Sit. Stay. Good blog.

Fun times this weekend included:

• Celebrating Courtney’s birthday with a delicious meal and ice cream cake. The only acceptable form of birthday cake after age 21 is ice cream cake. Period. Huge thank yous to the Andersons for feeding everyone, and for being the always conssumate hosts.
• Lots of walks with the dogs. Finn is getting so much bigger. Hopefully, she can start her puppy training classes this week.
• Improvised dinner last night with stuff we had around the house (sort of): Sesame citrus broiled catfish filets, creamed spinach, leftover asparagus and mushroom bread pudding and a home made blueberry buckle for dessert. Delicious! Here’s a picture we took while making the blueberry buckle:

  We were so excited to eat it that we forgot to take a picture of the finished product.

Also, Blizzard announced that Diablo III is in the works. Just when I thought I was out, they go and pull me back in… It probably won’t be released for more than a year, so I’ve got plenty of time to not think about it.

I live in the wrong climate – I’m much more suited to cooler weather than what we get around here come this time of year. I’m already tired of the heat, and it hasn’t even really started yet.

The good news today is that I have a bunch of new CDs to listen to:

• Fleet Foxes
• Flight of the Conchords
• Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
• Coldplay – Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends

I’m listening to Fleet Foxes right now, and it’s really good. They sound like a cross between The Jayhawks and the softer Rilo Kiley stuff. I discovered them through Metacritic’s music site, which is sort of like Rotten Tomatoes, only with music, in that it compliles an average score based on multiple review sources. Fleet Foxes was rated really high, and so far, it’s not disappointing.

I should take this post to proclaim my newfound love of now-defunct Clem Snide. Tranquil, smart, melodic, clever and all-around feel goodness to just about everything they put out there. I can’t recommend highly enough that you seek their catalogue out immediately. After you’ve done that, check out front man Eef Barzelay’s solo work, the most recent of which, Lose Big, was released this month. I saw him open for Ben Folds a couple of times in April, and was mesmerized. We seriously considered driving to St. Louis to see him last Sunday, but a reality check named Finn barked in our general direction.

Everyone needs to have hobbies.

I love you people.

The creepy chupacabra thing in my back yard is most likely…

A coyote with serious mange!

Thanks to everyone who submitted suggestions.

I didn’t see it yesterday, so maybe it left for greener pastures. I DID see the resident groundhog, which made me happy – I was afraid he’d fallen prey to the likes of Mangy Wylie.

The other day, I looked out in the field behind my house and saw a small herd of grazing deer. I love that about my house. Even though I’m smack in the middle of the Northland suburbs, we still get all sorts of critters in the field, from deer, to turkeys, to groundhogs and countless others. So I see the deer, and all of a sudden, they take off running. Then I see some sort of weird dog chasing after them, but this thing is like no dog I’ve ever seen.

Yesterday, the dog-thing was back. He just hung out in the field for about a hour or so. We got the following pictures:

So… does anyone know what this thing is? Someone told us they thought it was a coyote, but it doesn’t look like any coyote I’ve ever seen. I’m really curious about this beast, so any thoughts would be much appreciated.

We went to Loose Park today after lunch:

Ooh… greeny!

Mr. Awesome took the camera out today and took some great shots of the Kauffman Foundation:

The section of Troost that this borders benefits so much from the building and grounds. This time of year the place is especially lovely.

Note to self: always wear my wedding ring and keep a lighter in my pocket. Also, learn how to make a steam engine.