I went to DC last week and met Jen. In person! She's the second Internet Friend I've met in person. Jen is very nice, and has beautiful teeth — isn't it funny what you notice about people when you meet them in real life?

We talked a little about blogging. We both agreed that people who dress their pets up, and have birthday parties for them, and write web pages from their pet's point of view, are a little over the top. Oh, I've recently gotten addicted to Cute Overload, but I'm just not interested in that ultra-cute "my pet is my baby" mentality. I like to think that the things I write in The Finster Log are a bit more true to life than that.

Now, I really don't want to offend anyone. If you're into dressing up your pets, and that sort of thing, then go for it. Life's too hard, and too short, to let my opinion bother you in any way.

Besides, I write a blog. About my pet birds. And I do things like — just now — shoo Ginger out of Earl Grey's nest box using the Scary Net Of Doom because he clearly wasn't going to settle down with her inside and it was BED TIME. So, you know, who am I to talk?

The other thing that Jen and I agreed on was that I probably shouldn't show off The Finster Log to any potential employers. Unless it were for my dream job of writing a blog about the animals in a zoo. Hint, hint. Still, a "normal" employer probably wouldn't be too impressed by what I do here, even though I don't dress my pets up, and even though I've made a number of impressive web sites. Which is a bit of a shame, but probably fine. It's a bad idea to talk about politics and religion with people at work, after all; I suppose pets can be a tricky subject, too.

But I guess this is really what this post is about:

Last week was the first time I went on a trip since Peanut died. Usually I start off on a trip thinking "Soon I'll be home to see Peanut!" Not this time. And when Bruce and I got home, I couldn't wake Peanut up to give him some Warm Toasties. Peanut was the best part of coming home.