I Just Did A Whole Post About The Miracle That Is Okra Pickles Complete With Pictures But Then Erased It When I Ate A Rotten And Squishy Okra Right After.or
You're Welcome.Two questions:
1) If someone I'm having to dinner tomorrow recently wrecked his motorcycle by plowing into a cow going seventy, and then contracted ecoli from all of the cow blood that oozed into his multiple compound fractures, is it bad form to serve beef? Or would it be seen as more of a "see? cows can't hurt you anymore" gesture? How about if I fling hamburger at him while screeching, "MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!"
2)When my trainer asks me how my eating is going, and I tell him that I think it's going pretty well seeing as how I've had fettucine alfredo for the past eleven meals in a row, does he not mean in terms of
consistancy? I was expecting some applause, frankly. I even invented some meals (laundry meal, on-the-phone meal) and wedged them in there, just for consistancy bonus points. Huh.
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I was talking to
Dayment during her lunch hour this afternoon; she was attempting a quasi-seance on her hardrive and I was waiting for the carpet cleaner. The end of the conversation? She said "thanks for calling" and I said "you too." Yes. I'm just that cool, people. Call me. I'll ask you how you're doing. Twice.
As an aside, the carpet cleaner graduates with a degree in computer engineering next week. He suggested that she try
Microsoft/technet for advice. I thought that was a pretty pansy answer for a computer engineer, but damned if I was going to say so while he was weilding a three thousand pound whirring carpet cleaning machine.
Oooooh. He likes the lazy susan.
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Sometimes The Dog Is The Most Interesting Thing Going.1) I took Jake to the vet yesterday to get his third shot series. Here's a list of things I asked the vet:
a)
Q: What is he doing in his kennel at night that involves this murderous yet unidentifiable stench and all of this STICKY GOO?
A: No idea. Gross, though.
b)
Q: Should we have his dew claws removed?
A: Um, he doesn't
have any dew claws.
Oh. Well, what about his back legs? Should we have
those removed? Can we remove
something?
2) We also went to Petco. His virgin trip. He handled it like a champion. He waggled his back end until he formed a "C" and then peed on my foot. There was a woman there wearing a leopard-print "frontpack" stuffed with blankets and what appeared to be some sort of larva. I peered closer.
"She's a teacup chihuahua," she explained. The animal in question was completely hairless with its eyes squinched shut and seemed to be oddly moist.
"How old is she?" I asked.
"Four weeks."
Uh, okay, FREAK. Carrying a dog fetus around in a Snugli doesn't promote you to "birth mother" status, Honey. Get that thing back home and let the mom chew off the umbilical cord, for Christ's sake. Get a stuffed animal. Do a puzzle or something. BIDE your TIME. Damn.
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So it rained.
Some.
This may not look that bad, but bear in mind that my dog is chasing ducks.
And that he's eleven feet tall.
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And Now... Egotistical Sausage Links Star In... "Wiggly Always Wins!"I rolled out of bed this morning secure in my possession of eggs and cottage cheese and
Cholula's; brushing my teeth I was fortified (understandably) by the comforting knowledge that I was soon to engage in the Standard And Habitual Breakfast Making. But what I hadn't counted on, friends, was lying in greasy practiced wait for me in a yellow box in the meat drawer. What I hadn't counted on... was pork.
And there they were. Jimmy Dean Fully-Cooked Sausage Links. One was doing knee bends with a sweatband wrapped around his end. The other one was trying to deadlift the sour cream.
"You're never going to get that up without gloves on," I told him. "You're way too oily."
The sausages snickered. Knee-bend Sausage peered up at me, sausage hands on sleek sausage waist.
"What, you think you can do better?" he chortled. "I'd like to see
you lift that plastic tub!"
He had me there.
I changed the subject. "Why don't you guys try something a little less strenuous?" I suggested. "Like pilates. Or yoga."
Tiny fennel eyes rolled at me in unison.
"Because we already ROCK at pilates and yoga!" spat Lifter Sausage, adjusting his weight belt.
"Our shit is
showroom TIGHT, yo!" They launched into a hatha sequence, interrupting their poses only to give each other sticky high fives.
I don't think you should be able to do yoga if you don't have any joints. I don't think it's fair. And it makes those of us with joints look bad.
So I ate them.
But not the weight belt.
The sweatband, yes, by accident.
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Whenever I Start Wondering Why I'm Spending Hundreds Of Dollars On Professional Dog Training, I Think About The Following Things:
1) the surprisingly barrel-chested, neck like a cement truck "lab" that my semi-estranged grandfather donated as a Christmas gift when I was nine. Yeah. If you're picturing Grandpa driving over to carefully deliver a warm and wiggly, thoroughly vet-checked, de-liced and de-ticked puppy with a widdle wed bow awound his widdle neck, THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT. Actually the whole family got bribed into driving out to Grandpa's 100 acre tree farm in the middle of Phoenix City, Alabama to pick
up said pup. We didn't like to do this for a variety of reasons. First, Step-grandma kept insisting that the swarming hives of yellow jackets that hovered around the eaves had been "saved by Jesus" and that they therefore posed no threat to my fatally allergic father who on these rare visits was forced to pretend like he made an everyday habit out of clenching multiple loaded epinephrine syringes in his sweaty fists while swathed in a poncho, locked in the bathroom.
Second, mmmm...
chiggers.
Third, the pit bulls out there roam and hunt in wild packs. Grandpa and Step-grandma both carried .22s with them to check the mail on the off-chance that, despite Step-grandma's no-doubt reliable yet ne'er tested Pentecostal intervention, a pit bull made for the jugular.
I think you see where I'm going.
We were led to believe that Grandpa's lab-mix "Happy" had spontaneously gestated a litter of adorable and not at all fucking crazy and/or lethal pups. Not true. Now I don't know if Happy got sucked into a gang, or if she couldn't pay the rent and resorted to turning tricks or if-- God forbid-- she got cornered against the barn late one night after second shift at the Denny's. All I'm saying is that these puppies were half "mix" and half "completely unbelievable that this is a dog". My brother and I wrassled our way under the house to "git ourselves a pup" and what we unearthed, blinking and drooling, was a clamp-jawed, wall-eyed disaster that we then drove six hours home with so that he could relentlessly eat his own shit and then gnaw a hole through the garage door. Our parents had to shame us into playing with him;
that game was a little like "tag", only the dog was always "it" and if he caught you the chances were pretty good that you would bleed out before the other sibling could get to a parent. We were fast, fast, fast little runners. Anyway. The vet advised us to donate him to someone who had no children, no other pets, a barbed wire fence and a bunch of dead bodies buried in the backyard that required a diligent-to-the-point-of-gangrene guard dog. So that's what we did.
2) the fact that I totally thought that R would call my bluff when I insisted that "it was just important enough to me" to shell out Student Loan Sugar Daddy cash for it. He didn't. He shrugged. Bad call on my part. Well, we'll see who's laughing when I have Jake trained to tell R he looks bloated. And to not laugh at any of his stupid jokes. Meanwhile, I'll be over here in the "well-behaved dog / no car insurance" line. It's right next to the "new Armani suit / no electricity" people. We get along okay. They drive us around and we tell them what happened on "Survivor".
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Hey, do reading all of these "VD" posts remind anyone else of venereal disease? Thereby thoroughly tainting the Hallmark-sponsored pink ribbons and candy hearts mindset with visions of oozing lesions and screaming, accusatory phone calls?
Hey, and once you force yourself to not think of that time you got crabs from "Rick" who swore to Jesus
he got them from a Chevron bathroom every time you read "VD", do you think of "
V" the miniseries? And then do you find yourself wondering whether or not alien creatures sent to Earth to harvest human bodies could catch genital warts?
And if so, do you think they could spread them?
I bet they'd be really pissed. Because their planet probably doesn't even make a cream or anything.
Happy VD, everyone!
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"It's Almost Valentine's Day... Do You Guys Carry 'Coochie' Brand Shave Gel? In Vanilla?"
So Valentine's Day is tomorrow. You might not have known that. It's one of those holidays whose meaning is so fundamental and pure that there isn't really a whole lot of commercial marketing surrounding it*. I'm not a big fan, really, and I've never pushed the men in my life to do anything for Valentine's. I just don't care. But R goes crazy; he's the guy who'll have long-stemmed red roses delivered even though they cost like $800. And then it's a secret, luscious dinner at whatever posh restaurant he made reservations with ten months ago. Complete with the "order in advance" chocolate souffle. So what do I do for this, the Most Romantic Man In The Universe? Buy him another pocketknife? Make him brownies and shape them like little chocolate lovebirds and chocolate couples walking hand in hand? Decorate his car with silly string and chewed pink bubblegum? I say nay. When in the throes of uninspired romantic ineptitude, let's go raunch.
The porn store was buzzing today, my friends; Valentine's Day must be to porn what Christmas is to The Gap. Why, the bouncer barely had time to flip through his
"Best of Jenna Jameson: Girl on Girl" coffee table portfolio what with all of the ID checking and all of those gross, leary men to keep an eye on. I strode in with my gym clothes on, bullet point list in hand; a Valentine on a sex mission. Let's cover some fine points, shall we?
1) Ahem. Okay, the little schoolgirl outfits that come prepackaged? With the tiny plaid skirts and the thin little button-down tops? There is NO WAY that those are "one size fits most." Seriously. It's an impossible concept. If you're going to sell fake penises in every size imaginable from one inch to fifty inches covering all of the penis bases in between by the
sixteenth of an inch, you can't just give up on the clothes like that. Follow through. Slackers.
2) A very special shout out to the adorable gay guy who helped me find that little gingham number; you're a life saver! And I'm a little relieved that you didn't know what those giant safety pins were attached to it for. And when I asked you about
these and you said they were "adorable", I could have kissed you. But I didn't, because it would have had to be a messy open-mouthed affair and then we would have ended up naked in a dressing room with the bouncer and the girl reshelving videos because that's the natural progression of things when you kiss someone for calling slut shoes "adorable" in a porn store.
3) So seriously, after I had asked this guy all matter-of-factly about outfits and sizes and advice, and after we had bonded over our shared repulsion of that glitter-slash-feather robe thing, and after I asked him if he had that shoe in an 8, he leans in all conspiratorially and goes, "Hey, are you a dancer?"
NO. BUT THAT'S
FUCKING AWESOME!
I wish I'd said yes. I'm sure it would have backfired. I would have said yes, and then he would have asked where, and I would have said the first club that came to mind, and he would be all, "Oh, do you know Tammy?" and I'd be all, "Well, I'm still kind of new," and he'd be all, "She's about five ten, long blond hair, she works weekends and Tuesdays?" and I'd scratch my head and look past him and go, "Oh, yeah! She's a sweetheart!" and he'd be like, "A bunch of us go clubbing on Saturdays after last call... you should totally come!" and I'd be all, "Seriously? That would be so cool!" And then we'd exchange pager numbers and I'd have to race downtown and get a job at the strip club. And get a pager. So it's probably for the best. That I said, "no."
Anyway.
Here's a real-life picture of my new shoe. I want you all to notice that it's resting on a copy of Daniel Miller's "Acknowledging Consumption: A Review Of New Studies In Material Culture". I had to take the shoe off the book really quick because the pages started smoldering and then the devil called and told me that fun was fun and all but I was pushing things.
Happy Valentine's Day!
*SARCASM.
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KELLY OF THE DOG REALNESS DOUBT:
4% of
REAL ASS CHIHUAHUA who fits in tiny, tiny stuff.
He's coming to bite you.
I can't stop him.
He's fierce and frothy.
And he's driving a vase.
Watch out.
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UPDATE: Ha Ha! It's a one picture pictorial, but a pictorial after all.
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"What's The Dilly Yo?" And Other Crack Smack From 1996.
or
Whatever That Means. Hey, Wynonna Judd Is On Oprah Right Now And She's A Crybaby With A Personal Chef And A DUI.
1) My "best post ever" plans fell through. It was a pictorial melange tentatively titled, "Let's See What This Chihuahua Will Fit In", and so far I had utensil drawer, jewelry box, mailbox, coffee pot, glass vase, a thermos and my gym shoe. Then Sassy came home to claim her pet and caught me arranging him in a large wine glass. It's not that she was angry; it's just that she inadvertently erased all the pictures while she was laughing her ass off, and I don't think I have the energy for a repeat. The dog seems okay with it, but I think that he's probably faking enthusiasm because his tiny agent is breathing down his tiny neck.
2) Sassy and I talked R into buying this gorgeous stainless steel grill at Costco over the weekend. Our existing grill was a 1974 "lone knob" special with three legs and a lot of duct tape in charge of crucial wiring. It was sort of like grilling food over a sparkler. Only a filthy, charred sparkler that's covered in dead spiders. This new gig was too good to pass up... $400 and it's got a sideburner and cabinets and a rotisserie and four legs and no spiders. So Sassy and I, having pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed, find ourselves in charge of assembling the new and shiny equipment. We spent an inordinate amount of time squinting at the giant heavy box parked on the patio, biting our nails and wondering how to get it out and also wondering how, once it was
out, we were ever in the world going to turn assorted small metal parts into something resembling... something. I grabbed my
Leatherman Juice Pro that I have for no reason and after twelve minutes found something in there resembling a blade. And got to cutting. Elation! The most complicated part of the grill (the knobs and the fire part) is already assembled! High five! Then we realized that I managed to carve up most of the stainless steel while I was cutting open the box. Um, low five. Good thing the grill wasn't made out of bunnies.
3) I'm still fielding tee shirt slogans, by the way. And I'm not divulging what they are; I'll make the shirts and send them out and it's up to the recipient to take pictures and/or describe. I
will say that I'm making myself a "Power Washing My Way To Victory" shirt
post fucking
haste thanks to
Scott. And some lucky person is getting "Forcefields are hard". I love tee shirts.
4) It's a bad sign when your self-esteem is raised three or four whole points just by being able to do the elliptical trainer without holding on. What's worse is that I've taken to casting disparaging glances at those who choose to hold. I'm pretty sure no one notices, what with all of my mouth breathing and singing along to "Wanna Be Starting Something". My lameness masks my... lameness.
Oh, P.S.: I just got this month's "Shape" magazine. "The Special Weight Loss Issue!" the cover screams. As opposed to
last month's "Shape" which was dedicated to maintaining and preserving cellulite. Or that other issue with the great "death by chocolate" recipes.
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It's Monday For All The Cool Kids.
or
So I'm Working With Thursday.
1)
Scott emailed me the Most Incredible Tee Shirt Slogans Of All Time. He needs to email me again and specify size and color. And whether or not he wants a spaghetti strap tank with a built-in bra. Or a handgun. Or just a regular shirt.
2)
Sara is back from her Dissertation hiatus because she totally gave up and decided to just work as a telemarketer and a census taker. Wait, that's me. Go give her some "wow, you really finished?" props. She'll reward you by bombarding you with wacky corn facts.
3) I'm completely in love with
her: "For the past few years I've been supplementing my diet with more vegetables (cheez its are a vegetable, right? I mean, they grow in the ground)." Yes. And yes.
4) Friday night R and I went "to dinner" with a couple that we know. Troy has made FORTUNES by working at one of those jobs that is so simplistic and pure in its money-pulling-in prowess that when you hear about it your first instinct is to run in front of a bus and end your not-simple-no-prowess misery. Janna is a trustfund baby who has the daunting task of finding new and inventive ways to spend $11,000 a month. It's like that Richard Pryor movie, only with more manicures and more Prada. So here's Friday night in the smallest and crunchiest of nutshells:
Friday morning Troy tries to break up with Janna. For like the sixth time.
Friday afternoon Janna goes in for her plastic surgery consult for her $16,000 "post-motherhood overhaul".
Janna is thirty-two.
The doctor assures Janna that by March 15th she will have the tits of a nineteen year old. A girl one.
Troy decides to hang in until, say, April.
Friday night: Janna has something to prove. And I'm about to be sucked into her night of "look how sexy and party and fabulous I am."
Friday night: shots with names I had left in highschool (scooby snacks? seriously?) are thrown back, some dude helps me ONTO THE BAR.
It's quite a statement, I think, that while I'm dancing on the bar in heels R is watching the snowboarding video that's on the television. There's nothing like sweatily peering down from Bartop Slutsville only to catch your boyfriend wondering with his whole heart what kind of gear that one kid is on.
Did Janna prove her point? She proved that she has pretty good balance. And pretty good stamina. And pretty low tolerance.
Troy proved that he is easily taught superficial lessons.
R proved that he's a snowboard eunuch.
I proved that I'm a Prove It Lemming.
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I'm So Formless I'm Human Polenta. Somebody Shrink-Tube Me. And Secure My Ends With Metal Clips.
1) I got up to let Jake out last night and lo and behold, his entire
back was drenched. Cold and wet and weird. And just his back; nothing else. What the fuck
is that? Did I get some kind of amphibian dog who can excrete fluid through his lymph nodes? Man, I sure hope so!
2) Notice I said "fluid" and not "urine". The jury, believe it or not, is still out. How many options can there possibly be, you ask?
You tell
me. Smell my hand.
3) So I have most of my glitter iron-on letters from these extremely hip
Canadians. The Jack Fortune shirts shall be forthwith and glittery. And tight, yo. So here's what I'm thinking: The first one I'm making says "Next Thursday Your Best Bet Is To Just Run For It." I think the next one will say, "I'm Almost Positive It's Not Your Carburetor." You should give me ideas. In fact, the three best ideas I get I'll make into shirts for their thinker-uppers. Or tank tops. Or bikini briefs. Whatever you want that I can heat up. So
email me.
(I'm sort of stealing this whole tee shirt thing from
Sarah Brown. Except that she was clever enough to think of her own slogans. And she did it like three years ago when iron-ons were retro chic and not just... old.)
P.S. Thanks for asking: NO. I won't do one with "Abercrombie" on it.
4) I stood in line at Costco for a half hour holding a box of concrete nails and listening to some couple ask every present human's opinion on Sago palm trees before I got to the checkout and saw that Costco doesn't take VISA. I thought it was a trick. I mean, "it's everywhere you want to be"! Costco is communist Russia. Only without all the VISA cards. I left my box of hammers and anvils and stormed out in a huff. I tried to huffily knock over some Sago palms to further dramatize my exit but damnit, they
really are very sturdy plants.
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I'm Lacking Cohesion.
In case you were wondering how much work I've thrown up against my thesis so far this semester, it's actually a really easy amount to remember: it's the same amount of work I've thrown up against cleaning my crack den of a house. And, coincidentally enough, also the same amount as my cure for lymphoma. The
good news, though, is that the head of the English department (the woman whose ass I painstakingly and strategically kissed for a YEAR to cushion the blow of a shit thesis project) was asked to step down. Got fired. Pisses me off, because now I know that she was in all likelihood
exactly the type of person who would rationalize that birthday cards and "teacher's day" candy make up for complete incompetence. The
better news (follow me down the windy, windy path of sarcastic scoffing) is that if I had to pick a single professor in the department who I go out of my way to duck and hide from, to shirk and shrink behind trees from, to crawl commando-style down the hall to slink into the recess of a stairwell from,
THAT'S the guy they asked to replace her. Boo yah.
I sure wish I'd get another
Victoria's Secret catalogue. I haven't gotten one in SEVEN MINUTES.
R has decided that it's cute if he and Jake "read" together at night; R reads a section of the paper while the dog rips and eats another section. It's really fantastic if you like picking up three billion wet paper scraps while the dog lunges at your arms and you don't want to be able to hear the television. OR read the paper. Obviously.
(I would, actually, really like another Victoria's Secret catalogue. So, you know. Give it.)
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I'm A Little Distracted Because I'm Watching "Groundhog Day". Again.
Whoo hoo! Front row at the "Showstoppers" Impersonation show at the casino! A yellow scarf, a kiss and a catcall from Sweaty Elvis, a wink and a kissed hand from Elwood the Blues Brother, a hundred dollar win on the Wheel of Fortune slot machine and the best hair in three counties! Throw in a jam-packed all-you-can eat buffet with sneeze-guards so adequate that you find yourself squatting with one arm blindly thrust through a five inch access gap, vainly attempting to scrape a potato onto your tray without breaking your ulna while squinting like a blind safecracker and you've got yourself a Friday.
P.S.: I never want to do that again.
I'm pleased to announce that I made it through half of the Superbowl yesterday without knowing who was playing.
Yessssssss. Personal best. Thumbs up to the Budweiser people for once again proving that they own the universe. Thumbs down to the totally contrived last-minute "boob exposure" during halftime. Try a little harder to make it look like an accident, gang. I know all of
my studded leather bustiers have tear-away breast panels. And what the hell was that Muhammad Ali ad for? That was 2.5 million dollars worth of "Hey, I thought he was dead." Money well spent.
P.S.: Superbowl party + chili cookoff = what???
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