Little Dog Syndrome

There is nothing funnier than little dog syndrome. I'm watching the Dog Whisperer right now, and Cesar Milan is trying to cure a vicious two pound chihuahua. They showed a clip of the dog trying to attack a fifty pound pit bull, pulling on his leash and squeaking as angrily as possible. Hiccup has little dog syndrome, but only when there's a very secure barrier between himself and the other dog. I just think it's so charmingly optimistic that a dog that can be restrained with one hand (or eaten in one bite) thinks he can take on the world. One time my friend Geoff discovered that Hiccup had snuck onto our dining room table and was trying to consume an entire pizza. I heard the sound of a pommy apocolypse and walked into the room to find a snarling, foaming, writhing Hiccup being held by the scruff of the neck by Geoff. Held with one hand. Because Hiccup only weighs seven pounds. But he was convinced he could take down and eviscerate my 6 foot tall friend.

I think we could learn something from these little dogs. They don't let size or situation phase them, they are totally confident that they can take on whatever stands in their way. And I think it usually works because people are too busy laughing at them, and big dogs are too confused to do anything about it.

I May Sue

I went to the communal printer at work to pick up my progress notes, and one of the bilingual therapists was sorting through the pile. She looks at me, then looks at the notes I just printed out:
Therapist: You are Zamora? (rolls "r" beautifully)
Me: Yep.
Therapist: Stares at me. Stares at the note. Stares at me again.
Me: My husband is Hispanic.
Therapist: Oh! Okay. (walks away, her sense of what is right in the world restored)

I think I just experienced my first racial profiling.

I. Can't. Move.

We started the great renovations this weekend. All weekend. These are the things I learned:



1. Primer does not come out of hair

2. It doesn't really come off of skin too easily either.

3. If you are using primer in a closet, you get high really, really quickly.

4. If you put a 70lb. boy in a closet with primer, and he shuts the door, he almost dies (sorry bout your kid, Rachel)

5. Mortar does come off of skin, but until it does you can't move whatever part of your body is covered in it.

6. Putting mortar down is like frosting a cake, but it doesn't taste nearly as good.

7. My husband is able to tell if a tile is one millimeter off from the rest of the row, and he will tell you about it.

8. Having a mom around to make you sandwiches after you've fallen asleep in exhaustion in the middle of the day is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

9. If you have a desk job, doing manual labor for 8-9 hours a day for two days means you will be completely incapacitated on the third day.

10. It's better not to wonder about the bones that you find in the carport crawl space.

Back from the Dead

I think I'm finally on the road to recovery. It seems like everytime I get sick, it's not just a cold, it's an epic battle in my immune system. This time, it started with the worst sore throat I've ever had, including the time I had mono and they made me gargle with lidocaine. Then my nose clogged up, beyond the reach of every over the counter antihistamine and decongestant. I know this because I tried them all, sometimes simultaneously. When I developed a persistant, throbbing pain in my sinuses I went to Walgreens for antibiotics. This assault made the virus angry, so it invaded my left eye. Now, this is the funny part. Remember how I went to Pennsylvania a week ago? Well, on the flight back, I took off my glasses when I was falling asleep on the plane. When I woke up, they were gone. But I was tired, so I thought I had put them in my backpack before I fell asleep, because I remember looking at them in my hand and thinking "I'm going to lose those, I should put them in my backpack", but apparently the part where I actually put them in my backpack was a dream. By the time I realize this, I'm on the next plane to Tucson. Now, back to the pink eye. When you get pink eye, you can't where contact lenses for five days. And I lost my glasses. To recap: no contacts. no glasses. I can see things in crystal clarity up to a distance of, oh... 8 inches. After that, it's all pretty much a big blur. And the best part? My prescription expired a week ago so I couldn't even get new glasses. It's now been five days of virtual blindness, and it's gone better than I thought it would. My back is sore from my crouching over to see everything, and some store employees around town think I'm a little stupid, but at least I can still read and Danny could drive me places. But I will be sooo happy to put contacts in tomorrow.

But the cold war isn't quite over. Danny got sick in the end of January, and has been coughing every since. Tonight? He has a fever. I'm doooooomed.

Colds, American Idol, Walgreens, Cashiers, Catsby

I have a hideous cold, and I'm going to blame the fact that I just actually shed a couple tears while watching American Idol on my sleep deprived and congested state. But seriously!! This girl called her dad to tell him she was on her way to the audition, and he dies in a car accident half an hour later. So TWO DAYS later she auditions and sings that Le-Anne Rhimes song "How do I live without you" and is amazing at it until she starts to cry. If you don't get a little choked up over that, then you just aren't human.

Anyway, back to reality. I'm sick. And I went to the new Walgreens "Minute Clinic", thinking it would be faster than urgent care. And I suppose it was faster. It look two hours instead of eight hours. But Walgreens hours are like dog years, you have to multiply them by five. Have you noticed that Walgreens attracts the strangest and angriest people? Especially when they are people who haven't been taking their meds and just find out that their insurance doesn't cover that medication anymore. And every child is screaming, and covered in snot, and throwing things.

Oh god, back to American Idol- so they just showed an Asian chick singing that "Glamorous" song, but she couldn't pronounce the L's, so she kept singing "gramolous...gramolous..." awesome.

Sorry, moving along. My co-worker and I joke that we have "therapist" printed on our foreheads in invisible ink, because strangers have a tendancy to tell us things that we don't really need to know. For example: I now know that the nurse practioner I saw has been on anti-depressants for years, and worries she will have a nervous breakdown if she ever stops taking them. She got re-married last month and went on a honeymoon to La Paz and she had to take dramamine because she has a problem with sea sickness, but her husband didn't because he grew up by the water. My mother has this effect on cashiers- she knows their children's names and their birthdays, their various illnesses, hobbies, past employment. Cashiers greet her with cries of joy and open arms. She is the patron saint of cashiers, they probably have little effigies of her hanging around their necks.

In other news, Catsby has taken to carrying a foam pirate sword around in her mouth. And last night I got up for the millionth time to blow my nose, and she had placed the sword by the bedroom door, like a threat. Next thing you know we'll find beheaded mouse head at foot of our bed. Or a nuclear weapon in our bathtub.

Test?