This is the best. song. ever. I seriously cannot stop myself from dancing whenever I hear it. Total mood picker-up-er. Play the video, close your eyes and listen to this song. Now. Play it play it play it DO IT!
Wasn’t that awesome? Don’t you feel great now? Is that not the happiest song you’ve ever heard in your entire life? The perfect feeling to start a long weekend with, am I right?
The wiener in winter – NYC, Dec. 12, 2008
There are two dogs under me on the sofa. I’m sitting on them because they wouldn’t move when I tried to sit down and — wait — the wiener just moved. Now he’s at my elbow, jerking his head around and licking the air.
Internets, I do not know why he licks the air. He licks the air, sways his head around, whimpers, licks the air some more, licks my arm for a little while, licks the sofa pillows for a little while, and then, exhausted, he collapses. When he’s finally quieted, if I show him any interest at all, if I even so much as glance at him from the corner of my eye, his head snaps up and he continues, frantic in his efforts to lick my arm, then the sofa pillows, then the air, for as long as wienerly possible. It’s not cute. It’s awful. It amuses house guests, but only until it goes on for so long that they begin to worry about his well-being. The other night he licked a sofa pillow for over thirty minutes. It was so soaked full of dog spit it felt like someone pissed on it.
I recently praised Theo online for being officially house-trained after four years of exhaustive work and now that we’ve got that under control, I feel the need to address his obsessive-compulsive licking.
You may not know this, but one of his nick-names is Lightning Fast Poo Tongue. He’s recently gone back to eating Valentine’s poop as soon as he can snatch it from her bum. (We thought we had that under control – HA! Who’s the dumbass now?) He will eat a large turd on our morning walk and afterward, if I do not pay careful attention to where his tongue is in relation to my whereabouts, there will be a poo-tongue smacking the inside of my eyeball before I can say “What the.”
You guys, I could get a BRAIN INFECTION. And I would have to tell the doctor it was because I got poo in my eye.
Why oh why does my wiener dog compulsively lick the air and/or surrounding objects while swaying his head and whining? Why do I have a raw spot on my forearm where all the hair has been licked off? Why are the sofa pillows always damp? Is it anxiety? Is it a medical condition? Is he trying to tell me something? Am I somehow failing in my attempt to display appropriate dominance? WHAT WOULD CESAR DO?
Please help me. Don’t help me. Forget me. Help Theo. Help the little wiener. (I’m begging you.)
P.S. Valentine is still sitting under me. She’s bonier than you’d think.
This is my third Just Write. Join us!
I love it when the neighborhood gang bangers get all inspirational and shit.
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I’m chopping vegetables when she starts crying, a plaintive meowing. She paces across the kitchen table, coat gleaming, belly hanging, begging for my attention. “I’m sorry, Cat. I’m fixing dinner. I’ve got nothing for you.”
In my head she’s a little girl. Three or four. Her eyes wide and pleading, “Mama, play with me!”
“I’m sorry, Baby. I’m fixing dinner. Papa will be home soon and I’m hungry! Would you like to help?”
She peels the garlic and breaks heads off brocoli stalks. “They look like tiny trees!” She is gleeful. I’m in awe of her strong little hands and the pleasure she takes in such simple tasks.
And then I chide myself for being so stupid. Getting lost in childish imaginings. Children are not in the picture. Not now, not for years, maybe never. Maybe because you never know and maybe because it just seems impossible. The other day I asked Michael, “How will we know?”
“When I have a job and we have health care and we’re ready to buy a house and we’re not worried about paying bills every month. Maybe then.”
Maybe we’ll wait until we’re in our forties and adopt. I can see myself, like all those women I watched in Manhattan with long silver hair and ethnic children. I could love any child I held in my arms, I know that.
By now I’ve peeled and chopped a whole garlic bulb, but I don’t care. I sprinkle it over the vegetables, slide it into the oven, set the timer. I over-season everything. Fresh cracked pepper makes raw chicken black. Kosher salt, onion flakes, garlic powder, oregano, basil, sage smells like pee but I sprinkle on three-times the amount you would anyway. The chicken will come out of the oven crunchy for spices but I don’t care. I like it that way. Just like I like my food burned crisp. Everything tasting like it came out of a campfire. Smoky.
I reach for another beer. Dinner is in the oven but Mike won’t be home for three hours at least. I’ll eat alone while I balance the budget. Wait up for him. Reheat a plate for him. Press my face into his neck while he eats. Breathe. So glad he’s home.
This is my second installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments, begun by Heather of the EO. You should totally join in.
When I was a little girl, I believed my Aunt Sue had a fairy garden. We would sit together, she and I, and watch her garden from the sofa in her living room, waiting to see the fairies. We had to sit very still and be very quiet or else they would not come. My heart would flutter with anticipation. It felt nearly impossible to sit so still, but I wanted to see the fairies more than anything in the world so I would hold my breath and pretend to be a statue.
And then she’d gasp, a nearly inaudible intake of breath. “There’s one!”
“Where?” I’d stretch my eyes open as wide as they would go, straining to see.
“That little whisp of light! Right there, near the roses. That’s a fairy.”
And then I saw it. The tiniest glint, like sun bouncing off a drop of dew. “I see him! I see him! He’s so beautiful!” My heart leapt and overflowed with joy. Fairies! Right there near the roses. Magic in real life.
Aunt Sue died fifteen years ago, but I think of her every day. When I sit on the balcony and hear a buzzing and feel the breeze from a hummingbird’s wings caress my cheek, I watch while the little bird takes long sips from the red salvia at my shoulder and I can’t help but think I’m being visited by fairies.
Theo, Smellmutt, and Valentine. Their expressions clearly say, “Where the food at, human thing?”
Waiting patiently for walkies
It’s dark out. Not late, but dark. Some of the street lamps are out and I feel uneasy as I head down the block, but the dogs need to do their business and they are happy as they sniff about. I shuffle after them in second-hand sweatpants, wool hiking socks, crocs, and one of my husband’s dog hair infused fleeces. I haven’t brushed or even washed my hair in days. I push my glasses back up my nose and stare out at empty space while the dogs snuffle something in the grass. There is a man walking down the sidewalk from the other direction. He is carrying a paper plate of food. It looks like rice and something else. I think, maybe the dogs will poop here and then we can go home, up the stairs, curl up on the sofa with a bowl of salted caramel ice cream, a plate of cheese and crackers, and the latest episode of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. I just want to bury my head in the sand.
There are quick movements at the end of the leashes and I realize the dogs are eating something. The man with the plate of food stops in front of us and says something about the dogs eating and as I try to reel them in, away from whatever offal it is they are stuffing down their doggy throats I say, “Yeah, I know. It’s disgusting. I just hope it’s not poop.” I gain control of them, manage to pull them away from their prize. The man laughs and says, “No, no. I asked if they are allowed to eat people food.” He holds out his plate of rice and what looks like chicken.
He is nice looking. Broad shouldered, blond, mid-thirties. He smiles but the smile is not sincere. It is the smile of a single man who sees a girl walking alone and thinks she might be easy. There is a lilt in his voice I do not like. It is patronizing and it makes my hackles go up. I am not alone. Valentine lunges at the man’s legs, barking, growling, teeth bared. He takes a step away and I let her leash go long.
“Nope. They don’t eat people food. In fact, they aren’t very friendly.” I practically have to yell over the cacophony of barking, because now the wiener dog is barking too, the force of his voice lifting his feet off the pavement in little wiener dog hops.
The man smiles. “What about you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Are you friendly?”
I pause for a moment. Really? I’m dressed like a homeless lady and my dogs are trying to kill you. How desperate does a guy have to be? “Not so much.”
Two days later I’m walking the dogs again, this time on the other side of the street. Someone calls out to me. “Hey neighbor! How are you!” I look up at the man addressing me. My mind is blank. He smiles and points to himself. “I’m Roger. We met the other night. I wanted to feed your dogs.”
It all comes back to me. “Oh. Right.”
“What are you up to? Want to hang out?”
“Not even a little.”
“Alright. I get the hint.” He looks angry when he walks away. What else was I supposed to say?
This is my first post for Just Write, an exercise in writing begun by Heather of the EO. Want to join?
This weekend turned out to be a nearly perfect weekend, complete with a trip to our local farmer’s market, quality time with my husband, and our first ever evening spent relaxing in front of a roaring fireplace. But the highlight? The very best part of the weekend entirely? It was the Dia de los Muertos exhibit at the Canoga Park Youth Arts Center.
The Canoga Park Youth Arts Center is housed in a beautiful 1927 Spanish-style building that was originally the Canoga Park Telephone Exchange. Today it is a place where children and teenagers go to explore their creativity. This exhibit was so wonderful it made me want to have babies just so I can send them there to learn about art.
The exhibit included photography, sculpture, original paintings, and elaborate ofrendas. These photos are of a display that, I’m guessing, was a collaborative effort by many of the students. Using cardboard, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, sculpey, and various repurposed household items such as bottle caps and discarded earrings, the children created a whimsical world that playfully pokes fun at death while honoring the lives of those who have passed.
I was completely knocked out. First of all, the talent of these kids blew me away and second, the simplicity of the materials they used, and how beautifully they used them, absolutely took my breath away. This display in particular was one of the most enchanting things I’ve ever seen.
I could practically feel the joy emanating from this display. It was obvious that it had been a labor of love, and a fun one at that. I walked away uplifted and inspired. I want to make my own now. In fact, I even set aside my first cardboard box today. It’s a heavy duty one that will be perfect for a church or something. I can’t wait.
To see photos from past Dia de los Muertos exhibits, click here. To check out some of the other pictures I took of the exhibit, click here.
I’m just going to sit here and type for the next fifteen minutes. I don’t even care what I type, I’m just going to tap out little words, big words, whatever words come into my head because, for heaven’s sake, I need to write about something. It’s been too damn long.
On the one hand, there is a piece of my heart that is shriveling up, drying out, dying because I am not writing every day. And on the other hand, it is so much easier to read what other people are writing and when I run out of other people’s words, to turn on the television, plant myself in front of it, and stuff my face full of ice cream and potato chips while I berate myself for being a fat loser slob.
Three weeks ago I got some very bad news. I hate it when bloggers write vague crap about the bad shit in their lives. I like details, you guys. DETAILS. I appreciate writers who blog the good, the bad, and the ugly. I like honesty. I like transparency. It takes courage to tell the truth. But I’m going to go ahead and be a fuckhead and be really vague and leave you to imagine what might be going on in my life that makes it nearly impossible for me to drag my sorry ass out of bed in the mornings because a) I’m not comfortable putting into words what’s going on; b) it might be too painful to type it all out in grisly detail; and c) it’s not really my story to tell. There are too many other people involved and out of respect for their privacy, I will be vague in all my whining.
Have you ever cut yourself with a very very sharp knife? Like, you’re slicing tomatoes and you slice through your finger by mistake and you watch it happen and immediately afterwards you think, Oh SHIT. It doesn’t hurt yet and there’s no blood, but you know you’ve just sliced through you finger and in seconds the wound will burn with a rage you’ve never known before and the blood will come, it will spill out and over the edges of the clean cut, it will flow in rivulets down your arm and pool on the chopping block, mixing with the tomato juice and tiny seeds. But for one moment there is no blood, no pain, just the knowing that you’ve opened your finger with a very sharp steel blade. You grab a paper towel or a dishcloth or the hem of your shirt and you press it to the wound, press it hard to stop the flow of blood that hasn’t come yet. Your heart beats in your throat and you take deep breaths so you won’t burst out crying or screaming because you are afraid you might have to go to the hospital for stitches and you hate hospitals.
That is how I felt after I got the very bad news. I spent a solid week wandering through life, fists pressed hard to mouth to staunch the inevitable gush of blood, heart beating hard in my throat, eyes wide and bone dry. I couldn’t talk about it. If I talked about it I would fall apart. I couldn’t sleep at night because when I closed my eyes I felt my world tearing open at the seams. I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning because I couldn’t bear to face another day.
It’s better now. Much better. I’ve removed the proverbial dishtowel and the cut wasn’t that deep after all. There wasn’t ever any blood. I’m still tender, but I seem to be healing all right. It’s still hard to get out of bed but I’m getting things done again. I’m trying to be more proactive. I’m keeping the apartment clean. I’m washing my hair. Putting on makeup. Getting through the day. It’s going to be okay. This too shall pass.
Can you believe it has been eighteen days since my last post? I can’t. This month has been … let’s just say I’ve spent the last two and a half weeks curled up in a fetal position, repeating “this will pass, this will pass, this will pass” until my face turned blue.
Here’s hoping you had a wonderful Halloween, and a much, MUCH better October than I’ve had. Though October has sucked fat dingleberries, Halloween (celebrated this past Saturday night) was fantastic. Mike and I even pulled together costumes at the very last minute which was spectacular and super fun and – wait for it – the VERY FIRST TIME Michael and I have EVER dressed up for Halloween together in the ENTIRE eight-plus years we’ve been together. So you get two pictures. Because it was momentous.
My gypsy costume is basically the exact same gypsy costume I wore for Halloween when I was six. Only it fits better now than it did then. Mike’s zombie costume was the result of his hidden talents with a box of crusty old stage makeup.
