Here's a first for me on Twitter: just found out my cousin is pregnant via one of her Tweets.  Let me clarify: I found out about her pregnancy via Twitter, she didn't get pregnant via Twitter which, as far as I know, is physically impossible.

So a couple of weeks ago I get a message from Esbee begging me, and I mean B-E-G-G-I-N-G me, to give a certain puppy at the pound a look-see to see if we'd be up for adopting it.  Then she sent a picture of quite possibly the saddest dog I've ever seen, and I showed it to Celeste, and of course that meant that within an hour we were headed to the animal shelter.

At the shelter Celeste pretty much ignored the sad puppy and immediately latched onto a black lab that was listed as being one year old.  We visited with him in the magic-adoption-hypnosis-room and watched him pee, shed and occasionally lick one of our hands.  Celeste was smitten. Before leaving we filled out the adoption paperwork and crossed Celeste's fingers.

That was on a Saturday.  On Monday we got the call that the dog was ours and he could be picked up on Tuesday from the vet that was going to de-boy him.  Celeste and the kids seemed joyful and Celeste announced that the dog would be named Riley.  Yippee.

Of course I flew out to Vegas on Tuesday so I wouldn't see the mutt for close to a week.  The first indication I had that something might be amiss was when I talked to Celeste and she let me know that the dog was a pisser, literally, and that despite being recently rendered nutless he'd been able to defile Mia, our other one year old dog who had managed to remain a virgin until Riley's first day in the house.

On a side note, I worry that North Carolina's esteemed abstinence-only sex ed program may not have been too informative.  Celeste mentioned that Mia had done a little bleeding as a result of Riley's attentions, but when I talked to my kids who are midway through high school they seemed to think that Riley had popped a stitch.  When I informed them that their mother had checked and Riley was fine they seemed confused about where the damage could have possibly been done.  I see an uncomfortable parent-child conversation in our future.

Anyway, back to Riley.  In addition to his less than gentlemanly ways Riley also seemed to be poorly housebroken, if housebroken at all.  Add to that the fact that he's already strong as an ox, and if his paws are any indication he's nowhere close to being done growing, and that he thinks any barrier constructed to contain him is something to be annhiliated, and you have the recipe for household destruction. 

All of this I learned via various phone calls and text messages received from each of my family members throughout the week, and this accumulated knowledge weighed heavily on me as I flew home from Vegas.  What I learned once I'd been home for a day and had a chance to spend some time with Riley and the family is that he's also slightly cross-eyed and if you throw something at him he invariably misses it a couple of inches to the left.  Obviously he was not bred from an esteemed family of retrievers and I suspect there may have been a little incest involved, if you know what I mean.

So what do we have?  We have a cross-eyed, peeing, indiscreet, dumb and destructive oaf of a mutt who will probably cost us hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in the foreseeable future. He'll fit right in.

Today, Father's Day, is what my Mom always referred to as a "Hallmark Holiday", one of those days that she's convinced was created as an excuse to sell greeting cards and other doodads.  I tend to agree, but I'm also willing to take advantage of an opportunity when I see it, so I spent today lounging around the house eating things I probably shouldn't eat and doing it in great quantity.  Given all that leisure time I had a bit of time to think about this whole Mother's Day and Father's Day phenomenon and I started to wonder why we don't have a Kid's Day?  Before you scoff, hear me out.

Slideshow from last weekend's party for my Grandmother's 90th birthday:

My Grandmother turns 90 this month and since that's a rather momentous occassion about 65 of our relatives, representing four generations, gathered at my Aunt's house at Laurel Ridge, near the Eastern Continental Divide and celebrated her birthday in style.  It was a beautiful day in the mountains and we had a wonderful time catching up with some family we hadn't seen in years, sometimes decades.  Best of all, I think Grandmother had the time of her life. 

The following sentence was uttered by a parent not to be named, upon the departure to the pool of her 15 year old daughter, who was sporting her brand new and way-too-skimpy-for-her-Dad-to-look bikini:

"At least she looks good and her a– is covered and her boobs aren't hanging out."

There is that.

Apparently there's a long tradition at the kids' high school of underclassmen skipping the seniors' award ceremony.  Other kids' parents, who apparently are infinitely cooler than me, are taking their kids out for a fun breakfast and then taking them to school at mid-day so they can go to their post-ceremony classes.  My daughter asked if she could go with one of her friends and her cool parent, but I'm old school and figured that part of being a freshman is suffering the indignities that are part of that hellish year of school.  Still, I didn't want to be totally un-cool so I told her that if she came up with a creative idea to "sell" me on the concept of skipping the ceremony I met let her go.  Below are the two marketing campaigns she came up with and were waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday.  The first is a video she shot with her digital camera (that's her younger brother she recruited for the project) and the second is a set of panels she taped to the wall in the hall leading to our bedroom. FYI, she's going to breakfast.

So how did the Lowders celebrate Hallmark Mother's Day?  Well the kids were at a church youth retreat all weekend and didn't return until 2:00 on Sunday and Mom Lowder was at a weekend getaway at High Rock Lake with a couple of other moms and didn't return until 2:30 Sunday.  That gave Dad Lowder a whole two hours to buy a few books at Border's and some flowers at Costco to add to the snow crab legs that had been requested by Mom Lowder for her Mother's Day dinner and had been purchased by Dad Lowder on a separate Costco trip on Friday.  Of course Mom Lowder ended up doing most of the meal prep herself, but who's quibbling?  Finally Dad Lowder had the genius idea to go see the new Star Trek movie as a family and packed everyone in the car and took off for the 5:20 show at the Grand.  Mom was oh so excited!  Thankfully she was pleasantly surprised and the movie worked out okay.  BTW, it's one of the best popcorn flicks I've seen in a while.

Amidst all this Dad Lowder forgot to call his own Mom, who's the one who originally convinced him that Hallmark created Mother's Day but Dad Lowder believes that was to make him feel better on another occassion that he forgot to call.  Yes, yes, he's a schmuck.  Dialing now…

About 2 1/2 years ago I thought I was getting a new car, at least until Celeste called me and gave me the news about how much braces for the two oldest was going to cost.  Bye-bye car, hello metal mouths.  Michael got his off a while back, I think almost a year ago, but as luck would have it Erin, the one who actually cared what her mouth looked like, had to keep them in until yesterday.  Below are pics of the kids the day they got their braces in the fall of 06 and today.  I think you'll agree that more than their teeth have changed.  I'd say the Ferrari whatever beater I can afford was worth the wait.  Oh, and we still have one more to brace-face so it won't be any time soon.