This is how holidays are celebrated in my house

This conversation just happened:

Spencer: Our bar results are up.

Cari: Damnit.  One day early?  Seriously?

Spencer: You want to know if we passed?

Cari: No, I want you to acknowledge that you aren’t vindicated in checking every day because they were released one day early.

Spencer: We passed.

Cari: Damnit, Spencer, admit it. 

Spencer: We’re attorneys!

Also, one of our dogs celebrated the occasion by puking in our bedroom.  And I celebrated that occasion by stepping directly in it. 

Happy Halloween!

Tiger Mother

I'm worried.

And a little embarrassed.

I think my mother-in-law may think I beat my dogs.

I don't, of course.  Despite being rather openly inclined towards adminstering an elaborate chokehold on LouDog when he's being particularly evil, I've always restrained myself.  When it gets particularly bad, I have researched it.  A little.  If I ever snap, I suspect I'll go with an anaconda chokehold, as it's best for when your attacker is on all fours.  And if LouDog isn't a vicious attack on all fours, I don't know who would be. 

Pure evil.

But, I reiterate, I do not beat my dogs.  Even when I really want to.  Even when they really deserve it.  Like LouDog did yesterday. 

Now, the start of all of this is my fault.  In that I know that LouDog is constantly on the alert for anything that will create an irritating waste of my time and energy, so I should have been more vigilant.  Which is another way of saying that, if LouDog weren't such an unholy brat, I would have been spared quite a bit of Monday afternoon heartache. 

Now, in the depths of Spencer and I's joint unemployment, we're living with my sweet mother-in-law and her equally sweet puppy-at-heart Birdie.  In human years, Birdie is hovering over a hundred years old.  So when she barks at the door to go out, you hop to.  And LouDog, who is much quicker than Birdie, usually scampers out too.  Only this time, the gate door was open.

As a belated preface, LouDog thinks escaping is just hilarious.  Once he's out, he's nearly impossible to catch until he decides he's ready to be caught.  He used to dart at any open door he saw, which made carrying in groceries a nightmare.  Thankfully, he's decided he likes living with us just enough to stay in the house in all but the most egregious of open door events.  And trotting into a backyard with a wide open gate certainly qualifies for an egregious open door event. 

Opportunity beckons.

So, as any evil genius would do when confronted with an open gate, he ran off.  And worse, he convinced poor befuddled Birdie to run off too.  Here's where his evil genius fell a bit short, as old dogs don't run very fast, and Birdie is too sweet not to come back when her name is called.  I don't think she even made it past our cars in the driveway.

LouDog, however, is an old hand at running off.  He knows not to come back when you jiggle a bag of treats at him.  He's not fooled when you open the car door and pretend like you're going on a trip.  And his evil genius runs deep enough for him to know that making me panicked and worried is not nearly as fun as making me irritated and murder-y.  So he stays within eyesight.  He will sniff around at a bush until I'm just out of arms reach.  Then he trots off.  He marked every single bush and tree that is typically out of reach when he's on a leash.  He let me get close once at every other house.  He maximized every potential for making me angry. 

However, I'm more familiar with the neighborhood than LouDog.  And I knew he was headed towards a fairly busy street.  Despite his best efforts, I didn't stay angry and annoyed as visions of speeding cars hitting him ran through my head.  I went over my contingency plan in the event that I ever have to rush the dogs to the emergency vet, and started making adjustments as we were now somewhat far from the house and I was possibly going to have to carry Lou back to the house.  I inherited a fairly strong sense of paranoia from my mother, and it started to kick into full gear. 

As I chased after him, Lou clearly sensed that I was now in full panic mode.  With his plan somewhat foiled, he did the most irritating thing he could have done:  He sprinted into a stranger's backyard, then, as I was trying to get into the backyard, he ran out through a different entrance, ran past me, and ran all the way back to the house. 

By the time I made it back to the house, I was extremely out of sorts and out of breath.  My sweet mother-in-law was doing her grandma thing and petting Lou and telling him he was a good dog for coming back.  At which point I dragged Lou into Spencer and I's room, kicked Waffles out, and shut the door. 

From my mother-in-law's vantage point, I will admit that this makes me look like I beat my dogs.  But like, in secret. 

I don't.  I really don't. 

But somewhere along the way, I was told that you have to let dogs know that you're the boss, and that the best way to do this is by using cues that the alpha dog in a pack would use.  The man telling me this suggested holding the dog down by the neck with your hand and rubbing his gums or something, but that seemed a little too animalistic to me. 

So, what I do instead is puff out my chest and arms, lean over Lou, and growl at him.  Which looks nothing short of incredibly stupid.  And this time in particular I was still breathing pretty heavily from running all over the neighborhood.  And I am still trying to make certain my mother-in-law things I'm somewhat put together and sane.  So I try to do my alpha dog routine in secret. 

In my defense, Lou does usually end up looking fairly contrite, and this time was no exception.  Although I suspect it has far more to do with him worrying that he's pushed me over the edge into Crazyville than actual remorse. 

So, feeling like I had done my alpha dog duty, I opened the door and left the room while continuing to give LouDog mean looks.  And he did kind of slink out the room.  I went back to making dinner while feeling pretty satisfied that I had put him in his place. 

At which point he jumped up on the counter, stole a chunk of bread, and ran off. 

I may need to re-think my discipline strategies. 

A Piece of Advice

Dear World,

It doesn't take much nutritional knowledge to figure out that fast food is bad for you.  You probably don't even need to watch Super Size Me to figure that out.  And it takes only the smallest amount of math to figure out that it isn't even cost effective -- there's always cheaper options to make at home.  

But sometimes... sometimes... you really really really want fast food.  Because sometimes you're doing absolutely nothing but watching HGTV and Animal Planet all day, and that Wendy's commercial is just a brilliant piece of food film.  And all you want to do is buy and completely remodel a home, or save dogs and ex-cons at the same time, but World, both of those things feel like they might be outside of your financial reach and skill base.

But Wendy's?  I can do Wendy's.  I can rock Wendy's.  

Sometimes, forces align, and a low-quality burger can do enough good for your soul to off-set the damage to your health and wallet.

And when that day comes for you, World, don't make my mistakes.  When the day comes that you tell your diet and financial acumen to back off for a minute, when your desire to eat garbage overcomes your daily lethargy, when you just cannot eat another bowl of spinach and beans no matter how soon your engagement pictures are... don't fumble at the one yard line.  

This is your happiness here.  You're doing this for the good of your mind and heart.  Well, for your symbolic heart, even if not the actual organ.  

Just....

Do not get the single patty.  It can't hold up to that delicious pretzel bun.  Go for the double.  Do it for you. 

Always and truly yours,

Cari

My (Pre-Child) Parenting Failures

I was distracted from my mindless internet-ing by LouDog's attempts to snuff his way out the front door.  Assuming this was yet another attempt at his most-favoritest-game-ever Escape and Run Away from Mom, I rushed to the front door to strangle him catch him before he could force his way out. 

And I was greeted with this:



......


Huh.


Yes, that is my front door.  And yes, that is my dog.  Outside of said front door.  I haven't the faintest idea how she got out there.  Not a clue.  Good dog parenting moment: I didn't even think I had put her out yet today.  I have no idea how long she was out there, but I do know it had to have been for quite some time.

Which, not to sound a bit older than my twenty-five years, is terrifying with the way people drive around this neighborhood.

It's starting to dawn on me that, if my dog parenting and child parenting are at all similar, I may not be the best parent.  Spencer and I already had a blinding flash of how inadequately prepared we are to be parents when we watched our four year old nephew and ten month old niece for a night.  One night.  With a 1:1 ratio and completely rested going in.  We utterly lost that battle.  It wasn't even a close fight.  I will admit, there was even some infighting among our troops on the battle-weary drive home that day.

Earlier today, LouDog wimpered at me for a full fifteen minutes.  I tried to put him outside; he barked to come back in.  I had already fed them.  I checked their water bowls.  No clue what he wanted.  At a complete loss, I -- in a kind and gentle, motherly sort of way -- flung my hands around and asked him WHAT his problem was.  He head-butted my hand, which, in case you're a cat person, is the universal dog sign for "pet me."  He wanted pets.  We bounced all over the house for fifteen minutes.  For pets. 

And this is how well I've taught my children to share:


So you see, I suspect parenting may not be my strong suit.  

But, at least, I give great doggie bum scratches. 

The Last Sick Day

Today I didn’t put on pants or a bra until after 6 pm and pretended to Spencer’s mom that I had been dressed all day.

Am I proud of that?  No.  That’s why I put on pants when I thought she might be coming.  Which she was.  High five for excellent timing and maximizing no pants time. 

Do I regret spending an entire day sans pants?  Absolutely not.

See, folks, today was that day.  The day after being sick where you’ve got one foot left in the sick door, but everything from the ankle up is completely out of the sick house.   The day where you’re still a bit off from being sick, but it’s no more than being a little more tired or achy than normal.  The day that, for every other illness in my life, I had to go back.  Back to school, back to studying, back to vacation, back to work, back to whatever it was that I had going on that day.  But today I had nothing really to go back to.  That’s the glory of being done with school and unemployed. 

Did I have a million things that I should have been doing?  Of course.  But none of those things really have a deadline. 

So instead, I spent all day snuggling with my dogs and watching terrible television at shockingly high volumes because I could.  Call it the unemployment silver lining.  It gives me an appreciation for what really is a pretty amazing situation. 

Right now, I can truly do whatever I want.  I can write a book, build a deck, reshelve the storage closet.  I can create anything at all that I want.  All of those honey-dos that I would love to do?  I have time to do them.  All those recipes I’ve been dying to try?  I can now.  All those books I’ve been meaning to read?  Read away.  I even have time to return to the video game list I’ve been compiling since junior high and obsessively hundred percent them.  That’s a goal I’ve had now for more than half my life. 

But it turns out that, when it comes right down to it, all I actually want to do when I have the time?  Dog snuggling.  Good news to have, really, because Spencer and I have snuggly dogs no matter what we try to do.

Hard Truths

My four-year-old nephew informed me yesterday that I am not a grown-up because I live with my mom.  I told him that was ridiculous, because I do not live with my mom.  I live with Spencer's mom.

But you have a mom, right?

Yes.

And you listen to her?

Yes.

Apparently that's his case for me not being a grown-up.

Also, he thinks I take naps and eat snacks all day.  And asks why I don't have a job.  And tells me I never shave my legs.

I told him that my life is not all naps and snacks.  There are also a lot of video games in there.  And I am trying to get a job so please stop rubbing salt in the wound.  And that I shaved yesterday.  Which is literally true although misleading.  I shaved my underarms yesterday.  

He keeps me honest. 

The Diet and Exercise of an Empowered Donkey

In keeping with a general lack of honesty, I am going to refer to my sweet little brown dog as Waffles.   What started as a name my roommate used so he wouldn’t be embarrassed when he used my dog to meet girls has become an oddly fitting name as she begins to look less like a little fawn and more like Donkey.

Both get very excited about waffles.  Unfortunately, only one makes them.

The similarity is especially prevalent in the belly region.   Now, words cannot express how important Waffles is to me.  She was No. 1 Comforter long before I even met Spencer, and certainly before he worked out all the kinks of comforting me.  There will be much weeping and rending of garments when she passes.  I’m not certain I’ll survive it.  So the goal has become to make certain she lives forever. 

This is where that belly begins to become a problem.  Waffles happens to be what particularly insensitive vets call “obese,”  although I prefer the term “awesome and adorable.”  So she’s been put on a diet and exercise plan.  It’s killing me.  Spencer is under the impression that I’m projecting, and I’m under the impression that Spencer is wrong. 

The thing is, I love food.  And so does Waffles.  We love food together.  We both linger hopefully around the kitchen when we smell food cooking, despite spending the rest of the day napping under as many blankets as possible. 

And – and I know this is true – we both stress about our love of food.  Because we are women.  And despite how we know that we are empowered women and we don’t have to conform to society’s image of beauty, we worry about what feels like an inability to control what and how much we eat.  We worry about how that makes us look.  And every time we look at the extremely small amount of food that we have for that meal,  our self-esteem drops that much lower that we allowed ourselves to get into the situation that we have to watch what we eat in the first place. 

And the exercise.  Ohh the exercise.  Nothing is worse.  Somehow we are both always behind on the exercise we’re supposed to be doing, even when we hardly eat anything.  And exercise is never as much fun as you think it’s going to be.  Waffles is always under the impression that running is going to be TheBestEver; I always know it will be awful; but we both end up with the same realization every day.

And every day, after our run, sweet Waffles looks up at me with her doe eyes, and I know what she’s thinking.

 
Running is pretty barfy.

Oh, sweet Waffles.  How right you are.