Legal vandalism

(The 2nd line, assuming you could read the 1st, says “I see nothing”)

One cool thing about getting your walls painted is that you can write on them before they get repainted (or if what you write will be hidden for 20 years, as described here).

I’m getting my bedroom ceiling drywalled and the whole room painted soon, so I’ve been getting stuff out of the room, off the walls, etc.

I also left a note to the drywall guy by writing it on the wall. I forgot how FUN it is to do that!!

It feels so “bad,” like  you ’shouldn’t do it except you CAN, ’cause it’s YOUR house, YOUR wall and (most important) it will be repainted soon!

I also left notes for the painter about what nail holes to keep/cover, notes to the ceiling dude about patching something else, can you also attach my headboard to my bed, etc. All on the wall!

It felt so bad. It felt so good. Yet another of life’s contradictions, summed up in something I would’ve gotten in trouble for if I’d done it when I was a little kid.

I also had a flashback to trying to play with my dad’s carpenter’s pencils and not understanding what their point was. Well – duh – it was so you could write on walls!! (yeah, yeah, and all those carpenter-y things too — I know)

(says “time to paint” if you can see through the dirty lens and the dust)

I’m going to get some more painting done just so I can write notes on the walls.

 

Enough of the real world already (another of the Poopy Diaper Chronicles)

I had to call the ‘animal disposal unit’ today.

Until last night, Fanny hadn’t proven to be the great hunter that Allie (the cat) had been.

Like I said though, that was until last night.

Fanny has a couple of “habits” that bug me:  she also barks at nothing (lack of intelligence being another thing that bugs me too I guess) and she licks a lot.

Example: My dad, was over here the other day and said he let her lick the back of his hand and timed it at 2 minutes. (Can’t imagine why I’m such a geek either)

Anyway, I digress.

She was barking last night and I went to get her. Well, she was outside barking at an acorn or something but there was a BIG dead rabbit on the doorway leading from the porch outside.

Lord.

I got her inside but realized that she’d have to go out another coupla times before the night was over.

Usually I just leave the back door open or closed just enough so her nose can open it, but obviously I didn’t want a rabbit carcass presented on my  living room floor, so I had to firmly close the door each time I let her out and check every once in a while.

Not a problem when you’ve got a chew toy waiting for you though. Blood…mmmm

Anyway, called the ‘animal disposal unit’ when I woke up this morning today. Let’s just say there was a lot less to retrieve.

Once again it was dad and the girls who comprised “the unit.” They had me bring Fanny inside, and as I shut the door I heard dad saying, “…and that’s the liver.”

I heard one of the girls going “ewwww” (but she was looking, so she’s already a better person than I). I made the mistake of opening the back door It was almost bagged and Fanny got out again.

The dad said something like “where else are they going to learn about real life?” and I told him are you effing kidding me I had plenty of “real life” without viewing innards of a dead rabbit, thank you very much.

“Well,” he says, “they won’t get to take apart and prepare a chicken because we’re vegetarian” to which I responded, “and I won’t either because I just think they’re gross and only buy the breasts.”

Don’t try to one up me buddy, just take the dead animal, ok? Not that I’m not appreciative – far from it – but if I could stand the disgustingness wanted to learn more about real life revel in my omnivorousness I would’ve taken care of the damn thing myself.

So they cheerfully bagged it and went on their merry way, saying “Remember us at the holidays.”

Again I bit my tongue, instead of saying “the last time ‘remembered you at the holidays’ nobody ever acknowledged it, not to mention actually saying thank you.”

Between the dead rabbit and my tongue-biting there is a lot of blood around here today.

no gloves – that’s a real man

 

Things that make you go ‘hmmm’

I’m not sure what this says about me or others or if it says anything about me or others but…

Based on my (totally anecdotal) experience, about 97% of the people who anthropomorphize their dogs don’t even know what the word ‘anthropomorphize’ means.

Does it indicate I’m just vocabulary-enriched but if I anthropomorphize my dog I can at least name it if I do it?

Does it indicate others aren’t vocabulary-enriched but they know they are anthropomorphizing their dogs, they just can’t put a word to it?

Does it indicate others aren’t vocabulary-enriched and they don’t know they are anthropomorphizing their dogs?

Does it indicate dog owners need to read more to develop their vocabularies?

Does it indicate I need to read less?

Does it indicate anything whatsoever?

I ask these kinds of questions because I think about them, but also sometimes at the – ahem – dog park when I (for example) see a herd of dogs running towards something (or towards nothing — they are dogs after all) I’ll say something like “it looks like the running of the bulls in Pamplona” and people look at me like I’ve just said it in Aramaic.

And I wonder why I’m not married and why the people at work think I’m so “offbeat” and “unique.” Maybe I should start saying “ain’t” more or something.

 

What I learned from NPR today

–geek alert–

I podcast several broadcasts from NPR and PRI (and I’m a member of my local station and give to the “digitize Terry Gross Fresh Air” fund every year (whyy.org) and “pay” with donations for what I podcast).

So in other words I actually paid for this information: I learned today, via one of the Fresh Air podcasts I burned to cd (cdcast?), that they make toupees (wigs??) for the crotch area. Did you know this?

They’re called merkins, and the dude she was interviewing got one because he had cancer. I did a quick search of the web and found an entry for it on Wikipedia too. They’re apparently also used in movies.

I love to learn…

That reminds me of something my sister also heard on NPR: if you eat asparagus and your urine smells afterwards it’s because you have a certain gene. Not everyone’s smells after they eat it.

Who knew? I was 45 before I found that out.

Of course, I guess if your urine doesn’t stink after you eat asparagus then you might not realize that it could even smell, not to mention that there’s a gene that could cause this.

Well, there is.  If you are special.

 

One thing I’m seriously considering getting

or maybe the apricot one

Sure there’s the $15 Walgreens’ version, and this one costs a little lot more but I want the original product because of its name.

 

What I’m looking forward to right now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another summer, another summer reading list

Well, yet again I find myself finally returning this summer’s reading for punishment – (Train your Mind, Change Your Brain — apparently I did neither) after renewing it the maximum # of times (originally checked out 6/2).

So yeah, I’ve had it checked out for about 3 1/2 months, haven’t finished it, and it’s overdue, as were at least 2 previous selections for reading for punishment: The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot and The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching.

Someone with a larger ego might be embarrassed not completing them, but nope – not me. A bit disappointed, but not embarrassed. I tried, right? And it’s not like I totally slacked off in the reading department: I did manage to catch up on several months’ worth of O, National Geographic, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, More, and read several thriller-type and just-plain-funny books…

What did you read this summer? (If it was something like Proust please don’t comment.)

 

My tv picture is so good…

…that I accidentally watched some golf today. I caught myself pretty quickly, though.

 

More from the poopy diaper chronicles

Fanny and I went to watch a friend’s child play soccer at the park down the street. Well, technically I went to watch and Fanny went ’cause she’ll go anywhere…

So the game was between the unofficial-school-of-my-suburb (which is NOT a public school, but which “everyone” sends their kids to) and another school (where friend’s kid plays).

Being that there were kids from my ‘hood there, I saw a gaggle of girls I know. They weren’t playing soccer and when they saw Fanny they ran over (of course) ’cause she’s so darn cute.

They passed her around like she was a doll or a baby or something and then (god I am so stupid sometimes) asked if they could walk her around the park.

I compromised with the girls to limit the walk to around the exterior of field, talked to their moms, locked the leash at about 5 feet, and off they went.

About 1/2 way around, I could see things were getting a little out of control. Fanny wanted to run, the girls wanted to “show” her things, pick her up, meander around like kids do, and before I knew it…

the leash had been dropped, and the Fanster was hauling as# across the soccer field. Through the game. Right through the game…

so “through the game” that they had to pause it while we did a recovery mission.

The parents, kids and I (who all knew her name by now) were all calling her, but (thanks to early training and heavy food rewards) she came towards ME when I called and once she finally heard me over the voices of everyone yelling at her to stop (duh-that SO doesn’t work).

She was almost to me when one of the dads (natch) stopped her in her tracks. I was actually a little ticked off because this was a huge test of her obedience, and she can run FAST and AWAY if she wants to…and she was thwarted mid-stream.

But I did the “walk of shame” to go get her and the game continued.

I let her dig a hole in the ball field just to get some of that energy out and give the city workers something to do with my tax money.

Note that I would kill her if she did that in MY yard. Well, in my garden anyway…

She is such an energetic little puppy.

 

Life without lappy

Have lived without my laptop 3 weeks now and am missing it more as time passes…I am at the libarry now, using the public machines, which is cool, but it’s not the same as having it at home…

Here’s what I miss:

• gizmodo.com
• lifehacker.com
• consumerist.com
• tmz.com (I’m ashamed. Shallow, but ashamed)
• unclutterer.com
• netvibes.com

What I knew I’d miss and now I really miss:

• tvguide (What am I missing on my local PBS digital stations? What will I miss because I don’t know about it? Is The Office on next week or another stupid “reality” show?)
• podcasts: (I am so far behind in downloading audio I wouldn’t get to for another year anyway but now I won’t even know what I’ve missed ’cause it’ll drop off the list and I’m too lazy to go to the websites and see what was on.)
• Ability to download more podcasts to phone, cd, mp3 player
• Same with music (am over Poco for a while)
• Looking up stuff on the fly (Who was that author on the radio? Wonder what’s on sale at Target this week? What’s the difference between cayenne, red, chili peppers? When is my library book due?)
• Online bill paying
• Even my (offline) ‘Come to Hayzeus’ (talk it out) with my budget
• Missed the last 2 episodes of Samantha Who and it’s bugging me.
• Blogging: I’m actually not sure I miss it. While I always have something to say (no big surprise there, eh?) and moments of inspiration (no really!) and the desire to let it out on “paper,”  work is sucking the life out of me and what’s left is taken by the Fanster. Not to mention it’s summer and I like reading on the back porch and/or going to the pool…

 

Texting with John M.

Recent text session with friend’s 9-year-old son (using older brother’s phone):

Him: Sup

Me: Gettin’ haircut and dye job. This is John? <ed. note: He has been known to attempt to snow me and say it’s his sister, so I have to verify. Soon to come: secret word>

Him: Yes

Me: Sup with you? Got your homework done? What are the sibs doing? How does your mom like her job? Kiss your dad for me.

Him: Good

 

Quick update during lunch

• Lappy needs new mobo so haven’t had use of laptop except at work to check email, at sister’s a couple of x, and at the libarry once for 2+ weeks (gasp pant).
• Fanny, “grandpa” and I start Beginning Adolescent Puppy Training tonight. Told the teacher I had to withdraw because of needing new motherboard but she said she loves Fanny and really wants us to come so will comp us the class!
• Saw Julie and Julia and it reinvigorated my dormant desire to move to Paris. But not to cook.
• Sometime during the last few weeks my blog got its 13,000 hit, no thanks to the active writing I’ve been doing…but thanks to you all.
• My developer is leaving me and I am despondent.
• Got hit on by someone (in a what-most-people-would-think-was-a-good way) and I ran away from him (really a fast walk).
• Garden looks great despite me.
• For the 2nd time in my adult life, my mother told me I should be someone’s friend because THEY need me. Not because I want their friendship and despite the fact that each is toxic, but more like because they are toxic and (basically) because it’d be more “christian” of me to lose my mind and whatever trust I have in humanity just so these sad people could call to itchbay and moan while they’re effed up. I guess their sanity is more important than mine…
• (Almost as if to prove the above point she says…) Sometimes I think I hear one of my cats meowing to come inside. I did have them for 15 years though, so cut me some slack on the sanity thing, ok?
• Punishment reading for this summer: Train your mind train your something. I can’t remember the title but it’s about how Buddhists have helped scientists understand brain plasticity.
• Read any post from the last 2 summers, and as long as it doesn’t have to do with the cats, it probably could apply to this summer too.

 

It’s all semantics

Hear on news which was on in the background, so I don’t have an attribution, but someone just said that Cheney had “served with fidelity.”

Well, just ’cause you’re “faithful” in your marriage doesn’t mean you’re not pinching the admins. on the butts when they walk by…

 

search results

When I searched for “So you want to start a dog park” (actual book name) on Amazon the second result I got back was “So You Want To Be A Woman: A Transse!uals’s Guide.”

 

poopy diaper chronicles or “OMG I am living ‘Groundhog Day’”

I was thinking about doing Twitter, because I frequently have random thoughts that would be perfectly suited to Twitter’s über-haiku format. But then I think “what if I only have 2 followers?” and I think I would get depressed about that.

And then I thought about doing Facebook, because even some of my (ahem) uncles have been harassing me about not having a page. But I don’t need something else to suck my time away, and I don’t want to be in touch with anyone from high school except the one I’m in touch with, and I’m not going to be “friending” my boss, so WTF? I can’t even stay in touch with friends in the real world, so now I should be “friends” in the cyberworld?!

I guess I could use it to post pix and what – only – a- parent – thinks – is -perfectly – adorable- ramblings about my dog  (the Poopy Diaper Chronicles?) and do some mini-twitters (something about a wall in FB? Mine would always say ‘Marie/y is walking her dog’), but I hear FB is addictive, and if there’s one thing that someone who quit smoking 6 years, 5 months, and 29 days ago does not need is something to become addicted to.

And then I review my life over the last couple of months, and it’s “all puppy all the time” (“and did I tell you she can stay ‘down’ for more than 10 seconds now? and she has the attention span of a butterfly?”)

yawwwwnnnnn – the Poopy Diaper Chronicles

Or possibly worse, with the exception of a no-holds-barred job hunt to move down South, I am living virtually the same life I was last year at this time: bitching about grass growing in the garden and not in the yard, working too much (although this year I have the punishment of making less money—yeah yeah, I know…at least I have a job–whatever–tell it to my 401k), walking the dog (albeit a new dog) all the time, talking about my grandmother’s Eureka Princess vacuum cleaner (it died btw), wondering where all the flies come from.

Sure there are a few variables, but essentially I am living Groundhog Day. Basically my life has been so rote that I don’t even have the twisted point of view to make fun of it here (or anywhere).

That was also an alarming realization – if nothing else I’ve always had my twisted perspective to see me through…

Add that to the fact that (for reasons out of my control) I haven’t had a vacation this year, nor met several goals I had for myself a year ago, and suffice it to say I had a mini-wakeup call.

So I decided that I’m going to re-frame this time in my life as a time to prepare for what lies ahead. Not that I know what that is mind you, but what I have now isn’t what I had planned…I’m not used to that – I usually meet my goals.

So for now I’m looking for cheap thrills (on every level) and am mixing it up a little: Going into work later, taking 1/2 day off, making more effort to see my friends, getting rid of toxic friends, seeing my cousin’s baby (who I keep calling my niece, but since I don’t see mine I’m adopting this one as my 3rd niece), going a different way to work, etc.

Even taking the dog somewhere different to walk, since I have walked every single street within the surrounding mile and am sick of it all. I now actually frequently drive my dog for a walk. That just seems wrong, but I don’t care. I’ll go stark, raving madder if I have to keep walking the same walk.

But yeah, I’m doing crazy stuff like that. Next thing you know I’ll be trolling for men in bars or something. Anything is possible. I just have to see the possibility through the b.s. I’m swimming in.

note to self: possible book title “Swimming in (Through?) Sh!t” – need subject

But, don’t abandon me dear reader (even those of you who’ve reduced me to your “check once a week” list). Short of an original thought, I have 50+ drafts I can always post, and stay tuned for my new dog treat name and tagline idea.

More to come but in the meantime I’ll be living a the dream.

I’m desperately trying to re-frame this time in my life as a time to prepare for what lies ahead.