The Great Defender

MEET MAIL SLOT.

 

IS EVIL.

IS MY NEMESIS. 

 

OMGOMGAAAAAHHHHRRRRFFFFFFFFFOMG

 

PERIMETER BREACH. PAPER FALLS FROM SKY. THE APOCKOLIPS IS NOW.

 

AM CLEARLY LAST LINE OF DEFENSE. 

 

I GOT YOU GLOSSY JUNK MAIL OF DOOM.

 

SECOND WAVE! HOLD THE LINE! 

 

MY GOD, IT'S A CATALOG! WILL KILL US ALL!  OH THE HUGE MANATEE! 

 

I EAT YOUR CREDIT CARD STATEMENT. I EAT IT UP.

Epilogue: She dragged a dental visit reminder postcard about two feet to the left before getting bored, then went upstairs and took a nap.

***
This post was sponsored by Milk-Bone and is my final contribution to the It's Good To Give Series. Thanks for the good times, Milk-Bone. And the memories. And the monies. Check out their Canine Assistants program on Facebook, which helps people with disabilities and get involved by sharing photos of your own dog on the Milk-Bone Flickr stream. 

 
 
 

(Please Nobody Tell Her It's Technically a Cat Bed)

WELCOME TO MAH BOO DWAR, PEOPLES.

(YAWN.)

 

YOO KNOW, IS GETTING DIFFICULT TO KEEP YOU ENTERTAINED WITH PHOTOS OF ME ACKUALLY DOING THINGS. I DON'T DO MANY THINGS.

 

I MOSTLY DO LOTS OF THIS.

 

AND THIS. 

 

SOMETIMES THIS, IF UR NASTY.

 

I REGRET MY LIFE CHOICES.

 

OKAY IS IMPORTANT SEVENTH-NAP TIME NOW. GOING WAY. BYE. 

***

This post is sponsored by Milk-Bone as part of the "It's Good To Give" series. Check out their Canine Assistants program on Facebook, which helps people with disabilities and get involved by sharing photos of your own dog on the Milk-Bone Flickr stream. 

Lapdog Meets Laptop

SIGH. YOUGUYS.

 

I TIRED.

 

SO VERY, VERY TIRED.

 

MOAR CHILDREN IN HOUSE THAN USUAL TODAY. THEY CALL IT PLAYDATE. NO LIKE. IS VERY LOUD WITH SHRIEKING. ALSO NEW CHILD SMELLS LIKE STICKY.

 

YET I NOT ALLOWED TO LICK NEW STICKY CHILD. WOE.

 

I STAY HERE INSTEAD WHOLE TIME SO THERE.

OH HEY DID I HEAR SUMBODY SAY SNACK? SUMTHING ABOUT A SNACK?

 

OH HEY GOTTA GO EXTRA CHILDREN MEAN EXTRA SNACKS AND EXTRA CRUMBS I LOVE PLAYDATES BYE

***

This post is sponsored by Milk-Bone as part of the "It's Good To Give" series. Check out their Canine Assistants program on Facebook, which helps people with disabilities and get involved by sharing photos of your own dog on the Milk-Bone Flickr stream.

Rakish Good Looks

SHH. HIDING. 

WAT.

 

SUMTIMES U WANT SUM SUN, BUT NOT TOO MUCH SUN. YOONO?

 

WATEVER. JUS JELUS, PROBABLY. THIS IS THE BEST IDEA I'VE EVER HAD.

 
STILL KIND OF HOT THO. SENSING FLAW. 

 

HMM. THAT DRAIN THING LOOKS LIKE NICE PLACE FOR WHICH TO BE STICKING MY HEAD IN. ALSO: SHADY, COOL. 

To be continued...

 This is another sponsored Milk-Bone post, part of the It's Good To Give series. These were supposed to be weekly but a snafu meant Thursday's post had go up Monday instead but then this one was always supposed to go up today and...and...nobody really cares about this twice-weekly thing as much as I do, I'm guessing. Anyway! Milk-Bone invites you to check out their Canine Assistants program. Share photos of your little sunbeam dog at the Facebook group or Flickr stream. 

She Works Hard for the Waffles

You know what this week needs?

Waffles. It needs some waffles.

 
WAT.

 

WAT U SAY.

 

U SAY WAFFLE THAT'S A WAFFLE O GREAT DAY IN THE MORNING

 
WAFFLE!

 

NO WAFFLE!

 

WAFFLE!

stupidwaffleperson gonna gonnaflippin getdatwaffle  

 

HYSTERICAL DOG SNEEZING INTERLUDE

 

ETC.

 

SUCCESSORY INSPIRATIONAL PRINT, THEME: INVISIBLE PERSEVERANCE

 

CAN ALMOST. TASTE. WAFFLE. 

 

Oh, hello. I would also like to submit my sincere interest in hazzing dat waffle.

 

IS LIKE KING SOLOMON OR SUMTHING. WOULD ALSO HAVE CEPTED SPLITTING BAYBEE.

 

*snarf*

And FIN. 

As you could probably guess from all the Milk-Bone ads and this here logo thing, this post is sponsored by Milk-Bone. It'll be part of a "It's Good to Give" series this month (so get ready for MOAR CEIBA YAY). Check out their Canine Assistants program, which helps people with disabilities and get involved by sharing photos of your own dog on the Milk-Bone Flickr stream. 

Year of the Tigerdog

WHAT UP, BITCHES?

LOOK WHO SNAGGED THE FIRST POST OF 2010. I KNOWRITE? SHE SAYS THIS IS CALLED "THROWING A DOG A BONE."

 

I R NOT GET NO BONE YET.

STILL. IS NICE TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED FROM ANGLE OTHER THAN "INADVERTENT BUTT IN BACKGROUND."

CEPT NOT FAN OF CLOSE-UPS WHERE U CAN SEE ALL THE GRAY HAIR I GOT AFTER THAT TIME I ATE THE FERTILIZER AND ALMOST DIED, NOT TO BE ALL DRAMZ ABOUT IT.

BUT HEY AT LEAST I R NATURAL REDHEAD UNLIKE SUM PEOPLE AROUND HERE WHAT WHAT YEAH I SAID IT.

SHE DESERVES IT THOUGH. PUT ME ON DIET, TELLS SMALL THINGS TO STOP GIVING ME WAFFLES. THEY DON'T LISTEN TO HER EITHER, LIKE ME. HA HA YAP YAP YAP.

AM AMPLE, YET POINTY. RUB MAH BELLEH. WAFFLES!

 

OKAY I TIRED NOW BYE. THIS TIME BUTT IS ON PURPOSE.

Not Quite Sick But Not Quite Well

Portrait of misery, and a dog who could not give less of a shit, please just make that thing stop whining already.

So Ezra is either teething again -- canines? is it too early for those? my children seem to sprout teeth at a hyper-accelerated schedule, as most of Ezra's playmates have like, three teeth and he's sitting in his high chair expertly gnawing on a Porterhouse with his back molars, and expresses his affection for people by trying to eat them -- or he might just need to poop. Yes, it's a real medical mystery over here. Symptoms include truncated naps, general fetchiness, insatiable appetite for pot roast. 

Oh, and this. This? I do not mind so much.

In fact, I think it's time for some more of this, since he looks like he's about 30 seconds away from falling asleep fast first in his pot roast and peas. He's all smelly and meatgreasy. Delicious.

PS. Don't forget to enter the Shutterfly contest by Monday morning. Since yes, it requires ACTUAL EFFORT AND THINGS, your odds of ACTUAL WINNING are really good. Plus, it's fun to snoop through y'all's photo books. They're like medicine cabinets, in a way.

PPS. Also, both Amalah and Mamapop have groups over at Savvy Source. It's like a Facebook fan page without the "fan" connotation, which I totally hate. There's like, book and toy and activity recommendations, and you can totally use your Facebook profile to join so it's all easy and stuff. So say hi and welcome to complete and utter social media overload, mwa ha ha.

Livernotwurst

And all.

Is right.

With the world.

Once again.

(Dumb dog.)

(Welcome home, Mitten.)

The Deadly Garden

Ah, the eternal blogging conundrum: tell the story NOW, or tell it WELL. You cannot do both, what with the lack of sleep and excess of brain matter slowly leaking out of your adrenaline-sapped skull, and death is not an option, though continuing to send out short hysterical ampersand-filled updates on Twitter is.

(Wait, let me first tell you how much it bothers me when I have to sacrifice proper AP Style to make something fit on Twitter. SO MUCH, is how much it bothers me.)

What the hell, let's try "NOW." Sloppy storytelling, ahoy!

So while none of this will be any great revelation to anyone who reads me on Twitter...

(Wait, is that right? Do you "read" Twitter? I should say "follows me on Twitter," right? That just sounds kind of creepy and invasive and OMG LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU! IT'S...THE INTERNET! AAAAEEEEIII!)

Sorry. Right. Anyway. My dog kind of almost died this week. Of liver failure! Do you know what the primary symptom of possible liver failure in dogs is? Vomiting! You know, because they never just vomit all the time for any other reason, like maybe they ate too many paper towels. Oh, heavens no.

I think I mentioned back...uh, awhile ago (gestures lazily at the archives) that Ceiba had a Day o' Mystery Puking. Just one day. Puking. Everywhere. Everything. And then right around the time when I started to think that MAYBE I should start thinking about finding my shoes and her leash and ehhhhhh driving to the emergency vet (because it was on a Sunday. it is ALWAYS on a Sunday. my pets need some schooling about honoring Our Lord's Day.), she stopped puking. And started eating and drinking water and running around and generally being a spastic pain in the ass. And thus, I declared her HEALED! and I'm pretty sure my brown shoes are still under the couch somewhere.

But this week it became increasingly clear that she was not healed, but was perhaps getting sicker. I pulled her food and the cat's food (AKA the food Ceiba actually eats) and offered her some matzo (don't laugh, matzo will fix your shit up right in no time, Bubbe-style) and made a vet appointment and then proceeded to spend the entire evening diagnosing her with stomach cancer, emailing Samantha frighteningly detailed descriptions of dog poop, and once again pondering the location of my shoes. I mean, I left the house that day, right? I was wearing shoes? God, I hope I was wearing shoes.

I decided against the emergency vet, as I knew they'd examine her, admit her, promise to keep her comfortable and fluid-packed, and give her an x-ray...the next morning. And that x-ray would cost three times as much as the x-ray we'd get at the regular vet...the next morning. And we know this first-hand, from previous middle-of-the-night leg-breaking experience. (2005. October-ish. You...look for it. I'm tired.) Plus...it was SO TOTALLY STOMACH CANCER. What is the poooooint, she's already done for, woe, WOE!

ANYWAY, OH MY GOD, GET TO THE POINT, STOP NARRATING MINUTIAE THAT NOBODY CARES ABOUT. I took her (and one precious little turd in a Ziploc baggie) to the vet and blah blah x-ray and bloodwork and holy fucking elevated liver enzymes.

("Did she look yellow?" you are probably asking. "No," I say. "She looked...reddish. Kinda furry. Also, I didn't really check.")

So Jason and I both turned to Dr. Google and started our House M.D. spin-off as we each tried to find out what it all meant and I basically kept looking up "liver cancer" while Jason looked up slightly more USEFUL things, like toxins that could damage a dog's liver and suddenly he was all, "EUREKA! Go check the ingredients on the bags of fertilizer downstairs!" And I was all, "I am downstairs. I don't see any bags of fertilizer." And he was all, "I meant the basement." And I was all, "Then you should have SAID the basement, God."

A couple weeks ago Jason started fertilizing all the tomato plants in our container garden on the back deck. We have both shooed Ceiba away from the plants multiple times since then, generally assuming she was hanging around them for nefarious Digging Purposes. Turns out she was eating the goddamn fancy specialized fertilizer, which in addition to SUPER TASTY THINGS like chicken feces and ground-up bones, also contained cocoa meal and copper. Both of which are ridiculously toxic to dogs. But hey! Our tomatoes are to DIE FOR.

I called the vet in a panic to let him know about our breakthrough -- assuming, of course, that they were probably mere seconds away from initiating the exact wrong treatment for the toxicity that would have disastrous effects, or at least cost us ANOTHER $800 -- but when the receptionist answered and did that thing where they said something like, "Hello, Animal Hospital, is this an emergency?" I went on auto-pilot and said, "No."

And then I said, "Wait. Shit. Yes! It IS! It IS an emergency! I HAVE ANSWERS! LISTEN TO MEEEE."

And then a whole lot of boring stuff happened and the next thing I knew I was typing this exact sentence here.

Ceiba is still at the hospital, getting her system flushed. Also hoping to squeeze in a pedicure and maybe some eyebrow waxing. Today's bloodwork showed that her liver levels are continuing to climb, but she SEEMS better. Bright-eyed, wiggly-stump-tailed, and she managed to eat some kibble and keep it down. So the vet is hopeful that the bloodwork is a lagging indicator and that her liver IS repairing itself and not failing. If her levels start going back down, we can bring her home. If they keep going up, I. Well. I will HURT THINGS. TOMATO PLANT THINGS.

Not a day goes by when I don't get thoroughly annoyed by that dog and/or threaten to skin her into a mitten. The mail slides through the slot and she loses her goddamn mind and barks and wakes up the baby and yap yap yap and SERIOUSLY. A MITTEN. OR HALF OF AN EARMUFF.

But now the mail comes and I brace myself for the racket and it doesn't come and it's not as peaceful as I thought. It's sad. I keep staring underneath Ezra's highchair after meals in complete and utter bafflement, because what the FUCK is up with that mess? What's with all this food? Who's going to clean that up? That's disgusting.

I miss the little batty-eared jackass. I hope she comes home soon and well.

Weekend Vignettes

For reasons that I believe can go mostly undocumented, we thought the dog had salmonella on Saturday. We found stray mussel shells from a disastrously ambitious dinner scattered in the yard; puddles of sick scattered pretty much everywhere else. She's actually just fine, but I just wanted to mention it anyway because I had to clean up a LOT of barf. You know. Just in case Ceiba ever reads this website one day. I cleaned up your barf, and I didn't like it. And now you never call! Ingrate.

*They ALL DIED before we could cook them. I set them on a paper towel for ONE MINUTE and every goddamn mussel decided to commit ritualistic suicide rather than face the hot pan of death. I was going to drown you in WINE, you bastards. WINE. We should all be so lucky to die such a death.

***
In other best-left-to-the-imagination news, we have a mouse in our kitchen. And clearly, the most useless-ass pets EVER.

***

Scene: Every Saturday Morning In Our House, Ever

Jason: Anything you want to do today?

Amy: I want to go to Ikea.

Jason: We're not going to Ikea.

Amy: (dramatic flailing)

Fin.

***

You probably know by now that I eat pretty much everything. Food is my hobby, since I don't know how to knit and dislike standing for long periods of time. I'm actually trying to think of something that I won't eat. Wait, okay, I've got it: raw onions, Cool Whip, head cheese. Tongue as long as it still resembles a tongue. I used to not eat rabbit -- because you know, bunnnnnnies! -- until we moved to the suburbs and a goddamn rabbit ate all my flowers and now I will eat the hell out some rabbit. I will eat that rabbit, if my dog ever stops gnawing on diseased mussels long enough to catch the stupid thing. (Hey, here's a recipe!)

Saturday night I ate pork cracklins for the first time -- fancy cracklins, apparently, since they were served on a charcuterie board alongside wee little pickles -- and for the first time in ages I was completely flummoxed by a food item. It was salty, crunchy and aggressively unhealthy -- my top three most favorite adjectives for food -- but OH MY GOD, IT WAS SKIN, RECOGNIZABLE SKIN, THERE WERE VISIBLE HAIR FOLLICLES. I could FEEL the skin-like texture on my tongue, I was Homer Simpson, sampling from the regenerative bacon buffet in the Garden of Eden.*

So instead of eating them, I lined a few up on my arm and asked Jason to get another few orders because the restaurant was chilly and I wanted a cardigan. Jason was all, "give those back, they're delicious."

*If you know what I'm talking about here, congratulations! We can be friends. We'll eat some deep-fried skin and then go get ice cream.

***

On Sunday, we went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Noah loved everything about it, except for the animatronic Chuck E. Cheese, whom he eyed warily from the table, nervously eating bites of pizza. When the costumed Chuck E. Cheese (who was missing one furry glove for most of the proceedings) showed up, we had to retreat to a safe distance.

Noah: THAT BUNNY NEEDS TO GO AWAY.

Amy: He's a mouse, sweetie.

Noah: THAT BUNNY MOUSE NEEDS TO GO HOME.

***

As we drove home, Jason and I had a 20-minute unironic conversation about minivans and the many, many attractive features they offer. We're certainly not in the market for a new car or anything, but Jason rode in his coworker's Odyssey and like, maaaaaan, that thing was sweeeeeet. You don't even have to fold the stroller or anything. I remembered the same thing about a friend's minivan in a fit of retroactive lust, shaking my head at my naive young ATTITUDE towards minivans, back when I knew NOTHING about the world and what happens to all your "adequate cargo space" once you have two children.

Amy: I mean, just THINK of all the stuff we could buy at Ikea!

***

We never made it to Ikea. We went to the Big Box Baby Store instead and bought additional baby gates, because our 9-month-old does not have the sense God gave a bunny mouse. While shopping, I was approached TWICE about the Ergo carrier and whether I liked it (yes, oh God, yes), what age I started using it (31) (haaaa, I'm an ass), and then approached again by someone trying to decide between two different floor gyms and which one was better (is it for your baby? no? okay, get whatever one blinks and makes noise.)

Less than an hour after that, we stopped at Whole Foods and a timid young thing in high heels asked me what the difference was between brown eggs and white eggs, and if she hard-boiled the brown ones would they like, be the same? With a white part and a yellow center? She then admitted that this was her first grocery-shopping trip out on her own, and I noticed that her shopping list contained the instruction to "open egg carton and check for broken shells."

Amy: Wow, I must look like, really extra helpful today, or something!

Jason: I think it's more that you just look so much like a mom.

Amy: Do I look like I drive a minivan? Because I don't. Yet. Seriously, the back seats FOLD INTO THE FLOOR, OH MY GOD.

***

We've been pricing up laptops for awhile now -- the Macbook's motherfuckingboard was going to cost a motherfucking fortune to fix, plus it seemed like the water damage was pretty damn catastrophic, and the repair couldn't guarantee that other inside-techie things hadn't shorted out -- and I was resigned to buying a cheaper non-Mac, because. Well. Cheaper. I officially put off the purchase waaaay too long, leading to lost posts and enormous amounts of frustration once the mouse key broke, randomly moving the cursor to different parts of the screen while I typed gaaaaaaaaah kill.

So on Thursday we went to the Big Box Computer Store and I glumly pecked on some keyboards and finally declared one "pretty okay." I knew we could get it cheaper online though, so we didn't buy it.

On Friday -- before any of this other stuff happened, even though Jason probably knew it was a pretty safe bet that I would make stupid jokes out in public, that I would bug him about taking me to Ikea, that I would wander around stores looking like a frumpy, frizzy, minivan-lusting mom -- he came home from work and pulled a brand-new Macbook out of his briefcase. I was stunned.

Jason: You use it every day. It's what you do. It's important. You should have the one you want.

Our anniversary is in a few days. Eleven years. Our life is nothing like the one we thought we'd have once upon a time.

(I still have the one I want.)