What is the Universe trying to tell me? My laundry room has flooded twice this week. Until the landlady gets a plumber over, we can't do laundry or dishes, and pretty much have to stand by with a bucket whenever we flush the toilet. The water is coming up the drain of the shower in the bathroom off the laundry room downstairs.

I tried to bake Christmas cookies today. I had planned on giving tins of cookies to various people like our wonderful postal carrier. I got these boxed xmas cookie mix things from World Market that looked cool, but they turned out terrible. I mean if they're chocolate cookies and I won't eat them, there is something very wrong. They were supposed to be little round chocolate cookies with an indentation in the middle that you filled with frosting and crushed peppermint, but several things went wrong during the preparation, and they turned out like giant, shiny cow patties.

Because I'm in the middle of trying to sell a bunch of stuff from storage on ebay, do christmas crafts, decorate the tree, and have had to move several storage boxes from the laundry room to the upstairs, my living room and dining room now look like Hoarder Central. And I have to have strangers over not only to look at the plumbing, but the heating as well.

It's freezing downstairs and too hot upstairs. There's only 2 heating vents downstairs and only one of them works. There's three vents upstairs even tho the upstairs is half the space of the downstairs. We've lived with the problem for years, but since I spend so much time at home now, and we got a letter from PG&E saying we use more energy than other similar houses, I wanted to look into some insulation and heating options. Maybe the landlady will be more amenable to fixing things since we've had to clean up two disgusting floods. I don't know what's in that water, but it smells awful.

And my dog won't learn how to heel. He pulls on the leash like his life depends on it, often going up on his hind legs. And even tho he's only 10 pounds, he insists on barking at every dog in town, even the two giant 175-pound dogs that I think are some kind of grey version of a Black Russian Terrier. It's embarrassing.

Oh, and I have to visit my gastroenterologist tomorrow, and the chances that he's going to insist I have a colonoscopy are between 90 and 100%.

www.washingtonpost.com/busine...ry.html

Saturday has been designated as "Bank Transfer Day" by the movement against Wallstreet.

I switched to a credit union in the 90s, and I can heartily recommend it. I get free checking and savings with interest, offers of credit lines for houses and cars and so forth. There is no charge to transfer money from savings to checking or vice versa, and they will do it automatically if I somehow mess up and don't have enough in checking to cover my expenses (6 free transfers per month, I've never needed more or even that many). Credit Unions will give you an ATM/Debit card just like a bank does, and you can use it pretty much anywhere, just like a bank ATM card.

If you're still with a bank, this might be the time to take the plunge and go ahead and switch to a credit union. You can probably join one through work or ask your friends and relatives if they have access to one and can sign you up.

For a while I photographed SPCA dogs to put pics of them online, both on the SPCA website and petfinder.com. I came to really hate it. I might take 100 photos just to get 4 good shots to put online. Trying to a dog to post or even hold still while trying to focus the camera was almost impossible. When I switched from a very expensive borrowed camera to a regular handheld digital camera, I couldn't take action shots fast enough. I ended up with so many blurred images or backsides of the dog. I got to the point where I wanted to nail their feet to a board and then take their pictures. Not in the animal-volunteer spirit of things. I'd probably get very expressive faces, tho. But that's why I had to stop that and stick to animal socializing. Altho I still do events and marketing.

Today I helped a professional photographer take pictures of the 4 dogs and cats that have been at the Oakland SPCA for the longest, in the hopes that photos and video clips of them online will gather them some attention. Interestingly, one little dog, "Doll", got some attention from a visitor while we were filming, and I think an adoption hold is on her until the whole family can visit. The clincher was that Doll really seemed interested in and friendly toward the lady's older beagle. It's often difficult to get pets that get along together.

Anyway, the photographer was quite athletic, getting down on the ground in the mud and what-not just to get the best shot. But it was exhausting. He kept wanting re-takes of the same behavior, and trying to get an animal to do the same thing again is almost impossible. Fortunately I had brought the baconiest treats I could (they give my own dog the runs), and that got a lot of cooperation. But with the cats it was harder, since they don't like to be stared at, and take a bit longer to get comfortable around new people. The photographer sometimes put his camera on the floor and tried to get the animal to walk in front of it, which I thought was a neat idea. But I thought it would end up with a lot of photos like the one for this blog.

I tell you, three hours of being an animal photographer's assistant is hard work. My arms are tired from holding up toys and treats and waving. I sure hope it works out for those animals. All but one were very well-behaved. Dylan the big black pitbull mix was afraid of the camera and ran away a lot. Also, he was very powerful and almost took me down on the way out the door. So someone really athletic and with a lot of patience and understanding of training needs to take him. I do love the big heads pitbulls have; so endearing and expressive.

Well, we already know that car insurance predicts that men will have more accidents than women, especially if they are under 25, and charges more for them. But I'm talking about something different. I've been tidying up and trying to get everything in my married name. It would look kinda weird if I got pulled over and my driver's license name didn't match my car insurance. I haven't been pulled over since I was in college, but it could happen. So I called the car insurance company to ask what they needed to change my name, and the guy on the phone said we would save money if we both were on the same insurance. So, since I'd had my policy for like 10 years, we decided that Hubby would change and get put on my policy. We were going to get a refund check of $100. Yay!

Imagine my surprise when the check arrived - addressed and made out to my husband. Hey, it was my idea to switch. I made the phone call. It was my insurance policy. Why wasn't the check in my name? And my car is the most expensive to insure, since it's not quite paid for, and Dave's is. so he has liability only. I just thought it was a little odd and old-fashioned. It goes right into the joint account that we don't touch, so it's safe, earning interest for a rainy day. Or a house. That would be nice. So, I'm not really upset .... anymore. It's a small thing, but a thoughtless thing the insurance company did.

So, even though we haven't completely finished the coop (it still needs a little sanding, some hardware, and painting), our chicken donor delivered the chickens last night. She has a habit of ordering fertile eggs all the time to see what hatches, so she needs the room in her garage for new chickens. The ones she gave us are less than 2 months old, about the size of fat pigeons. They make darling little noises. Chicken Lady said we should start handling them now to get them to know and trust us. She checked out our pretty much built coop and approved. She also thought our garden space was very adequate, and suggested we make our garden shed into a larger chicken coop, "Because chickens are like potato chips; you just can't have enough." She even suggested that we have enough space for alpacas! She has all kinds of animals on her acreage in Oakland, 30 or more chickens, 2 alpacas, maybe some goats. I don't think hubby or I are ready for alpacas.

Anyhoo, the chickens we have are 2 Blue Wyandottes (hubby calls them "Hawaiian Dots"), 1 Buff Orpington, and 1 Red Sexlink (hubby says "Red Sexpot"). The dog seems a little curious about them, but not aggressive. I have no idea how the cats might react, but I intend to keep them away.They are pretty happy with their feed and the occasional raisin. I'm pretty sure I want to call the red one "Sonja", but I think "Buffy" or "Blondie" for the Orpington is too trite. Maybe "April", for no reason at all. It's very difficult to tell the two Blues apart from eachother. Somehow "Click" & "Clack" came to mind. Anybody have chicken name suggestions? I could go 1800's Female writers: Charlotte, Emily, Anne...