Thanks for all your votes!!

Hey everyone!! Thanks for all your votes for Pippin!! He really, really appreciates it. Voting is now officially closed and we'll find out Saturday at Dog Day if Pippin was the big winner. Keep your fingers crossed!! Special shout outs to Mouse, Running Jayhawk, JAG, Chez Bez, Shore Turtle and everyone else who sent out special myspace bulletins, blog posts and emails to their friends and family asking for votes. Pippin will never poop in your yard!!

There's really not much to blog about here. We've had a really busy week at work and our AC is busted. This problem was the total opposite of any AC issue we've ever had - it won't STOP running!! Before it's always been a "not working" issue. Since we have a 1-yr home warranty on this house the repair will only cost us $55! Yeah!! That's cheaper than just the service call normally is! If you're in the home market I highly recommend building in the warranty. If they can't fix it they will replace it, so we're hoping the old water heater, stove, dishwasher and so on and so forth all break between now and July 07! We made the seller of this house buy it, but even if he had not it would have only cost us $400, which we likely would have paid today for this one repair.

So is everyone getting excited about Halloween?? We started decorating this week. We've got a couple of parties to go to and I'm running a freaking marathon on Saturday am of Halloween weekend. (All of the parties are the weekend before here.) I'm still working on my costume for this year, although I know which direction I want to head in. Pippin is going to be a fire hydrant this year, but I think it is going to be pretty hard to top the bumblebee. We were walking Saturday night when we met-up with Jamie as they were decorating for their party. It was HILARIOUS! We saw a couple walking out of their house and heard a "Is that PIPPIN?" So funny!! Her account is much better than mine could be, but I'm so excited we got to meet them and they live SO close! Very cool. AND they gave us their "37206 - Where Everyone knows your dog's name" which is very true for us! I'm pretty sure Pippin has more MySpace friends than I do, and he gets more requests every day!! Pippin's a little rock star. I heard two women walking Saturday say "I think that's Pippin!" as they walked by while we were working in the yard and Chez Bez mentioned some people talking about him at Radio Cafe over the weekend. I just wish he wouldn't wake me up at 2 am every morning to go out. For some reason since we moved he does that EVERY NIGHT. EVERY NIGHT. I am getting so used to it that this morning while he was outside I was coherent enough to pull some meat out of the freezer to put into the fridge to defrost for dinner.

Anyway, this has been a ramble and a half. I've been working out all week but nothing exciting. Just the usual runs and toning exercises, and early am walks with Pip and Brent (plus one late walk last night to the market for some milk, two blocks up. How.freaking.cool. to live in a neighborhood where we can walk to the market.) Let's see, I guess I can share a work story to close this out, for all of you who just "love" my work enviro.

Stripper and Coworker Stripper's Wife have had some bad luck over the past year with car wrecks, just like us. And like us they've been lucky that none have been serious and no one has gotten hurt. It's eerie how similar they have been to ours. Their first one was a "big one" that actually totaled their car (courtesy of a good ole non-insured TN driver). Their second one was a small fender bender. That one was just a couple of weeks ago so they still have a rental car. Yesterday afternoon I am STRESSING and hear her answer her phone:

"WHAT"
"YOU ARE KIDDING ME, YOU WERE JUST REAR ENDED. AGAIN? IN THE RENTAL CAR? YOU ARE KIDDING ME. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?? You had better tell her she is SCREWED. That we are tired of people. Hold on a second"

At this point she puts stripper husband on hold and yells out to all of us:
"STRIPPER WAS JUST REAR ENDED. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT??? AAAARGH. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE??? CAN SOMEONE TELL ME THAT??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE????"

"Ok honey, I'm back. Let me call the car rental company. Make sure you stay until you get a copy of the police report this time."

It was just SO funny that I had to laugh. Not that he was rear ended because that is SUCH a pain, and I am so glad he wasn't hurt because they are about the nicest people in the world who would do ANYTHING for you - loyal to the END, seriously. But just the whole "what is wrong with people?" part, because I am SO there with her. People are just crappy, the majority of them. So AVERAGE. So FRUSTRATING. So anyway, you probably had to be there but maybe you didn't.

Talk to you later!! GO PIPPIN!!!! Black and white rules!!

Rachel