June 26, 2007

Murphy! Come Home!

In the past 24 hours I have screwed up two knitting projects, spilled three beverages, and damn near lost one of my dogs. And yet, I still like it better here than at my old crapshack.

Which reminds me, I know I need to change my header. Several issues: 1) lack of time and higher priorities, 2) lack of reliable internet service, 3) complete lack of ability to do anything right at the current time, and 4) big plans to move to different software once things settle down a bit.

Anyway, the dog situation. Our new house is such a perfect little bite of Americana, it even has a picket fence. Although it's not a perfect picket fence, as two of the pickets are loose. I told B. that they needed to be fixed because the dogs might get out. "Oh, don't worry your pretty little head about things involving hardware," I was told. Well, not really, but that might as well have been what was said because all concerns I voiced about the two pickets were poo-poo'd.

I should have just taken the damn hammer and some nails and fixed it myself. That would have been a lot easier than grabbing my newly-awake kid and throwing her into the truck with a wet Pull-Up, a yogurt smoothie, and no shoes so we could track Murphy through the neighborhood.

I love hounds. And by hounds I mean the category of dogs. Both of my dogs are scent hounds. I love their personalities, their skills, the houndy way they look. I could do without the hound stench. The only really bad part about having scent hounds is that once they're on a scent, they're as good as gone. The get so focused on tracking that they don't pay attention to their surroundings and, often, can't find their way home.

Look at any hound rescue site, and you'll read a lot of stories about dogs wandering lost with no tags or microchips.

Um, yeah. I still need to get my dogs microchipped. On Sunday I almost had new tags with our new address and phone number made for them but decided to wait for ... what? For impending hound tragedy so I could save money by only having to buy one tag?

Something this morning told me that I needed to take a look out the kitchen window and make sure the dogs were fine. I didn't see either of them. When I went outside, Chloe the Basset came running to me, in the yard just as she was supposed to be. She had that Lassiesque "Timmy's in the well and I have to show you" look about her as she ran across the yard to one of the broken pickets, which had been shoved aside. Then she turned to me and woofed, "That stupid nard Murphy busted out and went that-a-way! Gimme a treat!"

Thus, the grabbing of the pee-soaked shoeless kid by her braless, pajamaed mother. I didn't want to haul Clara Jane around the neighborhood on foot because I knew we needed to move fast. We live on a four-lane street. The yard Murphy had busted into opens directly into a driveway, which empties onto Main Street.

I somehow stifled the urge to call B. at work and tell him to get his ass home so he can scrape our dog off the street and explain Doggie Heaven to our kid.

Several trips up and down Main and the side streets, and I spotted a team of roofers a block from my house. At first they hadn't seen her, but on my next pass by, they flagged me down and led me to where they'd last seen her. Since it was on our block, I decided to go home, grab some shoes for Clara Jane, and work on foot.

As I pulled up to our curb, Murphy came wandering into our front yard, dazed, panting, and terrified. This is the dog who's afraid of the water dish, mind you. This is the dog I've often commented is too stupid to be alive. And yet, she somehow found her way home.

Why yes, after B. got home from work, he went directly to our neighborhood hardware store to buy stuff to fix the fence, followed by a trip to the neighborhood deli to buy a shitload of fried chicken livers because after I've bralessly chased my stupid dog with my pee-soaked, barefoot three-year-old and a team of Mexican roofers, you can guaran-damn-tee I will not be making dinner, or my own coffee. As soon as I got Murphy into the house, it was off to the drive-thru coffee house. Mama needed a latte. Bad. Baby needed a scone. And those roofers needed some fresh-baked giant muffins, after having to put me with me and my unfettered, not-so-fresh giant muffins flopping down the alley, all in the name of a stupid little dog, who's been sleeping on the couch all day.

Posted by Robin at 06:06 PM | Comments (10)

January 11, 2007

The End of a Friendship

This isn't about real estate, for the first time in a week. This is about my stupid little dog, Murphy. You know Murphy, right?

For most of her life, Murphy has shared a yard with a hoodrat of a dog named Snoopy, who lives next door to us. He was born the same week as Murphy, and they've always been pals. So much so that long ago, we rolled back a section of the fence seperating our yards so that Murphy and Snoopy could spend every waking outdoor moment humping and barking.

You might recall that Snoopy recently had a weiner dog stuck on his weiner. The progency from that unholy union should arrive in a week or so. That poor weiner dog. She's so low to the ground, and so pregnant, that she looks like a snake with an eating disorder, slithering around the yard.

I don't know if that unholy union and its consequences have anything to do with this, but Murphy has abruptly decided that her friendship with Snoopy must end immediately. And not only that, she's absolutely terrified of him.

Granted, Murphy's pretty much terrified of everything. She's one of those dogs, the ones who cower and shake at the slightest little change in anything. Look at Murphy the wrong way, and she'll cry like you slapped her.

Murphy's a product of a puppy mill, but I'm sure you figured that out all by yourself. I mean, just refer back to the photo. She was rescued as a puppy and adopted by someone who had no business with a high-energy hound puppy. Her previous owner worked 12-14 hours a day and left Murphy crated by herself. By the time we got her when she was nine months old, she was beyond basket case.

Oh, but we had good intentions! We were going to get her trained up right! Obedience school! Patience and love!

Two weeks after adopting Murphy, I got pregnant. Trained up, she's not. Smart, she's not. Confident, she's not. This dog is such a chicken that - I kid you not - she sleeps with her eyes open.

Do you know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night and look across the dark to see blank, vacant brown eyes attatched to a snoring head staring back at you? But I love her nonetheless.

There. I said it. I love Murphy. Which is lucky for her because oh my God, she's refusing to go outside during the times when Snoopy's outside, which is roughly all of the daylight hours and half of the nighttime hours.

Murphy can be in a dead sleep in the front room. Snoopy can bark in the backyard and she'll wake up, panicked and trembling.

Right now, he's not even outside, but she's sitting on the couch, staring out the window in the direction of his house, trembling. The mere sight of his house strikes terror down to her very core.

Fucking dumbass.

Murphy will go outside at 5 AM when B. gets up for work, and again at 11 PM before we go to bed. She's mostly fine in the mornings and afternoons, but around dinnertime, she starts pacing and whining.

Pace and whine, looking worried. She'll look at me, look at the backdoor, and sigh.

Sometimes she'll even sit by the backdoor and look pitiful. But when we open the door to let her outside, she flees as if we're about to punt her into the fiery bowels of Hell.

Murphy's one saving grace is that she has never, ever peed or pooped in the house, so at least we're not dealing with that. I'm starting to get concerned about urinary tract infections and I swear to God, I'm not pouring cranberry juice down that dog's gullet or administering any ointments or creams. I love her, but not that much.

Last night was the worst. While dinner was cooking, Murphy awoke and started her dinnertime nervous pacing. Back and forth, across the living room, glancing to the backdoor. Snoopy was outside, barking. And so she paced. She paced and paced and paced until she managed to pace the nervous puke right out of herself, trailing it from one end of the living room to the other.

Yep, this house is gonna sell really fast. Who wouldn't want the pacy puke house?

Posted by Robin at 08:09 PM | Comments (8)

November 19, 2006

Day Ninteen - With Apologies to Robert Frost. I'm Sorry, Bob. Really

There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
The Mending Wall by Robert Frost

True dat, Bob. True dat.

I called my mom today to ask her to bring me a chainsaw tomorrow. I've officially had enough of the minor inconvenience of having a downed tree impeding my fence in performing its job of keeping creatures contained and restrained from my yard. I've informed B. that he will be taking a day off work this week to remove the tree.

Want to know what's brought me to this point, at long last, aside from my lack minor-inconvenience coping skills?

First, let me give you a roster of the dogs that are in my yard at any given time:

You know Chloe and Murphy, of course. They're my dogs.

There's Snoopy, a beagle/sheltie mix. A sheltle? Beatie? Anyway,
he's lived in the house to our east for nearly four years. At the time it seemed like a good idea to roll back a section of the fence seperating our yards so the dogs could have twice the romping space, and they could be pals. Because my dogs are spayed, Snoopy's owners opted to not neuter him. Or maybe that's because they're idiots.

And now, thanks to the tree, we have Pogo and Nora in our yard. Pogo is stupid. I think that's her official breed. Stupid. Nora's a miniature long-haired dachshund. A weinerdog, in miniature. Because the full-sized ones are just too much to handle. These dogs are also not spayed because 1) our dogs are obviously not going to knock them up, and 2) their owners are also idiots.

Today, I looked out the hall window, which overlooks Snoopy's yard. My dogs were inside, but Snoopy, Nora and Pogo were in his yard, lying in the sun. For some reason I was moved to go outside and deliver some affection to my perpetual yard guests. When I walked into the backyard, Pogo did her usual: she sprinted full speed ahead, fueled by pure terror, back to her yard, where she stood on the felled tree and barked at me. Stupid, I tell you. Stupid.

Snoopy and Nora remained in the same spot, curled up, looking in my direction. Cute. They're friends. Having been neighbors for four years, it's only been in the past few weeks that they've made each other's acquaintence. How cute. They're making up for lost time. I continued calling.

Finally, Snoopy stood and took a few tentative steps in my direction. Nora stood and stepped in perfect unison. Cute.

Wait.

There's a weinerdog hanging off that dog's weiner.

It seems that, while in the act of doing what unspayed and unneutered dogs do best, Nora and Snoppy had become entangled. They weren't too concerned about it; they were just hanging out. Or in, as it were. Snoopy seemed rather happy to have found a cozy place to store his weiner on a chilly day.

At first I didn't think it was possible. I mean, I could see Snoopy's balls, and Nora was considerably to the side of them. It looked like she had her butt stuck to his back leg. For a brief moment, it seemed more plausible that Snoopy's 9-year-old owner, Boy, had maybe tied their legs together. That, I can fix. Unfortunately, that wasn't what happened.

Nope. There was definitely a weiner stuck in a weinerdog. A rather large weiner, judging from how far away the weinerdog was from the usual location of the weiner. And I felt responsible, because I'm the one with the tree and the fence that's propegated this damn free love doggie commune. Nevermind that my pets are all spayed and it's not my responsibility to sterilize my neighbors' pets, which would have prevented this problem in the first place.

I came inside and told B. to call Nora's people. They didn't answer, even though they were home. Snoopy's people weren't home, either. So, Farmer B. headed outside to unporn the dog porn occuring in our neighbors' yard.

B. had some help. Chloe and Murphy went flying out the door in a manner that suggested they'd been eavesdropping and were just dying to see this "dog sex" we'd been discussing, seeing as they've never experienced it themselves.

For a moment, I thought Murphy was going to gnaw them apart with her fucked-up little overbite.

When B. approached the dogs, Nora went into submissive pose. Unfortunately, when a weiner dog rolls onto her back with the penis of a much taller dog stuck in her vagina, the weiner dog winds up standing on her head. I couldn't watch anymore. I went inside and did what any good farm wife would do in this situation: I Googled "how to seperate two dogs having sex". Which wasn't helpful. Not even a little.

A few minutes later B. came inside to tell me that the dogs had been succuessfully seperated and I could stop Googling and crying. Instead, I called my mom and requested the use of her chainsaw. At this point I wasn't seeing the humor in the situation. I was simply fed the hell up with having at least one tree-related weirdo fire to put out every single day of my damn life. So fed up that I couldn't find the words to describe the grossness that had transpired in the yard and all I could say was, "Snoopy had a wiener dog stuck on his wiener," to which she laughed so hard that only the dogs could hear her.

And no, I'm not going to use the chainsaw to seperate the dogs the next time it happens - and you know it'll happen again. B.'s taking a day off work to remove the last of the tree. We were hoping it wouldn't come to that. We were also hoping that we wouldn't have a dachshund and a sheltle (or beatie) stuck together at the genitals. God knows I never, ever hoped for the existance of sheltie/beagle/dachshund puppies (Shelbehunds? Dachstiles? Beahundties?). I certainly don't want to spend the rest of my life chasing them out of my yard. And that's why Robert Frost was right. Fences are the best neighbors in the world.

Posted by Robin at 04:01 PM | Comments (10)

November 17, 2006

Day Seventeen - Friday Shuffle - The Sick of Posting Every Damn Day Edition

Is it just me, or have all the NaBloPoMo posters and commenters hit the wall? I know I sure have. I have things to write, things to comment, and blogs I'd like to read but my brain simply won't let me.

In light of my bloggity boredom, I'm going to give you three little tidbits and the shuffle.

Tidbit #1 - Thanks to the still-downed tree lying on my fence, I've started playing a new game everytime I open the back door. It's called "Which Neighborhood Dog is in My Yard Today?" This morning, I discovered the neighborhood weiner dog running amok in my yard. When the fence in your yard can't restrain a weiner dog, it's no longer sufficiently doing its job well enough to be called a fence.

Tidbit #2 - Lately I've found myself concerned about how Clara Jane interacts with other kids. During daycare dropoffs and pickups, I never see her playing with other kids. When I ask her who she played with she tells me that she played with toys. I'm not going to make a big deal of this; if she's a loner, she's a loner. There are worse things to be.

At lunch today, any notion that she might be a loner was vanished. She noticed another little girl sitting a few tables away from us and promptly stood up, waved, and yelled, "Hello, Little Girl! How are you doing? Are you having a snack? I have an apple. I love my apple. Do you love apples? I have yogurt. Do you love yogurt? Hey! Little Girl! HEY!"

Now I'm concerned about her being The Pushy Kid.

Tidbit #3 - I can't recreate what I was writing yesterday, but I can do two things: tell you how it vanished and tell you about the $6 candy bar. It vanished because the ctrl-shift-w function in Firefox, coupled with the space bar, closes the window, particularly if your chubby little fingers are a lot faster than they look like they should be.

Now, the $6 candy bar. For years I've been fascinated with Vosges Chocolate. They're a Chicago-based high-end chocolatier that basically throws weird shit into really expensive chocolate and sells it to food nerds like me who think, "Mmmmmmmm ... white chocolate with Kalamata olives. I could go for some of that. Let's get a second mortgage on the house and eat up!"

Our local Whole Foods started selling a small selection of Vosges awhile back, but I just couldn't allow myself to part with $6 for a 3.4 ounce weirdo candy bar. But yesterday, for some reason, I decided it was time to part with my $6 in exchange for weirdo chocolate.

Alas, the weirdo chocolate I really wanted - Barcelona, which is darker milk chocolate with grey sea salt and smoked almonds - wasn't available. Which is too bad because I have a serious smoked almond monkey on my back. At some point when I was little my parents put a can of Smokehouse Almonds in my Christmas stocking, and that was all she wrote. Best flavor in the world. Ever. That was another one of those signs of adulthood: the day I realized that I could eat Smokehouse Almonds every single day for the rest of my ever-almond-loving life if I wanted. I'm eating some right now, as a matter of fact. I like strong flavors. The only thing better than smoked almonds and sea salt would have to be smoked almonds and bleu cheese. I'm surprised Vosges hasn't jumped on that idea.

Anyway, I did have some misgivings about spending $6 on a candy bar in a flavor combination that might be horrible, despite my food adventurer tendancies. So, I went with the one I knew I'd mostly like enjoy - Creole, 70% cacao (really, really dark) with espresso, cocoa nibs, and chicory. I love chicory coffee. I love mochas. I'm going to love this bar.

You know what you get when you get a $6 candy bar? You get instructions on how to eat chocolate. Those cheapos at Hershey's and Nestle, they just leave their customers to their own devices. Let 'em remain ignorant to what chocoalte is supposed to look like and smell like! Let the philistines eat their dusty-surfaced chocolate that smells like bald tires! And let them *gasp* chew it with their teeth!

For $6, I know to let the chocolate melt in my mouth, instead of cramming the whole thing down my gullet before someone can snatch it away from me, the same way my Basset hound Chloe once did with a Nestle Crunch bar.

I resisted the urge to eat the candy in the car. If I'm going to spend $6 on what should be THe Chocolate Experience of My Life, I don't want to be distracted. I also don't want to be behind the wheel in case the experience is so rapturous as to leave my vehicle unmanned on the highway.

I sat at my desk, read the instructions and did as it said: I looked at the chocolate. I sniffed the chocolate. I snapped off a piece of the chocoalte. I performed acts on the chocoalte that are only legal in the state of Nevada and France. Then I put the chocolate on my tongue and pressed it to the roof of my mouth, just like the instructions said. And sure enough, just like the package said, it slowly started melting around thirty seconds later.

The verdict?

Eh.

Tasted great, of course. The cocoa nibs were rough and irritated my tongue and the roof of my mouth. There wasn't a single point in time where my spirit left my body during the whole experience. A little naked man didn't pop out of the packaging when I opened it, either, and for $6 you'd think they'd include a special little thrill of some sort. While tasty, it did not satisfy my mind and body, as the package promised. I still had a slight backache when I was finished eating the piece.

I just popped another piece in my mouth. Yeah, good. But slightly painful and not decidedly different than a handful of chocolate-covered espresso beans. I keep encountering little pieces of hard, pod-like material. Perhaps that's what a flavanoid looks like.

Next time, maybe I'll shuffle through the display and buy a a horseradish chocolate bar. At least then my expectations will be in check.

1. Iko Iko - Dixie Cups
2. Baby Mine - Bonnie Raitt
3. East Virginia Blues - June Carter Cash (a woman who had enough good sense to not buy $6 chocolate bars, I bet)
4. Only Lie Worth Telling - Paul Westerberg
5. Tell Me That it Isn't True - Bob Dylan
6. Don't Get Me Wrong - Pretenders
7. Still Fighting It - Ben Folds
8. Close Together - Jimmy Reed
9. Rose Garden - Lynn Anderson
10. Walking the Dog - Rufus Thomas

The shuffle is filled entirely of artists who would most likely throw beer bottles at the heads of bourgeois idiots who'd spend $6 on a candy bar, and rightfully so.

Posted by Robin at 04:06 PM | Comments (12)

November 15, 2006

Day Fifteen - Schlemiel-Schlamazel

It's a crap day around here. From the hours of 3 AM until 7:15ish AM, my eyes remained open. The wee bit of sleep I eeked out afterwards barely counts for anything. I've got a massive knot in the middle of my back from three nights of trying to sleep on the couch, since conditions in my bed have been less than optimal for sleeping of late. To top it off, once again it rained all day. Normally I love chilly, rainy fall days, but we've had several in a row. Quite frankly, it's making my dogs stir-crazy, which in turn is making me a little nuts. Trust me, there are few things as pitisome as a Basset hound with cabin fever. But we've got one. At one point, she was so bored that she crammed her head under the couch cushions to do a little crumb-surfing. She and Murphy both sat at rapt attention, listening intently while I read Biscuit books to Clara Jane. When dogs take an interest in literature, you know they're mere inches away from the dreaded Death by Boredom.

I totally phoned it in today. Clara Jane and I stayed in our jammies. We ordered pizza for lunch and ate in on the couch while watching "Sesame Street". Since her sleep patterns are a bit wonky right now, too, there was no napping. We read and played, watched way too much TV, and snuggled. No new things were learned. No new experiences were had. We ate bad food and watched bad TV, but we'll get to that in a bit.

I don't know if this happens to everyone, but if I see parts of day which I normally sleep through, it really screws with my perception of time through the rest of the day. Luckily, most of the time, it makes the day fly by. That's what happened today. If feels like it should be about 3:00 and it's nearly 6:00, which means sweet, sweet sleep in the spare bedroom is just around the corner.

We watched a lot of "Laverne & Shirley" today. I know I've mentioned my lifelong adoration of Laverne & Shirley. It was my favorite show when I was a kid, and in the past few months I've rediscovered it via digital cable upper-tier reruns. You know, on the cable channels no one ever watches. As far as I can tell, this particular channel, a spin-off of Lifetime, shows nothing but reruns of decade-old made-for-Lifetime shows and Laverne & Shirley. Every afternoon from 2-4 (which is Clara Jane's naptime), it's time to go to Milwaukee and hang out with those girls.

I'm always amazed that when I'm having a bad day, this channel has a knack for showing episodes I absolutely adored back in the day that still crack me up. Maybe that's because I adored just about every episode. Today was no exception. There was a talent show episode, and let me tell you, if I was allowed only one sub-sub-sub-sub-sub genre of TV for the rest of my life, I would chose the Laverne & Shirley talent show episode sub-sub-sub-sub-sub genre, as that's just about the best TV ever made. There was also the hilarious episode where Laverne breaks a tooth and Shirley's dental student cousin offers to fix it for free. There's a scene where the girls are in the exam room, stoned on laughing gas, that I find just as funny now as I did when I was ten. "Reach for the sky!" "You wouldn't dare!"

Which means I really haven't matured much over the past 24 years.

As an adult, one who happened to be bored and exhausted while entertaining these thoughts, I've noticed that a lot of decisions in my adult life led to Laverne & Shirleyesque situations and scenarios. To whit:

• I fully believe that my obsession with all things 1950s and 1960s stems from this show. To this day I can't watch an episode without coveting an item of clothing, accessory, hairdo, or decorative object. Those chenille bathrobes? To die for, still.
• The first five years I lived away from home, I lived in basement apartments.
• My horrible taste in really stupid comedy, from "Beavis & Butthead" to "Jackass" is little more than a lifelong search for a surrogate Lenny & Squiggy.
• In my roommate days, I always longed for that L&S-style friendship, and I sort of had it with one roomie. In fact, the day we moved into our basement bedrooms in a house we shared with two others, she declared, "We're best friends in a basement! We're 'Laverne & Shirley'!" At that moment, I sort of felt like I had made all of my dreams come true. For me and you.
• Independence. Are there any women on TV right now who exhibit that kind of independence? Of two single, working-class women getting by with what they have at a time in history when most women were expected to marry young and stay home? When I was young, my dreams didn't really involve falling in love, getting married, and having babies. They involved living in a city, working, supporting myself, having friends, and perhaps keeping a convenience-boyfriend a la The Big Ragoo.

In this time-wonky "Laverne & Shirley"-filled afternoon, I caught myself thinking back to being ten years old, and how that seems to be the year that formed my personality. The things I liked when I was ten are pretty much the things I love now: "Laverne & Shirley" reruns in the afternoon, books (I read the better part of an encyclopedia set that year), writing (thanks to an encouraging third-grade teacher), music (I got my first radio that year), cooking (I learned about clipping and organizing recipes that summer. It was a decade before I set foot in a kitchen, but it was ingrained.). It was all there when I was 10.

I was obsessed with baseball when I was ten, something that's fallen by the wayside. And yet, when our power and cable were knocked out the night of the final game of the World Series, you know what I did as soon as the lights were back on? I sprinted to the nearest radio to see if the Cardinals were winning. And when they did, you better believe I cried like a little kid. The baseball thing might not be front and center anymore, but damn if it's not still lurking.

Immature sense of humor aside, maybe this is the sign of adulthood: getting past the trial and error of youth and realizing that what you liked when you were a kid, before your brain was bombarded with choices and options, is the core of who you really are.

If that's the case, pass the milk & Pepsi and smack an oversized L on my left boob.

Posted by Robin at 05:49 PM | Comments (3)

November 14, 2006

Day Fourteen - Phhhhhhhhhhhhht

I'm so not down with posting today.

Only one thing of interest has happened this week, and while I could blog about it, I won't because it would be unfair for reasons I can't divulge.

Don't you hate it when bloggers get all cryptic and shit? I know I do.

Granted, I'll take boring over last week's emotional near-trainwreck and pukefest. It makes for dull writing, though. Yeah, I could go into the archives of my brain like I did yesterday, but I was just there and don't feel like going back just yet. Instead, I'm going to blatantly copy my pal Dixie and give you fourteen dots.

• Clara Jane is having trouble accepting that Halloween is over. Today she led me to my bedroom to show me a pumpkin patch, and then to the living room to show me a coven of witches, led by stupid little Murphy.

• I've become addicted to reruns of Scrubs.

• Oh God. I'm only on my third dot and I'm out of stuff interesting enough to write about. Not because I write for my audience, but because if I'm really this boring I'm going to make myself cry.

• I finished book #26 of 2006 last night - Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Go read it. Now.

• So, um, yeah. Thanksgiving's next week. What's that all about?

• Maybe I should buy that damn Maggie Mason book of blog prompts. I'm dying here.

• I looked into a volunteer opportunity today with a group that works with new moms suffering from post-partum depression.

• I miss being able to see the top of my desk.

• Pogo, the only dog in the world stupider than Stupid Little Murphy, has been spending a lot of time in my yard. While she's pitifully stupid, she did figure out how to scale the downed tree that's still on my fucking fence. You know what's fun? Opening the back door and saying hi to the stupidest dog in the world and watching her run as fast as any animal has ever run to escape.

• Yeah, the damn tree's still on my fence. The bottom half, anyway. We had the great idea of advertising that we have free firewood, but it's BYOC - bring your own chainsaw, since the first 25 feet of the tree has already killed one chainsaw. Cut and haul yourself. Hey! Free heat! We thought we'd be beating people back with one of the many sticks in our yard. Not the case. Of course, some people view this as little more than a minor inconvenience. Spending three weeks trying to get the power, cable, and phone companies to get their shit together and fix all of the downed lines already! is a minor inconvenience, too. Replacing the chunk of the neighbor's house removed by the tree? Also, minor inconvenience, as is magically bringing the neighbor's slide back to life. And all that brush? Why, it'll just put itself through the woodchipper! It's all a cinch, really. We're just chosing to leave the tree down because we enjoy Pogo's company so.

• Also courtesy of Dixie, I just watched a video of a guy trying to remove his pubic hair with a Bic lighter. I can safely say that I haven't lost my ability to laugh my ass off at dumbasses. I've just lost my ability to say anything pithy about them.

• I just got an email from someone who's coming to town for a wedding this weekend. They gave me their schedule, about umpteen zillion phone numbers, and I'm supposed to help with flowers. Problem is, when I say "coming to town", I mean they're coming to Portland. I'm in St. Louis. And I have no idea who Mark and Cari are. Am I supposed to buy them a gift? And if so, what's the most appropriate gift for someone you first heard of five days before the nuptuals? Would a gift card be tacky? How do I go about finding their registry if I don't know their last names?

  This is the most interesting thing that's happened to me all day.

• B. and Clara Jane are at their monthly nighttime storytime at the library. I love nighttime storytime at the library, mainly because I never go.

• This has taken me exactly half an hour to write, half the time it took Dix. Boo-ya!
  

Posted by Robin at 06:28 PM | Comments (2)

July 31, 2006

Fulfilling a Boatload of Dog-Related Promises

Okay, so I promised Dixie some stories about my dad's dingo dog Chigger. Let's pretend that I purposefully saved them for today in honor of her seventh wedding anniversary, okay?

And since we're talking about dogs, I'll fulfill my other promise, the one I made to a PR firm in exchange for my mortal soul free kids books.

You remember Chigger, right?

Yeah, that Chigger. Like the parasite. Which is appropriate, since I spent about half of my waking hours during my visit with his mouth latched onto my arm. I love smelling like dog slobber.

Chigger decided that he just loves my Chloe.

Really, do you blame him?

During our entire visit to my hometown last week, Chigger followed Chloe around like a smitten schoolboy, occasionally throwing a hump on her to really prove his love.

Chigger had no love for Murphy.

Really, do you blame him?

Even though I'll be the first to admit that Murphy can be rather hard to love, I don't think it was necessary for Chigger to brutally attack her and try to eat her head every single time he laid eyes on her in the course of six fucking days, at one point prompting me to scream, "Jesus Christ! Could we have a cease fire in the War of the Assholes for just one fucking night? Please?"

Apparently not, because after I screamed, I tripped over them as they staggered into my path, Chigger's jaws firmly latched around Murphy's neck. Again.

What goes around comes around, though. The next night I got to watch as Chigger tried to shit out a shovel.

That's right. A shovel.

Granted, it was a plastic toy shovel, and it was actually chewed-up little bits of shovel, but still. It was shovel, and it came out of his ass. That counts for something, right?

This isn't anything new. Chigger's always had two food groups: things that are digestable, and things that aren't. Just minutes before the shovel reappeared, I yanked a little rubber dinosaur out of his gullet. It was one of those with the spiny backs, and you know that would hurt. One time Chigger taught us that, when one eats Handi-Wipes - the ones in the cylinder container that are pulled through a little X in the lid - they exit the body much the same way they exit the container. For a few days Chigger's ass-end looked like a Handi-Wipes dispenser. A dirty, filthy, disgusting Handi-Wipes dispenser.

This summer, he's been working on eating this orange plastic shovel. It's good to have goals, right? Not so much when the goal means pooping plastic. You'd think that with all of his experience in passing hard, chunky items through his intestinal tract that Chigger would be able to handle a few little gnawed pieces of plastic.

Not so.

As the plastic made its vain attempt to leave The Tract of the Dingo, Chigger wimpered, giving his three-inch-long safety-orange dingleberry (no, I didn't measure it)the stink-eye. When that didn't move things along, he tried to outrun it, but it stayed on his ass like, well, crap with chewed-up chunks of plastic in it. Then, he hid under my dad's lawnchair, hoping to elude the renegade poo. Laid there, looking forlorn as every winged bug in the neighborhood swarmed.

Eventually the plastic poo needed human intervention to be removed. Not by me, of course. Murphy and I were too busy laughing.

Now that I've completely disgusted all of you ...

Last week I was approached by a PR firm representing Bush's Baked Beans. They've published a kid's book about Duke, their spokesdog. He tells the tale his adoption. All proceeds from the book benefit the American Humane Society, an organization near and dear to my heart. It's a cute book that promotes the benefits of adopted dogs, a message that's sorely needed in this day of dogs-as-fashion-accessories.

Consider this: my Chloe and Murphy are adoptees.

Chigger came from a breeder.

I think that speaks volumes.

So, I've got an extra ten copies of Duke's book. The first ten people who post funny dog stories in my comments gets their very own copy.

Posted by Robin at 09:11 PM | Comments (7)

May 07, 2006

Chew On This

Clara Jane was born the day after Valentine's Day. You know, International Clearanced Candy Sale Day. That day, my granny purchased a Valentine's Day Double Bubble plastic bubblegum machine, shaped like a phone, and filled with pink, red and white gumballs. Now, usually Granny's pretty sharp, so I still don't understand why she was compelled to buy 50% off gumballs for a newborn. But she did, and since then, the gumball machine has sat on the changing table, still wrapped in its original cellophane.

I'm usually not overly sentimental about gifts. I try to always be gracious when someone gives something to me, but if it's not something that I need or like, into the rummage sale pile it goes. For some reason, I haven't been able to do that to the gumballs, up until recently. I've been doing my spring cleaning, and I've intended to stick a 10-cent pricetag on the gum and be done with it. I mean, it's not like it's the only gift Granny's ever given Clara Jane. There are the beautiful baby quilts she made from blocks my mom embroidered when she was young, the doll quilt, the fuzzy Snoopy blanket and pillow, and the hand-made tutu that she made from pink tulle left over from my parents' 1971 nuptuals. We're not going to miss this cheap plastic tub o' gum.

Problem is, Clara Jane recently fixated on this gadget. Friday morning, while I was talking on the non-gumball-dispensing phone to my mom, Clara Jane had every fiber of her being focused on removing the cellophane from the gumball phone. "I really should take that away from her," I told my mom, not moving from my chair. If I took away everything from Clara Jane that I should take away, I would spend my life doing nothing but taking things away from Clara Jane. "Oh, look. She pulled the cellophane off. Guess I'll have to price it at a nickel now."

In a grand moment of "Hey, Lazyass, you had that coming!", ten minutes later Clara Jane dropped the machine, its plastic top shattering into three jagged pieces, gumballs clank-clank-clanking against the hardwood living room floor. I swooped in, grabbing shards of plastic while using my house's sloping trajectory in my favor, kicking the gumballs so that they rolled under the couch. I made a mental note to pull the couch out during her naptime so that I could encourage the gumballs to keep on rollin' down the hill, through the dining room and, with any luck, straight out the back door.

Which means that, around 10:30 last night, B. pulled out the couch to sweep up the gumballs, along with enough animal fur to build a new cat, fused together with ABC gum.

My plan partially worked. Sort of. The gumballs did roll around our slanty, slopey house. Unfortunately, they didnt' roll out the door. Instead, they rolled directly into the gaping maws of my gum-starved idiot dogs.

Apparently, those years of licking their own asses have left my hounds feeling less-than-fresh, because let me tell you, they chewed that gum as if their lives depended on it.

*smack smack smack*

Dogs. Chewing gum.

*smack smack smack*

All the live-long night.

*smack smack smack*

Someone really should teach them to chew with their mouths closed.

B. and I would wrestle the slobbery chunks of chewed gum from their mouths, and they'd take off, in search of more! More gum!

I think Murphy might have blown a bubble.

They quickly learned to be covert about their gum-chewing. They'd hang their heads low, ears shielding their chewing jaws, but their chomping always gave them away.

*smack smack smack*

Thing is, they didn't seem to particularly enjoy the gum. From the looks on their faces, the gum confused and worried them. But they just couldn't stop with the smack-smack-smacking, their compulsion so strong, their breath so fresh!

God help us if they ever start smoking, because they will never, ever be able to quit and frankly, I'm not putting Nicoderm patches on my damn dogs.

Posted by Robin at 05:09 PM | Comments (4)

April 11, 2006

The Secret Life of a Bee-Eating Dumbass

When we last checked in with my stupid little dog Murphy, she spent God knows how many hours being outsmarted by her collar. Sadly, things haven't improved much for Murphy since then. Don't feel sorry for her because this time, she's totally brought the misery on herself.

Yesterday afternoon Clara Jane and I joined Murphy, our Basset hound Chloe, and the neighbor's mutt Snoopy in the backyard. We played in the sandbox, but instead of tearing around the yard like a ninny and barking her head off like she normally does, Murphy was deeply concentrating on something in the clover. There she stood, staring at the ground with an intensity she usually reserves for staring at the wall, occasionally snarling her upper lip and lunging, always jerking back, startled.

I thought maybe I should investigate. I mean, Murphy needs some guidance and protection in this world, as she doesn't have the brain power to react to deterrants like pain, shame or self-preservation like a normal animal. However, I am highly deterred by two of those things. Shame, not so much. I'm specifically deterred by snakes, and the possibility that Murphy was doing battle with vipers. Sorry Murph, but if you opt to rumble with a 53-foot long suburban anaconcobrattlerasp, you're on your own. I'm not going to save your stupid ass from becoming a hound-shaped bump surrounded by snake belly.

The other dogs realized that Murphy was in Intense Hunting Dog Mode, so they came to investigate. They stared for a moment, then wandered away. That's good for the whole of us. Had it been a poisonous 283-foot garden snake, Chloe and Snoopy most certainly would have taken interest. They moved to bigger projects, like pulling the buds off the peach tree and doing wind sprints in the ditch they've dug by the fence. Murphy continued staring, nipping, and leaping backwards. I relaxed, confident that Murphy was simply engaging in a little battle with her own shadow.

Eventually, Clara Jane made her way towards Murphy, and the mothering instinct got the best of me. Just on the off chance that Murphy was waging war with something more dangerous than her own shadow, I intervened.

Murphy wasn't after her shadow. Nor was she after the too-tall clover or a stick. What had her mesmerized, what had her leaping her fat ass straight up and backwards was a bee. One of those huge, fuzzy yellow and black striped honeybees. We're talking about a John Belushi in a bee suit-sized bee, covered in slobber, writhing in the dirt where Murphy had pulled up the clover. The bee was down, but not out, and when Murphy, for the 639th time in fifteen minutes, put the bee in her mouth, the bee once again gave her a little jolt, sending Murphy rocketing into the air. And once again, as soon as her paws were on the ground, Murphy repeated the process.

I shooed her aside so I could stomp on the bee and put it out of its misery. Not even death could stop Murphy. Not even death! As soon as my foot was out of the way, the bee was back in her mouth. Luckily, Murphy has a fucked-up little mouth; her lower jaw's crooked and her overbite's so severe we could reasonably park our truck under it and protect it from hailstorms. Because of this, it's pretty easy to get stuff out of her mouth.

I grabbed an empty bucket and a stick, and flicked the little carcass into the bucket. Not even death and a bucket could stop Murphy. Not even death and a bucket! Once again, she scooped up the bee in her mouth, and I knocked it out.

I dumped the bee in a spot behind the shed when Murphy wasn't looking. And this stupid, stupid dog - the one who's sometimes too stupid to find her food dish when it's loaded with kibble three feet from her face - found the bee. At this point I said fuck it. Eat the bee. I don't care anymore. Clara Jane, Chloe and I went inside, leaving Murphy to die in the yard.

Actually, she didn't die. She's fine. I'm also guessing that she didn't learn a damn thing and will probably spend this afternoon looking for a hornet nest. Or a badger, perhaps.

Posted by Robin at 02:10 PM | Comments (5)

March 28, 2006

Idiots Vomiting in the '80s. In China.

This made my day. While reading the stats for my blog, I discovered that a Chinese search engine returns a photo of my dogs if one searches for the word "idiot".

By that token, I wonder if a search for "weird vomit" would return a photo of my cat. As you might recall, earlier this month my cat Romi performed the oddest vomiting acrobatics I've ever seen. She almost topped herself last night.

It all started around midnight-thirty last night. B. and I were reading in bed when Romi let out a few yowls to let us know that all's well, nothing to worry about, she captured the intruder that was sure to kill us all in our sleep. She came sauntering in with a little black beetly-crickety thing dangling out of her mouth. Never much in the way of manners, she proceded to eat the bug in front of us, not once offering to share.

After she finished eating her prey, Romi joined us in bed, nestling into B.'s pillow. In no time at all, I caught her licking her lips, panic creeping into her eyes. Yar she blows. Bug-chunks, that is.

We ran her off the bed and she vanished, only the siren song of her bug-hacking remained, echoing through the house. So here we are, quarter til one in the morning. B.'s looking for a cat and I'm looking for puke. Both were located. The bug remains are still unaccounted for.

Have I told you about my neighbor, '80s Lady?

Of course I have, but since it's been awhile, let me refresh your memory.

One early morning back in, oh, let's say 2001, I was driving out of my neighborhood, probably on my way to culinary school. I'm pretty sure that's the only place I've gone in the past seven years that required me to leave my house before 7:30 AM. Early enough for the neighborhood kiddies to be out, waiting for the schoolbus.

I sat at the stop sign by the nearest bus stop, teaming with elementary schoolers and their moms, when I saw her. I furrowed my brow as I gawked, thinking, "What's the date? Is it Halloween? Shit. It's Halloween. I forgot to buy candy. Okay. Gotta stop by Walgreens between classes and buy candy. Hmmm ... little bitty Snickers bars. I love Halloween. Wait. It's February. Why is that woman in costume?"

This woman was wearing one of those padded ski vests. You remember, they were actually coats, but the sleeves had zippers so that they could be removed. Frostbitten arms were all the rage in 1982. Under the vest peeked knee-length gym pants. Of the Spandex variety. In electric blue. Had I been driving past, and not offered the gawker's luxury of a stop sign, I might have thought that some mean kid had stripped her naked and covered her flesh with shiny blue duct tape. On her feet? White high-top Reeboks, the ones with the two Velcro straps around the ankles.

And her head ... oh, her head. The glory of her platinum-blonde tresses, cascaded in a flat-ironed sheet down her back. But how can a woman of such obvious athletic inclination manage such a mane? The solution is two-fold: First, cut the top and front of the mane into three-inch spikes. Second, sport an Olivia Newton-John - inspired headband across the forehead region.

In fact, looking at that photo, I think I've seen my neighbor - forever to be known as, obviously, '80s Lady - wearing that same outfit. Every time I've seen this woman, she's been wearing one relic or another. And I can't help but wonder several things:

1. Has she not looked at another human being in the past 20 years?

2. Why do her clothes look so new? I'm wearing a pair of jeans that are at least six months younger than my child, and they're sporting patches on the inner thighs and a safety pin-reinforced zipper. How is it that this woman has an entire wardrobe older than college graduates that looks brand-new, and I can't keep my jeans from falling off my lower body in desert-island-refugee-style rags after a mere 17 months of wear? It's not like I'm wearing them while digging ditches or getting physical.

Perhaps '80s Lady is simply an ultra-trendy menopausal woman and she's buying her clothes at the chic juniors boutiques, where the '80s are hip and cool again.

What's all this about? Well, I was forced to make a stop at my neighborhood Wal-Mart today. I'd rather dress like '80s Lady than go to Wal-Mart, and I'd rather dress like '80s Lady with a rat tail than go to the Wal-Mart in my neighborhood. On the plus side, I found a home Brazilian wax kit in the clearance aisle.

I also found something else at Wal-Mart. While I was standing before the display of anti-snot agents, I felt something bearing down on my heels with such a force that I jumped away, just in time to feel the breeze circulated by '80s Lady as she zoomed past me.

Turns out all that Spandex, the Reeboks and that aerodynamic 'do makes her really, really fast. I think she might have been attempting to reach 88 mph so that her flux capacitor would send her back in time to be among her own. But since I slowed her down, she settled for browsing the bunion remedies instead.

Posted by Robin at 07:20 PM | Comments (6)

March 07, 2006

Deep Thoughts and Bodily Fluids - A Little Something for Everyone

Which do you want first? Of course, the poop...

As of 6:24 PM today, Tuesday, March 7, in the year of our lord 2006, I hereby declare that no one in this house is allowed to perform any bodily functions until they learn how to do it right.

Last night, B. noticed that Clara Jane had a smidge of diaper rash, so he let her run around the house bare-assed for awhile. This is what we call Danger Baby. I think you probably know why, and I'm pretty sure you know where this is going.

"Oh my God! She's crapping on the floor!" B. yelled, jumping up and sprinting away from my desk, where Clara Jane was squatting, doing what I can only assume was her best imitation of a bear in the woods. He recovered, cleaned it up, and once again fell into shock as Clara Jane ran across the kitchen, a giant turd falling out of the hem of her shirt.

Once all the poop was removed, B. removed Clara Jane to the bath. Once out, she was standing on one of the dining room chairs, still naked. "What's all that water on the chair?" B. asked. "Did that drip off of her from the bath?"

Sure, Honey. You just keep telling yourself that while I disinfect this chair on which we sit while we consume food, for it is covered with urine.

Fast forward to bedtime. I was reading, while my cat, Romi the Motherfucking Lardass, attempted to settle her girth onto my girth, which is sort of like balancing a ping-pong ball on top of a basketball. As she settled, I noticed something. Under her tail. Oh God.

I shoved her towards B., flung a box of tissues at him and requested that he please remove the renegade dingleberry (which, size-wise, was really more of a dinglepear) from her ass.

Once the poop was out of our bed, we sat there, catching our breath, both silently pondering the horror of possibly rolling onto the renegade dinglepear in the night. Romi, in her shame, perched on the edge of B.'s nightstand, looking straight ahead, obviously trying to regain her nobility in light of having, essentially, crapped her pants in front of us. I watched her profile as she sat, unflinching, lost in the thoughts of her shame. She opened her mouth, I presumed to speak of her mortification and sorrow at the frightening end of the evening. And from her mouth, as she emitted a delicated hack, came rocketing ... what? A loogie? Projectile vomit? Jet-powered hairball? I'm not sure. All I know is I watched in what felt like slow-motion as this item came hurtling out of her gullet and across the room. Had the dogs been sleeping in their beds four feet away, they would have thought all their dreams had come true and cat vomit had started raining from the heavens.

I somehow managed to sleep, even with this animal, who had sprung leaks from both ends, slept near my pillow. Clara Jane woke me up before 7 AM. Although I wasn't thrilled with this situation, I took advantage of it. Got us dressed and out the door by 9 so we could go for coffee and chocolate milk, followed by a trip to Whole Foods. I needed probiotics, as my digestive system is still reeling from last week's flu. I won't be giving you details, because I prefer for the rest of the world to believe that I don't poop. However, I'm pretty sure Romi has posted all the details over on Live Journal.

I love Whole Foods, but I don't get there very often. Unless I go early in the morning, it's a madhouse and it makes me want to run over people in the parking lot, which doesn't quite work with Whole Foods' earth-friendly vibe. So we just don't go, unless it's a day like today, where the planets align with my ailing intestines and the child in my house who is suddenly operating on Rooster Central Time.

Two years ago, I was also going to Whole Foods for probiotics. Clara Jane was almost a month old and I was still sick. When I left the hospital, my doctor said my C-section incision looked like it wanted to get infected. She sent me home with a prescription for Keflex. Four days later, I awoke with my clothing saturated in liquid that had burst from the incision. It looked like the tail of my shirt and my underwear had been dunked four inches in a washtub.

In the weeks that followed, I was prescribed every antibiotic known to western medicine, or so it felt. Several times a day I sat on the toilet while B. alternated hot compresses and peroxide-soaked cloths on my incision, which continued to bleed and weep. I went to my doctor's office several times a week, always on the verge of being admitted to the infectious disease unit. The infection didn't budge.

Despite the infection, I was able to go out. As long as I took painkillers and wore elastic wasitbands, I could try to get on with my life, which now contained a tiny little girl and a weeping wound. That was good, I thought, because I had other health issues at hand. Whenever I was left at home with Clara Jane, I would panic. Paralyzing, life-controlling panic that left me huddled on the couch, sobbing, for hours on end. Every morning, Clara Jane and I would drive B. to the train station, then we'd go to the diner for a long breakfast. She'd sleep on the counter in her car seat while I ate my egg sandwich and drank cup after cup of coffee. Perched on a swiveling stool at the counter, my incision didn't hurt quite as much.

When we'd leave the diner, I'd have to find someplace else for us to pass a few hours, and Whole Foods was an appealing option. I'd put Clara Jane into her Baby Bjorn and we'd stroll through the store. If she was awake, she'd gaze at the colors and lights in the produce department. I'd take my time walking down the aisles, maybe buying something to drink or a snack. Lunch from the salad bar, if it was a particularly long visit, as a lot of them were. Sometimes I'd sit in the dining area with a notebook and write, if Clara Jane was willing to snooze on my chest.

When it came time to pay, I always tried to get the same cashier. I don't remember her name, but she was in her early 20s, chubby, ring through the divit between her lower lip and her chin, and hair color that varied between hot pink and burgundy from week-to-week. I could always count on her for a little small talk, and to fawn over Clara Jane. She always projected a bit of happiness, and helped ease my loneliness.

Eventually, it was a trip to Whole Foods that finally brought down the infection. My friend Jackie, a homeopathic therapist in Great Britain, suggested several formulas that tend to help surgical infections, along with an arnica ointment. Within a week, the infection was mostly gone, and I was downing probiotics, trying to get everything back in order.

As I walked through Whole Foods early this morning, I thought about those mornings two years ago, and the tiny baby who snoozed on my chest as I browsed. Today, she pointed at items in the produce department, yelling out the names of fruits and veggies. She demanded samples from the cheese and potato chip departments, and mooed at the cow artwork on the organic dairy products. While gazing into the meat case, I heard someone say, "Hey! It's you! I haven't seen you in ages! Oh my God, your baby's grown!" I looked up, and there was my cashier, this time with fading blue hair and a blood-smeared white coat, working behind the meat counter. "She's gorgeous!"

I thanked her, and we made idle chit-chat for a bit. I found myself wanting to tell her that I'm fine. I'm well. Missing some vital flora, perhaps, but otherwise, so good that an early-morning trip to the hippie store is now fun, not a lifeline.

Posted by Robin at 07:24 PM | Comments (13)

February 25, 2006

Working for the Weekend Tidbits

I've been far too verbose and serious this week. Really, I've had nothing else to talk about. The week has consisted of insomnia, a sick kid, a sick me, music aptitude news, and, well, that's about it. Today, I'm going to catch you up on the little bits of goofiness that have filled in the spaces between long-winded overthinking:

-I had a 90-minute-long phone conversation with my next-door neighbor on Thursday night. While she's not my favorite person in the world, I don't mind playing catch-up with her every six months or so. I just don't want to be her best pal, at her beck and call. I've been there. It's not fun. About ten minutes after I got my first might-be-positive pregnancy test, I was on the phone with my mom when this neighbor showed up on the doorstep, distraught over some miscellaneous drama. Hearing that I'd just found out I was pregnant didn't deter her from plopping down on my couch, moaning and wailing over something so minor I don't even remember what it was. That, I can do without. But the occasional neighborly chat's okay.

And in this particular chat I learned two interesting things: 1) she's started sex toy business, and 2) the neighbors across the street from her have a piercing and tattoo studio in their basement. So, if you're ever in the neighborhood for a Prince Albert and a Clitopatra II, make sure you stop by my place for a spot of tea.

In less quease-inducing news ...

-Looks like Clara Jane will be taking her first flight this summer, as my British buddy Sally and her darling boy Oz are going to visit her sister Kirsti in Detroit. While Detroit isn't exactly close to St. Louis, if Sal's there, I go. Relatively speaking, she's damn near in my neighborhood if she's in Detroit.

I'm a little nervous about traveling solo with the kiddo, although if we can survive last October's traveling vomitorium, we can handle anything. Also, I figure Sal's flying solo across the Atlantic and half the US with a kid six months younger than Clara Jane, so I have no room to complain or be chicken.

One of my favorite things about Sal - I'd give you the whole list of favorite things about Sal, but it might take months - is her unabashed love for things us Americans take for granted. Like IHOP. When was the last time you got excited about IHOP? Never? Well, I get excited about IHOP, just because Sal gets excited about IHOP. Excited enough to steal for her. Besides, it's the International House of Pancakes. I get to go there with someone who not only lives in London, but has also lived in Russia, South Africa and Australia. What could be more international than that?

Last night, B. suggested a trip to IHOP for dinner. Sounded good, since I've had IHOP on the brain all week in anticipation of Sal's visit. I think IHOP's happy about the upcoming visit, since they're going to have their own little Shrove Tuesday celebration this week. In preparation, Clara Jane wore her Mardi Gras beads and insisted on dancing when Elvis came on the PA system:

And I insisted on taking a photo of my dinner, just for Sal:

You're two months and two days away from the chicken fried steak promised land, my friend.

Clara Jane would just as soon bypass the fried beef and pancakes in favor of a pound of bacon, please. It's good to see that her experience with puking bacon across rural Illinois last October hasn't detered her hog product consumption.

-My poor, stupid little dog Murphy had a horrible experience last night. When we got home from IHOP, we got out of the truck and B. said, "Jesus Christ, Murphy! Shut the hell up!" We could hear her in the house, whining, all the way from our driveway.

We came inside, and Chloe greeted us at the door. Murphy couldn't be bothered to get up. She just laid on her back in our big red chair, whining and wagging and wiggling around like a damn squirrel. I gave her a belly rub, lovingly told her what a fucking window-licker she is, and went about my way. Still, she stayed in the chair, wagging. I had the thought that maybe she had her harness hooked on the quilt in the chair. I checked, and she was free, so I moved on, muttering about what a damn weirdo she is.

Five minutes later, she was still on her back. Even by Murphy's uber-freak standards, that's a bit excessive. B. took another look, and discovered that Murphy had one of her front toenails hooked in the ring for her ID tag.

Obviously, Murphy gets her intelligence from me.

-It's the end of an era. In today's mail, I got the 20th and final volume of Kristina's Rock Yer Punk Ass mix CD series. It all began an astounding four years ago this month. It was her first mix CD, throwing her into the mix CD crazy place where Kara and I had resided for about a year. Of course, we welcomed her to Crazyland with open arms. The three of us traded CDs like mad, with the unspoken rule of not repeating songs. For example, let's say I put Punk Rock Girl by the Dead Milkmen on my "Punk Kids Vandalized My Derelict Car" mix, then it would be in bad form for Kara or Kristina to put it on one of their mixes. It's just good mix CD manners.

However, even with our stupifyingly large music collections, we were always unwittingly using the same songs. The most overused being Brass Monkey by the Beastie Boys. We latched onto it like, well, like a monkey to a handful of feces. We made it ours. And even though the song is about a really horrible cocktail, we took it literally.

Do you need some stuff with monkeys on it? Well, Kara, Kristina and I have some stuff with monkeys on it. Like the fabbo $4.50 monkey clock Kristina gave me last year. So intense was our zeal to procure the best monkey-related junk for each other that Kara kept saying, "We're taking this too far. Too many monkeys." To which I said, "We haven't taken it too far. Until one of us winds up with a live monkey, we haven't taken it too far."

For Valentine's Day 2003, I found a pair of cheesy, horrible cards with leery photos of chimps with shaky googly eyes. Of course, I sent them to Kara and Kristina, signing them from Priscilla von Monkeyassen, who resides at 6969 Baboon Lane, Monkey Island, South Carolina.

Of course, once they spied my awesome monkey alias, they had to have them, too. Thus Star Monkeybrass and Exena Humpamonkey were born. It's just good sense to have an alias, you know. When I got pregnant a few months later, my fetus was christened Coco Monqueytoes.

Had I known the monkey names would stick for this long, I would have picked something other than Priscilla for myself, since that's my mother-in-law's name. I eventually shortened it to Prissy. So, when you see a police report in your local paper regarding one Prissy von Monkeyassen and her accomplice Coco Monqueytoes being held in lock-down for stealing carafes from the IHOP, you'll know it's me, and I need to be sprung, please.

I'm sure Kristina will keep making mix CDs; she's just retiring the "Rock Yer Punk Ass" moniker. It has rocked her well. She's got a castle in Brooklyn that's where she dwells.

Enclosed with the CD, Kristina included an article about Loverboy from the December, 1983, issue of Creem Magazine. She even took the time to highlight each usage of the phrase "hog balls" in the article. I leave you with photographic evidence:

I think that headline pretty much sums up why we listened to Loverboy way back when: because they were there, and remote control technology wasn't like it is today, therefore making it more difficult to change the station to something that didn't suck.

Hog balls.



Nothing screams "heavy metal" quite like an unattractive Canadian man wearing nothing but a towel while blow-drying his man-perm.

That's Exena Humpamonkey on the left, lovin' every hog ball humping minute of it while she's working for the weekend.

Posted by Robin at 02:01 PM | Comments (4)

February 11, 2006

Biting the Chainsaw

Before I get started, here's a picture of my monkey clock, as requested by Jules:

It was a gift from that master of many nicknames, Kristina/KC Ramone/Exena Humpamonkey/K-Dog/Blossom's Dad's Ho/Jack White's Bitch #2. Perhaps later this week I'll tell the story of the whole monkey hang-up, since I do believe the official Naming of the Simians was three years ago this week. If you think the codependent stuff's bad, just you wait until the codependent monkeys show up.

Anyway ...

B. cracked me up the other night. Not that it takes much. All he has to do is talk about how stupid our poor, stupid dog Murphy is. You all remember Murphy, right? In this case, all he had to say was, "Jesus. Murphy's so stupid she doesn't even know how to eat right," and I was reduced to a bedwetting near-miss.

Murphy is three and a half years old. We're not 100% sure what Murphy is. She's either a badly-bred beagle or a badly-bred foxhound. The only concensus we can reach on this matter is that whatever she is, she's badly-bred. But we can't really fault her for that. She had no more control over her bloodline than any of us. Just like Clara Jane didn't ask to come from the unfortunate combination of Missouri hillbilly* and Michigan Yooper bloodlines, Murphy didn't ask to be born with genetics working against her. That's just the way it happened and I remind myself on an hourly basis that this is not her fault.

Murphy was born in a puppy mill, which was raided by the law not long after her birth. Unfortunately, her mother didn't survive. Also unfortunately, the first person to adopt Murphy was in no position to have a needy hound dog. While her owner worked 14-hour days, Murphy spent her childhood in a crate. By the time we adopted her, she was 9 months old and a complete spazz. But we could take it. With love! And a firm but gentle hand! We could turn this exotic beauty into a fine, loyal pet!

Did I mention that I got knocked up two weeks after Murphy moved in with us? Yeah. Kind of threw a monkey wrench into Project: Dumbass Renovation. Six weeks after her arrival, I gave serious consideration to granting Murphy her freedom, when she had the audacity to sprint out the front door, in the rain, the day after I spent an evening nauseous, claustrophic and smooshed in the pit at a White Stripes show. While running my chubby ass up and down the street, barefoot and pregnant, my untethered and tender F-cups bouncing hither and yon, I loudly announced to the entire neighborhood, "Fine! You stupid-ass motherfucking tard! Run free for all I care! The busy street's two blocks that-a-way!" while I stomped toward the house.

You know why I don't like my neighbors? Because one of them caught Murphy and put her back in my damn yard that day.

She can't help it. She was just born this way. She can't help being born stupid, anymore than she can help being born with that fucked-up little mouth with the upper jaw that juts one way and the lower jaw that juts the other. She can't help it. She can't help it. Oh lord, she just can't help it.

Things that Murphy can't help:

• Murphy can't help that her favorite hobby is staring.
  
• Murphy can't help that she sometimes forgets how to eat and often chokes on her breakfast.
  
• Murphy can't help that she sometimes forgets how to sleep and often falls asleep standing up, or with her eyes open. You don't know fear until you wake up at 3:30 a.m. and find yourself nose-to-snout with an intently staring, unmoving, snoring, upright dog. I dare you to go back to sleep after that and not dream about having your face eaten off.
  
• Murphy can't help it that she sometimes can't tell what's food and what isn't, and sometimes she winds up eating things like a Christmas tree, for example.
  
• Murphy can't help it that she doesn't know how to cough, instead making a noise that sounds like she's trying to orally expel a litter of puppies.
  

And yet, Murphy isn't even the dumbest dog we've owned. That honor belongs to a couch-eating, perpetually-pacing, never-sleeping, fence-jumping Airedale terrier who resided with us for three very long weeks in the summer of 2000. I had a friend who bred Airedales, and she needed to find a home for this dog. Sure! Why not? We'd had Chloe for a year at that point and had proven that a dog wouldn't die of neglect under our care, so we went for it.

About a week into Airedale ownership, we knew we'd made a big mistake. This dog was used to running free in the country and didn't adapt well to city life. Even though we have a sizeable fenced backyard, she took to jumping it every single time we'd let her outside, thus introducing my neighbors to my braless, barefoot, screaming dog-chasing skills.

Leaving the dog in the house wasn't an option either because she liked to eat the couch:

I had to do something I swore I'd never do with a dog: we resorted to chaining her when she was outside. I just hate doing this because 1) I think it's cruel, and 2) I didn't trust my ability to not turn that chain into a noose for this damn dog that did absolutely nothing but pace, pant, pester my dog, try to eat my cats, pace, pant, attempt to box me like a kangaroo, eat furniture, pace, and empty her soft-serve-machine-like bowels on my floors five times a day.

I think Chloe's pose in this photo pretty much describes how we were all feeling by Day Four of the Airedale Invasion. Tired. Beleagured. Stomped flat. Problem was, my friend was in the middle of moving and couldn't take the dog back for three weeks. We were stuck.

In the middle of Airedale Hell, B. and I got a repreve. My parents came to town for the weekend so we could take my dad to a Nascar Busch race for his birthday. My mom opted to stay at my house, where she cleaned my stove, cleaned up dog shit, and wrestled with that stupid-ass dog in the pouring rain when the dog refused to come inside, choosing instead to sit in the rain, head upturned, in immenent risk of drowning like a goddamn turkey. That one evening has provided my mom with enough mother guilt to get us through the next two decades.

A few nights later, B. and I were spending yet another sleepless night watching the dog pace around the room. Why weren't we sleeping? You try sleeping with a pubic-hair-covered dog brushing against you every thirty seconds as she paces, stopping every two minutes to rest her slobbery chin on your pillow and pant in your face.

Finally, sometime after the three a.m. hour, B. sat bolt upright in bed and screamed, "Ratfuck! Just go to bed!"

And I was so delirious from the lack of sleep, so oxygen-starved from all the face-panting that all I could do was roll over and laugh - great gasping, gut-wrenching howls of laughter until I thought my ears would explode from the pressure.

"Ratfuck?" I finally choked. "Ratfuck? Where they hell did you come up with that?"

"My God, Robin! Just look at her! Look! She's a Ratfuck!"

He does make a good point. Such a good point, in fact, that I can't remember that dog's real name because in that instant, she became Ratfuck. And Ratfuck she will forever be.

We reached our breaking point three days before we were due to return Ratfuck from wence she came. The $75 to have her boarded was worth our sanity, and probably cheaper than whatever else Ratfuck would have done to our furniture had she remained with us. After three days in a pen at the local veteranarian's office, we drove her across the state and returned her to my friend. While the Ratfuck hand-off went well, it was pretty much the end of that friendship. Call me shallow, but I just couldn't respect anyone who had that much love in her heart for that dog.**

Why am I telling you all of this? Because my dad is so fucking arrogant when it comes to his dogs. Admittedly, he goes the easy route with naturally smart breeds, like Labradors and Australian Cattle Dogs. I prefer to think that's he's simply not up to the challenge a dog like Murphy or Ratfuck might present. But it gets old, hearing how stupid my dogs are. Chloe's not stupid; she's just smart enough to know when pretending to be stupid will serve her best interests. Murphy, well, obviously I can't argue with his assessment.

Yesterday, any "my dogs are smarter than your dogs" arguments my dad might make in the future lost all water. My mom, who still insists on reading my blog (Hi Mom. Go away.), is now offering story suggestions for the blog. And, being shameless, I'm taking them, because God knows she has the best first-hand access to all the crazy family shit.

"I've got a story for your website blog thing," she said. "Yesterday your dad was outside with the chainsaw..."

"Wait wait wait ... No story that begins with 'yesterday your dad was outside with the chainsaw' ever ends well," I said.

"Well, there's blood in this one."

"What did he cut off this time?"

"Oh, it wasn't your dad that got hurt. He fired up the chainsaw and Chiggar bit it."

You remember Chiggar, right? The dog that's really a dingo?

Seems that Dad fired up the ol' chainsaw, and in his zeal to protect his master from the blade (which, I admit, is pretty smart of the dog; he obviously knows his master's history), he bit the chain. While it was going.

He's fine. Cut his mouth a bit, but not enough to slow him down. While I don't wish Chiggar any harm, I must admit that I'm thrilled. There's no argument anymore; the person who owns the dog who bites the fucking chainsaw while it's running officially owns the dumbest dog. Ever. I'm going to enjoy this for as long as possible. At least until Chiggar gets accidentally decapitated.

*Just so you know, it took me three tries to properly spell the name of the state where I've lived for my entire life, lest you think I'm exaggerating.

**It seemed to be a mutual feeling, as I don't think she had much respect left for me after the Ratfuck incident, and I can't say I blame her. Would you like someone who named your dog Ratfuck?

Posted by Robin at 04:22 PM | Comments (8)

January 30, 2006

Mail Call

I (like every human being who has ever existed) love opening the front door and finding goodies waiting for me in the mail. Well, when I bother to check the mail, that is. I'm such a lazy-ass that there have been occasions when the backed-up mail in my mail box has been returned to the post office. I'm still a little miffed that they didn't check my apartment to make sure I wasn't dead, rotting, and partially devoured by my cat.

I've been on mail alert for the past week or so because of several packages that have been promised me. And let me tell you, the goods are rolling in.

Since I've spent an ungodly amount of money on photo-related stuff, I got one of these snazzy gadgets in Thursday's mail, 100% free of charge to me.

Today was super bonus fabbo snail mail day. First there was an envelope from Jen, loaded with an issue of Canadian Living, a copy of that book by that unreliable crackhead, and enough Coffee Crisp bars to satiate my husband for at least an evening.

Second, there was a package I've been both anticipating and dreading. You see, one of the perks of blogging is sometimes companies offer you cool free stuff. Sometimes it's trips to Amsterdam. Other times, it's odor-removing products.

Guess which freebie I was offered.

A few weeks ago someone from a PR firm contacted me with an offer I probably should have refused. They would send me a free sample of a new product by Febreze. All I had to do was try it out and write about it on my blog.

Now, I have to assume that the person who contacted me might not be a regular reader. If she was, she would be aware of my tendancy towards snarkiness, hyperbole, irritability and sarcasm and she probably wouldn't have asked me to review a product. Either that, or she reads often enough to know that I am in possession of this:

This is Chloe. Chloe is my dog.

Chloe stinks like ass.

In case you're unfamiliar with the particulars of Basset hounds, they're not only absolutely darling, what with the droopy ears, droopy eyes, droopy face and general droopy droopiness, but they stink. Badly. All that stinks in the world manages to find its way into the netheregions of those floppy ears, instantly turning into something that stinks like nothing has ever stank before. We're talking wallpaper-peeling, eye-burning, will-to-live-destroying stink. It's a blend of dog, the great outdoors, and old shoes that have been used as a storage vessel for even older cheese.

To gain that description, I just approched my sweet snoozing Basset. I lavished her with a hug, buried my nose in her neck, and have been fighting my gag reflex ever since.

When Chloe has been laying down for several hours - another feature of the Hound o' Basset - I can be several rooms away and I know when she gets up. I know. Do you know how I know? Because I can smell the hours of collected stink as it escapes from her body as she moves, that's how. Sometimes I wonder if the neighbors can smell Chloe when she moves.

This is Murphy. Murphy is my snakehound other dog.

Murphy just stinks like dog. And failure. B. says they don't make a product to remove that particular stink.

In the almost-seven years since we procured Chloe from the Basset rescue group, I've been on a mission to clear the houndstink from my life. If there's a stink-removing product on the market, I've bought it. And chances are, I've disliked it. I'm not a fan of most scent-creating products. Scented candles, I like, but I'm a total snob. I like Soy Candles by Sharon, followed by Yankee Candle. That's pretty much it. Anything else scented gives me the willies, along with a headache and occasional waves of nausea.

I guess I should have told the PR person that upfront. I probably also should have mentioned that I have a super power; I have a supersonic sense of smell that renders me capable of smelling rotted items that have been out of the house for three weeks. Seriously. If I come to your house and open your fridge, I will tell you what item in your fridge has gone bad. There was the time I was drinking a can of soda at Kara's house and could tell by the way the can smelled that something in the fridge was amiss. And the time at my parents' house when I kept smelling rotten celery every time I got a glass of water from the fridge door. That was five years ago; I still smell that celery every time I visit.

Since B. is hard of smelling and can smell nothing, we strike a good balance.

So, today I went to my porch to fetch the mail. Of course I recognized Jen's name on the return address on one envelope. The other large envelope bore an address from NYC that I didn't recognize. I picked it up and the scent hit me instantly.

First verdict on the new product: they picked an appropriate name. Febreze NOTICEables. Yep, when you can smell the product through its packaging, a layer of bubble wrap, and a padded envelope, NOTICEable pretty much sums it up.

It's one of those plug-in oil warmers, but it shifts between two scents of oil. My little freebie pack included two oil packs. One of them contains Morning Walk and Cleansing Rain scents. The other, Calypso Breeze and Hawaiian Paradise. With my supersonic smelling and my blood sugar issues, sweet aromas tend to make my blood sugar rise, so I opted with the walking rainy one.

Most of the unused outlets in my house are covered with those little plastic thingies that prevent my child from electrocution. Which presents a problem - my child would just love to play with this new gadget. Must find an outlet that's both out of the kid's reach, but able to conquer the Stink of Hound. She spends 22 hours a day snoozing on the couch. There's a socket behind the couch. Bingo! We have a solution.

Except now my couch sticks out about six inches from the wall. The Febreze thingie? It's a bit bulky.

There's a little switch to adjust the amount of scent the thingie puts out. Because I'm obviously not very smart, I set it to the high setting, momentarily forgetting the curse of my superpower. Five minutes later, I was sitting on the couch when it hit me. Literally, waves of aroma - I could see them, wafting from the gap between my couch in the wall - came over, and without so much as an introduction, smacked me in my face.

So I turned it down a smidge, but it still seemed pretty strong. Ever-present, even. Like the scent had burned off my nosehairs and taken up residence in a sinus cavity. But again, the super power. I have a feeling that's probably just me. Because when B. arrived home a few minutes later, he couldn't smell it at all, but he could smell the onions I'd sauted two hours earlier.

The smell continued to follow me. Mind you, it's not an unpleasant smell. I'm not sure if it was the rainy one or the walky one. It wasn't bad, but it has that ... tang ... to it that all the oil-warmer thingies have. Or maybe I'm the only one who notices that.

Really, had I been able to chose, I would have gone with X-ray vision for my superpower. Not supersonic smelling.

But the smell ... it just wouldn't go away. I went from room to room, and it seemed to be following me. So I did the polite, delicate thing: I took a big ol' whiff of my finger. Sure enough, some of the oil had gotten onto my hands.

I washed my hands in unscented soap. Still there.

I washed my hands with scented soap. Still there, overpowering the soap.

I opened two cans of tuna for the casserole I made for dinner, splashing tuna juice on my hands. And still the oil pervaded.

Many obsessive-compulsive handwashings later, I put my finger in my mouth and I could taste the scent.

I'm expecting the oil to hit bone matter by Wednesday afternoon.

Each side of the warmer has a little green light to indicate which scent is in use. This light has taken over my life tonight. I keep hanging over the couch, looking to see which side is in use. Because honestly, I can't tell a difference between the scents. I can't tell the difference between walky and rainy.

The final verdict: it's not a bad product, really. If you like the oil warmer thingies, I'd say this is better than the ones you can get at discount stores, but not quite as good as the ones from specialty stores. It's gadgety, which is always a perk. And currently, Chloe is lying next to me, and I can smell the walky/rainy aroma over her pervasive deathstink. That's something.

Clara Jane thinks something smells fishy.

Posted by Robin at 05:44 PM | Comments (11)

September 29, 2005

Mind Games and Peer Pressure

When my idiot dogs Murphy and Chloe go outside at night, we typically have a problem. One of them will rapidly come in when called, while the other goes on Dog Patrol. "This is my yard. I must protect it. I cannot protect it from the house. You - go back inside and leave me to my duties. And doodie."

This causes a problem, as 1) we prefer for both dogs to be inside before we go to bed, and 2) we don't want to get arrested or shot.

After many (okay, two, but damn if it doesn't feel much, much longer) years of trying to get our four-legged fucktards to get their crapping schedules coordinated, B. has devised a solution. And surprise of surprises, it actually works.

"Did you know that dogs fall for mind games and peer pressure?" he asked one night about a week ago.

Now, "mind games" presumes that there's a mind to play with. Apparently, B. has not met our dogs, who still look for ice cream in the middle of the kitchen floor because once, about a year ago, I dropped a big scoop of chocolate-almond and by God, there was ice cream! Falling from the sky! And it landed right there! And it might happen again! Maybe! You never know! What's ice cream?

Chloe's still looking for noodles under the kick plate of the cabinet by the stove because she found one, once, shortly after we acquired her in June, 1999.

And yet, B.'s tactic works. It goes something like this:

1. Stand at backdoor and summon idiot dogs.

2. When first idiot dog arrives, loudly heap praise, even if idiot dog is covered with fecal matter and has recently devoured a fake Christmas tree she found in the neighbors' trash.

3. When praise is being administered, second idiot dog will come flying out of nowhere, burglers be damned, to get her share of the praise.

Next experiment: use dog peer pressure to encourage them to drink beer.

Posted by Robin at 11:15 PM | Comments (2)

August 23, 2005

Dear Ikea:

Please send us a longer couch.

Thank you,
Murphy and Chloe

Posted by Robin at 01:23 PM | Comments (3)

June 04, 2005

Embarrassing Purchases

I had to make a late-evening run to Wal-Mart. Why Wal-Mart instead of Target? Because I felt the need to go someplace where they have those snazzy little self check-out lanes.

I had to buy yeast infection medication.

But that's not embarrassing. The occasional itching and burning is a perfectly natural occurance and the female genitals are not to be shamed. Oh no.

What's embarrassing: I was purchasing the yeast infection medication for my dog.

My Basset hound Chloe has a yeast infection in her ear. Now, I know it's highly unlikely that someone at Wal-Mart is going to approach me, look in my cart and say, "Hey! You've got the cooch-rot!", requiring me to explain that no, I don't have the cooch-rot; my dog has the cooch-rot in her ears, which would lead to a discussion on how she got the cooch-rot in her ear. She got it because she's a Basset hound and they tend to get the cooch-rot in their ears, but try explaining that to some goon at Wal-Mart on a Saturday night who's probably thinking that I'm doing horrible, horrible things with those big floppy ears that have caused the cooch-rot.

While I was browsing with a box of hair dye hiding the cooch-rot ointment, I saw something that would be even more embarrassing to purchase. It was on prominent display in the middle of the aisle, an entire shelf of bullet-shaped pastel containers. A new shower gel, perhaps? Maybe lotion? I looked closer.

It was cooch skin conditioner!

The above link is to drugstore.com, where they prominently display the question, "Why shop at drugstore.com?" I think the answer is obvious: Because I don't want the people at Wal-Mart to know that the skin on my cooch is totally unconditioned with rough patches similar to the ones on my elbows.

I'll just end this nightmarish cooch-related post with one last horrifying item for purchase. I talked to my mom tonight. She and my father are staying on the 19th floor of a hotel in downtown Denver with a lovely view of the state capitol building. During their drive to Denver from Alamosa, they stopped at several rummage sales. At one particular sale, they found a "Personal Douche and Enema Kit".

"Once it's been in the rummage sale, it ain't personal anymore," my dad said.

Posted by Robin at 09:51 PM | Comments (4)

May 28, 2005

Ideas

Good idea: sending my hounds to the groomers during our yard sale because 1) they smell vile and 2) it keeps them from howling at the customers.

Bad idea: stopping at the Taco Bell drive-thru on the way home from picking up the dog at the groomers.

Bad idea: snapping a cameraphone photo of adorable less-vile Basset hound, dozing in the passenger seat while waiting for food, which will certainly arrive mid-photo session.

Bad idea: being a Taco Bell employee who stuffs one too many Club Chalupas into my bag.

Really bad idea: trying to wrangle bag, cameraphone, and purse while pulling away from the drive-thru, causing spare Club Chalupa to fall from the bag onto the driver's side floor, where it will lay open during the entire drive home.

Really bad idea, even for a dog: being such a lazy hound that you can't be bothered to wake up and risk causing a wreck because, good lord, hound, what's with your sense of smell?? - there's a free, open, unattended Club Chalupa on the floor!!! Chicken! Bacon! Taco Bell aura!

Good idea: checking hound's pulse and make sure she's not dead because there's a free Club Chalupa just a few feet from her and she's not responding!!! The dog who once stuck her head in a 35-gallon vat of barbeque beans and ate until several people drug her away!

Good idea, dog groomer's edition: slipping a little Xanax to the dogs as soon as their owner leaves.

Probably not a good idea: since Club Chalupa is lying on its wrapper and not on the truck floor, putting it back together. Nobody will notice, right?

Always a bad idea: Taco Bell

Always a really, really bad idea: even considering eating Taco Bell off the floor after the dog refuses it.

Posted by Robin at 03:41 PM | Comments (3)