what does one do?

What does one do when one is unemployed? Besides get lots of sleep and finally catch up on (well, start catching up on) Battlestar Galactica. (I’m still in season 3 – do not speak to me of season 4.)

Okay, really, I had started a LOOOOOOONG post about the saga of trying to fix the weed whacker, but I’ll spare you that and just tell you that there has been yard work. The back yard is no longer depressing.

There has also been lots of dog walking:

(btw, shortly before I got laid off, I got a Flip camera, and it’s the bomb – if you think you would like one, you probably would.)

And please indulge me in one more dog video – last weekend we were at the beach and Clara got to play with a Great Dane! Her name is Etoile (I’m pretty sure) and she is BEE-YOO-TEE-FULL and her people said that when she was growing she ate 16 cups of dog food a day! That’s equal to 30 chihuahuas! I love Great Danes. More importantly, Clara loves Great Danes, and I believe she has a birthday coming up. Just saying.
So yes I could have just put up a photo, but you get a better idea of how awesome she is in motion. Check out those feet!

There’s been Britney. That was… quite an experience. I have been to exactly two other huge arena shows in my life- my first rock concert, which was Van Halen on the 1984 tour, and Black Sabbath on their big reunion tour with Ozzy, back before he was all ubiquitous and annoying. I am here to tell you that the sound of a screaming crowd at a Britney Spears show is very different from that of a Black Sabbath show. So much… higher pitched. It was a sound unlike any I have ever heard, and actually physically painful.
It was also interesting there was really no pretense of her actually singing at all, except for one ballad. The sound was awful – it was incredibly boomy and you couldn’t understand a word she sang (which was too bad because I was really hoping for some insight into the lyrics of Slave 4 U). There were, however, a lot of dancers – 4 females and 800 million males. I was pleased to note that none of the girls were ridiculously tiny – one of them actually had a little tummy! Because, NEWS FLASH, it is totally possible to be fit without being emaciated. In fact, I would go so far as to posit that being emaciated is NOT being fit. Anyway, I’m sure that was to keep Britney from looking too big (she got some back on her now, it looks good), but here’s hoping it has the side effect of giving girls a slightly more realistic body image. The boys, on the other hand, are screwed, because all the male dancers were built like greek gods – fortunately, there were no boys at this show.
Oh, one more thing – it turns out that Womanizer is a pretty good song (as is If You Seek Amy). Here’s a cover with a video shot in my old stomping grounds in the Mission.

So that’s what one does. Let me know if you want to come over and play Rock Band sometime before it gets too hot.