Hey! Are you guys still around? lalalalala. ::looks around::

Really?

That’s so sweet.

So, here’s what’s going on in my life –

Work: I’ve been working on a multi-multi-million dollar deal as part of a negotiation team. Guess who has never, ever been on a negotiation team before? (Yes, that would be me.) We are signing two contracts – with two very different suppliers. ONE of them got signed last week. The day after pulling the all-nighter. The all-nighter was necessary to finish reviewing and commenting on 17,263 legal documents.

Our target is to sign the other one next week. Oh mah holy hell.

Family: Mr. Hot and Shortman are good. Poopy the Puppy is loving the Spring-ish weather around here.

Home: Oh, yea! I’m actually home in Michigan this week. There are PACKED BOXES in my garage and all of the bookshelves are cleaned out. Mr. Hot is preparing this place for showing to prospective buyers. It looks weird. We’ll be painting Shortman’s room this weekend. Goodbye Texas Rangers color scheme.

—- I’m not going to make any promises about updating over the next couple of weeks, but I’ll keep my eyes open for SOMETHING funny. Because the work stuff? Not falling into that particular category. —-

On Valentine’s Day, Mr. Hot and I took the dog for a walk. Now, this isn’t unusual in and of itself – we take the dog for a walk together every weekend. The dog LIVES for his walk. The dog does a happy dance when he hears “walk”. The dog bounces off walls when he sees Mr. Hot reach into the drawer where the poop bags are kept.

In fact, if the dog doesn’t get his walk (and remember, the dog lives on an acre, so it’s not like he doesn’t have plenty of exercise space), the dog mopes. He sighs. He huffs and his bosom heaves.

He may as well be a character in a Victorian novel.

Obviously, we try very hard to prevent “the drama”. The only thing that keeps us from a walk is rain – and only because the dog doesn’t.do.rain. It’s okay for us to brave 40 mile-an-hour gusts in 10-degree weather, but heaven forbid we attempt to get him out during a shower – he won’t even go into the back yard until he’s ready to burst. And then? His feet barely hit the grass before it’s raise the leg, piss, and run back in.

Annnywayyyyyyyy.

On Valentine’s Day, we walked. All of our usual haunts were out – the snow was far too deep for a Labrahund. Or a Daschrador. And even though it’s hilarious to watch him bunny hop into the drifts, he barely makes it 10 yards doing that – and it’s not worth the bundling up and driving to the trails for that distance.

Where to go? We settled on one of the only places we knew there would be pavement showing:

We parked and made our way through the lot, being buffeted by the wind whistling around the side of the building while the dog galloped ahead, sniffing for lunch castoffs tossed out of windows by the kids old enough to drive to Taco Bell or Wendy’s at noon.

(He still dreams of that wonderful Saturday during football season when a tailgating family left an entire tray of hot dogs for him to feast upon. So what if they were cold and from the night before? They even came with buns!)

And while he was certain that the white box in that picture up there contained a steak – or maybe a cheeseburger – or at the very least…a piece of pizza crust – as we got closer, we could see that it wasn’t food at all.

Oh no.

It was:

Yes.

In the high school parking lot.

On Valentine’s Day.

(Thank gawd Shortman has already graduated.)

(And that I have no use for such a thing any more.)

—- What worries me is that I think this is the brand they sell at the Dollar Tree. —-

I felt badly turning the elderly lady in, but if I wasn’t going to be able to knit my way through sitting in the Jury Assembly room, then neither was she.

I had (dutifully) gotten my butt out of bed at the luxuriously decadent 6:15 alarm sounding (It was Monday! That’s two extra hours of sleep right there.), showered, injected swallowed enough coffee to make it through a day of sitting with a bunch of strangers, and gathered supplies that I hoped would make the day less of a big waste of time painful.

• Blackberry? Check.
• Netbook? Check.
• Knitting needles and yarn? Check.
• Pen and paper in case a good blog opportunity walked by? Check, and check.

I had (dutifully) checked the Washtenaw County website looking for rules about what I could and couldn’t bring. There was nothing in the Jury Duty section, so I assumed I was good.

You know what they say about assuming, right?

As I walked in the doors, I noticed a great many signs about cell phones and camera and “BAD. PROHIBITED. NOT ALLOWED.” Sighing, I turned around to walk back to my car. On the outside of the building were more signs. No knitting needles or crochet hooks.

Okay. I’m screwed.

I didn’t see anything about laptops being banned, but my Netbook has a webcam, so I figured it would also be illegal.

All of it went into the trunk. And I turned back to the courthouse empty handed except for my wallet, my pad of paper and a pen.

As I went through the metal detectors (oh mah holy hell, y’all, I think I’m going to start glowing one of these days from all the x-ray machines I walk through), this little Gramma looking lady was in front of me.

She picked up the bin that was waiting for her at the end of the conveyor belt. It was filled with pastel-colored yarn. And knitting needles.

Considering I’d just trudged the two blocks back to the parking structure to get rid of my own (plastic, even!) knitting needles, I figured I’d check with the uniformed dudes to see if mine were legal. It would be worth the return trip (AGAIN) to have something to do instead of sitting quietly with my hands folded in my lap or perusing magazines from 1997.

Excuse me? Can I ask you a question? I read on that notice that yarn and knitting needles are prohibited?

Well, yarn is okay, but yea – no needles or hooks.

Um, well, then why does she get to take those needles?

He walked over to Grammy (who had cleverly hidden most of the metal under her yarn, but – being the eagle eye completely jealous crafter that I am, I caught the tell-tale glimmer of shiny size 7s poking out) and asked her if she had needles or scissors in the bin.

She pulled them out – he told her they needed to go back to her car.

I walked past her and kept my eyes averted. I did NOT need a knitter who had been separated from her tools knowing it was me who turned her ass in.

—- I hear being impaled on those things hurt like hell. —-