Whole Foods is the only place near me that seems to reliably has ground lamb.

In today's edition of Matilda's Exciting Adventures With Nature she was playing in the front yard of JZ's dad's house, which is rocky, hill terrain landscaped with shrubs and lavender and such.

Matilda: Mommy, come here. There's a snake.
Snake: [rattles tail. Hisses]
JZ: Oh! Okay. Let's back up very slowly.
Snake: [rattles tail again]

A fucking rattlesnake! Jesus Christ. Well, at least she didn't reach down and try to pet it like she did when she found a rat in the ivy plants when she was two.

Impressive composure. Well done, JZ!

Time to repeat the instructions to never EVER touch a snake you don't know without adult supervision.

I've never seen a wild rattler. Now I'm all jealous, sort of!

I had a good weekend. Yesterday, I woke up and actually began sorting through stuff in my bedroom. Reward: I found my favorite blue-green beret that I thought had fallen out of my pocket somewhere in town. And I put together my new bathroom scale and weighed myself and I've lost more than the 10 lbs my doctor ordered me to lose by mid-February.

Today - I spent the day hanging out with a friend and we went to this new place for breakfast and the meals were GIGANTIC. I had the thick cut bacon and Gruyere fritatta with hashed browns, freshly squeezed orange juice and I could not resist having the Nutella crepes. The servings were so ginormous that I am certain that each crepe had an entire banana sliced up inside it. I now have lots of fritatta and Nutella crepe to have for some other meal. Then we went to Farm and Fleet where I found a good non-electric phone to use for my non-cell phone line and some nice sized plastic bins for yarn stash. Then we went to Barnes and Noble and looked at books and magazines and neither of us escaped without purchasing too many things. I found the Ellery Queen with Erika's story in it! I had somehow forgotten the EQ isn't the same size as most magazines so I didn't find it at first - I was happy that when I finally did.

A fucking rattlesnake! Jesus Christ. Well, at least she didn't reach down and try to pet it like she did when she found a rat in the ivy plants when she was two.

Holy hell. I was irked enough finding a redback in our en suite.

Dad came up today for the afternoon. I was lazy yesterday and did absolutely nothing, so when I woke up on the couch at 4:30 in the morning, I figured I'd stay awake and get my cleaning done before going for my morning swim. I got everything done except for the floors before 7:30, when I headed out to the pool. Got my mile swim in (the good thing about having 4-5 inches of snow overnight was that the morning pool was practically empty!), then came home and vacumned before Dad showed. He was talking about going out for a movie, but nothing really appealed, so I talked him into an early lunch at Outback (I got an 8 oz. prime rib that I immediately cut in half so I could have the leftovers for tomorrow), and then we came home and watched Red on demand. So much fun!

He brought up the crystal pieces of my great-grandma's that my aunt had inherited when Grandma died. She had to let them go when she went into assisted living, and since I already had Great-Grandma Alida's crystal lamp, I get the rest of the set. They'll be in the boxes until I get a chance to wash them later this week and put them out on some shelves I have on the wall above the TV. That way the cat can't get to them.

I have just made plans to go see The Room next Saturday at the Music Box. Ha ha ha.

I don't know what to make for dinner.

Black-Eyed Peas--kudos to them for doing it live, but I am underwhelmed.

Fergie's Axl Rose impression cracked me up.