So far, it’s been pretty nice and surprisingly uneventful.

I should warn you now that there is no one singular aim, focus, or theme in this entry.  Instead, today’s dispatch will parallel the activities I have planned for the garage this weekend.  Brush pick up is happening in my neighborhood this week and I’m cleaning out the clutter.

It’s not like I’m going to produce something on the order of a gaggle of buckskin clad beauties dancing around a rhinestone cowboy or anything.

As my dogs have walked up and down the streets this last week with me in tow, it’s been pretty obvious that I’m not the only one with a veritable plethora of flotsam and jetsam to leave curb side.  Along with the standard issue of tree branches and fence posts, my neighbors who reside within a one mile radius have taken steps to unload everything from laundry hampers to broken toys to mattresses to computer parts to vacuum cleaners.

Commodes appear to be on order as well, as you can find one immediately to the east and another one to the south of the TharpSter.Org compound.  The mere presence of such practical joke-worthy gold has nearly put The Pit into a tizzy with thoughts of pulling the ultimate prank on the neighbors with some low level bombing.  Fortunately, the virtual moat which surrounds the compound keeps her from running across the street and assuming the position of crouching tiger, hidden dragon on the discarded toilet.  It’s nice to know that even though she’s learning a thing or two in obedience training, she hasn’t lost her mischievous sense of humor.

Where that dog is concerned, I can’t help to sit here stupefied about what her life may or may not have been like before coming to the organization.  Every day she gives us a reason why it was a good decision to take her in.  Sadly, we received some bad news about her the other day.  It would seem that when we originally had her tested for heartworm back in January, the organisms in her blood were not sufficient enough to generate a positive test result.

Now they are.

As soon as I can generate some major ad revenue for this site, I’m raising the rates in order to help pay for the treatment.

Overall, the outlook appears to be pretty good for Hope.  The biggest challenge will be to keep her calm, rested and lethargic in the weeks following the first treatment.  She’s yet to start taking after me, so such behavior won’t be inherent.

One other oddity about the trash pile I’ve attempted to assemble and retain at the edge of the compound is the sudden revelation that I appear to have better junk than my neighbors.  I know this because the drive-by looters and scavengers with their flatbed trailers and junk laden truck beds liberated everything I left out there yesterday, save for a basket weave hamper which has been on my hit list for years.  Watching all of my stuff go away so quickly gave me the same feeling I had when I had to make a call on keeping Brett Favre on the fantasy football roster this year.  Sure he’s been useful in the past, but his future is uncertain.  Sometimes you just gotta knowingly flip a two headed quarter and call tails.

The TharpSter PounDown continues.  I continue to use the app on a daily basis reporting whatever caloric input or output I undergo.  The total loss so far since I originally reported the event to you is four to five pounds, depending on whether I have my keys in my pocket whenever I get on the scale.

Speaking of food, wifey made a great dinner last night.  We had her homemade spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread.  Sure it seems like pretty plain Jane stuff, but you haven’t tasted her spaghetti.

Don’t get me started on the garlic bread either.  The way that woman mixes the butter in with the garlic before spreading it on the French bread could very well be considered a work of art.  So much so, that the flavors lingered in the butter I spread on my toast this morning.  That was right before I put grape jelly on there though.  I haven’t quite mapped out how I came by eating garlic grape jelly on my toast this morning, however I can only guess that the organizational CFO’s efforts last night to provide us garlic bread may have generated unintended consequences.

Blog comment spam still appears to be on the rise.  I took steps last week to shut down the ability to place a comment on The Pit Bull Diaries page.  That particular page was being pounded with every piece of junk mail one could fathom.  Frankly, I was getting pretty sick and tired of moderating all of the irritating canned statements which offer no relevance to the post in which they’ve been added.

Perfect example:

“Low amounts of useless traffic” don’t bother me.  It’s the high amounts of useless traffic which litters my website with the electronic equivalent of door to door solicitors and circulated advertisements in my mail box that bother me.

The mischievous part of me is typically inclined to let the spam pass and subsequently use my creative outlet to criticize and mock the cranial shortcomings of others.  However since I’ve dedicated a big portion of this blog to big government types, I can’t see where it would be fruitful to duplicate my efforts.  Instead, I’ll just delete the spam with the caveat that I’ll discuss the extremely stupid ones in a blog every once in awhile.

So let’s do a quick checklist here to see if I was able to clear some of the clutter.

Trash pile.  Check.

Pit Bull update.  Check.

Garlic grape jelly.  Check.

Blog comment spam (aka doosh baggery).  Check.

Buckskin clad beauties dancing around a rhinestone cowboy.  (I know.  I said I wasn’t going to go that far.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcezFWxrWUo&w=640&h=385]

Check.