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.   
 

What on Earth is a Radio?

So I decided to clean up and reorganize the room.  And better yet, I was gonna do it while singing and dancing my butt off.  Now, I’m not the person that dances to the music of life or whatever, so I needed music.  No problem, my Playstation can connect to Pandora.  Which, to be fair, it can.  Actually playing the station I chose was its specific problem.  Playing the music directly from my computer turned out to also not be an option, because it isn’t quite loud enough to overpower the sound of my incredibly loud box fan that I have because it’s Texas in August, folks.  It’s hot and central A/C can only do so much.  And no, 1995, I do not have a radio.  I’m in my house, not my car.  There’s internet here. 

So no music.  Whatever.  Music of life, here we go.

A Brief Introduction to My Nemesis

I am nothing if not rational.  So the other night, when I convinced myself for absolutely no reason at all that I might at this very moment have only months to live, all of my friends Spencer my dogs and I were very concerned.   There are several things that I want to do before I go, and in the(yes Spencer, I know, highly unlikely) event that I’ll be going in the next few months, I want to have at least attempted them.  I am happy to note that getting a job is not one of them, so I have no added guilt on that front.  But writing a blog is one, so here goes.

The thing about blogs is that they’re on the Internet.  AKA Happy Magical Fantasy Wonderland.  Anything you can imagine can be found in HMFW (Ed’s note – they call that Rule 34, and you probably don’t want to reference that in your very first post).  It turns out that Disney knew exactly what HMFW was when creating Fantasia – namely, there’s sexuality, bestiality, and nightmare-inducing horror always just around the corner.  Most importantly, though, not everything on the Internet is, strictly speaking, true.

And so, the layout for this blog.  This is not about honesty.  That is not my goal here.  It is, however, going to be my very best attempt to be optimistic.  This is a pretty big step for me.  Optimism is not my thing.  But if I was able to not kill myself through the various Disney movie sequels and the same Teletubbies episode on repeate while stuck in a car for three days as a teenager, then I can do optimistic.  (See?  Optimistic already).

With one exception.

This guy.

He is the bane of my existence.  Because this is HMFW, I’m going to call him LouDog, the name Spencer and I should have given him when we got him from the pound.   

LouDog is my nemesis.  He is constantly not doing anything I tell him to do.  He pulls on the leash.  He licks everything, all the time.  He does not Sit, even though we both know that I know that he knows exactly what that means.  He takes my spot on the bed.   

And so I chase him with the vacuum cleaner.  Possibly every day.  And I do this:

We spar.  Oh yes, we do.  And he is stronger than I am, I will admit.  Literally.  My right arm is bruised from where he viciously threw me against a fence in his attempts to lick a dog on the other side of said fence while we were running.  Whatever, I tripped.  Still his fault for licking everything. 

He’s evil.  And his evil must be stopped.