Can someone please tell me how a dog this cute...

... can take a picture this awful:

Oh, goodness, I was so wrong about Annie.

Kris took her to the vet's this morning as I dashed off to this morning's Master Gardener hotline. Annie has still been having problems walking and has refused to jump up onto the couch or the bed or anything. She didn't run much at the park, either time we went yesterday, so something was definitely still up.

Well, we found out today.

The vet took x-rays of her back end. Turns out, she has both a bad hip which will cause problems in the upcoming years, and a back injury. Two spine discs are compressed causing severe inflamation in her back.

No more running around. No more all day hikes. No more playing with Blue. No more chasing the red bone. None of the fun stuff.

Poor Annie girl.

The Master Gardener program is full of a lot of people who are not quite my generation. Most are my parent's generation, but way not all of them. So, when I walk into classes with a t-shirt on it that reads "Kitt is a Cylon," most of them, okay all of them, look at the shirt and say, "Huh?"

Which also means when I run up to one of them with a camera in hand, even the younger ones look at me like I'm crazy.

At least Jack smiled.

Went to Costco with Andy and Doyle after heading to a movie this afternoon. Going to Costco at 5:45 is not what I would consider going at an optimal time. If i have to wait in line, I'm not there at a particularly good time.

Doyle had said he wanted to go, so I didn't feel too guilty. Okay, that's not quite true. I felt a little awkward dragging Andy to Costco, too, since he hadn't agreed to go before we all carpooled to the movies. However, carpool we did, so he was along for the ride.

By the way, lower your expectations of National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Lower. Loooowwwwerrrrr. Lllllooooooowwwwwweeeeerrrrrrr. Okay, now, remember the suspension of disbelief might be difficult with this one, and go see it. Maybe. As a matinee. At a $2 theatre.

So, yeah, Costco. Off we went. We parked near the front door, which I never do. I usually park over by the Krispy Kreme where the tasty Hot Fresh Now donuts are, then load up on carbs at said Krispy Kreme before hoofing across the parking lot to Costco.

Neither Andy nor Doyle wanted any of the delicious sugar covered fat bombs, so I parked close.

Did I mention I forgot my camera again? I really need to stop that, because you might have seen a video of Andy's spectacular shopping cart ride into the Costco if I actually had my camera. Instead, you'll have to imagine it. This is what you should imagine: some crazy woman pushing a cart at a quick speed, with some slender man hanging off the side of the cart, barely leaning to keep it from tipping over completely to the left, while another man with a booming voice calls out to the woman to push off and just let go already. Which she does. Not that the man on the cart can actually steer the cart. So, she lets go, and the cart goes rolling, and the man on the cart needs to keep it both upright, and straight, lest the looming SUV to the left become a target.

No cars were injured in the filming of this escapade.

Once in the store, I made a straight line for the books, er, the laundry detergent, passing through a big stack of doggie beds on my way. Oooooooo! My dogs love these doggie beds! I thought, as I chucked a green one into the cart.

"Do you need that?" Andy, my corporeal conscience, asked.

"The dogs love them!" I answered.

"Don't you already have two of them?"

"Well, yes."

"Are you getting a third dog?"

"Well, no. Not unless I can convince Kris to get a 9" pocket beagle."

"Oooooooh-kaaaaaaaay...."

I put the dog bed back.

At top speed, losing Doyle and Andy about three times with my mad dash through the store, I managed to fill up my cart with toliet paper, toothpaste, laundry detergent and shaving gel - all items we needed, all items on my list, no items not on my list. I was as quick as I could be and as efficient, too, leaving Andy to wait for a few minutes in line as I retrieved the last item on my list. He was remarkably patient, given I think (I project) he dislikes being around crowds of people as much as I do.

Yeah, early morning probably would have been better, but not nearly as much fun.

Or as inexpensive. I saved $20 by not buying that bed.

And spent it on the $41 roll of stamps. Can't even buy stamps in low numbers these days at Costco.

As we have established as a now 4 year tradition, we spent new year's eve over at Heidi and John's, though this year it was Heidi, John and Adrian, the cute little boy whom we finally met. Somehow, I managed to convince Heidi and John to stand still long enough without baby in arms to take a picture of the four of us. To my surprise, it was not only centered, but also a good picture of all of us:

Bridge, Pei and Pei's brother arrived after we had eaten dinner. We were going to immediately kick them out of the house, but Pei bribed us with her handmade chocolate truffles. Did I mention truffles? Did I mention chocolate?

Yeah, we let them stay.

The scotch didn't hurt either:

After food and talking for a while, where talking for a while meant Heidi spent a half hour trying to put the baby to sleep and I spent half an hour working on rereuse.com, Kris and I forced everyone to play Perudo with us. Because everybody loves Liar's Dice, don't you know. No, really.

For a first time, everyone did well. Pei and Pei's brother dudo'd each other to death, leaving the rest of us to watch with full dice. Eventually the odds stacked against us (come on, how many times do 12 3s show up when there are only 16 dice?), and John and Bridget took Kris and I out. John ended victorious, but without a victory dance. So sad, that lack.

At some point, someone (I blame Heidi) managed to abscond my camera and take a picture of me.

I don't know how the camera continued working after that.

But work it did. For new years, I wanted a picture of all of us in it. Somehow, we managed a good picture on only two tries.

The first picture is pretty spectacular, by the way.

Happy new year! Looking forward to 2008. This will be a lot of fun.