shoesonwrong

And Of Course Ryan Slept Through It

I've had this bear, Snuggles, since I was just shy of three years old.

It's that bear from the Snuggles fabric softener, and the only reason my mother got it for me for Christmas was to win an ongoing argument we had as to whether or not Snuggles really had the ability to walk, talk, and fall gently into a pile of laundry while giggling. That my mother had to shell out twenty bucks to win an argument with a two year old is neither here nor there, really. The point of this story is I still have Snuggles and he is still basically intact. The stuffing is a little less stuffy and his eyes and nose are all scratched up from when I would chew on them at night to fall asleep. I also scratched out his tongue because I found the bright pink to be garish. Okay, so aside from some toddler Guantanamo treatment, Snuggles is totally fine.

When we were at my parent's house this past weekend, I found Snuggles and thought, Hey, I should bring him back with me. He can sit on the bed. It will be cute. I did not think, My cats are completely insane, view this stuffed bear as a threat to national security, and treat it as such. It's becoming increasingly clear I still have no idea what I'm doing with two cats and someone should have made me pass some basic psychological competency test before letting me out the door of the animal shelter with a kitten.

Snuggles got wedged up between two pillows on our bed while we slept. Our bed is huge and I don't think either one of us really remembered Snuggles was still up there. At least I know that I didn't until it was three in the morning and I had a sixteen pound marmalade tabby cat on my stomach and an eight pound grey tabby sitting on my forehead, working in tandem to investigate, abduct, and probably destroy the innocent childhood relic. I'm not someone who wakes up in any sane manner. Sometimes there's tears or screaming. There's always a wide-eyed terror-filled look of confusion. Waking up wearing almost twenty-five pounds of cat was... well, I'll be honest: it wasn't one of my proudest moments, considering I punched the big cat in the face. Once the first punch was thrown, the little cat clung to Snuggles. I think he knew I wouldn't hurt the bear. I pryed his grubby paws off the bear, rolled out of bed, stumbled into the closet door, opened the closet door, and then put the bear on the highest shelf.

The next morning, I woke up and rolled over to find two cats sitting on the nightstand, both looking at me with malice in their hearts.

Happy April Wicket Day

When we adopted Wicket, his age put his birthday in early April. Since he's a complete buffoon, we decided his birthday is on April Fool's Day. We adopted him because after our dog, Cassie, went to live with my parents, Momo decided he had nothing better to do than walk around the house all day screaming at the top of his lungs. That is, of course, when he wasn't wrapped around my leg and refusing to let go. Since Momo apparently has issues about being alone and I was nearly ready to kick him hard enough to turn him into my slipper, we decided we could either get another cat to keep Momo company or push Momo out the window to see if he could fly.

Enter Wicket. He didn't really interact with us the first five or six months we had him. Now he loves us, though. Well, he loves our feet. Whenever we're standing in the kitchen doing dishes or preparing food, he shoots across the apartment to flop on the kitchen floor and make trilling noises while he rolls back and forth across our feet. It would be creepy if it wasn't so cute. Or maybe it would be cute if it wasn't so creepy.

He started out as a timid little biter, but Wicket is turning into a very nice cat in just a year. I am told, however, that we have many more years of pet ownership ahead of us. See, my tearful and passionate pleas for a kitten were denied all while growing up, and as a result I know nothing about cats. We adopted two of them before Ryan said something like, "Well, it's good I like them because they're going to be here for another twenty years." And I laughed and laughed and laughed. Then I realized Ryan wasn't laughing. Apparently these cat things live for a hundred years, like tortises. Ryan is still amazed that I earned a degree in mathematics and didn't know the lifespan of a cat, but I DIDN'T MAJOR IN CATOLOGY, NOW DID I. My hope is to time it right so that my children will move out of the house at the same time the cats are getting feeble and require things like pills twice daily or anti-fungal cream rubbed at the base of their tails. The logic behind it is that children are stupid and become easily attached, so when they are standing on the porch, car packed up for college, saying sadly say how much they will miss the cats, I will push the cats into their arms and then dash inside and lock the door.

I believe in that last one, Wicket is either asking Momo to see what's stuck to his butt or attempting to fart in Momo's face. Possibly both.

So, What's New With You?

I keep getting emails from the Michigan Humane Society trying to guilt me into either giving them money or take home another pet. Uh, they spent a few months threatening to sue me and then temporarily lost my kitten. I'LL GET RIGHT ON THAT AS SOON AS I GET DONE ICE SKATING IN HELL.

(Did I ever mention that they lost Wicket? We took him into the Detroit branch (we had adopted him from the Rochester branch) to get his produce removed and then tried to pick him up the next day. Cue forty-five minutes of a bored receptionist telling me that our cat wasn't there and wasn't on file. They eventually found him -- mixed back in with the cats that were ready to adopted -- and he still had his balls. Seriously, how heartbreaking would THAT be? Drop off the family dog for a snip snip and you come back to NOTHING AT ALL, SORRY KIDS.)

Speaking of college (which we are now), two things. First, I keep getting emails and mail regarding a bill from my old university for zero dollars. Now they're just taunting me, but I can't figure out why. It's like it's not enough that I gave them the best years of my life and emerged from university a withered old crone. Second, I have nightly dreams that I'm in my last semester of college. I think I'm about to graduate, but because I skipped five weeks to play Parcheesi day and night, there's no way I can pass my finals. Because of my crippling Parcheesi addiction.

In other news: I probably need some sort of medication

The maintainance guy came around to fix our sink because it was leaking all over the cupboard floor beneath it. I discovered there was a problem when I was doing the dishes and found myself standing in a puddle. I didn't notice sooner because the only things we keep under there are cleaning products and cat food, and we hardly ever use those. Anyway, so the the maintainance guy came around ten in the morning, and I was grumpy straight off because I had to put on a bra and pants. Then he called me "ma'am" and the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. I never know what to do when someone is in my house to fix something -- my instinct was to hover and ask him if he needed anything, but I fought back that urge. Eventually, I decided to lay on the couch and pretend to read a book while really just fidgeting with the desires to go see what he was doing and take my pants back off.

(Side note: I blame my father for the hovering. While I was growing up, he would regularly enlist me against my to "help" him do a project in order to build character. "Helping" consisted of standing beside him and handing him tools when he asked for them. Rather, it consisted of standing next to him, him asking me for a tool, me not knowing what tool he wanted, and him ending up getting the tool himself. The end result, however, is that I now feel my presence is instrumental to the completion of projects, even when I have no idea what's going on. Especially when I have no idea what's going on.)

The awkard got bumped up a notch when he started talking, loudly, to himself. It was really more like shouting to himself. Shouting at himself and the pipe under the sink. He did that thing where he wanted to swear, but instead of swearing he used strange phrases that sounded like swearing. "Dagnabit! Son of a monkey's uncle. You forgot the the extra tile, you durn idiot. Come on, break loose, you garbin mothballer farkwrank." With each round of the faux cursing, I felt more anxious. You ever have that nightmare where people are talking to you but it's all gibberish? I was living it.

By time he left, I was anxious enough to want to just rip off my pants and run into the kitchen to hand him a tool -- any tool. STAND BACK AND LET ME PASSIVELY FIX IT BY DOING NOTHING.

It's been an exciting week around here. Yesterday, I accidentally stepped on the kitten's neck reasonably hard when he dashed in front of me. Then I spent the next half hour assessing whether or not he could still move all his limbs and devising crackpot tests to gauge his neurological response. The verdict was that he was fine but couldn't tell me how many fingers I was holding up. He also wants to know if you come here often. Can he buy you a drink?

I'll Say It: I'm Disappointed In Him

Does anyone remember when my cat got all internet famous and uppity? First he was on cute overload, and then he was turned into a LOL cat. Frankly, I think he peaked then and stopped trying. It's all been downhill since. (Sort of like when you give your dad a #1 Dad mug and he just starts phoning it in from there on out.)

Well, I hate to think of how big his ego will get after he sees this:

Yep, that's Momo on an ad for Jones Soda (You might need to click on the picture to see a bigger version to really see him.). He came super close to making it onto the limited edition labels but at the last second he was cut. Oh well, at least I got a free case of Jones with him on the labels as a consolation prize. (I didn't give him anything. We don't encourage losers in this house. We plan on standing at our kids soccer games one day with signs that say "WIN OR DON'T COME HOME.")

See, look how he's already just coasting on his fame:

Oh Monsters, Why Did I Create You?

DEAR. LORD. Thank goodness we go to pick up Wicket later today because Momo? Has been driving me absolutely nuts. Sad crying all night. Constantly trying to sit on my shoulder like a parrot. And this morning, we started a new thing where he yells and screams at every closed door he finds until I come over and open it for him, allowing him to look in briefly and appease himself that Wicket isn't hiding in my bedroom (which the cats are closed off from becuase I don't want their disgusting litter mitter feet all over my bedding).

Other places that Wicket isn't hiding but Momo has checked:

• The refrigerator
• Under the bathroom sink
• The closet
• The other closet
• That kitchen cupboard next to the oven
• A large box of Q-Tips

Momo is too aflutter to even bother enjoying getting into places he's not allowed to normally go. The door opens, he races in and checks every corner, then he's back out again and looking for Wicket somewhere else. Why do I bother to open doors for my deranged cat, you ask? Because those three seconds of reprieve I get from him doing that cat-howl are worth it.

Balls!

TypePad ate my first version of this post, leaving me nearly apoplectic. IF I SINK ENTIRE MINUTES INTO POSTING ABOUT MY CAT'S NADS, I WANT IT TO SHOW UP.

Tomorrow, Wicket loses these:

I only post a picture of these testicles because they are, and I can say this with absolute certainty, the most troublesome testicles I have ever encountered. They are definitely the only testicles someone has ever threatened to sue me over.

To backtrack a bit: we got Wicket from the MHS (Michigan Humane Society). Part of the adoption agreement is that you will have the animal sterilized, usually within a certain amount of time (I can't remember what it is for sure, a couple months?). We signed the agreement with the full intention of getting him fixed soon. Our options were to let the MHS do it for free or our own vet to do it for super-cheap. (Truly. I have enough fingers and toes to count the number of dollars our vet charges to lop off the balls of a kitten.) After seeing how many animals are constantly shuffled through the MHS (a lot) and being treated badly by every single staff member we encountered, we decided to stick with our own vet, whom we adore.

The catch was that our vet wouldn't sterilize Wicket until he was six months old. I checked with the MHS to see if this was acceptable, and they grudgingly agreed it was. I got a letter once or twice asking if he was still fertile, and I called them both times to remind them of the plan -- both times they said it was okay. As far as I knew, everything was fine up until the time that we got a letter threatening to start legal action to remove Wicket from our care and take a bundle of money from us if he wasn't fixed yet. Luckily, his appointment to turn him into a eunuch was a week and a half away, and my vet (very kindly) offered to personally call the MHS and explain the situation to them. The MHS (again) grudgingly agreed and then huffed and puffed for awhile about checking back, oh they would be checking back -- they would check back like no one had ever checked back before, and by God, that kitten had better be ball-less.

Long story short: apparently, my cat's balls are a big deal.

(A serious sidenote: I would strongly reccommend avoiding the MHS, or at least the Rochester branch. They are hard to deal with, seem far more concerned with following rules and doing paperwork than caring for animals, and will hound you for donations until the day you die. Plus, when we adopted Wicket, we had to pay extra for several tests (including feline leukemia virus) to make sure he was healthy. That seems weird to me, that they didn't test for FeLV to begin with. The podunky little shelter we got Momo from tested for FeLV, vaccinated against it (including a whole host of other vaccinations), and cost far less to adopt from than the MHS.)

Adventures In Housesitting

It's been six days since I posted because I spent six days at my parent's house, pet-sitting for them while they went capering off on another whirlwind vacation. Apparently taking care of dogs is nothing whatsoever like riding a bike because we've been without Cassie for around five months and I've lost the ability to remember to let the dogs outside at regular intervals.

My parent's older dog, Shelly, is seventeen (eighteen? We've lost count.) and completely deaf, mostly blind, and more than a little bit cranky. I felt like I was visiting a relative I barely like in the nursing home most of the time I was there; I mostly just left her alone except for when I had to scream at her to communicate. I felt bad just hollering into her face like she was the clown at a fast food joint, but anything less than a good bellow went completely unheard.

I used the time up there to get a lot of reading in and visit some old friends. Also, I went to see Burn After Reading. It was okay, but I had been prepared for something else. It would have been like seeing Fargo and expecting it to be a lighthearted comedy.

By the time I went home, I had used all the clean towels, Cassie got muddy and then slept on my parent's bed without me realizing it until I was heading out the door, and I had subsisted on mostly reheated pizza and candy corn for nearly a week. So, if you're looking for someone to mess up your home and forget to take care of your pets, I am available for hire.

When you're running short on time, the internet loves it when you throw cats at them

We've had him for almost three months, and the kitten is just not getting any smarter, he's just getting bigger. It's a great combination, let me assure you. He's knocking stuff over and falling off things and letting his mouth hang open. Sometimes he grabs onto his own tail so hard he rolls himself over.

He does, however, keep Momo from walking around constantly moaning. Now instead, Momo spends his time alternating between bathing Wicket and hiding from Wicket in the bathtub. Sometimes, I'll see Wicket walking around and meowing, then I go into the bathroom and Momo is looking up from the tub where he's pressed to the floor and giving me a look that says, "Tell him where I'm at and I chew off your hair tonight."

That is Momo and his feather. His PRECIOUS, PRECIOUS, PRECIOUSSSSSS feather. Wicket likes whatever Momo likes, so he also loves the feather. Momo is not exactly a good sharer, so he usually pushes the feather into a pile and then sits on top of it while Wicket circles him and cries.

Ultimately, the real difference between the two cats is that Wicket spends his life trying to intimidate Momo and Momo spends his life trying to intimidate the vacuum cleaner.

Friends, Romans, Blog Readers

Because it occurs to me that this blog is also semi-autobiographical as well as being a place where I weave amusing stories out of the crap pile of my daily endeavors, here's what's been up with me the past few months.

In May, both Ryan and I (finally) graduated -- with honors, no less. The school awarded me an actual degree in mathematics despite my inability to do basic arithmetic. At least it looks real -- it's made of super thick, cream-colored paper that's absolutely perfect for writing WILL WORK FOR FOOD on the back. All the other bums on the street corner are jealous.

Luckily we don't have to depend solely on my questionable math skills for income. Ryan got a job with a great (and shall remain nameless) firm in Detroit. He's been there for just over two months, and he really loves his job so far. The best part is the stellar health insurance; now I can get that new leg I've always wanted and Ryan can finally get a liver.

In order to be close to Ryan's job and save on gas money, we moved to downtown Detroit. In the process, we had to give Cassie away to my parents, which was hard. Downtown Detroit is no place for a dog who likes wide open space and dislikes noise, people, and concrete. Because Momo, taking after me, dislikes change, he walked around the house screaming and clinging to us after we moved until we decided to go out and get him a kitten to focus his nervous anxiety and energy on. Enter Wicket, the dumbest kitten in the entire world. He's afraid of us half the day and cozies up to us the other half, occasionally pulls on his own tail hard enough to knock himself over, and will startle himself when he meows. However, Momo loves him and instantly took to being a mother cat, so even though Wicket is clearly mentally retarded, Momo loves him anyway.

Downtown Detroit isn't as bad as everyone says. There are sketchy areas of Detroit, for sure, but where we live is safe and well lit, fenced in by skyscrapers and tourist attractions. There's always something going on, and the city is beautiful at night. Just make sure you give the mayor a wide berth.

I'm in a bit of a transitional period, which is a fancy way of saying that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my life. Grad school or law school are currently at the top of my list, but I have become very fond of using money for things like paying bills and buying food, so I wouldn't turn down a paying job, either.

His precious

Momo chewed off a small chunk of my hair when I was hold it out twirling it between my fingers as I watched TV. I'm kind of afraid to take it back from him because he's sitting in the corner grooming it with big, wild eyes. I'll try to vacuum it up tomorrow, on the down low

Should I be prepared to buy a saddle and put it on him?

As someone who never owned or interacted much with cats until about seven months ago, I am totally unfamiliar with what to expect. For example: Momo has hit a growth spurt since we moved to Detroit, and he now weighs 12 pounds. He is almost 9 months old, and weighed about 8.5 pounds before we moved in.

He's not really fat. He's not a skinny cat, but he's not really chubby either (somewhere between a 5 and 6 on this chart). Still, the Good Dr. Google (specializing in cat medicine, of course) claims that is pretty big for a cat under a year old. So, what should I expect? Is Momo going to be huge? How long do cats continue growing?

Wicket

We brought this kitten home today. He weighs a mere 1.7 pounds and is 8 weeks old.

His name is Wicket, and we weren't supposed pick him up until tomorrow because his nuts should have been lopped off today. However, he has an upper respiratory infection and couldn't undergo surgery, so now we have a sneezing kitten wandering around the house a day early. Even sick, he's still very active -- so much so that it's nearly impossible to get a non-blurry photo of him. Unless, of course, you make him miserable.

Exhibit A.

Momo and Wicket aren't getting along too badly. Momo has stopped hissing, and Wicket keeps pouncing on Momo. When Momo is in a good mood, he paws back and plays. When he's in a bad mood, he pushes Wicket down and sits on him. We try to discourage this behavior.

And now for something entirely different

I am sick of talking about comcast. COMCAST, COMCAST, COMCAST.

When we weren't waiting for the cable guy to show up, we actually DID leave the house and wander around. You know, until the sun started to sneak behind the skyscrapers, and then we scampered back inside like we were afraid the zombies would get us. More specifically, that the zombies would mug us. Seriously, it's like a ghost town after dark. I sometimes stare down from our apartment at night and try to find a pedestrian. So far, I've seen one very scared looking person a bicycle.

(Also, we can see Comerica Park and the Fox Theater from our windows, too.)

Anyway, while we were wandering around, we came across this indoor waterfall-colorful-arty-shiny thing:

Water! Colorful! Shiny!

The apartment is great. Still small, but slightly more floorspace than we previously had. Plus, it has wood floors so that the cat keeps skittering around and falling over. We have our bookcases set up, and then we spent the better part of an afternoon alphabetizing all our books.

GLORIOUS. GLOOOOORIOUS!

Of course, we ran out of shelf space and had to buy more bookcases. That makes five new bookcases and the two we brought with us.

The bathtub is really deep, and I've pretty much set up camp there. Also, we tried to drown the cat in it one day, but decided it was really just too much work to do that and we'll just push him out a window instead.

Crack dens and a mental midget

I'm in the middle of William Cope Moyer's memoir, Broken. It's pretty good so far, except for one thing. The prologue opens with Cope in an Atlanta crack house, stumbling over junkies, completely strung out. Then the book shifts to his childhood -- which is really interesting, don't get me wrong. I mean, his father was instrumental in establishing the peace corps, Cope got a character reference from Dan Rather, yada, yada, yada. Sure, it's well written and engaging, but I am in this for the crack houses. Let's get to the crack houses. I WAS TOLD THERE WOULD BE A CRACK HOUSE.

So, we all know Cat is a MIGHTY HUNTER, right? All day, there's been a single ant in the house. I've been disguising my utter laziness and unwillingness to just hunt the stupid ant down already under the guise of letting Momo chase it around for the better part of the day. The payoff came around seven this evening, when the ant crawled directly onto his paw and he went batcrap crazy. Seriously, he was doing that cat thing where they shake their paws in disgust, only he was doing it super hard, fell over in the process, and let out this wail of terror. When it was all over and I managed to regain my composure, he was just staring at me like YEAH? FUNNY? I COULD HAVE DIED -- HOW FUNNY IS THAT?! Earlier, he got so worked up sitting in the window and watching birds, that he started thumping his paws on the window sill (which he was also sitting on) until he thumped himself off onto the ground from the massive excitement of it all. Hello, McFly.

I think the cat knows my plans for him

I've had this headache since Thursday. It lessens sometimes, but never fully goes away, and it feels like there is a village of angry Smurfs behind my right eye that keeps stabbing me. I wish I could just pop my eyeball out and relieve the pressure -- I have myself convinced that there would just be a little wooshing noise and RELIEF, then I would just pop my eyeball back in.

My finals were done on Thursday, and I haven't stopped moving since aside from a few hours spent wasting time making Borscht under the watchful eye and iron fist of Mama from Cooking Mama. I've been sorting, packing, cleaning, and painting. It turns out that we own a lot of crap. I had deluded myself because it was all stacked away so neatly into relatively small stacks around the apartment. I thought, "We won't need too many boxes. I'm sure we have too many already!" We have run out of cardboard boxes and the only thing we've packed up has been the books. And even those aren't fully packed up.

It's becoming clear we're going to die under our massive pile of ephemera. And as it crushes in on me, I will be thinking to myself, "Hey. I haven't read that book in awhile. I should do that soon." Because I am delusional.

In addition to packing up our entire life in preparation for living on the mean streets of Detroit (Rather, 19 stories up, where I can look down at the mean streets of Detroit and ponder the odds of both the black and white citizens stabbing me to death during my trek to the drugstore to buy tampons because they think I'm some sort of ghostly apparition/albino demon come to steal their essences.) (I'm so pale I'm translucent. I don't show up in mirrors anymore. I don't need x-rays -- they can just hold me up in front of a 60-watt bulb to inspect my bones and watch my tablespoon of blood race around my body.), we are trying to set up moving plans with my parents, who offered to help us move. The operative word there is TRYING because it seems like every time we get a tentative plan set up, something changes and then a clump of my hair falls out from stress because I do. not. like. changes. to. my. plans. I made a plan, I made a diagram outlining the plan, I made a flowchart regarding questions ABOUT the plan, and THIS IS THE PLAN DO NOT CHANGE THE PLAN.

An earlier conversation re: The Plan ended with me in tears and shrieking, "Well fine! I make plans and they change and why do I even bother and our stuff will never make it to the new apartment and wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." I know I'm overreacting. My parents are kind and reliable and will make sure that we do, in fact, make it to our new apartment with all of our stuff in tow. However, I'm furiously making backup plans with letters and titles -- things like, "Plan M: Cat Pulls Tiny Wagon" -- and googling furiously -- "Load bearing capacity of 8 lb. tabby cat."

I'm going to go find a spoon and pop my eye out.

The Cat's Tail Looks Long Enough To Strangle Him With

When Cassie was a puppy, she was prone to running all over the neighborhood, just eluding my grasp, thinking it was a fun game. One day, she got away in the pouring rain when I was barefoot and she wasn't wearing a collar. After a lively chase around a few blocks while I cursed at her, she stopped half a block from the house, squatted, and took the biggest dump ever. Right in front of a lawyer's office. While the lawyer looked out the window. That same lawyer looked out the window as I, soaking wet and barefoot, carried a mid-sized puppy across the street and back into the apartment. He also watched while I trudged over, soaking wet and barefoot still (shoes? I don't need shoes, y'all. I'm BRITNEY SPEARS.), and picked up dog poop from his lawn in the pouring rain.

So yeah, we've had some really special moments. I've been happy that lately our pet missteps have been in the privacy of our own home. (I don't count the Momo Backlash of Ought-Eight because I DID NOTHING WRONG. I MAY DRAG HIM AROUND AGAINST HIS WILL IN A HARNESS 9 HOURS A DAY UNTIL HE'S DEHYDRATED AND HAS A BALD SPOT, BUT I DID NOTHING WRONG.) Sure, the cat has tried to kamikaze out the window and the other day, the dog wandered into the closet, stepped into a pair of my underwear that had fallen out of the hamper, then got all her feet tangled up in them as she tried to escape/wander around the apartment so that she hogtied herself with my underpants, but these things happened in the privacy of our own home.

I think you sense where this is building to, right?

I opened the apartment door for a second -- a SECOND -- and the cat was off like a shot down the stairs. Fortunately, he's unable to push hard enough on the door at the bottom to escape. Unfortunately the same is not true of the dog, who pushed past me in a cat-chasing frenzy. At this point, I had just woken up and was only wearing a tee shirt that didn't really cover my various, uh, widgets.

The long and short of the story is this: I ended up throwing on whatever clothes I could find (which did not include a bra, sadly) and chasing a ginger dog and marmalade cat around the outside of the house, hissing death threats at them, and fervently hoping all my neighbors were either asleep or still drunk.

It's moments like these that I'm almost happy we have decided to give Cassie to my parents when we move to Detroit. Almost.

At least if I'm running around Detroit half-clothed with a crazed look, it probably just means the job didn't pan out and we've taken to the hobo lifestyle.

I hate my pets

Every stupid morning the stupid dog is let out by Ryan while he's showering and stuff. She's outside for about 30 minutes before he lets her back in and then goes to work. Only after she has been put back in the house (THIS HAPPENS ALMOST EVERY DAY, PEOPLE) does she realize suddenly, "Oh, yeah, I forgot to POOP."

So she whines outside the door to the bedroom where I am still sleeping. If whining doesn't wake me, then she tries yelping. If I manage to remain comatose through THAT she then BEATS ON THE DOOR. Not, like, scratches at it or anything. There's no claw involved. This is straight up, pad to door, repeated slamming.

I finally wake up and let her out while calling her every variation of the term "turd", she runs outside and poops, and then I go back to sleep. Unless I have a class. Like today.

Seriously. What is wrong with her? She is smart enough to know basic commands, recognize names, and know approximately what time to start looking out the window to wait for Ryan to come home. Yet she can't remember to TAKE A DUMP? There is something wrong with her. It's not mental retardation, but it's not not mental retardation, you know?**

Plus, she's got the cat doing it now. He whines outside the door and paws at it like a needy little tool in the mornings until I pick him up, where he proceeds to sit on my head like a hat and lick my hair. Again, not not mental retardation.

*Not really. Except sometimes really.

Momo's momoment of fame

Hey look. I'm internet famous. Well, Cat is internet famous. I was sort of surprised to be looking at cute overload and be like, "Hey... that looks like my cat. Wait..." What is it with the internet and cats?

I LOVE the comments suggesting that he tried to gnaw his way through the leash (the was leash gnawed on years ago by Dog). If you've ever met Cat, you'll see that he's sort of phlegmatic by nature and not averse to things like being carried around like a baby or made to lay on his back so you can rub your face on his soft underbelly. You can stick your finger IN his mouth and he won't bite, so the thought of him going all cat-Cujo on something is pretty amazing.

I also like the comments that say things like, "Let the poor bebeh go!!"

[Edit: The link has been fixed.]

 

Charming

The dog's breath has gotten incredibly bad despite my best attempts to make it less vile, including milkbones, other treats that claim to scrape off whatever horrendous evil spirits are living in her mouth, and even brushing her teeth. Given her bad breath and constant farting, it's becoming difficult to tell what end is pointing at me anymore.

Please Let This Phase Pass Quickly

Why are our pets so clingy to me? Remember when Cassie went through that 6 month phase where she would bark and whine whenever I left the room? I remember it vividly as the time I kept that plastic bag, cinder block, and map to the river in my pocket to make me feel better.

Now, Momo has developed a similar problem. He follows me all over the apartment, and even when he's nowhere to be found, I only need to turn my back for a second and then turn back around to find him sitting there, staring at me in wide-eyed wonder. He tries to crawl into my socks as I put them on, nibbles my toes while I pee, and pitches a hissy fit when he's separated from me at night. Let me assure you, Miniature Satan is damn tenacious, too. He will keep up his yowling for a good half hour to an hour each night. One night, I had to pee in the middle of his scream himself to sleep routine, and he instantly stopped bellyaching when I entered the bathroom (which is where he stays at night, with his toys, food, water, and litter box) and started purring at a level that should have liquefied his brain. His favorite thing to do is drape himself around my shoulders like some weird cat scarf and give my ears love bites.

I like the cat and all, don't get me wrong. But I prefer that he stay on the floor. And be a dog. All the problems we had with Cassie, I never had to wear her as a hat to keep her placated.

The Cat is Pretty Weird

The cat, it turns out, is more of a dog person. He loved the dog at Katy's house, but found the cats to be terrifying and spent the majority of the morning sitting on my lap and making this face.

Call me cruel, but that picture makes me snarfle, and I took incredible delight in watching him make pathetic hissing noises and praying for death to snatch him from the situation. I only wish that picture had turned out less blurry.

Then again, Timmy The Cat is rather, uh, corpulently intimidating, one might say.

Drum Roll, Please

Introducing Momo! He likes long walks on the beach, pina coladas, and most of all getting caught in the rain. We bought him as a friend for Cassie. So far, she mostly just licks him a lot (he looks like he got caught in a typhoon) and he darts around while she chases him. Know what we call that? Mission accomplished. I've never owned a cat before, so this should be interesting. I mean, how hard can it be? Poke a few holes in a peanut butter jar once you stick him in there and then throw in food occasionally, right? Right?

My Dog is the Dennis the Menace of Dogs

This past weekend, we headed north, to my parent's house.

We were there for less than 12 hours and Dog had already eaten a mouse, causing me to spend a good deal of the weekend ordering her not to wipe her mousy lips on me.

The real point of going up north was to house-sit for my parents, which essentially means making sure their dog doesn't die while I watch TV and eat their food. At one point, their dog tried to make a break for it because my dog was tormenting her so much. My parent's dog is old, feeble, and has never really cared for puppies. Cassie, of course, is drawn to her like a moth to a flame and likes to chew on her fur.

I Hate Wal-Mart

4th of July Weekend was less than stellar. Then when we got home, my neighbor hit Dog with her car. Dog was in our yard on her lead, so it was essentially like shooting fish in a barrel. Except more like hitting a captive dog with a car.

So I haven't blogged for two main reasons: 1) It would probably be boring to read an entire post where every other sentence is "I WILL HIT HER WITH MY CAR. I WILL." 2) A post like that will probably be incriminating to me WHEN I HIT HER WITH MY CAR.

Dog is okay now. Neighbor was (I think) drunk, causing her to be even less polite than usual and just sped off afterwards. We called the cops, but there wasn't a whole lot they could do.

Also, today some enormously unpleasant woman in Wal-Mart was trying to check out with 80 zillion things in the self-checkout, and I probably looked mildly impatient (It's genetic. My dad can't watch the same TV channel for more than 12 seconds.). I, in my favor, did not say anything or do one of those annoyed sighs. Even when she decided to pay by check, but oh, she couldn't find her checkbook, and no, she wasn't sure if she wanted to pay with a card and hmmm didn't she have a coupon for 30 cents off around here somewhere? I may have done my pee-dance a little bit because, well, I had to pee. But on the whole, I was a model citizen. Who was about to have an aneurysm. Imagine my surprise when this woman turns around after writing the check and says loudly into my face "Do you have a problem? Maybe you should keep your rude comments to yourself," As though I was the clown whose mouth you order into at Jack-In-The-Box.

Of course, everyone turned around and stared at me. My first instinct was to crawl under the magazine rack and peek out from behind the latest issue of People Magazine, but I decided to go with my fail-safe backup plan: Turn red and do nothing.

Two days ago, I read the first 15 pages of Anna Karenina and have since started reading some sci-fi book instead. However, the official party line is that I'm reading classic literature like Anna Karenina over the summer. Okay?

My Summer Vacation, Part Deux: Cassie's Revenge

Of course, I tempted fate in my last entry. Mere moments after writing it, there was a clap of thunder and the earth swallowed us whole. I'm actually blogging from deep inside the earth's core. Elvis is down here. And the good looking version of Britney Spears.

In reality, Ryan developed an ear infection, and the dog has chosen to communicate her physical condition using not one but two of her orifices.

In the past three days, I have tended to an ill-tempered man, spoon fed rice and beef broth to a Shar Pei, and heard Ryan use the phrase, "The dog needs to go out before she machine guns rice across the apartment."

Until this week, I didn't think machine gun could be used as a verb.

It'll Be the Death of Her

I was worried that Dog's giant head would act like a mammoth lead weight and pull her directly to the bottom of the river when I was trying to get her to go swimming. I was only partially right; she did start to sink, but only because she was so busy trying to whine whilst she swam that she forgot to paddle.

I'm starting to think I should actually create a category entitled "Dog Poop", considering how much it gets mentioned here.

It's been raining for almost 5 days straight here. Dog, perpetually blustery grump that she is, refuses to go poop in the rain, on wet grass, near puddles, or if someone within a 5 mile radius is running a faucet. 5 unbearably long days of rain has created a problem because, despite her refusal to do her business, she has not cut down on her massive food intake in the slightest -- resulting in a cranky, pudgy, farty dog who glares out the window a lot.

Last night, we made a late night run to Meijer for fudgesicles and matzo (dinner of champions), and Dog rode along. In the 5 minutes it took to dash into the supermarket and come back out, Dog had pooped in the back seat. What pushes this incident from just plain nasty to downright bizarre is the fact that she managed to drag a balled up empty plastic bag out into the open, pushed it around until it opened up, and then pooped into it. Then, she apparently nosed closed.

When Ryan and I discovered this, we were quite upset. Ryan was for the obvious reason -- Dog had pooped in the car, and someone (read: Not Me Because I Get All Gaggy) would have to clean it up. I, on the other hand, was upset because why on earth had she not been bagging it up since we got her??

I am currently a little freaked out, as I am throughly convinced that if she's mastered the ability to clean up after herself, then wielding a butcher knife and coming after me in my sleep cannot be too far behind. Kate keeps assuring me that without opposable thumbs this is impossible, but I'm doubtful.

Reason Number One Why I Shouldn't Even Have a Ficus Plant, Let Alone a Dog.

We ran out of dog food yesterday, and still haven't bought any. Oh, we've had the best of intentions of going to the store, but between classes and work and having what I know in my heart of hearts is the plague, somehow it keeps slipping our minds. So, we have simultaneously been trying to keep the dog alive and ease our guilt over being horrible people by feeding her people food. At first, it was just some bread -- here, Dog, bread is a bland food that can't hurt you! Pretty soon, we were spreading peanut butter on it -- we're sorry we haven't fed you dog food in 18 hours, so here, have some sweet sticky paste on your bland bread! Finally, it degraded into me opening a can of green beans and heating them up for her -- let me make you a tiny peanut butter sandwich while you wait for your beans!

She has taken to this whole system far too well, and I fear that if I don't go out and buy dog food right now, there will be no point in ever doing it again because she will turn up her nose at it and demand that I cut her sandwich in triangles -- not squares, TRIANGLES.

That Dog Has Been More Places Than Most People

I'm currently sitting in a cafe in Bozeman, Montana, drinking the biggest hot chocolate I've ever seen in all my life, surrounded by crunchy hippies, budding artists,  and tired looking skiers, while using the wireless internet on my iBook. It would all be so unbelievably cool and hip if I didn't have to keep leaning in and drinking from my hot chocolate like a dog because it's too big and hot to lift. And if that guy sitting 3 seats down from me didn't keep screaming profanities at his computer.

In the time that we've been here, we've driven through Ted Turner's (owner of TNT, TBS, CNN, etc.) ranch, seen 2 moose, swam in a hot spring in Yellowstone, and soaked for hours on end in the spa down the road from our cabin. Much to my sadness and dismay, Ted Turner's property looked exceptionally normal and boring; there was not a single unicorn to be found. NOT A SINGLE ONE. What is the point of being that rich if your ranch isn't packed with unicorns and you're not wiping your butt with hundreds? Huh?

To all of you people who scoffed at me when I said I was going to Montana for spring break, I have only this to say: NEENER NEENER NEENER! I even have a tan!

Awkward Moment

An easy way to entertain Dog while doing homework or anything else that requires sitting down is to hold out one of your legs and let her jump back and forth over it like it's some sort of hurdle and she's practicing for the olympics. It can keep her entertained for hours on end, and generally keeps her from whining incessantly because, oh, it's not sunny enough out, or it's too sunny, or she's bored, or she doesn't know how to spell the word cabbage.

Today, something else happened. Dog got hung up, mid jump, and accidentally straddled my leg. Usually, a twitch of the leg will send her safely back to earth and she will once again resume her ceaseless jumping. HOWEVER, today she hung on for dear life and began twitching. And by twitching, I mean thrusting.

My female puppy was humping my leg.

I sternly told her no, and set her on the floor. She looked up at me, got a panicked look, and ran to sit in the corner with her back to me. She's been periodically checking to see whether or not I'm looking at her, and every time she sees that I am, she gets a little farther away. Last I knew, she was sitting in the corner of our closet, beside her crate and behind several stacks of books that she had to scale in order to get there, staring at the corner.

Ryan just called Disco Stu, "Disco Shoe."

Sadly, there was no pony under the tree this year, thus crushing my hopes of building a Shetland Pony empire and taking over the world.

However, the holiday wasn't ruined by the lack of pony-ness. We spent Christmas at my parents house; I slept till 1 in the afternoon, and we didn't open presents until almost 9 o'clock at night. The holiday spirit was OVERWHELMING. Over all, it was low key and enjoyable.

Currently, I have some sort of stomach virus, and I slept most of the evening which means that I'm wide awake and watching The Simpsons when I should be asleep. Dog is glaring at me because she obviously feels we should be asleep or fanning her with palm leaves or something. Or maybe she's still just carrying around bitterness from a weekend of Christmas humiliation.

It's kind of what Pollyanna would look like if she were a cross eyed Shar Pei.

I Love Rachel so Much I Don't Even Mind the Fact I Had to Put On Real Clothes Today

Today, my usual, hectic, stressful routine of doing nothing in particular while sitting around in my pajamas was interrupted by a visit from my one of my favorite people, Rachel. Rachel and I met long ago, in the days of yesteryear, when I was but an innocent 16 year old attendee of summer camp at Michigan Tech. After camp, we stayed in touch for a few years on and off, and eventually bumped into each other again at Michigan Tech as college students. Rachel is one of the funniest people I know, and there's just something about her that elevates my personality from zany to flat out coked out of my mind.

That combined with our willingness to touch each others butts in public (okay, my willingness to touch her butt against her will in public) makes for an interesting, if some what violating day. We saw The Goblet of Fire, which we whispered snarky comments all the way through, and the whole movie experience built to a stunning finale in which I accidentally poked her in the eye.

(On a side note, the theater was not very full, and we weren't loud enough to bother other people. I'm just telling you that so that when I get all self-righteous about people talking in the theater, the internet doesn't rip me a new one and throw old shoes at me while screaming "HYPOCRITE! HYPOCRITE!" Because I have delicate little feelings, and even though I can dish it out, I certainly cannot take it.)

When it was time for her to go, Dog and I were both very sad. Her boyfriend ripped Rachel's petite (itty bitty) body out of my tightly clenched hands, they left, and I went over and began sadly licking the window. Dog whined and threw her body at the door. I suspect it was simply because SOMEONE WAS NOT AWARE THAT DOG IS THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE AND NO ONE CAN GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT HER rather than Dog actually missing Rachel. I suspect this because Dog, unsocial blustery turd that she is, really did not like Rachel or Brian (el boyfriendo) and spent most of their visit alternately growling at them and hiding behind me.

I Can Tell What Day of the Week It Is By How Drunk the Neighbors Are.

This town totally disorients me every single day. In the past 3 days, 3 phone books have arrived. It seems like there's always some parade marching by our house, the most recent one being today. (Being grinches with tiny shriveled hearts, we didn't watch or join in on the festivities, but Dog sat on the porch, quite engrossed, and seemed to enjoy herself.) Plus, due to a disproportionate amount of Subways, it feels like I'm constantly going past one. Besides giving me a perpetual desire to eat an entire loaf of parmesan oregano bread, I'm starting to feel like Wile E. Coyote -- I just keep going past the same scenery over and over. I don't know where Dog learned to close her own crate door from the inside, but I'm beginning to resent her slightly every time she runs in and slams the door shut.

And Then One Day You Find Yourself Blogging About Dog Poop and Using the Term, "Grease Smackdown."

Number of times I yawned during the last two hours of class: 63

Tried to stifle yawns and make them seem less obvious by: Gritting my teeth and clenching my jaw

I hoped I would look: Casual

Instead I looked: Like I was stuck in a wind tunnel and trying to give myself a face lift with a car battery AT THE SAME TIME.

The cause of my facial contortions was due to my lack of sleep and THE DAY THAT WILL NOT END. Last night, I couldn't sleep. I tried reading my textbooks, doing deep breathing, relaxing all my muscles, and even resorted to counting sheep. None of it worked, and I just tossed and turned until well after 3:30 in the morning, while Barenaked Ladies "Who Needs Sleep" played on repeat in my head.

7:45 rolled around, and I peeled my eyelids open. They immediately slammed back shut. I eventually had to resort to using toothpicks to prop them up, ala [INSERT CARTOON HERE].

After hauling myself to a completely pointless class, Ryan and I came home to a smell. A very distinctive smell. A smell that I blame on my husband. My husband. My brilliant, programmer, computer genius, math prodigy, well read husband fed Dog bacon grease. Lots of bacon grease. Once in awhile, he gives her a teaspoon or two on top of her food, and that's fine. Zoning out and accidentally pouring ALL the bacon grease on her food is NOT okay. Which is exactly what he did yesterday. Imagine little brown bits floating up and down in a big bowl of grease. Now imagine my dog eating it.

Needless to say, she was not happy today. She alternated between sleeping for hours at a time (which, come to think of it, is not all that different from her normal routine) and sitting sadly on my lap and farting. When she wasn't doing that, she was out in the yard doing things that even I won't blog about (THE HORROR. THE HORROR.), eating cooked noodles out of my hand, and throwing up on the door while freaking out and flinging herself at it and trying to get inside. One day, those kids next door who obsessively watch Dog from their window are going to need therapy, and they will trace it straight back to this day.

So, to recap: slept approximately 13 minutes; there's a lot of grease doing a smackdown on Dog's intestines; had to watch over Dog during smackdown so she didn't desecrate our apartment/car/the world at large; missed a class while watching Dog during aforementioned grease smackdown; am so tired my eyeballs are about to suck back into my head and be lost forever.

Technorati Tags: Bacon, Puppy

I Offer to You, Internet, Her Last Morsel of Dignity

I never wanted to be one of those kind of people. Really.

But then the shivering started. The pathetic, "I have no undercoat of fur and am freezing here, you horrible Mama" shivering. I caved. I totally caved. I tried to find one in a sensible bright orange so that she'd be safe during hunting season. I really, really did. They were all out of orange, and then it came down to a choice between an ugly sweater and this. And the sweater was really really ugly.

Yes, Internet, I bought my dog a teeny pink dog parka with faux fur trim on the hood. She's lost all her street cred, and her homies won't respect her no mo'. BUT OH MY GOSH, SHE IS CUTE.

I do not like dog clothing. It's pretentious and come on, they're not people. They're dogs. But the shivering! I felt really really bad when she shivered and looked at me with that demanding look as if to say, "Okay, giant. Turn the heat back up. Find that little knob like the one that sticks out of the wall inside, and TURN IT UP. Or at least turn on the oven and let me stick my butt up beside it like you do when you're cold."

Plus, when she's cold, it takes her FOREVER to pee. And frankly, I have better things to do than wait for a dog to urinate. Things like dressing her up in dog parkas and watching her reaction, which, disappointingly, was not as freaked out as I would have liked. I fear she just thinks to herself, "About time you started treating me like the person I am." And soon she'll be demanding that I stop by McDonalds and buy her a that milkshake she's been jonesing for all day.

Maybe She Can Pee On Him, You Know, As A Grand Finale.

Our new landlord is here today, checking out the house that we rent part of. The reason we have a new landlord is because our old ones are moving to China. They were so cool. She was young and hip and he was... well, actually not really that cool. He was kind of pasty white and geeky, but he was super nice.

New Landlord isn't super anything except maybe anal. WhenI talk to him, I feel like I'm being interrogated. Also, he talks in a really fast, clipped voice that sounds as if he might have something stuck in one of his body cavaties. He's not very friendly, and he hates dogs. But the rent is dirt cheap, all the utilities are paid, and there's free wireless internet. So unless he starts kicking our dog around the yard, I'm not going to let it bother me that he's not exactly a "people person." Actually, based on the way Dog is acting today, I might not even speak up then.

Sensing that I wanted New Landlord to not hate us, Dog has gone into full brat mode. She's whining and pacing and trying to scratch at the door. She barks at the landlord, and when I take her outside to poop, she won't because OH THE CEADER BUSHES SMELL SO GOOD. SNIFF SNIFF. Instead she paces around, obsessively sniffing ceader bushes, barking at the landlord, and doing the holding-in-her-poop walk. Basically, she's letting her freak hang way, way out. And it's not impressing New Landlord in the least.

IT IS TEN THIRTY THREE AND THE iBOOK IS SCHEDULED TO ARRIVE BETWEEN TEN THIRTY AND TWO THIRTY. CLEARLY, TEN THIRTY HAS ALREADY PASSED. WHERE IS THE iBOOK?

I sense it is going to be a long day.

Technorati Tags: Apartment, iBook, Landlord

She'd Better Not Start Carrying a Little Doll Named Smacky

The dog, she has lost her tooth. More specifically, one of the big pointy teeth. I think it's called the incisor, but I'm not entirely sure. Thanks to my frightening second grade substitute teacher, Mr. Jingles, I do know that they are the teeth animals use to, "Rip the flesh off their prey with a tearing motion."

(This is burned into my mind along with a 6'3" man using his bony hands in a clawlike way to suggest ripping at the carcass of a dead animal. Thank you, Mr. Jingles, for your incredibly disturbing teaching methods. Oh, yeah, also for not teaching math ONE SINGLE TIME the entire 5 months my actual second grade teacher was gone on maternity leave -- and instead making the entire class crack walnuts all through December while you read stories to us. I didn't really mind being your bizarre walnut shelling elf -- and hey, it only took me till sixth grade to finally figure out how to do long division.)

My point is, the dog now looks like Bucky Katt.

Notice not only the one fang, but the fact Bucky is biting an arm. We refer to that as Cassie, "Being bossy." Which sounds better than, "Our dog is like a wild animal and we fear she may rip the flesh off us with her pointy teeth if we don't give her yogurt daily."

Laundry Day is Exactly Like Christmas, Except You Have to Sort Underwear and You Don't Get Presents. I Guess It's Not Like Christmas at All, Really.

For you droves of internetters who have arrived here via the search term "how to steal an ipod from meijer," let me just tell you I have no idea. My only experience with theft has been watching Oceans 11 and Gone in 60 Seconds. One time I think I saw a guy steal a little girl's bike outside of the library; he just walked up to it, sat his 6'1" frame onto the little pink bike, and rode away, handlebar streamers fluttering softly in the wind.

May I just suggest that you not steal an iPod, from Meijer or anywhere else. Because a) it's wrong and b) I hate the thought someone else is getting something for free that I actually paid money for. It's bad enough that the iPod video with 50% more storage capacity came out mere weeks after we got ours. Knowing that somewhere out there, you've got a better iPod than mine and you didn't even PAY for it makes me grumpy.

Also, you future iPod thieves have all been searching via MSN. MSN? What is WRONG with you?

Tonight, at about 9 o'clock we realized that we had no underwear to wear to school tomorrow. Not relishing the thought of going commando, we schlepped all of our dirty laundry down to the laundromat, and used the approximately 3 working machines out of the 75 in the laundromat. (Why? Why are they always broken? Wouldn't you make more money if they were, I don't know, working?) Instead of saying how much I hatehatehate the laundromat, I'll just show you pictures of the one member of the family who actually loves laundry day. Rather, she loves rolling around in the dirty laundry and then falling asleep in it. Which is sort of the same thing.

It's evident she loves the stinking clothing more than us because I only managed to lure her away from the pile by offering my finger for her to suck on and occasionally bite on and then pretend it's an accident and keep sucking on.

Crazy Book Girl's Dog Wants to With You Merry Chrithmath.

A few minutes ago I nearly killed Dog over a 1984 copy of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I had it in my hand and was wildly gesturing with it in my spasmodic way while I was talking. Dog seemed to think all of my jabbing at the air was a signal. A signal for her to GRAB. ONTO. MY. COPY. OF CATONAHOTTINROOF. There are not enough words to explain how very wrong that is.

There's this old children's book called The Library. It's about a girl named Elizabeth Brown and how she read all day long, through meals and school and under the covers at night. When she loaned out books to her friends, she became so nervous about her precious books that she did midnight raids to collect them safely back into her possession. She read in the bathtub, while roller skating, and while doing her shopping. Eventually, she got to a ripe old age and had amassed so many books that her house was filled to the brim. She gave all her books away to start a local library and moved in with a friend. They sat around all day and read. Presumably until they dropped dead.

That book was given to me as a child by my Aunt Jeanne who read the book and thought it sounded exactly like me -- bathtub and all. At the age of 10, when I got the book, I immediately decided that yes, I would be like Elizabeth Brown. I would collect books, I would never ever get married, I would read all day and all night, and I would collect so many books that they filled my old, creaky, Victorian house. Also, there would probably be lots of cats.

Poor Dog had no idea what she was doing when she latched onto the book belonging to a girl who, at ten years old, dreamt of being a spinster with the worlds largest collection of books. After the reaction she received from me, she may never go near another book again. Which is totally what I was going for.

I noticed today that she has lost her two front teeth. I can't decide if it makes her look more like a first grader who eats paste or a hillbilly whose trailer was blown away in the tornady.

All Roads Lead to Dog Poop

First of all, I wanted to say thanks to everybody who left me comments (both on the typepad and the livejournal) and sent emails. I appreciate it more than I can say.

Beth was here Saturday through Monday. We watched episode after episode of Freaks & Geeks and, well, I have no idea what else. The weekend was a blur of laziness. And it was good. (I tried to tie her up and keep her in the closet, but Ryan said I had to let her go home.) Wait, I DO recall going to a movie and making fun of the dog. The latter happened a lot. Mainly because Dog is, let me think about how to put this nicely, an idiot.

Speaking of The Wrinklebag, she is not so happy with the being home thing. My parents house was fun, then we took a road trip, then Beth was here, and yesterday... she ate a leaf. That was pretty much the highlight. She's been expressing her distaste for us, the apartment, and life in general by holding in her poop. She just WILL NOT GO. Essentially, she holds it in until she simply cannot anymore, which is usually about 10 minutes after both Ryan and I have passed out from the smell of the poop-being-held-in-too-long farts that she charmingly emits every few minutes.

Why do so many of my posts degenerate into dog poop?

WonkyWonkyWonkyWonky

My hair's wonky-ness level is off the charts today. It's shooting all over, and I suspect it's trying to actually eat my head and take over my body. (A day before midterms? Be my guest, hair.) So I've managed to sort of wrangle it into a stubby, pathetic, little ponytail that Leta Armstrong would make fun of if she could see.

And that pretty much chronicles all the work I've accomplished today. Well, that and buying the neighbor a pound of flour when I was at Meijer buying fruit cups and pudding.

If someone made a reality TV show about my life, even I wouldn't watch it.

Oh! The neighbor, the one who was lacking in flour, has a brandy new puppy. Her name is Sheba, and she is THE CUTEST PUPPY IN THE WORLD. Well, besides Cassie. Oh my gosh. Don't tell Cassie I said that first thing, or she'll kill me in my sleep. Really.

Between her sharp little claws and her enormously fat face that she could use to smother me with, I don't stand a chance.

She's Probably in There, Listening to Imogen Heap on Her iPod Nano and Resenting Me

The dumpster blew all its money on pop rocks and a city bus pass, came home hungover, and is sleeping it off in the yard. I have no idea where it was for two days, but I am okay with that. Also, the dog is home for today.

And she is MAD.

At first she was happy. She was running towards me, tail wagging so hard it practically flipped her over. When she actually came inside, though, she started to kind of glare at me. Pretty soon she sat in the corner with her back to me, and now she's been sleeping in her crate (also with her back towards me) for the past 2 hours.

She's going to hate me so hard when she realizes that my parents are taking her back with them this afternoon.

Ryan and I were talking about how we feel like parents in prison, and our parents have custody of our kid and we get to see her once in awhile. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry it's like this too. We miss you so much. We'll be out soon, though, and you can come home and live with us then. We'll be a family again. I promise. Mom finished one prison term exam this week, and Mom and Dad only have three more sentences exams each to finish next week. Then we can all be together. Don't look at me like that. We love you very much."

Only instead of being in prison for holding up a convenience store, we're in prison college so that we can get good jobs and not have to hold up a convenience store. Although I'm sure that the dog would be fine with that as long as we keep her in dentabones and tennis balls.

Annie Who?

We unloaded the dog a few days ago at my parent's house. There's a big exam period coming up, and we just didn't have enough free time for the dog. We're going to be so busy studying that we just won't have time to lock her in a box and beat her with sticks like we usually do. So we decided to just drive by my parents house and chuck her out the window. She bounced off a small-ish boulder, but I think she'll be fine.

I've talked to my mom everyday since we dropped the wrinklebag off. Cassie doesn't miss us. At all. She apparently spends her time taking walks and trying to make sure that my parent's dog doesn't get more attention than her. Basically she's all, "Annie who?"

You know, Annie. The one who wipes your spit slime off your fat face? The one who clips your toenails and plays tug of war 70 percent of the day? I PICK UP YOUR POOP, DOG.

"Annie who?"

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I have to admit, I am getting a lot more studying done than I would if I had to yell "NO" every five seconds while my toe was being gnawed on. PLUS, I've formulated a plan for passing linear algebra. It involves a giant vat of cole slaw, a quilt, and a ping pong ball. I can't divulge anymore information than that. Mainly because I have no idea what my plan is yet.

Listen Lady, My Dog Don't Poop That Big.

The old lady who lives a few houses down came to the edge of her fence and started heckling me about my dog today. "YOU HAD BETTER PICK UP ITS POOP." And I said, "My dog hasn't pooped anywhere near here." Then she lowered her voice slightly and gave me the evil eye, "No, but it will. And you're not even holding a bag." I tried to politely point out that my dog had done her business in our yard and it has been picked up already, I was only walking the dog around the block, and the dog physically could not go again in the immediate future -- We don't feed her by the bucketful or anything.

The old lady seemed hellbent on hating my dog, and she WOULD NOT LET LOGIC STAND IN HER WAY, DARN IT. So she huffed, "Well, you are not holding a bag. By law, you are required to hold a bag. And the dog has to be on a leash."

At this point I was starting to wonder if she was talking to someone I couldn't see. I just stared at the leash that was attatched to my hand on one end and the dog on the other, and began envisioning her jumping her picket fence and body slamming me with her 80 year old body becuase I wasn't holding a plastic poop bag in plain view. About the time I snapped out of that vision and started to gesture to the leash in an attempt to appease her, she let out a sort of sharp, barking laugh and said kind of snidely, "Well, I don't want to argue with you about it. I just don't want to see anymore of your dog's poop around here. Other people don't like to look at it."

I nodded and tried to smile, turned on my heel and started marching the dog the other way, because I didn't think talking anymore would help. There wasn't going to be anyway to convince the woman that my dog actually was on an leash and did not poop in her yard.

Believe me, I've seen dog poop in her yard... and if my dog pooped something that size right now, I'd probably take her to the vet to see what was wrong with her.

I just re-read this post and realized that yes, it is in fact all about dog, poop, and my dog's poop. I'm sorry. I would just refrain from posting it but hey, this took like 7 minutes out of my life. I'M GOING TO GET SOMETHING TO SHOW FOR THAT 7 MINUTES, PEOPLE.

The Day I Became a Rainmaker

The dog, apparently, thinks I am single-handedly responsible for the rain. When I, the cruel owner that I am, take her outside to pee -- so she doesn't hold it and get all squishy like a hairy water balloon -- while it's raining she stares up at the sky for a second, shakes vigorously, and then GLARES at me with hatred. As if I am the most horrible person on earth.

At that point I usually just tell her that if I was powerful enough to control the rain, would I have to beg her every night to STOP BARKING PLEASE STOP BARKING? But evidently my argument is not convincing enough, because she glares at me the entire time she does her business and all during her dash back to the house to escape the horrible rain I hath called down from the sky.

Yeah. Her life is just so awful, and I am so mean. What with all those toys and getting to sleep all day long, not to mention her ever widening bottom that's probably a result of the yogurt that she gets on her breakfast every morning.

I just realized that we have almost no photographs of the dog outside. This is because when she's outside, it's like trying to photograph the wind. You can photograph it's effects, but not the wind itself. So unless you want to see pictures of poop, a little dust cloud, and ripped up foliage, then outdoor photography just won't be an option until she's stopped running around like she's on crack.

Here's to Hoping I'm Not Dumber Than My Dog.

The dog, she is getting smarter. Today, she finally started to realize that there are places! Where! She! Can! Go! And not just look at from a distance. Like the backseat of the car, which today she gazed at with wonder and amazement, then dove into and started rooting around like some little wrinkly pig looking for truffles. It was like Subway wrapper safari for her, I guess. And she's learned how to (try) and outwit me, by walking behind furniture in an attempt to hide herself whilst trying to get into stuff. And I swear, she tip toes across the linoleum when she thinks I'm not watching.

Let's hope this levels off soon. I am not going to be pleased about being outwitted by my dog. And if she learns to play euchre before me, I am going to be very, very unhappy.

I don't know, though, every time I start to think she's getting smarter than a pancake, I find her chewing on a rock. So maybe I'm wrong.

The Reason I Have to Wake Up Early Every Morning

I have officially survived the first week of classes. And this weekend, we are going to my parent's house. Where there will be much dessertage, swimming, and not taking care of the dog. My mom's all, "BRING ME THE PUPPY," And I am more than willing to comply. She is a lot of work. Even more so now that she's out of the, "Fuzzy teddy bear, curl up in Annie's lap and sleep, hold me hold me!" phase. Now she's in more of a, "Don't touch me because it slows me down and I need to race around the house and smell everything while not listening to you" sort of phase.

But dang, she's cute cute cute. (Click thumbnails to view entire picture.)

     
   

Maybe we won't give her away to feed the poor after all.

(*EDIT* One more picture was added. The last one in the second row. Seriously. I'm not even a dog person, and I feel like the cuteness might make me explode.)

Synaptic Misfires

The dog started watching television today. She watched it for almost half an hour. I just might refrain from sticking her in the front lawn with a sign that says, "Farting wrinkle bag, free to a good home. Very stubborn."

I used to call picnic tables "knick-knack paddywack tables" as a little girl.

Today, I heard a girl in the grocery store on her cell phone going, "You want me to buy two pounds of beef? I don't see any two pound packages. What should I do? What? Buy two one-pound packages of ground beef? Why? You said you wanted a two pound package." In a voice so loud and so annoying that it could be heard in space. And it annoyed the people on the space station.

Dear Frat Boys Next Door: when you're so drunk the only thing you can say is, "Woooooo!" repeatedly, it's probably time to call it a night. Please don't kill any more brain cells. You'll need them in the future -- I hate it when the guy taking my order can't remember to ask me if I want fries with that.

Not Every Post Will be Dog-Oriented. I promise.

I had the weirdest series of a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream during my "holy crap the dog's asleep" nap. Yes, 4 dreams; one of them real. In the first dream, I was in a nice farmhouse. In the next dream, I was living under the overhang of a Dairy Queen. In the last dream, I was living in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER. And Ryan offered me government cheese. I kid you not. I was a little afraid to wake up again because, well, what if it got worse?

We just got back from my parent's house. We were there for two days to show off the new dog and try and collect my sanity. While I'm pretty sure that's been gone for good for about a decade, I at least got some sleep and we have Cassie understanding that she has to just buck up and deal with her crate or I will eventually become a raving lunatic with big knotted hair who talks into her shoe like it's a phone.

I'm not entirely sure she understand the complexity of the issue, but she seems to get that she needs to go in that crate. Because my mother is like a short little female version of Dr. Doolittle. I don't question it, I just roll with it. I am getting more sleep, able to shower without the dog going nuts, and the dog is entertaining herself. My mom could be using voodoo and a blood sacrifice to make the dog behave, and I'm so relieved, I might still be okay with that.

Now that we're home, Cassie seems decidedly disappointed that we're not at my parent's house. No short little woman chasing her around and making funny noises, no big man calling her, "Mini DinkerDoo" and petting her all the time. No big yard to play in, no big dog to play with. She looks at me like, "I hate you. You are so mean. I will never forgive you. Oh. What's that over there?" Yeah, dog, well, deal with it. If I can't live at my parents house, with a heated pool and freshly baked dessert every night, then you certainly cannot.