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All That Really Matters, a Crack in the Armor, and Leash Training

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Sheena is a beautiful dog, but she is as stubborn and willful as she is beautiful.  We decided (or should I say Jerry decided, because I am not at all hyper like he is in the evenings) to take the dogs out on leashes, which we haven’t done for some time.  Clara and Lilo were not too bad, although Clara always does better on a leash with her harness.  I should have taken the extra minute or two to put Clara in her harness.  I refuse to use choke chains or pinch collars on my dogs, although I’ve seen a lot of people who handle Malinois use choke chains or pinch collars to keep the dogs under better control.   Clara simply wants to run.  The aim is to get her to stay back and walk politely which she does when she knows she has the harness on and I can pull her back if I need to.  Lilo was her usual self, laid back and trotting along with her peculiar little bow-legged, sideways gait.  I wonder sometimes if she tracks sideways because she’s cross-eyed or because she’s bow-legged, or maybe a combination of both.

The few times I’ve had Sheena on her leash she has been relatively obedient for me.  She does surprisingly well in spite of her lack of socialization and formal training.  Then again, Sheena is a bit of a cling-on with me anyway, so that makes leash training, even with a conventional collar, a breeze.  Until Jerry takes her leash.

Sheena did not want to be on the leash with Jerry.  I can’t blame her.  I don’t like it either, and he only has me leashed in a figurative way.  I had Clara, and without her harness she was enough of a handful.  So Sheena decided that if she had to be with Jerry, she was simply going to sit and dig her big, splayed feet into the ground.  I never knew this about Huskies until we got Sheena.  They have huge, insulated, clompy paws that are reminiscent of polar bears’.  Sheena is a huge klutz on dry land, but surprisingly graceful on snow and ice.  Sheena, however, does not do anything Sheena does not want to do. It’s funny.  She’s just as stubborn as Jerry is.

Yesterday was a very pleasant day.  Steve-o got rid of that monstrosity of a hoopty Mitsubishi that I had been hoping he would do ever since he ended up with that piece of mess.  Somebody was even dumb enough to give him money for that POS, which I welcome, but fail to understand.   Now all I need to hear from him is that he’s spending his weeks keeping up his GPA, and his weekends cooking up that taco meat and shoveling it into those tacos and burritos.  I don’t want him to work at Taco Bell forever, but a few hours or so on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays- until  he finishes school- is not too much to ask.   If he could do 20 or 30 hours a week at $9 an hour, that would certainly help, and they don’t even have to train him because he’s worked there before.  Then he can worry about buying his own food and gasoline and cigarettes for a change.

Adding to yesterday’s pleasantness, I had an unexpected, but welcome, conversation with an old friend.  I still have a heart in there somewhere after all.  I know, I know, how things could have, should have been. Wish in one hand and crap in the other, which one fills up first- but it’s nice to know that old connection is still there, and that I do have at least one friend that is thicker than water.   Since my true friends are few and far between and delightfully rare, as I have said before, I should take care not to neglect them.

Memory and imagination both serve me well- probably too much so- but hearing a voice from the past and even engaging in surface-level pleasantries was a rare delight.  There are a lot of people I have to talk to and with out of necessity, but very few I enjoy talking with.  I hope sometime in the near future that we can talk in private over dinner and a drink rather than a little too publicly over the phone, but that might be a bit hard for me to take.  I would be the one in need of the leash instead of the dogs, and that’s not a place where I need to go.

Balance is the key word.  Usually I am quite the example of reserve and restraint, but it’s been a long time since- well, a lot of things- but I miss intelligent conversation the most.  I also miss being treated like a lady and not just someone’s housekeeper/babysitter/gofer/indentured servant.   There is something to be said for spending an evening in civilized conversation with a friend versus spending an evening effectively alone cranking up the MP3 player with the noise-cancelling headphones to drown out the lovely infernal racket of Drunk and Stupid meets Boxcar Willie. 

I have to be careful how far I let my mind wander, and I need to set some boundaries on just how much lingering in the garden of memory I’m allowed.  Still, there’s nothing like a bit of an oasis in a very hot, vast desert.

I have to find a balance between maintaining those relationships that challenge me and energize me (very few and far between) and tossing the albatrosses around my neck overboard.  I tend to forget when to toss the albatross.

I’m too old to start over even if I could, and whatever fiery passions of youth I once had are pretty well extinguished.  As the old joke says, “In my youth I wanted a nice BMW.” -” Today I’ll settle for it without the W. ” 

Besides, anyone interested in dinner and conversation with a crusty old cougar like me has likely long-since been relegated to the “coyote-style” crowd, so crossing the line in a carnal fashion is highly unlikely to occur.  It’s not as if I am still some horny teenager or twenty-something, and all of my friends are significantly older than me.   Hopefully the POMC is enjoying “Willie on Demand” while he can (even though in conscience I can’t approve of him fornicating) because there will come a day when Johnson won’t stand at attention any more. 

Unless of course, by the time Steve-o gets old, Medicare is still paying for geezers’ pecker pumps.  That would be his luck.

Not Very Nice (but Hilarious as Hell) Observations of the Unwashed Masses

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I have friends who send me the “People of Walmart” picture collections all the time.  I do find them funny, largely because anyone who ventures out in public looking like that deserves to have their picture posted online ad nauseam and to infinity, if for no other reason than to send a message.  Some people actually have standards, such as keeping one’s butt crack  covered and out of public view. (Steve-o….)  I can’t blame Steve-o for crashing out on the couch, but I can get the pic of his exposed midriff.  He can literally sleep anywhere, which can be fun to both watch and document.

On Sunday, when I was in Marion, Steve-o and I decided to go to Taco Bell, which hopefully was a good thing, because I think he has talked them in to having him work there again on the weekends.   I get culture shock every time I go back up to Marion.  Closer to home, I’m used to seeing foreigners and what I would consider “sophisticated freaks.”  Up there, the freak element is usually morbidly obese, poorly dressed, and always White Trash.   

Sunday was no exception.  I was surprised I noticed her before Steve-o did, but then he is more acclimated to the ways of the Rural Ohio Redneck, because he lives in Marion and goes to school in Lima.  It’s sort of like Deliverance- only without the mountains, canoes or banjos.  There’s not much else to do in rural small towns except to eat and fornicate, so one can expect to see a lot of fat people doing a lot of breeding, especially the ones who don’t have cable.

Steve-o is not a “little guy.”  He’s 6’1″ and somewhere between 180# and 190#.  Up there, however, he is often dwarfed by the women.  One thing I like about going back up there is that by comparison I’m downright petite.  

This chick had at least 150# on Steve-o and probably an inch or two of height as well.  I didn’t take a pic of her out of fear that since she was in an eating establishment she might mistake me for food.  I don’t know where she found such massive pajama bottoms with this print, although Walmart is renowned for the variety of styles in their Plus Size collection.  She had to be a 5X at least.  Now I know who’s buying the size 20 underwear.  Why, oh why, does any clothing manufacturer sell size 20 women’s undies in the thong style?  What’s the point?  I understand that it might take a few yards of material to craft a “brief” style panty (although there’s nothing “brief” about an ass the size of a Toyota Corolla) in that size, but the coverage factor would be well worth it.   If one really wants a 5X thong it would be more cost effective to go to the Tractor Supply store and buy a 25′ spool of rope.  Better yet, for the tiny bit of good it might do, as far as coverage goes, just go commando.  It would spare others the visual of getting to see your thong-string as well as your gut when you get up and stretch and yawn.  Woof.

I had to watch this heifer’s Taco Bell feeding orgy with a sort of a combination of disgust and awe.  I tried to avert my eyes but I simply had to watch, sort of like when there’s a car wreck. You know you shouldn’t stop and gawk, but you just do.   I never knew it was possible to cram two whole tacos in a human (?) mouth at one time, only to munch, chug Mountain Dew, and still manage to carry on a conversation.  The two tacos were only an appetizer.  I gazed in muted horror as She-Behemoth inhaled an order of Nachos Bell Grande, a steak quesadilla, a few burritos, a  box of 12 supreme tacos, with sour cream and guacamole, and a Mountain Dew with a few refills.  Thankfully I am not one who is easily nauseated.  Steve-o (thankfully, or I’d never been able to keep a straight face) was facing the opposite direction of the She-Behemoth during her cram-fest so he didn’t get an eyeful of her power taco-stuffing adventure.  He is not easily nauseated either, but he is also even less likely than I am to hold back his commentary on such a disgusting visual.  I could only hope that if he did see and inevitably comment, that he would be kind enough to comment in German, so at least he would be the only one to understand that he was making crude references to the table manners of feeder swine.

I managed to eat my chili-cheese burrito without much incident.  Steve-o did glance over and see She-Behemoth when he was on his way out, as she was stretching, yawning, and exposing a rather large bare patch of her rather porcine gut (and what I believe was -gag- the string of her thong.)  All he did was look away and shudder.  He saved his commentary for when we got in the car.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him what watching her eat was like.

Now I know why I normally go through the drive-thru at places like Taco Bell, so I don’t have to sit down to eat and feel as if I am in a hog barn observing the sows suck down the slop.

It is sort of cruel to make fun of the large.  I am not rail-thin by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s a difference between being large and being crude and large.  If you have big meaty arms, wear tops with sleeves.  Do the general public a favor and don’t confuse tights or leggings with pants.  If your top doesn’t completely cover your butt, don’t wear it with tights or leggings.  Tight jeans are for Steve Perry in the early ’80’s.  If you don’t look like that, and if you aren’t a dude, don’t go there. 

If I had a time machine…

Another disturbing trend I notice when I’m out in public is there must be a dire shortage of mirrors.  Either that or I’m just old and it has become socially acceptable to go out while wearing house slippers and/or pajamas in general.  I really try to save others from that visual. 

I can stand the PJ parade a lot better than I can the Piercings and/or Tats Gone Wild crowd.  What could possibly compel someone to tattoo his entire arm to look green and scaly like a lizard?  I saw a Target “Team Member” (cringe– any place that has euphemistic names for their employees such as “Associate,”  “Team Member,” etc. is almost always a dreadful place to work, and I’ve commented on that phenomenon before) yesterday who had this done to his left arm.  He was a nice looking young kid at one time- probably even magically delicious- before the 1 1/2″ earrings, before the nose rings, before the lip rings, and I don’t even want to speculate on piercings or tats in other areas.  Maybe that’s why he ended up a stock boy at Target instead of a Chippendale’s dancer.

I have to wonder how many tats are inspired by a little too much drinky-drinky?

The Three “Esses,” a Walk in the Graveyard, and a Limited Time Offer

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I always knew that guys had it easier in regard to a lot of every day things.  Their morning get-ready routine goes as follows: Shit. Shower. Shave., which are known collectively as “The Three Esses.”    No fussing about with makeup or hair styling or any of that noise.  Their haircuts cost less.  They don’t have to fuss over clothing choices (usually) and generally aren’t that picky as to whether or not their clothing is clean.  It took me years to convince Steve-o that sniffing the crotch of one’s pants is not an acceptable method to discern the difference between “soiled” and “fresh.”   They eat anything as long as it contains the three food groups- caffeine, nicotine, sugar and grease, remembering always that alcohol is a sugar.

The bad thing is that some of the guys I know probably have to have someone write down the Three Esses on their bathroom mirror, lest they forget them.  Of course I would have to add a bit of a dental hygiene regimen to that- please brush your teeth, and Listerine is not a bad idea either!

I finally figured out what the major advantage is to being born male:

When a male child is born it is as if the universe makes a statement to him. You are made exempt from household chores by the magical power of possessing the Twig and Berries!  Schwing! Jerry never literally spelled it out that way, but in practical application he might as well have. A swinging Johnson apparently gets nearly half of the human population out of a LOT of work.

I did manage to take a nice, long wander about in the Marion Cemetery yesterday.  I dumped a lot of the crap in my memory card (several times) and still didn’t scratch the surface as to cool old gravestones to take pics of.  The angel (above) really struck me.  I hadn’t noticed it there before, but the entire cemetery is about two square miles which is a lot of wandering about.  Most of my wanderings yesterday were in the old / high faluting part of the cemetery with the really over the top monuments.  For those who think old ostentatious grave markers are really way cool also, you can view the slideshow on Shutterfly .  Nobody did death like the Victorians.

I was shocked by the number of stillborn infants, very young children, and women who died in their early-to-mid twenties, though I shouldn’t have been.  In the 19th and early 20th centuries one in four women died in childbirth and infant mortality was at times almost 50%.   Usually there were no causes of death on the gravestones except for the some of the Civil War Veterans who were killed in action.

I find this one particularly sad.  Either Wallie was an only child, his parents had a lot of money, or both.  It’s beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

Life is a limited time offer.  I guess that is the lesson to take away from an afternoon in the graveyard.

Lust?  What’s that?

Oh, yeah.  It’s been a very long time.

 

Dingleberry’s Doppleganger, Coyotes, the Tree Hugger Manifesto, and Passive-Aggressive Vindication

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First, a disclaimer.  Jerry (first pic) is NOT Mexican or Hispanic in any way, is 53, not 43, and has never been anywhere near San Jose in his life.  I think the furthest west he’s ever been in his entire life is Indianapolis.  I think he has been to Florida a couple of times, but he’s no regular traveler by any measure.  This being said, in spite of his ancestry (one or two English people- and a lot of Cherokee Indians) he bears a downright frightening resemblance to Mr. Arias pictured in the missing kids hotline ad. 

I’ve gotten my passive-aggressive vindication for the day.

I am glad once I encountered Jerry whilst he was sober he admitted that getting rid of my car is not a viable option to save on household expenses.  I could pinch pennies here and there but my penny pinching would likely be counter productive at the end of the day.  I’m not giving up bathing, shaving, other superfluous hair removal, or hair color.  Nor am I giving up my nails.

I thought about some of the tree-hugger suggestions to conserve resources.  I am thrifty by nature (and almost to a fault at times, out of necessity) which is in agreement with some of the tree-hugger suggestions.  I consolidate errands.  I try to reduce, recycle and reuse when doing so saves me a buck, and it usually does.  I drive the most fuel-efficient  conventional gasoline internal combustion car available (can’t afford a hybrid- neither the initial cost nor the higher maintenance costs, same goes with diesel- too expensive to maintain) today.  However, I can see where some of the tree-hugger manifesto items prove either impractical or too expensive which sort of defeats the purpose.  I can understand the concept of living better with less- that’s just common sense and good strategy.  I draw the line at such things as:

1. Bury your car. 

   Over my dead body.

14. Spend a month tree-sitting.

   Outside with all the bugs, exposed to the sun where my Super White, melanin-free skin tone will turn to blisters, freckles and splotches within minutes?  Bug bites and skin cancer?  I think not.

30. Go to jail for something you believe in.

   Last time I checked, my beliefs (though unpopular in some circles) and activities are not illegal.  Therefore I would have no need, or desire, to go to jail for anything.

31. Don’t own pets.

   WTF????? I think that would be worse than the tree-hugger suggestion to not have kids.  Besides, we humans domesticated these animals.  We are responsible for caring for them- including neutering or spaying our own pets to keep populations in line.

44. Stop using toilet paper or Kleenex, use washable cloth.

  WTF again!  Once I’ve wiped my nether regions with it I don’t want it back even if it has been washed and Clorox’d, which sort of defeats the “saving resources” idea, eh?

47. Democratize your workplace, start a union or collective.

   Unions destroyed my hometown. I can go on ad nauseam on that one, believe it.  Granted, there’s no air pollution there any more, but there are also no jobs.  What point is having a pristine environment when everyone has to move somewhere else in order to work and sustain themselves?  Why did all the Ohio manufacturing jobs end up in southern Right to Work states? 

49. Liberate a zoo.

  Sure…and let’s see how those exotic animals from tropical climes fare here in the Central Ohio swamp– oh I mean, wetlands– against the mercurial weather changes we have here- not to mention the voracious appetites of native coyotes. Canis latrans is in no danger of extinction here anytime soon, even without any tree-hugger assistance.  Liberating the zoos would give the coyotes a few days’ bonus chow, but they really aren’t hurting for grub to begin with.

Sometimes the tree-huggers make some sense, but other times they display the impractical vapid and uninformed idealism of small children.  Who hasn’t heard little kids say such silly things as “Why can’t two boys get married,?” or “When I grow up I’ll never take a bath again.”  Usually kids wise up as they grow up- they learn that in order to procreate one needs involve the opposite sex, and that bathing is one of those means to gain entry into polite society.

Part of the extreme tree-hugger syndrome in my opinion is a refusal to grow up.  The world is not Sesame Street, and even on Sesame Street (I’m amazed I can remember this far back) Bert and Ernie were not married, and they did take baths. 

So there. 

Now that freaking “Rubber Ducky” song is stuck in my head. Damn.

The element that is missing in all the “Save the World” rhetoric is balance.  The reality is that society has not developed a working, viable substitute for the petroleum-fueled internal combustion engine. I don’t say this because my livelihood is in the automotive industry.  There are alternative systems and alternative fuels in development, and I’ll be glad to see it, especially if they involve renewable resources, but they are not commercially viable yet.  This being stated the practical and balanced approach to the oil question should be: obtain, refine and distribute petroleum products using the most cost-effective and environmentally sound methods that are available and practical.  It CAN be done and should have been done years ago.  It is a matter of national security- sorry, tree-huggers- that domestic oil reserves need to be accessed NOW regardless of the litigation happy NIMBYs who whine and cry about it. 

As far as natural selection goes for all you strict Darwinists out there, species have come and gone long before humanity and will come and go long after humans go the way of the dinosaurs.  The species that survive are those who adapt, like Central Ohio coyotes.  I don’t think oil drilling will disturb the coyotes one bit.  Nor will it disturb the hawks or turkey buzzards or the squirrels and chipmunks.  There are species that will go extinct regardless if humans intervene or not- but many species have become far more successful because of humans.  I can think of a few:

Canis lupus familiaris  (easy one- domestic dogs)

Felis domestica (another easy one- house cats)

Rattus norvegicus (not so easy- sewer rats)

Mus musculus (house mice)

Columba livia (pigeons- the “flying rats” of urban lore)

Procyon lotor (raccoons)

Pediculus humanus, also Pthirus pubis (head lice and body “crabs”)

Periplaneta americana (American cockroaches)

and of course, our coyote friends, Canis latrans.

It’s “Be Thankful It Isn’t Any Worse” Day!

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With a tip of the hat to my fellow cynics and assorted other ne’er-do-wells like me, I’ve come to the conclusion that I should set aside a day to be thankful that things aren’t any worse.  For instance, if for some bizarre reason I were single and decided to troll the wonderful world of online dating, something like the above picture would be bound to show up, less the dog of course, as the dog would be his only redeeming feature.  I can just imagine the troll that some dating service would inevitably choose for me would actually look somewhat like the fashion-challenged ginger above, but would have a profile picture that looks something like this:

So much for truth in advertising. Of course, if he really did look like this, he’d have to be gay.  Straight men are never that hot.  So I should be grateful that Jerry is not nearly hot looking enough to be gay.  We all know what happened to the ugly gay guy. He had to date girls.

I am also thankful that I am sitting here in beautiful Central Ohio.  The weather here usually sucks to some degree, in some sort of way, but one thing we don’t get here are tsunamis.  If there were ever to be a tsunami massive enough to hit Columbus, rest assured that most of the rest of the world has been knocked out too.  We do get floods (frequently, but localized) and tornados, and snow storms on a regular basis, which can be bad enough, but even in the worst of the recent Downtown floods, I’ve never seen anyone in German Village floating on their house ten miles out at sea.  Granted, the Great Flood of 1913 was really bad, see the pics here , but that was before the Army Corps of Engineers built the series of dams and reservoirs on the Scioto and Olentangy Rivers.  I have seen Infiniti Q45s towed in filled up to the belt moldings (where the window glass meets the door) with poo-filled sewer water, and a whole shipment of used Corollas acquired in a rather shady auction deal with bizarre electrical problems and shift consoles packed in flood mud, but that’s pretty piddly compared to what’s going on in Japan.

There can be earthquakes in the Midwest, but generally the Central Ohio area is a geologically stable zone.  We likely wouldn’t get severe damage if the New Madrid Fault were to generate earthquakes as it did in 1895.  It would, however, really suck anywhere along the Mississippi or Ohio Rivers.

At least I’ve not gotten motivated to get these memos (yet):

I haven’t descended into that dark a level of depravity.  It would be fun to see the expressions on certain people’s faces should they receive such a memo though.

I am thankful for flush toilets and for not having to use them outside.  The thought of having to use an old time latrine or outhouse like we had to do at the Girl Scout camp is downright frightening.  There’s something most off-putting about having to a.) use a flashlight to get to the latrine, then once you find the latrine you have to b.) shine the flashlight in and around the hole to check for unauthorized insect, arachnid and reptile life, and c.) smell the acrid stench of hundreds of other people’s decomposing urine and feces.   To add fuel to that fire, I’ve not entirely overcome my fear of flying and crawling insects or wayward arachnids.  Reptiles never really bothered me, probably because there aren’t very many venomous species in Central Ohio.  Usually on the rare occasion anyone happened upon a snake, it was a small, harmless garter snake.  There are copperheads and rattlesnakes, but both copperheads and rattlesnakes are fairly rare and are found mostly down south.  Nothing terrified me more as a child (and everything terrified me) than flying, stinging insects.  I hated them- bees, wasps, hornets, anything with wings and a stinger- and there is no shortage of any winged stinging insect around here in summer, especially mosquitoes- believe that.  I can thank my sisters for that hyped-up terror, as they found it most amusing to throw flying, stinging insects in my hair.  

I’m thankful that not too many people would find it amusing to throw live wasps in my hair today.  Cougardom has its advantages.  So does short hair.

I’m thankful I don’t drink anymore, therefore I am not subject to hangovers.   I am still subject to Jerry’s “drunk and stupids” followed by the sappy, lingering,  pathos of his hangovers, but there is humor to be found in that, so it’s a wash.

I am also thankful that there will soon be a day when we no longer have to hear about Obama.

I am thankful that there will be a day when Steve-o is out of school, gainfully employed and fully financially independent of the parental units.  The sad part about that is he will probably move down South and then I’ll only see him on holidays.  But that will give me an excuse for a road trip and somewhere to go on vacation, so that has its advantages as well.   I might not be terribly averse to retirement in the South, as long as he doesn’t move into some backwater holler straight out of Deliverance.   I like living in the city despite the crowds and traffic.  You can find things like food and medical care and employment a whole hell of a lot easier in the city.

I don’t get to travel and stay in hotels, therefore I don’t have bedbugs.

I have three nice warm dogs who love me even when everyone else on the planet is screwing me over.  I think I saved the best for last.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things (Yeah, Right…)

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Cooking, I don’t mind.  I am a good cook, thanks to both of my grandmothers (God rest their souls) and the fact that I did the cooking and cleaning at home from the time I was 12, when Mom had her bad back injury and couldn’t do much of anything for several months.  I sort of ended up responsible for meals and laundry and cleaning by default.  My sisters were pretty much always out either playing sports or socializing.  Since I was forbidden both by health issues and by abysmal coordination from participation in any type of organized sport, having a good excuse for getting out of the house was a lot more difficult for me.  I couldn’t actually live at the library even though I spent plenty of time there. 

As an aside, I truly wonder if my heart valve damage would have been bad enough to make me drop dead from playing basketball like that poor kid in Michigan.  Is a “sports physical” for middle school or high school sports really anything more than simply checking to make sure you can breathe and have a pulse?  If that’s all that’s done, I probably could have passed a “sports physical” had I attempted it (not that I would!) because my valve defects are not always audible.   Even if I would have kept my mouth shut about having heart valve damage from rheumatic fever and went through gym class in spite of having the Doctor’s Note (oh, thank God for the Doctor’s Note that released me from that humiliation) would it really have made a difference?  I’d probably sat on the bench most if not all the time anyway.  I should have asked the cardiologist who did my echocardiogram back in 2001, just for my own personal curiosity.  I’ve been warned about getting my heart rate too high because I have an irregular heart beat and I’ll pass out- but I’m allowed to do all the swimming, walking and bike riding I want.  Unless I pass out, that is.

I didn’t do too much socializing either, other than avoiding getting my ass kicked, until I got a car.  Having a car- even one as distressed as that poor Subaru DL- afforded me both protection and people to party with, which was nice.   I am thankful for spending a good part of my teen years learning how to cook, fry, stew, bake, and make decent gravy. When it comes to acquiring Life Skills, nothing facilitates learning like being tossed in the trenches.  I know when I moved out Dad really missed those home-cooked meals.  Taco Bell just isn’t the same.

Cleaning is not one of my favorite things by a long shot.  There’s something about being awakened to way too many of Mom’s late night cleaning frenzies that has put me off of power scrubbing forever.  Especially because she is one of those types who worries about the crap you can’t see.  I am not going to lose sleep over dust bunnies under furniture, dog hair under the carpet, or that sort of thing.  I like clean laundry, a clean bathroom and kitchen and relatively clean floors, but I don’t have to Clorox the entire house every other day like she used to do.   I have a job and a life.  I also have dogs.  Large dogs.  Large dogs with hair.  The only time the dog hair issue really gets disgusting is in Spring and Fall when they blow their coats.  Sheena for some reason- probably due to the stress of her spay/partial mastectomy surgery- blew her coat in January, so I don’t anticipate her Spring blowout to be terribly severe.  Lilo is always an adventure because of her intense hatred for either bathing or brushing.  Thankfully she doesn’t have a really outrageously thick coat like Sheena does.  Clara’s seasonal coat blowings are barely even noticeable (gotta love that Malinois coat) and even if she were a heavy shedder, she adores being de-haired with the blade.

For those unfamiliar with the use of the shedding blade, it’s not cruel.  It’s actually a Godsend for short-to-medium haired dogs.  You glide the serrated edge of the blade with the grain of the dog’s coat, and all the loose undercoat, etc. is just peeled right off.  If Clara had her way, I could brush her out with the blade for hours on end.  The blade does not work well with long haired dogs, or dogs with heavy undercoats, such as GSDs.  GSDs, Huskies, Chows- (i.e. Sheena and Lilo…)-heavy coated medium haired dogs- require the rake.  That sounds like a cruel implement too, but it’s not.  It just digs deeper in the coat to remove all the loose undercoat.

Sheena is quite fine with being raked out, which is nice, because she has that ungodly wooly Husky undercoat.  Lilo also has a thick undercoat but she is incredibly body sensitive so I let Jerry go after her with the rake, and with the bathing.  None of our dogs like water.  I find it funny when we take the dogs near any body of water.  They all avoid getting wet, as if the water was hot acid, especially Lilo.  That is particularly amusing – our dogs cautiously avoiding the water- as we watch other people helplessly getting dragged into the drink by their Labradors.   Never take a Labrador to a body of water unless you are planning on either you or the dog or both getting wet. 

Sometimes the girls just plain get gamey. In spite of their dislike of water they must be bathed on occasion, which inevitably ends up with me, a boat load of towels, and the entire bathroom being thoroughly saturated. (Another reason why I need a working dryer!)  Clara tolerates her bath.  Clara is compliant, but she doesn’t like anything to do with getting wet, and she’s very glad when it’s done.   Sheena is mildly uncooperative with her bath and requires a little elbow grease to keep her contained.  Lilo positively despises being bathed, and has to be physically picked up and placed in the tub, but the last time I was able to keep her under control and get her reasonably clean. 

This is the reason why I never, ever touch the undersides of tables or desks- or the sides of bathroom stalls for that matter.  I remember way too many study halls in high school watching the gross kids scrape their boogers under the ledge of the desk. 

We had a particularly sadistic English teacher (thankfully he wasn’t smart enough to teach AP English, so I never had him for class) who was also a wrestling coach.  When he monitored study halls he liked to slam books on the desks to wake anyone who thought about sleeping.  I wonder if he quit or if he was fired for (allegedly) knocking up those cheerleaders.  That was back before DNA technology could scientifically pin him down as The Baby Daddy, as opposed to being maybe one chance in five, so I would assume the former.  I doubt if those dingbats even knew for themselves who the baby daddies really were.  The key to blaming one guy for being The Baby Daddy is to only do the horizontal mambo with one guy- unless you’re up for DNA tests on Montel, which was not possible back in the mid 1980’s.

I usually occupied myself by reading or drawing on the rare occasions my schedule allowed me a study hall.  I was very good at hiding my National Lampoons and MAD magazines inside of Scientific American (which I also read) or other serious-sounding techie type magazines, to enjoy throughout a mind-numbingly boring study hall if I wasn’t already in the middle of a Stephen King novel or other “recreational reading.”  Teachers generally left me alone as they just assumed I was reading above their heads (sometimes I was) and therefore was not into “contraband.”  I liked humor and smut as much as the next person. Unlike other people who were too stupid to change the covers on risque books, I got away with reading them whenever I wanted.  I read anything I could get my hands on, but even with a collection of smutty literature that would have made a trucker blush if it were illustrated, I could not completely ignore the depraved humanity around me.  The sight of assorted unwashed losers picking, examining, and then scraping their big slimy greenies under the desks is still enough, even after all these years, to keep me from touching anything under a ledge with my bare hands.

Cautionary Tales, Timing FAIL, and High Drama

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In some ways I’m glad I can’t get into serious drinking like I used to.  An occasional glass of wine at bedtime is one thing.  Getting shitfaced and waking up on one’s best friend’s front porch- or in a motel room bathtub- is quite another.

I remember the last time I was butt drunk.   I woke up in a bathtub filled with freezing cold water, with a half-eaten Domino’s pizza on the ledge, in one of the Campbell House Motel’s rooms. The year was 1992.  I was 23.  It’s been a very long time.  I don’t miss binge drinking one bit.

I was able to score an actual pic of Jerry’s actual black eye.  Why he let me take a pic of that is beyond me, but perhaps he wants the lesson to stick for a day or two.

That’s going to look really wicked once it turns green and all that.  I offered him the use of my concealer, but the white- and it needs to be pale white-  that I use to cover up the dark circles under my eyes is probably too white for him.

Last night I almost felt sorry for him.  In retrospect I probably should have dragged him to the ER to get checked out as he likely gave himself a concussion as well as a black eye, but I didn’t have the $100 copay.  He was coherent and breathing when I got home last night, so there’s probably no permanent damage, except maybe to his dignity.  The lesson here is that binge drinking and maintaining one’s dignity are mutually exclusive.

So when he was snoring away I wasn’t going to bother him.  I turned on History Channel and proceeded to watch a fascinating episode of Modern Marvels- Corpse Tech.  I was really getting into all the stuff that can be done with dead people, like tissue donation and all that when the dogs started going nuts.  Damn, I thought, who in the hell is out front pestering me.  So I look out the door to see my sister-in-law.  Great.  Just when I thought I was going to have a quiet, relaxing evening.

She demanded to know where Jerry was.  I simply said he was in bed sick which wasn’t exactly lying.  Then she asked, “Sick how?”

I explained that he had hit his head the night before and was resting.  She didn’t buy that for a minute, and barged right on in.

“Sick, my ass!  The stupid shit got drunk and fell again, right?”

Well, she is his sister after all.  So I let her wake him up, which she did, first to give him hell about his drunken stupidity, and then to inform him that she needed her car fixed because her boyfriend hit some foreigner’s aged Nissan in the WalMart parking lot.

Take me away now, ’cause I’m hearing banjos again.

I ended up taking both her and her boyfriend home so they could leave the car.  It was probably a good thing they left the car.  It wasn’t wrecked badly- just some minor front-end damage, but the coolant reservoir was cracked and it could have overheated and then a little bit of front-end damage would have turned into front-end damage and a blown engine.  The sad part about her car is that it only has about 5,000 miles on it.  She was pretty pissed off when she got to my house, although getting to see her little brother looking like someone had beat the hell out of  him helped improve her mood quite a bit.  I bet she was every bit as sadistic as my oldest sister as a child.

My quiet evening turned into high drama yet again, and I missed the rest of the Corpse Tech episode.  Damn.  At least I made it home in time for World’s Dumbest.

Never a dull moment!

Actions Have Consequences, Social Darwinism, and Compassion for the Drunk and Stupid?

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A quick disclaimer: While Jerry is currently sporting a particularly wicked shiner, like this poor gentleman pictured above, I didn’t have the opportunity to snap a pic of the genuine article.  This guy is not Jerry.  I don’t have a clue who the dude in the pic is, but he and Jerry have matching black eyes this morning.  And I am laughing my sorry ass off.

Perhaps that is a bit cold-hearted of me, but I have absolutely no sympathy for illnesses or injuries of the self-inflicted kind.  He got shitfaced last night (no, that’s not usually news) but the humor in this is that somehow, sometime very late last night, he managed to get off the toilet and fall directly into the corner of the towel rack.  His left eye looks like something out of the Rocky movies, and he has a nice goose egg on his left temple to boot.  The cosmic justice lies in the fact that he decided to go to the hell-hole across the road to blow money on gambling tickets and get shitfaced AFTER he assured me that he didn’t mind if I went to my class and that he would stay home and behave.  Yeah, right.  Serves him right.  Even so, it was a bit heartless of me to comment that at least he didn’t injure anything important when he hit his head.

I do find it disturbing, and he should too, that a grown man of his advanced age (53) would engage in behaviors that lead to falling.  The last thing I need is for him to break a hip or something- although that would really cut down on the forays to the hell-hole.  For some reason, the book Misery by Stephen King comes to mind, although Jerry is not a famous author, and I wouldn’t even want to pretend to be a nurse, psychotic or otherwise.

The only thing that sort of concerns me is that he might try to blame me.  Then again I don’t think he’s old enough to claim elder abuse- yet.

I thought Jerry sort of learned his lesson about getting shitfaced at the hell-hole two years ago January when he pissed himself and  then passed out in the men’s room.  Where was Steve-o with his black Sharpie marker to write the word PENIS in reverse on Jerry’s forehead? Maybe waking up to being branded as a PENIS the following morning would have amplified the instructional effect.  I am a big believer in personal responsibility, and the instructional value of natural consequences, but I still have a bit of a moral/ethical problem with liquor-serving establishments who have no common sense regarding when to cut people off.  Jerry blows more money on pull-off tickets when he’s plastered, so they keep on serving him no matter how loud or obnoxious he gets.  That is my main beef with the hell-hole in general, that they take undue advantage of the drunk and stupid.  In spite of the ethical bankruptcy of the bar staff, there was some semblance of human compassion in the hell-hole that night.  Apparently someone noticed Jerry’s bar stool was getting cold, so a couple of guys had enough decency to retrieve his pickled carcass from the men’s, toss him in the back of their truck, drop him off on the front porch, and ring the bell.  Before I could get to the door to drag Jerry in, they were peeling out of the driveway.  I think they were driving an older, distressed F-150, but it was hard to tell because they were so gung-ho to get out of Dodge.  I don’t blame them.

I am thankful they did ring the bell and wake the dogs up- the bell generally won’t wake me up, few things do at 1AM, but the dogs will-  instead of just leaving Jerry on the front porch to die of hypothermia, frozen to the concrete in a puddle of his own pee.  It was only about 15 degrees (F) that night, so I think hypothermia would have come upon him rather quickly had I not dragged him in.  At least there’s linoleum in the foyer and in the kitchen.  That way I only had to mop the foyer and the kitchen floor instead of having to drag out the rug cleaner again.  There’s one for 1,000 Ways to Die.  Here’s your Darwin Award!

I’ve always believed the Lord has a soft spot for stupid people and drunks, which might explain why there are so many of both.

I try to be compassionate, but I don’t have a whole lot of compassion to begin with.  I am not a naturally warm and fuzzy person.  I’m not terribly forgiving by nature either, so it really vexes me to see someone keep on doing the same stupid shit over and over ad nauseam. 

I’d like to think that I hold myself to a higher standard than I hold others.  I usually overlook character flaws or lapses of judgment coming from others that I would not tolerate coming from me.  I don’t like to criticize others until and unless they come to the point of being incorrigible, or just downright stupid.  Drinking to shitfacedness is stupid.  It should have lost its charm for Jerry years ago, but he still hasn’t learned.

I have never bought the hoo-hah that being a drunk is a “disease.”  Cigarettes are far more addicting than alcohol (I stopped binge drinking with relative ease- but the cigarettes…that was quite another ordeal entirely) yet no one is going around calling smokers “Smokeaholics” and granting them “disease” status.   You decide to drink or not, that’s all there is to it.  I think the big difference between drinkers and smokers is that non-smokers absolutely can’t stand the smell of the smoke- so they bitch- and since there are more non-smokers than smokers, the non-smokers usually get their way. (hooray!)  Then again, I’m having a really hard time cleaning up after Mr. Happy Hour when he deposits his beer cans here there and everywhere, and when he loses control of his bladder.  It’s somewhat funny when you’re a college kid, but when you’re almost old enough to qualify for Taco Tuesday, it really loses its charm.

Maybe I’ll have to work him over with the Sharpie marker myself the next time he gets shitfaced and stupid.  That would be funny as hell.

Funky Wiring Has Its Advantages, The Un-Birthday, and Please Practice “Safe Text”

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I have to laugh.  As I was reviewing my birthday request list , I noted to my dismay that I didn’t even get the 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper.  No cougar cruise, no waterpark fun day, no three pack of Hanes Her Way hi-cut granny panties, no gas card, but it doesn’t surprise me.  My oldest sister, the childhood sadist, sent me a redneck themed card, because she gets such a hoot out of the fact that I married into the Most Redneck Family Ever.   Apparently she doesn’t understand that when you go fishing without appropriate bait you catch whatever bottom feeder the hook manages to snag.  At least she was lucky enough to look good from the neck down and was able to land a decent man.  Ironically, she treats him like shit.  It doesn’t surprise me. Apparently in relationships someone has to be the shitter and someone has to be the shittee.  I know all about #2- literally.

Mom didn’t get me as woefully inappropriate a gift as the cookie cutters.  I still don’t get why anyone would think a diabetic would want cookie cutters.  Why not the whole cake decorating kit and the candy thermometer too while you’re at it?  Mom got me a particularly nice pair of Isotoner driving gloves that actually fit my big meaty man-hands- which is surprising as it is difficult for me to find womens’ gloves that fit.  That is a useful gift.   I did get a phone call from my illustrious offspring, to remind me that February is a short month and he needed his rent money.  Although he and Jerry share no DNA whatsoever, they are both blissfully ignorant of dates.  Unless of course, there is money involved.

Dad finally remembered that he forgot my birthday last night (28th) and asked me (in all seriousness) how I liked being 44.  I reminded him that I’m only 42.  Apparently he is 23 years older than me and more senile than I am.  Now I see what I have to look forward to.  Mom at least knew she would probably forget and gave me the gloves the last time I was up there.

I happened upon a most amusing website today which really cracked me up.  Steve-o and his friends communicate almost exclusively through texting.  Steve-o is a particularly poor speller.  Most technicians are dismal spellers and poor writers- but as a trade-off, they generally have mathematical and spatial skills that far surpass mine.  It was always fun to interview techs, if only to critique the fashion and hair faux pas.  GQ, these guys ain’t.  I should have actually requested them to fill out their resumes using crayons and a Hello Kitty coloring book  just to make reading them more entertaining.  I almost always ignored their resumes, took face to face interviews with a grain of salt, and hired techs off of whatever good recommendations I could find from others in the business, combined with whether or not they could pass a BMV check.  It worked better for me that way.

This being said, I have to laugh at those who use auto-complete or other spell-check features on phones.  Those features for the lazy or inattentive generally suck- but they suck in occasionally hilarious ways.  Damn You Auto Correct is a nice little site where people post all the ridiculous ways that “smart” phones fill in the blanks. 

My funky wiring gives me a few advantages- such as speed-reading and an uncanny ability to spell correctly almost all of the time.  I don’t use auto-complete or spell-checks because I generally don’t need them.  If I really am in doubt over the spelling of a word I will usually verify it on Merriam-Webster’s site, because I truly want to be correct.  I  wouldn’t generally refer to myself as a spelling and grammar Nazi, but I do try to maintain a high personal standard.   The irony of the auto-complete and spell-check programs is that to use them effectively one has to have some sort of idea of the correct spelling or usage, otherwise one may end up with an entirely different meaning to one’s message.  Therein lies the humor.

I think double-entendre to be the most hilarious of the forms of humor.  The more off-color the reference the funnier I find it, even though it may be puerile and sophomoric.  Everyone needs a hobby, and the more things I can find to laugh at, in the depths of my pathetic life, the better. 

I have to wonder, as I troll the Damn You Auto Correct site, what the hell are the people who program the auto-correct and/or spell-check software thinking?  Is English their first language?  Or do they have as dark a sense of humor as I do?  I’d like to think the latter.  We geeks are masters at passive-aggressive revenge, and what better way to exact passive-aggressive revenge on neurotypical society than to humiliate those who struggle with the written word? Why not transform their  attempt to spell “penne” (as in pasta) to “penis?”  Who wouldn’t want to be invited over for “Salad with Vinagrette and Penis?”  I’d make a special trip for that.

Does anyone ever proofread their texts, even a little?  Or do you just hit “send” with wanton glee?

How about a little “safe text?”  Or not.  It’s funny when it gets screwed up!

The Precious Only Male Child Phenomenon

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I have to deal with three men who are precious only male children on a regular basis- Dad, (and he was the least indulged or mollycoddled of the three) Steve-o, (who was a precious only male child simply by default- he’d have been an only child regardless of his gender) and Jerry, who was the long awaited “male heir”- coming after three older sisters.

Of course Jerry was by far the most indulged, mollycoddled and downright pampered of the three.

Old traditions die hard.   We aren’t that far removed from Henry VIII’s mentality even in today’s politically correct atmosphere.  If you must procreate, society places more value on sons.   Most men are not terribly thrilled about the arrival of children to begin with, and even if they don’t admit it, daughters are particularly disappointing for them.  I would say ask my Dad, but he won’t admit it- at least not in front of me.   A man wants his offspring to look and talk and swagger like he does.  He wants a man-child to carry on his name and all that happy horseshit.

Mothers of only sons tend to be more protective of their precious only male children.  I hate to admit it but I am guilty of it too. We defend them, we indulge them, we let them get away with far too much because we understand that testosterone short-circuits their brains and makes them unable to cook, clean, pick up after themselves or remember to wash their bits and pits while showering.  We assume that other females are too capable and able to tend to their own needs for us to cater to them- and besides, they have to learn Life Skills sooner or later.  We need not explain to other females that if you don’t cook you starve, if you don’t clean you drown in squalor, and if you want something, get off your ass and get it yourself.  Women do learn faster than men.  The testosterone-addled minds of male children, (probably a good number of adult males as well) however, can’t seem to grasp the concept that meals do not cook themselves, shampooing while showering is not “optional,” and we do not choose which pair of pants to wear based on whether or not the crotch passes the “sniff test.”

I have actually said this phrase out loud, and with all sincerity:

“Steve-o, if you wore them they’re dirty.  Don’t sniff the crotch.  Put them in the wash.  NOW!”

Steve-o has actually become somewhat functional in the self-care department.  He cares too much about his sex life to neglect his hygiene. The bad point about this is he cons his girlfriend into washing his laundry for him. She’s going to get really tired of that stinky chore.

Jerry I must say has good personal hygiene for a man, but his commendable life skills pretty much stop there.

I think his brain would explode if he had to:

Brew a pot of coffee (he doesn’t drink it so he wouldn’t bother anyway)

Wash a dish

Make his own Dr. or dental appointment

Get his own scripts

What is it about precious only male children that renders them helpless and unable to function without all sorts of high-maintenance interventions?No, I don’t dress him.  Not anymore.