I Still Can't Believe It

Just a short list of a few things I'm hating on right now. (And yes, I know it's not healthy to hate, which is why I'm releasing the hate here instead of holding it in my cold, dead heart) The neighbors: for having five covered parking spots and two driveways but refusing to park any of their 23 vehicles anywhere but on the street directly across from my SINGLE CAR DRIVEWAY. Hey, thanks! I didn't need to get out of my driveway today anyway. The holidays: for making everyone sappy and spendy. I know I'm speaking heresy here, but if there was any way to still have a great holiday without feeling the need to buy everyone something and actually just enjoy the company of family and friends....bah, I'm being a fucking ridiculous idealist and I know it. Deep down, I want stuff. Ok, maybe not so deep. But I really do hate the part where I get all emotional about everything. The vet: for being so cool and nice and understanding while explaining the fishing line procedure...

Here's Cassady in his favorite wig. He thinks he looks kinda like Gwyneth Paltrow in this wig and he struts all around in it and calls Corn Dog "Apple" when he wears it. I'll have to break out the Gwyneth wig this weekend to try and lift his spirits. He's getting x-rays on Friday to see if his ACL is torn/ruptured and needs surgery. He's going to have be put under sedation for the x-rays and you know, he's 11 so it is a wee bit worrisome that he's going under. I'm sure it'll be fine, but I'm not looking forward to the dirty looks all weekend. Who ever said dogs don't hold grudges hasn't met Cassady after he's been dropped off at the vet, puppeteered into various poses, and then locked in a crate for a few hours. Shit! Do you think I should tell the vet he's a bona fide Houdini Dog and will try to break out of any crate or room they put him in?

Yeah, I'm Lookin at You Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . Didn't you get my pie? I'll have to agree with Big Thirsty's Wife and say that, in general, women are total bitches. Doesn't mean I don't love them, but sometimes, I can completely identify with the urge to smack someone to get them to just shut up. And just so I'm not misunderstood, I'm an Equal Opportunity Smacker - I don't care what genitalia or sexual orientation is involved...sometimes you just feel like smacking people. Case in point: Tuesday night's soccer game. It's a women's over-30 recreational league. The way some people acted on Tuesday, you would have thought we were playing for the World Freaking Cup. To boil it down, the other team called a roster check on us because we were using players from another team in our league. We only had one sub without them and by calling a roster check, those two had to leave the field. A couple of girls on our team were highly offende...

I generally never run out of things to bitch about - it's a gift. So in anticipation of having at least one good rant to share with teh Internets, I'm hereby christening Wednesdays as Rant Rednesday (until I come up with a better name - suggestions welcome, but I reserve the right to make fun of any suggestions). Begin Rant: I have three accounts with a major banking institution. And by major, I mean that you've certainly heard of them. The gravy days were back when I only had a credit card through them, but when we bought our last house two years ago, the mortgage and the line of credit (LOC) went through this same company. Fine. I do like to pay certain bills online. Like my credit card bills. I pay them off every month (probably won't be able to say that after the next couple of months - eek) and I do it online. One day, I went to the online payment center and lo and behold, I can pay my mortgage on the same site! Brilliant, I thought. I started to pay the mo...

...even though it happens frequently. Most of the time it's because of acting and me being hyper-empathetic even when I know it's just a show and it's all fake. Even reality shows that I know are BS sometimes get me (ok, ok, yes, I sometimes even cry at commercials - those kodak ones are evil). But this show last night, this was different. For one, I buy that it's actually a real reality show and not some Surreal Life-esque crap (do you know they only live in that house for 12 days? Twelve days man - that's NOTHING. Toughen up you D-Listers!). See for yourself. They got a guy that was living on the street with an amputated leg and a shitty prosthetic and got him a new leg so that he could get a job. When that guy starting crying and saying "Please tell me this isn't a dream", I freakin lost it. Andre & John - you're my new role models.

Axl and Slash 05 Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . I'm sure Slash would never have held his guitar like this. Ask me if we won the costume contest...go ahead... I WISH I KNEW. Troy, you bastard. That's two years in a row we've done some killer costumes only to have NO winners announced. Gah! Come on man, I NEED that bar tab.

I think I'm finally ready to tackle another stained glass project. Got any ideas? It's taken me a while to get the nerve to do another piece. The Van Gogh Starry Night rip-off was a hella big undertaking for as little experience with stained glass as I have. And then I had to go and break it. Yeah. I had finished the piece about 2 months prior to the "incident", but was waiting to present it to Big Thirsty and his wife (Big Thirsty's Wife she shall be called forever after) until the custom frame was done. I'd pretty much given up on Dirty Gravy (I hereby designate this name for mi esposo) finishing the frame until Old Dirty Gravy (that'd be my father-in-law) came to town and saved the day. So, here I was - all proud of finishing it and having an awesome frame in which to beset my work, so clearly I had to show it off. Setting: Kitchen. Players: Dirty Gravy and Me. I was holding the glass and set the frame on top of it - it was the glass' first ...

Yeah, yeah, the quality of the images suck - my monstrosity of a digital camera only has a lousy 1.2 megapixels. Hey, they sold me on the floppy disk storage option. And yes, that's quite likely the most embarassing thing I've said on this blog so far. Don't squint now, here it is up close and personal...

Busch Haiku Just a stadium Hate to be sentimental But the memories

feminine product halloween 04 Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . The first time we went to the local watering holes' Halloween contest fest (that'd be the Old Millstream), we won third place with our John and Lorena Bobbit getups. I think the bloody sausage in a jar prop really sealed the deal. And the next year, we knew we had peaked too soon because we couldn't come up with shit for ideas and ended up going as a psycho clown and a hippie or something equally inane. But last year we really thought we had a winner costume idea for a couple. Dave went as a maxi pad and I was a tampon. Have you ever seen costumes of feminine hygiene products before? Maybe I don't get out enough, but I never had. I was seriously convinced we'd win third again, at the very least. But alas, no reward was forthcoming because the contest was inexplicably not decided by the powers that be (Troy). There were no winners, but I guess that means there were no losers either. Screw that....

daveanddadatbusch2 Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . I've never been to a Cardinals postseason game. And for some reason, I'm a little ashamed that I'm not that sad about it. It's not that I'm a so-so or fairweather fan - I probably watched 142 of the 160 games this season on TV and went to three games at Busch. Hold on...GO CARDS...had to get that out there real quick. But like I was saying, I can't imagine the atmosphere at a postseason game - it's got to be amazing. I guess it's one of those things where I'm happy just being one of the masses. There's a lot of Cardinals fans around the country and around the world and there's only so many seats in the stadium. I like watching postseason games on TV so I can: viciously berate the ESPN (Extra-Special Panty-wearing Nutjobs) commentators laugh, cry, scream, cheer, nailbite and exasperate in the comfort of my own home and not in front of 50,000 not pay $8.00 a beer!!!! not drive 45 min. there a...

Hot Socks Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . Some things make me happy by reminding me of my youth. These socks make me inordinately happy when I see them in my jumbled sock drawer, sticking out from among the sea of white. I remember wearing these socks in sixth grade. Aside from the simple miracle it took to keep both socks together over the last twenty years, they remind me of a time before I worried about meaningless shit. I didn't worry about anything in sixth grade except would we win our soccer game and who would be my friend, Becky or Melissa. You know those friends - the ones that wrote the notes that said: Do you like me or Melissa better? cirle one Becky Melissa What is your favorite animal? ___Tiger___________

richie.nicole Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . I read once that actors/acresses with disproportionately large heads do well in show business and ever since then, I've noticed it in many celebrities. In most cases, it's a hairdo or tiny body that accentuates it. Here is poor Nicole Richie, photo courtesy of EOnline.com. This picture not only gives us proof of the Big Head Syndrome, but also provides us with a glimpse at how humans might look if our heads were put on our bodies backwards. If it wasn't for her jutting collar bone, I'd swear she was pulling a Linda Blair.

Hermie Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . I don't think Corn Dog has met Hermie yet. Hermie and Corn Dog are kind of similar in that neither of them get out much. Not sure why Hermie doesn't get out much, but I know why Corn Dog doesn't: I'm too lazy to train her properly to not be a complete SPAZ. It's a terrible excuse and I resolve today that I will do more to socialize and train Corn Dog to be less spaztastic in public. She deserves to get out and play with strange dogs and sniff weird stuff.

flower Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . No, I don't have rabies. But it was a close call. Actually I learned quite a lot about rabies the other day when a devious little squirrel decided to jump the gap between a building and a telephone pole right as I was walking between them. He/she landed on my stomach and I made a noise that I can only liken to a cross between an "Ooomph" and a "GAH!". Of course, I scared the bejesus out of the critter and I can assure you the feeling was mutual. He kicked a bit and bounced off of me, but not before he laid down three little scratches on the back of my hand. The nurseline nurse said squirrels are low-threat rabies carriers and you're more likely to get rabies from dogs, cats, cows, skunks, bats and raccoons. You can get it from squirrels, but it's pretty rare. PSA: So the next time you're walking in the vicinity of crazed squirrels, don't let them bite you, cuz you could just end up with a case of...

On the off-chance a single person in the world finds this blog and doesn't know how or where they can help out those victimized by the Gulf Coast disaster, here is a link of sites taking donations and providing other assistance: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/katrina/help.center/ Please do whatever you can - even though it's cliche, every little bit does help.

to help out. Beyond everything that I could say about the disaster response (or total lack thereof), I just want to say out loud that I want to help. I don't want to focus on why this or that didn't get done or that a small number of people are taking advantage of the dire situation - people, we need to focus on getting everyone out of there RIGHT NOW. This may go down as one of the worst disaster response debacles of all time, but we can play the blame game later. How can anyone watch even a few minutes of the news coverage and not feel the primal urge to go to them and try to help them? I think it's a part of our humanity that makes the empathy vibe so strong in a situation like this. Maybe one of the best parts of our humanity. So, this is a call to myself (and all zero of my readers) to activate and do whatever you can in whatever capacity you have to help these people out.

I'd like to take just a moment to appreciate what my friend Kim and her husband Mike have done: they've just welcomed three of the teeniest, most tenacious, and miraculous humans to Earth. At only 26 weeks gestation, Lily, Ethan and Jack are smaller than some of the lint balls I've seen my husband pull out of his belly button, but they're here by God and they're making their mark already. Kim, Mike - I have just this to say: You guys have handled everything about this situation and these wee ones like fucking champs. When you think about the physical pain Kim is in, the intense frustration of dealing with doctors and the feeling of helplessness it creates, keeping Monster (that'd be their 5-year old) occupied and feeling loved, and the stress of updating everyone and their dog about the babies' health and status - it's just too much to think about. And yet, I haven't seen or heard either of you complain or whine or dive into the deep abyss of self-pi...

my happy place Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . For those instances when I'm feeling sorry for myself or thinking I've got it rough...proof that I've actually been to my happy place in person.

Tulum sur la Mer Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . More from Tulum last year...this one has that amazing (ok, fake-looking) blue color to the ocean. I did not touch up this photo. Man, I need more than 1.2 megapixels!!!!! Can't afford a new digital though and I can't find my film camera. Phuck!