I'm totally using raylan givens/hat.

Awesome suggestions. There is only one I don't recognize: jack twist/ennis del mar. I'm off to look that one up.

Thanks Hon!

eta: Okay, this outs me at the one person who has not seen Brokeback Mountain. Now I know!

just once, I would like a really awesome Valentine's. This is not going to be it, but it's better than. a. the one I got broken up with on.
b. the one where crazy stepdad left my mom then sent me a Valentine's e-mail.

raylan givens/hat.

I clearly have a gap in my pop culture knowledge (or hat knowledge), because I have no idea who this is or why he loves his hat.

It's from Justified. Raylan, the character, is known for his fine hat but it's Timothy Olyphant that makes it knee-weakening in the tv series.

I've never heard of the series, either. This is what happens when a person doesn't have cable. Damn it, I lose my pop cultural literacy!

I look forward to buying discounted chocolate on Feb 15. Sad that Sees doesn't have any specialty items for VD (just diff wrapping on the boxes) so no point going there. Day after Easter, OTOH? Marvelous goodies from Sees.

I look forward to buying discounted chocolate on Feb 15

Ooh yes, this. That, and buying discounted socks & tights with hearts on them. (I like hearts, esp. pink ones.) And heart-shaped bakeware.

My local organic grocery had a special on Chocolove bars before the holiday, bless them.

The dark chocolate with cherries and chili is really, really tasty. It's worth saving space in my daily calorie allotment, for sure.

3 lbs down, by the way. I guess the food log really does help.

It's nothing-ma to your kitty, ChiKat.

Living with a person who sneers at "Hallmark holidays" means Valentine's Day passes without a mention, and he repels my attempts to observe it with mushy cards, flowers, and candy from me to him, too. He's awesome in other respects, though, so I let that slide. And really? Valentine's Day is really the eve of my tri-annual favorite holiday: Half-Price Candy Day!

All best luck with your testing, Laura. That sounds like an endurance test as much as anything.

I learned not to pull away from claws and teeth by living with cats. Monty whosit, who wrote Horse Whisperer, speaks of horses as being "into pressure" animals, which means they lean into a bite or claws, using their weight to pressure a break in the hold, then they move away, hopefully quickly and out of range, rather than pulling and causing more tearing. It makes sense once you think it through.

It's fascinating to me how much of the mammal remains under the veneer of sociology, how we exhibit the same body language, and while caught up in verbal communication have ignored physical cues, at least consciously. Subconsciously the reactions are all there. Cal Lightman and crew make a living recognizing those physical cues. I think if we took a moment and paid attention, we'd find other mammals much more understandable. They're talking all the time. We just don't listen.

Sorry. Hobby horse. Stabling now.

Also, they randomly re-"cast" the dog after the first few episodes, and that's just jarring.

They're completely different dogs! It's ridiculous! Heh.