Weekend recap

Friday was a day of ups and downs and ups. I'm a member of a few flickr groups but most active in a standard poodle group Standard Poodles Caniche Royal SPCR (French) www.flickr.com/groups/69361585@N00/ . It still amazes me how people meet over the internet. It's less shady these days since the majority of the population has internet access - I guess the numbers are in your favor in meeting someone nice vs. someone creepy. This SPCR flickr group was introduced to me by my MIL when we were in the process of finding a pup. All members either have, have had, or are looking for standard poodles, or "spoos". Some have 1, some have more than 5! Some members are here in the US, some over in Eurpoe. There's so much helpful information in this group, and so many helpful people. Anyway, one member in California had a pup Daisy who was an honorary member (she was part Golden Lab) whom she rescued and brought back to the best health possible. Just last week, Daisy had to be put to sleep and the lady was devistated. All members sent words of comfort, but being the caring poodle group it is, there was more. My MIL had rescued a pup named Blaze a few months ago and she spoke with the lady who had to let Daisy go and they both agreed that Blaze was meant to go to CA to be with her. Blaze had been in an abusive, neglected situation before my MIL got him and it would be best for him to be with this retired lady whose only other pet is an older female dog. Very comforting and thoughtful to give Blaze away, but it didn't stop there. Members of the group worked together to donate money to cover the travel expenses to fly Blaze from FL to CA. And it didn't stop there. A member has a relative in the airline industry who could offer reduced fair AND either she or her husband would travel with the dog on the flight and deliver him to the lady in CA. Other members of the group live close to the retired lady, so they offered to check in with her and make sure all was ok. What a wonderful situation for a true spoo lover! Blaze will probably be here through new years and fly out in January. Here he is above in a photo from my MIL's flickr photostream. And that was a down into an up.

I also found out DH didn't have to work Saturday as we had thought he may have to. Another up. Friday night dinner was Long Doggers fish and chips - delicious as always. http://www.longdoggers.com/ They use a cornmeal breading on their fish - yum!

We watched the new Batman The Dark Knight movie - another up, even though it was 2.5 hours long, which I usually fall asleep about half way in. I made it through the whole movie and was pretty impressed with the movie. It did disturb me to think that Heath Ledger passed possibly due to his role as the Joker, I could definitely see how he could have immersed himself into the role. I usually always like Christian Bale too (except in that American Psycho and that other movie where he wasted away physically - ok, maybe I just like him in Newsies and Batman), but the ridiculous voice he used when he was dressed as Batman - I could have done without. I just couldn't understand him half of the time.

Saturday we went to the barber, Publix for a load of meats (whole chicken, beef brisket, boston butt pork, ground turkey and a couple nice rib-eyes which were on sale). Rufus and I went over to my MIL's to play for a few hours while DH mowed our lawn and smoked some meat. Ruf had a blast as usual. We watched the UFC fight finale and hung out on our new furniture in the den by the fire. Here's Rufus doing his best to pose for a photo. Saturday dinner was smoked chicken, veggies and potatoes with mini-cheesecake bites for dessert.

Sunday morning we went to our church's Christmas presentation at 10:45, lunch at Applebee's with MIL+FIL, then shopping for an ottoman. We found one at Target which was nice, bonus it was $10 off and we had a $20 GC, but I wasn't sold on it. We checked a few other places and decided to get the one from Target when I went grocery shopping later that night. We got it home and it looks good in the room, but I'll still keep my eye out for a little larger one. Maybe 25-28W x 36-42D rectangular brown leather storage ottoman. This one we have is 18Hx32Wx16D.