Awkwardly Social

Dumb dog, why are you following me?
I ain’t got a crumb dog, why won’t you just let me be?

Lula is a smart dog with some serious back story that unfortunately she can’t verbalize to us. How someone would let her get so ridiculously flea infested, so dirty, and so crazily timid makes me really sad. The worst part is she’s one of the lucky ones. I’m still kind of haunted by the pit bull in the kennel next to hers who was freaking out and barking, and when I approached his kennel and let him sniff my hand he sat politely and licked me. I know pit bulls get a bad rap, but I have never been afraid of them. After dog sitting for four of them simultaneously (two rescues of unknown origin) I’ve really learned to love the breed. They are characters of a different order. There’s something so charming about their big heads and their crazy smiles. He is probably not going to make it to a good home.

One of the reasons Louie said it was OK to get a dog was because I told
him I’ve won many, many blue ribbons in obedience with my dog Esta. Which, I know what you’re thinking, is actually true and not a gross exagerration. I   won our county’s dog show in both obedience and show for 4-H and I went to the State Finals, where Esta was over shadowed by the dogs who weren’t actually better than her, just from bigger programs. (Yes, I was a total country girl nerd. I also showed my horse and our neighbors raised pigs in the 4-H program. My best friend raised a sheep and was so sad when she had to sell her for slaughter she had her grandpa buy it, totally defeating the purpose of the 4-H lesson.) Esta was an amazing dog, a total mutt, and really irreplacable, and I had all the time in the world to train her. Things I totally forgot as I was struggling with a simple lesson for Lula. Lula and I have been working on her need to rush out of any door in front of me. This morning she managed to make me spill my coffee all over her and her (empty) poo bag, me, my shoes. It was a lesson for me too, never bring the full cup for the walk. Lula’s still operating on fear so it’s going to take a while, but I am a firm believer in the “start early and be consistent” school of thought. It’s tough because I want her to feel safe and part of the pack, but I also don’t want to have to untrain bad habits. She’s already pretty firmly imprinted on me and I’d like her to be a bit more independent in the future, but she’s only been with us for two days. I guess that would be a big sign that I need to take my xanax and let her adjust.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a dog to work with, so I’m really looking forward to the obedience classes and can’t wait for the manners classes to be mostly learned. I know it takes time, I’m starting to remember the long, long days of trying to get Esta to do a long down stay. She was seriously not interested in laying down for it, and it made me crazy. She would stand for examination like nobody’s business though, stand all damned day if you wanted her to.

So, me and Lula have a long road in front of us, but I think she’s going to surprise me in many ways and hopefully, I’ll be able to surprise her, too.

Lula has kennel cough (we think).  And is crazy with fleas (we think, Waller saw one last night, but I’ve yet to see any).  She’s not good alone.  I think we might have some complaints over the next couple of days from the neighbors.  She does in fact make noise.  I haven’t heard any loud noise, but there is noise.  She totally sold me out last night and slept on Louie’s side of the bed.  After Louie totally nixing the idea of a dog sleeping on the bed, last night I had to fight him in order to keep ol’ flea bag off the bed.  So, of course Lula slept on the floor on his side of the bed.  I guess it’s good she likes him, since he’s going to be the one taking care of her when I die from the Bubonic flea infestation.

I’m exhausted.  Thank god she’s not a real baby and I can just leave her all day to cry it out.

Lula came home today.  She is filthy, has fleas, is close to being obsessed with her stitches and, to be frank, smells.  It’s kind of like I adopted myself, though, I don’t think I’ve ever had fleas.  For long.

So - The Stats - She has yet to make a sound or a number two.  She enjoys snausages, and water, but is unsure of the Science Diet Small Bites Adult Dog Food.  She is not a fan of anyone but me, but tolerates people shyly.  She is really fucking smart.  I gave her a few lessons about walking on the left side and sitting, and she totally remembered them when I took her back out again.  She is laying next to me on the couch right now, smelling up the place and possibly giving the couch fleas.  There’s not really much I can do about it until tomorrow, when I get my Advantage supply.   I think she’s a good dog, and we have a bright future together.

Louie likes her, too.

Waiting for Lula is killing me.  I’ve only had about 15 minutes with her total, so here’s hoping she isn’t an insane killer cocker spaniel who eats people’s faces.  She’s like Hannibal Lecter.  All polite when she’s behind bars but let her out of her cell and it’s eating your liver with a side of fava beans time.

My car broke again this weekend and I spent a few hours looking for a car loan and a car to buy and I almost died from the sheer terror of it all.  I took my car in this morning and it’s only $85 to fix, so my car is spared from a sad death of being chewed up by a big old magnet.

Because I am an insane crazy person, I decided that the dog was the reason my car broke down.  It was some sort of scary bad sign that my dog is a serial killer with cute spaniel ears.  Cutting onions is a good way to cry without really having to get the
correct crying emotion to your tear ducts.  Usually when I have money
problems I don’t cry, I just get all snappish and sigh a lot.  But I
felt like crying so, I made a lasagna for my friends who came over and talked about cooking blogs and comic books.  It was a delicious lasagna if I do say so myself.  My friends liked it too.  There was, however, a catastrophic tiramisu failure, which had me really bummed until I realized baking is not really a beginner sport.  If I want to bake I have to pay attention and not miss steps.  Whereas in cooking if you forget to add the basil, you can just do it later.  Louie saved the day and purchased a tiramisu cake instead.

I have no idea when Lula is going to be able to come home, but as soon as she is, you can bet there will be a lot of dog blogging going on over here.

I don’t know, is it just me? Or is 8:15am on a Saturday a little early to start with the RRRRRREEEENNNNDINDINDINDIN?

Sincerly,
The girl with no bra who glared death rays at you

To the plumber who was on time,

Thank you for being on time. Sorry Louie fixed the faucet making my desperate plea to the landlord ring a little false. The drip (long pause) drip (long pause) drip (long pause) didn’t seem like quite the Saturday morning emergency.
Also, sorry I made you put your hand in the garbage disposal. Louie dropped the hinge from my garlic press in there and couldn’t get it out. That rotten piece of lettuce… not intentional.
Also, I know it sounds like I’m blaming Louie for our kitchen problems, but they’re his fault so…
Just kidding. He’s the one who does the dishes, therefore spending more time in the kitchen with both the faucet and the garbage disposal. Sometimes, I do them. But usually it’s Louie.
I dust. Just so you don’t think I’m lazing around reading magazines all day. Also, I vacuum and feed the fish.
Oh, that made me sound like I have the chores of a seven year old? Well, if Louie would let me have a dog I would promise to walk it and feed it and brush it and teach it tricks.
That made it worse?
God, English isn’t even your first language. Also, you touch rotten lettuce for a living.
What’s that? You make more in an hour than I make in a day?
You win.

Sincerly,
The girl who hovered nervously explaining that last night it was really much worse than now.

I just spent the last 30 minutes on YouTube searching for a Ying Yang twins song that actually turned out to be a Lil’ Jon song that actually didn’t have what I was looking for in it.  The internet doesn’t have everything, people.  At least not if you only give it 30 minutes.

The reason for my failed search was I was trying to think of a way to describe a dude that I saw on Hollywood Boulevard the other day.  He brightened my irritating commute in a way that I didn’t think possible, while simultaneously objectifying a woman he presumably didn’t know.  It was exactly what I believe LA is all about.

I was stuck at a light at Hollywood and Vine, which, for those of you who don’t know, it’s in the heart of Hollywood.  Hollywood in this section is a beautiful mix of homeless dudes, crazy people, working stiffs, and tourists.  I imagine it’s sort of like Times Square before Giuiliani got his paws on it, but less rapey and murdery.  So, I’m stuck at this light and two women walk by, they are obviously tourists, but they don’t look like mid-westerners, my guess is Arizona.  Don’t ask me why, they just sort of had the Arizona vibe.  One girl was wearing ridiculously tight cropped jeans and a mid-riff baring shirt.  She was wearing the outfit well.  I’ll admit, I was staring at her ass.  It was that perfect mix of round with a good drop off to nice legs.  She was blessed.  I realized I was staring when a dude walking behind her caught my eye.  He fully made eye contact with me because he knew I saw what he saw.  He was doing that low walk that rappers do on stage while gesticulating wildly towards her ass with his pointer fingers.  And looking at me and then her ass and then pointing at it and then looking at me.  He was so excited to share this perfect stranger’s perfect ass with me, it was awesome.  It was infectious.  I might have engaged in some low walking ass pointing myself had I not been safely buckled in my seat.  He got the the other side of the street and did that other thing rappers do with the crossed arms and the head shaking.  Like they’ve just delighted themselves - that thing.  You know what I’m talking about.  Then he turned and crossed back across the street and gave me a little nod.

Me and that guy?  We know a great ass when we see one.

The poor babies have fin rot.  Everytime I tell someone about the fin rot, I get an, “Ew,” but honestly it’s not that bad.  They don’t look like extras from that pirate movie with the fish-men.  Their fins are just a little tattered and frayed, like little match-girl fish.

Aside from their affliction, which is caused by stress (How can my fishies be stressed?  They have the best life!) they are awesome fishes.  I put an airstone in their aquarium, which for you non-fish owners is just a thing that bubbles, and they love to dive face first into it and let it carry them up a little, then they repeat it.  I have to say, I would love to do the same thing.  Also, they come up to the glass like little puppies and beg for food whenever I go over to their aquarium.  Yeah, I got rid of the fish bowl because I read somewhere that gold fish need at least 5 gallons of water per fish and if they didn’t have it they could get stressed and get fin rot.  Which they did.  So I caved and got them an aquarium.  After I got the aquarium, I was suprised I didn’t develop fin rot.  I was totally worried that the very sturdy table we put them on would collapse and the aquarium would shatter and my downstairs neighbor would continue to hate me, only now she would do it with a real sense of purpose because I spilled ten gallons of fish water into her apartment.  So far, the table has held, but there was a period of three or four days where I did a fair amount of research about tables collapsing under the weight of a 10 gallon aquarium.  I am nothing if not well researched.  And I will tell you I only found a small handful of stories, so either fish tank owners aren’t talking or the aquarium people are working some serious scare tactics into their instructions about collapsing tables.

Theo, the first fish I got, has a gold body with a black stripe his back.  He had the worst of the fin rot, but now that his dorsal fin is healing, he’s losing his black.  He’s becoming a totally gold gold fish.  Apparently this happens.  Who knew?  Rudy remains unchanged.

Soon I will post a fish video for you.  If I can figure out how to host it somewhere where the compression isn’t completely oppressive.

I’ve been reading a lot about God lately.  People who know me in real life are officially shocked right now.  This is happening partly by accident, but because the books I’m reading tell me that there are no accidents and that everything in the universe happens because we are all touched by God, I guess you could say I’m reading them on purpose.

I just finished reading Eat Pray Love and I have to say it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long, long time.  It made me want to go on a spiritual journey to find God so I could sit in his palm.  Or, at least take a yoga class.  I know, I’m telling you, this book is that good.  I’m also going through the Artist’s Way, as I’ve mentioned here many a time.  And the big thing in the Artist’s Way is allowing yourself to trust that God will be your net, which, for someone who doesn’t really believe in God is a leap of non-existent faith and also sort of idiotic.  But like any Recovery Program there are steps one has to take in order to heal and move forward and these steps become very difficult to handle without the presence of a higher power.  Finally, my friends here in LA are crazy about The Secret.  They don’t believe in it, but they do.  They want to make fun of it, but they’re also kind of curious to try it.  The Secret sounds a lot like a mish-mash of Eastern philosophies with a  touch of Western greed thrown in, so of course Los Angeles is all over it.

My friend Tara just left for a month and since she’s been the person who most inspires me to be a better writer and a better person, I promised that when she gets back I’ll have a very rough, but complete first draft of my 1994 Project for her to read.  And for once in my life I plan to follow through.  So, today I sat at my computer and churned out five pages.  When I told Louie I was done and he could speak to me again, he asked how it went, and I said, “I did the quantity, I’m letting God take care of the quality.”  Then I laughed.  But honestly, if God is in everything, if God is everywhere, then he’s got a bit of free time to help me out, it’s not like Rudy and Theo need him for anything, they’re fish.  Also, my TV doesn’t need God, and neither does my coffee table, so I’m just using their time.  I’m not taking time away from anything important, if God, in fact is in everything.  I’m not being selfish, I’m being realistic.  I would be wasting God’s time if I was to just sit around not letting God take care of some stuff for me.

It’s ridiculous.  I don’t think I really believe it.  But, I did do my pages tonight.  So…

I haven’t been able to get to sleep for the last week, and I’m not going to call it insomnia because… well, it is insomnia, but it’s mood related insomnia and I’m happy I have it.  I sometimes forget when I’m really depressed what it feels like not to want to crawl into bed the second I walk in the door, and what it feels like to wake up in the morning not wanting to sleep forever.  Underground.  And possibly never wake up.  My point is, when I’m having a good spell, I can’t sleep as much.  i guess this would be something like bi-polar disorder, or as we liked to call it in the olden times, Manic Depression.  Why they changed the name, I don’t know.  I do know that bi-polar disorder sounds like something out of my 5th Grade Earth Science book.  I was very worried about the poles when I was in 5th grade.  I was sure they would change magnetically and all of a sudden the Earth would flip and everyone would die.  I worried a lot about things I couldn’t control, back then.  Frankly, the only thing that has really changed is that now I worry about it, but it fills me with a sense of relief that I will no longer have to make my student loan payment if the poles change and we all die.  The Bright Side!  (You can maybe see the mania in that last sentence, what with the capital letters and exclamation point.)

I love self diagnosing.  It’s fun for the whole family! (Yikes, another one.)  Talk to your doctor if you have liver disease, cancer or are afraid of the dark.  Side effects may vary.

So, I’m awake.  I counted sheep last night, and the night before, and the night before that, and frankly right now, I’m a little sick of their fluffy little asses jumping over the gate.  So tonight I was imagining them slipping through the wooden slats of the fence but they kept getting stuck and bleating pathetically and the line stretched out behind the stupid little furry fuckers, and I realize this makes me sound crazier than I actually am.  Please forgive me, I carry a vivid imagination around with me every day.  Sometimes your brains are being eaten by zombies right in front of me, and instead of trying to save you, I cut my losses and chop off your head.  Sometimes I use a machete, sometimes I use my keyboard.  The keyboard is not advised, as it takes a really long time to bash in your head with it and you’re always giving me the doe eyes, like, “I can’t help it, the zombie caught me because I love you.”  You don’t always make sense, but I don’t hold it against you because I’m bashing in your head with my keyboard, because my machete is in the car.

So… you can maybe see why sometimes I have trouble sleeping at night.  This is me in a good mood.  I’m gleefully saving you from being undead.  And you aren’t making sense.