I Have A Feeling The Dog Lady And I Are Going To Be An Ongoing Saga All Summer…

Blah.

I was in a terrible mood all day. (I seem to find myself in this mood once every 28 days. Go figure)  Like the kind of mood that causes me to want to kick in the throat anyone who looked at me funny. 

Or seriously. 

Or at all. 

As a matter of fact, the simple infraction of being anywhere in my presence was kick-to-the-throat-worthy in my eyes today.

(Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone to work this morning.)

Speaking of things that make me want to punch a staple into the webbing between someone’s toes… The Dog Lady. (The story begins here.)

It seems Mister Steven “I’ve Gained A Few” Segal has labored up onto his winded white horse and trotted off into the sunset, leaving me to deal with Old Drunky and her three tiny terrorists on my own.  I’ve considered everything from valium laced Milkbones to borrowing the neighbor’s Pitt Bull. (It’s a dog-eat-dog world, right?)  However, I don’t actually hate small dogs--I just hate their irresponsible cheap-beer swilling elderly owners-- so neither option sits well with my conscience.

Come see me after two more weeks of that incessant barking and ask me about my conscience.

Anyway, I think I’ve formulated a plan.  Next time I venture into the back yard I’m going to record those little dogs yapping, yapping, yapping at me.  Then, next time I’m alone in the house I’m going to load up the recording, set the biggest speaker I can find in the window of our house closest to a window of hers, and turn it on.

Continuous loop.

Top volume.

All day long.

And when she finally sobers up long enough to figure out what’s going on, she’ll either realize the error of her horrible dog-ownership ways, or she’ll toddle over to my house to ask me to turn the sound off.  At that time I’ll calmly explain to her…

Who am I kidding?

I tried to warn you…

The Secret Failed To Mention That The Dishes Can Be Mystical…

I’m as happy as happy can be!

Well, I’m as happy as happy can be, having completed her set of Pier One place settings. 

We can now have two friends over for dinner, and have matching salad bowls, appetizer plates, dinner plates and coffee mugs to serve them with.  That is, provided mom sends me the other two sets that are sitting in her storage facility in Jersey.

Aren’t they just adorable?

They’d discontinued the pattern on the big serving tray, and it was the last one in all of existence (I swear!) marked down to $26, so I picked that up as well.

Now we can eat our Domino’s pizzas in class, baby!

And now for the sentimental back-story…

My mom started buying me this set when I gave up on my treacherous party girl life and moved into a quiet little apartment by the shore.  She provided me with a set of two, because she said that according to The Law Of Attraction, a single woman should always keep two of everything.  It attracts to her home a romantic dinner for two.

So I sat in my quiet apartment eating Chinese take-out off of my adorable plates, wondering who was coming for dinner.  I’d admire the quaint little rooftops and palm trees, imagining what a place like that would be like.  I pictured myself walking hand-in-hand with someone in this neighborhood—exploring storefronts and kissing at the crosswalks. (I know.  Stay with me.  I’m getting to my point!)

Then Man came into my life and I wound up here in New Orleans.

As we were putting the new set away tonight I told him about the Law of Attraction thing and why my mom bought me two place settings. 

Then I got online to send her a picture of something.

I found this photo I took of the French Quarter from atop the Sheraton downtown….

 

I was thinking something a little more tropical at the time, but… We’re only one climate up from rainforest, and we do have palm trees, so I’m callin’ it a win.

Okay, enough of the mush.  Regularly scheduled snappy blogging resumes tomorrow!

Cinderella’s Diamond Encrusted Pooper-Scooper

 

You’ve heard it a million, zillion times in your life.

So why are you still searching for your fairytale ending?

Stop wasting your time. Stop searching for Prince Charming in every man you come across. He isn’t there. He isn’t coming. There are no frogs to kiss. There is no magic apple. There is no Fairy Godmother waiting in the wings to turn you into the perfect princess, no mice in the walls with exceptional gown-tailoring skills. A pumpkin is just a pumpkin, be it after midnight or ten-thirty-six in the morning.

No. Fairytale. Endings.

Period.

Look at it this way: Should Prince Valiant ride up to you on his big white horse to sweep you off your feet and take you to his castle on the hill, you know what you have tomorrow? A big load of horseshit to clean up.

Once we graduated from crayons to pencils, we became too old to get wrapped up in this Disney-fed happily ever after crap. Yet, here we are– some of us well into our thirties and forties– still finding ourselves repeatedly disappointed when it turns out our new-found prince farts in his sleep or would rather watch the game than turn an eye in our direction. Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m here to tell you: There isn’t a man walking this planet who doesn’t fart in his sleep. And frankly, so do you.

“Happily Ever After” only happened if Cinderella and Prince Charming dropped dead by the end of that week.

Relationships, if they’re going to work, require work, but for some reason we don’t want to do it. We want to find that “soulmate,” and we think that once he’s found there isn’t a stitch of work to be done beyond the utterance of those three magic words. If you’re still clutching with both fists that belief, stop. You’re on the express train to disappointment-ville and it’s going to crash soon.

The problem is we tend to mistake that new car smell of a budding relationship for true love. Those first few months seem like the absolute embodiment of everything we’ve ever wanted in love and before you know it, we’re hooked. We’re addicted, quite literally, to the rush of new love. (Studies have been done about the chemical reactions that happen in the brain when we fall in love, but that’s another blog for another time.) At first it’s perfect! It’s the fairytale I’ve been looking for! This guy is everything I’ve ever wanted! My new boyfriend! True Love Always! Horray!

A year later you’re sitting on the couch watching him crack a beer and scratch his butt wondering what ever happened to your perfect mate. What happened was: He’s just another flesh and bone mortal. Just like you.  There was nothing mystical about the creation of this human being.  He’s just a man, and chances are he loves you as much as a mortal man can, but…  Cinderella didn’t mention this part, did she?

So you break it off and start the search anew. You start the cycle again with a new man and a year later, you’re sitting on the couch seething because…..

See the pattern? Sometimes the ugly truth is: It really isn’t him. It’s you. You’ve been duped into relationship laziness by Hollywood depictions of relationships that probably wouldn’t have worked in real life either. Isn’t this cipher making you dizzy? Stop for a moment, take a deep breath and ask yourself:

When he rode up on that big white horse, didn’t you realize it was going to poop eventually?

 

I’m posting this from my other blog for two reasons:  1.  I’ve been working like a dog all week covering the ass of someone who clearly has no clue about life, love or how to be a productive human being on the planet.  So I didn’t have the time or access to humor to prepare anything for today.  2.  I’m deleting that blog today.  I don’t really like Wordpress.  I haven’t decided if I want to move it to Blogger, or just delete it all together.

My Horrific Car Accident and Who's Picking Up Dinner Tonight?

I know what you're thinking.

Another new banner?! My Gawd, will this chick ever settle on something?

In short, no.

I've been known to change my clothes three times in one day just because I got bored with what I had on.

I also once spent an entire day rearranging the furniture in my apartment, only to decide I hated what I'd done and put it all back. My roommate had no idea what happened except for the uncomfortable feeling that everything was just a couple inches to the left. We parted ways shortly thereafter. I always wondered if it had something to do with my fiddling with the feng-shui of the apartment...

It probably had something to do with my discovering she'd trashed me online and destroyed my best sweater (I found it crammed under her bed!). I threatened to have all her possessions waiting for her on the sidewalk if she didn't am-scray by that Saturday afternoon. So, yeah. Probably not the furniture.

That Sunday I had to rearrange everything again to make up for the lack of her tacky crap hanging around everywhere.

Then I moved to a new apartment.

Get the picture? I hope so, because I'll probably change it tomorrow.

Since I started this "Blogging for Lent" thing, I've only been able to think about one thing: This blog. Are the colors right? Does it look like something I tossed together in Photoshop? Should I say this, or this, or this?

Frankly, I'm getting a bit bored with myself. I can't imagine how you feel.

It seems that since the dust from the recent avalanche of holidays has settled, Man and I have also settled. Neither of us have done anything in roughly two weeks that isn't a prior obligation (school, work, check the mailbox for a Netflix delivery.). We've been sitting in this house like two frogs on a lily pad-- occasionally croaking at eachother over what to do about dinner. Tonight? Chinese take-out. I expect the argument over who's going to get it should start within the next ten minutes.*

If I don't start actually doing something I'm going to end up a blogger who blogs about how much she'd like to be a blogger. (Say that five times fast.) Also, with all the sitting and eating I'm going to end up actually looking like a big bullfrog in a pair of tasteful capri pants (and insensible shoes) come spring.

I mean, I could tell you about the horrific car crash Man and I had this afternoon, but it was honestly just a little old lady in a Buick with 37 prior dents, and a handicap license plate that bumped into the back of the Toyota at a red light. Not a scratch on either car or any of us.

No blog material there. Unless you count the misleading headline I used to trick you into reading this whole boring entry.

In other words, I've got to start getting out there again and doing things so I have stuff to write about. When I'm done with the whole blogging for Lent thing, I'm gonna take a day or two break, get this blog together and start giving my readers a reason to keep coming back. I'll have an actual story to tell, and-- knowing me-- it'll be veeeeryy interesting.


*In case you were wondering, we wound up going together under the stipulation that I stay in my jammies and don't have to get out of the car.

Universal Understandings

Last week I had a dream that I was in a shoe store trying on boots. I had a wallet full of cash and for some reason a massive store credit. Though I was surrounded by what seemed like an unending display of fabulous footwear, I couldn't decide on anything and the store was closing in five minutes.

This, my friends, is a metaphor for my life.

Yeah, only I would take a dream about shoe shopping and categorize it under "Profound Self Discovery." The subconscious speaks to us in terms only we can understand.

You have your universal understandings, I have mine.