The Dark Peach

Hello all two of you that read this dribble :)
I got to see The Dark Knight :) If it were 20mins shorter, I would've given in 5* but I'll give it 4.5* still an awesome movie though. Heath Ledger was great, Bale was great, Eckhart and Oldman were great...overall best acting for an action movie in the longest time. After we saw TDK we went to Jersey Mike's for the first time in ages and split a giant sub because that's cheaper than buying two regular subs. I know we went home after that but I don't remember doing much. Sunday was another lazy day and I never got out of my pajamas.
This week was ok minus the passing of Jimmy. That obviously made me sad. The rest of the story is that he had stopped eating last weekend and mom noticed this and since he had become very listless as well she took him to the vet. His kidneys had already started to fail. His thyroid problem had speed up the shutdown process that's why he took a downturn so quickly. The vet said they could do things to prolong his life, but he'd eventually pass. Mom knows that giving Jimmy medicine would have been impossible because he'd just go and hide under the bed and never come out again, also his quality of life just wouldn't be the same. So she made that hard decision to have him euthanized. I did well, I just typed everything up without crying. One more story...after I had thought I was done crying and putting up memorials at different sites I cut on Radio Margaritaville through Dish Network and the saddest freaking Jimmy Buffett song was playing (He Went to Paris). So, I wasn't done crying at that point especially the part of the song that goes:
If he likes you he'll smile then he'll say
Jimmy, some of it's magic, some of it's tragic
But I had a good life all the way.
(Great I've teared up again...moving on)
Work has been work. However Byron's work has not. He's temping through an agency and working at Capital One in collections, recovery, hardship and now debt management. The most recent problem was that they have been sending him home early because there isn't enough work. Now, I guess I can be a bit grateful (and still hate CapOne) because Thursday and Friday was the last day for a lot of the people that had stayed in collections after B moved on hardship. They kept 4 people from his group and B and his friend Will made the cut. They're moving them to debt management to try and get them more hours. The better news is that B has a job interview with Va Blood Svcs for an inventory position. No, he wouldn't be counting blood. Think more like needles, bags and things of the like. It involves some traveling to Charlottesville and Harrisonburg, but we'll know more details on Tuesday.
Speaking of Charlottesville, B, Lilly, another couple and I headed to Carter Mountain in C-ville yesterday for some peach and nectarine picking. We all had a good time picking the fruit and then sat down behind the store building for a picnic lunch overlooking the city of C-ville. The pics for that trip are on my Flickr site.
The last night we went to Dad's house for dinner. That was good. We came home and watched the 1953 animated Peter Pan on ABC and some other TV before going to bed. Today we're going to Texas Roadhouse with B's mom, my mom and stepdad for B's bday lunch. His bday's thursday and I have yet to get him anything...I'm bad. I guess I'll be doing that this week during a lunch break. Well, Lilly's clicking around the kitchen and needs to go out, so until next time keep your stick on the ice.

R.I.P. James "Jimmy" B. Shanks

My mom had to put her oldest cat, Jimmy to sleep this afternoon. I don't have all the details at the moment as my stepdad was pretty shaken up about it and isn't the best at details in his better moments. He's had a thyroid problem for a while now. But for now, what I know is that the second cat that I've lived with has now passed and is in no more pain.
RIP Jimmy Buffett Shanks

Blogging about blogging

I feel I've been neglecting my regular blog. It's been over a month since my last post. We've done some stuff, but nothing too adventurous.
I've been on Twitter for a while now and that's where a lot of my "what I'm doing" has been going since it's instant. I've got quite a collection of RVA people as followers and some of us have been meeting up ("Tweetups") at various locations around town. Mainly they've been Starbucks in Short Pump or Stony Point.
Most recently a couple of us met up at The Wetlands (down from the pony pasture) on Sunday and let the dogs romp. Pics and video of Lilly and her Twitter buddy, Hussi can be seen here.
I had to give Lilly a bath after her romp in the mud with Hussi. I realized that I didn't have any pics of her post-bath yet pre-dry. I had to take some and this is my favorite pic of Lilly I've ever taken so far:

The weekend before was the 4th of July weekend. B ended up with a three day weekend. My newest nephew was born on July 3rd. Mike and Shannon had their second child (first boy), Joshua Wayne. He was 8lbs 5oz and was 20 1/4in long. Here's a cute pic:

The rest of the set from our July 4th visit with Joshua and Shannon are here.
Friday night we went to his mom's house, ate dinner, watched it rain out there and see on the news where our house is getting pummeled. Mom texts me that she has no power. I call my house and get the answering machine therefore I have power :) About 6:30pm Channel 12 announces that Chesterfield will not be having their fireworks. I was not a happy camper. I can see those fireworks from my back porch. I had to make ice cream for dessert for mom's get together so I couldn't head out to watch them anywhere else. I didn't see any live fireworks this year :( I even forgot to watch the Macy's fireworks on TV. Saturday we went to mom's house and had dinner and watched 3:10 to Yuma and watched the end of the NASCAR race. Christian Bale is one good looking man. I've loved him ever since American Psycho and he plays the newest reboot of Batman. Speaking of, today I bought our tickets to the Sat 9:30AM showing of The Dark Knight. I'm a Batman geek at heart. I may not know everything about the comic series, but there's something about Batman that sucks me in and doesn't let go. Sunday we did a bunch of nothing...I don't remember leaving the house.
The last weekend of June is fuzzy. We went to see The Incredible Hulk on Saturday morning and Commonwealth 20's power was out, so we went to Petsmart and bought dog food and then went to Home Depot to price a new mailbox stand. Ever since B and K took down the holly bushes you can really see how icky our mailbox and stand are. We have a new mailbox as we got one as a gift from my mom...almost 3 years ago. Then we went to Vinny's on Hull St for lunch. They have some of the best pizza from a small chain in the area. I know we went home after that, but don't remember what we did for the rest of the day. Sunday, we actually did manage to go and watch The Incredible Hulk. That was OK, but not as good as Iron Man. We went to Home Depot again after the movie and bought a plumbing snake and some screws so B could secure the flagpole holder to the house again. After that I don't think we did much of anything.
OK I think that's it for a while...hopefully not too long though. If you decide to try Twitter, my username is WyldGade. Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.