Unscheduled non-job fluff

Today's Phone Conversation From Weirdland

*ring* *ring*

Me: Hello?

Voice: Diane?

Me: Beg pardon?

Voice: Is this Diane Wilson?

Me: Nope, sorry. Wrong number.

Voice: But your name is Wilson, right?

Me: Yep, but I'm not Diane.

Voice: Oh. Um...do you happen to *know* Diane, or where I could get in touch with her?

A Stupid Thing To Say

At the convenience store this morning I was faced with a thin young man with dark wavy hair brushed ever-so-slightly forward and a pair of wide clear grey eyes. Heavy eyebrows, well-shaped lips. Slight gap between his front teeth. Entirely too young to be away from his mama, but cute as a collie pup.

He let me buy Certain Restricted Items after I rattled off my birthdate (my ID was in the car) and assured him that I wasn't the ABC in disguise.

Then I asked, "D'you ever get sick of people telling you you look just like Frodo?"

"After I did that nice thing for you!" he protested.

"No, no," I said, "I meant it in a commiserating, I-look-like-Molly-Ringwald way. Really."

He said, "Yeah, I do, kinda."

Fuck this shit, man.

After three weeks of diet and exercise, watching my fat intake and cutting out alcohol, running on the treadmill, lifting until my shoulders groan, and generally being miserably hungry and sore all the time, I discovered this morning that I am now too large to fit into the clothing that fit three weeks ago.

From here on out I'm going to live on Whoppers and Bud.

Pity my poor sister

My sister and her boyfriend just adopted a new dog. He's an American Bull Terrier cross (that's Pit Bull to all you non-technical readers) who is dignified, calm, affectionate, and watchful. He has only one apparent fault so far, and that's a certain exuberance around pups of the opposite sex. This wouldn't be a problem, except that he weighs sixty-five pounds and is solid muscle. Exuberant muscle is hard to deal with.

Beloved Sis and Lucky Man have decided to give him a few weeks to make sure that he's trainable--or rather, that they can train him out of lunging, enthusiastically and affectionately, at female dogs. If they can't, they'll return him to the adoption service. I have no doubt that he'll do fine.

So I'm going to sally out tomorrow and buy them a selection of the finest noisemaking dog toys available on the market today. Beloved Sis sent my old Greyhound a Screaming Monkey toy (bite it and it screams "ayaaaa ayaaaa ayaaa aiiiiii aiiii aiiii aiiiii") that the dog loved. Her dog is getting two. And some Kongs with holes for treats. And squeaky things. And jingly things. And, if I can find it, something noisy that glows in the dark.

I owe my sister a lot.