This morning blew. I was running late, the dogs were being pains, I got stuck by a train and then stuck in line at the gas station. Once on the highway I was confronted with idiots either doing 90MPH and running up behind me or the random moron doing 45mph in the middle lane.

By the time I got off the interstate I was frustrated and already stressed out picturing how friggen horrible the day was going to be and wishing I could just go back home and start over. Then it happened… My ipod as if sensing my general displeasure in the way things were going autoshuffled it’s little ass over to one song that I cannot hear without dancing singing cranking up the volume and generally having a good time. That’s right it shuffled right over to one of those classics we all know the words to, good old school Bon Jovi, Living on a Prayer. What’s even funnier is it happened to hit that song with perfect timing allowing me to get thru the whole thing and have the last notes fading out just as I put the car in park at work.

I’ll be singing it now all day, but my mood was greatly elevated and I walked into the office smiling and happier than I would have pre the blast from my past. It’s amazing what music can do

I am a food network addict. I watch it all the time, I like to learn about strange things like the history of meatballs and such. Tonight I am watching Unwrapped on the show which basically tells you how things came to be, for example the show currently on is discussing the history of deli food (mainly pastrami on rye). It goes thru the whole process, how they make rye bread, pastrami, pickles and mustard to construct the perfect ruben. Yeah I know I’m weird, but I like to know how things are made/work etc.

Back to my original point,the guy that hosts this show is also the guy that hosted DoubleDare on Nickelodian when I was a kid. How do you go from the guy who slimed people and made families run thru obsticle courses complete with things like sliding down ramps of whipped cream and such to being the guy who hosts not one but two food network shows (apparently he also hosts the ultimate recipe showdown)? The other thing that weirds me out is that he’s a lot like Dick Clark, the guy looks today the exact same way I remember him looking when I was a kid.

Oh and PS, pickles have to be 5 inches long to fit in a jar for Heintz and we all eat (except A1 who hates them) 6lbs of pickles a year. I have now made you that much smarter about pickles, you can thank me later

Parker puppy came in the other night and A1 noticed he’d picked up a tick in his ear. I HATE ticks, hate hate hate them. Not as much as snakes or spiders, but they’re def a close third. Anything with more than 4 legs or no legs at all just kinda creeps me out.

I have dealt with ticks before, I usually paint them with nail polish to suffocate them so they’ll pull their little tick heads out and then flush them down the toilet. I started the same process with Parker, but apparently that was not quite going fast enough for A1, so he decides to burn the tick out. Logically I know this is most likely not the best plan of attack, but it is his dog and he’s the one who wants to set the tick on fire so I figure sure why not.

He takes one of the big stick grill lighters and he’s holding parker between the couch and his legs with one hand holding parkers ear up and the other holding the lighter. I choose to sit a little bit back and basically just watch the magic unfold. The first pass with the lighter A1 stays fairly far back and not much happens. The next pass in though he gets a little closer and some of parker puppies ear hair (which is very long even on the inside of his ear) singes. There is nothing like that smell. At this point a logical person probably would have stopped and trimmed the rest of parkers ear hair to prevent further smell and such. We apparently were not feeling like logical people.

The next pass A1 is bound and determined to get the tick. He goes in even closer, parker puppies little nail polish doused hair goes Poof! we’re blowing it out, parker is freaking out and the tick is finally dropping out all at once. It wasn’t actually a big flame or anything and we did get it blown out well before it ever got to Parkers actual skin but now he has added the stick lighter and for a little while A1 to his list of things he is afraid of.

I think perhaps next time we’ll just stick to the nail polish.