My New Tattoos

So these are my new tattoos. I got them both Friday night after work. I really like them and am very happy about them. The one on my toe hurt. A lot. But definitely worth it. My friend KT had referred me to the tattoo parlor and the artist who did mine. Because of that, Dave (the tattoo artist) didn't want to give me just a plain old daisy on my toe but wanted to make it really cool and special, so he didn the sky/grass background, which I love, and didn't charge me extra for it. Very, very cool. And I love the colors on the butterfly. The pictures probably would have been better if I could have used my digital camera to take them, but because my cameras were stolen, I had to use my cellphone camera. Oh well, they're not too bad.

The Break-in

So my house was broken into on Thursday, while I was at work. I came home Thursday evening and noticed that Zoey, my 9-year-old Australian Shepherd/Beagle/Terrier mix, wasn't greeting me at the door like she usually does. The next thing I noticed was my sliding glass door was wide open. It still hadn't hit me at that point what was going on. I was thinking "Did I leave the door open this morning?" Then as I walked towards the living room I saw the living room window had been smashed in, the TV was knocked over, and a wrapped Christmas present that had been in my closet was now lying unwrapped on the floor. And then it hit me that my house had been burglarized. MY back gate was also left wide open, so I knew my dog had gotten out and that is what freaked me out the most. So I called 911, sobbing at this point and they dispatched an officer to come to my house. By the time he'd reached my house, he'd called Animal Control and found out that they had picked up my dog. THANK GOD!! I don't care about the other stuff that was stolen, but I don't know what I would have done. So Animal Control brought her back to the house and she seems totally fine, not traumatized at all. All in all, my DVD player, several DVDs, two cameras, my grandmother's pearl necklace, my Nicaraguan cell phone (which only works in Nicaragua), my Virginia Tech college ring and all the change in my change jar were stolen. I am most upset about the necklace, since that's family, and the ring as well because they both have more sentimental value but the other stuff can be replaced. I hopefully will be hearing from my insurance adjuster on Monday so I can get the claim processed. They haven't caught the burglars, but it was obviously some punk kids from the nieghborhood. For someone to fit through the window they broke, they would have to be pretty small. I hope they catch them. I am just incredibly pissed off that this happened. It's not about the stuff, but the fact that these little crapheads went through my personal stuff, and endangered my dog, which is the most important thing to me in the world. Zoey is not just a pet, she's family. And these little punks put her in danger. So I hope they catch them and if they do, I am going to press charges. At first I felt almost sorry for them because they're just kids, but you know what? I don't feel sorry for them. Not at all. I am pissed off at them and I want them to pay the consequences for what they did. They did more than just steal some stuff, they stole my peace of mind. Now I am more worried about leaving Zoey alone when I go to work. I am not overly worried about this happening again. I am taking steps to ensure my house is even more secure, but I feel very creeped out and violated that this happened at all.
But I am confident they are going to catch the jerks who did this.

The Emmys Suck

The BEST show on TV, which, of course, is "LOST", didn't even get nominated??? Are those people smoking crack???

Random Nicaragua Stuff

On Sunday, one of the candidates for the Nicaraguan presedential elections, Herty Lewites died suddenly of a massive heart attack. That just came out of nowhere. I mean apparently he'd had minor heart problems for a while, but just started feeling sick suddenly on Sunday, went to the hospital and a few hours later, BOOM. Unbelievable. He was the one all my Nica friends were going to vote for, so now they're saying they might not even vote at all. So I don't know what this means for the elections. I know our government is concerned about the possibility of Daniel Ortega winning the elections, because of his ties to Castro and Chavez, but hoepfully he won't win. Not that I think we should be intervening in their elections.
One thing that I have noticed about Nicaraguan politics, is that almost all Nicaraguans refer to their poitical leaders and candidates by their first names. Instead of "Ortega" or "Lewites", it's "Daniel" or "Herty", even the posters for the candidates that have been up in Managua have their first names. And when the ex-president of Nicaragua was sitting in the row behind us at the movie theatre, it wasn't "Alemán", it was "Arnaldo". Just kinda interesting, I think.
Apparently, Mi Familia, which is the Nicaraguan equivalent of our Child Social Services, has a new director who wants to stop all adoptions by foreigners and doesn't want to let any kids out of the country. I just don't understand that. if a child can have a better life being adopted by a foreign family, why not let them be adopted? Too many of these kids in the orphanages in Nicaragua are never going to get adopted, and when they leave the orphanage, they're going to end up having kids they can't care for, who are going to end up being sent to orphanages, and the cycle starts all over again. I just don't get that at all.
Well, enough ranting for now.