Tag Archives: toys

my lucky olphinaunt

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I saw this little critter at Save-a-Lot:

Oh look, I thought, What a cute little olphinaunt.

Olphinaunt is what the twins called elephants when they were like, two.

He was as soft as a hamster but more amenable to pocket-travel. I bet you’re a lucky writing olphinaunt, I thought. I had to have him, even though no one in the store knew how much he was. Eventually we settled on 2.99, and Peanut (it says his name is) came home in the pocket of my hoodie, and I forgot to take him out. So when Zor (the youngest) and I went to the store yesterday, Peanut was still in there, although I didn’t realize it.

As I zoomed down the road that little voice whispered in my mind, “Go to Goodwill.”

It’s a build-it-and-they-will-come kind of voice, not to be ignored, so I asked Zor if she minded if we stopped. She said no, so we stopped…for two hours. We found clothes, a couple of books, and a picture frame for a project. And I found one of those wheeled bookbags, like I scoured the city for at the beginning of fall quarter. The cheapest I found then was $40. This one was $7. So, even though I’m really pretty in love with the leather backpack I found for $3 at a yard sale, the wheeled book bag came home with me. Not sure how it’s going to fit into all the things I need to carry to live at school three days a week, but if I need it, it will be here.

On to the grocery…

Hams for $10. Kapow! Almost made up for the $40 I spent at Goodwill.

Came home, carried things in, and when I reached into my pocket for my keys to open the van’s tailgate, I felt something fuzzy.

Well you really are a lucky lil olphinaunt! Maybe not a writing one (we’ll see about that shortly) but definitely a shopping olphinaunt.

Welcome home, Peanut.

nook v book

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+1 Nook

11.22.63 fits in my purse.

-1 Nook

I had to stop reading 11.22.63 fifty pages from the end because my battery died.

+1 Book

If a hundred pounds of dog steps on it, a book is not $250 worth of landfill.

nook

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I bought a Nook Color about two or three weeks ago. Now I see they’ve released the next version (the Nook Tablet) for the same price. I didn’t see anything about that in my extensive research, grr!

However, I really like this gizmo. I can finally read all the e-books that have accumulated on my hard drives over the lifetimes of three computers. Well, ok. I probably still won’t read them all; in light of all the free giveaways on various sites, I’ll never be caught up, not even if I never get past the third page of most of the freebies. All the old Bobbsey Twins books? Free. Five Little Peppers, too.

Of course, there are still plenty of hard copies to be read also. You still can’t go to Goodwill and play blind travel among the midlist on an e-reader.

However. The reason I decided to get an e-reader in the first place was because of all the time I spent out on the deck last summer, avoiding the oven that our house had become until T-Moth got the AC fixed. A lot of that time was in the dark. I played a lot of Harvest Moon on the old Nintendo DS, enough to burn myself out on it. And I thought a lot to myself, I wish I was reading. I considered taking my laptop out there, but a laptop battery only has so many charge cycles in its lifetime, and I didn’t want to use it up reading in the dark. Also, it was hot, and hot isn’t good for laptops either.

Then, in one of those bolts from the blue, a friend said, “I’ve been thinking of getting an e-reader, maybe I’d read more, but I wonder if I’d have time to use it at all.” Whereupon I thought to myself of my long hours in the dark on the deck with the dogs, and thought, “I would!”

It was the first time I’d ever seriously considered owning an e-reader, since I never saw any way one would serve a function that couldn’t be served as well or better by an actual book, and with paper books you don’t have to kill yourself if you lose it or it gets stolen. A little research quickly proved that a regular Nook (or Kindle) with an e-ink screen isn’t backlit anyway, so if you want to read in the dark, you have to buy a clip-on light like for a paper book, and hey…I could just buy one of those, right? Read paper books in the dark, no problem.

Then I started school and had zero time for sitting on the deck, never mind reading anything much besides Contemporary American Business, and a few pages before I passed out at night (usually around 9:30, am I old or what?)

Then two thoughts collided in my head. One, that someone told me you could get really cheap textbooks for the Nook. And two, that it would be a lot lighter to lug around than books and a laptop. So I bought a Nook Color.

And learned you can get cheap textbooks for Nook, but you have to read them on your PC?!

But I really like it. I can surf a little internet,or check my e-mail, and read a little too, in those slivers of time otherwise spent staring off into space. I can read on the couch with the lights off while Mr Moth watches Burn Notice. (Although lately I’ve been paying more attention to that show.) And once, on a warmish night, I was headed for bed when it suddenly occurred to me I could sit on the deck and read. So I took the dogs out…and did.

It was all I’d hoped…tablet be damned.

best dog toy ever?

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I bought Cobie and Kelly this Kong Ballistic:

(I didn’t get mine from Amazon, I got it from Jack’s. I was in there buying the equipment to set up a new bin for the hamster males, which product has stalled due to my inability to tell the boys from the girls. Unless they’re all girls… But anyway.)

I’m so excited!

Ok, this boomerang-type toy made of cloth, and it’s big enough for the big dog to play with no risk of choking, and small enough for the small dog to manipulate it easily. It’s soft enough to play fetch in the house without destroying things or hurting a dog who gets in the way of it. It’s heavy enough to fly the entire length of the hall (and into the office.) There’s room for two dogs to hold on at once for tug purposes, or to carry it back to me, at which time there’s a third “handle” for me to take hold of with minimal risk of having my hand accidentally CHOMPED.

There’s a squeaker inside each pod. It also allegedly floats and is washable; I’m not sure how that combination works out, but I bet if I throw it in with a load of towels it’ll get clean. It does come in other patterns/colors, but I just like purple.

Now here’s the part I consider SERIOUSLY COOL: It’s made in three layers. Two of them are ballistic nylon, meaning it’s made with the same technology they use to make bulletproof vests.

Bulletproof or no, I’m not letting them chew on it, because I paid a good bit for it (about $15, as I recall) and I want it to last…and it seems like it will. Kelly tried a couple of times to pack it off and rip its squeakers out, and to no avail. I have high hopes, and I had a blast playing with them. They haven’t had any indoor toys in a while because of their tendency to destroy everything in two days max.

The only downside I’ve discovered so far is that after a few rounds of fetch/chase/CHOMP, it gets wet and kind of icky feeling, but hey. It’s a dog toy. When you have dogs, the occasional wet and icky is part of the package.