Noodles and Roy are smelling all the candles we bought to give as Christmas presents - to decide which one to give to who. Noodles keeps trying to lick the ones he likes. It’s quite cute

We gave Noodles a bath the other night (because he got into 2.5 lbs of coffee, but that’s another story), and he’s quite a bit thinner than he was when we got him. He only has about 4 more lbs to lose (he’s lost about 12), and then he’s off the diet food and on to some hypoallergenic blend.

Pictures of Noodles:

In the animal shelter (May, 2006):

At our house-warming party (July, 2006):

In his bath the other night (December, 2006):

He’s quite slim!

During our last-minute shopping yesterday, we had several discouraging experiences that threatened my Christmas spirit. The one that really got me thinking was a bumper sticker I saw:

“Republicans Are People, Too. Mean, Selfish, Greedy People”

This was very interesting, especially in light of a recent study on America’s generosity that I had been reading about. Dr. Arthur Brooks wrote a book entitled “Who Really Cares?” and was on 20/20 talking about it. Here are some of the statistics:

Americans are 3.5 times more generous than the French, 7 times more generous than Germans and 14 times more generous than Italians.The American working poor are the most generous by a rather large margin. Conservatives give 30% more than liberals. He adds, “And incidentally, conservative-headed families make slightly less money.” Of the top 25 states where people give an above average percent of their income, 24 were red states in the last presidential election. And the most generous of all are those he calls “religious” - they give 18% more at blood drives and 400% more to the homeless.

Another interesting quote from Brooks: “A person who goes to church every week and strongly rejects the idea that it is the government’s responsibility to redistribute income will give, on average, 100 times more money to charity each year than a person who never attends a house of worship, and strongly believes that the government should reduce income differences between people.” 100 times!

Since “conservatives” do tend to be Republicans, I’m not sure I can agree with the above bumper sticker, especially since I know some really great Republicans

I wanted to post a picture of a house nearby that gets all decked out for Christmas. First of all, this house is huge and without all the decorations, it looks like a castle. Have a look:

This house is huge, first of all! Look at how small this person is compared to the house:

Here are 2 more pictures:

It’s pretty crazy because the house is on a busy street and everyone slows down to take pictures of the house.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Roy & I went away for the weekend to a conference, and while we were gone, Noodles got into some fancy European dark chocolate in our roommate’s room and ate 16 pieces.

I was so scared he was going to die. It’s amazing how attached I am to that cutie pie.

Thankfully, the dogsitter misunderstood our instructions on food and fed him twice as much as he was supposed to get. Since his food is high-fiber, I think it absorbed all the chocolate. She also fed him some burnt toast. Since it had been so long since he had eaten the chocolate, it probably wouldn’t have helped to make him throw up. And our vet won’t even talk on the phone unless you pay $50. (Of course, we would have paid the $50, but we were in NY and my cell was barely working, so the dogsitter went on the internet and it was highly likely he needed to eat like 10 times that amount of chocolate to be anywhere near toxic.)

Noodles seems fine, though hilariously (is that a word?), he is visibly fatter. I’m not kidding

Tomorrow is Election Day! Please, everyone, get out and vote. And make sure to pray before you do.

Here in Massachusetts, we have some ballot questions. I understand the 1st one and know how I will vote. I also understand the 2nd one, but I don’t understand the ramifications of it. And the 3rd one I’m totally confused about. So I’m going to go look into those.

Here’s a picture of Noodles from my friend’s camera on her computer:

Amazon Grocery? How bizarre!

I listen to this rather serious radio show, where everyone from co-dependents to porn addicts call in to get serious help. Yesterday, this woman called in because her boyfriend talks about farting and burping too much. It was just hilarious compared to everyone else calling in with DID and sex addiction.

I don’t know why, but I think the whole Bush/Blair conversation that was inadvertently caught on microphone was hilarious. It doesn’t even bother me, really, that Bush swore. But I can’t help but keep saying, “Yo, Blair! Thanks for the sweatah!” (Of course, that’s my Boston accent coming out.)

It probably also goes without saying that I am thrilled that Bush vetoed the Stem Cell bill. Thrilled! He’s right - he said in a press conference that these embryos are not “spare parts”. It’s sad for me to hear people call stem cell research on frozen embryos “progress”. What’s even scarier, in some ways, is that all these frozen embryos even exist. That’s a whole nother topic. But I heard a radio show today with families who adopted the embryos and now have babies.

The original couple who sued for gay marriage to be legalized in Massachusetts are splitting. Crazy (as in hard to believe/imagine).

A friend who came over for our house-warming party last weekend said the pictures I post of Noodles look nothing like him. So here he is again.

Noodles in Kitchen:

Noodles in Dirt:

Noodles Getting a Bath:

Noodles After His Bath:

Hello, blog friends! I am alive! I realized I haven’t written since the move (which we survived). We even got a dog from the animal shelter. He’s very cute.

Then I went to California to visit my sister, and got very sick. I am still getting over whatever it was. It was not fun; that’s for sure.

Here’s a picture of the new addition to our family:

(EDIT: Somehow, my picture got inserted into the wrong place in my post, but it’s actually quite funny, and I’m going to leave it there.)

I don’t know if people from outside New England hear about this stuff, but Patrick Kennedy has been on my heart and in my prayers this week. If I understand one thing, it’s the heartbreak of addiction, and the heartbreak of having a family member in & out of rehab. I guess that’s actually 2 things Anyway, if you’re the praying type, do say a prayer for Patrick and his family.

Did I mention that I had a birthday this week? I went to my 2 favorite restaurants - Taco Bell for lunch and Shawarma King for dinner! Roy got me a little gourmet carrot cake - num, num. It was all-in-all a good birthday.

And as of 1:30 PM today, Roy & I are officially homeowners! I feel so grown up. Now we can get a dog! I went to the MSPCA to visit some dogs last week, and left practically in tears. I wanted to take them all home, especially a cute pit bull terrier named Bella. She was the only dog not barking, and when I put my hand near her cage, she just gently licked it over and over! It just broke my heart. I think I’m going to have to stick to looking at the dogs on the MSPCA’s website.

I’d like you all to meet Knuckles:

His picture was on the side of a box of garbage bags at the coffee shop where I work. I decided he was too cute to be on a box of garbage bags, so now Knuckles the Garbage Gorilla is living at my house.

We had quite a bit of snow today. So much fun! We went out this morning to play in it and I took some pictures.

A school near where we live:

Sledding!

If you know me, you know I love dogs! I’ll play with anyone’s dog who comes along since we can’t have a dog of our own. We met Marshall when we were out & about.

Roy thinks Marshall looks like a lion here:

We got really cold after about an hour and a half since the wind chill factor was below zero and went back in. And then it just kept snowing and snowing and snowing!

Hope everyone’s safe and warm!