Oy. I'm not friends with my mother on facebook. A while ago, I promised her that, when I had kids, if I was posting photos and stories about them on facebook, then I'd friend her. She just sent me a message trying to convince me that this promise extends to her "granddog," as well.

What la-nubian said, Scrappy. I work for the Adult Career and Special Student Services dept. on my campus and we offer a number of different grants and scholarships for returning adult students: [link]

If you scroll down, you'll see a number of links to general resources: websites to look for other scholarships, financial advice, government assistance, etc.

I friended my mom. I figure I'll have a better chance of her being willing to dogsit if I go away for a few weeks during the summer if she thinks of the dog as her granddog. Plus, I'm getting tired of her complaining about not being my friend.

Thank you all for the support and the info. Buffistas are the best.

Note to self, no more bawdy stories about Hil on Facebook.

My parents always love the granddog pics posted.

I totally send granddog pics to the folks' digital picture frame.

Max is the most popular dog name in the US.

Daisy was the most common female dog name for a long time. These days though, I see a ton of Emma, Lucy, Emily and Maggie. For boy dogs in this area, Jack has to be the all-time leader.

This seems to follow the 'grand dog' thing. Naming your dog like a child is super common.

I _love_ to see the families I deal with having multi-generation support systems for their pooches.

My mother was heartily offended when I referred to the cats as grand-cats.

My mother fully embraces the "granddoggie" thing. She says she doesn't know if she's getting grandkids, so she's making do with what she's got. Suits me fine. As I like to say, there's a long line of people who want to steal my dog from me, and my mom is at the top.

You're already a wonderful therapist, Scrappy. Your wise words have helped me many times. All you need is the piece of paper.

What Ginger said, and everyone else. That's exciting, Scrappy!

Re: dog names, I was unsurprised to see Lucy on that map. My grandfather has had two dogs named Lucy, and I've met others. Around here people like to give their dogs names with a local flavor. I've met three dogs named Nola, plus Tchoup (after a road), Hubig (after a local fruit pie), Poboy, Beignet, etc. I'm still super proud of the name I gave to that stray chihuahua, though I suspect the new owner changed it; she found me on Music St, and I named her Coco Robichihuahua after a local musician who had recently died (Coco Robichaux).

Yesterday was D's birthday, and I feel good about how it went. I gave him his Chrismukkah gift, finally. I made him a hat rack from salvaged wood and old door knobs - [link] He really liked it, yay! Then I took him to dinner at Boucherie [link] (Nora's food recs FTW, as always). We had dessert elswhere, which unfortunately wasn't that great, and then back to my place for shenanigans. Tonight is going to be more fun - local music at dba, then dinner and makeup, then a David Bowie/Labyrinth-themed burlesque show (INORITE?), then hot tubbing at a friend's house. And then there's parades tomorrow and Sunday.

I'm kind of glad my boss didn't call me to come work this morning, and I got to sleep until 11 am, because damn, it's going to be a crazy weekend Carnival season month. Because let's not forget I'm moving in Feb, even if it's only two blocks. ::deep breath:: Here we go!!!