Don't try this at home.

Foibles, a list.

Home remedies. Okay, so when I walked Winston yesterday, he somehow managed to pick up and carry home a seedpod from some palm tree, in addition to his rawhide stick that he has to carry when we go out in public. Then he ate the seedpod. I know from past experience that these are not digestible. I know also from past experence that you have approximately three hours to get something before it passes out of the stomach (unless, of course, it just bonks around in there for a week and eventually gets thrown up... in the lobby of a bank... while a little deaf girl is having a really good experience interacting with the nice lady and her puppy... until the puppy vomits all over the place). So, on the advice of a fellow Cavalier owner, I went to the store, bought some hydrogen peroxide, and spoonfed two teaspoons to Winston. He licked the air for a minute, then sat down, then laid down, at which point I thought, "Oh, great, I have the only dog who doesn't throw up from hydrogen peroxide, and now I have to take him to the vet, and they're going to tell me I should have just brought him in --" when suddenly, fireworks. A few unpleasant minutes for both Winston and myself (worse for him, I'm sure), and then the seedpod made its return to the world.

(Note: this technique should NEVER, NEVER, NEVER be used when the object is potentially caustic, like a chemical, or damaging, or sharp, or otherwise suspect.)

Consumer rights. Back in August, when I ordered The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs (author of The Know-It-All, and who, by the way, claims to be an obsessive Googler of his own name, let's see if we reel him in), I also ordered some other books from Barnes & Noble online. Their shipping solution was to hold them all for two months, until the AJ Jacobs -- this should really turn up some good hits -- book released. Yesterday I got an email saying the books had shipped -- MINUS one of the bargain books in my order. So this morning I fired off a disgruntled email accusing them of all sorts of shenanigans and saying that they should hold the books out of the stock if they're going to sit on the order for two months blah blah blah, and what is waiting in my inbox for me a minute ago? An email saying that last book has shipped.

Let me point out that since it's two separate shipments ANYWAY, they could have shipped the rest of the books in August, but let's let bygones be bygones. Meanwhile, I'm waiting for my reply from customer service, which is sure to be something along the lines of, "Hey, moron, what was that about a missing book???"

Hiatus high jinks. Bosslady called me the other day and said they wanted to push my start date back a week and I was all, "Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!" because to be honest, I love my hiatus with a fiery passion. It was cool for Bosslady because she thought I might be mad. So then as the conversation winds down, she says, "So we'll see you on the 22nd?" and I'm like, "No, the 29th!" and she's like, "I had your start date as the 15th!" and I'm like, "WHY GOD WHY?"

So after all that happiness and excitement I'm right back where I started.

Don't get me wrong. I love my job.

But I looooooooooooooooove my hiatus.

Happy Thursday! Doesn't 30 Rock debut tonight? Yeehaw!

PS - Just in case, let's punctuate: A.J. Jacobs

PPS - AJ Jacobs, if you're reading this, I'm excited about your new book.