Random Esquire

For those of you who know me, you may know that I am a fan of art and people pursuing their art.  Hence Little Filthy captured by Abby McMillen…  and a serigraph I hold dear in my hallway which was my first art purchase, years ago…and a rendition of me and 3 of my close friends by artist Lauri Apple – you may have seen her art on Wonkette.  Lauri captured Perez Hilton and his goldendoodle in ink – making Teddy Hilton, Hipster Goldendoodle.  Perez himself thanked her via Twitter.  heh.  Now, Lauri has captured our very own Little Filthy and someone… *whistling*  Who??  You can be the judge.  Check it out after the cut.

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1.  Little Filthy is donating a library to a local elementary school.  His portrait is going to hang over the Berenstain Bears bookshelf.

The artist?  A good friend – Abby McMillen – whose Folk Dogs are soon going to appear on boxes of Barkwheats.  She was recently featured on Phetched.

2.  As you may recall from the *cough* asshole conversation *cough*, a friend wished to set me up.  Circumstances prevented me from attending an event at which I would have met her and really, that was fine with me.  Frankly, I don’t know how I would have ever explained why I was looking under her dress to see if she had a peg leg.  I shouldn’t joke.  Like I said, she could be a perfectly nice whoman.

3.  Instigator and I had lunch today.  I can’t wait to take a picture of her eyeball because if you thought my eyeball was interesting, wait until you get a load of that ball-o-color.

4.  Little Filthy tore another pad off his paw.  This time the other back paw.  And this time, he ate the bandaid.  *sigh*

5.  I need a back massage.  My back feels like a box of rawhide knots.

I got a message from Sitcom last week.  She wanted to let me know that she wished to contribute a picture to my eyeball picture pool.

This is her contribution.  Did I mention she happened to be at the eye doctor’s at the time?

Ayup.  Sitcom is funny.

1.  I was picking up some apples at the grocery store with my cart thing tucked next to some stand nearby.  A woman zipped by and ran smack into my cart.  She didn’t bump into it, she smacked right into it and let out an “Oomph!”  What the hell?  It looked like it hurt so I took a step forward and said, “Are you okay?”  She said, “yes, thanks.”  She was sort of feeling her midsection and I just started laughing. I couldn’t help it – it was the most ridiculous thing.  Who runs full tilt into a freakin’ grocery cart?  I said, “I feel like we’re supposed to exchange insurance information.”  She said something like, “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”  And then she zipped off.

2.  There’s this dude in a Rascal cart thing.  Look about mid fifties and he was talking to the manager.  He said, “I just want whatever is cheap.  I mean, you work here! You must know.  Get me stuff that is cheap.”  I couldn’t hear the manager’s response but the guy then said, “I don’t care what it is. I just need food that’s cheap. I will pay for it. I don’t expect to get it for free.”  And I’ll be damned, the manager said, “Okay…well, let’s start in dry goods.”  And off they went.  Dude, that is some patience right there.

3.  In line, checking out.  I turned around while my stuff was being scanned and observed the customer who was in the line next to mine.  He was peering into a plastic container filled with small Snickers bars.  Each customer line had a similar container as a small reward for a charitable donation.  He reached in and plucked out a few candy bars and shoved them into his pocket.

Normally, I am pretty low key about stuff like this but before I had time to even think about it, I leaned over and said, “You’re supposed to donate for breast cancer research before helping yourself.”  He said a few choice words back before taking his bags and leaving.   Both his cashier and my cashier were watching intently, probably wondering if they should intervene.  Man, I wanted to throw a can at the back of his head.   Instead, I grit my teeth.  Asshole.

4.  Man, I sure write a whole lot about absolutely nothing.

Here’s my eye.

Here’s a piece of Toffifay candy.

Now you know.  Toffifay is made out of eyeballs.

Last night while out with friends, one suggested a possible date for me. The woman in question is the owner of a successful company here in Chicago. Today, my friend emailed me her company’s blog website which, along with stories about the company, also features pictures and video of said woman.

I shared the url with The Buddy via IM and said, “Potential date.”

Ladies and gentleman, I give you: Two Assholes Talking

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Little Filthy has tried corn, peanut butter and watermelon.  Let’s add banana to the list.

I decided to place the banana on the kitchen counter and let Little Filthy jump and try to snag it.  To capture the picture, I climbed on top of the counter and looked down at the action.  Captions are above the photo; click on the photo to see the full size.  Did he get the banana? Find out after the cut.

Temptation.  The banana sits innocently on the counter.

A closer look.

Planning: Working out a strategy to get the piece of banana off of the counter.

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Sometimes, I get an idea and can’t shake it.  This morning, an idea came to me.

Pictures of eyeballs.

I decided to start with my own eye.  I set up the tripod, camera, flash…and then sat down in front of the camera.  I closed my eye to let my pupil get large and then…started snapping.

Here is my eye, up close and personal.

Once I get a large collection of eyeball shots, I think I shall put them together in a mosaic to create another large picture.

So!  Any volunteers to let me take a picture of their eye?

Little Filthy has tried corn.  And peanut butter.  Today, he tried watermelon.

A sniff.

Give it to me, please.

Looks promising.

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Sometimes, having Little Filthy makes me wonder what I’d do if I had a kid.  Which, considering that I’ve greased up his feet and he slid into the front door… or that I almost killed him by sticking bananas to the bottom of his water bowl… it’s not typically very encouraging.

I noticed him licking his foot today and  decided to take a closer look.  I don’t know how he does it but every so often, he’ll scrape off the entire outside of one of the pads on his paw.  I flipped him over and saw that his pad was still hanging on by a thread.  I clipped it off with some small surgical scissors and the raw skin below was red.  A cotton pad in cold water took the color away and must have felt good because he quit watching me, put his head down and started to doze.  Antibacterial + Q-tip + Band-aid = Limping dog.  But he must be feeling better because I just caught him in the bedroom, standing on my pillows with his hurt back leg up in the air, leaning over and plucking Kleenex out of the box on the nightstand. Rotten beast.

That’s right.  Before and After pictures for your benefit.  They’re going into my portfolio in the waiting room.

As we’ve previously learned, I could have been a doctor.  I’m pleased to add Veterinarian to the list of professions I could have pursued had I not decided to disappoint my mother by becoming an attorney.