Kitty Deschanel | Food, Wine, and Travel Adventures Across the USA

Sexy Nerd takes it upon himself every year to dole out the Halloween candy. Interacting with trick-or-treaters and their hovering parents is a bit much for antisocial me, so this works out perfectly. It's also an ideal situation for the kids, because Sexy Nerd is a pushover and easily forgets all about my stingy "2 candies each" rule whenever a child with an adorable costume or sweet voice shows up at our door, scooping up enormous handfuls of candy instead. Spoiler: They all have adorable costumes and/or sweet voices. Our first year in our first home, one trick-or-treater was a little boy dressed as a skunk. He was only about 2 and had the most adorable Halloween costume ever, along with an irresistible "Twick-or-Tweat Pwease". His mom was holding his bag of candy at the end of our driveway, so he held out his furry, mittened skunk hands. Sexy Nerd was no match for the cuteness and gladly forked over a massive handful of Tootsie Rolls, Caramels, and Gummy C...

My Thanksgiving, 2020 blog post ended up being one of the most popular on my site this year (thank you!), so here's a quick Christmas Eve update, filled with photos.  Christmas, 2020 hasn't looked like it has in previous years... My younger self (with  braces !) was excited to wear that purple flower pin, which had been recently purchased at a consignment shop. My old lady self questions my previous sense of fashion while simultaneously wondering whatever happened to that purple flower pin. Though, to be fair, our Christmas celebrations often seem a bit untraditional. There's certainly no snow for Santa's sleigh when your family lives in Arizona. I'd had a light jacket, but it was so sunny and warm in Scottsdale the year we visited Frank Lloyd Wright's  Taliesin West. It would just be SN and I for the holidays this year. No homemade lasagna, no tamale brunch, and no Christmas cookies. Imagine my surprise when I received a card from my aunt saying to enjoy the p...

What is Embark? You know those weird people who have DNA testing done on their dog? I haven't even bought a DNA kit for myself, but our dog DNA test results for Olive are ready! The Embark Breed + Health Kit was our Christmas present from my parents. They love their little granddoggy. And how could they not? Just look at that face: Olive is so cool in her Harley-Davidson jacket. Don't tell her I nabbed it off a stuffed animal. Dog DNA Test Can you picture me swabbing her cheek to get the DNA sample? I felt a bit ridiculous. Olive wasn't too happy about it either, as I figured the best way to get the sample was to offer Olive breakfast, then swab the inside of her mouth while she was all drooly. Pavlov would be so proud. Also, I think this is the closest I have ever come to actually putting my psychology degree to use. SN and I thought it would be fun to do a breed reveal video, similar to a gender reveal party, with all our friends and family. We'd open a box...

SN and I were watching TV two nights ago when we heard a strange sound coming from the living room. It was Biscuit . She was on her side, yelping nonstop with her eyes wide open, foaming at the mouth. The foam had soaked all the way through her bed. Panicked, we tried to revive her, but she was like a zombie, just stuck on her side and barking, staring at nothing. It seemed like this went on forever, but I think it was probably about 3 minutes. When Biscuit finally came to, she tried to stand but kept falling over. She didn't seem to know where she was or even who we were. She was growling at us.  Finally, we got her calmed down and resting, but she would occasionally let out a yowl, eyes closed. We couldn't tell if she was having a nightmare or was in pain.  Later, it was like her mind was gone - she could walk, but only in circles around the perimeter of the room. She was not responding to anything we said or did. She still seemed not to know us....