I Still Can't Believe It

Growing up, I can clearly remember the phrase "The world does NOT revolve around you" being bandied about by my parents. Of course, I also remember hearing "Your butt pumps pond water" but that's beside the point. I've been accused of being selfish and it's only lately when taking stock of my life that I've come to realize that yes, I'm a pretty selfish person. So now what? Is this a shortcoming I should try to resolve? How can I become less selfish? I know! I'll start a blog, name it after my dog and then incessantly talk about myself and my "issues", real or imagined. That should start me on the road to becoming a recovering selfish person, don't you think? Oh. You don't think that'll help too much? Oh well then. Fuck it. Case in point: I've been seeing a lot of these things called "memes" on other blogs I read. I've actually participated in one once . Since then I haven't been invite...

 

I bought a bowling ball. Why? Not because I'm any good at bowling - my average hovers somewhere around 110 if I were to guess. No, the main reason has to do with my laziness. Now that BTW has her own ball, I'm left to my own devices to find a 10 lb. ball - we used to share so only one of us had to navigate through the hordes of tongue-kissing teenagers and wife-beater wearing weirdos. I wonder what the weeknight crowd is like? Maybe more Big Lebowski than "If I have to see that girl's thong one more time I might gouge my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon". One can only hope. 

If you mix Canadian Mist with iced tea, it congeals in the cup. My mom handed me her cup and said "What do you think THAT is?" referring to a couple of brown blobs floating around in it. I poured it out only to see two big ol' gelatinous clumps plop into the lake. They were the consistency of boogers which prompted us to start throwing them at each other and then at the boys on the boat. We might have thrown a blob onto the boat that we were subsequently unable to locate. Should be a good story when someone does find it. My brother's dog of 14 years died. My lasting memory of Jasmine will still always be that mischievous look she'd give you right before she a) ran off; b) pissed/shat on the floor; or c) chased Cassady around the yard pretending she wanted the frisbee but really only wanting to torment - my personal favorite. To some that might sound like I'm only remembering the bad, but it's really more like one of those endearing traits...the look...

Jump! Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . Results are in and 9 out of 10 veterinarians agree Cassady does NOT have the Big C! His lump was an inflammation of tissue basically, so it's very good news for the Beaner Bean. In celebration of the good news, here's a picture of Cassady in his prime doing what he was born to do. Somewhere I have video of this too - will try to find that to post here. And to think, all the jumping and frisbee catching started with a little squeaky Woodstock chew toy I bought in Connecticut. Most people don't understand that the playing of the frisbee is not just one trick. It's actually four tricks in rapid succession: 1) Jumping for the Frisbee 2) Catching the Frisbee in the mouth (extra points if he tips it with his nose/head and then catches it) 3) Bringing it back 4) Dropping it. In my experience with Cassady, no.'s 1 & 2 came pretty naturally to him. Number 3 was a bit trying - what with the constant sniffing of the leaves/trees/but...

...to watch World Cup soccer, I've found it. Or rather, him. But first, congrats to Italy on their win. I started watching the final thinking I wanted France to win entirely because of the nothing short of inspired performance of their marquee player, Zinedane Zidane. For lovers of the letter Z, that's a great name no? So yes, I'm thinking France at first. In the first seven minutes they go up 1-0 on a penalty kick executed expertly by Zidane, so now I start thinking I just want to see a good game. No diving and bullshit yellow cards, maybe a nice draw to go on to penalty kicks, you know - I wanted it to be interesting. And France winning it with a goal in the seventh minute was not going to cut it. So now I'm cheering on Italy. During their game with the US, I didn't pay much attention to how hot the Italian players are. I saw them as dirty diving elbowing assholes mostly. But I did notice there was some potential. I watched the Italy against Germany match and one ...

Can I just tell y'all how lucky I am? I just happen to have the coolest Mom you could ever hope to have. Why is she so cool you ask? Aside from having a damn cool daughter who has taught her a lot about being cool, there are a couple of other things: BFF - My Mom is my No. 1 Best Friend Forever and always has been. Even when I was a whiny, selfish little brat teenager, she managed to relate to me on a level I could respect. Looking back I appreciate how bloody hard that must have been. In her shoes, I think I would have smacked me back then on a daily basis. And now that I'm older and quite obviously her mental superior, she still manages to engage me in conversation that doesn't bore me too badly. (Can you tell I'm going to be sending her the link to this post?) Encouragement - When I was like 8, I used to say that I didn't want to go to college because I never wanted to leave my parents. My mom gently encouraged me to think about it closer to that time and not be ...

I scored two goals in last night's soccer game! I totally rock. Just try and tell me I don't. I read today that only 6% of Americans are tuning into the World Cup. That's pathetic! I'm sitting here wondering what to do until Saturday when there's another match - I have absolutely loved watching the games. Those guys make it look so easy and have sick skills. I contribute my recent goal-scoring prowess to watching the games, but it's probably because the goalie had an eye patch and a third leg. I just don't get where soccer is losing mass appeal here. Growing up, at least in this corner of the midwest, almost every grade schooler plays soccer at some point. I mean, they have to or the "Soccer Mom" breed would die out, right? And god knows there's a truckload of soccer mom's piloting their mini-vans to practices and games at all hours. You can spot them with a keen eye - they're the ones with the subtle giant soccer ball sticker...

The most dreaded time in any pet owner's life is upon us. Cassady had some tissue/cells drawn from a lump and the results "strongly suggest sarcoma". We'll have a full-on biopsy done this week to determine the type of cancer and hopefully, give us a clearer idea of what stage the cancer is in. I can barely bring myself to consider the options. Each time I start to think about what we'll do or how we'll handle it, I find myself changing the subject in my head. Avoidance! It's my friend. Denial! It's the first stage. Or so they tell me. How in the hell am I supposed to make a decision? I find myself asking how much this or that will cost as if it matters. I don't care how much it costs - I just don't want to put him through the trauma of surgery and chemo and all of that without a guarantee that it will work. And of course there are no guarantees - I know this, but it doesn't help to know it. It's like the price tag is the onl...

Bah! I'd have to give the US team a D grade overall. They didn't really show up against the Czech's or Ghana and it was a pretty mediocre attempt all-around. As much as I'd like to complain about some of the calls the refs made, I won't because we still would have needed to score again against Ghana and who knows what might have happened in the second half if we had a tie going into it, but we didn't score again anyway. One lousy goal was all they could manage? Sad! So now, I am firmly a supporter of Mighty Mighty England. Go Lions! I might be rooting for Germany a wee bit considering my heritage is almost 100% German and I was conceived there. But I'm all England, all the time as far as the World Cup goes from here on out. I will root for England, but I will NOT, I repeat NOT eat a full English breakfast. Beans? For breakfast? Whaddya nuts?

Futbol Corn Dog Originally uploaded by Corn Dog . This is our sad attempt at turning Corn Dog into a soccer, I mean football. Why DO Americans call it soccer when the rest of the world calls it football? Could we not concede this one small thing and convert to calling it football? We could call American football something appropriately tough so as not to offend any of the delicate egos. Something like...Pigskinning. You know, they call the football the pigskin and the American Pigskinning League has a nice ring to it. Or maybe something less PETA-offensive. How about we just switch them up - soccer will be Am. football and football will be soccer. We could go with the short and sweet footie. I just don't think that word carries enough testosterone in it for American football players. It'll never fly. Dave suggests Cheeseball. Now that, I could go for. The American Cheeseball League. I think it's rather jingly! I guess we're left on the fringe on this one....

A few of my more loyal readers may remember a story I told a few months ago about The Great Squirrel Attack of 2006 . And either something is very wrong with my karma or I've had a bout of wrong-place-wrong-time situations with animals this year because the story I'm about to tell you is 100% true. Believe it or not. The Scene: I sat in the middle orange chair this Saturday. Minding my own business. Drinking cappucino and smoking cigarettes (man, I need to quit - I despise the habit and am ashamed to smoke sometimes.). Anyway, I was sitting here enjoying the sun and the weekend when I felt something land on the top of my head. Now, I'm sitting under a peach tree. A peach tree that has a LOT of peaches on it. Granted, they're not ripe and you wouldn't expect them to fall, but I've seen some on the ground already. Those that aren't making the grade are already being cut and tossed aside like yesterday's rotten rice. But whatever landed on my head bounced o...

I always thought it was "Aux Etats-Unis", but I guess if Babel Fish says it's Les, then fine. So. That was some World Cup game, eh? The positives: we played WAY better than we did against the Czechs and we scored a draw and not a loss. The negatives: what were those ref's thinking? That was, dare I say, an abomination of refereeing. Whatever. Maybe I'm overreacting, but damn, when Beas scored that goal that was wiped off by goalie interference hoo-ha, I jumped out of my seat. That would have been a gem! One sporting event down. Two to go. Go Cards! Go Oilers!

So far today, I've drank approximately 2 oz. of water and eaten four french fries and one bite of chicken sandwich and it's 2:30 in the afternoon. You could say I'm hungover and I would not argue. Blech. I'm sitting there last night, drinking bottle after bottle of wine and suddenly, it occurs to me that I'm drunk. Not just drunk, but if I had to walk very far? I'd be falling over drunk. Had I needed to drive? Uh, no. I'd have been sleeping on Kimblahg's couch - or floor since I'd probably have to fight the Nigerian Night Nurse From Hell for couch space. I guess I haven't been properly wine drunk in a while, so I've got that quota for the year covered. It's just amazing to me that the realization of being way over the loony line was so sudden. If thoughts made noises, that one would have been a thunderclap. Why am I such a moron sometimes? Is anyone else looking forward to a full weekend o' sports? I sure am. There's ...

I've been wanting to write this post for a few days now, but damn it's been a busy week all of a sudden. So yes, the birthday brou-haha was festive and fun. Friday, my actual birthday but just the beginning of the "birthday weekend", I skipped out on work, had lunch with my Mom and little brother D and went to the Cardinals-Cubs game. Lunch was interesting - first they sat us in a booth with a picture of a Cubs player hanging on the wall. I promptly covered him up with my placemat. Then as our food was being delivered, the waitress set down my plate and then proceeded to throw my Mom and Little D's food all over the floor in front of us. The poor girl about freaked out, but I told her it was OK because it was MY birthday and I had MY food. She started to cry. Hmmm. The game was a disaster. Not the whole game, just the part where our closer managed to walk the bases loaded and then our perennial gold glove 3rd baseman let a ball GO THROUGH HIS LEGS to send ...

Because I said so. Just do it. I didn't want anyone to worry so much as just know where I was at that time, I guess. I felt like I needed to explode, metaphorically and literally - I think it's a typical existential crisis that people have from time to time. Whether anything has been solved or not is not important - when does anything really get solved anyway? I mean yeah, the TV is broken and now it's fixed is one thing...my life is living me instead of me living my life is something altogether different and I don't know if any answer is the right one yet. I'm sure it's out there, but maybe I'm not asking the right questions to get to the answer I need. So I'm still learning and figuring things out. I really didn't expect so many people to be so concerned because of that post, but it warms my heart that y'all cared so much. My personal crisis counselors came to the rescue right quick and I appreciate it. Next up, a recap of the Big Bad ...

How I will celebrate my birthday: sleep in (check) check email (check) pick my nose and fling the boogs wherever I want dress the dogs up like hansel and gretel and make them do tricks for candy dress myself up like Jackie O and pretend to wave have lunch with my Mom Oops, I need to shower before number 6, obviously call the in-laws in California to thank them for the lovely birthday gifts and congratulate them for getting them here on time. show offs. not sure not sure go to the cardinals game in my sassy new jersey! (thanks Hundo!) go to a bar downtown (look at me! hanging out across the river!) pick my nose some more pass out Any ideas on what I should do for numbers 9 & 10? The more outrageous the better.

I have to vent to someone. And since I'm already cheesed off that no one else did a haiku to their pets, I'll just vent right here. My office arrangement is pretty nice. We don't have cubicles; we have a balcony that looks out on the first state capitol and the Missouri river; I've pretty much got my own little area; my co-workers deal with my constant stream of invective; they buy us soda. But the one downfall - the one that I'm focusing on today anyway - is that we don't have actual offices, it's just a bunch of open space. Generally speaking, it's a fine arrangement. Today though? The girl that sits closest to me has been coughing all day. Not like a little clearing of the throat - it's a dry, hacking cough that she sprays about every minute and a half. Actually, let me time it... ... Nope, it's every 53.4 seconds. I know she must be miserable. Nobody coughs that much and enjoys it. But the bitch of it is she's been doing it sin...

Corn Dog makes me smile Shiny-coated ball chaser Unmitigated Now, please, your turn - a haiku to your pet(s).

Jokingly, I've referred to many dogs as "mangy". Now, I have the distinct displeasure of being able to call my dog mangy and being accurate. I've been wondering for a while if his coat condition wasn't something like mange. The vet had previously done a skin scrape and didn't find any, but this trip to the vet on Thursday was a different story. When I got back home from Montreal last week, it looked like the hair around Cassady's eyes was almost totally gone. I made yet another appointment in the effort to get him to stop scratching so damn much and he needed his shots anyway. When I pointed out the eye thing to the vet, he said it was a classic symptom of mange, which is basically scabies, which is basically a mite that burrows into the skin - yay! If you've been to my house or been in contact with me or Cassady for the last year, you better go take a bath. You could have the dreaded SCABIES!!! Actually, that is highly unlikely and you would d...