Shall I give in?
An alert and pretty commenter pointed out that I have been writing about Licorice in my “Offspring” category more often than not. I responded that as “mah baby” that seemed to make the most sense, but I wonder if she needs her own label.
Long ago I had a category naming contest and that brought us the categories “The Year of Living Changerously” and “Ottomatic For the People,” both of which still tickle me to this day.
Want to come up with a category for Her Supreme Dogginess? (Here, let me inspire you: I took this shot of her last night. You’re welcome.) There shall be a prize. I don’t know yet what that prize will be, but I will make it worth your while. Probably.
G’head; hit me with your suggestions, and I’ll pick a winner on Friday.
The thrill of cuteness, the agony. . .
… of the puke.
That’s pretty much dog ownership (or parenthood) in a nutshell, right?
When Monkey was a baby, we made up a song about him to the tune of Daisy Bell. I’m deeply aggrieved this morning that I can’t remember the whole thing, but I know it included, “You’re so sweet / When you chew on your feet,” and that THAT was the important part. The kid munched on his own toes for hours, and he was round like a little Buddha, so it was endlessly entertaining to watch him do so. Toddler Chickadee used to run over, grab one of his legs, and cram his foot into his mouth FOR him, if she was bored. (Not a whole lot has changed, come to think of it. But Monkey is a little less bendy these days.)
So we’ve been doing a lot of the canine equivalent, watching Licorice do adorable doggy things, cooing over how cute she is, and generally worshiping at her furry little paws, as one does. read more…
Beam me up
[Before I tell you this, can I just tell you that the comments on the previous entry have had me in stitches for hours? Next year I’m going to suggest that the students analyze the rockingness of my readers.]
Yesterday, for some reason, the family was congregated here in my office and the subject of a ring of mine came up (do not ask me to explain; I can’t), and Chickadee immediately piped up, “Can I have it when you’re dead?
It doesn’t matter how many bushes you have, people. Chickie is not going to beat around even a single one of them. FYI.
Because I am mean and horrible and also because the little glint she gets in her eyes when she asks me these things disturbs me just a wee bit, I answered, “Absolutely… NOT.” And she was, of course, CRUSHED.
“Why NOOOOOOT?” she asked, full pout ready to descend. read more…
Statistically speaking
Because my husband is a professor at this here big local university, and because I have befriended lots of other professors at said university, and because I am a giver, I oftentimes do things FOR THE CHILDREN (meaning the children who are old enough to smoke, drink, have orgies, and lie to my husband about why they couldn’t finish that assignment, dude, because they were, like, so close, but then this THING happened and he understands, right?) in the name of academia.
Like, sometimes I go into a class and give a guest lecture. I enjoy having young people stare at me like I have six heads, apparently. You know they’re thinking I am too impossibly OLD and ORDINARY to have anything useful to tell them. Not that this stops me. I’m totally in it for the free lunch I usually get out of the deal. (Here, let us stop and give silent thanks that the Faculty Eatery finally closed. The lunches from there were not so much payment as payBACK, only I’m not sure what I did wrong.)
Anyway, one of the other things I’ve done is allow a friend and professor who teaches social media stuff give a classful of students access to my Google Analytics. read more…
Love makes its own joy
I was really hoping that August was going to be The Month Of Suck and then September would be an improvement; then I was hoping that September was just Suckage: The Continuing Saga, and October would be The Month That Everything Magically Got Better.
As I write this, Otto is in bed with the not-flu; the doctor doesn’t know what it is, though he has MRSA (again, or still, depending on what you believe) and a high fever and actually STAYED HOME FROM WORK, which means that I’m pretty sure he’s going to die. I’m going to miss him terribly, especially because I hate taking out the trash.
This, along with Everything Else, has made for continued stress and worry, and I know it’ll all be okay eventually, but right now the moments of joy ’round here are fleeting.
Then again, it’s the little joys that are sometimes the sweetest. read more…
Notes I cannot send
When I was younger I kept a journal for years and years, and about 80% of it was grumbling and angst and violent fantasies about things I would do and say if the world was a different kind of place. (Why waste energy dreaming of a world where my angst didn’t exist? So much more satisfying to imagine telling my German teacher to stop looking down my blouse, you perverted creep!)
Nowadays I try to focus on the finding the joy in things which are real, rather than wishing for things which are not. Nonetheless, once an active imaginer… well, you know the rest. [Why does my spell check believe imaginer isn’t a word? Isn’t an imaginer a person who imagines?]
Nevertheless, today my fingers are itching to give in, and if you can’t indulge and bitch a bit on a Wednesday, well, what is Wednesday good for? Nothing, that’s what. read more…
Faster and faster
A fairly standard thing for Otto and me to say to one another is: “You love me. But you have no idea why.” He says it to me when he’s just come up with a scheme for another clunker of a car he simply must have, or I say it to him when I’ve just finished completely taking out on him any number of things that aren’t in any way his fault. It’s a little lovebird ritual of ours. Afterward, we stare deeply into each other’s eyes and argue about whose turn it is to go upstairs and yell at the kids.
(Ahhhh, romance. Don’t be jealous.)
But I actually know why Otto loves me. Otto loves a CHALLENGE. And he clearly hit the jackpot with me, no? He loves teaching for much the same reason. And one of the things he loves to tell his students is that they need to “fail faster” (I’m sure someone knows who he’s quoting, but I am too lazy to look it up) because failing is part of the learning process and gets them to the successes. read more…
Lazy
One of the (few) things I miss about the winter weather in New England is the handy excuse to stay in and do nothing for an entire day. The kids and I used to do “blizzard days” where everyone was allowed to stay in their jammies, watch as much television as they liked, and generally withdraw from polite society for the day.
Cheerios by the handful? Sure! Build a giant couch fort? Why not! Learn to be a hermit like your mother? OKAY!
We don’t have weather like that, here. Plus I have this husband who believes in accomplishing things and hanging out with people and stuff, so lazy days can be hard to come by.
Fortunately this weekend the stars aligned. read more…
She doesn’t mind
I’m trying really hard not to turn this into a place where all I ever do is talk about how smitten I am with my dog. I mean, I know she’s the cutest animal ever to grace the planet and everything, but there comes a point where even fellow animal lovers start to go: “We get it. She’s adorable and you like her. Congratulations! You DO realize that she can’t walk on water but can and does lick her own ass every chance she gets, right?”
There has to be a line, is what I guess I’m saying.
On the other hand:
1) MAH NEW BABY!
and
2) She’s the only family member I can write about with abandon and never stop to worry that she’ll be upset with me about it.
Heck, I didn’t even bother giving her a pseudonym. I probably should’ve. Ummmm… did I say her name is Licorice? I meant to say her name is… uhhhh… Fuzzy Foofibottom. Obviously. read more…
The things you tell me
I used to regularly post about the search terms that brought people to the site, and somewhere along the way I stopped doing it. Probably because 1) I stopped actually checking my stats all that often, because once you’ve passed the “Hey, I think people other than my parents and my best friend are actually visiting my blog!” point, it just isn’t all that exciting, and 2) it’s entirely possible that I realized it was uninteresting.
Today, however, I’ve got nothing. Well, nothing other than my dog decided to cry and howl at midnight for no discernible reason and I was immediately catapulted back to those horrible first-time-mother newborn days when I spent a lot of time wondering if maybe my baby was in terrible pain and I was the world’s worst mother for not knowing how to fix it.
[In this case, apparently the dog had to pee, and then once we did that she just thought it might be a good time to play. I think. When I sent a panicked email about it all to the Dog Whisperer—now THERE’s someone who’s doubtless wishing she could un-know me right about now, with my Puppy Angst and hysterical middle-of-the-night emails—she suggested a squirt bottle full of battery acid to quell rowdiness if it happened again.] read more…