It Would Seem
Apart from this, I lied. But it was an unintentional lie.

There Will Be More Blogging
Soon. This weekend I expect. My hideous state is under control but today my right hip (the "good" one, ha!) feels as though something has gone terribly, terribly wrong in there. Let's cross our fingers and hope against avascualr necrosis of the femoral head.
UPDATE: Hurts like holy hell. Something has definitely gone south in the pelvic region. And yet. And yet: I managed to hobble into the shower this morning and I'm walking slightly better with ach iteration. Even though I'm leaning on a walking stick and bent over at the waist. I think I'll be looking into a hip replacment sooner rather than later.

Not Dead
But still not healthy. I am mending but will be off from blogging for another few days while healing progresses. Thanks for the notes to all who e-mailed.

Sick
No blogging forthe next few days. I've got some thing that's just way too gross to go into. Think Cruex and you're on the right track. But there's ever so much more to it than that. Dip me a vat of cortisone cream and nuke whtever has found its way into me and I'll start to feel better. Not to mention the sunburn from AtlanticCycling support. Oh Lord, just kill me now. I promise I won't complain.
Sorry. Didn't mean to get into it.

Just A Grace Note For The Weekend
I was come over all of a sudden with a desire for blueberry pie so I went to my favorite purveyor of pies. I had a lovely lunch of the "Thnakgsgiving sandwich" (turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce on choice of bread. And a cinnamon roll. I had a piece of the pie at home later. I was only disappointed in that there were no deviled eggs to be had there. I love deviled eggs.
Still, I have consumed comfort food. And the pie was (is) absolutely fantastic.

Another Great Name For The Collection
Tamsin Grieg. She's a British actress who is featured in BBC America's short serial "Love Soup." She is, in my estimation, the quintessential image of the woman who is referred to as "handsome" and it's not meant in any way as a slight. She has a lovely, low-key (at least in "Love Soup" it may be part of her character) voice and a sort of hesitating style of movement as if she never approaches the central point of the scene directly. She implies where it is without having to be in the center of it. Yet the central wouldn't be there without her acting style creating it.
She is enjoyable to watch and she has another great name. Add her to my previous selections: Botti Bliss and Tierney Thys.

Self Aggrandizement
A transient thought alit amongst the bare branches of my mind long enough for me to recognize it. Bloggers love traffic. We want those counters to click over like the digits on a gas pump. Does it makes sense, then, to pull one's blog into one's real world?
The thought I had was blog "business" cards. Instead of telling people: "I blog. Visit www.pugsofwar.blogspot.com or Google the term 'Pugs of war," I hand them a business type card that says: "I blog!" and gives the contact details. Is this over the top? Is it presumptuous and self aggrandizing? And even if it is, is it unwarranted self aggrandizement?
Leave a comment, let me know what you think. I really want to know.

My Friend The Enigmatic Misanthrope
Let me start by saying that the EM came into my high school class many years ago as the quintessential outsider. Yet we fell into a fast friendship when I approached him about the track spikes he was wearing in gym class. I'd never seen track spikes before and I thought they looked really cool. In any event, I was thrown back to those most irritating of salad days by a commercial I saw on TV. I won't say what the commercial was for but it reminded me of one of the EM's contributions to that hoariest of school traditions, the "Senior Wills."
The Enigmatic One willed to a socially ... what do I say, not "outcast" but perhaps "misfit" classmate of ours: "A woman who would not make his pores slam shut." Odds are the legacy was never realized but it still makes me laugh to this day. The man has a perverse and fascinating sense of humor.
I didn't clear this post with him beforehand because I figure the "Senior Wills" were about as public a thing as our little class put out. And I have, in the past, extended him an invitation to blog here on PoW. As yet, he declines.

Upcoming Music
I had it in my mind that the superb Carbon Leaf was getting to the point of releasing a new disc so I cruised over to the web site (a permanent fixture on the sidebar of course). I suggest you do the same. They offer a stream of the songs on "Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat." Listen. These guys are sharp, talented and write terrific music. And buy the disc when it come out! Dang ye! Support these guys. They deserve it.

Movin' To The Country
My favorite purveyor of peaches has Loring freestone yellow and New Jersey white peaches currently for sale and I must say these two varieties may be the best of the season. The Loring are flavorful and the term "freestone" hardly does them justice. Cut open the peach and the pit will fall out of its own volition. How conVEENient! And the flavor of the New Jersey is just top notch. I wish someone would make a white peach sorbet. That sort of perfume-y delicate flavor with a sort of vanilla overtone is just ... well, if you've had a good white peach, you know what I'm talking about.
And speaking of crops, I made another step toward the pepper jelly. The recipe calls for liquid fruit pectin and all I could find at my local Safeway was powdered pectin. I bought a couple of boxes but I wanted what the recipe called for. So (stop me if you've heard this from me before) I searched Amazon now that amazon is doing groceries. Bingo! And I bought some Zatarains gumbo mixes to get free shipping. I like gumbo. I really should learn how to make it myself.

Rodentia Morituri
I was crusing around Amazon, looking for innovative and fun ways to nuke the rat bastid on my deck when I noticed one of those interweb things that just would never happen without modren computators. On the page that the search string "rat poison" pulled up, one listing is in the so-called "sponsored links" is "Get Poison Ringtones."
I think they're missing my point.

Pugs Of War Welcomes The Dog Days Of Summer
Today is a Norwegian Buhund - affectionate, compact and hard-working.
The pug would exchange butt-sniff greetings while admiring his new friend's cobby body and elegantly curled tail.

A Final Post For The Day

Nuts!
I wanted to be able to post a pic of the snapped spine of a rat bastid. Instead, I just have a tripped rat trap and no rodent to go with it. Bastage!
On the other hand, I bumped a pepper plant during watering and a pepper fell off. I take that as sign it was ready. Still no blushing though. Just a very pale jade green color to the peps. If I can pull my act together on Saturday, I might pluck enough produce to try to cook up a round of the pepper jelly.
I saved several clever hexagonal jars from Trader Joe's and I made up a label for them. Hey, I might as well show it off:

Pugs Of War Welcomes The Dog Days Of Summer
Today is a Swank - a peculiar breed in the working group that has inexplicably won Best In Show twice.
The pug, in a rare circumstance, would not exchange butt-sniff greetings but stroll away laughing.

"Star Trek" Inspirational Posters
Just go there and look at three pages of rib-ticklin' goodness.
The work speaks for itself. Anything I would say is just gilding the lilly.

And oh yeah, since these are posters, consider this also the final poster of the day.

In These Parlous Times
I have to ask myself one question:


(Who is Michael Garibaldi?)

Valedictory
The superb columnist John Leo has penned his final column and I just want to take note of it to memorialize the end of one part of a great career. I worked with John when I was at "US News & World Report" and he was a wonderful person to work with. He is a gentleman, he was probably the most widely recognized moderate conservative pundit in the weekly newsies and he deserved the recognition. His intelligence was active. His sense of humor was excellent and he treated the trench workers with grace and good cheer.
I hope his new endeavors will bring him great pleasure.

Browse With The Best
I am an ardent proponent of Firefox so I have to include a link to the Firefox crop circle made by the OSU Linux Users Group. Bravo!

And By The Way
Head on over to Gradual Dazzle and scroll down to Kris's Monday photos from the Dallas Farmers' Market. Just gorgeous. I want me some a them okra pods! And the cukes. And the .... Well, you get the idea. Even the broccoli is beautiful.