Random Esquire

I wish Little Filthy had discretion.  Not a lot.  Just enough.  Enough to, say:

• tell the difference between which noises in the hall are worth barking at and which are not;
• realize that Attorney isn’t hurting Besos when they do that thing;
• understand that food on the counter is not okay to jump up and snatch but food on the floor is fair game;
• realize that humping toys is less acceptable in front of guests; and
• tell the difference between food and poo.

*sigh*

1.  I decided on a late night shower this evening.  I undressed and was going to get into the shower when I decided to lower the thermostat.  I walked out into the living room / kitchen naked and realized that the dishwasher had just finished the wash cycle.   I decided to open it instead of having it go through the dry cycle.  I flipped the latch, opened it a bit…

and damned if I didn’t almost steam my genitals.

2.  On the train this morning, I observed a young man whose natural expression was… slack jawed.  His lips were like two ships that pass in the night but never meet.  I don’t get it.  But I sat there and thought of all the other jacked up analogies I could make about his teeth.  Like, his upper lip was a window shade that wouldn’t pull down.  Or his upper lip was like a belly shirt that exposed too much teeth.  Dumb shit like that.

3.  I asked my sister her thoughts on towel sharing and informed her that some people wash their towels after every use.  Her response was, “Those people never went to college.”

4.  Editor and I had a beer outdoors on Friday night.  In the vein of being keenly observant, there was a woman at the next table and I could not help but notice her.  This is because her chin seemingly never met a jaw of any type but simply bled into her neck.  With her hair pulled back, she was remarkably turtle-like.  I suppose some people just inevitably get compared to animals.  I think, perhaps, the turtle is not so much a flattering comparison.

5.  My niece and nephew are big Little Filthy fans.  When they saw him on Sunday, I explained that he had received a shot in the leg and it had made his leg sore.   Remember when my niece pointed to Little Filthy’s exit door and asked, “What’s that hole?”   Well, this time, my nephew pointed to it and said, “is that shot? boo boo!”  Yeah.  He thinks Little Filthy’s hole is where he got his shot.  I don’t bother explaining things but cautioned against touching anything.

6.  I got my hair cut last week at a new place.  This means that I did not receive the kind ministrations of The Bumper.  The Bumper is the pretty young woman who would wash my hair prior to my cut and she would…*ahem* …bump me.  Honestly, people, it’s hard not to grin just typing that.  Anyway – no Bumper so therefore, no bumps.  Because, in case you didn’t know, it’s rude to dive for a bump.  Now you know. It’s one to grow on.

7.  When Little Filthy was at the vet last week, his anal glands were expressed.  The vet said: “they were quite full.”  This somehow makes me feel negligent.  I decided to see if I could learn how to do this so perhaps I could take care of this little issue when giving Little Filthy a bath.  Naturally, I turned to Youtube.

After a few videos, I decided that there are some things best left to the vet…  left to the vet and some dark room in the back where no one talks about what’s going on or what they’ve seen.

Little Filthy didn’t want to move this morning.  He usually is up and down the hall, up on to the bed, back down to check his bowl to see if it has magically filled, etc.  He’s a whirling dervish, minus the prophetic insight.  But this morning?

Lump.

Lump of Filthy.

He had been limping a little last night and it just seemed to have gotten worse. He didn’t want to move at all.  This morning?  He hardly even wanted to eat – and then, only when I picked him up and set him down on his tripod legs in front of the bowl.  I think I stared at him, a little glassy eyed, and said, “Vet” and Besos nodded.

Took him to the vet immediately and turns out that the rabies shot he got yesterday (he was there for a check-up) made his leg so sore, he didn’t want to move.  He got an anti-inflammatory shot and some drugs and should be better in a day or so.

It is wrong that one of my first thoughts was hitching his ass up on a sling between two wheels so he could wheel around like a race car?

1.  Mopey people should be put down.  Okay, so, maybe not put down for life.  But maybe just put down for a nap or something until they can sort themselves out and be ready to join in life again with a bit better of an attitude.  I am pretty sure I could never be a therapist unless “Get over it!” was a legitimate school of thought.

2.  Is a fountain pen pretentious?  Because I got one and really dig it and upon finding out, a friend remarked, “Doesn’t that make you feel pretentious?”

I think that is because she is envisioning this. (Yes, that’s a $57,000 fountain pen)

Instead of this.

I’m pretty sure that you’re not allowed to be pretentious with a clear, plastic, $24 fountain pen – which is what I’m using.

You know what cracks me up?  The reviews for that $57K fountain pen.  One says, “It is a pen. You write with it. It costs $57,000. What is wrong with you?“  heh.

The other says: “…A lovely choice for collectors of fine writing instruments but I was a bit disappointed the ink is a bit pricey.”  Really?  You’re disappointed that the ink is pricey for your $57,000 fountain pen? Really?  Guaranteed that guy is an asshole.

People boggle me.

3.  I woke up this morning when a warm dog tongue and a cold nose made contact with my face.

I suppose I can’t blame him.  He doesn’t know how to just put bacon in a pan and let it happen the natural way.

11:30 a.m.  sunshine. sleep with blanket.

1:30 p.m. move with sun to couch.  take blanket with.

2:00 p.m.  fell asleep mid-stretch.

3:00 p.m.  something on paw.

3:10 p.m.  nope. back to sleep.

Got a bit

of a

wanderin’ eye

issue

goin’ on.

The dog was trying to sleep.  But I couldn’t sleep.  So I got up.  But he didn’t.

So I tucked his lips into his mouth and took a picture.

I’m not going to lie. If it’d been one of you, you’d have a Sharpie mustache right now, too.

Them’s the breaks when you fall asleep first in the house of Random.

1.  You may recall that The Ballerina sometimes says things that one might not expect. Like “You’ve got to own that shit. Like a lazy eye.”  Or there was the time I invited her to dinner and her response was, “I’m only going to come if it has a fall theme.”

The other day, I was bogged down at work and a little stressed.  I received this IM from The Ballerina:

“can i bring you something to cheer you up? scones? a multi-racial prostitute?”

*Blink*

And no, there’s no inside joke here.  She just says things like that.

2.  Lately, I have noticed a lot of ads on television for some organization called: Catholics Come Home.  In the ad, there are images of famous Italian pieces of art in the Vatican, charity work being performed, Pope John Paul with folks, the current Pope, Pope What’s-his-name,…all while a voice over tells you to come back to the Church.  And I found myself wondering why they don’t show a clip of Pope-What’s-His-Nuts getting tackled because, I can tell you, if I knew that shit was going down at church, I might be more likely to attend.

3.  I had a dream last night in which I was seated with my foot pulled up near me.  There was a cut in my foot and I was pulling 5 foot long parasitic worms out of it.  I kid you not.  I was frantically pulling them out and as I did so, I could feel them sliding through my leg and foot, all wet and warm.

I woke up and found that Little Filthy was licking my foot.

He’s sleeping in his own bed tonight.

1.  I heard Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer today.  I just gotta ask, when is there ever a warm, moist air mass moving over the North Pole on Christmas Eve?  Is fog really an issue at the North Pole?  So I decided to figure it out.  Turns out that because the air is so bitterly cold, it takes a really small amount of water in the air before it saturates, resulting in fog.  But not of water droplets – of ice crystals.  And this is not an infrequent thing.  So I guess the song does sort of make sense.

2.  And then I realized that I’d spent far too much time thinking about that.  Because, really, is the fog part where the song loses credibility for me?  Not the anthropomorphic reindeer?  Or Santa or the LED nose animal?   No.  See, I quickly pinpoint the fog and question that.

Sometimes, my brain is useless.

3.  You may have heard – I have a new service that I’m offering.  But you’ll have to visit QT‘s blog Friday morning to hear more about it.

Speaking of, check out that little Meg Ryan.

4.  I am the product of miscegenation.  This means that rarely a week will go by when someone does not ask me about my ethnicity.  However, I fully admit that it sometimes gets tiresome.  I would probably not mind except that most people seem to think that this is an acceptable way to inquire about your ethnicity:  “What are you?”

Sometimes, because I have decided to be playfully difficult, the conversation goes like this:

Person: “What are you?”

RE:  “American.”  Big smile.

Person: “No, I mean, like, where are you from?”

RE: “Oh!  Sorry – I’m from Chicago.”  Big smile.

Person: “Where were you born?”

RE: “Ohhh, Minnesota.”  Winning smile.

Person: “But what language do you speak?”

RE: “…English.”  Confused look.

Person: “I meant other than English.”

RE:  “Oh!  French.”

I don’t look French – even though I am 1/4 French.  I do appreciate the curiosity but sometimes, I want to make something up.  So I’ve decided to start saying, “I’m Caraway.  Perhaps you’ve heard of our seeds.”

5.  I realize that I have shifted this posture to Little Filthy. Once, while dining al fresco with the pooch under the table, a man walked by, did a double take at him and clearly wondered what breed he was.  The beast is pug-chihuahua.  The man said slowly, “What….is he?”

I said slowly, “He…is   a     dog…”

I have been blogging for years and the very best part about it has been the readers.  I am impressed and touched by the kindness and consideration virtual strangers have for each other.  It reinforces this hope/wish/belief that people really do want to come together and be with each other in some unique fashion.  So I was really touched when Debra from Rubbermoon contacted me with the idea of creating a rubber stamp… of Little Filthy.

And she made it happen.  Starting now, you can buy a rubber stamp of Little Filthy.  Artist Gretchen Ehrsam drew Little Filthy for the stamp.  And you know what’s even more cool?  All of the profit from Little Filthy stamps will go to the American Cancer Society.  Debra asked me what charity I would like to receive the money and I chose the ACS because…

…because everyone reading this can probably complete that sentence.  That’s why.

So!  If you want a little bit of Little Filthy in your life… please buy a stamp.

To make this more fun for us all, if you buy a stamp from Debra in the next week, I will stick your name in a drawing that I’ll do for a $50 gift certificate to a store of your choice.  Oh, and dude, you get a freakin’ Little Filthy stamp!  How cool is that??

Thank you, Debra.  Thank you, Gretchen.  Thank you, readers.

And thank you, Little Filthy.  You’re a good dog.