My neighbor around the corner already has Christmas lights up on his house. Not so bad I suppose, but you can see through the front window he's got a tree up already too. Crazy. Not even December yet. Granted, Thursday is December but today is Monday. Monday people! Hope ya'll had a nice holiday. I survived having my family over and actually had a fairly decent time as did they. Well, at least that's what they told me anyway. Turkey came out awesome. The secret is brine. Brine people. Brine the turkey and it won't be dry and it will taste delicious. Trust me. Well, trust Alton Brown, it was his idea. I just went back and deleted two fucks from my post. Man I swear too much, even when I type. You have to admit though "deleted two fucks" sounds pretty funny. And there I did it all for nothing. Jeff and I had our Thanksgiving morning run Thursday. The weather was not quite as nice as last year but running in the snow was kind of fun too. It was as warm as it can be with snow falling and Jeff decided to run with me again this year instead of finishing the race at his usual time. So now I have two Turkey Classic Road Race t-shirts. It's becoming a bit of a tradition for me (has been for Jeff since '02) and I must say it's a fun way to begin the holiday.

Now for some good kitty news, Bubby had her third session of chemo today and so far she's doing great! No side effects, up to 6.4lbs from 5.5 last week and her blood count and breathing are good. For the most part I am still able to trick her into eating her prednisone but she always seems to know when there's heart medicine in the treat I'm giving her. It must be very bitter because it's a quarter the size of the prednisone and she always spits it out. Lately I've been coating it with butter before pilling her the old fashioned way. (Read..prying her mouth open, slipping the pill in and holding it closed until she swallows it.) It sucks but it must be done and she doesn't seem all that traumatized by it. Unlike Jeff and I. :P

Speaking of the man, Jeff spent some of his four day weekend brewing (god love him!) and here are some pictures of he and Bubby admiring the fruits of his labor. You can see Bubby's shaved front right leg in the picture. That's where they've been giving the IV and taking her blood. Why they have to shave all the way around I have no (fucking) idea.


Bitter on the right, IPA on the left. Mind you it ain't done yet!


Bubby favoring the bitter.


Ahh, the scent of fresh brew!


A quiet moment.

Since I took those pictures, two more carboy's of beer have been added to the basement. Another IPA and a wheat. 20 gallons of my kind of beer. Heaven help me!
Seems these days I have three topics, my cats, my riding lessons and my job. Let's move on shall we?
Riding lessons are going great. I did quite a bit of cantering last week and this past Sunday had a good workout with Phantom. He being the beautiful, black horse who does not go easy on you. (er...on me) I love that horse, he really makes me work. I also nealy kissed the dirt again during the lesson. Some folks outside the ring were messing about with a tractor and it spooked my horse. He shied quickly left and I nearly ended up on the ground. Was quite sure I was going to actually but managed to stay aboard. Katie (my instructor) was so proud I didn't fall off...needless to say I was as well. No cantering on Phantom since he's a bit too much horse for me (being a retired race horse) but that was ok. Amazing to think of the progress I've made in less than two months. It's all the amount of time spent in the saddle and that time costs money. It really is the only reason I don't quit my stupid job. Ooops, did I say that out loud?? Well there you go, all topics covered.

:P