on Birds, Socks, and Becoming Conventional

My Thursday night consisted of this: lounging on the couch while pretending to do work, taking an hour to fold a basket of laundry, catching up on my exhaustive dvr list, and watching my inbred dog toss a stuffed pumpkin up in the air and catch it about a thousand times (she may be at the risk of getting retained in training class, but she knows how to entertain herself). Smokey and I were feeling a little defeated after the trainer strongly implied that she will not be graduating from her classes in 2 weeks ( although, that really just means she can re-take it for free so, in all reality, Pet Smart is really just putting itself at a loss in this brutal economy).

While scrolling through my DVR list, now littered with Reid-shows aka "Hillbillie Handfishin'," I realized how distant all of those neon Thursday nights at Rick's had become. And, yes, that is my one and only attempt at sounding profound. Instead, I was trying to ensure that all of my shows had dvr'd and was relishing the fact that I could watch sitcoms in 20 minutes and dramas in about 42.

During these fine 62 minutes of allotted tv time, my inbred dog decided to herd all of her toys and personal items ( brush, traveling water bowl, and seat belt) into a pile in our room. With the dog's newfound love for herding er maybe for hording, it occured to me that it was very possible that it had been she who had planted the bird in the laundry room.

Flashbacking to Monday, after a somewhat long and exhausting day, I was falling asleep on the early side while Reid stayed up and did homework and probably played Call of Duty. I awoke slightly because I heard him bumbling around in the laundry room. Soon the bedroom door cracked and he entered, turning on the closet light so as not to wake me fully. Looming over me like a vampire or something, Reid whispered, "hey, I think there might be a bird behind the dryer, or maybe a sock. I don't know. I'm wearing my glasses and I cannot see well."

There were two things really wrong with this statement. Number one, there should not be a BIRD in MY house. Number two, why would you wear glasses that impair your vision? I was royally confused and dying to enter a REM cycle. I tried to convince myself that I was dreaming about a vampire.

"It's probably just a sock," he said settling in, "don't worry about it." I am sure I mumbled something unintelligible and fell asleep.

In the morning, my genetically maladjusted puppy jumped on top of us as usual and I was up pulling on running clothes. As I reached into the basket for fresh socks, something about vampires, socks and birds entered my brain. Did that really happen? I thought to myself, tying up my shoes. Wincing, I slowly peered behind the dryer. And there it was.

It was the BIRD. Terrified and disgusted, I let out a yelp and screamed at Reid who was shaving in the bathroom. Then I grabbed the dog's leash and we ran like hell... for about two blocks until we got lazy and retreated to our typical pace.

During the run, my brain started spinning. How did it get in? Had we left a door open? Had it flown down the chimney? that tiny crack on the ceiling of our closet? God, there were so many ways the bird could have gotten in. On the bright side, Reid's glasses were probably ok.

When we returned home, Reid had left for work but next to the dryer was his lacrosse stick. After spending so many years of his life playing and coaching, he was now using it to scoop intruders from behind our dryer.

my tweenage dogg-er

Basically, I was smart about it. I watched all of my friends become dog moms to newborn puppies while I stood by as the cool, jerky-bearing aunt. I avoided the racoon eyes, sleepless nights, and scraping fecal matter from the dog's cage. Instead, I surfed the net for a one year old dog who was house broken, somewhat obedient, and still, on a technicality, a puppy. You see, until a dog is two, it is essentially still a puppy. I am not certain about where the baby-toddler-child-tween-teen transgression begins and changes for canines. My name is not Cesar Milan. Therefore, it is pure speculation that I consider my dog to be a tween.

At about 1.5 years, Smokey is a the equivalent of a 10 year old tween. And, yes, Smokey is a she. We opted for an androgenous name so that Reid would not have to suffer the shame of failing his WASPy roots. More literally, Smokey's pelt is neither dark brown or black...it's just smokey. Of course, she already has a stockpile of inane nicknames. I actually typed these once and, out of shame, deleted them. It really reduces my cool factor. Won't even get into the songs.

Anyway, as Smokey is a rescue tweenager, she's got some hormonal growing pains that she is dealing with. Just like human tweens become angsty, awkward, and smelly, Smokey is also facing some of these challenges.

Fraternizing with boys: Smokey always has initial anxiety when meeting new friends, particularly boyfriends. Of course, she does like them. Even though she dances away from full facial contact while meeting them, she is the first to check their behinds. Eventually, she will come onto them in the backyard, dashing after them and baiting them with her plush, squeaker filled toys.

Her best boyfriend, Leo, has recently been sneaking a lot of kisses. Smokes just growls and kicks him away from her water bowl. Typical. Actually, that sounds a little more like college.

Eating disorders: I cannot quite pin point how to define her eating disorder. She will go from starving herself during meal time to binging on jerky (the equivalent of a real tween's cool ranch doritos). While this seems like a classic case of bulimia, there is no purging involved. Confounding, but, nonetheless, disordered eating.

Intense sweating: While real tweens begin sweating intensely while nervous behind the wheels, a dam basically breaks in my backseat everytime Smokes jumps in. She is not getting her learner's permit anytime soon.

Interest in new substances: While Smokes was hesitant about accepting jerky and t-bonz from us at first, she has begun to experiment with a new fervor. Her experimentation has actually transgressed to full on addiction. She has also been experimenting with Kleenex, Nylabones, and Toy Stuffing. These are highly addictive substances.

I attributed of these quirks, along with her physical anomolies: wide crazy eyes, huge thighs, and pigeon toed front feet, to be part of her character and growing pains. That was until Smokes went to training class at Pet Smart.

After the first class, I feared not only retention, but demotion to a lower level. On top of that, the trainer told me she might be inbred (as she was a rescue dog). Inbred? There was no way! My wild-eyed, kind of bulimic Aussie Shephard with an androgenous name was not inbred. She was a tween! She was artsy! She was using multiple substances! But she was not inbred.

I returned home and told Reid. In true Reid form, he told me I was ridiculous. Then I looked back down at Smokes, with her dialated pupils, big mouth open and her huge thighs holding up her smallish body. I loved my inbred dog.

Puppy Love and Dog Babies

Without giving me any advanced notice, all of my friends decided to adopt puppies this summer. My friends have brought their dogs into various home environments. One dog, Leo Feinberg, is the son of single mom, Julie. Another dog, Lily Rabin, is the beloved daughter of Jen and Adam. This leave me, on the other hand, as the spinster auntie, barren of puppy love and dog poop.

The other day, Leo and Lily came over to play in my backyard and pool. When Lily arrived, Jen told me that Lily needed to greet me outside because she would get excited and start to dribble pee upon seeing me. So we stood on the patio, oohing and ahhing over the golden doodle and her pee splattering on our feet.

Lily enjoyed the pool for a while until Leo arrived. Leo, a lab pit mix, excitedly eyed Lily. I am sure he was into her fluffy doodle haircut, teddybear like complexion, and large, silky ears. As they began to dance around, pawing one another, Lily would coquettishly pat him on the lower back or flirtily sniff his asshole. It was not all that different than a scene out of Axis Radius or Pussy Cat Lounge.

As Lily is both younger and smaller than Leo, he was fairly responsive when she would start to back off from their little romp. And just as Lily's mom was getting comfortable with the playdate, Leo went biserk and jumped Lily's bones, sending her rolling into a pile of grass. She sat up, stunned.

"He did that because he has to poop," Julie said, hopping out of the pool, "it's really sad but my life now revolves around when he needs to poop." I sat in the pool and contemplated my friends' life changes. Julie, the single mom, was thinking feces 24/7. Jen, on the other hand, was fretting over her golden doodle's playdate gone amuck. These were not animals, they were children. Dog babies to be exact.

After a few hours of swimming and playing, the babies needed their naps.

Riding in [trucks] with [farmers]

One lazy spring sunday, I forced Reid to watch the latter half of Riding in Cars with Boys, that Drew Barrymore flick where Steve Zahn, in all his creepy glory, is the father of her illegitimate son. I am pretty sure he enjoyed it because on another occasion I caught him watching How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. This has nothing to do with the story I am about to tell, but it did birth the title of the blog.

Anyway, one of my greatest paranoias (among many) is getting lost. And by 'getting lost' I really mean getting lost in nature. I love nature, but I love it on a marked trail sans snakes and poison ivy. With plenty of water.

In the time that I have dated Reid, we have enjoyed many a trail and sometimes gotten temporarily turned around. On those hiking occasions, I was never too nervous because he assured me that he knew the 'landmarks'. Of course, I had no idea what landmarks he was talking about because just about everything in the desert is reddish brown and hot. But, whatever, he did NOLS, that prestigious outdoor adventure program that supposedly makes you an expert explorer and gives you the Godly ability to use the sun as a compass or something like that.

Unfortunately, NOLS knew nothing about the backroads of York, Pennsylvania, a small town just north of Baltimore that was supposedly the nation's capital for 4 days during the American Revolution. It was also the home of Reid's older brother who lived not far from the trail we were about to traverse.

Once we arrived on the trail and began tackling the humid mosquito laden land, our illustrious leader decided to take a short cut on the trail. Apparently, he was a little tired out after frolicking around a fire pit and carousing in the local reservoir all night (another story completely).

"I'll meet you guys in a little bit- just stay on the trail- see you soon..." and he was off, down a side trail that would lead to the end sooner.

Now, it was just Reid and I running around this York, Pennsylvania trail that had a bajillion off shoots and random bugs everywhere. Every few seconds I would ask if we were on the right trail. Reid would shake his head humidified hair and say it was fine.

As we headed up a narrow leg of the trail and hurdled a fallen tree, the great cloud of doubt crept in, but I braced myself and tried not to whine. I mean, everything was usually fine so I knew I needed to let go and let York.

Soon enough, the trail came to an end and petered off into a regular, cilivized road. Reid's brother had not mentioned us hitting a road, but we were out of the woods.

Well, we ran up and down over that road again and again while the air grew hotter and seethed with humidity. I was dripping with sweat and dead mosquitos and Reid definitely needed some curl care for his hair. And suddenly he stopped.

"Ok," he said, "now we are lost." Oh shit, I thought to myself. For once, I was right about being lost. However, it was not as satisfying as being wrong because when I was wrong, I was actually on the right trail.

"we'll just flag someone down, " he said and started waving his hand at a man driving a Ford Truck. The truck slowed down. the man inside confirmed that we were about a half mile from the next trailhead to get us back on the trail.

"I can give ya a ride up there if ya want, " the man whom I assumed to a be a farmer offered. Without thinking, we hopped in the back of the truck bed, and rested on granules of dirt. Normally, I would not get in a strange man's car. Or a strange woman's car. But York, Pennsylvania seemed to be the place to do it.

And after hitch hiking for a half mile up the road, we were back into the woods, retracing our steps. Reid insisted that I laugh about the incident so I did. However, I was kicking myself for not asking our driver to just take us back to the house. A girl could get used to this hitchhiking business.

Biebs in love: is it a match?

My criticism and fascination with Justin Bieber began sometime in the early fall of 2009. He had just hit the scene and I had just discovered that it was actually a male singing "Baby, baby, baby ooohh". From that day, his popularity has soared to a sick sort of cult following. Biebs even had one 3 year old girl crying her eyes out for him. Lucky for her, he met her in real life and gave her a kiss on the cheek. I wonder if he would do that for me if I taped myself crying for him. Then again, he cannot pick me up and i'm pretty sure I'd face legal charges.

Well, I am writing again for the sake of dear little Justin Biebs because it seems he has found a chick: Selena Gomez. Because girls develop faster than boys, He looks like he's 7 and she looks like she's 20. In all reality, she is 18 and he is 16. Normally, if they were both legal adults, this would not be so notable. But technically she is dating a minor who looks like he's 7. Therefore, she is at risk for statutory rape. Take a look at the photo below:

Gomez could easily be Biebs' babysitter. But more importantly, I thought it was trendier for 18 year old starlets to become entangled with 30 something bad boys like, oh say, Wilmer Valderama. I actually think Selena and Wilmer would make a great couple:
Pretty cute, huh? I mean, here are Wilmer's perks: despite association with Lindsey Lohan and a bevy of subsequent drugs and alcohol, Wilmer has had a driver's license for more than 2 months, has graduated high school, can attend R rated movies, and can buy cigarettes and lotto tickets with Selena for sport. He can also buy her liquor.

My vote is Wilmer and Selena.

Old Man Face Baby

While home sick with a 24-36 hour bug, I had the gross opportunity to watch an obscene amount of TLC, including shows about regular babies, babies born in tents, and babies born unto former junkies. That said, I found myself deliberating over whether the crack baby or the homeless baby was cuter. I know I should feel bad about this, but I was feverish and trying to keep down gatorade.

All of this got me thinking about how the disparity of attractiveness among babies is just as broad as that of children and adults. Sometimes, babies are just plain homely. Luckily, their parents have no idea.

One Sunday morning, right before heading to Sedona for a day hike, my boyfriend and I stopped into an Einstein's on the way. After paying for our bagels and waiting a little too long for the toasting process, we came face to face with Old-Man-Face Baby. Or, rather, Reid did as OMF B could have really cared less if i was there or not. OMF B craned his head around and scowled at Reid with his shriveled up face and baby food sodden grin. He had the tenacity of a mongoose. He also had a six-head.

"that baby's staring at you," I said to him, pointing at OMF B. OMF B had worry wrinkles on his sixhead that were tensing by the moment. OMF B's mom turned his head away to feed him again, but the moment she turned to another child it was game on again.

"Do you know that baby?" I asked, starting to wonder if he had made fun of it in grocery store in passing one day or something like that.

"No, why would I know that baby? Maybe he likes me," he said, raising his eyes at OMFB.

OMF B just smirked and driveled baby food down his chin. Reid stuck his tongue out at OMF B. The baby didn't blink but the mom was not amused.

Luckily, our order was ready. We grabbed it, hopped in the car, and made fun of the baby for about 20 minutes.

Sexycat

For some reason, I rope myself into pet sitting for mentally deranged animals. The latest adventure included a bout with an orange tomcat named Roux. Roux came to me one afternoon bearing a blood curdling meow and a sparkly collar. At first glance, he seemed nice enough; he would occasionally come up to me for a pat on the head and politely let me know when he was hungry.

And then he got comfortable. I mean, reallllly comfortable. It happened one night when I had returned home late from work. As I sat on my couch checking email, he siddled up next to me and all of the sudden I felt something dripping on my leg. The cat was drooling. AS far as I am concerned, cats should not drool.

"Ew!" I said, pushing him away. Oh no, he was not phased. Not unlike a typical Scottsdale bro, sans the v-neck though, He kept throwing himself at me, in the most literal sense of the word. However, to Roux's credit, his meows and drool were much more pleasant than any form of conversation/advances attempted by barside lurkers.

As days turned into nights, I had to develop a new routine for barricading my bedroom door. I did not have to do this until one fateful day when, after spending some QT at the pool, I had decided to take a quick nap. Just as I began to doze off, I felt something on my leg pushing my dress up.

"Oh my god!" I screamed. The cat, who at this time rightfully earned his new name: "sexycat", was trying to sexually assault me within the supposed safety of my own home. I was disgusted. How far did he think he would get with me? Did he really think I was that type of girl? This was the most perverted cat I had ever encountered, even worse than Besos, a former roommates' big, white cat that would hide in the closet of my room to watch me change.

Because of this incident, I found myself hastily stacking chairs, brooms and other assorted items outside of the not so secure french doors that led into my bedroom. For roughly the first 20 minutes of the night, I would be safe and then, no matter the combat strategy I provided, Roux would slide his pay under the door and jimmy the latch. Additionally, he was on the talller end of cat heights and could reach up to turn the door handle traditionally designed for humans. Roux's height, horniness, and harassing nature were a triple threat and my bedroom door was no match. I was beginning to contemplate purchasing a chastity belt.

After roughly five weeks of Sexycat's advances, his time with me came to a halt. On the night of his departure, I returned came home after happy hour with my boyfriend and his friend only to realize I had left my bedroom door open. This could only mean one thing: Sexycat was in my bed.

Sure enough, he was on my bed. What I was not expecting to find, though, was that he was also face down in the cup of one of my bras rubbing his head back and forth. Yes, he was motor boating my bra, quite fervently to say the least. Because he is a cat, he could not make the side effect noises, but I am sure he was thinking them.

"Oh my God!" I yelled, shooing him off my bed. There was, of course, a large deposit of drool in my left bra cup.