Do you really need to know more weird things?

I was tagged by my old high school friend Sara (no h, she feels very strongly about this) to discuss 7 weird things you didn't know about me. This worries me, because to disclose even more things that make me weird than you already know means that they have to be very, very weird. I realized that the only way to accomplish this is to talk about my absolute most weird stage of life- elementary school. I was a very strange child, with even stranger interests. Thus, I bring you:
Strange Things I Was Obsessed* With During Elementary School

1. Saints- particularly saints of bizarre things, or saints that were protectors of obscure people. For example, Saint Roger the Whoremonger.

2. Chopin- I blamed my nerdom on my parents, because in my formative years I listened to cassette tapes about the lives of classical composers. Then, I saw a PBS movie about Chopin and his romance with George Sand. I immediately developed a crush on the pale, malingering actor playing Chopin. Tuberculosis is HOTT.

3. South Africa during the fall of apartheid- this obsession resulted in me writing a first person account of a journalist in South Africa for a honor's english project with almost no research. When I read an actual book about the apartheid I was pretty impressed by my accuracy. Because it's so hard to predict poverty and racism during apartheid. Child genuis, I'm telling you.

4. Stigmata and weird religious phenomena- People who manifest the wounds of Christ. Did I mention I have never been religious? I attribute this to a weekend I spent sitting in a motel room in Zion, Utah watching some miniseries about paranormal phenomena while boycotting my parent's hiking excursions.

5. Nazis and World War II- This doesn't actually qualify as an obsession, but at one point I remember playing "Barbie rescues the Jews from the concentration camp" with my best friend and this is the perfect example of why my best friend was truly the most wonderful person ever. She was probably the only person on the planet who found this entertaining besides myself.

6. Serial killers- I got a book by a profiler who interviewed all the major serial killers in the US, and actually read the whole thing, and then read even more books until I got a little weirded out by my own interest. This obsession makes no sense because even at the age of 10 I was too scared to stay in my house by myself.

7. Monty Python and the Holy Grail- When I was little my parents would say "neeh!" when they were annoyed by something. I thought that this was something they made up, or was a common expression of irritation. When I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail (introduced by my best friend, another reason why she was heaven sent) I was astonished to discover the "Knights Who Say Neeh!". I ran home and told my parents that they weren't the only ones who said that! And they suddenly realized that I had been thinking they were crazy for most of life up until that point. I went on to memorize almost every line in the movie, including the subtitles in the begining (A moose named Erik!). It was like discovering the secret language of nerddom.

So there you go, 7 more ways I voluntarily allow myself to be embarrassed. Just....be gentle :)

*Obsessed being defined as checking out numerous books from the library that I never actually read, writing school reports full of made up information, and acting them out with barbies.

The thing is...

...when you walk by my office on most days this is what I look like.

The Blacklist

One thing I have recently discovered about dog ownership is that you are very easily offended when other people criticize your dog. And by "you" I mean "me". I learned this after my dog was blacklisted.

I should explain. Hiccup, my pomeranian, is not a dog. He is part human and part cat. He does not like dogs, does not enjoy spending time with them, and does not act like a dog. It wasn't until we got Siva that we were indoctrinated into the world of being actual dog owners. Siva is a relatively large dog, especially considering that she is still a puppy and her enthusiasm tends to outweigh her training and her hearing ability. But on the whole she would not hurt a fly. If Hitler came up to her she would flop on her back and wait for him to rub her tummy. People who meet her don't even get to see her face for more than a few seconds. Instead they get to see this:

However, I have a pair of friends who have a smaller dog, one that seems to be a bit, well, "delicate". This dog is like the child with the thick glasses and the strange food allergies who isn't allowed outside because he might get too much sun. Siva and this dog enjoy playing together even though Siva now outweighs him by 40 lbs, because Siva is used to trying to play with a 7 lb ball of fluff and indignation. These friends have already decided that their dog can't play with another friends' dog, because that dog is "too hyper" and "played too rough". I thought it was kind of amusing until I got The Call.

Friend: "Ummm....Siva hurt our dog last time they played together."

Me: "What? Really? He was fine when he left the house!"

Friend: "Yeah, Siva sprained his neck. She can't play with him anymore. Or at least, not until he gets better. You can come over, but you have to leave Siva in the backyard."

I was speechless. A sprained neck? A dog with a sprained neck? I pictured him lying on the couch with one of those foam collars they give accident victims. I half expected a call from Goldberg and Osborne. And MY DOG? My dog HURT your dog? I looked at Siva who was trying to subtly crawl into my lap without me noticing, and felt a rising swell of indignation.

I admit, my reaction may be a bit over the top. But everyone I have encountered who has heard criticism of their dog has reacted with personal outrage because to criticize your dog is to criticize your dog's training, which is to criticize YOU. I don't know how parents don't routinely come to blows on the playground because if you told me my kid is playing too roughly I think I would feel obligated to punch you in the face.

Fortunately, Siva is oblivious to her owner's drama. She is perfectly content to chase her tennis ball, chew on her tail, and continue to try to play tag with Hiccup, even though he usually leaps into the air and bites her nose. And, you ask, how is the other dog doing? I couldn't tell you. He's been counter-blacklisted for emotional distress and I am considering a class-action lawsuit.

Wait, I have a blog?

Umm....hi! It's been a while, huh? Like, almost a month. Geez. It's not that I've forgotten to blog, it's just that every day that went by that I didn't blog, I would mentally tally up more stuff that I would have to add onto the "boring life update that no one cares about but that you feel obligated to write anyway", and I would decide that really procrastination is one of the few things I'm truly talented at, so I might as well go with my strengths, right? (Procrastination and run-on sentences).

Deep breath- here's the boring update:

Danny left town for a gazillion years (okay, three weeks) to help clean up Texas after Hurricane Ike. The first weekend he left I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest and stomped on by cleat wearing hamsters (that's not a metaphor. maybe it was heart burn). So then I overloaded my social calendar to compensate, then discovered that I had days and days of school work to do, and then I spent a night watching season three of Weeds while snarfing down cheez-its like there's no tomorrow, and then he came home.

The only really exciting thing that happened occured right after he left. I had just picked myself up off the couch and decided that I wasn't going to feel sorry for myself, and that I was a strong, independent woman who can function perfectly fine on my own. Then I realized my plants needed water. I don't have a watering can, just a measuring cup, which meant that I would have to trek back and forth across the house filling up my stupid little measuring cup for each plant. So, applying my critical thinking skills, I filled a huge mixing bowl with water and began carrying that and the cup over to the plants. You know how Lassie was always getting Timmy out of trouble? My dogs do the opposite- there's nothing you can do that my dogs can't make more difficult. In this case Siva, my large and ridiculously devoted german shepherd puppy decided that she wanted her ears scratched. So she gallumphed (she has big paws and gangly legs- she's a gallumpher) over to me and planted herself in my path, causing me to skid to an abrupt halt, causing the water to slop over the side of the bowl, making me slip and land flat on my back. I lay there in a large puddle of water and it occured to me that if I hit my head and was knocked unconscious no one would find me for days. My dogs helpfully started licking the water off my face. I am just not meant to live alone.

On Yoga

I have been going to yoga. I like yoga for a couple of reasons:
1. There are always people fatter than me in there. It's not like LA Fitness where everyone looks like they are perfectly honed machines with no sweat glands. Granted, the fact that there are always fat people in yoga class who are clearly good at yoga and have been going for years should teach me that yoga may not be the best way for me to lose weight. But at least I can feel more confident about my own ass when staring at the enormous ass of the person in front of me during downward-facing-dog.

2. It stretches muscles that I do not actually use in real life and did not know that I had until I started doing yoga. Like, I suddenly have multiple muscles in my feet that I did not know about. I now know about them because they hurt like a mother-effer.

3. At the end of every yoga class you get to lie down for 5-10 minutes and recover. This is my favorite part of the class, because if I had my way all exercise would end with an approved period of time when I get to collapse on the floor and pant like a dog. The pod people at LA Fitness look at you funny if you are lying spread-eagle next to the treadmill. Technically you are supposed to use this time to "center" yourself and all that hippy crap. I use it to keep from dying.

Things I don't like about yoga:
1. The crazy instructors. The women are all usually hairier than I would like. The men try to lift me up higher into a backbend and I'm not allowed to punch them in the face. They say things like "the word of the day is 'reflection'" and then spend the rest of the class period spouting new age pseudo-philosophical enigmatic bullshit about putting yourself fully into the moment when all I'm trying to do is keep from falling into the person next to me while I'm attempting to balance on my head with my feet in the air.

2. The yoga mats. I don't dislike this enough to have bought my own (yet), but just judging from the amount of my own sweat that has fallen on each mat, these mats have got to be disgusting.

3. The pod people who seem to have lost their way to LA Fitness and found their way to the yoga center. Again, perfect looking and not sweating. But now they are also effortlessly levitating themselves on one perfectly manicured hand. Not cool.

4. The cloud of patchouli surrounding the building. I am always astonished by people who fit so perfectly into a stereotype, and the patchouli fumes making my eyes water from the parking lot just confirm what to expect when you walk in the door.

I forgot to mention that I can now touch my toes, I think for the first time ever. That's pretty neat. So while everyone else is tied in a knot on the floor, I'm the one in the back proudly bent over, clutching my toes.

Heard at Work Today

7 year old boy: Sara! Sara! I know what I can do instead of hitting people!
Therapist: What can you do?
Boy (proudly): Throw things at them! That way I'm not touching them, the thing I'm throwing does!

It's a Mystery

Me: Luv, why is there a pair of socks on our roof?
Him: It was an accident.
Me: But... how...???
Him (indignantly): I SAID it was an ACCIDENT!
Me: How did you accidentally get a pair of your socks on our roof?
Him: I missed.
Me: Missed what?!
Him: I was throwing them into a bucket or something and I missed.
Me: How did you miss so much that you got them on the roof?
Him: I missed REALLY HIGH alright?!


PS. We didn't win the backyard contest. Which is fine. We didn't need a water feature or a putting green. Instead we will patent the life forms that begin to crawl out of our own primordial ooze and earn millions of dollars that way. We'll show them.