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I am sitting on the couch. Charlie is sitting up on the back of the couch behind me as usual.

I feel a paw hook into the collar of my shirt and pull. I turn to look at Charlie, who has reached out to get my attention. He leans over and touches his nose to mine. He looks at me a moment longer, then puts his paw in the middle of my forehead and gently pushes.

If there was ever any doubt as to who was in charge here…

I came across this earlier today. Care2.com is running a contest for your favorite animal shelter. The winning shelter will get a $10,000 donation. So I threw my vote in for the Heritage Humane Society. If you’re in the Williamsburg area and wanted to throw a vote their way, clicking on the image to the left will take you to the vote page.

A conversation had earlier on IRC:

E: There are many questions to which I know the answers…
E: That is not one of them.
G: snicker
G: How Zen of you.
E: I’m practicing for a future career in fortune cookie writing. You know, in case this whole software thing doesn’t work out.
G: I can see that. Writing code certainly gives you the applicable skills.

Which, for whatever reason, caused this to pop into my head.

succeeded = try();
if (!succeeded)
{
    try();
    try();
}

Not much more to say to that, is there?

Mosquitoes are evil.

Really though, it’s my own fault. A smart person, upon noticing the first mosquito bite 5 minutes into weeding a flowerbed, would stop long enough to go inside and apply bug repellent. An even smarter person might have put on the bug repellent before walking into a bunch of plants on a balmy late-summer/early-fall evening.

It takes a unique kind of stubbornness to realize you’re being nibbled to death by mosquitoes and still keep weeding for another 40 minutes.

By the time I went inside, my ankles and arms were reminding me very vividly of a scene from Lilo & Stitch

Look! A mosquito has chosen me as her perch. She’s so beautiful. Look, another one! And another one! Why, it’s a whole flock! They like me! They’re nuzzling my flesh with their noses! Now they’re… they’re… Aaaaaaaah!

That was Sunday night. Two days later, I’m sitting at work with my sock rolled down off my left ankle, because the cool air makes the itch more bearable.

But at least my flowerbed is nicely weed-free.

For dinner tonight, I was rummaging around for something to make, and ran across a box of Zatarain’s Creole Chicken and Rice Mix in my pantry. The ingredients are the box, 2 cups water, a can of diced tomatoes, and pre-cooked chicken or shrimp. Super simple to make too; throw everything in a pot, bring to a boil, simmer for 25 minutes, et voila!

While I was trying not to watch the pot boil, I read through the nutritional information. Too much sodium to have as an every-day-of-the-week meal, but that’s usual for boxed stuff. But here’s the fun stuff; per a 1 cup (cooked) serving, there are 130 calories, 0.5 grams of fat, and 1 gram of fiber. If you’re on Weight Watchers, you know why those numbers mattered to me. Throw them in your calculator or slide rule for a pleasant surprise.

Now, I’m assuming that nutritional information doesn’t include the meat, because it seems way too low to include it, plus chicken != shrimp as far as I know. But maybe it includes it with chicken, since the front of the box says chicken even though the back says either? Even if you assume it doesn’t include the meat and add that on separate, you’re still talking about an easy, low-point, very flavorful main dish. Throw on a couple veggie sides, and you’ve got yourself a dinner!

I mentioned flavorful. The finished dish was quite tasty, a bit spicy but not so much that it was all heat and no taste. But just enough that one serving was quite satisfying, and prompted me to drink a lot more liquids with dinner than I normally do (this is good!). I finished my plate off with a side of steamed green beans.

Friday night I went to a party at a friend’s house. A bit into the party, we discovered we needed more drinks, so another woman and I volunteered to run to the grocery store and pick up some things. We went to the nearest Farm Fresh. When we arrived, there were two or three police cars, a couple other cars, and maybe a dozen people clustered in front of the store. We were curious what happened, but went about our business.

As it turns out, this is what happened: Woman abducted from Williamsburg grocery store parking lot

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So… apparently “we’ll call you and let you know when we’ll be coming to do your landscaping” means “one day you will come home and find that your yard has mysteriously been landscaped”.

I have new plants. I have lots of new mulch. I have new paving stones in the backyard to make a path from my back patio to the fence gate.

The plants are very little at this point, but I think I like them. I especially like the liriope(sp?) in the front bed. The little spidery plants look nice.

I’ll take and post some pictures later.

Checked on the latest news on the Atlanta zoo website today. It’s official! Lun Lun is going to be a mommy panda again. They even have ultrasound pictures up.

Read all about the soon-to-be panda

Update: As of August 30, there’s a new panda on the planet. So cool. The link above will take you to the latest panda news.

Almost two years ago, on Sept 6, a baby panda was born at the Atlanta Zoo. About a month after, I found out about this news, and about the “Panda Cam” they had set up to watch Lun Lun (the mom) and her new baby.

Thus began my love affair with the pandas. An obsession that has gone so far as to having a membership at the Atlanta Zoo (for anyone reading this that doesn’t know, I live in Virginia, not Georgia). I have, in fact, used my membership. In May 2007, some friends and I visited Atlanta, and we got to see the little Mei Lan in person.

Today I got the latest zoo newsletter in my email, with a very exciting article. Panda Watch 2008 has begun! Which means that the folks at the zoo think there’s a pretty decent chance that this year’s breeding attempts were successful and that Lun Lun may be getting close to her second pass at motherhood. Nothing is definite yet, but it’s very exciting nonetheless. Stay turned on the Atlanta Zoo’s website for updates.

Once upon a time in elementary school, I took a very basic computer class.

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