A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That

A random compilation of my week so far...

THIS:
In the comments of my post, YOU CAN'T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER, a few of you asked about DNA testing. It's not hard. If you google DNA testing for Dogs, you get all kinds of results for all kinds of companies. Some of them are very cheap and have a short list of breeds. Some have a very long list of breeds and are quite expensive. We went with a middle of the road company with 64 breeds and a special price for testing two dogs at once.

We went with BioPet Vet Lab. The cost was $110 for two kits. The hardest bit was keeping the dogs apart for an hour before testing. The test is two cheek swabs (one for each side), which you stick in the side of their mouths and rub the inside of the cheek. Stick it in an envelope and mail it in. The dogs are separated because if your dogs are like mine, their favorite pastime is fang wrestling - which swaps saliva. Which means you could get DNA that doesn't belong to the correct dog in the DNA test if you don't separate them.


THAT:
Summer has begun as far as the kids are concerned. ZBoy's friend Ben will be heading off to Virginia for the summer next week, so his dad has a week of childcare to figure out. Monday morning, Ben landed on our front porch. He and Z played while I worked, then at 11am, we set out to get lunch and go into the office, where Darling Man would take charge of the boys and take them away somewhere.

There was a little bit of overlap between when I arrived and when DM could take them away, so with strict instructions to be quiet and polite, I allowed Z to take Ben on a tour of the TV and radio stations. But first I had them run some paperwork down the hall. Then they came back and said they were going on their tour. They were gone a long time. Finally, they came back (with a depression glass vase I'd won in an auction on Friday - in once piece, I might add), and visited the offices around mine. A few minutes later, DM collected the boys and left.

I got a lot of work done and was about to take a break when I heard laughing out in the hallway. Zhonta stuck his head in the office and asked if the boys were gone. He was saying that they had great entreprenurial spirit and said something about a sign. I had to get up to check it out. Just outside my office I found this:

It says: Z&B dilivery service, 10cents per person, ask Sarah S if dilivery throuout the building is needed.

I have no idea if anyone took them up on it, but I apparently owe them money.


THIS:
The pool is to be resurrected. So much for my gardening plans. I have come up with an alternate idea, however, involving container gardening and the one deck that actually gets a fair amount of sun.

Darling Man kept putting off and putting off pulling out the pool. Then he started wondering if he could maybe patch the pool and save it. I told him he could try. A patch kit's only about $6 so what was the harm in trying?

It worked well on the hole that started it all (below), so he cleaned up the rest of the pool and began spot-patching.

Then he added water. Not much, just enough to see if it would leak. It leaked. Since we've determined to keep the pool for a bit, we'll replace the liner and put in a new system for purification (was baquacil, going with the 20% chlorine system that all the greenies are touting). It'll cost us about $500 all told, but the pool should then be good to go for another 10 years.

The boys took advantage of the water in the pool though. They belly-slid all over the place for about 3 hours before DM made them get out. Ben's tummy was RED!


THAT:
I love the new StarTrek movie! I've seen it twice and when it comes out on DVD, I will own it! The other day, ZBoy asked to go to Burger King for dinner. I'm not a huge fan of Burger King (I hate their fries - not that I should be eating them anyway) but I agreed. And discovered that they were selling Star Trek glasses for $1.99. Ooooo, goody! So I bought one.

It's the perfect size for my large-ish alcoholic favorite on those rare days when I feel like I need a Bailey's Irish Cream and milk with a little squirt of chocolate syrup. Had one last night, as a matter of fact. Uhura approves.

THIS:
Ben wound up spending the night, so Uhura and I joined them in a game of StarWars Monopoly.
Turns out that Ben and ZBoy are pretty good economists. Look at all those properties! AND they managed to amass a fortune of $10,000 (but they had to get rid of some of that property). They wouldn't part with any money to improve their property, so while I had only a few complete sets of properties and put a couple of settlements on each one, I managed to stay in the game a lot longer than they expected. About halfway through the game, they joined forces to gang up on me.

When it was all over, I had $17 left. Even passing GO wouldn't save me. Chortling boys headed off to bed after that, and I was left to clean up the mess.


THAT:
I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from work last night. On impulse, I bought this week's Woman's World with the SouthBeach Diet story on the front. Last night, after everyone was in bed, I began thumbing through it. Diet story - check. Sassy Summer Hair - check. Article saying "You Deserve the Best.... Ice Cream!" Lovely, lovely pictures of cartons of ice cream and a sample serving next to them. Haagen Dazs, Ciao Bella, Turtle Mountain - and then this picture of Breyers' French chocolate Fat-Free Double Churn.

I must have been tired, because when I got to this picture, I read it as "Breyers' Free Double Chin". Guess where my head has been lately?

And that's it for This & That for today!