Most days, I think I look okay. So maybe my hair isn't salon styled perfect and my make-up hasn't been applied by Bobbi Brown herself, but I hardly think I look like a train wreck. It's just everyone in the beauty industry that thinks I do.
Recently, I decided to switch hair salons for a variety of reasons.
"What do you want?" the new guy asked me. "What's wrong with this?"
I launched into explicit detail on cut and color.
"No. I will tell you," he declared imperiously, cutting me off. "The color is all wrong; too dark here, too light there, the wrong shade. The cut is bad; too long here, too short there."
Okay, so then why did you ask me if you already knew the answer? Was it a trick question? If I answered wrong, would I get buzzed and lose my turn?
"We will fix everything. How much time do you have?" He pawed through my hair like those monkeys you see on National Geographic grooming each other.
Uh, how much time do I need? Should I have packed a lunch or an overnight bag? Maybe I should have called the Extreme Makeover staff and thrown myself on their mercy? How about the guys on that Restoration show. They have lots of tools and can fix even the most derelict antiques to look like new.
Long story short, I didn't like what he did, and ended up back at my old place several weeks later.
"What happened to you?" my old hair guy gasped when he saw me. "Who did this?" He managed to make it sound as though I were Dr. Frankenstein's latest attempt...and it wasn't anywhere near as pretty as his first creation.
"The color is all wrong; the cut is not right. I'll do what I can today, but it will take weeks before it is right."
So you think I'll survive? Gosh, I hope so because I still have so much to live for!
And if both of these guys think my hair is that bad, it's nothing compared to the guys at the mall who try to sell flat irons from those kiosks.
"Miss, miss," they gesture frantically, yelling over the din of the Saturday mall crowds. "Come here and let me fix your hair. I'll show you how good it could look."
Hmm. Okay. You've just insulted me in front of sixty thousand other shoppers, but I'm guessing that you think by calling me miss (which Tim will be more than happy to attest to the fact that the boat has long since sailed on that!) I'm supposed to be so flattered that I will vault over those women too ugly for you to even offer to help and throw myself on your mercy, kissing your feet while weeping tears of joy that I, and I alone, am The Chosen One.
Right. Oh, and by the way, you studied hair design...where? Vidal Sassoon? Paul Mitchell? You know what? My nine year old niece can work a flat iron. Doesn't mean I'm going to let her take a 125 degree weapon and aim it at my head. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stay ugly.
The only people worse are the skincare and make-up people. Generally speaking, you have to put your head down and run through the department like there is a fire in the center of the mall and you are the only one with a bucket of water. If you make eye contact for even a fraction of a second, you are toast. And NEVER, under any circumstances stop, or they will be on you like a hungry lion on a gazelle.
"Oh dear," they cluck, examining you like a bug under a microscope. "Thank goodness you've come now. Another day or two longer and..." they shudder and trail off as if the consequences would be too horrible to even mention.
"Do you see how dry/oily/scaly/red/green/saggy/wrinkly/baggy and/or dull your skin is? Tsk, tsk. What have you been using?"
Like the "Do these pants make my butt look big? question, there is no right answer to this. You can tell them everything from drug store generic brands to whatever the current best seller among the rich and famous is and they will tell you why it doesn't work and you look like crap. (Basically, it's because they don't sell it)
Then, they will proceed to slather eighty-two different types of goop on your face and after each layer, hold up a mirror and chirp, "There. Don't you look better already? See how the lines and creases are disappearing? Your skin is getting tighter, taking on a youthful glow. The years are melting away. (Why Miss Elphaba, you're beautiful--Wicked reference, she is the green "wicked" witch).
Then, they lean in conspiratorially and boast, "I'm 82, but people think I'm 18. It's all because our products have something nobody else has. Shh. It's alpharetinolcaffinatedteatreehydroxy oil. Plus eye of newt and tongue of frog. And just a little bit of pixie dust.
Okay, so is that a magic mirror you look into? Cause the one you're currently shoving under my nose is not making me look like Heidi Klum. Just so you know.
After all the various concoctions, potions and lotions (and a good hour that you'll never get back has been sucked out of your life) you then move on to make-up, which of course, you have been doing all wrong.
"So what colors do you use?" They query as they pull out a tray with more colors than a super jumbo box of Crayolas.
"Uh, blue?"
"Aspen blue, Blue heather, Twilight blue, Eggplant blue, Neon blue or Teal blue?" They wait expectantly, as though I actually know the answer or can tell the difference between them.
"The blue I bought last year?" I hesitantly offer, wishing I'd said chartreuse. How many variations could there be on that?
"Last year? Last year?" they shriek, clutching their chest and staggering backwards. "You're five seasons behind! No wonder you look like the "before" photo."
With a flick of the wrist, they unroll a set of tools and utensils that would rival a top-notch operating theater and begin transforming you from the hideously outdated creature you were to a cross between a drag queen and Tammy Faye Baker.
"Here is a complete list of all the products I've used today," they tell me another mere hour later. "The first 192 are the must-haves so you don't scare small children or people with 20/20 vision. The other 56 are optional. More or less. Well, less. On second thought, they're not really optional...for you. And by the way, who does your hair?"
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Driving Me Crazy
At our usual Sunday night family dinner, our fifteen year old niece was talking about driving. When I admitted that I did not get my license till I was 21, there was an audible gasp around the table.
It may be unusual not to get your license until you are that old, but I had my reasons. Two of them. And they were called my parents.
My dad's idea of driving was like watching somebody play Beat the Clock.
"Did everybody go to the bathroom?" he's ask as we started off on a 2000 mile car ride. "Cause we're not stopping till we get there. I figure I can make it in eight hours or less."
Then he's buckle up, synchronize his watch to the local bank clock, get into the passing lane, press the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and keep it there. He knew every detour, side road and alternate route just in case he hit traffic, construction or anyone doing under 90mph.
"We're five minutes ahead of schedule," he'd gloat as we passed a predetermined landmark (that usually had a bathroom we all looked at longingly).
And if he could shave fifteen minutes or more off the entire trip? It was like his birthday, Christmas and the fourth of July all happened on the very same day.
My mother's driving style can best be illustrated by an incident that occurred my freshman year of high school.
Back in those days, it was safe for the male upperclassmen to "hitch" a ride to school in the mornings. One of them made the mistake of getting in our car...once. As my mom bobbed, weaved, coasted through stop signs and generally drove like a contestant in last place on The Great Race, he turned pale, began to shake, and seemed to be either praying or composing his own eulogy.
"You can't believe the crazy woman I got a ride with this morning," I heard him say to his friends after he stumbled out of the car and kissed the sidewalk.
We thought we saw him hitching again a few day later, but it was hard to tell from the angle we had. After all, pretty much everyone's backside looks the same as they are diving into the bushes to hide.
Finally though, it was my turn to drive, so I signed up for driver's ed. The poor teacher never had a chance, or should I say teachers. For some reason, after usually only one lesson each, they suddenly developed some mysterious malady that made them unable to sit in a car. Well, my car.
The first poor soul decided after fifteen minutes or so of driving around the parking lot, that I was ready to hit the open road. As I raced down the street ala mom, he cautioned, "A bit slower."
Slower? I was only doing sixty. My grandmother could walk faster than that. Any slower and a snail would pass us.
At the end of the block, I approached a yellow light and instinctively did what either of my parents would do...I gunned it.
"Brake! Brake! Brake!" the instructor screamed as his fingers dug holes into the dashboard and his life flashed before his eyes.
Confused, I slammed both feet on the brake and skidded to a halt with a flourish a Hollywood stunt driver would be proud of. I turned to the teacher. What was his problem? Had he only ridden in a horse and buggy before?
After he scraped himself off the front windshield and realigned his nose, he suggested that perhaps we should save challenges like lights for the next lesson and stick to parking lots for the rest of the day.
Lesson two was a different teacher (Geez, you'd think they could find people who were not afraid of their own shadow to teach driver's ed.), who decided that I was ready for highway driving. Hehehe.
You'd think he's never been on the Dodge Em's ride at the amusement park or seen an Indy 500 race the way he carried on. I mean, isn't that why there are two lanes, so you can weave in and out and beat everyone to the exit? Clearly they needed to screen the instructors better to find people who didn't get dizzy from the scenery flashing by at 80mph. Back to the parking lot.
And so it went, until I finished the course. One instructor actually made it through three whole lessons (I believe they awarded him the Bronze Star).
Before I could get my actual license though, my dad decreed that I needed to learn to drive a stick shift since I would be driving my mom's car and not his. (The rule in our house has always been that nobody, but nobody drives my dad's car. The man could be in a coma with both legs in traction, but if he heard someone even touch his keys, he would hop up and bolt for the door shouting, "I'll move my car out of the driveway! You take your mom's car.")
And now we come to the real reason it took me so long to get my license. My dad was not born to be a teacher. I didn't realize I signed up for boot camp when I got behind the wheel for the first time. It was bad enough I had to work the clutch, gas and shift at the same time, but he was continually upping the ante.
"No, no," he'd correct, loudly, as he made me stop halfway up the hill in front of our house. "You're doing it all wrong. How are you ever going to be able to stop on a ninety degree mountain path in a blinding snowstorm with 200mph winds, pulling a tractor trailer and start up again without rolling back 1/4 of an inch if you can't do this?"
Uh. I'm thinking that if I ever find myself in that situation, I am going to have bigger problems than rolling back down the hill a foot or two. How about at that point, I just admit defeat and call you?
"I'm a car," he'd say, standing on the line of a parking space, "park next to me and see how close you can come without hitting me. Oh, and back in without using any of the mirrors. You should know where your car is."
Really? Are you sure you want to do this? Cause I'm pretty sure I can get away with an accidental homicide charge. Maybe some community service or counselling.
But my favorite teaching tactic of his was when he (finally) let me out on the street.
"Turn when I say turn. As soon as I say turn," he'd tell me.
Easy. Right? Not so much. As I'd be passing an intersection, he's suddenly yell, "Turn! Now!" as though someone had thrown a live grenade into our foxhole.
Usually panic-stricken, I'd jerk the wheel, press the gas, brake, clutch, cover my eyes,ears and mouth, pull out the rosary, worry beads and holy water...and end up on someones front lawn shaking like a leaf.
"Let's try that again," he'd pronounce, unruffled. Patton could have taken lessons from this man on drilling the troops.
But I had had enough. In defeat (which was probably his plan all along), I handed over the keys and resigned myself to committing the bus schedule to memory.
It wasn't until Tim came along, and in the ignorant, confident, flush of youth decided to teach me to drive. It has to be a testament to true love that he married me anyway. Then again, his driving, if not his teaching style is very similar to my parents'.
It may be unusual not to get your license until you are that old, but I had my reasons. Two of them. And they were called my parents.
My dad's idea of driving was like watching somebody play Beat the Clock.
"Did everybody go to the bathroom?" he's ask as we started off on a 2000 mile car ride. "Cause we're not stopping till we get there. I figure I can make it in eight hours or less."
Then he's buckle up, synchronize his watch to the local bank clock, get into the passing lane, press the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and keep it there. He knew every detour, side road and alternate route just in case he hit traffic, construction or anyone doing under 90mph.
"We're five minutes ahead of schedule," he'd gloat as we passed a predetermined landmark (that usually had a bathroom we all looked at longingly).
And if he could shave fifteen minutes or more off the entire trip? It was like his birthday, Christmas and the fourth of July all happened on the very same day.
My mother's driving style can best be illustrated by an incident that occurred my freshman year of high school.
Back in those days, it was safe for the male upperclassmen to "hitch" a ride to school in the mornings. One of them made the mistake of getting in our car...once. As my mom bobbed, weaved, coasted through stop signs and generally drove like a contestant in last place on The Great Race, he turned pale, began to shake, and seemed to be either praying or composing his own eulogy.
"You can't believe the crazy woman I got a ride with this morning," I heard him say to his friends after he stumbled out of the car and kissed the sidewalk.
We thought we saw him hitching again a few day later, but it was hard to tell from the angle we had. After all, pretty much everyone's backside looks the same as they are diving into the bushes to hide.
Finally though, it was my turn to drive, so I signed up for driver's ed. The poor teacher never had a chance, or should I say teachers. For some reason, after usually only one lesson each, they suddenly developed some mysterious malady that made them unable to sit in a car. Well, my car.
The first poor soul decided after fifteen minutes or so of driving around the parking lot, that I was ready to hit the open road. As I raced down the street ala mom, he cautioned, "A bit slower."
Slower? I was only doing sixty. My grandmother could walk faster than that. Any slower and a snail would pass us.
At the end of the block, I approached a yellow light and instinctively did what either of my parents would do...I gunned it.
"Brake! Brake! Brake!" the instructor screamed as his fingers dug holes into the dashboard and his life flashed before his eyes.
Confused, I slammed both feet on the brake and skidded to a halt with a flourish a Hollywood stunt driver would be proud of. I turned to the teacher. What was his problem? Had he only ridden in a horse and buggy before?
After he scraped himself off the front windshield and realigned his nose, he suggested that perhaps we should save challenges like lights for the next lesson and stick to parking lots for the rest of the day.
Lesson two was a different teacher (Geez, you'd think they could find people who were not afraid of their own shadow to teach driver's ed.), who decided that I was ready for highway driving. Hehehe.
You'd think he's never been on the Dodge Em's ride at the amusement park or seen an Indy 500 race the way he carried on. I mean, isn't that why there are two lanes, so you can weave in and out and beat everyone to the exit? Clearly they needed to screen the instructors better to find people who didn't get dizzy from the scenery flashing by at 80mph. Back to the parking lot.
And so it went, until I finished the course. One instructor actually made it through three whole lessons (I believe they awarded him the Bronze Star).
Before I could get my actual license though, my dad decreed that I needed to learn to drive a stick shift since I would be driving my mom's car and not his. (The rule in our house has always been that nobody, but nobody drives my dad's car. The man could be in a coma with both legs in traction, but if he heard someone even touch his keys, he would hop up and bolt for the door shouting, "I'll move my car out of the driveway! You take your mom's car.")
And now we come to the real reason it took me so long to get my license. My dad was not born to be a teacher. I didn't realize I signed up for boot camp when I got behind the wheel for the first time. It was bad enough I had to work the clutch, gas and shift at the same time, but he was continually upping the ante.
"No, no," he'd correct, loudly, as he made me stop halfway up the hill in front of our house. "You're doing it all wrong. How are you ever going to be able to stop on a ninety degree mountain path in a blinding snowstorm with 200mph winds, pulling a tractor trailer and start up again without rolling back 1/4 of an inch if you can't do this?"
Uh. I'm thinking that if I ever find myself in that situation, I am going to have bigger problems than rolling back down the hill a foot or two. How about at that point, I just admit defeat and call you?
"I'm a car," he'd say, standing on the line of a parking space, "park next to me and see how close you can come without hitting me. Oh, and back in without using any of the mirrors. You should know where your car is."
Really? Are you sure you want to do this? Cause I'm pretty sure I can get away with an accidental homicide charge. Maybe some community service or counselling.
But my favorite teaching tactic of his was when he (finally) let me out on the street.
"Turn when I say turn. As soon as I say turn," he'd tell me.
Easy. Right? Not so much. As I'd be passing an intersection, he's suddenly yell, "Turn! Now!" as though someone had thrown a live grenade into our foxhole.
Usually panic-stricken, I'd jerk the wheel, press the gas, brake, clutch, cover my eyes,ears and mouth, pull out the rosary, worry beads and holy water...and end up on someones front lawn shaking like a leaf.
"Let's try that again," he'd pronounce, unruffled. Patton could have taken lessons from this man on drilling the troops.
But I had had enough. In defeat (which was probably his plan all along), I handed over the keys and resigned myself to committing the bus schedule to memory.
It wasn't until Tim came along, and in the ignorant, confident, flush of youth decided to teach me to drive. It has to be a testament to true love that he married me anyway. Then again, his driving, if not his teaching style is very similar to my parents'.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Won't You Be My Neighbor
We have lived in three different neighborhoods since we got married, and although each one was very different, they all have had certain types of people in common, like"The Welcome Wagon".
In our first neighborhood, it was a very nice couple who showed up at our door at 6:30 one morning with a gift. Flowers? Nope. Casserole? Uh uh. Bottle of wine? No chance. Dead critter? Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner! And the Oscar for the most bizarre gift goes to...
Seems they were hunters and had shot some kind of game bird and generously decided to share. Personally, I would have preferred the flowers. Even dead flowers. Dead flowers that had been cooked into a casserole.
"Be careful when you eat it though," they warned, "there might still be some buckshot in it."
Oh goody. Something with a face and crunchy texture. Alert the Food Network.
Now, I am a carnivore. I know where meat comes from. I just don't like it looking back at me from my dinner plate with an accusing stare, "I could'a been a contenda...but if I complement that bottle of wine, then, hey, my life was not given in vain."
So while inside my head I was chanting, "Eww, eww, eww. Dead Tweety bird." Outside, I plastered a smile on my face that I hoped was at least half as convincing as the fake vaseline-on-the-teeth-Miss- America-smile and gingerly took the gory little baggie with the tips of nails that I wished were twelve inches long and gave it to Tim who I hoped gave it a proper burial. I still don't want to know for sure what he did with it.
The welcome wagon lady in our second neighborhood stood at the fence watching the whole moving-in process with complete and utter fascination. As the truck finally pulled away, Tim and I walked over to introduce ourselves. With a sniff, she looked us up and down and pronounced: "We do not have loud parties in this neighborhood."
Well, allrighty then. Nice to meet you too. And if that's the case, you are really going to hate us. Yeah. You see, on the nights that we don't have Hell's Angels over for a cookout and beer fest, we invite our really good friends who are all in heavy metal bands and encourage them to bring speakers the size of Stonehenge which we place strategically around the yard so that people in South America can hear them. Thanks for the warm welcome.
In our current neighborhood, we were welcomed the very day we closed on the house by the guy across the street. The builder had come over to see to a few last minute things and I was just pulling out to go get my sixth carload of stuff when the guy comes strolling up the driveway. Thinking he was coming over to say hello, I stopped and rolled down my window.
"Hello," I said. "I'm Ann."
"Yeah." He barely slowed down. "I'm just going in."
"Actually, I'm your new neighbor. We closed on the house this morning," I informed him.
"Uh huh. The builder knows me. I'll just let myself in."
Oh, you will? Well, in that case, don't mind me. Just make yourself right at home; my home. And if the boxes of my stuff are in your way, just shove them into a corner. Can't wait to meet the rest of the neighbors based on this encounter.
Which brings me to person number two: The Enforcer.
In our first house, it was the guy across the street who was bothered by he fact that we had put a white sheet over our floor to ceiling bedroom windows for privacy. I suspect he ran the concession stand for the nightly show the previous owners must have put on and missed the extra funds.
We explained that we had to special order a shade and it would take 3-6 weeks. Apparently, he was the only person on the planet to never have ordered anything because he didn't seem to understand that when they say 3-6 weeks, they actually mean anywhere between 6 weeks and the time you appear on Willard Scott's 100th birthday celebration Smucker's jar.
He nagged and prodded us as though we actually could control delivery. Either that or he thought we would use one of our three magic wishes to get it made faster. Fortunately for him, it was delivered before I felt compelled to put up something even more offensive like neon lights and Mardi Gras beads.
In our last two neighborhoods, it has been parking issues that assumed the importance of breathing to the enforcers.
The one woman was obsessed with the property lines denoting the two parking spaces for her one car in front of her house. God forbid someone actually crossed the line! It was like declaring war. Napoleon did not encounter such adversity at Waterloo! And if someone actually parked in front of her house? Well, she conducted a door to door search for culprit that would have mad Dawg the Bounty Hunter look like a rank amateur, and deliver a lecture designed to make the person wish for a cyanide pill.
Here in our current neighborhood, it is a guy who has taken it upon himself to ensure that nobody, but nobody parks on the strip of dirt across the street from his house. Offenders find their cars plastered with fliers warning of the dangers of parking there.
His reasoning goes something like this: cars=riff-raff=drug dealers=anarchy=the fall of civilization= people parking wherever they please. It's jut a vicious cycle waiting to strike at the heart of democracy. I can only imagine how the missive would read if someone had the temerity to actually park on his side of the street!
Which brings me to the final person: The Informer.
Neighborhood one, two or three. It doesn't matter. There is always someone who, like the Great and Powerful Oz knows all.
Near as I can figure, they grill anyone who has the misfortune to be outside when they are passing by, which is somewhere between fifty-six and four thousand times a day. They are generally wise to evasive tactical maneuvers, so it is almost impossible to escape them more than once or twice a month. The CIA could use these people.
They know all about marriages, births, divorces, new cars, new hairstyles; preferences in food, drink and toilet paper; friends, friends of friends, people who are thinking of becoming friends, former friends and the friendless. The informer can tell you what you had for dinner last Tuesday night, and what color the people eight blocks west and four blocks north are thinking of painting their kitchen.
They can tell you about the very first inhabitants of the neighborhood, why they lived there and where their final resting place is. They do more research into their neighbor's lives than Ed Bradley does for a 60 Minutes expose on a corrupt politician.
And so I've decided that our next move will be to a desert island, just Tim and myself. Well, maybe just myself. That way I can be assured of avoiding any annoying neighbors.
In our first neighborhood, it was a very nice couple who showed up at our door at 6:30 one morning with a gift. Flowers? Nope. Casserole? Uh uh. Bottle of wine? No chance. Dead critter? Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner! And the Oscar for the most bizarre gift goes to...
Seems they were hunters and had shot some kind of game bird and generously decided to share. Personally, I would have preferred the flowers. Even dead flowers. Dead flowers that had been cooked into a casserole.
"Be careful when you eat it though," they warned, "there might still be some buckshot in it."
Oh goody. Something with a face and crunchy texture. Alert the Food Network.
Now, I am a carnivore. I know where meat comes from. I just don't like it looking back at me from my dinner plate with an accusing stare, "I could'a been a contenda...but if I complement that bottle of wine, then, hey, my life was not given in vain."
So while inside my head I was chanting, "Eww, eww, eww. Dead Tweety bird." Outside, I plastered a smile on my face that I hoped was at least half as convincing as the fake vaseline-on-the-teeth-Miss- America-smile and gingerly took the gory little baggie with the tips of nails that I wished were twelve inches long and gave it to Tim who I hoped gave it a proper burial. I still don't want to know for sure what he did with it.
The welcome wagon lady in our second neighborhood stood at the fence watching the whole moving-in process with complete and utter fascination. As the truck finally pulled away, Tim and I walked over to introduce ourselves. With a sniff, she looked us up and down and pronounced: "We do not have loud parties in this neighborhood."
Well, allrighty then. Nice to meet you too. And if that's the case, you are really going to hate us. Yeah. You see, on the nights that we don't have Hell's Angels over for a cookout and beer fest, we invite our really good friends who are all in heavy metal bands and encourage them to bring speakers the size of Stonehenge which we place strategically around the yard so that people in South America can hear them. Thanks for the warm welcome.
In our current neighborhood, we were welcomed the very day we closed on the house by the guy across the street. The builder had come over to see to a few last minute things and I was just pulling out to go get my sixth carload of stuff when the guy comes strolling up the driveway. Thinking he was coming over to say hello, I stopped and rolled down my window.
"Hello," I said. "I'm Ann."
"Yeah." He barely slowed down. "I'm just going in."
"Actually, I'm your new neighbor. We closed on the house this morning," I informed him.
"Uh huh. The builder knows me. I'll just let myself in."
Oh, you will? Well, in that case, don't mind me. Just make yourself right at home; my home. And if the boxes of my stuff are in your way, just shove them into a corner. Can't wait to meet the rest of the neighbors based on this encounter.
Which brings me to person number two: The Enforcer.
In our first house, it was the guy across the street who was bothered by he fact that we had put a white sheet over our floor to ceiling bedroom windows for privacy. I suspect he ran the concession stand for the nightly show the previous owners must have put on and missed the extra funds.
We explained that we had to special order a shade and it would take 3-6 weeks. Apparently, he was the only person on the planet to never have ordered anything because he didn't seem to understand that when they say 3-6 weeks, they actually mean anywhere between 6 weeks and the time you appear on Willard Scott's 100th birthday celebration Smucker's jar.
He nagged and prodded us as though we actually could control delivery. Either that or he thought we would use one of our three magic wishes to get it made faster. Fortunately for him, it was delivered before I felt compelled to put up something even more offensive like neon lights and Mardi Gras beads.
In our last two neighborhoods, it has been parking issues that assumed the importance of breathing to the enforcers.
The one woman was obsessed with the property lines denoting the two parking spaces for her one car in front of her house. God forbid someone actually crossed the line! It was like declaring war. Napoleon did not encounter such adversity at Waterloo! And if someone actually parked in front of her house? Well, she conducted a door to door search for culprit that would have mad Dawg the Bounty Hunter look like a rank amateur, and deliver a lecture designed to make the person wish for a cyanide pill.
Here in our current neighborhood, it is a guy who has taken it upon himself to ensure that nobody, but nobody parks on the strip of dirt across the street from his house. Offenders find their cars plastered with fliers warning of the dangers of parking there.
His reasoning goes something like this: cars=riff-raff=drug dealers=anarchy=the fall of civilization= people parking wherever they please. It's jut a vicious cycle waiting to strike at the heart of democracy. I can only imagine how the missive would read if someone had the temerity to actually park on his side of the street!
Which brings me to the final person: The Informer.
Neighborhood one, two or three. It doesn't matter. There is always someone who, like the Great and Powerful Oz knows all.
Near as I can figure, they grill anyone who has the misfortune to be outside when they are passing by, which is somewhere between fifty-six and four thousand times a day. They are generally wise to evasive tactical maneuvers, so it is almost impossible to escape them more than once or twice a month. The CIA could use these people.
They know all about marriages, births, divorces, new cars, new hairstyles; preferences in food, drink and toilet paper; friends, friends of friends, people who are thinking of becoming friends, former friends and the friendless. The informer can tell you what you had for dinner last Tuesday night, and what color the people eight blocks west and four blocks north are thinking of painting their kitchen.
They can tell you about the very first inhabitants of the neighborhood, why they lived there and where their final resting place is. They do more research into their neighbor's lives than Ed Bradley does for a 60 Minutes expose on a corrupt politician.
And so I've decided that our next move will be to a desert island, just Tim and myself. Well, maybe just myself. That way I can be assured of avoiding any annoying neighbors.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
No Rest For the Lazy
Everyone I know who exercises always rhapsodizes about its benefits and how the endorphins kick in and make you feel sooo good.
Well, I've been working out for two and a half years now and I haven't seen one measly endorphin yet. But you know what does feel good? When I stop exercising. Yeah. Sitting around eating cookies feels great, and sitting around eating chocolate and watching Sleepless in Seattle for the one thousandth time feels absolutely amazing! Exercise just makes me feel sore, tired and a little bit cranky. Okay, a lot cranky.
But I do it. Twice a week...unless I can get out of it. Which, no matter how hard I try, I can't. My trainer won't let me. I keep firing her, but she somehow got the crazy idea that it is her job to get me in shape, and she is like a terrier with a bone. She just won't give up. I've resorted to bribery, but nothing seems to work, not even leaving the country.
"We're going away next Monday and Tuesday," I'll tell her, barely able to suppress my joy at thwarting her evil plans, "so I guess that means I'll only see you Thursday."
"No problem," she counters pulling out her schedule book, and cackling gleefully at thwarting my plans. "We'll just switch to Wednesday and Friday." I hate her.
I've tried leaving town for four to five days in a row to avoid her torturous machinations, but to no avail. "Oh, I'm gone Saturday through Wednesday next week, so I guess we'll do either Thursday or Friday." Got you there, Miss Smarty Pants. Everyone knows that you can't workout two days in a row. Muscles need rest.
Everyone but my trainer. The harpy simply raises a superior brow, pulls out her pen and the dreaded book that I plan to steal and burn one day and calmly destroys my hopes and dreams of being able to not need massive quantities of muscle relaxants, super-sized heating pads and gallons of Bengay.
"Don't worry, we can do legs one day and upper body the next."
Wow. You'd do that for me? No, no. I can't let you be that kind. Honestly, you deserve a day or two or fifteen off. I'll be fine. Really.
And yet she shows up, week after week, month after month, year after year.
Even vacation is not an excuse to slack off. She has brought Tim over to the dark side. The two of them have teamed up to make sure I get no rest from lifting, pressing, hopping, jumping, pushing, puling, crunching, lunging and squatting.
On our cruise last year, he somehow got the insane notion (which I know my evil genius trainer not only approved of, but actively encouraged), that because I agreed to go to the gym with him, I actually was willing to do something besides drink the free water and admire my coordinated Lululemon outfit in the mirror.
"Okay, there's two ellipticals free, let's go," he steered me away from the tempting bowl of bananas. "Forty-five minutes, then we'll lift some weights"
Wait. What? Forty-five minutes? I am on vacation. Say it with me...vacation. In case you are unaware of the concept, but it is universally accepted to mean no work! Forty-five minutes is definitely considered work. Hard work. In fact, I believe it is against the labor laws in at least thirty-six countries.
Besides, working out for even forty-five seconds is waaay more time than I was planning to spend sweating and gasping for breath the entire week. And for your information, the only lifting I'm willing to do is one of those yummy frozen drinks at the pool from the table to my lips.
I turned to make my escape, but he somehow managed to head me off at the pass and convince me to at least see what all the fuss over ellipticals was about.
I have to admit that after the first five minutes, I was starting to feel really winded... and all I had done was wipe down the machine and flip through the TV channel options.
And while I'm on the subject, if you expect me to make it even ten minutes, you ar going to have to offer me better choices than CNN and ESPN. I mean, come on. Hadn't these people ever heard of Lifetime or TBS?
Somehow, I muddled my way through the next sixteen hours, I mean thirty minutes, before Tim was sufficiently happy and we headed for the weights (after I tried my second escape, of course).
"All right, sixty-five reps with each arm, then six thousand crunch-jump-lunges," he decreed.
Couldn't I just jump overboard and pull the ship instead? And even though you sound like her, just so you know, YOU ARE NOT MY TRAINER. I came here to get away from her.
After about three day of this, Tim finally recognized the futility of this endeavor (and got tired of the whining and having to physically carry me to the gym and strap me onto the machine) and gave up. Off he went to the gym, alone, while I parked myself at the pool and read fairy tales about lands far, far away where no one had ever heard of weights, reps or personal trainers. And we all lived happily ever after.
Until vacation ended.
Well, I've been working out for two and a half years now and I haven't seen one measly endorphin yet. But you know what does feel good? When I stop exercising. Yeah. Sitting around eating cookies feels great, and sitting around eating chocolate and watching Sleepless in Seattle for the one thousandth time feels absolutely amazing! Exercise just makes me feel sore, tired and a little bit cranky. Okay, a lot cranky.
But I do it. Twice a week...unless I can get out of it. Which, no matter how hard I try, I can't. My trainer won't let me. I keep firing her, but she somehow got the crazy idea that it is her job to get me in shape, and she is like a terrier with a bone. She just won't give up. I've resorted to bribery, but nothing seems to work, not even leaving the country.
"We're going away next Monday and Tuesday," I'll tell her, barely able to suppress my joy at thwarting her evil plans, "so I guess that means I'll only see you Thursday."
"No problem," she counters pulling out her schedule book, and cackling gleefully at thwarting my plans. "We'll just switch to Wednesday and Friday." I hate her.
I've tried leaving town for four to five days in a row to avoid her torturous machinations, but to no avail. "Oh, I'm gone Saturday through Wednesday next week, so I guess we'll do either Thursday or Friday." Got you there, Miss Smarty Pants. Everyone knows that you can't workout two days in a row. Muscles need rest.
Everyone but my trainer. The harpy simply raises a superior brow, pulls out her pen and the dreaded book that I plan to steal and burn one day and calmly destroys my hopes and dreams of being able to not need massive quantities of muscle relaxants, super-sized heating pads and gallons of Bengay.
"Don't worry, we can do legs one day and upper body the next."
Wow. You'd do that for me? No, no. I can't let you be that kind. Honestly, you deserve a day or two or fifteen off. I'll be fine. Really.
And yet she shows up, week after week, month after month, year after year.
Even vacation is not an excuse to slack off. She has brought Tim over to the dark side. The two of them have teamed up to make sure I get no rest from lifting, pressing, hopping, jumping, pushing, puling, crunching, lunging and squatting.
On our cruise last year, he somehow got the insane notion (which I know my evil genius trainer not only approved of, but actively encouraged), that because I agreed to go to the gym with him, I actually was willing to do something besides drink the free water and admire my coordinated Lululemon outfit in the mirror.
"Okay, there's two ellipticals free, let's go," he steered me away from the tempting bowl of bananas. "Forty-five minutes, then we'll lift some weights"
Wait. What? Forty-five minutes? I am on vacation. Say it with me...vacation. In case you are unaware of the concept, but it is universally accepted to mean no work! Forty-five minutes is definitely considered work. Hard work. In fact, I believe it is against the labor laws in at least thirty-six countries.
Besides, working out for even forty-five seconds is waaay more time than I was planning to spend sweating and gasping for breath the entire week. And for your information, the only lifting I'm willing to do is one of those yummy frozen drinks at the pool from the table to my lips.
I turned to make my escape, but he somehow managed to head me off at the pass and convince me to at least see what all the fuss over ellipticals was about.
I have to admit that after the first five minutes, I was starting to feel really winded... and all I had done was wipe down the machine and flip through the TV channel options.
And while I'm on the subject, if you expect me to make it even ten minutes, you ar going to have to offer me better choices than CNN and ESPN. I mean, come on. Hadn't these people ever heard of Lifetime or TBS?
Somehow, I muddled my way through the next sixteen hours, I mean thirty minutes, before Tim was sufficiently happy and we headed for the weights (after I tried my second escape, of course).
"All right, sixty-five reps with each arm, then six thousand crunch-jump-lunges," he decreed.
Couldn't I just jump overboard and pull the ship instead? And even though you sound like her, just so you know, YOU ARE NOT MY TRAINER. I came here to get away from her.
After about three day of this, Tim finally recognized the futility of this endeavor (and got tired of the whining and having to physically carry me to the gym and strap me onto the machine) and gave up. Off he went to the gym, alone, while I parked myself at the pool and read fairy tales about lands far, far away where no one had ever heard of weights, reps or personal trainers. And we all lived happily ever after.
Until vacation ended.
Friday, July 15, 2011
There's a Potty Going on Right Here
I am obsessed with potty training the dog. It is now my full-time occupation, and I have pretty much cornered the market in paper towel, pee pads and those little plastic doggie poop bags. I need to get an actual life.
Before we even got the dog, people were flooding us with advice.
"Praise her when she goes outside. Use positive reinforcement." So did you think I would use negative reinforcement for going potty outside? I mean, I'm no expert, but even I know that smacking her on the nose for pottying outside is probably not the way to go.
"Have a special cue you use to get her to go quickly." So having a bladder the size of a gnat and drinking a super gulp won't do it alone? Maybe saying pretty please with Beggin' Strips on top will help?
"Learn her schedule and get her outside before she has to go." I'm thinking I probably could have figured that one out myself the first time she peed on my carpet.
All of this advice was well-intentioned and seemed pretty much basic knowledge, which I foolishly imagined the dog would know too. I could not have been more wrong.
Positive reinforcement? For kids, a simple "good job", or a thumbs-up seems to work. For the dog? Every tinkle earns a party complete with hats, streamers and kazoos. If she makes number two? Well then, we set off fireworks, strike up the band and erupt into a full-on Broadway showstopper number. And, being only a puppy, she still sometimes decides to pee on my carpet. Yea team!
As I understand it, my mother potty trained me by telling me not to use the potty. I believe she threatened dire consequences if I even thought of using it. Training done. To this day, I have never gone anywhere but the potty and I am not scarred for life (well, I am, but that's another blog about my mother).
However, my child, being a dog, I've been advised that this is most likely not the way to go, and if I fail to perform my bizarre little happy, happy, yea, yea, rah, rah ritual, she will feel the need to forever decorate my floors with brown and yellow until they resemble a really gross inkblot test.
On to the next bit of advice. Special cue? Hmmm. Inside it seems the special cue is her being awake, unless she is sitting on a pee pad. Then, her bladder expands to the size of Texas. Surely I don't want her to pee there? What is she an animal?
Outside, she has to sniff every blade of grass, piece of mulch, patch of dirt and section of blacktop in order to find the perfect place to do her business. I'm convinced that, instead of being concerned about what the writings of Nostradamus might tell us regarding the end of the world, we'd be better off worrying about the dog being forced to potty on the wrong side of the driveway. Life as we know it would come to a screeching halt. It would be Armageddon!
And while she is determining the fate of the world? I am standing on the sidelines like a demented cheerleader chirping, "Hurry up! Hurry up!" It's demeaning to both of us, but only I seem to realize it.
As for the last bit of advice regarding her schedule? Yeah. Eat. Potty. Drink. Potty. Sleep. Potty. Play. Potty. Blink. Potty. Breathe. Potty. It's not so much a schedule as it is a sprint for the door eighty-two thousand times a day with poop bags in one hand, the dog in the other and the bottle of Nature's Miracle clenched between my teeth. You don't want to know where the paper towels are.
We had several people suggest "bell training", where you hang a strand of jingle bells on the door and ring them every time you take the dog out to potty. The theory is that the dog will eventually learn to ring them herself whenever she has to go out and...voila!...no more messes inside.
We were pleasantly surprised that this actually seemed to be working, but before we could break our arms patting ourselves on our own backs, we realized that what was working was the theory, not necessarily the actual bells.
While the bells meant "potty" to us, they apparently meant, "Hey, I really feel like seeing what's going on outside" to the dog.
Jingle, jingle, jingle. I want to eat grass.
Jingle, jingle, jingle. Hey, is that a bird out there that I need to try and catch?
Jingle, jingle, jingle. Is it cold out, warm out, raining?
Jingle, jingle, jingle. Is the sun still shining like it was fifteen seconds ago when I was last out?
Jingle, jingle, jingle. I know I've done this sixty-seven times in a row while you are trying to do something else and I didn't have to potty, but this time I actually have to. Honest.
Jingle, jingle, jingle. It's freakin' Christmas every day at our house. Yeah, the bells are working all right, but I think the dog is training us. We actually both flinch now when someone even mentions Christmas or Santa.
I know that all of this is probably good advice and that eventually the dog will be potty trained, but at this point, I'm not sure that will happen before the bells "accidentally" get run over by a steamroller and I fit the dog with a diaper. Or perhaps I should just replace my carpets with topsoil, mulch and grass.
Before we even got the dog, people were flooding us with advice.
"Praise her when she goes outside. Use positive reinforcement." So did you think I would use negative reinforcement for going potty outside? I mean, I'm no expert, but even I know that smacking her on the nose for pottying outside is probably not the way to go.
"Have a special cue you use to get her to go quickly." So having a bladder the size of a gnat and drinking a super gulp won't do it alone? Maybe saying pretty please with Beggin' Strips on top will help?
"Learn her schedule and get her outside before she has to go." I'm thinking I probably could have figured that one out myself the first time she peed on my carpet.
All of this advice was well-intentioned and seemed pretty much basic knowledge, which I foolishly imagined the dog would know too. I could not have been more wrong.
Positive reinforcement? For kids, a simple "good job", or a thumbs-up seems to work. For the dog? Every tinkle earns a party complete with hats, streamers and kazoos. If she makes number two? Well then, we set off fireworks, strike up the band and erupt into a full-on Broadway showstopper number. And, being only a puppy, she still sometimes decides to pee on my carpet. Yea team!
As I understand it, my mother potty trained me by telling me not to use the potty. I believe she threatened dire consequences if I even thought of using it. Training done. To this day, I have never gone anywhere but the potty and I am not scarred for life (well, I am, but that's another blog about my mother).
However, my child, being a dog, I've been advised that this is most likely not the way to go, and if I fail to perform my bizarre little happy, happy, yea, yea, rah, rah ritual, she will feel the need to forever decorate my floors with brown and yellow until they resemble a really gross inkblot test.
On to the next bit of advice. Special cue? Hmmm. Inside it seems the special cue is her being awake, unless she is sitting on a pee pad. Then, her bladder expands to the size of Texas. Surely I don't want her to pee there? What is she an animal?
Outside, she has to sniff every blade of grass, piece of mulch, patch of dirt and section of blacktop in order to find the perfect place to do her business. I'm convinced that, instead of being concerned about what the writings of Nostradamus might tell us regarding the end of the world, we'd be better off worrying about the dog being forced to potty on the wrong side of the driveway. Life as we know it would come to a screeching halt. It would be Armageddon!
And while she is determining the fate of the world? I am standing on the sidelines like a demented cheerleader chirping, "Hurry up! Hurry up!" It's demeaning to both of us, but only I seem to realize it.
As for the last bit of advice regarding her schedule? Yeah. Eat. Potty. Drink. Potty. Sleep. Potty. Play. Potty. Blink. Potty. Breathe. Potty. It's not so much a schedule as it is a sprint for the door eighty-two thousand times a day with poop bags in one hand, the dog in the other and the bottle of Nature's Miracle clenched between my teeth. You don't want to know where the paper towels are.
We had several people suggest "bell training", where you hang a strand of jingle bells on the door and ring them every time you take the dog out to potty. The theory is that the dog will eventually learn to ring them herself whenever she has to go out and...voila!...no more messes inside.
We were pleasantly surprised that this actually seemed to be working, but before we could break our arms patting ourselves on our own backs, we realized that what was working was the theory, not necessarily the actual bells.
While the bells meant "potty" to us, they apparently meant, "Hey, I really feel like seeing what's going on outside" to the dog.
Jingle, jingle, jingle. I want to eat grass.
Jingle, jingle, jingle. Hey, is that a bird out there that I need to try and catch?
Jingle, jingle, jingle. Is it cold out, warm out, raining?
Jingle, jingle, jingle. Is the sun still shining like it was fifteen seconds ago when I was last out?
Jingle, jingle, jingle. I know I've done this sixty-seven times in a row while you are trying to do something else and I didn't have to potty, but this time I actually have to. Honest.
Jingle, jingle, jingle. It's freakin' Christmas every day at our house. Yeah, the bells are working all right, but I think the dog is training us. We actually both flinch now when someone even mentions Christmas or Santa.
I know that all of this is probably good advice and that eventually the dog will be potty trained, but at this point, I'm not sure that will happen before the bells "accidentally" get run over by a steamroller and I fit the dog with a diaper. Or perhaps I should just replace my carpets with topsoil, mulch and grass.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Running Hot and Cold
Sunday morning, we had no hot water. Not a drop. Which in a strange way, almost made me happy. Almost. Well, maybe not so much. All right, it kind of ticked me off, but it was still better than the alternative which totally ticked me off and has been for the past year.
It all began the day we moved in...
Being type A personalities (or just incredibly unlucky and stupid), we moved in on a weekend where we had three black tie dinners. Three weeks before Christmas. And it was snowing. We had hit the trifecta.
So after a full day of hauling, lifting, unpacking and generally running around like nuts, we needed to clean up and glam up. I opened the shower door, turned the knob and...ahhh...nice hot water came gushing out.
Oooh, maybe a bit too hot. I turned it down. Still too hot. Waaay too hot. I turned it down again. Yeow! Scalding hot. Not good. I turned it down to a trickle. Aargh!! Now it felt like I was standing beneath a blowtorch. In the middle of the Sahara. At high noon.
While I still had some skin left, I stepped out and yelled for Tim, who, after twisting and turning the knob eighty-six times (and calling me an idiot for not knowing how to work the shower) was not able to get any different results. He then cursed it out, but oddly, that didn't work either. Go figure.
Since time was wasting, and we didn't particularly feel like spending the night in the burn unit, we called the plumber who had installed the shower. FYI, late Saturday afternoon during a snowstorm is not a good time to try and get a plumber to come to your house. But he did come eventually. Grudgingly. Very grudgingly. Extremely grudgingly. Oh, and he was really, really miffed.
He stomped into the house, mumbling and grousing to himself in such a Shrek-like manner, I expected to see Donkey trotting along at his heels. And he pretty much called us idiots for not knowing how to work the shower. Then, he tried to work the shower.
He turned it on. Hot water. Off. On. Hotter water. Off. On. Boiling hot water. Off. On. Off. On. So who's the idiot now? And by the way, as entertaining as this exhibition is, pal, we've sort of covered this ground ourselves about ninety-six dozen times. Do you think you could maybe, oh, I don't know, use one or two of those watch-a-ma-call-ems, tools? to FIX THE SHOWER? Otherwise, you are not going to be the only crabby person around here, and I bet that Tim and I can throw a hissy fit that will make yours look like you are Julie Andrews singing "Spoonful of Sugar".
Huffing, puffing and still muttering under his breath, Mr. Personality made several trips back and forth from his truck to the shower, used one of his lifelines to call his boss, polled the studio audience, scratched his head and finally came to the brilliant conclusion that the shower was broken.
NO! Reallly? Are you sure? Maybe you can turn it on and off again just to be certain.
And he was full of yet more good news. He would have to order the part and it would take at least a week! Yippee!!!
As it was now barely an hour before we were supposed to leave, he suggested we use another bathroom in the house. Gee, why didn't I think of that? Oh. I know. Maybe because this is the only one that doesn't need a shower curtain which I don't have, or face an uncovered window. I mean, I'd like to get to know the neighbors, but I was thinking more of treating them to a few snacks and drinks, not a strip tease.
So we rushed to CVS, dug out some old sheets and spent the next week waiting for the part, which, once installed worked for about three seconds. Then it didn't work. Then it did. Didn't. Did. Mr. Happy came back and fixed it so that it worked. Didn't work. Did...
And so for the last year, showering has been a grand adventure. Every morning, with great anticipation, I prepare my burn kit, opened the shower door and, with fingers crossed, reach for the knob. I turn the water on: too hot. Off. On quickly; hot. Off quickly, then on again. 32 left, 56 right, 14 left. Jump on one leg while reciting the alphabet backwards, then say abracadabra and wave the soap over the handle three times counterclockwise. Ahhh. Just right.
We've also had a parade of plumbers besides Mr. Grumpy. There's been Misters Sleepy, Sneezy, Goofy, Nutty and Dopey, but still no Mr. Fix-it.
So when cold water came out on Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised...until I turned blue. Hmmm. Red or blue. Great. Slap a star on my head and I'm all set for the holiday.
As it happened, it wasn't just our shower though, it was the hot water heater at fault this time.
My parents were visiting, so my dad and I went down to the basement, checked it out, read the directions to reboot it, and followed them to a T. Turn it off, then on, hold the buttons for one second, then press the cold button until it says warm (Really?). Off again, on again, hold, press hot. Aaaaack! It was a plumbing conspiracy to see which appliance/fixture could give me apoplexy first.
I had no choice though. Like a trained seal, I flipped switches, pressed buttons, kicked the unit (I added that little touch all by myself) and we still had cold water.
Tim came down and repeated the whole process except instead of kicking it and re-injuring his back, he showed it his middle finger and renamed it a four-letter word. And we still had cold water.
Finally, we exhausted all of our resources (and our vocabulary and knowledge of profane hand gestures) and had to call a plumber (again), because we still had cold water.
In the meantime, Tom (Tim's brother), stopped by and offered to take a crack at it. Sure. Be our guest. If you want your blood pressure to soar like a rocket and that vein on your head to burst, then who are we to kill your fun?
He went downstairs, unplugged the unit, plugged it back in, did not turn it off and on; did not press any buttons; did not follow any directions, and did not call a plumber. And the heater started working again.
We've torn up the plumber's number and from now on, we're just going to call Tom. Maybe next week, he can take a crack at the shower.
It all began the day we moved in...
Being type A personalities (or just incredibly unlucky and stupid), we moved in on a weekend where we had three black tie dinners. Three weeks before Christmas. And it was snowing. We had hit the trifecta.
So after a full day of hauling, lifting, unpacking and generally running around like nuts, we needed to clean up and glam up. I opened the shower door, turned the knob and...ahhh...nice hot water came gushing out.
Oooh, maybe a bit too hot. I turned it down. Still too hot. Waaay too hot. I turned it down again. Yeow! Scalding hot. Not good. I turned it down to a trickle. Aargh!! Now it felt like I was standing beneath a blowtorch. In the middle of the Sahara. At high noon.
While I still had some skin left, I stepped out and yelled for Tim, who, after twisting and turning the knob eighty-six times (and calling me an idiot for not knowing how to work the shower) was not able to get any different results. He then cursed it out, but oddly, that didn't work either. Go figure.
Since time was wasting, and we didn't particularly feel like spending the night in the burn unit, we called the plumber who had installed the shower. FYI, late Saturday afternoon during a snowstorm is not a good time to try and get a plumber to come to your house. But he did come eventually. Grudgingly. Very grudgingly. Extremely grudgingly. Oh, and he was really, really miffed.
He stomped into the house, mumbling and grousing to himself in such a Shrek-like manner, I expected to see Donkey trotting along at his heels. And he pretty much called us idiots for not knowing how to work the shower. Then, he tried to work the shower.
He turned it on. Hot water. Off. On. Hotter water. Off. On. Boiling hot water. Off. On. Off. On. So who's the idiot now? And by the way, as entertaining as this exhibition is, pal, we've sort of covered this ground ourselves about ninety-six dozen times. Do you think you could maybe, oh, I don't know, use one or two of those watch-a-ma-call-ems, tools? to FIX THE SHOWER? Otherwise, you are not going to be the only crabby person around here, and I bet that Tim and I can throw a hissy fit that will make yours look like you are Julie Andrews singing "Spoonful of Sugar".
Huffing, puffing and still muttering under his breath, Mr. Personality made several trips back and forth from his truck to the shower, used one of his lifelines to call his boss, polled the studio audience, scratched his head and finally came to the brilliant conclusion that the shower was broken.
NO! Reallly? Are you sure? Maybe you can turn it on and off again just to be certain.
And he was full of yet more good news. He would have to order the part and it would take at least a week! Yippee!!!
As it was now barely an hour before we were supposed to leave, he suggested we use another bathroom in the house. Gee, why didn't I think of that? Oh. I know. Maybe because this is the only one that doesn't need a shower curtain which I don't have, or face an uncovered window. I mean, I'd like to get to know the neighbors, but I was thinking more of treating them to a few snacks and drinks, not a strip tease.
So we rushed to CVS, dug out some old sheets and spent the next week waiting for the part, which, once installed worked for about three seconds. Then it didn't work. Then it did. Didn't. Did. Mr. Happy came back and fixed it so that it worked. Didn't work. Did...
And so for the last year, showering has been a grand adventure. Every morning, with great anticipation, I prepare my burn kit, opened the shower door and, with fingers crossed, reach for the knob. I turn the water on: too hot. Off. On quickly; hot. Off quickly, then on again. 32 left, 56 right, 14 left. Jump on one leg while reciting the alphabet backwards, then say abracadabra and wave the soap over the handle three times counterclockwise. Ahhh. Just right.
We've also had a parade of plumbers besides Mr. Grumpy. There's been Misters Sleepy, Sneezy, Goofy, Nutty and Dopey, but still no Mr. Fix-it.
So when cold water came out on Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised...until I turned blue. Hmmm. Red or blue. Great. Slap a star on my head and I'm all set for the holiday.
As it happened, it wasn't just our shower though, it was the hot water heater at fault this time.
My parents were visiting, so my dad and I went down to the basement, checked it out, read the directions to reboot it, and followed them to a T. Turn it off, then on, hold the buttons for one second, then press the cold button until it says warm (Really?). Off again, on again, hold, press hot. Aaaaack! It was a plumbing conspiracy to see which appliance/fixture could give me apoplexy first.
I had no choice though. Like a trained seal, I flipped switches, pressed buttons, kicked the unit (I added that little touch all by myself) and we still had cold water.
Tim came down and repeated the whole process except instead of kicking it and re-injuring his back, he showed it his middle finger and renamed it a four-letter word. And we still had cold water.
Finally, we exhausted all of our resources (and our vocabulary and knowledge of profane hand gestures) and had to call a plumber (again), because we still had cold water.
In the meantime, Tom (Tim's brother), stopped by and offered to take a crack at it. Sure. Be our guest. If you want your blood pressure to soar like a rocket and that vein on your head to burst, then who are we to kill your fun?
He went downstairs, unplugged the unit, plugged it back in, did not turn it off and on; did not press any buttons; did not follow any directions, and did not call a plumber. And the heater started working again.
We've torn up the plumber's number and from now on, we're just going to call Tom. Maybe next week, he can take a crack at the shower.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
A Little Bit of Knowledge
Two years ago, my dad wanted an iphone. Okay, so he was dragged kicking and screaming into the store after his phone died and they told him that they had stopped making that model at about the same time the mullet went out of style.
Now as far as him being technologically saavy enough to actually use the iphone? Hmmm. How can I put this delicately? He was still balancing his checkbook with an abacus and using a dictionary from 1942 to look up the definition of "internet".
Needless to say, we were all a bit worried. He surprised us though by actually becoming fairly proficient on the device. And by that I mean he could make and receive calls and play Angry Birds. Eventually, he could even get on the internet. Sometimes.
Encouraged by his foray into the 21st century, we bought him a basic model ipad last year.
Suddenly, a whole new world opened up to him. Did you know you can get books to read? And there are weather apps and news app and you can watch the episodes of Desperate Housewives that you missed because you were watching the Food Network instead?
The biggest revelation though was that he could get email! Of course, the man didn't actually have a valid email account, but hey, that was just a minor detail.
I believe my mom was more excited about the whole email thing because up until then, she had been the sole point of contact with the outside world. I think the pressure of that awesome responsibility was starting to make her a bit cranky, as evidenced by small things she would occasionally let slip, like, for example, rapping my father over the head with rolled-up printouts while yelling, "Learn to print your own D**M emails!" But maybe not. I might have misread the clues.
Anyway, over the past year, a whole world opened up to my father. He became king of the free apps, arbiter of all discussions, source of all knowledge and grand-slam champion of Angry Birds and Paper Toss. He was Judge Judy, Einstein and Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings all rolled into one!
What time did my sister's flight land? Free flight Tracker app.
What 52nd rerun of CSI (Miami, NY, LA, East Podunk, is there a difference?) was on next Tuesday opposite the encore presentation of Mama Mia? Free TV Guide app, of course.
Who was the actress that played a hatcheck girl for three seconds of screen time in that 1934 movie starring those two actors that only ever made one movie He was on it with the free IMDB app.
No topic was safe. He was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap to conclusions with a single swipe of his finger. He was free app man!
Now, my mother was smacking us on the head for getting him hooked on a device that had essentially become another appendage. "He's a couch potato," she complained. "I can't get him to go anywhere now." Yeah. And before the ipad, he was just begging to go to the symphony with you or shoe shopping.
Naturally, being the caring, concerned, dutiful children we are, after listening to her for the past year, we decided there was only one thing to do in order to help her out...upgrade my dad to the new ipad and give his old one to her!
Now, we did have to pry it out of his hands long enough to transfer all of his free apps over to the new one. And it was touch and go for most of the operation whether he would survive with his sanity intact or end up in Bedlam.
"Are you sure all the apps will transfer?" he asked for the 97th time on his 4,363rd trip into the room.
"Are you certain all my photos will be there?" he leaned over my shoulder for the 8 millionth time.
"Will I still have all my books?" he questioned, as he wore a trench in the floor pacing back and forth.
"Yes, yes, and yes. Geez, were you this much of a wreck with mom when I was being born?"
"Huh? What?" His fingers curled and uncurled subconsciously with the effort it took not to rip his beloved ipad from me and carry it off to the safety of his room. "Um. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. You're more important to me than an ipad," he mumbled, never taking his eyes off the screen."
Riiiight.
Finally though, the transfer was complete, and the man who, just a short time earlier hadn't known that safari wasn't just a trip in Africa was now teaching my mother how to navigate "app world".
"Sometimes she messes things up on it," he confided in me, "but don't worry. I get her all straightened out because I know all about how the ipad works."
And my mother? Oh yeah. She's also a couch potato. Hehehe.
Now as far as him being technologically saavy enough to actually use the iphone? Hmmm. How can I put this delicately? He was still balancing his checkbook with an abacus and using a dictionary from 1942 to look up the definition of "internet".
Needless to say, we were all a bit worried. He surprised us though by actually becoming fairly proficient on the device. And by that I mean he could make and receive calls and play Angry Birds. Eventually, he could even get on the internet. Sometimes.
Encouraged by his foray into the 21st century, we bought him a basic model ipad last year.
Suddenly, a whole new world opened up to him. Did you know you can get books to read? And there are weather apps and news app and you can watch the episodes of Desperate Housewives that you missed because you were watching the Food Network instead?
The biggest revelation though was that he could get email! Of course, the man didn't actually have a valid email account, but hey, that was just a minor detail.
I believe my mom was more excited about the whole email thing because up until then, she had been the sole point of contact with the outside world. I think the pressure of that awesome responsibility was starting to make her a bit cranky, as evidenced by small things she would occasionally let slip, like, for example, rapping my father over the head with rolled-up printouts while yelling, "Learn to print your own D**M emails!" But maybe not. I might have misread the clues.
Anyway, over the past year, a whole world opened up to my father. He became king of the free apps, arbiter of all discussions, source of all knowledge and grand-slam champion of Angry Birds and Paper Toss. He was Judge Judy, Einstein and Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings all rolled into one!
What time did my sister's flight land? Free flight Tracker app.
What 52nd rerun of CSI (Miami, NY, LA, East Podunk, is there a difference?) was on next Tuesday opposite the encore presentation of Mama Mia? Free TV Guide app, of course.
Who was the actress that played a hatcheck girl for three seconds of screen time in that 1934 movie starring those two actors that only ever made one movie He was on it with the free IMDB app.
No topic was safe. He was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap to conclusions with a single swipe of his finger. He was free app man!
Now, my mother was smacking us on the head for getting him hooked on a device that had essentially become another appendage. "He's a couch potato," she complained. "I can't get him to go anywhere now." Yeah. And before the ipad, he was just begging to go to the symphony with you or shoe shopping.
Naturally, being the caring, concerned, dutiful children we are, after listening to her for the past year, we decided there was only one thing to do in order to help her out...upgrade my dad to the new ipad and give his old one to her!
Now, we did have to pry it out of his hands long enough to transfer all of his free apps over to the new one. And it was touch and go for most of the operation whether he would survive with his sanity intact or end up in Bedlam.
"Are you sure all the apps will transfer?" he asked for the 97th time on his 4,363rd trip into the room.
"Are you certain all my photos will be there?" he leaned over my shoulder for the 8 millionth time.
"Will I still have all my books?" he questioned, as he wore a trench in the floor pacing back and forth.
"Yes, yes, and yes. Geez, were you this much of a wreck with mom when I was being born?"
"Huh? What?" His fingers curled and uncurled subconsciously with the effort it took not to rip his beloved ipad from me and carry it off to the safety of his room. "Um. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. You're more important to me than an ipad," he mumbled, never taking his eyes off the screen."
Riiiight.
Finally though, the transfer was complete, and the man who, just a short time earlier hadn't known that safari wasn't just a trip in Africa was now teaching my mother how to navigate "app world".
"Sometimes she messes things up on it," he confided in me, "but don't worry. I get her all straightened out because I know all about how the ipad works."
And my mother? Oh yeah. She's also a couch potato. Hehehe.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
An Uninvited Guest
Shortly after we moved into our new house, I began noticing things. There was some mysterious "dirt" in the garage. Hmmm. Well, we did have a lot of boxes, movers, etc. Next, one night at dusk, I thought I saw a "shadow" streak across the floor. Double hmmm. Maybe I just needed new contacts. But then came the clincher. Somebody nibbled right through the foil wrapper of my emergency stash chocolate bar. Deep down, I knew what all this meant, even though I didn't want to admit it.
Just to be sure though, I confronted Tim, but the forensic evidence backed up his innocence. I couldn't deny the truth any longer. We had mice. Greedy, chocolate-stealing mice. They had to go.
Now, I am normally a live and let live kind of gal, but hey, they had crossed the line by going after my chocolate, so I did what had to be done (without actually having to touch one of the critters myself- bleck!) and called the exterminator.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, history of mice. Blah, blah, blah, habits and patterns. Look pal, all this info is great. Truly. But as fascinating as the crash course in Rodents 101 is, I DON'T CARE. I just want them GONE. NOW. Oh, and I'd like to do it humanely.
(long suffering sigh) Fine. Glue traps?
Hmm. Stuck to a board where they starve to death. Yeah. Not really sounding humane.
(Drawn-out sigh complete with impressive amount of chest expansion to make his point) Poison?
H-U-M-A-N-E. Maybe let's look it up in the dictionary, shall we? I'll bet there's even an app for that.
(Big sigh, accompanied by eye rolling in heavenward direction while mouthing what looked to be a prayer for patience). Traps?
Okay, but the kind where you can release them later, right?
(Huge, shoulder-heaving, you're-killing-me-lady sigh accompanied by full on glare)
He then explained to me the difference between exterminators and the animal rescue league. I explained the difference between being hired and being fired.
So we set the lures, plugged up the point(s) of entry and celebrated by watching some Tom and Jerry cartoons. Simple and painless for everyone. Nope. Uh uh. And, oh yeah, not that easy by a mile.
A few days later, I was upstairs doing some laundry when Tim came home from work early. While waiting for me to finish up, he sat down in the familyroom off the kitchen and got on his laptop (you can take the boy out of work...)
A few minutes later, I descended the stairs and a movement in the kitchen caught my eye. There. On the counter, my counter was a mouse, while Tim happily clicked and clacked along on his computer, totally oblivious to the threat to my chocolate and what was left of my sanity taking place a mere room away. Gross. Yuck. Ick and Ack!
Now, here is where our stories differ.
I remember calmly strolling over to Tim and quietly whispering in his ear that our mouse was back and trotting around my U-shaped countertops like a K-mart shopper looking for the blue-light special.
According to Tim, I screamed at the top of my lungs, pointed with trembling finger to the kitchen as though Freddie Kruger was slashing his way in through the window and gasped out something incomprehensible like mmm...mmm...mmm...ow...ow...ow... But he exaggerates.
Either way, Tim belatedly got the message and rushed into battle like a mighty warrior of old armed with his trusty and lethal sword...except in his case, it was a dishtowel.
For the next several minutes, Tim chased after that mouse. Back and forth, back and forth they scampered in vain, the mouse trying to flee, Tim trying to clean it, er, catch it, while I stood cheering him on. Okay, so maybe I was screaming like a banshee.
Exasperated and exhausted, both Tim and the mouse (I swear) stopped and looked at me.
"Be quiet," Tim snapped. (The mouse wisely kept his big trap shut) "You're scaring the poor little thing."
Excuse me? I'm scaring him? He is on my counter in my kitchen, going after more of my chocolate, and you're worried that I'm, what, hurting his fuzzy little feelings? Making him feel unloved and unwanted? Oh no! How will I ever be able to face myself in the mirror again?!? Heaven forbid my screaming might actually scare the "poor little thing" to death! Whatever would we do?
Tim growled and ground his teeth in total frustration. The mouse, sensing it was now or never, took advantage of his distraction, and with a death-defying leap Evil Knieval would be proud of, landed on the floor, scooted under the stove and escaped. We hunted for that little guy the rest of the night, but apparently Tim had frightened him off with all his yelling and carrying on, so he was never seen again.
The next day, I rented a semi to go buy some Clorox while Tim called the exterminator. And that was the end of our uninvited guest (although I swear I saw him in the yard waving good-bye to Tim one morning and giving him the thumbs-up), and the end of the exterminator as well, who, last I heard was going into a less service-oriented profession, like cloistered monk or hermit.
Just to be sure though, I confronted Tim, but the forensic evidence backed up his innocence. I couldn't deny the truth any longer. We had mice. Greedy, chocolate-stealing mice. They had to go.
Now, I am normally a live and let live kind of gal, but hey, they had crossed the line by going after my chocolate, so I did what had to be done (without actually having to touch one of the critters myself- bleck!) and called the exterminator.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, history of mice. Blah, blah, blah, habits and patterns. Look pal, all this info is great. Truly. But as fascinating as the crash course in Rodents 101 is, I DON'T CARE. I just want them GONE. NOW. Oh, and I'd like to do it humanely.
(long suffering sigh) Fine. Glue traps?
Hmm. Stuck to a board where they starve to death. Yeah. Not really sounding humane.
(Drawn-out sigh complete with impressive amount of chest expansion to make his point) Poison?
H-U-M-A-N-E. Maybe let's look it up in the dictionary, shall we? I'll bet there's even an app for that.
(Big sigh, accompanied by eye rolling in heavenward direction while mouthing what looked to be a prayer for patience). Traps?
Okay, but the kind where you can release them later, right?
(Huge, shoulder-heaving, you're-killing-me-lady sigh accompanied by full on glare)
He then explained to me the difference between exterminators and the animal rescue league. I explained the difference between being hired and being fired.
So we set the lures, plugged up the point(s) of entry and celebrated by watching some Tom and Jerry cartoons. Simple and painless for everyone. Nope. Uh uh. And, oh yeah, not that easy by a mile.
A few days later, I was upstairs doing some laundry when Tim came home from work early. While waiting for me to finish up, he sat down in the familyroom off the kitchen and got on his laptop (you can take the boy out of work...)
A few minutes later, I descended the stairs and a movement in the kitchen caught my eye. There. On the counter, my counter was a mouse, while Tim happily clicked and clacked along on his computer, totally oblivious to the threat to my chocolate and what was left of my sanity taking place a mere room away. Gross. Yuck. Ick and Ack!
Now, here is where our stories differ.
I remember calmly strolling over to Tim and quietly whispering in his ear that our mouse was back and trotting around my U-shaped countertops like a K-mart shopper looking for the blue-light special.
According to Tim, I screamed at the top of my lungs, pointed with trembling finger to the kitchen as though Freddie Kruger was slashing his way in through the window and gasped out something incomprehensible like mmm...mmm...mmm...ow...ow...ow... But he exaggerates.
Either way, Tim belatedly got the message and rushed into battle like a mighty warrior of old armed with his trusty and lethal sword...except in his case, it was a dishtowel.
For the next several minutes, Tim chased after that mouse. Back and forth, back and forth they scampered in vain, the mouse trying to flee, Tim trying to clean it, er, catch it, while I stood cheering him on. Okay, so maybe I was screaming like a banshee.
Exasperated and exhausted, both Tim and the mouse (I swear) stopped and looked at me.
"Be quiet," Tim snapped. (The mouse wisely kept his big trap shut) "You're scaring the poor little thing."
Excuse me? I'm scaring him? He is on my counter in my kitchen, going after more of my chocolate, and you're worried that I'm, what, hurting his fuzzy little feelings? Making him feel unloved and unwanted? Oh no! How will I ever be able to face myself in the mirror again?!? Heaven forbid my screaming might actually scare the "poor little thing" to death! Whatever would we do?
Tim growled and ground his teeth in total frustration. The mouse, sensing it was now or never, took advantage of his distraction, and with a death-defying leap Evil Knieval would be proud of, landed on the floor, scooted under the stove and escaped. We hunted for that little guy the rest of the night, but apparently Tim had frightened him off with all his yelling and carrying on, so he was never seen again.
The next day, I rented a semi to go buy some Clorox while Tim called the exterminator. And that was the end of our uninvited guest (although I swear I saw him in the yard waving good-bye to Tim one morning and giving him the thumbs-up), and the end of the exterminator as well, who, last I heard was going into a less service-oriented profession, like cloistered monk or hermit.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Buy the Book
I adore books. Fact or fiction, doesn't matter, I buy them all. The only kind of book that I have never bought is one on owning a pet. I mean, seriously, instinct and common sense are all you need, right? After all, you never see a monkey at the library or a lion browsing the child-rearing section at Barnes and Noble. And if elephants don't stress about something as big as potty training, then who should?
So when we got our dog, I wasn't too worried about raising her. How hard could it be? I'd had about ten gazillion cats and they were easy to deal with as long as you understood the ground rules: 1. They are in charge and 2. You live to serve them. Give them what they want, and nobody gets hurt, see? Train a cat? Sure. And then for your encore, you can walk on water and bring about world peace.
But a dog? They live to serve you, right? Common sense says to walk them, feed them, give them a nice, comfy little doggie bed to call their own and you have a devoted friend for life. Yup.
So, naively, we started with a walk. Well, I started with a walk, the dog made it about three feet before she decided our lawn was a wonderful smorgasbord of tasty delights: grass, mulch, leaves, dirt, bugs, acorns, trees, worms, and, hey, was that a scrumptious-looking bit of bird poop on the driveway? Yuuummmy!
Now, call me crazy, but instinct told me this was bad. Normal dogs do not eat something that has passed through the intestinal tract of another animal and come out of an opening marked "exit only". My dog had to be a freak.
And so I spent our first "walk" looming over her like a vulture over roadkill pulling dead, dying, moldering, slimy things that I wouldn't even normally step on while wearing heavy-duty work boots and hip-waders out of her mouth with my bare fingers. Eeewww. So much for walking.
Feeding? Well, after grazing in our yard like a competitive eater at an all-you-can-eat $1.99 buffet, how could she possibly be hungry? Common sense would say that she should be full, so, on to the bed.
By night, our little darling ambles happily into her comfy little crate and snoozes the hours away while dreaming of eating the poop and the bird. Finally. Something that was making sense!
Ah, but it turns out she was only lulling me into a false sense of security, because by the light of day, the mere prospect of a half hour in that cozy haven suddenly sent her into paroxysms of yowling, howling, yipping, yapping, crying, whining and sobbing panic.
The crate had become puppy prison. A horrible torture chamber to be avoided at all costs. Treats, toys and other enticements are placed there to lure poor, unsuspecting puppies into an evil vortex from which they may never return. And mommy? She makes Cruella DeVille look like Glenda the good witch. Do not under any circumstances trust her if you even suspect there is a crate somewhere in the vicinity.
So we decided to let her use the doggie bed someone had given her as a gift. Common sense. It is open, airy, plush. She will love it. Wrong again.
She has peed in it, tried to eat it, kicked it, punched it, tossed it, ripped it, trampled it and cussed it out with what I'm sure is wildly inappropriate language more suitable to some large, burly man with tattoos of skulls on his biceps.
Nap in the bed? Fat chance. She don't need no stinkin' nap. But if she absolutely, positively cannot keep her eyes open, then the best place for a nap is under a bed, table, couch, chair, or any other small, inaccessible spot where she can peer out with utter contempt while at the same time managing to smile smugly. Oh, and by the way, the carpet pad is waaaay tastier than anything I have to give her.
Well, since common sense and instinct did not seem to be working too well for me, I decided it couldn't hurt to maybe look up a few general guidelines on the Internet. Just purely as a matter of interest. So I maybe browsed a few thousand web sites. And then I may have taken a trip to the bookstore and bought a book or two. Okay, maybe three or four. And I may have highlighted and bookmarked a few dozen little tidbits, just to show Tim, poor guy, since he seemed a bit clueless.
I found out that it all comes down to this: Puppies are little bundles of energy who have no common sense and their instinct is to eat everything they see. Walking? Don't hold your breath. You might as well try to juggle jello. And finally, like kids, the box is always better than what came in it. Deal with it and nobody gets hurt, see? At least that is what the book says.
So when we got our dog, I wasn't too worried about raising her. How hard could it be? I'd had about ten gazillion cats and they were easy to deal with as long as you understood the ground rules: 1. They are in charge and 2. You live to serve them. Give them what they want, and nobody gets hurt, see? Train a cat? Sure. And then for your encore, you can walk on water and bring about world peace.
But a dog? They live to serve you, right? Common sense says to walk them, feed them, give them a nice, comfy little doggie bed to call their own and you have a devoted friend for life. Yup.
So, naively, we started with a walk. Well, I started with a walk, the dog made it about three feet before she decided our lawn was a wonderful smorgasbord of tasty delights: grass, mulch, leaves, dirt, bugs, acorns, trees, worms, and, hey, was that a scrumptious-looking bit of bird poop on the driveway? Yuuummmy!
Now, call me crazy, but instinct told me this was bad. Normal dogs do not eat something that has passed through the intestinal tract of another animal and come out of an opening marked "exit only". My dog had to be a freak.
And so I spent our first "walk" looming over her like a vulture over roadkill pulling dead, dying, moldering, slimy things that I wouldn't even normally step on while wearing heavy-duty work boots and hip-waders out of her mouth with my bare fingers. Eeewww. So much for walking.
Feeding? Well, after grazing in our yard like a competitive eater at an all-you-can-eat $1.99 buffet, how could she possibly be hungry? Common sense would say that she should be full, so, on to the bed.
By night, our little darling ambles happily into her comfy little crate and snoozes the hours away while dreaming of eating the poop and the bird. Finally. Something that was making sense!
Ah, but it turns out she was only lulling me into a false sense of security, because by the light of day, the mere prospect of a half hour in that cozy haven suddenly sent her into paroxysms of yowling, howling, yipping, yapping, crying, whining and sobbing panic.
The crate had become puppy prison. A horrible torture chamber to be avoided at all costs. Treats, toys and other enticements are placed there to lure poor, unsuspecting puppies into an evil vortex from which they may never return. And mommy? She makes Cruella DeVille look like Glenda the good witch. Do not under any circumstances trust her if you even suspect there is a crate somewhere in the vicinity.
So we decided to let her use the doggie bed someone had given her as a gift. Common sense. It is open, airy, plush. She will love it. Wrong again.
She has peed in it, tried to eat it, kicked it, punched it, tossed it, ripped it, trampled it and cussed it out with what I'm sure is wildly inappropriate language more suitable to some large, burly man with tattoos of skulls on his biceps.
Nap in the bed? Fat chance. She don't need no stinkin' nap. But if she absolutely, positively cannot keep her eyes open, then the best place for a nap is under a bed, table, couch, chair, or any other small, inaccessible spot where she can peer out with utter contempt while at the same time managing to smile smugly. Oh, and by the way, the carpet pad is waaaay tastier than anything I have to give her.
Well, since common sense and instinct did not seem to be working too well for me, I decided it couldn't hurt to maybe look up a few general guidelines on the Internet. Just purely as a matter of interest. So I maybe browsed a few thousand web sites. And then I may have taken a trip to the bookstore and bought a book or two. Okay, maybe three or four. And I may have highlighted and bookmarked a few dozen little tidbits, just to show Tim, poor guy, since he seemed a bit clueless.
I found out that it all comes down to this: Puppies are little bundles of energy who have no common sense and their instinct is to eat everything they see. Walking? Don't hold your breath. You might as well try to juggle jello. And finally, like kids, the box is always better than what came in it. Deal with it and nobody gets hurt, see? At least that is what the book says.
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