You looking for a rant? I got yer rant, right here.

WHO in the HELL invented grass? And why is it even LEGAL to plant it without first installing automatic sprinklers? I have spent all day repositioning this little sprinkler, and I'm not even DONE YET.

Over my years in the burbs, I have gone through so many lame sprinklers with names like TURBO on them, only to have them start dribbling like little old men with big old prostates within a week, that now I'm back to my original two-dollar plastic squirty ring that I bought when I couldn't afford the two bucks. It, of course, will never die because it has no moving parts and, more importantly, only irrigates one small, round patch of ground at a time.

Damn this grass. If I wasn't so concerned about what my neighbors thought, I would let it die. But I don't think I have the constitution for it. Watching the stuff go crispy and brown would be worse than spending my days pulling a hose around like a midget firefighter in ten-year-old Calvin Klein shorts.

Yes, That Was Me. Quit Laughing.

If you happened to be tootling along in your car on McCann Road at around 6 pm tonight and had to slow down in order to avoid a woman with her nose inches off the ground and her feet making a valiant yet comical attempt to get back underneath her while pulling along two amused (yet sure they were going to get blamed for this somehow) collies, yes, that was me.

No, I don't know what catapulted me into flight-or-flat-on-the-asphalt mode.

Yes, I stopped and pretended to remove some random pinecone or whatnot from the bottom of my shoe in an attempt to look like I don't just lose control of my neuro-muscular system every now and then.

Yes, the dogs looked worried the rest of the way home. It was probably their fault.

Oh, and by the way,

If you like Hugh Laurie in House, you will see him in a completely different (and better written) light if you can find the DVD of the BBC TV series Blackadder, most especially Blackadder the Third. This picture is from Blackadder the Third, the season when he played Prince Regent George.

Now I've just given away two of the extra credit questions from below. Ah well. I'm just too easy on you.

Fun Game!

This past week, all my free time and energy has been taken up with the bottling and packing away of some barely controlled rage targeted at persons who really don't completely deserve it. Hormones may have played a part. Hard to gauge, really.

Lets move on.

Since my mind has not been percolating with super cool new and fun ideas, I will divert your attention to some old ideas that may bring a smile (if you, too, are of a certain age). Here's a game. Name the comic who made each of these catch phrases into household words:

CATCH PHRASES WE USED TO LOVE

• I'm a wild and crazy guy!
• or, for you late 70's aficionados: die, you gravy sucking pigs!
• We shall now consume mass quantities
• but noooooo....
• Choppin' broccoli
• Alllllrighty then
• I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay
• Laces out, Dan
• Pinin' fer the fjords???
• Disappointed!
• (or) Don't call me stupid!
• Luxury!
• Newman!
• Albatross! It's bleedin' albatross flavoured!
• One meeeeellion dollars.
• Obsess much?
• This one goes to eleven.
• None more black.
• Incontheivable!
• No kitty! Bad kitty!
• I spit in your general direction.
• Road trip!
• It's a Cinderella story...
• Thank you very little.
• He's so hot right now.
• It's not a toomah.

and for extra credit...

• Normal view!
• Thick as a whale omelet
• or anything about "enormous trousers" or "floppily doppilies"
• and finally...
• Lord & Lady Douchebag

Thank you for playing.

Back later with some actual original thoughts. One hopes.

My Suggestion for Memorial Day

If you have HBO, watch the documentary "Bagdad ER."

But not if you have a wobbly stomach.

And not before bed if you tend to dream about what you just saw.

No, it's not some more of my leftist pinko agenda. It is very objective. It doesn't try to tell you what to think. It just reminds you of the consequences of war, an important reminder for every citizen of a country at war.

Me No Got Words Pt. 2

I wouldn't even post, but I have a little compulsion issue.

Here's a cute cow. Probably lives in Scotland and moos with a brogue. Kind of like if Sean Connery were a cow.

The Subtle Forces of a Good Salesman At Work

...or the subtle forces of a good Hammerhead Stout. You be the judge.

Caution: Metaphors Ahead

If this gets maudlin, I apologize in advance.

If I apologize in advance, then I apologize for continuing to publish posts that I feel compelled to apologize for.

I was jolted out of my sleep at my desk job today by a very loud squawking on the rail of the little landing outside my window. There was a fuzzy little brownish-grey bird there, demanding loudly and jerkishly to be fed by what must have been his mother, a black bird who landed beside him on the rail and shoved the small bit of not-much that she had down his gullet. He kept on squawking at her until it was obvious that she had emptied her pockets for him, and there was nothing more to be badgered out of her.

Not so uncommon. But the thing that caught my eye was the fact that (a) the fuzzy bird must have, by that time, mastered the basics of flight, since he was able to land on the rail with no nest in sight, and (b) he was just as big as his mother – maybe bigger, counting the fluffiness of his new feathers. Yet, the mother felt obligated to keep feeding that big, perfectly formed beak, and go after more.

I too, have a baby bird that is now bigger than me. Perfectly formed and (on occasion) quite loud. It looks, sometimes, like he can fly just fine. Then there are other times when the new fluff in his feathers slows him down, or he miscalculates the landing. Or he thinks he is sneaking up on that juicy worm, but he doesn’t realize the noise he is making by humming to himself, “gonna getcha, gonna eatcha, yummy, yummy,” and the worm (unbelievably) gets away.

But he is perfect. And he learns fast. He doesn’t need much from me anymore. Soon I won’t have to feed him at all. Then I will probably overeat.

Sorry. That was awful. Forget this business and tell me where you would rather live (see previous post).

Anxiety #832

How long do I have before I can say that if Philip Roth dies, it won't be my fault? That post is beginning to eat at me.

Bonus Question:

If money were no object, where would you rather live?

• Lombard Street in San Francisco
• Modest house in Maui
• Sheep farm in New Zealand
• Above your own pub in Cuteshire, Scotland

I don't know. That's why I'm asking you.

Poop Storm Update

All quiet on the rear-end front Sunday night. We have attained pudding consistency and predict 100% containment by Tuesday morning. Think solid thoughts.

Two leaky dogs for sale cheap

I apologize in advance for the following post. If you don’t like poopy talk, forget this post and scroll down to look at the pictures instead.

For the last week (has it only been a week? I could have sworn it was two before counting the days on my fingers), my life has revolved around the business ends of my two dogs.

I woke up Saturday morning with a bathroom (bathroom, not toilet) full of diarrhea, and Annie was attempting to disappear into the floor.

Annie is a very proper dog who believes in privacy and decorum. She does not like other people to know that she poops. She is humiliated every time I go out to scoop poop in the back yard. She hides her face if she can’t completely remove herself from the situation. It’s so embarrassing!

This causes a bit of a problem when her poo gets runny and she can’t hold it in, because she is too embarrassed to tell us, so she goes into the bathroom, spurts all over, and then goes back to bed, and hopes that in the morning it will go away by itself.

Scotty has no such self-consciousness about pooping. Somebody must have read him Everybody Poops as a puppy. Luckily, this gives him enough courage to whine in the middle of the night when he really has to go.

So the last seven nights I have been listening for whining, and not whining, and the click of doggy toenails on the wood floor of the bathroom, jumping up at false alarms, and dozing to wake up to that sadly familiar smell.

I have been unable to catch Annie before her bathroom raids, so after a few trips through the washer and dryer, my bathroom rugs have disintegrated, and my back is considering disintegrating from all the floor scrubbing.

One night, Drew tried putting them in the sun room with the back door open so they could go and poop as they please. Unfortunately, he got tired of hearing Scotty barking in the middle of the night, and as a favor to the neighbors (I guess), he decided to close the back door and leave them in the sun room with no way out and no one to ask to please let them out.

The resulting devastation is best left to the imagination, although I would gladly have left a smell-o-gram for Drew, who slept through the extensive and pre-coffee clean-up.

Last night, Annie was so tired of the embarrassment of it all, she refused to get out of bed when she really, really needed to go, and ended up with poo all over her bed and herself. Oh, the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Last Monday, I called the vet. By the sounds of several types of freaked-out animals coming through the line, it was obviously a difficult day at the office. The vet tech basically told me to give them some people diarrhea medicine and come back when I had a real problem.

Today, I called her back and told her the Pepto-Bismol was not making a dent in the problem. It was then that I learned by “diarrhea medicine” she had meant Imodium, not Pepto-Bismol, and maybe I should bring in a stool sample.

Stool sample gathering would not make it onto my list of favorite ways to spend an otherwise pleasant Saturday. The sample didn’t have any creepy-crawlies in it, so I still don’t know why my dogs are pooping goo, but at least I have a veterinary diarrhea-fixing medicine now.

And after an hour of dog-wrestling in the tub, I have two clean dogs. For how long, I can’t say. I can only hope. And maybe catch a nap.

It's (more) show and (less) tell day here at the TAW

I'm thinking of giving this one to a friend, so I took its picture today for posterity. I haven't attempted watercolors for a while. It's high time I got back on the horse...











...and this is an oil one I did using the "Avalon" method of limiting myself to using only a palette knife to apply paint...

You had me at hello.

My friends, I give you the Visayan Warty Pig. Gaze not too long, lest ye lose all hope of matching such beauty with thine own humble visage.
Totally worth the zoo membership to visit this face. I'm calling this one Slerkbic, in honor of my new favorite Blogger Anti-Comment-Spam Word Verification word.

What I learned this weekend

Let's get right to it:

• The more time you have, the more imaginative ways you can find to waste it.


• The more money you have, (repeat above).


• My sister was not particularly overly cruel to me growing up. Cruelty comes naturally to sisters. This learned after observing my nieces just being sisters.


• The Muckleshoot Indians have the best name in the Indian business. Muckleshoot is fun to say. Actually, I already knew this; I’m just passing it on so you can say it too.


• Cows do not come trained. Those little county fair dudes have to train them to walk around in a circle with them. Okay, maybe I knew that already, but one forgets.


• Buffalo babies are cute. Not as cute as lambs, but what is? My other, other dream is to own a sheep ranch in New Zealand. Is it a ranch if you have sheep? Or is it a farm? Ovisiary?


• Turns out that, according to their website, the subtitle of Sheep Magazine is “The Voice of the Independent Flockmaster.” That’s what I want to be. A flockmaster.


• Flockmaster would be a good name for a Christian rock band.


• Some sales people are so dedicated to their craft that they will explain why an item of clothing is a good thing to buy even after you ask them to ring it up.
• If you own a coffee shop named the Fehrenbacher Hof, you can have a sign out front that says "The Hof is open." A sign like that probably wouldn't work as well if you didn't have a hof.


• The sunscreen has not been made that can protect my neck-shoulder area from being sun burnt while doing yard work.


• There is too a phenomenon, the workings of which have not yet been discovered, that makes shorts shrink while in storage over the winter.


• Yes there is.

Confessions of a Bad Mother

I thought to myself on Wednesday, while attempting to enjoy my new zoo membership, why do hordes of children have to ruin an otherwise perfectly good day at the zoo?

I love children. I believe that children are the future. I just don’t like the way they act, sound, or smell.

My low tolerance for children makes me wonder what kind of a mother I was. A guilty one, mainly.

All mothers are guilty for something:

• They work too hard and aren’t home enough, or


• They are home too much and thus don’t earn enough.


• They are too smothering, or


• They aren’t protective enough.


• They aren’t involved enough in school activities, or


• They embarrass their children by turning up at school all the time.

My personal guilt trips? Besides having all of the above, often at once, they mostly revolved around my distaste for children. Luckily for my child, this did not extend to him. My child was cute and funny and brilliant. Their children were loud, unkempt, generally difficult to love, and often headache-inducing.

This (and maybe a little fear of teachers) made it difficult for me to volunteer at school or chaperone school trips, although I did make a go of helping out at Campfire meetings when my son fell in love with a Campfire Girl. Luckily, that affair did not last long.

Occasionally, I would accuse my son of acting like a child, and tell him that it was high time he grew up. Then he would remind me that, at age seven, he was well within his rights to act like a child.

But still.

Thankfully he seems to have survived with few scars. Mental scars, anyway. Physically, he’s starting to look like a road map (not really, but it sounded cool, so let me keep it).

But seriously, shouldn’t they have an adults-only day at the zoo?

Hey, Roth, How About You Die First

I hate Philip Roth. I don’t think he’s a genius and I don’t like reading his books. When I heard he was going to be on Fresh Air this afternoon I should have turned the radio off. But I didn’t.

I should have known Roth would be on his pulpit advocating the bleakest kind of atheism that insists on thinking about, no, dwelling on, a non-hereafter that consists solely of worm food.

I can tolerate worm-food talk nine times out of ten, if busy with some other task and not alone. Unluckily, this time it caught me on a Monday off with lots of time on my hands and Drew at work, which made this one of those one times out of ten, where I have a full anxiety attack with the sweating, the hyperventilating, and the charmingly crazy-looking repeating of one phrase over and over again.

A pretty constant diet of good Sunday sermons (good ones) and some choir practice usually keeps these attacks at bay, but lately, I have been unable to face trying to find a good Sunday sermon. In spite of the fact that there are probably 100 churches in this town, I am guessing that good Sunday sermons might be found at 2 of them, and so far, I haven’t had the stomach to find them.

Luckily, I recently checked an Anne Lamott book out of the library, and I grabbed it looking for some relief. So far, I haven’t found that, but it has kept my mind busy.

Don’t worry about me. Just keep the worm-food talk down to a minimum.

Thank you and sleep well.

Sorry.

Next time - less death.

Orange Alert Level

I feel really tense tonight. Must be that the CIA (and, consequently, the Impossible Mission Force) is all alone tonight without the leadership of Porter Goss.

Just don't sneak up behind me.

This Just In: Capt. America Saves Overweight Cat

http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/05032006news25335.cfm

A Three-Dollar Movie Review: The World's Most Annoying Kiwi

I don’t go to first-run movies. Exceptions made only for special birthday requests and Johnny Dep.

It’s not the price. It’s the packaging. The seats are uncomfortable. There’s always (a) someone seven feet eight with a cowboy hat sitting in front of me, (b) someone smelly, creepy, or too large for their own seat next to me, (c) a couple of teenage girls using their $10 tickets to talk really loudly about how they hate Jessica/Jeremy/Josiah/Joshua/other popular J-sounding, biblical (although their parents weren’t really sure because they never actually read the Bible) name, (d) an unsupervised ten-year-old boy kicking the back of my seat, or (e) a crying baby screaming in my good ear (actually, both are pretty nice).

I wouldn’t go to movies at all if it weren’t for two McMenamins brothers’ theaters nearby that have lots of room, 21-and-up-only crowds, and booze. The movies cost three bucks because they are second-run, but they make up the difference by selling burgers, salads and their own micro-brews and wines. For those of you outside of the Portland metro area and certain points east south and north, Portlanders pretty much love and bless the McMenamins for their tendency to take run-down, forgotten buildings and make them into warm, quirky places to drink some tasty beer and wine.

Now, back to my belated review of The World’s Fastest Indian (handy for you DVD renters who have forgotten the first-run reviews by now).

This movie is based on the true story of a New Zealander named (if I remember correctly) Burt Munroe who took an old Indian motorcycle and remade it into a racing bike with bits of cork, kitchen door hinges, and shoe polish, and tried to make his dream of racing it on the famous Bonneville Salt Flats come true.

Will the plucky New Zealander, played by plucky Englishman Anthony Hopkins, make it to the famous Bonneville Salt Flats racing thingy before he kicks the bucket? Will the neighbors kill him (no court in the land would convict them) before he gets enough Kiwi-bucks together to make the trip and/or kick the bucket? Will the Powers That Be bend the rules to allow him to enter the racing thingy before he kicks the bucket? Will the ride itself make him kick the bucket? You’ll just have to wait and see. Lots of nitroglycerin tablets are munched. Lots of ladies-of-a-certain-age are serviced. Lots of Americans shake their heads in puzzlement at the feisty old feller.

I found him obnoxious and clueless. However, I am guessing from the facts of the case, that the original Burt Munroe probably wasn't that obnoxious or he would not have gained so many friends and comrades along his journey. I think the blame has to go to Anthony Hopkins. I’ve never met a Kiwi who wasn’t charming in his own way. Hopkins does not play Munroe with the least bit of Kiwi charm. And isn’t it a little odd, seeing an Englishmen playing a Kiwi calling Englishmen “poms” (the opposite of a term of respect in Kiwi-speak)? Hopkins might be able to sound like a Kiwi, but I don’t think he knows how to act like one.

The motorcycle, however, was brilliant.

Grab Your PFD - We're Going Kayaking

You try NOT feeling funky while listening to “Use Me” by Aaron Neville. Can’t be done. Sorry. My intention was to write about my kayaking experience this morning, but I can’t think with this song playing. Try NOT twitching when he sings “baby” (or more accurately, “babeh”) and the organ hits that “bap” note: Babeh – bap – babeh – bap – babeh, babeh, when you love me I can't get enough... see, you’re twitching, aren’t you? Well, you should be.

Okay, say you own a kayak shop that does, I’m guessing, pretty good business here in the PNW, the land of really, really seriously recreationally outdoorsy people. But you think to yourself, “how can I drum up more business? How can I convince more people to take up kayaking and then consequently need a kayak and consequently buy my kayaks?

Well, if you are Alder Creek Kayak & Canoe, you line up all your kayaks and canoes on the beach of a local lake and then invite the Public (and when I say the Public, you can picture them, right?) to come down and take any of them out for a spin, no questions asked, other than “did you sign the waiver?”.

No questions like “do you know how to steer this two thousand dollar kayak?” or “are you currently on any psychotropic drugs?” Just “here’s a paddle. I’ll give you a push.”

It really has to be seen to be believed. Yes, we witnessed some mild mayhem. Some folks left wetter than they began.

We took a half-hour class (not required, mind you) on how to put on our PFDs (Personal Flotation Devices for the uninitiated), get in the kayak, hold the paddle, take a stroke and turn. Then we started jumping in kayaks and slipping into the lake. Luckily, I learned enough in the class to maneuver around the fifty members of the Public with less experience than me (said experience consisting of the previously mentioned half-hour) attempting to sample similar kayaks in the exact same square foot of the lake which I was currently using. I seemed to always be in the most desirable portion of the lake. That’s me. Trend setter.

Of course, we are both convinced that we need kayaks to go with our road bikes, mountain bikes, time trial bikes, surfboards, dirt bike, in-line skates (dusty), horse shoes (no one will play with me – I think they are chicken), hiking shoes, and track bikes.

Drew is excited. He loves anything that involves expensive equipment and any kind of propulsion. You would think working with $800,000 fire engines would keep that urge down to a low simmer, but I think the operative word in that phrase is “working.”

Speaking of which, Captain A is back at work. Yes, he took time off this morning so he could accompany me to the kayak event. Captain is serious about recreation. I guess that’s why we live in the PNW.

Talk Scottish To Me

I really, really want to move to Scotland. No, I’ve never been there, but it must be the finest place in the world, because everybody sounds like Craig Ferguson. I have a bit of a thing for Craig Ferguson. No, NO, I just like to hear him talk. There’s just something jolly and warm about a Scottish accent. I imagine hearing those broguish tones coming out of everyone I meet, and I’m ready to start packing.

I suppose thinking that Scotland is full of Craig Fergusons is a bit like thinking that the US is full of Johnny Carsons – jolly, witty, well-read lives-of-the-party with honey-smooth voices. Well, if it's not true, if maybe a few of them look and sound a little more like Liam Neeson in Rob Roy, well, that will just be my cross to bare… I mean bear…

You know how fine ye arrr ta me, laddie? Yeah, you, the one in the “Old School” t-shirt…

Sun's Out. Let's Go Crazy.

Yesterday was my favorite day of the year. You never know when it’s going to come, but you know it when you see it. That, here in the PNW (Pacific Northwest for those outside the zone), is the first real sunny day of the season. I suppose they have those everywhere in the temperate zone, but here in the PNW it’s particularly intense, because although we do not have particularly frigid winters, they are without a doubt the most depressingly damp in the known universe, and that’s counting London.

The first sunny day is always, always too chilly for shorts, which makes it even more endearing to see all our fellow Oregon/Washingtonians out in their Bermudas and sandals and goose bumps, soaking it in with gusto.

Back in the day, I felt right at home amongst the whiteys with their winter-whitened limbs hanging gracelessly out of their shorts, and the bikini-clad college students littering every grassy knoll on the University of Oregon campus like they had been sucked up by one of those forest fire water-tanker planes from some lake where they had been swimming and sprayed over the lawn in an attempt to stop the spread of some unseen lawn fire.

These days everybody spends the winter in tanning salons just waiting for this day. That leaves me at a distinct advantage, as I am banned from tanning salons by…well, by common sense. I am the whitest person I know. That used to mean something around here. Now it just means that I am a reverse rebel. Kind of like having no tattoos. But uglier.

Captain A and I chose to spend the day on a hike, going from the Columbia Gorge floor to a rocky ridge about 1,500 feet above it. The wildflowers were blooming, the forest smelled piney and pregnant with spring green, and the natives were restlessly hiking up and down the path. Luckily, it’s a long path, and even in the Portland area, there aren’t enough people with the aerobic capacity to climb for 90 minutes without several cardiac mishaps to make the many hiking trails around here feel crowded, so it was nice.

Meanwhile, up the road at Multnomah Falls where no effort is necessary to witness nature showing off its good side, there was a traffic jam of somewhat larger-sized northwesterners enjoying the waterfall and the smell of fried foods wafting from the snack bar. (What? What “healthier than thou” attitude? I will take my superiority where I can find it, fella.)

My memories of the hike:

• Lots of unleashed dogs (no, Harvey, come here, no, come here, come, Harvey. HARVEY!).


• The dogs included many labs, a couple cattle dogs, one depressed Viszla, one Chihuahua, and as many as three Pomeranians. Who knew Pomeranians were such avid hikers. The dogs, not Europians from the regions of Germany and Poland bordering the Baltic Sea.


• Earworms included Heart’s “Dog & Butterfly” (because there were dogs and butterflies), Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” (because I recently watched the Starsky & Hutch movie, in which it made a smarmy appearance, I suppose in order to place the viewer in the one year in history in which you were legally allowed to play such a song on a top-forty radio station), whoever-the-hell’s “In the Year 2525,” because I was recently reminded of that crime of music by Dave Barry, and “Macarthur Park.” I’m going to have to blame Barry for that one too.


• Killer view at the top. But in spite of the trail’s name (Angel’s Rest), I saw no resting angels. This time.


• A nice after-hike dinner in Hood River at 6th Street Bistro. I know, we weren’t even close to Hood River, but it’s a nice town to hang out in, especially after doing something outdoorsy.


• Drew’s backpack-style water thingy, which requires the user to suck water out of a tube. The end of this particular tube is really rubbery and squishy. The whole thing was way too bovine for my taste.


• I appreciate Drew taking up hiking like this. If not for me, he would have been happier on his bike (pedal or motor) on a day like that. That’s what friends are for, I guess. At least the good ones. The lifers.

Items of Interest

CONFESSIONAL:

I bought two pairs of Dockers today.

Bite me. They fit.

EXPOSITORY:

I saw a squirrel fall out of a tree yesterday. Yes, onto his back, and then get up and scramble back into the tree. No sign of evil tree-pushing squirrels, and it's not mating season when they are all insane. He seemed to have accomplished it all by himself. Beat that.

PISSED OFF:

My dog tripped me while running this morning, and now I have to walk around for a week with a big scab on my chin. I have got to teach him some manners before he kills us both. I know he knows what he's supposed to do because I got up, screaming mad, yelled at him for being an ass, and turned around for home. Whilst walking home, he heeled like he was in an obedience competition. I think that might have just made me angrier.

MORE CONFESSIONAL:

I also bought two boxes of See's dark chocolate peppermint candies today. Hands off. They are chin scab medicine.

Can't Help It 2: The Tongue of Adorableness

Now, why would Capt. America want to keep me from having one of these? Why? Is there anything more smooshy?

I stole this from http://cuteoverload.com/

I can't help it.

I'm supposed to be on blog-strike, but I cannot stop myself from posting these pictures.

These were taken at the Pig Olympics in Moscow. Really.

And no, these beauties will not be tomorrow's bacon. Here's a real quote: "They go on to produce a new generation of sport pigs. They don't get eaten," said Alexei Sharshkov, vice-president of the Sport-Pig Federation (really. I know - awesome name). "How could you eat a competitor who is known around the world?" How true.

Here's another juicy quote from the article, thanks to the entrepid BBC News: "Each pig, dressed in a numbered bib, was carried squealing into the arena for each event."

These are my people.

I feel all squealy just thinking about it.

Going for a Record

Hey, let's see if I can make it five posts in a row so completely uninteresting that they elicit no comments at all!

See, there's fun to be had, even in failure!

Hmmm, maybe I should go by the name Eeyore...

Yesterday's Score: Dean 1, Death 0

My son cheated Death yesterday.

I’m sure he wishes that he hadn’t teased it quite so hard, because it did leave him with multiple bruises and a cracked rib.

What my son is now, is a walking (thank-you, thank-you) advertisement for seat belt use, because that (and the now permanently crumpled crumple zone on Jenny’s little Civic) is all that stood between him and a rather pointy and solid cement highway median.

You know those medians that stand between divided highways, the ones where you are meant to choose to either miss it on the left or miss it on the right? That is, unfortunately, where Dean’s overworked body and brain decided to call it an early night and take a nap, leaving Jenny’s car traveling at ramming speed straight ahead.

There’s nothing like a hurt child (well, he’s my child – offspring if you must) to push you out of your comfort zone. I drove to the hospital in downtown Portland (of course, I first had to print out map-it instructions even though I’ve been there many, many times as a passenger), follow Dean into the exam room so that somebody besides a stunned accident victim would hear any diagnoses and/or instructions, and then drive Dean and Jenny to the closest 24-hour pharmacy that ended up being, like, 20 miles away somewhere in Nofe-east, then drive them home, and then find my way back to the highway without map-it directions (I actually had printed map-it directions from the hospital back to my house, but those turned out to be unusable. I only took one wrong turn, which required several correcting turns.)

That, of course, is all easier than waking up in a car that is several feet shorter than it was the last time you checked, with an abrasion that looks like someone tried to tattoo a seatbelt onto your chest, and shards of your CD collection in your shoes.

Thanks to Honda, for making excellent crumple zones, even on their cheap models. Thanks to Jenny, for continuing our “put your seat belt on” mantra, because, up to now, it has never come naturally to Dean. Thanks to God, Jesus, the Greater Power, Allah, the Buddha, Zeus, Odin, Isis, Krishna, and the Great Lobster. I owe you one.

Annie Queen of Scots and Scots - a love story

The toddler-dog has managed to survive his first three months at Casa McTracy. Here are some tidbits of news:

Scotty has developed an obsession with bird poop that requires him to pee on every sidewalk splat. This is not all bad, in that it slows him down somewhat.

He has also developed a technique of running with all four feet ahead of his nose, in order to keep them from being nipped by Annie while playing keep-away. I will attempt to catch it with my still camera one of these days, because it is f*cking funny.

I must also capture the look on Annie's face while she is humping Scotty. I know the books say it is all about domination, but if you could see the look on her face, you know it must feel gooooood.

Scotty has been forgiven for breaking almost all of my prized Japanese glass fishing floats the first time we left them in the house alone. They must have been having some kind of wild party in the dining room to be able to knock them out of a big-ass basket on a table with such force that they shattered on deep shag carpet. However, the dogs are now banned to the sunroom whenever we leave the house.

They have developed a system of chewing rawhide wherein they chew their own piece for awhile, then Scotty stands up, barks once, and they switch pieces. This goes on every ten minutes or so until one of the rawhide pieces is gone, and then all hell breaks loose over the last one. It seems to work for them.

Scotty likes to play catch. Annie does too, but can't keep up with Scotty, so she just ends up assaulting him mercilessly. Scotty will continue playing with Annie attached by her teeth to some part of his body, until she finally tackles him and grabs him by the throat (okay, large mass of hair in the vicinity of his throat), at which time he rolls over on his back and appears to revel in the beating. Oddly enough, if we invite Scotty to play catch when Annie is not around, he will go looking for her and make her join him. If she won't, he loses interest. Go figure.

In the evenings, when we are curled up in the living room, I am a little less likely now to pad into the kitchen for a little something-something, because every time I get up Scotty jumps up, like, "yay, where are we going to now, boss?" and I have to explain to him that I am getting something for myself, and uh...not for him. Sorry. Get back! And so on. And then it takes him another 20 minutes to relax and curl back up. Geez. All that for a fun-size York peppermint patty.

Collies generally are not aware that their noses continue a good half-foot beyond their eyes. A nice long nose is good planning if you need to keep the old grey matter intact whilst nipping kicky cows and sheep in the pasture, but tends to make them appear much less graceful in an indoor environment. They are always whacking their noses on kitchen corners and walls. It makes for some free entertainment (not counting food, fencing and vet bills, I guess), but I sometimes wonder if they get little bruises on their shnouts under all that hair...

Been surfing

A sampling of my favorite bits:

• My favorite insult this week, thanks to Christopher Moores' blog: dysfunctional douche-nozzles.
• From a real article on ongoing bird flu research: "At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ferret sneezes are frozen in tiny vials and locked up in a high-security chamber called an enhanced biosafety Level 3 laboratory. .."
• From an article in an English paper: "Louise Arnold is left frozen with fear by a bizarre phobia - of peas." Makes my little inability to fill my gas tank seem pretty mainstream, now doesn't it?
• From a science journal: "Scientists can grow frog and mouse meat in the lab, and are now working on pork, beef and chicken. Their goal is to develop an industrial version of the process in five years.
  If they succeed, cultured or in vitro meat could be coming to a supermarket near you. Consumers could buy hamburger patties and chicken nuggets made from meat cultivated from muscle cells in a giant incubator rather than cut from a farm animal.
  Home chefs could make meat in a countertop device the size of a coffee maker. Before bed, throw starter cells and a package of growth medium into the meat maker and wake up to harvest fresh sausage for breakfast." I found this through Dave Barry's blog. He just liked the phrase "in vitro meat." I found it a little more disturbing.
• From another venerable provincial English news outlet: "A man had part of an ear bitten off during a brawl in the toilets of a bar in Fallowfield..."
• I'm finished, and glad of it.

V for Voluminous Capes

Would it be bad if I didn’t like a movie that so deliciously skewers the fascist-lite oligarchy that currently rules our land (even though the “graphic novel” that it is based on was written during the rather iron-fisted reign of Margaret Thatcher)?

V for Vendetta could be worse. But it could have been way better. Here are my gripes. In list order, because I am apparently going through a list phase. Bear with me.

1. Why are capes so cool in the movies? If you wore one to work, the snickers would last until your coworkers found a batman flashlight and aimed the beam on the ceiling above your cubicle. Then why do they think that the image of a dude whipping weapons out from under a cape is shorthand for cool? It’s just silly.


2. Speaking of whipping weapons out, apparently Brit Fu is practiced with daggers that you are required to twirl a lot. It, like all the other fus, is best practiced in slow motion with lots of spurting blood.


3. How do you torture Natalie Portman? Cut her hair off. Then she won’t be quite as pretty as she was before! So cruel! But she will still be prettier than you.


4. Does the British Prime Minister have bad teeth because he’s a bad guy or because he’s British? This point was never satisfactorily explained.


5. They didn’t take the extra time needed to make up proper fake brand names for products appearing in the movie, so you see things like “British Fertilizer,” British Paper” and “British Eggs” on packages. If the Wachowski brothers were British, I think they would have thought of more imaginative brand names.


6. Natalie Portman gets whisked away by our “V” while wearing a blouse that her character must have bought when she was 12. I’m not sure what her motivation was. Maybe, “look how impossibly skinny I am! No, don’t look at the buttons straining bravely when I breathe!”


7. The best part of V for Vendetta? A TV show that was playing in the background on the set of the British Television Network (see, there’s that British thing again), called Storm Saxons. I would totally watch that. And it would make an awesome name for a rock bank.


8. And lastly, a few choice phrases that I found silly:


9. “I call it the shadow gallery.” Which is my new name for the garage.


10. “I’m finished and glad of it.” Which is my next favorite way to say goodbye, second only to “This is Janice “Storm Saxon” McTracy, signing off and heading for the tub.”

See if this makes you smile

I’m not a 3 Stooges fan. Not big into the guy-centric physical humor. However, when slapstick does strike me funny, I laugh way harder than I do at the verbal humor that I really gravitate to. And I end up giggling like, well, a little girl.

Here are my favorite moments of physical humor that I can think of today.

1. The. Funniest. Thing. Ever. The Ministry of Silly Walks from Monty Python. When John Cleese flings his legs into the air to walk to his ministry office, I fall apart.


2. John Cleese again. Fawlty Towers. Basil Fawlty doing his Hitler impression for visiting German tourists. Pants-wettingly funny.


3. Will Ferrell playing the cow bell in that Blue Oyster Cult skit on Saturday Night Live. Here’s where things get a little cloudy, physical-comedy-wise, because - was he funny because he was sashaying around giving ‘er (or Tonkin it) with his cow bell and his gut hanging out, or was he made so much funnier because Christopher Walken just killed by saying, “I got a fever, and the only cure is more cow bell”? See the dilemma? I’m going to go ahead and count it.


4. If you didn’t see this, I’m sorry you missed it. Several years ago, Mo Rocca and Steve Carrell used to do this recurring bit on the Daily Show which started with them both sitting at typewriters busily typing away. The funny part was the way they typed like major spazzes. Mo Rocca, jazz hands out, wacking on the keyboard with his flopping hands. I don’t know why I found it so funny, but I will follow both of them until they die (or I do, whichever comes first), hoping to laugh like that just one more time.


5. Jim Carrey. I used to adore Jim Carrey when he was funny. I think he was way funnier when he seemed to be so filled with rage that it came out - as funny - in every direction. I’m sure it’s better for him that he has less rage, but a bummer for me. The funniest physical thing I’ve ever seen him do was in his stand-up act. He had the best pratfall - it started with a lunge forward and ended up flat on his back. Hard to find, but worth it.


6. One more Jim Carrey moment: the asparagus scene in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (“do I have something in my teeth?”), followed closely by wearing a rude little man as a stole. Hard to explain. But funny.


7. Okay, one more Jim Carrey moment from the same film (where’s the Oscar, Academy?): the rhino birthing scene. I’m not going to try to explain that one either.


8. Let’s go back to Monty Python for a moment and relive the catapulted cows in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Mooooo.


9. Seinfeld was mostly verbally funny, but there was that one dance. You know which one I mean. Elaine’s dance. The stuff of legend.


10. Zoolander. Will Ferrell in the brain-washing scene.


11. Zoolander. The pose-off.


12. Dana Carvey’s stand-up. Specifically, his bit about guitar players. And his kids who like to run around naked.


13. The opening scene of Austin Powers – Man of Mystery. Yeah, the dance sequence. Brilliant.


14. Speaking of dance sequences, the closing scene of Forty Year-Old Virgin was good too.


15. Speaking of Forty Year-Old Virgin: the drunk-driving scene with Steve Carrell and Leslie Mann, who kills in this scene. I say More Leslie Mann.


16. Here’s another iffy one: Jack Black in High Fidelity when he sings with his band. I don’t think this would be nearly as funny if we didn’t know so much about Jack Black’s character – how he abuses the record store customers and is so annoyingly opinionated. But still.


17. A couple more Jim Carrey highlights: There’s a moment in Me, Myself and Irene, where he is perched on the hood of a car, and then, on the spur of a moment, slides off like his bones have melted. It’s a moment of pure squeal.


18. And the final Jim Carrey moment: the scene in Ace Ventura – Pet Detective where he is pretending to be crazy to get access to the – well, whatever the plot is. And of course, funny is always amplified by a tutu.


19. And lastly (for today), gag reels in general are often funnier than the film, but there’s a portion of the gag reel for Dodgeball which shows the little skinny cheerleader guy getting pelted with dodgeballs. Gets me every time.

Add your own. It’s fun.

Do you have your snarky pants on?

Have you seen Catwoman?

OMG, do NOT listen to those naysayers! I know I'm late to the party, but it is the mostest funny comedy since...

What, it's not a comedy? No way.

Halle Berry could not have said THOSE lines, and walked around in THAT outfit like kitty-kat porn-ho in heat, with, like, her serious "what's-my-motivation" face on, could she?

Wow. Breathtaking.

You've got to see it.

And I want that Catwoman hairdo.

Not the outfit, though.

Not Oprah's Favorite Things

I guess I should stop whining because my favorite bloggers aren’t posting fast enough to keep me constantly entertained, and post something my own lazy-ass self. Erk.

You know, I’m going to have to say that it SHOULD be just as calorie-consumptive to think as it is to work out physically. That it is not, is just crap.

Now, where were we? Ah, entertainment through blogging. Since I am probably unable at present to entertain you with what I can pull out of my keister, I will attempt instead to entertain myself.

Ye Olde Oregonian’s olde columnist (okay, that’s just mean and uncalled-for), Margie Boulé, had an entertaining column on what she called “emotional branding.” Things that make you feel warm and fuzzy. What she really ended up listing were things that her friends felt they couldn’t live without. Things that I would otherwise call “favorite things,” if Oprah hadn’t over-used the phrase until it literally became an Oprah-ism. But then again, why should Oprah be able to re-brand a very useful phrase? So to hell with Oprah, I’m calling this list:

My Favorite Things – Not Oprah’s.

• Diet Coke. Caffeine. Bubbles. The ghost of Tab past. What’s not to like? I drink it every day. When I don’t have any, I am less happy, and maybe a little headache-y. Is that bad?


• Dansko shoes. Namely, the “Professional” clog. I know, I’ve gushed about them before. That’s because they are a favorite thing! See the trend? (Wow, I’ve certainly got my snarky pants on today.)


• Toast made from Country Oven (Fred Meyer store brand) 12-Grain bread. No other bread in the world is as good for toast making. Oh, yes, there are other 12-grain breads, but not like this. These twelve grains add up to perfection. With butter. And either a 3-minute egg or a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese (not both). My favorite breakfast.


• NPR. Unbiased. Unboring. Occasionally cheeky (but rare enough to make me wait for it). With “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on Saturdays to really make me laugh. “Wait-Wait” is the best hour in broadcasting. I’m serious. I laugh more during that show than anything on radio or TV, with the possibly exception of the Daily Show. Which is only a half-hour. So quantitatively, not as funny. "Wait-Wait" is available in a podcast now. Sweet.


• Baths. Just shy of scalding. With a book. I guess that’s not a brand.


• Bloggers. It’s fun to be able to comment and then possibly have my comments read by people I admire. I can say “I gave advice to Tom Bodett once,” and not be completely lying.


• Get Fuzzy. And before that, Zits (when I could have sworn I had the same 15-year-old. Now mine is all grown up, and the guy on Zits is still 15). And before that, Bloom County. And before that, Calvin and Hobbes. And always, Doonesbury (how does he do it? What a brain).


• Pinot Gris. Preferably Oak Knoll or Duck Pond (both admirable Oregon wineries). Ten bucks will get you a couple of glasses of pure bliss to share. Or not.


• Target has this awfully pseudo-kitchy new brand of candy they call “Choxie.” Ugh. But if you can get past the name, they make dynamite chocolate covered dried cherries. Can’t get enough of ‘em. That’s just my favorite chocolate this week. I could write a blog just on my current chocolate obsessions, but I will spare the bandwidth of the world from that.


• Athletic wear. Why do athletes get all the soft, smooth, breathable fabrics with seams that don’t chafe? I don’t care if I don’t always sweat in them. They feel good on sensitive skin. They are the most comfortable clothes, thus they shall be mine. Title 9 sells good stuff.

That’s about all the listing you should be required to read in one day. Add your favorite.

Pictures for you blog readers on-the-go

I call this one "takedown." I think that's a wrestling term. I could be wrong. It was definitely a wrestling move. That's what a (rare) sunny day at the Oregon coast does to people. Makes them giddy and prone to goofy pro wrestling moves.

Another exciting week in the TAW

An eventful week:

First there was National Pi Day (3/14, get it?), in which I refrained from eating pie.

Then there was the Ides of March (3/15), in which I refrained from getting assassinated by a band of rogue Senators.

Now St. Patrick's Day, where I will attempt to refrain from acting like a wanna-be Irishperson by overimbibing in refreshments and barfing in technicolor. I think I have enough Celtic blood in me to feel Irish without using green beer to up my greenness from the inside out. But don't let me spoil your fun. You go ahead. Just don't drive home.

Erin Go Braless.

A little quiz, or " el quizzo"

Say a bunch of guys go to the Baja peninsula for a little dirt biking and cerveza drinking? Say these guys do something safety-oriented for a living, say, just as an example, oh…firefighters? Just hypothetical, mind you.

So being Hypothetical Firefighters (HFFs), they bring lots of bottled water, and stay away from salads washed in the local mud puddle or what have you, and generally behave like very safety conscious tourists, sticking to their bottled water and Coronas.

Then, when they get to Todos Santos, a nice fishing-village-turned-rich-American-artist-colony, they decide to splurge and sample the local (raw) oysters (whilst avoiding the deadly salad)?

What do you think might happen to one of said HFFs?

If you guessed typhoid-style bacteria, Exorcist-style barfing and a trip to the local clinico for a south-of-the-border-style IV, you win!

Viva los oysters el nudo!

It's not just me, right?

This is from Max Azria for BCBG, from his spring line. This was on the front of the Oregonian this morning, with an accompanying article on Portland fashion developing along the same lines.

Is this a joke?

Unleashing My Inner Beast (Sorry)

If you’ve met me, you probably don’t remember. I’m pretty see-through. Not because of my paper-white skin, but because I probably didn’t look you in the eye, or, you know, say anything.

I’m not exactly outgoing.

So why do I turn into a screaming freak when someone lets their (illegally) unleashed dog bound up into my (legally leashed) dogs’ faces?

Maybe because my sweet little Annie has been leaped onto repeatedly by unleashed dogs.

It is also now an issue for Scotty, my bouncy, bouncy toddler dog. I have had to use a halter for him in order to control his youthfully spastic outbursts without throwing out my back. Since it is a special head halter, this leaves him with less control over his own head motions, which is fine until he gets spooked by something LIKE YOUR DAMN DOG, YOU IDIOT. Then he starts to panic and tries to pull out of it by backing up wildly. THANKS, ASSHAT.

See? I’m starting all over again. I actually screamed at a jogger this morning from across the park (whose dog was, naturally, on the other side of the park, in my dogs’ faces) “WHAT THE HELL? IS THIS YOUR DOG?” When she (rather dimly) admitted it was, I yelled, “WHERE’S HIS LEASH?” When she pulled it out of her pocket, I couldn’t help myself, “OH, IN YOUR POCKET. GREAT!”

That is not me yelling. I don’t yell at people. So who possesses me? Jan, the Great Lioness Mother Goddess? Whoever it is, she has a major problem with anger control.

And she's making no friends at the park.

My Oscar Post-Game Analysis

Or, "Hey, let’s all take the Oscars MORE Seriously!"

I had some craft work to do yesterday, so I turned on the tube to keep me company.

Lesson 1: If you are going to subject yourself to the Oscar pre-show, or God help you, the pre-pre-show, do not try this alone or sober.

It’s just so painful to watch grown men and women groveling, reaching, racking their brains for questions that come out twice as lame for the effort, and their prey smiling fakey, fakey smiles and looking for the exit. If they are such great actors, why can’t they act all tickled and happy to be accosted yet again on a patch of red real estate with a reported FIFTEEN HUNDRED JOURNALISTS? What did they expect?

One of the lamiest parts of the pre-pre-show (why did I continue to watch? I don’t know, it was like a death wish, only it took longer) was Roger Ebert trying to lasso stars from behind some shrubbery. I’m not sure why the Oscar people didn’t allow Mr. Ebert on the other side of the boxwood. Maybe he has a problem with halitosis. But the shrubbery required him to lean over it in order to holler his questions loud enough for his captive to hear, and then hold the microphone over the hedge so that they could answer. And all the people that weren’t here watching with me (why? Who wouldn’t want to sit around and needlepoint with me while watching horrible, horrible TV?) missed the best home-made MST3K since the classic Charlie Sheen movie “Terminal Velocity” (a must-see for bad-movie fans).

Lesson 2: If your dress “makes a statement,” put it back and pick another.

Cases in point:

Felicity Huffman’s dress said “I really am a woman!” I guess she was feeling a little insecure after playing a male-to-female transsexual in Transamerica. But any dress that requires adhesive to keep you from going all Girls Gone Wild on us is just icky. It’s like Kristi Turnquist said in the Oregonian this morning, “She wants us to look, but I really don’t want to.”

Michelle William’s dress said “I could spill all the mustard I want and you wouldn’t be able to tell!”

Charlize Theron’s dress said “I can wear anything, no matter how wacky, and I’m still better looking than you.” At least that’s how I took it. Why else would she wear a dress with a bow on her shoulder that is bigger than her head?

Keira Knightley’s outfit said “I spent so much on this oufit that I didn’t have any money left to do my hair.”

Jennifer Lopez’s dress said “Quick, pull down this theater curtain before Rhett comes. I have to make myself a lovely, lovely dress!” Or maybe, “I have made my body into a theater and I shall open the curtain for you. And you. And you.”

Meow.

Lesson 3: Invite Jon Stewart back next year. Enough said.

Lesson 4: Academy voters have a sense of humor.

It was fun watching Cedric Coleman and Three 6 Mafia win Best Original Song for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from “Hustle & Flow”. They were all happy and glittery-toothed.

Lesson 5: Academy voters have no sense of humor.

Or else, they require their lessons learned via hammer applied to head. “Crash” was like a Very Special After-School Special for grown-ups. Too much exposition. Not enough good. If you want some race lessons with your entertainment, I recommend Spike Lee (“Do the Right Thing”, “Jungle Fever”, “Malcolm X”, Bamboozled” and others).

Lesson 6: It is not humanly possible to watch the Oscar pre-pre-show, pre-show, show and post show. Well, not without some damage.

I tried. The post show was just too awful. It was the pre-show only with stars who really, really don’t want to talk any more. About anything. I couldn’t take any more pain and called it a night.

Gosh, only 364 more days until next Oscar night. Maybe if I work out by watching a lot of Entertainment Tonight and E!, next year I can make it through all 8 hours of Oscar programming! Or I could just pull my own teeth out with pliers.

Human Nature Continues to Disappoint

I am disappointed that I'm not seeing any Mardi Gras beads on nice people yet. I could have sworn I had the answer to everything west of Iraq. I wonder how long it takes for a trend to catch on?

Probably a long time if nobody reads it...

No, don't call me pathetic. How about "rather troubled but dealing with it quite bravely"?

Capt. A alive and well, although the satellite phones seem a little under the weather

In case you were worried (who worries here at the TAW?), Capt. America is alive and well and having the time of his life somewhere on the Baja peninsula. They finally motored into a town (the first one they have come to with a pay phone), and called in.

Seems that their brilliant plan on having a constant connection with the satellite phones isn't playing out too well. Ah, well. If that's the biggest problem they have, they will be lucky.

Tonight they will be sleeping on the beach somewhere near San Francisquito. Hope he sleeps above the high tide line (see, there's always something to worry about).

Adios for now, amigos.

In Which I Save the World with Mardi Gras Beads

So the U.S. has a service economy these days. Then where is the service?

So everybody wishes people would treat each other the way they would treat themselves, just like in the good old days. Well, who’s going to start?

I am about to give you The Way to Make People Behave. Not all people. Some people will always be asshats no matter what you do. Don’t let them stop you from trying The Way to Make People Behave.

I’ve noticed that people will do just about anything for a string of plastic Mardi Gras beads, including exposing parts of their body that they normally keep covered even in the locker room. I’m not sure if they know that they can get them by the dozen at the party store. Let’s not tell them, because this craving for Mardi Gras beads is vital to my plan.

Here’s the plan: say a grocery store checker notices that there is one of those coupons attached to your package of bacon which would give you an extra dollar off if you had seen it, removed it, and handed it to your checker. She takes the coupon off herself and gives you the dollar off.

I know. This would never really happen, but imagine. Or maybe she finally puts the eggs on top in the grocery bag instead of under the gallon of milk.

People need to know that you appreciate the little things. “Thank-you” won’t do, because it has become a preprogrammed response, like “did you find everything all right?” So here’s the plan: when something like this happens, reach into your pocket and pull out a string of Mardi Gras beads and give them to her with a short explanation. Tell her to put them on, and pass them on if somebody does something nice for her.

Soon all the nice people will have beady badges of honor around their neck, and everyone else will be trying to earn their own beads by being nice too.

I know. They are cheap and easy to come by. Asshats could buy their own. Yeah, but they won’t be the same and everyone will know. The fact that they are cheap will just make it that much easier to get everyone involved in giving them away.

Incentives don’t have to be expensive or useful. Think of the points that kids play video games so hard to accumulate. Can they buy anything with them? Are they good to eat? No. But it hasn’t effected the popularity of video games any, has it?

Eventually, with my plan fully in effect, everyone will be nicer and everyone will be more colorful. And the Mardi Gras bead making plants in China will experience a happy boom in business. There’s no downside.

So hit the party store tomorrow. The Mardi Gras beads will probably be on sale.

You’re welcome.

If you're in Baja and you're dirty, look for Capt. A

Whew. He’s gone. Now we can talk.

Okay. You know that really sticky-sweet commercial for Disney with that little Welch’s-Grape-Juice-commercial-type kid (you know the kind – fat cheeks with dimples all trying to “act cute”), who can’t sleep the day before the big Disneyland day, because “I’m too excited to sleeeep.” That’s what it’s been like around here for the last week as Capt. America has packed and re-packed for his three-week-long dirt-bike-apalooza down the Baja peninsula with a bunch of other fire dudes.

There have been lists of things to bring, lists of things to do to the bike, lists of what to put in his day pack (item #9: lip balm), lists of who’s bringing GPS equipment, who’s bringing first aid, and who’s bringing the satellite phone (safety first – these are fire fighters, after all).

For each list, count two or three trips to outdoor stores, motorcycle shops, grocery stores, and bicycle shops. Then another for the one thing he forgot, or that they didn’t have. For each list, count two or three attempts at packing or attaching packs to his bike. For each list count two or three phone calls to consult with his fellow travelers.

Believe me or don’t, but a couple of days before they left, they all got together for a “packing dry run.” It sounds funnier than it was, I guess. They just wanted to make sure all the bikes fit in the truck and trailer. But is that not as cute as a Welch’s Grape Juice kid?

Believe me or don’t, but I saw two different types of “personal wipes” laid out for packing. I’m going to say they are for his first aid kit, or maybe for wiping the Baja dust out of his face after a long ride, because I just can’t imagine that he, all of a sudden, got so concerned about needing them for some “personal” use. Sorry about any unbidden mental images there.

So he’s gone and I have two Humane-Society-reject collies and a bad-tempered cat to keep me company. I have heard from a few women who would not even allow such a long trip. I say bring it on. I have lots of stuff to do around the house, a poetically large new shipment of paints, and after today’s excursion, a tank full of gas, thanks to the kind folk in Oregon who refuse to bend to the pump-it-yourself trend and allow me to steer clear of a phobic meltdown at a self-serve gas pump.

But I guess that’s a topic for another post.

An ode to the luscious 37 mil. tubes of Daniel Smith paint that came in the mail today

[Sound of snapping fingers and clinking coffee cups]

[Intense stare inside a black turtleneck and beret approaches the mike....]

Buff Titanium!
Hansa Yellow Light!

Burnt. Yellow. Ochre.

Indigo!
Phtalo Turquoise!

Ultramarine. Blue. Deep.

Lemon Yellow!
Cobalt Blue!

Cadmium. Red. Deep.

Cascade Green!
Raw Sienna!

Mediterranean. Blue.

Burnt Umber!
Payne's Grey!

Ivory. Black.

[Finger snaps. The sound of respect and awe.]

Recovery Through Cuteness

Depression is best treated through massive cuteness injections. I like this website, because he occasionally captions his photos with veddy English-y comments like this: "This one is cute almost to the point of being horribly ugly. Like drowning in pony brains." Now that's entertainment.

http://www.thingsthatmakeyougoaahh.com/

We Are NOT All Made of Stars

Sorry, Moby, but the proof is in the "Next Blog" button. If we are to be judged by the company we keep, than you can put me down under the "loser blogger who mistakenly thinks her life is worth reading about" column. O. M. G. I am seriously bummed. What should I do? Accept my fate and keep prattling on? Never hit the "Next Blog" button again? Oog.

Here. Since I can't write while bumming, I will "treat" you to another picture: my first commissioned work. I finally remembered to photograph a painting before giving it away. Anyway, this is what my oils end up looking like (although every other one is of some sort of bear - hard to explain that, so I won't).

Me no words got

There's nothing inside my brain today that needs to come out, so I thought I would give you a picture to entertain you until such time as I think of a thought.

Mmmm, warm.

You know what warms the cockles of my heart? Watching someone else chop wood for me. Mmmm...warm cockles...

There's a cold front coming. Button up.

My life is flashing before my eyes

My life is flashing before my eyes. Only this time, my future is really awesome looking. And I’m not me. I’m my son. Wait. Back up, start over.

My son is making some really crazy parallels to the life that Capt. A. and I started over 25 years ago, and it makes us look at each other and shake our heads. Is it the genes, or crazy fate?

Like us, he found someone in high school who, despite the odds of it, fit him like a puzzle piece. Like us, it wasn’t long after that he realized the fact and gave her a ring.

Here’s where our paths are probably going to deviate, because he is going to have many more opportunities than Capt. A., and she is smarter and braver than I am and is going to take the opportunities that are open to her.

I think they will be really, really successful and happy.

Proof That I Am 1/2 Nerd

I blame my nerdly tendencies on my dad, who got his degree in Forest Engineering at Nerd U (Oregon State to the ignorant among you).

With that said, I feel free to recommend to you Klingon Recipes by Mike Richardson-Bryan, currently featured on McSweeney's Internet Tendency (aka Dave Egger's thingy) http://mcsweeneys.net/

P.S. I also may have inherited from him my inability to leave a telephonic message that is not, in some way, inadvertantly funny.

Seattle got robbed.

Seattle got beat by the refs. Were the refs from Pittsburgh too? Or was it something more sinister? I did read in the paper where they don't get paid all that much...at least on their W-2s...oooh, I feel dirty just suggesting such a thing. Bad me.

I'm not a rabid fan of the Seahawks. You might notice that this is my first mention of them here. But dang! If you give back the touchdown they bogusly took away from the Seahawks and take away the one that they bogusly gave to the Steelers, then you've got a different Super Bowl winner. Let alone the Hasselbeck pass to the 3-yard line they took back for a non-existent hold, and a tackle (by Hasselbeck, no less) that they took away for another penalty they pulled out of their keisters...

Okay, yes, I'll go lie down for awhile. Sorry.

Crude drawings will have to do today.

Spent all day avoiding painting and then actully doing some painting, so I have little to say, except that this is what it is like walking a bouncy, bouncy toddler-dog and a middle-aged crabby dog who hates rain, wind, and bouncy toddlers. Okay, maybe I fudged a little bit on waistlines for us girls, but you get the idea.

What's wrong with people?

In a world where people are having trouble deciding whether torture is a good idea or not, the Medellin drug cartel brings you a new brand of depravity.

Colombian drug lords are smuggling heroin into the country by sewing it into puppies. Those puppies that make the trip with the bags of poison intact often die of infections from the incisions.

I hope there is a special hell for these people where they spend eternity being eaten by packs of Chihuahuas with Piranha teeth.

As for people who prey on their own kind, I must have faith that God has a reason to allow it, an appropriate punishment for the perpetrator, and an appropriate consolation prize for the victim.

http://www.comcast.net/news/strange/index.jsp?cat=STRANGE&fn=/2006/02/01/317153.html&cvqh=itn&ts=2006.02.01_20.40

Obligatory Piece on James Frey and the Evils of Deceit

Turns out James Frey is a big liar. I bought his book for my son for Christmas, because (a) it had an Oprah sticker on it, and (b) the first couple pages are some really hot writing. Makes you want to read more. I believe in good writing and want to reward it, because there is soooooo much lousy-ass writing out there. And I’m talking about best-selling books. Awful stuff. (Now, here we get into a bit of a self-conscious bind since I am actually writing, and I guess I am implying that my own writing is not awful. But then again, you’re not paying for it, so do I really have to hold myself to the same standard?) Anyway, here are some thoughts.

If I had seen him on Oprah before I bought the book, I probably would not have bought it, because he is awfully mousy and whiny – not good attributes in either writers or drug addicts.

I did see him on Oprah the other day after she found out about the fact that he had really stretched the truth in his book. She really tore him a new one. I think its fine to tear someone a new one when he has been bad and hurt someone, but I get the feeling that the most offended one was her royal self, and she was really just mad because he messed up her book club’s reputation. Hey, that book club needed a shake-up anyway. What’s with all the sad, deep stuff? How about some Carl Hiaasen, Christopher Moore, or Chuck Palahniuk? If she needs a Book Club Guru, I would accept the job. As long as I didn’t have to move to Chicago.

That said, I had to feel for the guy getting raked over the coals like that. Once they cut to a commercial just before I know he must have burst into tears. One of the things that really made me feel for him was that I don’t think he knew the answers to some of the questions Oprah was asking about the details in the book that were found to be untrue. After all, nobody was denying that he had been really drugged up for years. I’m sure he did not know or remember the whole truth (although no matter how messed up you are, you know the difference between a couple days in the joint and a couple of months).

Now that I know the book is tainted and sort of made-up, I would not have bought the book as a gift. (For a primer on taint, go to http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload and find Ed Helms’ Daily Show piece on the “Level of Taint” in Washington. Awful. Just awful. I did NOT laugh my head off.) Let alone the Smoking Gun piece that exposed the lies in the book, just watching James Frey on Oprah would have changed my mind about buying it. Chuck Palahniuk he is not.

Told You So.

Remember last year when the weather was beautiful and I would walk along the Columbia in the sun in January and I was all “we are so going to pay for this”? Well, the bill has apparently come due.

The weather report for the last month and a half has been rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. “The wettest month since (whatever)!” “Flooding in (everywhere with a river)!)”

It’s dark. It’s grey. It’s wet. Wet. Wet. Even my bouncy, bouncy toddler-dog is curled up in a wet funk today.

The front page of the Oregonian yesterday was a satellite picture of a gaggle of huge wet storms lined up across the Pacific waiting for their turn to soak us, and the witty slogan, “Looks Like Rain.” Ha ha. I laugh lest I cry.

I used to be all “quit yer bitchin” about people getting fed-up with the Northwest winter rain. Hey, the rain makes this place what it is. Green, clean, beautiful, and less crowded than LA. If you complain about the rain, you need to go back to California, blondie, and stay out of my real estate market. But now I’m beginning to start, and I was born and raised here.

It’s making me lazy and depressed. I need a jolt of pure sunshine. But if you played me one of those 60’s happy-sunshine songs right now, I would seriously slug you.

I wonder if tanning beds help. I doubt it. They’re not full-spectrum sunlight. I couldn’t try it, because my dermatologist would frown at me, and I can’t take that kind of pressure.

And I’m not sure going away would help, because you just have to come back. And experience tells me this rain still has many, many weeks to go before it lets up. And that let-up will be temporary, as it usually stays pretty wet around here until Independence Day. No joke there. Just the sad truth.

Oh, and never tell me to smile. I hate that. HATE that. Come around again in July and I’ll smile for you. Till then, bite me.

Random Thoughts Part 4, Maybe 5, I've Lost Track

• I like the Beastie Boys (Like, Dottie!) (sorry, non-Pee Wee Herman aficionados). But I feel like they have a limited range, musically. For those of you not acquainted with the Beastie Boys, it is a range limited mainly to hollering at the top of their voices. They are like the Paul Lynde of musicians (Sorry, people younger than 40. Think Steve Carrell in Bewitched, only stuck in that persona for life).
• My oven has a button that says "Stop Time." I haven't tried it yet.
• I heard a cool quote this morning: Tommy Lee Jones quoting Flannery O'Conner, who is reputed to say, "Faith is what you know to be true whether you believe it or not."

Just Between Us Girls

Girls:

Have you ever had one of those days right before the Urgent Haircut call, where nothing goes right in the morning, blow-dryer-wise, so you end up leaving the house looking like Farrah Fawcett’s ugly little sister, and then later that day, your Signiffy-O tells you he thinks your hair looks hot?

What do you do with that?

Or is it just me because Captain America is still Lovin’ the 70’s?

Look what I found:

http://www.buyblue.org

Check it out.

More paranoia, less talk, please.

Should radio stations really play the new Coldplay release just because it's from Coldplay? I think they need to go back and try to recreate the creepy-crazy vibe they had before. Let's talk. Bleagh.

A Quick Note About the Decline and Fall of America

In a quick trip through Target today, I found the following items that were made in the U.S.A.:

Jelly Beans
Twizzlers
Garden Clogs

Pretty much everything else I checked was made in China. The clothes were made in China, India and Malaysia. Even the rawhide dog bones were from China. If China shut down tomorrow, we'd be in a world of hurt.

Think about it. We're dependent on the Middle East for oil, and China for pretty much everything else. Is that healthy?

This New Year's resolution is bumming me out. Next year I'm going to resolve to dance more.

In Which I Save America by Shopping

Ever since January 1, I’ve been meaning to post something about my resolution, but it’s not a very exciting resolution, and I can’t think of a way to make it funny. And maybe I’m a little worried that it won’t last long – not because of my lack of will power, but because of its lack of practicality in 2006-world.

Resolution 2006: I promised myself that I would try to buy products made in the USA whenever I had a choice.

This isn’t such a challenge in the supermarket or at the paint store, but the clothing thing is way different. Look in your own closet and try to find two pieces of clothing made in this country. What happened? Yeah, I’m old, whatever, but I remember those union commercials – you know, it was a bunch of garment workers singing, “Look for the union label, when you are buying your (something about clothes),” Then they would sing about how they are working hard to feed their kids and stuff. Is there still a garment workers’ union in the US? Glancing at the labels in the mall today, they must be a lonely bunch.

Dean told me about a store downtown (Portland) called American Apparel that sells clothes made in LA. He took me over there last weekend so I could check it out.

First, let me say that American Apparel is exactly what I was hoping to find and support – an apparel company dedicated to providing sweatshop-free clothing while supporting family-wage jobs in a constructive (vs. service) industry in this country. It’s good for people, the environment, and the economy.

That said, walking into American Apparel is – well, it’s a cross between Term Project Day at Home Ec class and a look at the first clothing shop to open after a Mad Max-like apocalypse where the only thing left is one sterno-powered sewing machine and a truck full of jersey fabric, hijacked after being mistaken for a load of hooch.

Everything in the store is made of jersey. Everything is sewn using the simplest of patterns, with the most basic of serged hems. And we’re talking basic. One of their signature pieces is a piece of fabric. Honest. It comes with a video which shows the lucky (i.e. gullible) customer how to tie the piece of fabric onto one’s body to resemble a shirt. This, I guess, in place of an actual shirt.

In the interest of research and my New Year’s vow, I bought a shirt (an actual shirt, not the piece of fabric) for about the same amount of money I could have spent on a DVD player at Wal-Mart (no, I don’t shop at Wal-Mart. Just allow me the joke). Since American Apparel seemed to be going for the crowd that is too cool to shop at Abercrombie and Fitch, I decided to go with a Large, knowing that although I am a Medium Mervyn’s/Small Ann Taylor, I am most definitely a Large American Apparel.

At home, I wore The Shirt, which feels kind of tight, under a sweater (it’s not quite jersey weather in the Great Northwest. It’s tarp weather). It was okay.

Okay, that was a kind of lame ending to that story. The shirt didn’t blow up, or stab me, or give me a rash. Actually, it was pretty comfy.

I’m going to give American Apparel another year or two to evolve past the Mad Max stage and go back. I probably won’t buy anything next time, merely because I will be one year older and their target audience will not have aged at all.

I’ll keep you posted on my quest to Save America.

In Which I Demonstrate A Scientific Phenomenon and Give Myself a Headache

Just this week there was a news blurb about a recent study showing that your brain is so fuzzy upon waking up, that you are about as useful as if you were sloppy drunk. I’m sure this came as no surprise to any of us who have actually experienced waking up. However, this morning, I performed a highly amusing demonstration of this phenomenon, and I am so glad no one was here to actually witness it.

Scot Evil could not stay in bed a minute past seven-thirty, so in defense of the carpet, I got up, threw some sweats on, and tossed him out the back while I fed the cat and made coffee. Before I could get the coffee made (of course), I noticed Scotty out in the back yard chewing on something nasty looking. Since I just finished giving him his second worming in one month, I wasn’t anxious to wait to find out what this back-yard treat would evolve into when it came out the other end, so I started around the kitchen counter, picking up a good head of steam through the family room, and slammed face first into the plate glass sliding door that divides the family room from the sun room. I’m considering leaving the face print on the glass for Drew to take a gander at. It’s quite Turin-esque in its picture-like quality.

I stumbled back, deciding that Scotty can chew another moment while I try to regain consciousness and assess the damage. The glass was surprisingly intact, so the shattering sound must have been something more in the vicinity of my skull. In school, they try to tell you that the brain doesn’t have any nerves of its own that are dedicated to its own pain. I think they missed some. I think I found them.

The rest of the day, I walked around like somebody trying not to wake a panther sleeping on her head (a panther that has a tendency to be cross when wakened), as I found quite early that sudden, jerky movements are followed by new shards of pain.

Scotty has taken a cue from the new, more pathetic-looking Piglet and has calmed down quite noticeably today.

I had scads of things to write about, but my mind is a little fuzzy and thinking only makes it worse. I will save them for later. Mind your head.

Wet dogs are funny!

You promised. You can laugh at Scotty, but you can't laugh at me. This is what a rough collie looks like when he's wet and unhappy. This is what Celtic skin looks like in the winter. And summer.

Guess I Didn't Have Enough Dog Hair

He looked so small in the kennel at the Humane Society dog ward. Small and pathetic. And he had been in the joint for a week with no takers. What was I supposed to do?

Besides, I wasn’t the one who went down the next day and picked him up. It was Drew. So don’t start.

Here he is, picking up some begging tips from Annie. For some reason, Annie thought the camera looked delicious.

His name is Scot Evil, because we had a feeling, after we realized we had introduced a bouncy, bouncy toddler-age dog into a non-child- or dog-proofed home (what, dog-proof for Annie, affectionately known as “the lump”?), that we would be saying, “Scotty don’t” a lot. And “zip it.” And “SCOT!!!” (For those of you unaware of the mystique that is Seth Green as Scot Evil, I refer you to the Austin Powers trilogy.)

Annie was clearly disturbed and sulked for two days. After her two days were up, she came out of her bed and asserted herself as top dog. Odd to see Miss Submissive become Miss Whips & Chains overnight. You would have to see it to believe it. The second night of her new life as Miss Dominant, we woke up to hellish snarls and turned on the light to find Scotty pinned to the wall by his throat. Who knows what disallowed behavior he was attempting, but it obviously didn’t fly with Miss Leather & Heels over there.

Now Annie is a much more active, happy dog. Dogs are pack animals. They like to have company. As long as the company knows its place.

He was so dirty and skinny. Now he’s just skinny. And we know that he hates baths. I’ll show you a picture of Scott and me in the tub if you promise not to laugh at my uber-Celtic winter skin color (which isn’t really much different than my summer skin color). But he follows us everywhere, runs (happily) with me in the morning, and reminds us of our first collie, Shelby (R.I.P.).

He’s going to be my fitness regimen. There’s nothing like a bored and twitchy collie toddler to make you get up early in the morning.

Sweat Pants, Clothing-Induced Guilt and Portland Operagoers

Did you ever have a piece of clothing (I was going to say “garment,” but that sounds too much like “I wear glasses on a chain and read historical fiction.” Which I don’t. Unless it’s historical fiction with hot sex scenes. I know. That was an awesome historical fiction joke.) Sorry. Let’s start over.

Did you ever have a piece of clothing that you thought looked okay in the store, but then you brought home to find that it actually makes you look like Jerome Bettis of the Pittsburgh Steelers (complete with beard)? But you wear it anyway, because either (a) you paid too much for it and feel guilty, (b) you feel sorry for it, or (c) it is just too comfy?

I have a pair of pretend sweat pants like that. I say pretend sweat pants because they are of the sweat-pant genre that is too dressy and unpractical to sweat in, (ever really jog in velour? I thought not.) but is not quite dressy enough for the opera (Portland being the exception, where I believe you could not induce disapproving looks by wearing only a coconut bra, Hello Kitty boxers, swimming goggles and flippers).

I definitely didn’t pay too much for them (I do have a pair of pants that fall into this category. They look like I stole them from Star Jones, but I wear them anyway. Hey, I thought they would shrink!) And I don’t feel sorry for them, although I have possessed garments that fall into this category (See, I’m not afraid of nerd words. Extra points for using “garments” with “possessed” which is just as geeky when not used in the occult sense.) You know the ones – they are so cute, but you don’t have anything to go with them, or you don’t have anywhere cool to wear them, so you end up wearing them to work where everybody asks you if you have a hot date after work, and you have to admit you don’t…..no? Just me? Anyhoo…..

These particular pretend sweat pants are just really comfortable. Not too tight, too loose, too short or too long. Black (slimming!) with white stripes down the sides. Sounds fine, right? But now add another stripe AROUND THE MIDDLE OF THE HIPS. I’m not kidding. Right around the top of the hip bones, right under the belly button, blithely highlighting my belly.

Now after ten years of looking for shirts that don’t hang down to my knees (which seem to be alarmingly close to my waist), I find myself rifling through my drawer looking for a shirt that will cover up this whitewall tire around my waist.

Oh well. You can’t see me from there, so I’m putting ‘em on.

I hate not eating to excess. Don't you?

It appears, at least by the groaning sound the elastic in my sweat pants are making, that I must have eaten most of the Christmas cookies I made. It seems like I had planned to give them away, but I forgot most of that part.

Oh, well. Back to join the New Year's weight loss sheep herd. Baaah.

You gonna eat that?

Ah'll Be Bahck

Resting. Recovering. Taking antibiotics. More later.

In the meantime a deep post-Christmas breath (in and out) and some thanks:

Thanks for coming. Thanks for giving. Thanks for reading. Thanks for writing. Thanks for caring. Thanks for asking. Thanks for thanking.

If I didn't ask, it's just because I'm me. If I didn't notice, I was probably far too concerned about what you thought about me. Thanks for understanding.

And thanks to the stealth Santa, who left us wine, ornaments and chocolate on our porch on Christmas day. How wonderful and mysterious.

Not completely death free, but includes the words "crunchy" and "Viagra"

I drive like death is around the corner. I may not look like I’m freaking out, and I may even drive faster than Captain America might like, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that my mind is constantly preparing for my fiery doom. (side note for English majors: ever notice that “fiery” rearranges the last two letters in “fire”?)

This constant anticipation of crunchy metal sounds leaves me with a lot of adrenalin while I am required to sit still and drive. The result: spinning wheels of brain matter, many random nerve firings, lots of radio fiddling. Talk radio is best for me, because it calms my brain and focuses some of the synapses towards something concrete, if not particularly constructive (although all the hours of NPR have made me a kick-ass trivia game player).

If NPR is hopelessly lost in a funk of Celtic folk singing, I’ll try the local liberal radio station. If the present liberal at the mike seems to be trying to do a backwards Rush impression, I’ll try the local comedy station. If they seem to be in a ten-minute block of herbal Viagra commercials, then I’m stuck with music, which does nothing for my adrenalin-pumped noggin, so I am forced to try to focus my thoughts on my own, which isn’t always successful.

I think of a lot of brilliant topics for this space, but they are gone as fast as the next thought speeds in.

Once, I saw a youngish guy walking down the sidewalk. It looked like he had the tips of his hair dyed blond. He had on one of those big, thick sweaters your mom gives you for Christmas. He had a doughy round face and was on the heavy side. And he was walking with the kind of jaunty step that catches your eye as you drive by.

I was so trapped in a sitting position with many long minutes of driving to go. I started trying to generate instances in which I could imagine not just being, but wanting to be, friends with this jauntily walking dude. Maybe if he was an editorial cartoonist. Not the fantasy comic type. I suppose they call themselves something else. Maybe if he was in a really good band. I mean lots of really cool band members look like complete geeks, so it’s not impossible. Improbable. Maybe impossible, owing to the fact that I was in Hazel Dell. He might be a successful artist with many sold-out shows, but I doubt it. Artists (successful or otherwise) usually take such care in dressing like artists. Well, I guess I’m either the exception to that rule, or that doesn’t really hold true.

Okay, I give up. He’s a talented, guitar-playing, master’s degree-sporting, comedic essayist with designs on a Senate seat. See, the moral to this story is that you shouldn’t judge a book by its tip-frosted hair.

Or he’s 30 and living on his sister’s couch because his parents threw him out for stealing beer money from them one too many times.

Message received...BUT NOT HEEDED.

It seems Animal Planet has been made aware of a certain cutting, yet witty and cute, critique of their little cable station. (By the way, I'm still out roughly $900 in vet bills thanks to them.)

They have chosen to respond by titling a recent Detroit Animal Cops episode "Piglet's Got to Go." They tried to disguise the obvious message by including a short vignette regarding a pot-bellied pig which was removed from a house because of a city-wide ban. Yeah. Whatever.

Game on.

Silent Night, Holy Yikes!

I don’t know if I mentioned it before, since I hardly ever talk about my dog (what?), but she barks maybe once a week. Never at the door, or Shelby’s (R.I.P.) favorite targets (i.e. phones, garage doors, UPS trucks, dust molecules, and mean looking dudes), except maybe the dust molecules, if they look particularly scary. She will, however, bark in frustration at basketball games if she is not invited to play.

All this to explain my surprise at watching her bark at baby Jesus last night on our pee walk. It might seem a more rational approach to the situation when I explain that the baby Jesus was part of one of those blow-up Christmas yard decorations that seem to be all the rage amongst the peppier and, let’s say, less discriminating yard decorators (although that might be a contradiction in terms). (Ms. Awfully Judgmental, line two….)

It probably didn’t help Annie’s composure that the whole thing was just being tilted into position as we turned the corner and happened upon it – the whole thing being the whole crèche scene with barn, Mary, Joseph and manger complete with smiling baby. Or it could be that she barked at the incongruity of it all: a plastic, lighted, fan-blown, primary-color, ode to capitalism, depicting the birth of the Prince of Peace and a big devotee of communal living. Or it could be that she was just confused because Joseph, clad in bright red, looked a lot like a young Santa Claus. Why is Santa looking on at the birth of Jesus? Of course, this ties up those two rather divergent Christmas stories quite well, doesn’t it?

I would dismiss the whole “Santa as Joseph” thing as a bad choice of colors and an overzealous depiction of the abundance of Joseph’s beard, but on the way back, I noticed that the same house sported a window painting (I know!), which depicted Santa, a passel of reindeer, and next to Santa, an angel, obviously approving and keeping watch over the reindeer flock by night. I kid you not.

Now, I’m not sure where to begin or end on the theological and/or political significance of this tableau. (Do I have to mention that the car in the driveway sported a W04 sticker?) Surely they are confusing Christianity with capitalism, or maybe its just a case of thinking that “A Visit from St. Nick” is a chapter of the New Testament. Discuss.

I don’t know. But Annie has requested that we find a different route until the holidays are over.

Overheard at the dermatologist's office

I guess this is a snapshot of how hard it is to be old. Or senile. Or both.

An old couple sat down across from me, and once they were good and bored, the old man looked at the old woman and said, "You didn't wear your heavy socks."

The old lady replies, "I didn't have time."

Hello, Guinness?

Am I the first to complete a crossword puzzle while on the treadmill? No? Okay. Well, Actually, I didn't 100% complete it... Okay, nevermind.

Jolly, Jolly, Ho, Ho, Ho

I mailed all my Christmas cards today. Eat my dust, suckers!

Now With 99% Less Death

In the interest of not freaking out the delicate sensibilities of some of our readers, today's blog will be mostly death free. Can't promise full death scrubbing - it might creep in there somewhere...boooga-booga!

Today I bought my dog a dress. Okay, not a dress, but Annie makes even the most rugged outdoor wear look prissy.

(Cue hot techno runway music) "This scrumptious confection of a coat is by Outward Hound. It is rain-resistant, sports a convenient poo-bag pocket and reflective trim. It comes in lipstick red to match Annie's hot-hot greyhound-style collar."

Since she is Annie, she didn't fight the fitting. She just looked worried as usual (see picture). But taking her out walking was a little more difficult. She didn't think going outside dressed like that was a good idea at all. However, I insisted.

It's not raining buckets or snowing today, but I feel bad when it is. I get all bundled up while she stands there waiting to get soaked. Usually, once I open the door and show her the lousy weather, she tries to turn around and convince me that she can hold it for another day or two, no problem. So I'm doing this for her. She will thank me for this. Dammit.

Out we go, me pulling the leash, and Annie walking in tiny, careful steps as if she had pantyhose down around her knees, and looking around, hoping that the neighbor dogs don't see her like this.

After a while the pantyhose effect wore off a little and she was able to get used to the feel of the coat, although I still think she's concerned about her image. I think she was glad it was dark. Little does she know it's going back on tomorrow morning.

Shut up, it's for her own good!

Welcome, Anonymous

I noticed today while commenting on my own blog (that sounds ickier than it was) that I haven't been accepting anonymous comments. I've also noticed (Hello, Vanilla) that anonymous comments can be quite interesting.

And if my pigletish nature attracts similar types, then this blog would have the most comments to lose by rejecting commenters who may be too timid to leave a name.

So this blog now accepts comments from all you anonymi out there.

A joke courtesy of Liam McEneaney

I'm sure he won't mind:

"I like Triscuits. They're one scuit better than regular biscuits."

For more, see www.kidliam.blogspot.com.