When It Rains It Pours

 At home, the adventures with Hank the Tank continue.  Hank’s my first puppy (Kiki was already at least one when I brought her home) and I can tell you that I unequivocally had no idea what I was getting myself into.  Now don’t get me wrong, Hank is a genius.  In the not quite 3 days that we’ve had him, he’s already learned how to love his crate, walk on a leash, and sleep through the night.  He even goes outside to the back yard to go potty nine times out of ten.  It’s the 10th time that kills me.  This morning I rolled up my oriental rug from the living room and stuck it in the man room.  My beautiful rug is ruined by the way.  Hank’s urine must have plutonium in it because the 4 times that he’s wet on it have left huge stains.  No matter what I try, they’re not coming up.  I’m just going to go with it.  God grant me the power and all that…

And then Sam got some great news; his car is heading towards the light.  You know what I mean, that great big car lot in the sky.  The old Saab has about 50 miles left before it’s unsafe for the road.  50 miles translates into us having like a day to buy a new car.  Maybe we can trade Hank in.  Kidding, kidding…

The third of trifecta is that Sam and I are still in need of someone to watch Hank while we’re in Memphis for his dad’s birthday.  When did I forget to have a petsitter on speed dial?  I feel like a new mother who has no clue what she’s doing except that this baby doesn’t look anything like me.  (it’s the tail I think)  My mother always told me that things came in threes and surprise, surprise she’s right again.

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I’ve Been Reduced To This

Tired ramblings of a new mom:

• “Potty, Potty!  Hank has to go potty?”
• “No, Hankie.  No bite mommy’s fingers off.”
• “Stop chewing on the chair, Hank.”
• “Stop chewing on the table, Hank.”
• “Stop chewing on the sofa, Hank.”
• “That’s not your food, Hank.”
• “No, Hank, NO!”
• “Hank no potty on the rug, okay?”
• “Hankie Pankie!  NO!”

Saturday afternoon a new little boy named Thor came home with us.  Thor turned into Henry and Henry turned into Hank.

Hank.  Hank the Tank.  The adoption/rescue foundation, Marley’s Pit Stop Rescue told us that they think he’s a bull mastiff mix.  All we know is that at  barely 9 weeks old, he’s huge and his paws are like saucers.  Here are some pictures of what bull mastiff’s look like.  What do you think? 

        Hank.   The Tank.

Things Your Girlfriends Don’t Tell You

When I was in my early twenties, a girlfriend of mine from high school pulled me aside.  She and her husband had recently gotten pregnant and as “Gina” and I had always been close, she had something to reveal.  I won’t go into details, but it was gross, it was about being pregnant, and it involved her boobies having long black hairs growing out of them at an alarming rate.  But that’s all I’ll tell you.  End of story.

As times goes on and more and more of my friends cross over important milestones like getting married, getting divorced, getting pregnant, hating your husband, hating his parents, deciding your gay, having an affair with a woman, getting pregnant again, gaining too much weight, never having sex with your husband, finding out your husband is having an affair, going into therapy, falling in love with your husband again, leaving your lesbian lover, joing the PTA, getting pregnant again… As I witness all of this, a certain set of truths have crossed my path.  So for those of you who either don’t have friends who spill the beans or aren’t ballsy enough to ask the prying questions that I do, here’s the scoop.

1. Planning a wedding is a pain in the rear-end; like hemorrhoids, but not curable by any type of over-the-counter medicine that I know of.
2. When older people tell you to elope it’s for a reason.  Spending gobs of money on a one-day event won’t guarantee that your marriage will last forever.
3. You will hate your husband (or wife if the gay marriage laws get passed) on several occasions.  This means you will fantasize about a large frying pan and the back of his/her skull, but you won’t do it because A) that’s crazy and B) you don’t look good in stripes.
4. Having a baby is the worst imaginable pain ever.  Get the drugs!  One of my girlfriends passed the point where she could and the result was not pretty.  Let’s just say that even the doctor had to tell her to keep it down.  Screaming isn’t pretty.
5. Those stories about people pooing their pants when they give birth…they’re true.  It’s nasty.
6. You’ll never feel more like divorcing your husband than right after you give birth.  Who knew he was such a selfish, jerk-head pig?  Try not to file for divorce – wait it out.  The feeling usually goes away within a few months.  Or you’ll hit him the frying pan and be done with it.
7. Divorce is painful, embarrassing, humbling, and painful.  (I thought I should say that one twice)  But the good news is that by two years later you’ll be in a much better spot and you’ll probably even have met someone new.  Go you!
8. As you grow older you will probably take a time out from your partner at some point.  Maybe you’ll call it a separation, maybe you’ll call it a break, maybe you’ll call it an extended vacation with the kids, but it’ll come and that’s cool.  You’re not the only one.
9. He may cheat.  In fact there’s an 85% chance he will cheat.  Don’t ask about it because deep down you probably don’t want to know.  If you do find out, get ready to make some really hard choices that have absolutely no room for your ego.  It’s okay to take him back no matter what your girlfriends say.  Unless you are done-done-done in which case, leave that jerk!
10. And last but not least, don’t take your girlfriends for granted.  They’re the ones who are going to listen to you when you feel like talking for two hours straight about your children, your husband, your fat thighs, your worries, your accomplishments…hold onto them tightly.  Your girlfriends are the truest witnesses to your life that you’ll ever have.

Elvis? Was That You?

I promised myself that even if they tortured me, tied me up to a tree and tickled me with feathers, stripped me naked and covered me in molasses, glued a fake mustache onto my face and made me walk around with it for a week; I would never admit the truth.  But now I’m going to have to.  Last night I watched American Idol and it wasn’t my first time.  I’ve also seen it and (gulp) paid attention the night that Kanye West was on (terrible) and the night they did their auditions in Little Rock, Arkansas…and maybe a couple of other times too.  Let’s just put it this way, more than two, but less than five. 

Phew.  That was hard, but better than having to wear a mustache for sure.

Anyway, last night I caught about half of the program and there was this boy who looked like Elvis and sang like an angel.  He sang Smokey Robinson’s Tracks of My Tears and it was such a beautiful rendition that I got that feeling in my chest.  The one where your heart connects with the words and floats away into your memories.   And you’re absolutely, completely absorbed by what you’re hearing.  Like the first time I heard Jeff Buckley sing Hallelujah.  Like the first time Kiki barked at a huge dog across the street and she reminded me of James Earl Jones.   It was like that.

His name is Adam Lambert.

I Love You Man

Last night four of us went to the movies to see the bromance between Paul Rudd and Jason Segel.  After having seen Duplicity last weekend, which only scored a point or two lower than I Love You Man on Metacritic my favorite movie website, I had very low expectations.  Duplicity was like a sandwich with no turkey, no cheese, and no tomato.  Just two slices of bread and a piece of lettuce with some mustard that left me hungry and wanting more.

So when my cousin came to town and said he’d like to see I Love You Man I warned him that it might be really, really bad.  Boy was I wrong.  Paul Rudd plays an endearing, but seriously uncomfortable man with no man friends.  Most of the movie is spent cringing in pain as you watch him try to bond with his new pals.  Only Sydney however, manages to not hate him and the two start up an unusual friendship that’s part animals gone wild and part bad first date on Groundhogs Day.  To better explain this strange, yet beautfiul man love is my cousin…

Thanks for the intro Sara.  Hello everyone and in advance, you’re welcome. 

I Love You Man was better than expected and produced several belly laughs sprinkled throughout the movie.  The kind of laughs that when you really let go, you get a little worried that the 80,000 ounces of diet coke and pretzel you just bought might make a guest appearance on the floor of the theatre…but you let go and laugh anyway because it was that damn funny.  (Side note: the pretzels at the Landmark, while seriously delicious, resemble something that might be pulled out of a toilet.  (Sorry, Sara)  Go get one and you’ll immediately think to yourself  “Well that makes sense.”  Kind of like when you found out that Clay Aiken was gay.) 

Paul Rudd was fantastic and dialed in just enough awkward to have you cheering for him.   His run-on phone messages were the best; believable with just the right amount of painful.   While I always have trouble differentiating Jason Segal from the sackless wonder (Sorry again, Sara) he plays on How I Met Your Mother, he was really charismatic and funny.  Segel did a great job of being “that guy.”  The guy that drinks a beer at noon, poops with the door open and then yells at you to change the channel, and calls to ask you to go to the driving range with him when he knows that you’re working.  This is the same guy who guys love, but women can’t stand because of the attention stealing…you know who you are, dude.

In closing, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and give it three thumbs up.  What’s that you say…I don’t have three thumbs?  My wife would argue that my third thumb is actually my big toe, but that’s a story for another blog.

Thaumaturgy: Twilight -vs- Harry Potter

Thaumaturgy: The performance of miracles or magic.  Yesterday I had an interesting conversation about magic and movies with a 16 year old I know.  She agreed with me that while movies allow for a thaumaturgy that the masses can visualize and thus understand, the real magic of stories is found within the pages of books.  The imagination creates a picture beyond anything that celluloid can produce as witnessed in the re-watching of Twilight.  Twilight the movie came out on DVD this Saturday and teens everywhere flocked to purchase it.  Besides the eye candy of Robert Pattinson however, the movie didn’t stand up.

“It was really cheesy.”  My 16 year old conversationalist told me.  “When I didn’t know how it was going to turn out and like I wanted to see if they could do the book justice, I was really into it.  But now when I watched it, I just felt like they ruined the book.  I’m not as excited for New Moon (the next of the series by Stephanie Meyer) anymore.  Harry Potter is different.  The movies are like, I don’t know, darker or something.  Less cheesy definitely, but kind of kiddie too because there’s like no relationships or anything.  Harry Potter needs some sex or at least a hook up.  Even Rob Pattinson wasn’t hot when he was in Harry Potter.  Maybe that’s the clue.  Twilight is bubblegum cheesiness because they’re focusing on looks and not the story, while Harry Potter is the opposite.  I don’t know.  Why are you asking me all of these questions?”

Decide for yourself.

Theft Ring Busted At the Airport

“Ah-hah!”  My mother must be saying to herself.  “I knew it!”

Ever since 9/11 the rules have changed.  One of them is that our luggage can no longer be locked due to the privilege of airport security to search whichever bags they feel they must.  My bags are always a must I guess because every time I open them I find that scrap of white paper telling me my belonging have been searched.  It’s always the bag with my underwear on top.  Coincidence?  My mother doesn’t think so.

Police have busted a ring of Delta baggage handlers in St. Louis, Missouri responsible for countless dollars of stolen goods.  Ipods, laptops, jewelry, cologne, gameboys, medicines; if it was in your bag, then it wasn’t safe.  St. Louis isn’t the only city fallen victim to the rule that our bags can’t be locked anymore.  Surfing the internet there are innumerable stories about bags arriving at their destinations minus, well, a lot.  Delta in Philadelphia, Continental in Las Vegas, American Airlines in Chicago, USAir in Phoenix, AlItalia in everywhere…Delta however, is a repeated offender with complaints from interestingly enough, military employees.  Many of our brothers and sisters in the armed forces, who are forced to travel extensively, reported thefts from their luggage when schlepping back and forth from overseas.  In every case the story is the same, between TSA and the airline carrier’s “policies” victims will not be reimbursed for the stolen goods.  File a claim if you want, but don’t hold your breath.

So my mother was right.  Traveling these days isn’t just about $4.00 waters that we have to buy because we’re not allowed to bring in liquids.  Nor is about getting half-naked to walk through the metal detectors or racial profiling, long lines, body searches, small seats, paying for checked luggage or 15 different taxes to pay for the rude, insufferable, and robotic TSA agents who give us a hard time about a half-empty 6oz bottle of shampoo.  No.  It’s about stoicism.  How much can we, the American people take before we just don’t travel anymore?  As for me, I’ve decided check-on luggage only.  I can buy all the rest at my destination.  It’ll give me a good excuse to go shopping.  And maybe that’s the plan.  Maybe that’s how Obama figures he’ll get us out of this economic crisis; shopping to avoid checked luggage.

 

Postscript: most airport employees are ‘outsourced.’  In other words, the airline hires a secondary company to supply, handle, and pay the minimum-wage workers so that the airline can just requite an invoice each month and not have to deal with it.  These employees are by no means heavily vetted.