Shoes: A Long-Term Relationship

The Squeeze recently got new shoes.

This is a BIG DEAL.

You see, The Squeeze had a pair a long time ago that he really, really liked.  So he wore them every day until the soles were falling off and they looked liked something that might have died on the side of the road.  Eventually, he was prevailed upon to acquire new shoes.  He looked and he looked and he looked, and finally, he found the exact same pair and bought those.  Those he wore until the front of the sole flapped off the shoe like a sad, thirsty dog's tongue, and the heel entirely fell off.  You could say by this point, he definitely had a "type."

But this new pair?  They're the same shoe (of course) but in a different color.  They're dark grey and orange instead of medium grey and orange.  Once they arrived--The Squeeze's feet are too big to get shoes in a store--he had to ease himself into the idea of actually wearing them. 

First they sat in their packaging by the door for about a day.  Then the outer packaging was removed and they waited patiently in their box by the bench where shoes are put on feet.  Finally, quietly and without a fuss*, the old shoes were gone and the new shoes met their solemates.

I just love a story with a happy ending, don't you?

*No, it wasn't me.



(True:  I am going to have some making up to do for this post.  Hey, Squeeze, wanna see The Avengers with me this weekend?)

Nose As Long As a Telephone Wire...

Don't tell The Squeeze, but I sort of set the kitchen on fire last night.  Just a little.  I turned the back burner on instead of the front one, which was no big deal.  I turned the proper one on, and turned away to grab a plate.  Turned back, and--well, apparently the roll of paper towels was a leeettle too close to that back burner.  It was a rather lovely pillar of flames.

I used the floor, my feet, and a lot of cuss words to put it out.  Luckily, the paper towel holder is marble.  Luckily, the floor is tiled.  Luckily, I was actually wearing shoes for once.  Luckily, the neighbors didn't look out their kitchen window into ours.  That might have been difficult to explain. 

But hey, in a relationship, it's okay to keep some things to yourself, right?  A secret isn't exactly the same as a lie...

And it's not like my pants actually started on fire.  They're just a little, you know.

Singed.

Jemma is totally judging me.

Girl Scout Cookies of DOOM!

Yesterday I got my Girl Scout cookies.  (Don't tell The Squeeze; I don't want to share.)  On the box, there are photos of girls doing wholesome, morale- and character-building activities, and that seriously freaks me out.  Dude.  I'm trying to have some nice, healthy, bingejunkeating here.  Don't go pushing your wholesomeness in my face.  I just want to eat my cookies and guilt in peace.  You know what would help?  Maybe a picture of something as sneaky as I feel, like a ferret or something.  Or a spy.  Or a ninja!

Dear GSA:  Please put photos of ninjas on your cookie boxes.  Ninjas are strong and can stand up for what they believe in by kicking ass.  Also, they help overcome preconcieved stereotypes of what it is to be female, what with having to wear lots of makeup and be totally skinny and also really tiny skirts.  Ninjas wear masks.  You can't even tell what gender a ninja is when they are attacking you, though that might be because either they are invisible or because you are already unconscious, but still. 

Sincerely:  Dana the Biped
 P.S. A ferret-ninja would be okay, too.  Or a duck.  Everybody likes ducks.

Bud would totally let you have all the Thin Mints.

Do You Think Anne Hathaway Would Do It?

Valentine's Day in the Biped/Squeeze household went something like this:

Me:  I know it's the buttcrack of dawn, and I'm sorry to wake you up, but I have a favor to ask.
The Squeeze:  Happy Valentine's Day, baby.
Me:  Aw, thanks!  Happy Valentine's Day to you, too. 
The Squeeze:  What did you need?
Me:  I think the dog is sick.  Can you get a stool sample?

Ah, l'amour.  We are a romantic movie in the making.


(True:  Prada's fine.  I'm pretty sure she just ate a stick.)

No chocolates for Bella, please.  Just cuddles, and maybe something sparkly.

It's a Lot Like Life in the Mob, Except Nobody Dies.

So, you may have heard my car died.  Well and truly.  My weekend was spent getting a new one, which went like this:

Saturday:  Get up at 4 a.m., take the train to Milwaukee.  Get picked up by parents, driven an hour and a half to the town where my credit union is.  Convince them to lend me money.  Informed the credit union closes at noon.  Crazy car shopping ensues.  Miss the twelve o'clock deadline.  Become convinced that life is ruined forever.  Find a car.  Praise god that car dealership is owned by someone my family has known for a long time, and he will let me drive the car home with just the down payment and the promise that the credit union thing will be figured out.  Discuss mutual cousins with the dealer.  Go to next town over.  Have tea and pie with Grandma.  Send camera-phone pic of new car to The Squeeze.  The Squeeze receives a picture of a spider.  Send camera-phone pic of new car to The Squeeze.  The Squeeze receives a picture of Prada.  Give up.  Decide phone is retarded or about to rebel Terminator-style.  Go to parents' house.  Realize I need insurance.  Mom calls insurance guy who lets us come over to his house to write my policy.  Interupt his dinner.  Realize insurance guy also taught my hunter's safety course in middle school.  Get insurance, two memo pads, a letter opener, a pen, a calendar with a guide to the best fishing days, and a reaffirmation of the second ammendment.  Feel awesome.  Go back to parents' house. 

Sunday:  Crash.  (Sleep-wise, not the car.)

So, here are some pics of my new car:

As you can see, the hatchback-style gives me a lot more room than in my old coupe, and the steering wheel is set low enough for short people to see over without sitting on the yellow pages.

The power locks and power windows are a nice upgrade, too.


(True:  "I know a guy.")

Bella oughtta know a guy, too.

ZZZZzzzz.... (Part One)

Ah, precious sleep.  The one luxury that poor people and rich can enjoy alike.

I take sleep very seriously.  I can honestly call myself an expert sleeper.  I'm passionate about this hobby, and practice napping as often as possible.

However, when I wake up, I'm up and moving about ten minutes before any sign of soul or humanity is present.  All id, no superego.  From 7 till 7:10 a.m., I can be an absolute monster.  Worst part is, most of the time I don't even remember what awful thing I said or did during those ten minutes.  I am very lucky my parents never held what happened in my sleep-addled state against me.  Except in a haha-making-fun-of-you-for-the-next-decade kind of way.

For example, the time My Sister the Lawyer decided, many year ago, it would be a good idea to wake me up by jumping on me?  I really don't recall all the creative and loud obsenities I supposedly used, and I definitely don't remember throttling her.

But My Sister the Lawyer sure remembers.


(True:  The Squeeze doesn't even bother trying to talk to me first thing in the morning.  He's smart like that.)

Mya needs a hand.  Really.  There's only 5.6 degrees of separation between people now, what with Facebook, and Twitter and everything, so every person that posts a link to her increases her chances of getting the surgery she needs exponentially.

I'm Going to Regret This.

Oh, hi.  Guess what?  I'm on a lot of cold medicine right now.  My head might explode in gush of snot anyway, which should make the guy who comes in to clean the office happy; wiping snot off my computer screen and keyboard.

Dear Guy Who Comes in the Clean the Office:
I'm sorry about the snot-mess.  You're going to deserve a raise for this.
Love, Dana the Biped.

I miss college.  In college, I could go to the nurse anytime I wanted.  We called her Codeine Carrol, because no matter what ailed you, codeine was her answer.  It was awesome.

Anyway, today I planned to write about my face.  There is something wrong with it.  Not just today because it's all puffy and my nose is chapped and my right eye has a tick because the sinus pressure is setting off some muscle contractions in my eyelid.  I mean, there's something wrong with my face all the time.

My face is a total drama queen.  Everything I feel, it shows, but times twenty-four thousand.  A few examples:

This last summer, I was hanging out with The Squeeze.  We'd just been out for lunch, and instead of mints, we got Dum-Dum suckers.  I got cherry, which is definitely the best Dum-Dum flavor.  Root beer is gross, so The Squeeze got that one.  Anyway, we were walking home, and I dropped my Dum-Dum.

How I felt:  Aw, bummer.
How I looked:

The Squeeze bought me a whole bag of Dum-Dums.

Or, how about the time I won tickets to a special screening of Grimm before it aired on TV?

How I felt:  Neato!
How I looked:

And that time I was watching Doctor Who, and Rose had just gotten herself stuck in a different dimension and now he was travelling with Donna, and Rose was in the crowd behind Donna, but then she disappeared?

How I felt:  "What?"
How I looked:

Lord only knows what I would look like if something really, really excited happened to me, like if I won the lottery or something.  Probably like this:

Except I'd be better-dressed.

(True:  My office is really casual.  When I was hired and asked about the dress code, the HR guy said as long as I was wearing clothes, I was good.  But I have to dress a lot more professionally than everyone else, or people think I'm twelve.)

Mya looks really laid back, but she would be super-excited to find a new home.

My Job Here is Done

The Squeeze and I have been dating for a while now, going on four years, I guess.  And that's just this time!  Over the years, I've told him repeatedly that I don't cook, I don't like to cook, I can't cook.

Confession:  I can cook just fine.  I just didn't want him--or anyone--expecting me to cook all the time.  Or ever, really.  Sometimes (usually) I'm cool with having a bowl of cereal and letting anyone else fend for themselves.

But, now that I'm living so far from my parents that I can't visit them regularly just for comfort food, I've been cooking a bit more regularly.  I've cooked like, three times in the last two weeks, and he hasn't tried a single bite. 

First, it was bean soup, and I thought, okay, maybe he doesn't like bean soup.  Then it was home-made mini pizzas, which I was sure would be a hit.  They were pretty darn tasty.  Nope.  But then, they did have whole-wheat crusts, so maybe that scared him away.  Spaghetti.  Everybody likes spaghetti, right?  I even cooked meat for it.  (I'm not a vegetarian, meat is just expensive and takes a whole 'nother step to prepare and one more dish to wash.)  So the spaghetti was, you know, manly.

It was also a no-go.

Want to know what I think?  Well, you're here, so I'm going to take that as a yes.

I think I did my job too well.  I have convinced him that I don't cook, I don't like to cook, I can't cook.

The Squeeze is absolutely terrified of eating anything I've had a hand in preparing.  And he really doesn't even have any reason, if you overlook the fact that that's what I've told him a whole bunch of times, and that one time I made pancakes and he puked for hours.

That could have just been a bug, you know.


(True:  My specialties are Kraft Mac'n'Cheese and frozen pizza.  I should totally have a contract with Food Network.  (That's a thing, right?  Food Network?))

Coco isn't a picky eater.

Prepare to be Amazed

Let me start this post with a pre-emptive apology.  I was going to have this really clever post with entertaining photos about my weekend in Wisconsin, but The Squeeze forgot those photos are on his phone.  So, instead, I've come up with some poems you won't want to share with your children.

Hickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck two,
The mouse went poo,
And I said, "Eww,
I'm leaving the cleanup all for you."

The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,
So I ran the spider over with my truck.

There was a crooked man, who walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked house,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.
And so he wrote a country song, and sang it all about.
And morons loved it everywhere, and cheered it with a shout.
He bought some fancy clothes, you can see in U.S. Weekly,
But his ex-girlfriends say, he's really bad in bed.

Jack and Jill went up a hill,
To fetch a pail of water.
Which was a lot more work than it needed to be, since everyone knows the water table doesn't suddenly rise just because you've climbed a stupid hill, so really they had that whole "crown" tragedy coming.

This is the McMansion the Jack built.
This is the bank that foreclosed on the McMansion that Jack built.
This is the box behind the dumpster next to the bank that foreclosed on the McMansion that Jack built.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Ate omelets.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater
Had a wife and couldn't keep her.
Because she wanted a damn apple pie for once, asshole.

This photo is extra-large to make up for the fact that I didn't have any others to post.

Dora would like to point out that she has no say in what I post, and she's not nearly as messed up in the head as I am.

Another Trip to the ER, Still No George Clooney

Once upon a time, I had a bad job.  Really, really bad.  It had me so stessed out that in the wee hours one night, my body rebelled.  A severe muscle spasm caused me to lose control of the muscles in my neck.

It hurt, to put it mildly, and I couldn't lift or turn my head.  As it turns out, you need to lift your head in order to get out of bed.  And if the pain jolts you out of sleep and you can't move, your first sleepy thought might be along the lines of, "I'm paralized!"  Then you realize you're not, and you wake up The Squeeze.

The Squeeze sleeps heavily.  It takes him a while to come to full consciousness.  So when I woke him up and explained the situation, his reaction was to tell me to go back to sleep.  And he went back to sleep.  I didn't, but I couldn't very well drive myself to the emergency room now, could I?

In the morning, the muscles that had gone lax were now clenched.  I still couldn't lift my head, but by grabbing my hair and pulling, I was able to sit up.  The Squeeze had a very important engagement, so it was decided my roommate would go with me to the ER.  Exit Squeeze stage left.

Now it's just my roommate and me.  My sleepy roommate remembers her car is in the shop; we'll have to take mine.  My car has a manual transmission.  The roommate cannot drive it. 

I drive myself to the ER, unable to turn my head at all.  The roommate does the looking for me, and we pray I won't get pulled over or kill us in a cataclysmic crash.

A week later, I quit that job.

Trapper probably would have handled it all a lot more gracefully than me, given he's the resilient sort.

Defensive Karaoke Part Three: Ew.

Short post today, because my To-Do pile is so large it's literally (not figuratively) spilling off my desk.

New Year's Eve:  I worked the karaoke.  It was a pretty normal night, if somewhat busier than normal.  The Squeeze and some friends were there, which is always fun, expecially since it means people are less likely to try to lick my ear.

I've mentioned before that my station is near the ladies' room.  It's a one-seater and locks from the inside.  For the first time, I actually had to grab a guy by the scruff of his neck and haul him away from following his lady-friend in.  Instead, they proceeded to make out and...  Well.  Clothes pretty much stayed on, thank goodness.  They started at nine p.m.  I left at quarter to four in the morning, and they were still going.  Ew.

Chapstick, anyone?


(True:  I don't really get this whole kissing someone on New Year's Eve thing.  I mean, fine if you're out with someone, but if you don't have a date, it just seems like a good way to get cooties.)

Trapper is cootie-free and looking for love.

Dude.

Dude. I am an award-winning writer!  Which is, if not one step closer to me being famous and too rich to do my own laundry which would happily result in my consistently having clean laundry, then at least it's one step closer to there not being anything between the "fivelegsbetweenus" and the ".com".

I was nominated by Brian R Christensen of Unintimidated by Convention.  He's awesome, and not just because he thinks I'm cool.  He posts on everyday kinds of things in a fresh, funny way, like in this post, which is one of my favorites but makes me feel weird in public bathrooms.

Here's how it works. When you get the Versatile Blogger, you're supposed to do the following:


1) Nominate 15 other bloggers

2) Inform them of the nomination

3)  Share 7 random things about yourself

4) Thank the blogger who nominated you; and 

5) Add the Versatile Blogger logo to your post

***

So, without further ado:

Fifteen nominations?  Really?  I hardly even know that many people, and most of those that blog are, you know, cooler than me and already have tons of awards and books deals and metal chickens and things.  But I've got a few undiscovered gems to reveal...

Gem A:  seabeegirl  Are you familiar with her?  You should be.  She talks about everything from music and art to Lord of the Rings and video games--she's interested in everything, it seems.

Gem B:  When Curiosity Met Insanity  Bri_chan and zippitydodah27 are two extremely talented artists and storytellers who have made me snort snot out of my nose because I'm laughing harder than is safe.  Truth is, they're big-time, but everybody should know them.

Gem C:  blatherbybubbe is everything you could want from a blogger:  She is entertaining and insightful; she hones things down to what I would miss amongst all the drama.  Basically, she's one of the coolest bubbes I know, and you probably should know her, too.

Also a Gem, but not a blog I'm nominating because I'm pretty sure the blogger wouldn't take the award seriously coming from me, but hey, this is my big opportunity to talk up blogs I like:  benforceblog.com  He's smart, he has great taste, knows a lot about sports and watches some fairly terrible movies.  Show him some love.

Now I've got to go let all these gemmies how much I lurv them....

Okay I'm back.

Prepare yourself for...

Seven Random Things

1.  I have a birthmark on my neck that looks like a hickey.  That is unfortunate.

2.  I have some weird food allergies.  Diet soda makes me lose time, and ice cream makes me drunk.

3.  As a kid, I had a neighbor whose name was Mr. Bus.  He drove the bus.

4.  You know how when you read a fortune cookie fortune and add "in bed" at the end, it becomes funnier?  My grandma taught me that.

5.  I sometimes dream entirely in green.

6.  I was that lucky little girl every little girl wants to be.  I had a pony.  She could open doors and was a foster mom to many kittens.  The kittens grew up very confused.

7.  There is a museum near my hometown that showcases a four-legged quail and a two-headed piglet.  This museum was a regular feature of school field trips.


And finally...

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Brian, for the nomination.  I am so honored.

Willow and Sammy are gemmies as well, but maybe you could tell them that yourself.

I Am an Accidental Grinch.

You guys.  You guys.

I almost accidentally ruined Christmas twice in a six-hour span.  No joke.

First, the infamous camera.  I could have sworn I had told my parents I wanted a camera, but I was going to tell The Squeeze too, so maybe they would want to powwow with him.  Likewise, I told The Squeeze I wanted a camera and that he should powwow with my parents.

The Squeeze gave me an awesome camera.  I was telling my folks about it, and discovered my dad had as well, going so far as to look for a specific, hard-to-lose color (he knows me so well), charging the battery, and getting an idea of how it worked.  I felt bad, my parents felt bad, I shared the badness with The Squeeze, and he felt bad, too.

It was bad.

No sooner had I stopped sniffling than it was time to go to church for the Christmas Eve service, where I was going to be singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" a capella from the hymnal.

Well, apparently our hymnal doesn't include that hymn.  I didn't discover this until about five minutes before the service began.  I spent the entire sermon flipping through the hymnal, looking desperately for a song I knew well enough to do without any practice a capella.  Sorry, Baby Jesus.

But, because the Jeez is a forgiving sort, it all turned out okay.

At church, well, those people have known me since before I was potty-trained, so if I was awful, they were kind enough not to say so.

 And my dad, being a very good sport and a very gracious man, returned the camera and got me a Dremel, which is one of the coolest things I have ever owned.  We had fun playing with it on Monday.  It has a lot of accessories.


Me:  What is this?

Dad:  A grinder.

Me:  What is this?

Dad:  A different grinder.

Me:  What is this?

Dad:  A sander.

Me:  This is so cool!  (Maybe I should be writing this down.)


(True:  I have asked for and been very excited over some rather unique gifts in my time.  I.e., The American Heritage Collegiate Dictionary and a new tool box.  But clearly I'm not the only one asking for brow-raising gifts:  The Squeeze's grandma asked for trouser socks.)

Oooh, and there's still a week to enter the Ugly Sweater Contest!  Email me at danathebiped@gmx.com!

Willow and Sammy are also less likely to come home with giant Ikea bags of dirty laundry than some bloggers I know.

Oh Hey, Guess What?

The Squeeze and I exchanged gifts last night, because we're each spending Christmas with our respective families.  And guess what I got?

A camera!!!

Yay!

Now you might get pictures that are only bad because of my photography skills, not because of my crappy cell phone!

Woot!

And just a reminder:  This will be my last post before Christmas--this weekend is a great opportunity to embarrass your dog by entering them in the Ugly Sweater Contest!  Email your photos to danathebiped@gmx.com.

(True:  Once, when I was living in London, I took a good picture.  It was of an architectural detail, a demon on a doorway.  I wonder if that means anything...)

Willow and Sammy are photogenic, though, aren't they?

The Squeeze is Getting a Bipedian Dictionary for Christmas

In a pasty shop in Edinburgh, I overheard the man in front of me place an order for "a plain one, and an onion one, also."  It sounded like "Ah 'na plen 'un en an unun 'un ow."  No joke.  The tour guide with me had to translate.  Apparently, that was, in fact, English.

I also speak English (along with a smattering of Frisian curses).  And apparently, I also occasionally need a translator.  Who knew a Midwestern accent could be so incomprehensible?

For example:  On the way home from dinner one evening, The Squeeze asked me if I'd liked my meal.

"Yeah," I said.  Except, in Wisconsin, it is perfectly acceptable to turn the "y" into its own syllable by adding a schwa in front.  One can also end the word with a glottal stop, like the one in between syllables in the negative "nuh-uh."  This lead to my "yeah," sounding like "a-yugh."

The Squeeze heard "yuck." 

Bit of difference, there.

Last night, I mentioned that I was tired.  I do not pronounce this as "tye-erd," but rather as "tahyrd."  The long "e" sound is only touched on at the end, and very briefly.  So briefly, in fact, that it can be missed all together.

The Squeeze heard "tard," and proceeded to spell it out in what he thought was an approximation of my accent. 

"Tee Oooh Arrrrh Dee."

He says this was meant to spell "tarred," and his intention was not to call me a turd.

Well, we'll just see what ends up under the tree, won't we?



My thoughts exactly, Rusty.

(True:  Even something grammatically incorrect can be linguistically correct, as long as it is understandable.  Apparently, I can write but not speak.  Either way, sentences should not be minivans.)

Rusty agrees: There is nothing wrong with short but sweet--just like him.  (Also, can I just say how impressed I am at his ability to balance on two legs and lift the third that high?)

I'm About to Make a Million Dollars

People often say that fresh out of the bath, their small dog looks like a drowned rat.  Prada, of course, is way too glamorous for that.

Sometimes, people say that dogs and their people look alike.  Again, Prada is too flashy for such a comparison. 

There is someone specific that she looks like, though...  I'll let you guess.  Here's a reference picture for you:

I've mentioned I'm a terrible photographer, right?  Use your imagination.

Put her in tight pants and a frilly shirt, a leather jacket with a really, really big collar.  Add plenty of makeup (or not).  A guitar might help.  I'd sprinkle her liberally with glitter, but that's just me.  The eyebrows are perfect, though, don't change them a bit.

Have you got it?

No?

Fine, then.

With a look-alike this perfect, Hollywood is going to come calling any minute now.


(True:  This is how photos end up on my blog:  I use my dumb phone to take a picture.  I send a photo message to The Squeeze.  The Squeeze uses his smart phone to put the image on Facebook.  I log onto Facebook and save the pic to my desktop.  I need a proper camera and probably twelve years of photography lessons.)

(Also true:  That is not how I got the picture of David Bowie.  That came from the Internets.)

Nikita agrees with Zsa Zsa Gabor: "Macho does not prove mucho." But she's still glad she's not going to be love-mauled by Ziggy fans.

My Apartment Exploded

Ooooh, hey, lookit!  Noa Gavin knows who I am! (And, I just realized what her current post is about...er, well, click away at your own risk.)

The time:  I dunno, a couple of years ago, I guess. 

The place:  My old apartment, near Green God-It's-Cold-Here Bay, Wisconsin.

The story:  My roommate, Z, was complaining that our apartment was cold.  I am a hermit who leaves the bedroom only when necessary, and I objected.  My room was stinkin' hot.  The Squeeze, who was up for a visit, agreed with me.  (Hi, Mom!  We were just watching movies!)

Anyway, we all went to bed--Z cold, me dying of heatstroke.

A couple hours later, I wake up to a hissing sound.  I ignore it for a little while, but it doesn't go away, and it's the exact pitch to be extremely annoying.  I get up and investigate, following the sound to the pit of despair (the second closet in my room that is full of hot-water heater and so does not have room for any of my shoes).

A trickle of hot water is streaming down the side, from some gasket or something.  As I watch, there is a popping sound, and suddenly, that hot water is shooting all over the place.  It is a deluge of biblical proportions, and there is a very good chance we will all die a scalding death in cloud pyjamas.

I call my landlord.  And get his voicemail.  I leave a very panicked message.  Then I call my dad.  Because who else do you call at 1:30 in the morning when your apartment is exploding and your landlord isn't answering?  He walks me through shutting off the valve, so at least the waterfall isn't quite so huge.  A strange rumble persists, though, which is somewhat worrisome.  As it turns out, my sleep-addled dad forgot to mention that I should have turned off the power to the water heater, as well, so pressure didn't keep building...

The rumbling got lounder.  And louder.  We get our coats on, ready to run for the hills.  My dog, Hans (pre-Prada dachshund cutie), was whimpering pathetically.  And louder.  This is it.  I was going to die in ugly pyjamas.

And then Super-MaintenanceGuy showed up and saved the day.  Which almost made up for the time that our toilet broke and we had to go to the gas station a mile away because it took the maintenance guy three days to fix it.

True:  My high school did not offer a shop class, nor a home economics course.  Because when you go to a fancy-pants private school, you learn that that is what your staff is for.

Too late! Melody has already gone home with a new family!  But stay tuned for more adoptable tripods!

All Days Should End with Monsters

Yesterday was one of those days.

You know the kind.  Your work email won't send attachments.  Your TV dinner lunch isn't cooked all the way through.  Your dog projectile vomits everywhere.

Then The Squeeze tells me he has Tivo'd a marathon of really terrible monster movies for me.  One of them is called DinoShark. 

This, my friends, is what love looks like.


(True:  Anaconda used to be my favorite movie.  Then I saw Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, and it changed my life for the awesome.)

The Bachelor

Today's post is brought to you by Noodles, who is looking for a partner who enjoys long walks on the street and romantic kibbles for two.

Attack of the Mutant Zombie Spider

I was getting into my car to grab some lunch a few weeks ago when I noticed it.  Under the rainguard on the driver's side window was the corpse of a huge spider.



You thought I was exaggerating, didn't you?  Admit it.  The sucker's genetically engineered to be effing scary.



I hate spiders.  A lot.  I can deal with mice and centipedes and the scuzzy hair that gets caught in drain traps, but I cannot do spiders.  I got bit as a kid and it got infected and I didn't have a fingerprint for years.  And once in college, a spider purposely fell off the ceiling into my bed and I had to sleep in The Squeeze's room for days.

If my life were a horror movie, spiders are the monsters out to get me in creative, gruesome says.

Needless to say, I hoped the one on the window would blow away.  And eventually, it did, just as I was arriving back at work with my tasty food.

As I walked past my car toward the office...

...The Mutant Zombie Spider attacked me!  It jumped out from the ledge of the trunk in a blatant attempt to simultaneously eat my face and lay eggs in my eyeball!  Fortunately, my Xena-like battlecry startled it back into its hiding place.  I ran into work and promptly spent the next half hour hyperventilating.

Because the backseats of my car fold down and open into the trunk, that spider could have been anywhere.  It could have been hiding under the visor, waiting to go for my eyes again.  It could have been lurking under the gas pedal, plotting its trek up my pants.  It might have been spinning a web in which it could have baby Mutant Zombie Spiders.

I very nearly took a cab home.

The Squeeze worked late that night; there was no white knight to save my day.  When I arrived home, I grabbed a good-size stick and cautiously popped the trunk.  Mutant Zombie Spider did not expect my ambush.

I flung it to the ground.  It scuttled into a pile of leaves, which I proceeded to beat with the stick and jump and stomp on, yelling all the while.

The neighbors are afraid of me.


(True: This is accurate.)

Three Legs, Third Wheel

I think my dog might have multiple personality disorder.  No, really.  Let me show you.

With me, Prada gets excited, spins, hops along for a while, then cuddles up to me and goes to sleep.  We watch Dr. Who or nap or read for hours like that.  Or we go for a well-mannered walk.




That's my girl.  Also, my Supergirl t-shirt.


With The Squeeze, Prada gets excited, spins, hops along for a while, charges onto the couch, pounces on The Squeeze's stomach, tries to lick his face, spins around, maybe falls over, wags her tail in his face, and then repeats eight or forty times.



My dog is the same size as The Squeeze's shoe.

 See the mania?  Crazy-eyed, tongue-flapping bonkerosity. 

Now, Prada is about two and a half years old--a teenager, you might say.  Writing for teenaged girls as I do, I have learned some things about them.  Which means that there is another possibility besides her being mentally unbalanced.

I think that maybe, just maybe, my dog is in love with my boyfriend.


(True:  sometimes turtles fall in love with shoes, or beetles fall in love with beer bottles.  Which just goes to show that turtles and beetles just know what makes life good.)