Flick's Tricks for More Google Clicks

Is "Googlier" a word? If not, I'm taking this occasion to invent it. Because I need it for a New Year's resolution.
Last year I resolved to get healthier - which I did, incredibly enough - and this year I'm resolving to get Googlier. As in: being able to Google oneself and find more than one or two obscure references.
Those references, in my case, pertain to my somewhat less than prestigious close-to-last place standings in the Oatmeal Festival 5K Run/Walk. (In case it's not obvious, I was a contender in the " /Walk" portion, not the " Run/" portion.)
Google results show me as finisher #580 out of approximately 581 contestants one year. And, of course, there's no way to explain to the general Google race results-viewing public that this can be somewhat attributed to my friend's dog!
I'm not saying I would have been in the top 50 without Flick (whose name has been changed to protect him from negative publicity.) Or even the top 450. But I might have made it into a coveted Top 550 slot.
The Oatmeal Festival 5K, at least when I last participated, allows contestants to bring their dogs along for the fun and exercise. So my friend and I decided to include Flick, a loveable Malamute, in our foray into the highly competitive world of community-sponsored run/walk events.
But first, we had to detour slightly off the beaten track to pick him up and outfit him with a leash. And then, we hadn't taken into consideration the fact that Flick is a dog of the sociable persuasion. Every encounter with another dog along the race route -- and there were a lot of other dogs -- called for the standard meet and greet routine.
Flick could write the manual on social networking skills. If there were a Doggie Facebook, he'd have hundreds of friends. If you could Google individual dogs (would this be called Pooch Googling? Poodle Google?), Flick would show up on the first page of results without resorting to an Advanced Search.
Once, when we were on just a regular old walk around town and passed by the grain elevator far from Flick's residence, one of the employees came outside, and completely oblivious to the human component of our walking group, nodded and said, "Hi there, Flick!"
So this is one very popular dog-around-town. And what with the obligatory social functions to perform, one thing led to another until it dawned on us that we were at the tail end (no pun intended) of the race, along with a few other stragglers.
As the bright yellow finish tape appeared in the distance, there were still a few contestants trailing us.
Suddenly our canine companion made a beeline for the side of the road and began a telltale sniffing and circling ritual. And sure enough...well, not to be indelicate about it, but...finding a plastic bag and trash receptacle into which to deposit the evidence took just long enough that the stragglers behind us surged ahead, crossing the finish line moments ahead of us.
I put on a last-minute burst of speed as we approached the yellow tape and, with the Quaker Oats man motioning us on, I made it through scant seconds ahead of my friend.
Thus, while Google history recorded me as #580, Flick will have to answer for the fact that my friend filled the #581 position.
In a subsequent year's attempt to redeem myself, I placed 829 out of approximately 900 entrants. Um...there was no dog to blame it on that time, so maybe, just maybe, I'm a slow walker.
I figure at this rate, with the number of contestants increasing yearly, if you Google me in the year 2030, I will have moved up to #3000 out of 3100 entrants.
So I'm looking for suggestions on how to make myself somewhat "Googlier".
Maybe I could use a few pointers from Flick!

Memo to Self: Don't Let Spouse Write the Christmas Letter

Note: This post is actually our 2006 Christmas letter. I know there is now a blog that consists entirely of things someone says in their sleep. My husband isn't nearly as prolific a producer of nocturnal bon mots as this other gentleman, but when I've collected enough new ones, I'll do another blog entry.

Last year when I was complaining about writing the Christmas letter, Dave said, "That's easy! I could do it in my sleep!" Well, I waited and waited and now, here it is after Christmas, and did he write anything in his sleep?
Apparently not! He did, however, talk a bunch in his sleep, so I took notes. I may have missed some of it, but here are some actual Dave Talking in His Sleep sound bites, just in case they were his memos for the Christmas letter:

We'll start with the night he sat up suddenly in bed and announced, "I forgot to mail the literacy bonus coupons!"
I quizzed him the morning after, to see if he recalled the dream leading to this curious pronouncement, but he was clueless. He never remembers any of the stuff he says in his sleep, or what brought it on. Which is probably a good thing, because who really wants to know what kind of dream would inspire you to make a disturbed noise and ask, "What are you farming those fish for?"
Sometimes you can tell that it's a happy dream, like the time he proclaimed ecstatically, "Wow! Lots and lots of corn! Corn on the cob!"
Other times, it leans toward the profound: "Geez! What changes in my life there would have been if I'd gone to visit my uncle!"
Or (holding up the plastic Broncos mug of water on the bedside table): "Guess what? I made a pact with myself to drink this!"
Once it even had Native American spiritual overtones. That was the time he startled me out of a sound sleep by intoning sonorously something that sounded like: "Ah yo ko le....Ah yo ko le" (followed by loud snores).
More recently, I've found I can get him to converse with me in his sleep. But the results are somewhat worrisome. After the following conversation, I lay awake for hours brooding:
Him: "Mighty Ducks."
Me: "What?"
Him: "Mighty Ducks."
Me: "What is it?"
Him: "A hockey team."
Me: "Why are you talking about it?"
Him: (pats me on the thigh) (snores)
Me: (thought process only) Hmm...hockey players...huge leg guards....thighs....fat...He thinks I have fat thighs!

After our latest little sleep-talk conversation, I'm worried he might try to pull some sort of a heist. Here's what he revealed the other night, not long after helping me run a Bingo fundraiser:
Him: "Mmmm mmmm! (mumble, mumble)
Me: "What?"
Him: "Mmmmm! All that (mumble, mumble)
Me: "All that what?"
Him: "All that beautiful money!"
Me: "Where?"
Him: "On the payoffs."
Me (alarmed): "Where?! At Bingo?"
Him: "Yeah!"
Me: "Honey, do you know what you just said?"
Him: "Uh huh."
Me: "What?"
Him: "I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener?"

So I guess we don't have to be too worried. Still....if you see a short, 50ish man with a ski mask near your local Bingo emporium, I don't know him!

Cockatiel Artisans Craft Map of United States

I may not have a state-of-the-art kitchen in my 100+-year-old house, but I'm certain ours is the only kitchen on the planet with a map of the United States created by cockatiels.
We have two cockatiels, Pearl (mostly gray with the conventional orange ear spots and yellow crest) and Jazz (white with a yellow crest). Pearl is 11 and we've had him since he was a baby; Jazz's age is undetermined as she was given to us by someone after her roommate's cat ate her parakeet and we never thought to ask her age. We've had her for about five years.
Although they don't particularly get along, they have been taking part in an artistic collaboration in our kitchen for a couple of years.
When we're working in the kitchen, Pearl and Jazz like to roam along the counter tops and explore. A favorite pastime is to climb up on the raised edge of the counter where it joins the wall and then mosey along between the wall and the bread box, making funny hissing noises at some imaginary foe who might be hiding in the cupboards down below.
At some point, one of them started pecking a hole in the wallpaper where the raised edge of the counter meets the wall. We didn't stop them because we were planning to eventually remodel the kitchen and that would have become cupboard space.
Whenever one of the birds was stationed at that point on the counter edge, they would work on this little project.
One day I was looking at it and realized it bore a distinct resemblance to a partial map of the continental United States. The map has continued to evolve, with Pearl working on the western US and Jazz on the Eastern Seaboard. She hasn't completed Florida yet and Texas/Louisiana/Gulf of Mexico is still in progress, but it's coming along quite nicely.
Friends and relatives entering our kitchen politely refrain from commenting on the gaping hole in the wallpaper. A stranger would probably be aghast that we let our birds run wild and vandalize the interior decorating.
But we're rather proud of our talented team of aspiring avian artists. They're probably going to be quite upset with us if we ever have the audacity to actually remodel the kitchen, demolishing their cartographic masterpiece in the process!

Was your last visit to the dentist comfortable?

I was driving my mother-in-law, who has Alzheimer's, to the store one afternoon and she was reading all the signs aloud, as she was prone to do at that stage of the disease. I wasn't really listening until I noticed she'd burst out laughing.
Her laugh is very infectious and it made me laugh too, especially when I realized what had provoked her laughter - the sign she'd just read: "Comfort Dental".
I'd passed that sign on numerous occasions and had never caught the inherent humor. I thought that it was pretty amazing that, in spite of her Alzheimer's, she was capable of recognizing a euphemistic oxymoron. To be quite sure that was what had tickled her funny bone, I asked her, "Why were you laughing at the Comfort Dental sign?"
To which she responded something like, "That seems contradictory."
Apparently she, like many other people, had not found the majority of her dental experiences to be particularly comfortable.
After that, whenever we needed a little amusement, I'd just drive by the sign, and she'd invariably read it aloud and chuckle. She might not always remember who I was or that she was living with us. And she probably didn't realize she'd had the same reaction to the sign several times before.
But she still had that ingrained sense of humor that inspired her to laugh at the mixed concepts of comfort and dentistry. Which I think is a very interesting reflection upon both Alzheimer's and my mother-in-law's well-developed sense of humor.

Showdown at the Rio Crockpot

Married for 25 years, my husband and I still experience some "firsts". For instance, we had an argument last night, and for the first time in recorded history, he was right, and I admitted to being wrong.

The confrontation was about my boss's crockpot, which I was cleaning after a chili cook-off. When I tried to wash it, I couldn't get the ceramic pot out of the metal canister, despite pulling really hard and turning it upside down.

Apparently some chili had lodged itself between the pot and the metal, in effect gluing them together. Frustrated, I sought my husband's assistance. In the midst of a computer game, he wasn't eager to help. But he hadn't gotten to the ogre battle yet because if he had, I could've yelled, "The house is burning!" and he'd have responded, "That's nice, Honey."

While I gripped the ceramic handles, he pulled REALLY hard on the metal. We also twisted it, but all to no avail.

He finally announced, "It's not stuck; it just doesn't come apart."

Yes, it did come apart, I explained. Crockpots come in two pieces, which can always be separated. You know the routine: he was convinced he was right, but as an inherently superior female with years of crockpot experience, I knew I was right.

Disgusted, My husband returned to his computer game. I reconnoitered by calling another inherently right female - my boss - to find out what was up with this crockpot.

"Oh, it doesn't come apart," she said. "It's one of the old ones and that's how they were made back then."

Thinking I'd heard her incorrectly, I asked her to repeat it. Which she did, adding, "They're a real pain to clean!"

A pain to clean! That was the least of my worries! I'd rather clean ten messy crockpots than have to tell my husband....well, you know...that he was actually right.

I mulled over some possible scenarios. I could:

a.) not mention it again and hope he'd forgotten about it;

b.) tell him my boss said to return it as is, because it sometimes got stuck like that;

c.) switch hers with ours (somewhat similar in color - sort of a burnt umber); or

d.) go buy a burnt umber crock pot that did come apart and pretend it was hers.

But, in the end, I bit the bullet. I needed to learn to admit I wasn't always right. Besides, he was at the computer, and there was a chance he might not notice.

As I stood behind him, watching the ogre's approach, I said magnanimously, "You were right and I was wrong about the crockpot, Honey." His character leaped out of the way of the lunging ogre, as he hastily replied, "That's nice."

So, I did tell him. It was a learning experience for me and I felt very good about admitting that, though usually right, I had been wrong just this once.

Owlet

Photo of a baby owl taken by my son at family cabin near La Veta, CO

The description of sighting this owlet is under Comment 1, because it was my first post and I hadn't quite figured out how it worked at that point.