"What do you mean I'm not allowed to sleep in the laundry basket?"

One Thing I Realized...

…about my dating life today.  I need to lay off the manly, adrenaline junkies for boyfriends/hot dates shtick I got going.  Let me give you three reasons I say this: 

1.) When you can first of all say you have an ex that regularly wields chainsaws, guns, and axes for fun, plus blew out both his knees in separate BMX related incidents, you already have a problem.  When this same ex, who you are still friends with and fond of, sends you a picture of the foot long, five inch deep chain saw wound in his leg because he “slipped”… you know you need to rethink life in general.  And remind this ex that wounds, like the one he got when he split his eyebrow open in an unnamed incident with a log and an axe, which you dutifully patched with butterfly bandages because he refused to go get stitches, make you queasy.  So maybe a warning might be nice next time he almost bleeds out and dies and feels like sending you a picture of the aftermath.  

2.) Three out of the last four men I’ve dated/gone on dates with have met all these criterion: 

-Had or have a street bike (can you say organ donor?)

-Carried firearms on a regular basis/shot firearms for fun (yeah deadly weapons!)

-Had really nice biceps (uhm... well, just yum... not dangerous, but yum) 

-Considered deep sea diving, spelunking, trad climbing, sky-diving, BMX racing and camping outside in below freezing weather or some combo of these semi-dangerous sports a “fun hobby.”  (Yes, I consider camping outside in below freezing weather a semi-dangerous sport.  That’s how my brain works). Nothing like dating a man who thinks risking drowning, getting lost/stuck and starving to death, plummeting to death, plummeting to death, getting run over, or freezing to death is fun.

3.) All of them are exes.  Enough said.  I swear them off!

And no.  No pictures.  I decided the wound pictures were just too graphic. 



P.S.  I think I already take back my vow not to date any more manly adrenaline junkies.

How To Wash An EXTRA Large Dog Bed

Why does my extra-large dog bed need washed you may ask?  Because an 8 pound prophet of doom and destruction, otherwise known as Ket, peed on it!  You heard me right.  Peed on it.  There was much anger in my house today. 

Anyways.  How to wash an extra-large dog bed….

1. Notice pee. Scream!  Scoop up the dog bed and run with it into the bathroom before the pee dribbles off onto the rug, which SOMEONE inevitably peed on later. 

2. Squirt some laundry detergent into the tub then run hot water.

3. Remember it is trash day, run outside to take out the recycling and trash and forget the water is running.  Almost flood house.  

4. Scream!  Run into the bathroom and turn off the water. Drain a little excess away.

5. Put the dog bed, which is big enough that your first born could theoretically sleep on it (i.e. it would never fit in the washing machine or dryer), into the tub.  

6. Realize this plan might not have been thought through very clearly. 

7. Swish dog bed around to the extent the tub allows.  Watch dog bed shed.  Yes, shed.  It wasn’t all Oliver’s hair.  

8. Deny urge to abandon ship and make hot chocolate with three times the amount of coco mix called for and two shots of rum. 

 

9. Rinse bed in same manner as washed bed, just without laundry detergent and in cold water. 

  

10.  Have second realization of the night.  A waterlogged dog bed is considerably heavier than a dry dog bed.  This one now weighs about as much as the dog himself.  

11. Let dog bed sit in the tub and go get the cloths rack that you have, in a fit of genius, decided to put in the bathtub and hoist the dog bed on top of so it can drip dry overnight.  

12. Laugh hysterically as the drying rack begins falling apart and coming askew.  Weep a little.

13.  Fix drying rack.

14. Hoist and heave at sopping wet dog bed until it is on top of the drying rack.  Hold breath as drying rack almost collapses, but holds.

15. Turn on space heater to speed the drying process.  

16.  Re-think life in general. 

Don’t I make sharing your life with a dog sound great?  Actually, it is.  Little dogs just aren’t good at house training.  Oliver hasn’t had an accident in the house since... since he got a stomach bug.  We'll leave it at that.  

Love ya! 

Dishes.

Question:  How do you know when it is time to do the dishes (besides the smell?)




Answer:  When you are swigging water out of wine glasses to take your morning vitamins because you've used all your glasses... and bowls. 



True story.

Tomorrow my papers are in the mail and I do dishes!  I'll spare everyone pictures of the disaster that is my kitchen.  Last night a friend came over and I expressly forbade them from entering my kitchen and kept all the lights off in the entire house so they couldn't glimpse my shame.  

Instead let me leave you with an image of something soothing...

Mmmmm.  (And no, there is no connection between this whiskey, wine, and good liquor as to why I've neglected the dishes.  It's the school papers. For true!)

Three Reasons To Be Happy... and Not.

I love my dogs...

...but something in the house smells like urine.  Not cat urine. Dog urine. After so many years of living with pets, yes, I know the difference.  And after two days of working on school papers, and facing a few months of thesis work, and realizing that I think it is my lovely Ikea rug, which Ket has taken to peeing on. And Oliver piddled on while scared during Friendsgiving (since he's terrified of everyone but me).  And Lilly threw up on.  

Well... I'm tired.  So I'm posting sweet pictures of my dogs to remind myself why I love my animals...

...and am going to throw the rug out.  Instead of them. 

New Bed

The picture quality is dark, but this made my day.  I have finally decided that the dogs are no longer allowed on the furniture. I have nice furniture and I am tired of it getting ruined by my dear dogs.  So I bought Oliver a new, large, dog bed. Here is what he did with it...

The Sword In The Ham.

Only he who is worthy shall pull the sword.  This is from the actual Thanksgiving day!  What a blessing to have two days.  Now I can spend the next two weeks working off the damage done to my waistline in the last two days. :)  Night everyone. 

Prepping a Turkey

Oh my goodness.  Prepping my turkey for tomorrows Friendsgiving was probably one of the grossest things I’ve done since… well I’m not sure.  But I learned several things while trying to make it ready for cooking tomorrow.

1. The texture of uncooked meat makes me squeegy.  Yes, squeegy, as in squirmy, icky, and ew all combined. 

2. Uncooked meat can still bleed.  As in, I was trying to remove a stupid wire from the turkey and the leg started bleeding, completely freaking me out and making me jump away from the sink, take a deep gulping breath, and renegotiate my contract on life with the deities that be.  Gross. 

3. I do not have enough upper body strength to properly prepare and heft a 10 lbs turkey.  Coming back to the wire inserted in my turkey… I wish I’d taken a picture of this contraption. The instructions said “push inward, squeeze together, and then yank.”  Very helpful.  The problem is, the drumsticks themselves prevented any type of pushing in, and while squeezing the blasted thing together with all my might, there was no way I could also yank.  I’m still not sure how I got the thing out, but see above about making dead meat bleed.   (Shudder).  Then there was the problem of trying to hoist the turkey up and “rinse thoroughly” to remove the last of the brine I had soaked it in all day.  Balancing a ten pound turkey in one hand while trying to gently waft it under flowing water, not let it touch the sides of the sink, and not splash everything is tricky.  My arms hurt.    I failed numerous times. 

4. The turkey has two body cavities, both stuffed with things that made me want to heave. 

On that lovely image, I’m off to bed.  The delightful fruit pudding is made and so is the whisky cream sauce to pour over the store bought pecan pie.  Yum!  I’m not going to think about actually having to cook the turkey tomorrow.  I still feel a little nauseated. 

I Am An Only Child...

...and this is my little brother.  His name is Merton. 

 Sometimes he is almost as weird as I am.  Probably why my parents adopted him.  Hmmm....

He gets Christmas presents.

And goes to the beach with my parents.

And gets his picture taken with both of them. 

He also goes to Grandma's house, sits on the couch, and gets his belly rubbed... and his picture taken. 

There are moments I get jelous of how much time my Little Brother gets to spend with my faimily becaus I live far, far away from them all. 

But then I go home and he remembers me and comes running with a toy, then attempts to engage me in a game of "chase-me-around-the-kitchen-table-then-run-so-I-can-chase-you-please-please-please," and I melt and feel so thankful that I have a Little Brother.  Also I am so grateful I am so apt at anthropomorphizing the animals in my life.  It adds richness that would otherwise be lacking. 

Recently Merton had a sore paw and had to wear the cone-of-shame and I felt so terribly bad for him, my poor sweet Little Brother. 

But my mom had sympathy for him, and it didn't work anyways, so he got to cuddle on the couch with a dog shaped pillow (you can't quite see it, but that quilted thing his head is on is a dog shaped pillow) at my other Grandmother's house.  Okay... that last part is a stretch of the truth.  I have no idea when this picture was taken, but I like to think of him getting to sleep with a dog shaped pillow after the cone-of-shame. 

I really wish I lived closer to my family.  Really, really, really. 

Okay, bye for now.  

Word of the Day: Troglodyte

Troglodyte:
  noun

1.a prehistoric cave dweller.

 

2.a person of degraded, primitive, or brutal character.

 

3.a person living in seclusion.

Definition courtesy of Dictionary.com.

I am a fan of simple living.  People who try and simplify and live a very meaningful lives impress me.  So in the name of supporting people like this today I called one of my classmates a troglodyte after he told me he has gone off Facebook to simplify his life.  How very sympathetic and expansive in my thinking I am.  Oh well, at least it's a cool sounding word.  Right?

Yeah, I know.  I'm a bad person. :)

Anecdote of the Day: Speakers, Please Work!

All sorts of hijinks and shenanigans go down at the office where I work.  Dealing with seriously mentally ill people and suicidal people for a living (a paltry living) means you need an outlet.  It also means some days you get back to the office and your brain is fried.  Take today for example...

We have this nifty system at work where you can get your voice mail on the computer and forward messages through e-mail to whoever the client has called to speak with.  Today my boss got a message for me and forwarded it on to my e-mail. 

Dutifully I opened the message, clicked on the attached sound bite, and turned on my speakers manually at the base of the computer.  The media player popped up.  Pretty colored sound wave simulations went swishing across the media player's screen.  I leaned in close.  And I heard absolutely nothing.

I turned the speakers off.   I whined a little under my breath.

The speakers clicked back on.  Leaning closer still I again heard absolutely nothing.  I might have muttered something unflattering towards the computer then said aloud "why aren't these speakers working!" 

Turn the speakers off again.  Turn them on. 

Make sure the sound is up on the media player.  Look at the pretty simulation of sound waves. 

Wail plaintively that my speakers are not working.  "They must be broken!" 

From across the cubicle a coworker that knows me pretty well, without even looking up, comments "did you turn the mute off?" 

Humph. 

Lets just say it was a long day and the mute button had been hidden as an "unused icon."  The speakers are now working just fine.  At least I have other people who can be my brain for me. 

Can We...

...sleep a little longer?  Please?

This is what I ask myself and the voices in my head every morning.  This is also what Suka asks me when I try and move her from under the curtains on the rare occasion I vacuum.

Except she doesn't say please.  She says something that sounds more like "I'ma cut you if you wake me up again!  I don't care that you feed me. I a' cut you." 

Oh well.  I can sweep around that spot.

Word of the Day: Sough

Sough:
  verb (used without object)

1.) to make a rushing, rustling, or murmuring sound: the wind soughing in the meadow.

2.) Scot. and North England . to speak, especially to preach, in a whining, singsong voice. 

Definition courtesy of Dictionary.com.


So I'm contemplating stepping out and actually following in my father's footsteps and trying to... gasp... travel.  In favor of small steps I bought a National Geographic magazine called100 Journeys of a Lifetime.  In perusing this beautiful magazine I found myself drawn to a picture of a killer whale popping up out of the water amid stunning icebergs in Antarctica.  At the end of the brief article I found this beautiful sentence regarding the cruises:  "Conditions on board the ice-reinforce cruise vessels are comfortable, but for the true experience of these waters, you have to wrap up and go on deck, where you feel the frosty grip of the air on your face and hear the sounds of ice creaking, birds crying, and the polar wind soughing in the rigging."  Le sigh.  I love learning new words. 

Elephant Duo

So the answer to the burning question posed yesterday...

What is this? 

Let me give you a hint.  The sole value of this object is symbolic.

I've become rather enamored with close up photography.  This is a close up of this object with its mate.  Have I told you I have a very active imagination? 

Lets zoom out a little further.  Can you guess what these two things are?  I think the trunks should give it away, but in case it hasn't...

Let me introduce my elephants.  It's hard to see in this picture, but the carved elephant actually has a tiny carved baby elephant inside her.  I keep them in my kitchen, a little trio, a little family.  I like to surround myself with images that encourage me and my family of elephants encourage me, much like the orchid in my kitchen. 

I also like elephants because they remind me of Ganesh, the Indian deity, remover of Obstacles.  I have several effigies of this deity around my house.  I have succumbed to his legend.  

Guess That Texture

Wow. I missed two whole days in a row.  I was having a staycation.  Sorry people.

So, here's a picture.  Can you guess what this is? 

Answer coming tomorrow! 

Poem: A Little Less

So I have decided to start posting some of my writing on this blog.  This terrifies me as I am my own worst critic and don't think most of my work is fit for human consumption.  But I am in a phase where I am trying to face my fears and embrace delusions of grandeur while accepting that I will fail, a lot, and look like an absolute fool, but that all this is okay.  Writing is a solitary thing and I have heard repeatedly from all types of writers that sharing your work is crucial for growth. 

Now, having said all that nice stuff about facing fears, I am starting by posting my "poetry."  Poetry is something I play around with but it is not my main medium.  So I am facing a fear, but not putting my bleeding heart out there with my novels and short stories.  At least not yet.  Enjoy.  Feel free to give me feedback, or not, as you feel moved. Or not. 

A Little Less   

In the mirror framed in painted wood.

On her wall.

We reflect.

His tiny face turned into my heart beat.

Mouth working a cupid's bleat.  Looking for my nipple.

I cannot stop staring.  Cupping

His small head. 

                       

So this is love.

This not-mine baby.

For whom I have.  

No say.

Just a murmur of

Mother-speak.

An ache.  

That moment,

I loved her less. 

Not because love is limited.

My love breeds like rabbits.

But for bringing such a small soul

Into a world.

She can’t handle.  

-----------

Let me give you a glimpse of how I work.  I've been staring at the screen for the last hour tweaking two lines over and over trying to assuage the gut feeling that I am jumping off a cliff.  So here is the latest permutation of this poem.  I think I'm overusing big words to make up for feeling insecure with my creativity.  

Thanks for bearing with this post!