Once a week the paper runs items about animals - an advice column for pets' health issues by a vet and reports on animal control calls. Every week it includes an item about one specific animal that's up for adoption, with a picture and brief description of the animal's personality. Last week's was a pit bull mix named Glowworm.

Is her name This DOG? Probably not, but it made me giggle. She's beautiful and you should totally take her home.

I am so cold. Everywhere I sit in this house seems to be in a draft. Turning up the heat doesn't really help much, when the cold air keeps coming in -- turning the heat to 72 gets the actual temperature (outside the drafts) up to about 68, and I don't really want to turn it higher than that. I even ordered a pair of footie pajamas, but they don't fit right, so I need to exchange them for a different size before I can be warm.

Cute doggie! We found another stray today, but fortunately a friend of the owner was driving around and spotted her on our site. BEAUTIFUL young pewter female pit bull. Not well trained, but very affectionate. No chip, but at least they spayed her!

Cereal: I know it was the right decision to let PB go, but I do feel like I dropkicked a puppy. He texted me after saying, "I thought I was doing better!" Well, you were, but not enough, and you weren't doing what we'd agreed you would. Also, later this afternoon, his coworkers showed me a picture of him SLEEPING in full Tyvek suit and respirator on a job site during work hours, in full view of the street!!! I mean, come ON. No one can think that's okay, right? Except maybe for ita !'s (ita's ! ?) former coworker.

{{{smonster}}} You did the right thing, but I'm sorry that it makes you feel bad.

He needed to learn the consequences. You did the right thing.

Right thing. Hard thing, but right thing.

We just had the most fantastic visit to the playground. While we walked around a miniature village, I saw something fall out of the roof of a covered bench. Turns out it was a potter wasp attacking a huntsman spider! (Here's a picture of the wasp: [link] Top pic is a pretty good representation, though our specimen was may a bit closer to yellow than orange.) It had just about subdued the spider (took longer than I expected for the venom to paralyse it) and was starting to drage it off when we had to go. I've seen this kind of behaviour many times on nature programs, of course, but this was the first time I'd witnessed it in person.

Ryan was pretty fascinated too, though ultimately less enthused than his daddy.

While I get how that would be fascinating, my hindbrain is shrieking right now. Aren't huntsman spiders huge? (I can't believe I'm asking that. DO NOT GIVE ME PICTURES OR LINKS. Just tell me yes or no.)