S n a r k A t t a c k

Miniature Disasters

The dog is wearing a pink lei made of nylon flowers.  The dog is ready for a luau and will wait patiently on the couch, making sure it doesn't suddenly fly away, until I deign to take her for a spin around the neighborhood.   She's good like that: ballast.  Ballasty.  Ballastronic.  Sometimes, when I sleep, she tries to sleep with me and stands on top of me, turning around until she discovers a position that will guarantee that I will lose all circulation in my legs, my dreams filled with images of me in a wheelchair, my legs reduced to nubs.  How did you lose the legs, people will ask, and I will describe a lei-wearing retriever determined to get comfortable.  I will then be put in a home.

I got the lei outside a bar in West Hollywood, this being my first stab at Pride in LA.  So here's the thing: the women in West Hollywood are much more attractive, on the whole, than they are in SF.  They are also ice-ice cold.  Impossible to talk to, period. I know what you're thinking:  that I was trying to get all sexy-sexy with them, but truth was I just wanted to be all friendly-like, in the way that's so nice about Pride: we're all in it together, etc.  Instead they made me feel, initially, like the Precious Moments figurine on a shelf full of Boba Fett action figures.  I felt naive and dumb, with only my big brown eyes to save me, not a jet pack to be found.  Of course, the boys could not have been sweeter, and I mean cute boys, not just the ones that were so fugly that no other boys will talk to them so they start talking to the lesbians.  (I feel like I give you so much insight into gay culture, people.)

So, I don't expect to post much over the next week or so as I am rapidly closing in on finishing this project of mine.  Funny thing about focusing on a writing project:  my eating and sleeping habits are completely destroyed.  For one, I get up at odd hours.  The other morning I awoke at 3:40, wide-awake.  Secondly, I eat weirdly.  I find booze completely unappealing, crave salty-salty things and am drinking crazy quantities of water.  With all the sodium and water, by next week I expect to look like a tick at a Sopranos BBQ.  (So much flesh, so many places to hide.)   

Newsflash: the dogs do not love you like that

The cousin and EB have a crazy dogwalker whose existence on the planet I am beginning to resent.

She is crazy, of course, in the way you want your dogwalker to be crazy: she used to be a vet technician, she believes that dogs are just little furry people with furry little souls and she has an enormous vehicle for transporting your beloved pets all over the greater Los Angeles area in comfort and style. She also loves the dogs so you know they're in good hands.  The problem is that she may love them more than you do.  Or at least she thinks she does.

Since I'm the one who's home when she comes to get the dogs, I endure her strange small talk every day.  At first I was all saintly about it - she's lonely, being with all those dogs all day.  What's a few charitable moments out of my day?  It's like karmic flossing.  But then I began to dread the talks, mostly because she wasn't just talking to me.   She would talk to the dogs.  More precisely, she would talk THROUGH them.   

Now I've owned the pup for nearly 9 years and I'm very clear on things - I own her.  She is indisputably my property.  I am not her mother.  I did not give birth to her (shudder!) and I do not like it when people talk to her and refer to me as her mommy.  In fact, it creeps me out.  But that said, I talk to her.  I've talked to every pet I've ever had, including a few animals that weren't, strictly speaking, pets.

However, I've never imagined for a moment that aside for a handful of words - 'park,' 'ball' and that most genius please-poop-now phrase, 'do your thing' - that the dog ever understood what I was saying.  I also never imagined that if she were to communicate with me, that she would do it through a crazy dog lady and that her messages to me would be the bitchiest, most passive-aggressive things ever uttered at  80,000 kHz. 

Every day the dogwalker picks up the cousin and EB's two dogs.  My dog stays home with me doing what she loves best:  sleeping on the couch and occasionally farting in my direction.  Every day the dogwalker does a variation on "your dog is telling me that she wants to come with us!."   This would then be followed by a discussion of how the pup is smiling at her or how her coat is so shiny and then interrogate me on the food I feed her (Trader Joe's kibble, eighteen bucks for a twenty pound bag), which was followed by a discussion on how she learned in vet school (one year!) how to read a dog food label and how the leading ingredient should never be 'meal.'  Then, channelling my dog, she would talk about how my dog would love to have food that doesn't have lamb meal as the first ingredient. 

First of all, lady, I don't know what 'vet school' you went to but if all you learned was how to read a freaking dog food label, I have one word for you:  refund.   Secondly, it's dog food, not a meal at Manresa. 

Besides, the pup's had every kind of spectacularly priced dog food in the world, including a brief spell eating bizarre protein-carbohydrate combinations.  Kangaroo and sweet potato anyone?  Yet she's never been healthier since she started eating some TJ's dog food which is probably 90% rat anuses.  Give us a kiss!   

I dread the dogwalker's afternoon appearances and have occasionally hidden on the patio or upstairs, ignoring her "hello?" when she comes in.  A couple of weeks ago I was relieved when she went out of town and I didn't have to hide out every day.  Instead, that opened up another dimension of crazy.   

EB's sister GM filled in for the week, spending several days discovering how the dogwalker had given her the wrong keys to the wrong houses or told her the wrong thing about certain dogs.  It was a nightmare.  Worse, the dogwalker had lied to GM about how much money people pay her for each dog and then tried to stiff her.   

GM still hasn't been paid by the crazy dogwalker and what the dogwalker says she's going to pay her seems to shrink along with my tolerance for her and her canine ventriloquism.  It's been over a week and rent was due, groceries need buying and the money for services rendered might be nice.  Talking through my dog to annoy me is one thing; stiffing GM is quite another.

She doesn't owe me money but I've been so annoyed with her behavior that I vote for firing her.  That sort of behavior's unacceptable, the proverbial straw and whatnot. 

The pup's on the couch next to me and she totally agrees. 

Who's my good girl?  You are!

Robert Frost Can Kiss My Ass

Once the family vacated our place in Tahoe and it was just me and the pup once more, I decided to take advantage of the breaks between storms and break in my mom's new snowshoes. Snowshoeing is all the rage, don'tcha know, what with the technological innovations which have made them ever less like tennis rackets on your feet and promising ease of use: "Strap them on your feet and just walk normally!" goes the tagline.

I drove over to a nearby park favored by the locals and which adjoins a cross country ski course. The pup was especially antsy since she'd spent the last several days cooped up in the house with my 21 month old niece and nephew and a Dog Who Does Not Like Her, the latter making her anxious and the former making her utterly confused: "Now lemme get this straight. These two little people here are my height, covered in food and I STILL can't lick them?"

I strapped on the snowshoes and started "walking normally" on the snow. Okay. Now there must some sort of trick beyond walking normally that no one told me about for no sooner had I walked twenty feet before I realized that with every step a handful of snow which had collected on the back of each snowshoe was being flung upwards and landing on my back, ass or shoulders. Oh, and a few times on my head. What a treat.

Resigned to looking like I'd fallen backwards into a Yeti, I soldiered on. I'd gone on hikes in this park before, once getting rather lost, which should have been my first clue that my inaugural snowshoe outing - my debut, as it were - would be a bit lengthier than anticipated.

This is what happens when you are so utterly charmed by the act of snowshoeing - I'm walking normally through snow! -that you are later bedevilled by the twin evils of 1) why NOT let the dog lead the way? and 2) how lost could I get? I've been here before. (When I got lost.)

Thus, we trekked over snowy hill and snowy dale and all was fine until I realized we had somehow found ourselves on the wrong side of a creek and then I thought that I could simply jump across the creek because I am awesome, generally, sure, but specifically awesome when it comes to snowshoeing as I am a quick study and have the reflexes of a cat. A really nimble cat. Rawr!

Instead, I spent a few moments perched on a log, teetering on the cramp-on part of the snowshoes and imagining all the ways I could screw this up and end up in the creek and how sad I would be to lose my toes and would I ever wear sandals again, which is really funny since I hardly wear sandals now, the Birkenstocks being much too cliche and flip-flops having that thing between your toes that makes me, how shall I say? Uneasy.

Like a bobcat (PFFT!!) I jumped across the creek and clambered up the bank. All was excellent until I looked behind me to see that my dog, with benefit of two more feet, had managed to slip into the creek. She seemed very uncomfortable down there. I yanked her up by her collar and really only her undercarriage was wet but she was, for the next several minutes, VERY peppy.

Have you ever read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich? Dear Ivan flees the Siberian gulag and he and his accomplice steal away with a third inmate who is referred to simply as 'the Sandwich.' Let's just say this image came to mind as the dog and I wandered around the wilderness, criss-crossing trails of rabbits and other doubtless adorable and NOT AT ALL LOST woodland creatures. Who is the Sandwich, you might ask? The pup or me? To which I say, that is a question better left to the philosophers.

Moving on: an hour later, I found a set of cross-country ski tracks which we followed until I saw a water tower. Having been in the park before, I recognized the water tower and thought very hard about where the water tower would be in relation to my car. I proceeded to turn right. I then congratulated myself. Moira, you're so smart. How can you stand being so smart? In no time you will be nice and warm on the couch with a big bowl of Spaghettios. Heavenly.

Hubris was promptly rewarded when I saw another water tower in the distance. Apparently there was a sale on water towers. I had no idea where we were. No bother. Why worry about being lost when ahead in the distance there's a coyote standing stock still on the trail? And then there were two. And then three. This would officially make them a pack, especially since a coyote trio sounds like a jazz group from Phoenix. The pup was blissfully ignorant, per usual.

I took off the snowshoes and clapped them together, and in a flash the coyotes ran off through the trees. I caught a few glimpses of them afterwards and then: nothing. As we walked on, I tried to keep the pup close to me, wondering if coyotes would look at her and think "Late Lunch." My neighbor here lost a dog to coyotes and named the replacement dog Hors d'Oeuvre.

Finally we made it back to the car, hiking the last mile and half over the cross country ski trails, earning me the disapproval of a pimply-faced teen employee of the resort who asked that I not walk on the ski tracks and told me that dogs were not allowed. Whatever, dude. I am not going to climb blindly through the snowy terrain which I now know to be coyote- (and not just adorable rabbit-) infested.

A nice walk, all told. Really, I'd do it again. Such a shame about today's rain washing that snow away. Then again, these Spaghettios are awesome.

Well, That Bites

I took the pup to Dolores Park yesterday to pick up a housekey from a friend of mine who had graciously volunteered to look after her while I was in LA this weekend. As we know, I can't stand the drive to LA but I do enjoy the hell out of my time there, so I'd planned on flying down.

Well.

My friend's dog had met mine a couple of times and while Ruby's an absolute sweetheart around people, she's not great with other dogs. This is apparently a nice bonus in adopting a shelter dog: they are often extra-snarly around other dogs who they perceive to be threatening their territory. But as Ruby and my pup had met before, no blood drawn, I figured it'd be okay. So on the way to a dinner party, a bottle of rioja riding shotgun, we headed across town to Dolores Park to meet my friend and get the key. The pup ran out of the car with her stuffed duck in her mouth (it's insanely cute) and we climbed up to the dog area. While Ruby was doing well with other dogs that day, she singled my dog out - incidentally, the world's most submissive dog who rolls on her back more often than Tara Reid on a Friday night - and attacked her. Yes: the dog who was to play hostess to my own pup effectively vetoed the weekend by clomping down on her neck. This would be the canine equivalent of standing in the doorway under a broken porchlight, wearing a wifebeater and cocking a shotgun. "The sign says 'No Solicitors' so take your janky Thin Mints and beat it, kid."

The pup's never been attacked in her life so under the circumstances I thought she handled herself with the usual aplomb. Dogs shed under stress so she did lose a Chihuahua-full of hair but really it just saved me having to brush her later so hooray for that. I thought she was okay, actually, until I got her back to the car and noticed a patch of soaked hair, the result of a perfectly round puncture in the back of her head, seeping blood. She's fine now - we went to the vet, got antibiotics and instructions of administering warm compresses. Luckily the pup loves the vet more than a big pile of cat poo because the ass-fetish/temperature-taking aside, it's a team of people interested in serving her and what's not to love about that?

The downside is that my trip to LA is off. The upside, however, is incalculable: I bet I can milk Cujo's mortified owner for a slew of free dinners, drinks and other fabulous prizes over the next several months. "Hello, Gary Danko? Party of two. And could I order a separate tasting menu for a doggie bag? I can?"

Swell!

And the People All Said Sit Down

I've been coming into the office a lot more lately because I can't take the dog staring at me anymore.

It's unnerving.

Instead, I find myself on the bus nearly every day which brings its own set of issues. Like sometimes there's no place to sit, or there's a seat but it's next to someone who's a) very large, b) very smelly (either homeless-y, boozy or like old people as there are a lot of senior residences near my house) or c) covered in something wet and/or sticky. a) and c) are easy because you just have to take a look, but b) is where you get in trouble. The other day I sat down next to some aging hippie biker - the leather vest, the white hair ponytail, the cane with the skull knob that matched the tattoo on his forearm - and he must have taken too many headers off the Hog because he was on the bus, A, and 2, he assumed by my sitting next to him that we were automatically BFF'ers. Oh, Chatty Cathy, once a sweet if voluble little doll now apparently reeks of rum and wears a Skynrd t-shirt. Every time he finished saying something he exhaled a Jamaica-full of rum on me and then he'd cackle.

A word about cackling - sometimes you make fun of someone's annoying habit - gumpopping, snorting while laughing, a disgusting post-prandial SNIRRSRTGH! noise better suited to an otolaryngologist's office and so forth - and suddenly that annoying habit will be your annoying habit. You won't realize it but you will have acquired the very thing you were so intent on mocking, as the karmic wheel makes a tight U-ee. Ladies, I implore you - do not imitate an annoying habit of your mother's because while you may feel like the mocking may be distance you from inheriting that trait, you are simply hitching a ride on the great cosmic wormhole that will poop you out onto the planet of You Have Turned Into Your Mother.

And so, cackling: I believe that cackling doesn't always have to be the province of the toothless. I believe that there are those who picked up cackling as a result of poor decision-making, who chose to mock the unmockable and thus came away with a horrible laugh for all eternity, bound to endless comparisons with grannies and Phyllis Diller and a foul-smelling ex-biker on the 22 Fillmore, whose own mother was an otherwise lovely woman, I'm sure.

Summer in the City, or How a Dog-hair Covered Fleece Saved My Life

I'm back on the early morning kick and man, does it bite. While you were slumbering away, enjoying another delicious REM cycle, I was up having breakfast and tapping away on the laptop while watching the Tour de France in the background. This is how I found myself taking a midmorning walk with the pup in the Presidio.

A word about summer in San Francisco.

Cold.

When I first moved here, I hated it. Oh, the fog's charm was lost on me as I shivered up California in my sassy corporate chic outfits after work. This was back before everybody went business casual and chinos were all the rage. With their chambray shirts and blonde khaki trousers, every junior attorney looked like he worked at the Gap (fun fact: they hated having this pointed out). This was pre-boom, when PDA still meant making out in public and IPO meant nothing to anyone. And at the time I hadn't learned to embrace the chill of a San Francisco summer. I resisted it, fleeing for weekends back in the wonderful dry heat of Sacramento where I would uncharacteristically lay out and try to store up warmth like a little Mexican photovoltaic bean.

But now, I love it. I've absorbed the seasons which run two or three months late because of Pacific currents (or so I've been told), leading to August being our June, and September being our July.

And yet, knowing all this, I was taken aback when I got to the Presidio and found the trail wet and the eucalyptus groves dripping with fog. There were banana slugs everywhere, which held no interest for the dog as they are not round and stamped with 'Wilson.'

She did, however, manage to step on several of them. Apologies to the fine alumni of UC Santa Cruz.

In other news, having gotten up so early I was in a fine position to find out immediately after they were announced that Kristen Bell and Lauren Graham were both denied Emmy nominations while the Toto of the Emmys, Will & Grace, got a bunch of nominations despite the fact that the show is a parody of itself. They should just rename it Our Fifth Vacation House and get it over with. Last time I watched, Karen Mullally was literally phoning it in. They had her, like, in a phone booth and everything. Okay, I just made that up, but you get my point: She's moved on! She's got that M&M money now - she doesn't need you! On cue: boobs forward, high pitched laugh, "oh, Jacky!," alcoholic/pill joke, famous person cameo and close with the boobs/laugh/gratuitous-wet-kiss-with-Jack trifecta. Delightful. Oh, poor Eric McCormack - do what you will but once you're done playing a queen - I've seen gay priests get more action than you - your career is over like last year's Jimmy Choo's.

(Okay, the level of vitriol I'm currently spewing has nothing to do with Will & Grace and their ilk, and everything to do with my absolute rage at Not Sitting at the Grownups' Table where awards like this are concerned. I watched in cootchie-clutching terror as Phil Collins beat out Aimee Mann for a Best Song Oscar. My mouth agape - even as I child I had an exquisite sense of talent - when Toto won a Grammy for Rosanna. (And I'm sorry, but do I really want to hear TOTO singing about the 'Drums of Africa'?) I later got used to Joss Whedon and everything he had anything to do with getting snubbed year after year after year. When the musical episode of Buffy got denied completely, a little piece of me died. The piece of me that I like to call... Hope. This is the part of the show where I have to just sign off and have some more coffee. Don't give me that look. And no, I will NOT have decaf.)

Do let's cleanse our palate with something pretty. Oh, let's DO!

Cue Presidio pic:

Presidio in July

Does David Naughton Know About You?

For reasons I'd rather not discuss, I am up well past my bedtime. I think the ill-advised decision to make a pot of Peet's coffee at nine o'clock played a significant role as did the 6pm disco nap. In retrospect, it turns out that I will discuss the reasons I'm still up.

Man. I am wide awake. A little too awake, actually. I have crossed the line from merely perky to doing a Sam Kinison impression. This is the point where you wonder, 'what if I just stay up? I don't need to sleep. Sleep is for suckers. Hey, I'm no sucker! Won't see me sleeping, like some pussy. Hah.' And then you pull the all-nighter and the next day you feel like somewhere someone made your eyesockets just a leetle bit smaller. I am perky, paranoid and apparently now convinced that I am being gaslit by my own coffeemaker.

I'm also currently recovering from a coronary.

Why?

Because.

Because the dog - yes, the freaking dog - has taken, in her dotage, to singing in her sleep. Cute, right? Sure, sometimes, when she sounds like a singing frog. A sweet, brief trill and then she's back chasing tennis balls in her dreams, with a make-believe version of me who never tires of flinging a soggy ball for hours on end. Charming behavior. Awwww-inducing. Actually, I'm sure whatever dream version she has of me is a me made entirely out of sirloin and cat poo. And maybe tomatoes, for she loves tomatoes.

Where was I? Oh, yes, the coronary: I was sitting here, moments ago, typing diligently away, with only the sound of the keyboard and the ticking of the kitchen clock for company when OH SWEET JEEBUS WHAT IS THAT HORRIFYING NOISE? From upstairs and clear as a bell came a low, gutteral sound glissando-ing into an unmistakable were-howl, the sound bouncing off the too-high walls of the very fancy loft, the fabulous hairs on my fabulously coiffed head standing fabulously straight up. Unarmed, I chanted "the power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!" and the howling ended just as suddenly as it had begun, followed by a brief coda that sounded much like a singing frog.

Stupid pup. I'm still freaked out.

Retreat!

The dog's on retreat, visiting the parents and may currently be found swimming after sticks in Lake Tahoe. On one hand it is liberating not to have the 8 hour clock in my head, as in "I have eight hours before I have to be home to let her out lest I discover exactly how absorbent Brazilian Cherry floors are not." And frankly it's nice not having to vacuum every other day because

Pup::Hair as Rainbird::Water

As she sits there all innocent, you may think "what a sweet dog!" while I hear the tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick -- TICK... TICK... TICK... TICK... - tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick of a lawn sprinkler. She can sit perfectly still and I know - I KNOW! - that though I cannot see it, there is hair being ejected from her coat, momentarily invisible until it decides to unionize into giant balls of hair along my floorboards and under the couch. There it stays, generally shy and unassuming, keeping out of the way, until company comes and it decides to mingle in high-traffic areas.

Hairball (holding highball glass): Why hello there. And who are you, you delightful creature? I'm Harry. Come here often?

Thus, without the pup, I'm amazed at how clean the floors have remained, especially without her around to swim in her waterdish, spewing water all over the kitchen, which is a real treat when you walk around in socks, happy-go-luckily, perhaps thinking of getting a glass of wine and then it's all oh my god my feet are now all wet and by the way, ewwwwwwwww! All that notwithstanding, I am starting to really miss her, as Tivo made abundantly clear for me this morning.

You see, whilst getting caffeinated and Kashi'd every morning, I'll sometimes watch the previous night's Daily Show or Letterman. I will also check to see what Suggestions Tivo has recorded for me while I was in the grips of Morpheus. This morning's top Suggestion was Retriever Finals, or some such, and it was HEAVEN. These were duck hunting trials (fake ducks, natch) where the dogs chase after so many targets, over hill and dale, usually somewhere in Virginia or Texas. As if that weren't enough retriever fun, in between the field trials there's the Big Air competition where dogs race off a dock into a long pool of water to see who could jump farthest. There's something so incredibly silly about these guys commenting on Little Morgan being the Michael Jordan of retrievers while his owner weeps about what a good dog he is. Plus there's a nice backyard feel to the whole thing which is an unexpected counterpoint to the steroid scandals/beating up our fans/beating up our girlfriends clusterfuck which is professional sports.

And plus I got a little misty at how much these guys just LOVED their dogs.

So - fine. Good. Nice breakfast entertainment. But when they did a freakin' montage of Nike, the 8 year old yellow lab who placed Silver in the all-around, I totally lost it. "Nike got cancer shortly after last year's competition and had to be put down," intoned the announcer, and I could feel my eyes getting a little itchy. Uh-oh. Then they saluted Nike with a five minute segment of her running through blinds, swimming through lakes and her owner exclaiming "I'm going to need my nitro!" when Nike beat someone's record. As if that weren't enough, there was sappy music. Sappy music and a "Nike, 1997-2005. You Shall Be Missed" on the final shot.

Damn you, Outdoor Life Network and your legubrious programming! [shakes fist] Damn you!

[UPDATE - Okay, I just re-read this and I'm a little embarrassed at the fact that I got misty over a dead retriever, i.e. not my dog. I think I may officially be a bit of a closet sissy.]

Enter the Bubba Dog

While I'd like to dismiss my lack of productivity to too much television, too much New Yorker or too much time spent writing general silliness (all from the safety of my couch), it occurred to me at 3pm yesterday that I am clearly ill with something. Something more than malaise and less than Ebola.

In any event, after watching a pathetic showing by the Sacramento Kings which was lovingly Tivo'd, I went to bed at 9. If you're over twelve and your name is not Katie Couric, going to bed at 9 feels like giving up. I thought, well, obviously I'll lay here in bed, and read for four hours. I shall be the John and Yoko of my building, oh-so-productive while reclining on the Sealy Posturpedic.

I fell asleep in the middle of a Shouts & Murmurs essay in the New Yorker.

Oh, the sweet arms of Morpheus! What better way to forget the trials and tribulations of the day? Let's see - what particular stresses was I so quick to forget?

Well. As you may know, the pup had ACL surgery on Friday. This was the Bubba's second ACL surgery, having had the other knee done a few years ago. So, now she's back home to recuperate and I've been ordered to supervise her closely and make sure she does not stress her very expensive brand new knee. You know: no running, no jumping, no climbing stairs, no chasing old ladies, etc. All was well for about 12 hrs., until I got stir crazy and left for a run. Before I left, I climb-proofed the house, putting obstacles in front of the stairs and a barricade consisting of a coffee table, multiple chairs and several pillows in front of the couch. I also gave the pup sedatives to knock her out.

Confined? Check.
Drugged? Check.
Currently passed out on two - count 'em two - dog beds? Check.

Fine.

Good.

Not fine. Not good. I return an hour later to discover the dog on the couch. The pillows, undisturbed. The coffee table, as it was. The chairs, untouched.

Never a graceful animal, the dog is suddenly channelling Brandon Lee, and I was left freaking out over what sort of damage she did to her knee while completing her living room acrobatics.

That said, she seems to be back to her usual doleful self. All that while pulling off her new look with panache:

Capes are the new black!

High Efficiency

Am currently watching Spellbound - the spelling bee movie, not the Ingrid Bergman/Hitchcock thriller - and have to say what would greatly improve spelling bees would be the liberal use of electrical shock at the moment the word is misspelled. Forget this waiting until the doomed fourth grader finishes a word - once they utter that incorrect letter - ZZZT!

Boy, I'd really enjoy that.

Anyhoo. Trying to be more on the productive side, so I'm multitasking - watching a movie while blogging. You'll be shocked to know that I usually pay full attention to the blog, and what has it gotten me? Exactly. Behind in my movie watching.

'What's next?' you might ask. Excellent question, avid reader. Well, Netflix did bring me The Life of David Gale, but frankly that seems like a total downer. It was like the fiber of my Netflix queue, something I ordered because I thought it'd be good for me, but not that I'd necessarily enjoy. Besides, I think I'm over Kevin Spacey. Was before, actually, but now that he's gone and faked some sort of mugging in London, all I can think is, what was he doing out and about at 3:30 in the a.m. walking his dog? And is 'walking the dog' a euphemism? If so, what kind of dog?

Netflix also brought me Ran - the Masterworks Edition, but really, all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch Coupling or What Not to Wear (which I adore because, really, they're ridiculously catty and who doesn't love all that talk of 'your bum'?).

I'm smitten with BBCAmerica, and have been for a while, but the commercials are poor. Don't usually watch ads what with my superior-life-with-Tivo, but sometimes I do, sort of like taking the bus: I'm keeping it real. There was just an ad for LifeAlert - that whole 'I've fallen and I can't get up' business - you know, preying on the fears of old people. Their ads seem to be heavily based on actual testimonials by these very same old people, and every time one of these bluehairs appears on screen I can't help but think: I bet she's dead now. Or, I bet he's dead now. Generally, with the exception of the fake LifeAlert guard answering the telephone in the ad, I think everyone associated with the commercial is now dead, partially eaten by dogs before the stench tipped off the neighbors.

Speaking of dogs, my pup is off to visit my parents for a while. Actually less a vacation than a hospital trip. I'm planning on having the vet install a slot down the middle of her back so I can deposit money directly into her from now on.

Purebreds. The upside is that they're predictable and reliable and gorgeous. The downside is that they're predictably, reliably and gorgeously expensive to maintain. She is going in for her second - SECOND! - surgery on her knee. A dog with ACL injuries when the most strenuous thing she ever does is get off the couch, and yet I say this thankful that dogs don't have four knees, because if they did she would have four ACL surgeries, I am certain of that.

So my folks are kind enough to volunteer to take her in, to deal with the surgery and recuperation. But I can't stop thinking about, well, Pookie, of all things, because I've had the pup now for seven years, to the point where she's family.

And I feel like we've finally come to several key understandings:

Thou shalt not take rawhide chewy treats upstairs where you'll ruin the carpet, but shall devour them on the handmade silk rug from Kazakhstan. Thou shalt not knock over old ladies or small children. Thou shalt not eat poop. (Much.) Thou shalt drip water all over the floor after drinking. Thou shalt do a little dance when you know you're going for a walk. Thou shalt sound like a walrus in heat when you know we're close to Crissy Field. Thou shalt lay on the floor with your legs stretched out behind you so everyone calls you Frog Dog.

And thou shalt come out of this surgery and be 100% okay.