Last night, my excitement consisted of steam cleaning dog poop off the carpet (The Idiot did it again yesterday - I see a vet visit in her future...) while MF gave all 4 young'uns a bath. Luckily, the tub in the master bathroom is the size of a small swimming pool. Too bad that I never get to use it.

For clarification purposes, the 4 young'uns are Grover, Ollie and MF's two girls, Beaker and Boo. Grover and Beaker went to daycare/preschool together and are the best of friends (when they're not fighting about what game to play or which movie to watch).

I brought the Mom Taxi to the Toyota dealership because the inspection was due last month and because there are some light bulbs in the center console that are burned out. My appointment was for 10:13 a.m. (why they get that specific, I still don't know). It's 1:05 p.m. and we're still here. Yes, we. Grover and Ollie are with me and have been out of entertainment options for about half an hour now. I just went to ask how much longer it would take and the oh-so-helpful dude behind the counter said "they're just doing the inspection now". Granted, there were about a million people in the waiting room when we arrived so I'm sure they're busy but give me a break! I suspect that they don't even start working on your car until you've asked about the wait at least once. Normally, it takes about 15 minutes to do an inspection and how long does it take to change a few light bulbs? Sadly, the answer (so far) is about 2 hours.

I did try to get the inspection done somewhere other than the dealership but the first two places I went were closed and the person who does the inspections at the third was on vacation. At least here they have computer games for the kids and internet access for me. Sigh...

from Grover

Having just returned from our trip and having no food to speak of, we went out to eat supper last night at a local sports bar. They have probably 20 or so TV screens showing a variety of sporting events, news, trivia, etc. Among the sporting events shown last night was the Johnsonville Brat (as in Bratwurst) Eating Contest broadcast live from Sheboygan, WI. First of all, when did "Major League Eating" become a sport worthy of coverage on ESPN? No, not ESPN2 or another second-rate sports channel, but the founding father of sports coverage. Second of all, why must these gorge-fests be telecast? Do they really think people want to watch someone shove 58 brats down his throat in 10 minutes? That's a new world record, by the way. This miraculous feat was accomplished by none other than Takeru Kobayashi, the competitive eating champion who has never lost to a human. He did lose to a 1000-lb Kodiak bear, however. Hmmm, where was I going with this? No idea. But according to the Sheboygan Press, even local residents are grossed out by their town's claim to fame. A former Sheboygan city attorney is proposing to get rid of the contest altogether. He claims to have enough votes to pass a referendum. A survey of readers disagrees; most of them say keep the contest and lose the lawyer.

We returned from the great state of Minnesota yesterday. I gave up blog posting during our visit because my in-laws have dial-up and I grew weary of waiting for pages to download. It was like watching paint dry. After the heat wave, I didn't have anything interesting to write about anyway. I mean, let's face it - the Mall of America just isn't that interesting since they took Snoopy away.

So we returned home to our poor dog who evidently thought that we left her for good this time. We thought it would be a good idea to leave her at home and have a friend come over to feed her and let her out. Yeah, not really. The Idiot was so stressed that she didn't eat while we were gone, yet she managed to poop on the carpet upstairs three times. Just what I wanted to come home to.