The joy in taking the initiative and doing something not in your job description, voluntarily, is that you can stop whenever you want.  I've been cleaning the box office, and I've decided I'm done and don't want to do any more today.  And I CAN decide that!

So, Phouka has been...well, Phouka, lately.  The other night, Tommy said, she ate a scorpion that was in the bathroom, before he could stop her.  Apparently it was eaten with great relish and smacking of chops.  As the crazy coyote seems to be suffering no ill effects from this little adventure, all I can say is, "Good puppy!  You saved Mommy!"

Yesterday, when I took her out, I didn't see the little marmalade cat at the foot of the porch stairs.  She did.  She took off like a shot after that cat, tearing the leash from my hands.  But, the leash caught on the porch!  Saved?  No.  She broke the leash like it wasn't even there and was gone into the front woods.  I heard her flailing around like an octopus in it's death throes, and here came the cat that started it all, walking calmly out of the woods, across the driveway and into the tall grass on the other side.

Informing Phouka that the cat had outsmarted her and was long gone, did not bring Phouka back into the house.  She continued to flail around a while longer, then shot across the somewhat open space we laughingly call the front yard, up the path into the back and was GONE.  I have to say, that dog can move when given the opportunity!

After about ten minutes with no sign of her, she finally heard me calling and trotted calmly back into the house, where she promptly flopped down over the air conditioning vent and ignored all the strife she had caused.

This adventure necessitated a trip to PetSmart where we purchased a heavy duty tie-out line, instead of the retractable leash we had been using, a new, thicker collar, just in case, and easier to read pet tags.

There have been no further incidents, today.  To my knowledge.

And I know I've been remiss in posting random photos, so here's one I took on my porch the other day.  It was dusk, heading into night, and everything was turning grey.  Except this one wind chime.  It must have been catching all available light to be glowing like this!

I LOVE this color.

There's a one day (well, four hour, but I'll take what I can get) Renaissance festival coming up in July in Macon! I just found out. AND I CAN GO! Wheeee! It's near my house (cosmically speaking) and only $3 for adults. Hells, I can get there and get in for less than it costs me to drive to work on one day. I'd practically be making money by going!

Now, I'm not expecting anything huge, here. Actually, I'm expecting a few tents with swap-meet quality daggers and maybe some "Hand Made" (in China, like as not) jewelry, though, with Lindsay going, you know there's going to be at least one good vendor! I'm thinking I can amuse myself at ANY faire for a few hours. Besides, I'm sure they could use the extra mobile scenery.

Here's the info I got off Lindsay Archer's renspace page

TRINITY WOODS RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL Saturday July 19th 10am - 2pm on the grounds of the Lutheran Church of Holy Trinity in Macon, Georgia / Trinity Day Camp Tickets: $3 for adults, $2 for kids, kids 3 and under FREE Open Rain or Shine! Costumes welcome! For more information, please email mukmukniloc@aol.com

Anyone want to join me and wreak havoc play? If there's a whole horde mob group of us, how bad can it be? We can all amuse each other if need be!

I'm not a shoe person.  I can't spend hours in a shoe store, drooling.  I'm more likely to buy shoes for a purpose (running, building, winter work, summer work, SM show shoes) than an event.  When a pair of my shoes dies, I buy a new pair for the same purpose as the old ones.  This is actually my opinion on clothes in general.

I have a pair of cute shoes.  They're the only "cute" shoes I own, bought only because they were cute.  They are not heels. (I am as vehemently against heels as Valerie is against processed foods, for about the same reasons.  If Goddess had wanted me to be 5' 6" tall, she would have made me that height in the first place!)  But for some reason, despite appearances to the contrary, they were rather uncomfortable.  I think since I don't wear them often, they just haven't been broken in.

I wore them yesterday, and they were great!  No problems.  I wore them today, and I am now contemplating how I'm going to manage walking to the bus stop without my pink toes falling off.  The cute shoes will no longer be cute if soaked with blood.

Also, here, have a picture of a rainbow!  The storm I blogged about last week on Zombie Day actually happened, and I got some pictures of this kicking rainbow in my front yard.

I got the stitches from my wisdom tooth extraction taken out yesterday.  That was quick and painless, (about time something was) but still annoying.  I mentioned to her that I was still having a LOT of aching, and all I got was a lecture on how long the healing process will be, because she disturbed the bone so much.  Apparently, I can expect pain for at least four to six more weeks until the hole fills itself in, and the occasional twinges as the bone re-grows.  I was hoping for meds, but no such luck.  And you know it's got to hurt like a bitch if I'm wanting meds.

I swear, at times, it's about enough to make me give up on life.

Blackberries are just ROLLING in from the brambles around the house.  The best ones are from the bramble right in the front, though.  I think it's an older bush, so the berries are bigger and sweeter.  Some of the ones from the other bushes are downright bitter and sour!  I'm freezing the surplus to make blackberry wine, later, at Cat's suggestion.  I'm thinking of gathering dandelions next spring for dandelion wine, as well.

Besides the unexpected free foodstuffs, there are other reasons I'm finally reconciled to leaving the yard go feral.  It's a wildlife sanctuary!  Two days ago, I went out picking berries and scared off...something, hiding near the house.  It moved all the tall grass as it went away, and I'm estimating it was about the size of Phouka.  Lots of little and not-so-little lizards, small frogs, yesterday I ran across a snake that I think was an Eastern King snake sunning itself in my little path.  He wouldn't get out of my way, and I finally had to poke him with a long stick.  I would have been happy to step over him, he was non-threatening, but I didn't want him to change his mind while I was in mid-stride.  And then, there's this guy:

I see this rabbit all the time in the yard.  I'm pretty sure he's the same one all the time, and he's pretty fearless.  He was only about 12 feet away when I took this picture.

I just had the worlds most frustrating, USELESS conversation with the IT department.  Here's the situation:  Customer called, tried to order tickets (duh, I AM the box office.  That fact will become important later.)  Went to run her credit card, and got an error that I'd never seen before, but was very clear: failure to establish connection to credit card server.  No prob.  I try a few more times just in case it was a quick hiccup in the system.  Nope.

Apologize to the patron, ask them to call back in about half an hour and call IT, with the order still up on my screen.  Read the error to IT guy #1.  He has no clue, asks me to try it a few more times ("The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" Albert Einstein) and it still doesn't connect.  Here's where things get annoying: "Well, my boss is down the hall right now, and the ticketing software programmer is in the next room; I don't want to bother them.  It's just the credit card server.  Can it wait?"
NO!  It cannot wait.  I am the box office.  Most of what I do is run credit cards for ticket purchases.  Without access to the credit card server, I am USELESS!  And then, the ticketing software spontaneously crashed.
*sigh*  "Okay, I'll go get them, we'll call you back."

Fifteen minutes later I get a call back, and they want me to try and run it again (obviously these guys have never heard of Einstein).  No can do, when the software crashed, it deleted the order because it was unfinished, and hence not savable.  More stupid questions abound: Do you run credit cards often?  (What part of the concept of box office are you guys not understanding?!)  Why don't you remember the patrons ID number?  (Because I talk to dozens to hundreds of patrons a day, I'm lucky if I remember two names, much less numbers!)  Is the patron's number in the phone log?  (Yes, along with a dozen or so other unlabeled numbers, I don't know which one was her, and even if I did, the point of that would be what?)  Can't you retrieve the order, somehow?  (If you're the ticketing software programmer, shouldn't you know that it doesn't save orders until payment has been made and tickets have been printed?  The order is just flat gone!)
"Well, how can we test this?" 
You're the IT guys, you tell me!
"Sorry, we can't do anything for you.  Call us back if it happens again."

*headdesk*  I'm not IT, but it's pretty obvious that my computer and the credit card server are having trouble talking to each other.  This is obvious, because that's what the error said!  Maybe get off the flippin' order obsession and oh, check the network?  Did anyone do that?  No.  They made some noises about poking around inside the history of the server, but what good is that going to do if my computer can't reach it in the first place!?  "I don't see any transactions coming for you in here."  That's because it never made it there half-wit!

It's going to be a long day, and all my chocolate is at home.