Here's to Lily, Best Dog of All Time

On November 12, 2017, Lily (aka Eternal Official Dino Casserole Sidekick) died. Here's to her: Best, funniest, sweetest dog ever.  I'm lucky to have had 10 years with her, and I hope that somewhere, somehow she is having fun rolling in something extremely sketchy.  To Lily!

Dog vs. Accordion...Dog Always Wins

This is a tough tune to play. I need eight hands and only have two hands. Yet I am judged harshly.

Turn Your Dog Into A Small Wolf in 7 Easy Steps!

STEP 1: "Sure! It IS a nice day outside. Let's go outside and frolic."
STEP 2: "So, whaddya feel like doing? Maybe a little needlepoint? Oh, puppy tug. Sure, you'd like to play some puppy tug?"
STEP 3: "Well, you sure do like this, huh?!"
STEP 4: "Well, you sure do like this, huh?"
STEP 5: "Well, you sure do like this, huh?"
STEP 6: "Well, this was fun. But, it's time to head back inside. Uh, hello?"
STEP 7: "Sweet Jiminy Christmas. One Adam 12, see the Cujo...Cujo in progress in backyard.*"
*She's actually really happy in this picture, but it's a bit scary-looking. The white on her chin and on her chest kind of blend together and look like a crazy beard.

Labor Day

Women at the Westinghouse Time Clock, 1904 (Spoiler Alert: Woman at 1:23 drops her timecard!)


We'll be taking time off for Labor Day, so we won't be punching the time clock.
It is very enjoyable to watch the sidekick wade slowly out and sit down in the water. She looks kind of like a very old man at the seashore...The end effect? Why, a furry lily pad growing in the water, of course!

I'll be doing this:
 

Walk on the Wild Side

Lily and I like to take a walk in the cool of the early evening--maybe around 7:00ish. It's not dark outside, but it's quiet and everybody is pretty much tucked away inside their houses. Occasionally you smell onions cooking or see the blue flashes of a television. Once you get farther up the road, past the farm where I rescued the baskets and beyond the multi-million dollar Rustic Acres housing development where I "parked" the bag of poo, the houses grow sparser and the trees grow denser. Suddenly, we're walking through a green, sweet-smelling corridor lined with ferns. Along the way, as we climb a hill, there are the remains of an overgrown, old mini-farm--a small barn, a chicken coop, falling down fencing. The mini-farm's days are long gone, but the boulders they had to build the mini-farm around look exactly as they did hundreds of years ago and as they will still look hundreds of years from now. The road gets as "forest primeval" as a suburban road can get.

Wednesday night, we were out a little later for our walk--around 7:15 maybe, and we were doing our usual thing, snuffling along in the ferns (Lily) and veering sharply away from smushed, shocked-looking chipmunks (me). As we reached the top of the hill just past the mini-farm, I heard some dogs barking. I'm always a bit worried that a huge dog will come bounding out at us. I know how lame that sounds. It just can be tricky when an unleashed dog feels like you're on his turf and your leashed dog is kinda small and inclined to be protective and defensive. So, I said, "Let's call it a night, Lily," and we whirled around and started back down the hill.

When we got halfway down, Lily got really interested in smelling a rock. So, I stopped and stretched and lazily looked back up the hill behind us.

A coyote was standing in the middle of the road, at the top of the hill, sniffing at a squooshed squirrel and looking down at us. It was very scrawny.

In that moment, I didn't think a thought, but my eyes bugged out of my head like a cartoon.

There were no houses around, no cars. Just me, Lily, and the coyote. Lily was all passionate about the rock and she didn't see the coyote. That is very good because if she had seen the coyote she would, as we all know, have become very emotional.

As I noted last September when I took a picture of one in my friend's back yard, I have nothing against coyotes. I  kinda feel like we're encroaching on their territory. I don't assume that they are rabid. The fence in my back yard is too high for them to get over if they get the munchies for mexican food.

Yet, as I hustled Lily down the hill I didn't think about the more positive aspects of coyotes. I just thought, "Damn. I better get us the hell out of here." As I frog-marched Lily along (I think it was good for her--she was shocked because usually she's the one who tries to pull), I ducked down on the fly and picked up a very large, thick stick. And, I began to talk very loudly to Lily about nothing in particular. From time to time, I peeked back over my shoulder and I mentally mapped out the driveways up ahead that I could run down if worst came to worst. I know: All this for one scrawny little coyote. The trouble is that one coyote might mean more coyotes.

What's the rest of the story? We got home just fine. And now, the thought is in the back of my head that if we go back up the road for our walk we might meet up with the coyote and/or coyotes again. I'm not sure how else to prepare. Someone said I was supposed to whistle loudly and aggressively at coyotes, but I have very poor whistle performance under pressure--my lips grow limp, I can't pucker, and I just kinda blow spit bubbles. I guess I can take to carrying a whistle around my neck. I'd feel pretty stupid, but it's a possibility. But, what if the whistle just really pissed the coyote off? What if it whistles back at me insolently, mockingly and then charges at us? I wouldn't blame it--I mean, I wouldn't enjoy being whistled at loudly and aggressively? It would give me gym class flashbacks. Okay: Off to make some full-body armor for Lily and me. We'll move a little more slowly, but it seems like a logical course of action. Clanky, sure...but duly armamented.*

*I just made this word up; I do not think it's real, so proceed with caution if you deploy it in conversation.

Headlines

Headline 1: But, I'd Need A Total Web Site Overhaul
So, I'm chatting with an editor friend online last night, and she tells me the following:
Friend: "Dagmar makes $45/hour for that, but I don't know what she charges for the spanking movies."
Me: "Dagmar edits the kinds of stuff we do? But, what's this other thing? There are actually instructional movies on how to spank your child?"
Friend: "No. They are not instructional movies on how to spank your child."
Me: "Ah."
Friend: "I don't know how much she charges for those services."
Me: "Right. More, I guess."
Friend: "Probably."
Me: "I dunno. Diversification is good, but I'd really need to redo my Web site."
Friend: "Agreed."

Headline #2: Lily Gets Emotional
Lily used to be the reigning Mexican Rat Queen of her tiny village. While she is a very sweet little dog, she has a tough undercurrent and a teardrop tattoo on her face serves as a reminder of her rough days as a street dog. Sometimes, I catch a dreamy look in her eye that tells me she is reliving the days of romping and pouncing and chomping, romping and pouncing and chomping. Of course, to truly connect with her roots she would also need to relive the days of getting beaten and having her hips broken, but I'm pretty sure her memory is merciful and selective because she adores people and she passionately loathes rodents. It is as if Lily is Charles Bronson and a rodent killed her whole family and danced on the prone corpses while forcing Lily to play the harmonica.

Rodents: They make Lily very, very emotional and it has been a very, very emotional day.

"Squeeeee!" wailed the vole that Lily had pinned down with one paw beneath the fence gate. Lord, it was a chubby, pitiful little vole. Covered in flop sweat, spritzing urine about like a lawn sprinkler, it looked a little like John Candy with a silky gray pelt and very poor eyesight. "Squeee!" "Lilllleeeeee!" I hollered, sprinting across the back yard in my bare feet (ouch ouch ouch not toughened up yet ouch). I really did not want to see her kill the vole. "Gnnrrr grnnnnr-roo-roo" Lily moaned, slithering her entire upper body under the fence and trying to secure the vole with an anaconda vice--or perhaps it was a chickenwing camel clutch or a stretch plum? I couldn't tell in the heat of the moment.

I hit the dirt, throwing first a cobra clutch and then a shoulder claw at Lily, accompanied by a series of low, growly "Noooooos," to little avail. "You've seen worse on the Discovery channel," she grunted. "This vole has disrepected you," she pleaded, insinuating even more of her body under the gate. As I tackled her mid-section--which happened to be oozing slinkylike along the dirt--she cast a disgusted glance back at me. The teardrop tattoo on her face glinted in the sun.

To sum up: I saved the vole, and Lily has spent the morning silently rebuking me with her large, brown eyes and looking for weaknesses in the fence to exploit.

Headline: Google Rabbit Holes
I'm a googler, and I'm the first to admit that I am a bit of a "problem googler." First, I'm looking up some research article for work and then, without even realizing it, my fingers are typing in some bizarre combination of search terms. Who knows what it will be? The name of an ex-boyfriend? A supplier of small, colored glass jars--because I have suddenly convinced myself that I need an assortment of small, colored glass jars? An author's name? GWAH! Could be anything. Could be everything. That, of course, is the beauty of the google. Yesterday, for example, I was typing in "digital divide for low-income families" which suddenly turned into "small, colored glass jars" which suddenly turned into "removing scratches from wooden floors" which suddenly turned into "vintage sundresses" which suddenly turned into "The Haphazard Gourmet." You see? Even before I typed in "Haphazard Gourmet" it was all very haphazard. That is the google. Deliciously, seductively haphazard--even when you think you are being very purposeful.

So, here is my Google rabbit hole of yesterday. I typed in the name of this book that I bought at a public library book sale many years ago and reread once each year:
It is a very, very winning book. Written in the early 1960s, the author was kind of the ultimate bon vivant Playboy guy. He had about six wives or something, he loved food and wine of all kinds, and I imagine that he had an impressive hi fi system for the time and possibly one of those love chambers where you push a button, the lights dim, and the leopard-print bed falls out of the wall (y'know, prototype Austin Powers stuff). The book contains a lot of entertaining anecdotes and really good recipes--although his prose demonstrates an alarming penchant for Hormel products or perhaps a Hormel sponsorship of some kind--written in a very breezy voice. Celebrity names fountain about through the book. Here's the beginning of a typical anecdote, "So, as I was rushing onto the plane to Istanbul, Bill Holden pushed past me, his arms loaded with caviar." Jackie Gleason's giant appetites for food and booze are also featured.

So, I typed in "Haphazard Gourmet," and instantly I found out that the author not only had a million wives he had a million children. Three of his daughters--Cupcake, Eddie, and Pleasant--now write a blog. So, I googled around madly checking out their blog, checking them out, and finding out that Pleasant--a belly dancer--was huge in the LA punk world, is a singer, a writer, an actress, and a kind of burlesque tootsie lass, which led me to delve into more google rabbit holes and to ultimately wash up on the shores of Amazon and punk rock blogs.

To sum up: Type the words "digital divide for low-income families" into the google and you will end up at the doorstep of a burlesque tootsie. Guaranteed.

Happy Spring/Bear Battle!

Lily and Sparkle's Awesome Adventure

Sparkle walks up to reception desk.
Sparkle: "Hi! How are you? I called about my dog Lily."
Sandy the Clerk: "Hi! Okay. And, this is the first time we've seen her?"
Sparkle: "Yep."
Sandy the Clerk: "And, you have her papers for us?"
Sparkle: "Yep."

I inherited a small packet of Lily-health-related documents. They are in Spanish. I have been dreading this moment.

Sparkle hands Lily's papers to the clerk.

Sandy the Clerk: "That's great. Oh. Oh, no."
Sparkle: "They're in Spanish."
Sandy the Clerk: "Oh, boy. Linda! Check this out!"
Linda the Clerk: "Oh. Oh, my."
Sandy the Clerk: "But, look! Isn't this a great logo?"
Linda the Clerk: "What the hell is that?"
Sandy the Clerk: "It is a cat, a dog, and a man. All smushed together."
Linda the Clerk: "Where the hell do you see that?"
Sandy the Clerk: "Right here!"
Sparkle: "Where?"
Sandy the Clerk: "Right here!"

Linda the Clerk: "Hey...you're gonna just have to hand those to the vet when you see him, okay?"
Sparkle: "Sure!"
Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait. Boozed-up looking dog weaves through waiting room with a satellite dish on head. Lily observes dog with dismay. Looks up at me queryingly.
Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait. Annoying lady at counter argues with clerks for hours about price of special cat food. Clerks bristle. Lady bridles. Hackles are raised all around. Lily and I sit and watch, wondering if fur will fly.
Wait, wait, wait. I notice that they make a "rabbit and potato" dog food. What if someone brings their pet rabbit in to be treated? It would make me very uncomfortable to see a bag of "Sparkle and Potato" food at the doctor's when I was waiting to be seen. Really. Very uncomfortable.
"Lily?"
That's us. We proceed into the examination room where Lily is subjected to several of the most undignified procedures that you can think of. She is a very good girl.
The Vet: "Okay, I understand that you do not have Lily's prior medical records with you. It is very important for you to bring Lily's papers in with you the next time you come, and..."
Sparkle (gleam in eye): "Oh, no no no. I have her PAPERS for you."
Vet (confused): "Really? They didn't tell me that. Great. Let's take a look."
Sparkle: "Great logo, huh?"
Vet: "Ooooooooooooooooooh, okay. Okay. Okay. Uh. Criollo? Um. Moquillo?"
Vet Assistant: "Hector. This is a job for Hector."
Vet: "Oh, yeah. Hector speaks Spanish!"
Sparkle: "Awesome!"

Wait, wait, wait for Hector. Suddenly, the whole staff panics. "TEENSY! TEENSY IS COMING! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MAN! Get UP! Teensy is coming!" The floor shakes. Teensy is 150 pounds and lets out a basso profundo bark. From her perch high atop the examination shelf, Lily unleashes a series of small querying noises in response: "Roo? Roo roo roo? Brrrrrrooop?" Teensy's entourage hustles him into the rear office where apparently they have a crane standing by to heft him about.

Hector enters, accompanied by the faint strains of the "Zorro" theme--see video sidebar for clarification, if needed.

Hector: "'sup?"
Vet: "Hector, do you know what this means? Has this dog been vaccinated for rabies, for example? I can't make heads or tails of this."
Sparkle: "Ha!"
Vet purses lips, making it clear that he is not making a joke.
Sparkle: "Hmmmmm..." (makes serious noises to show that she knows this is serious)
Hector: "Sure she's been vaccinated for rabies!"
Vet: "Where does it say that? It doesn't say that anywhere!"
Hector: "Right here. Where it says Rabias Certificado de Vacunacion."
Vet: "Oh. 'Rabias.' I guess that makes sense, come to think of it."
Hector: "Yeah."
Vet: "Great. She's all set 'til October."
Hector: "She from Colombia by any chance?"
The End.

Stuff That Appeals to Me About The Sidekick

Okay, so here's a bunch of stuff that appeals to me about the Sidekick.

1) Last night, she sauntered through the back door and sat on the kitchen floor glowering up at me and looking a little bit crazy. I was perplexed at this mood swing in her--she is generally a fairly lighthearted dog--so I asked her, "Why are you frowning at me?" As she continued to glower, I bent down and noticed a large streak of dirt that was adorning her eyebrow and making her look like: (a) The baby-with-the-one-eyebrow on The Simpsons; and/or (b) A wrathful elderly Russian man with wiry and assertive eyebrows. I do not know if this picture captures the essence of the moment, but I tried.
2) Wildlife makes her somewhat emotional and chatty. When she spies a squirrel, or--as happened yesterday, a chipmunk--she mutters like a bitter old man complaining about the price of soup. You can kind of hold conversations with her at these times.
Sidekick: "Mrshmph!"
Me: "Oh, yeah? What is it out there?"
Sidekick: "ARrrow rrrow roooooo."
Me: "Oh, you mean that chipmunk? The one cheekily perched atop the stump?"

Yes, this is the one she meant:
3) She thinks she's sneaky. A little while ago, I let her in from outside and she crept through the kitchen casting casual glances at me from the corner of her eye and furiously chewing. It's the casual glances that tip you off every time. Turns out she was savoring a large sunflower seed intended for the birds. Frankly, it's always a relief when I hook a seed out of her mouth and not something of a sketchier nature.

Yes, I know I'm sounding like a crazy dog lady. I can't help it. There is hope, however. I recently passed a crazy dog lady test administered by a friend.

Friend: "So, when are you going to come see me with your little daughter?"
Me: "My WHAT what?"
Friend: "Your little daughter Sidekick."
Me: Silence.
Me: "Okay. That makes me really uncomfortable."
Friend: "Good. That means you're still this side of crazy dog ladyness. I'm watching you."

Bob and Precious

So, yesterday Lily and I went out wilding. We took a nice, long Junior Explorers' Club walk in the woods near a ruin of a factory and whatnot and there were amazing smells--decomposing leaves, moss getting mossier by the moment, nefarious/scurrilous squirrel poop, all the best stuff. Lily was power-sniffing, I was strolling, all was good. Then, in the distance, I could see the unmistakably menacing forms of The Elderly Man With the Cane and his Giant Dog Who Is Unleashed And Runs Two Miles Ahead of The Elderly Man.

"Menacing? Why menacing?" you might ask. "Are you worried the Giant Dog will savage Lily?"

No. On the contrary, I am worried that Lily might savage the Giant Dog.

I have learned something interesting about Lily in the last several weeks. She loves people INSTANTLY. The second she sees you, she will prostrate herself at your feet, lean her head back lovingly against your legs, and melt. Yet, it takes her several weeks to begin to warm up to another dog. I'm pretty sure that this is due to her being beaten up by other dogs when she was a sick lil' street dog in Mexico. My hunch is she feels like she has to get off to a strong place in the poochy hierarchy before another one jumps her.

Unfortunately, my poor friend's little dog Elvis was shocked by her latina fury upon their first encounters. The second she sees another dog--such as the hapless Elvis--she makes a complicated series of noises composed of yearning, wariness, concern, and what I like to call "a wild surmise." It sounds like "mmm mmm MMM? MMM! mmm errrrrrrrrr." The girl mutters pensively. She kinda seems like she wants to play, she kinda seems like she wants to flee, she kinda seems like she wants to hide behind me, and she kinda seems like she wants to jump the dog in a dark alley with some of her chicas as back-up.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. It was a sad, perplexing time with Elvis and Lily at first. Happily, they're pals now. But, it took a couple of scary weeks....We'll see what happens with ol' Bob and Precious.

Can't Talk...Busy Playing...

Lily Day!

And, here's Lily herself with some timely commentary:

Picture This!

1) So, I'm walking through the woods near the farm on Sunday. I happen to glance over to my left and there are 12 magnificent deer about 20 feet away--yep, I'm pretty sure this qualifies as a herd--standing there looking at me. I freeze. We have a stare-down. And then, one by one, they all go springing acrobatically off through the woods with their white tails flashing. Boing...boing...boing...(They did not make that noise.) My camera was nowhere to be found. Thank goodness my cell phone takes pictures! It was at home, too.

2) So, I'm walking by a pond today. The sun comes winking in and out from behind a cloud. The pond is really full because of all of the rain, and it was looking all glistening and clear and pretty and picturesque. As I glance over to the far shore, I see a gigantic heron sitting there, posing in a very artistic manner and, staring back at me. Lily and I get closer and closer. I remember I have my phone with me, so I stealthily sneak it out of my pocket, spend fully 30 minutes fooling around with the buttons, and get a lot of pictures. Every five minutes or so, the heron strikes another majestic pose. Then it swoops over the pond, dips down, catches a giant fish, and strikes a pose.

All of the pictures are crap.

This is all I've got: a picture of the wettest Lily and me ever. We got caught walking in the woods in the rain last week and we were soaked. The one excellent thing about this picture (in addition to Lily, who doesn't look her cutest while wet but still is adorable) is that you can see the water dripping off my sweater.
Last week, a little boy offered me $500 for Lily.
Boy: "I LOVE this dog and I will give you $500 for her."
Me: "Oh, that's very nice, but I love her way too much to give her away."
Boy: "Well, she might become a bad dog. If she does, let me know."

Then the boy told me, "All dogs come to me because I can hypnotize them." He proceeded to attempt to hypnotize Lily while she sniffed his foot.

There is no picture of this, either.

Coyote Vs. Fox

So, awhile ago I wrote about the coyote that accompanied Sidekick Lily and me on a twilight stroll. After the incident, I found myself rethinking the whole thing. Had I panicked? Had I gone Full Metal Don Knotts, as is sometimes my wont?
Ever after, I have been quietly self-debating...Sure, I'd seen pictures of coyotes before and I'd seen pictures of foxes before, and I'd seen one coyote recently, from a distance....in some tall grass...Was that a coyote sitting on the hill behind us watching us? Was it instead, for example, a fox that my imagination super-inflated into a coyote? At one point, my "It was a fox, dopey" theory gained credence when I came upon a little boy walking his dog in the neighborhood.

Sparkle: "Hi! So, have you seen a fox around here?"
Boy: "Yep! There's one right on this street."
Sparkle: "Oh. I think I saw one not far from here. It's a pretty big fox, huh?"
Boy: "Naw, it's little--well, the usual size! It was running through our yard in the middle of the day, kinda weaving back and forth. It looked kinda weird. Like it was drunk! I wouldn't walk on this road, if I were you. We live right here [points to house behind him], and we only walk Bailey this far right now."
Sparkle: "Oh."

So...the fox might be...rabid?
Next day, drivin' down the road, I SAW a cute little fox--kinda like this one:
I had three thoughts when I saw the fox: (1) BRAKES! (2) SO cute, so scrawny. Poor little thing. I hope it doesn't have rabies. (3) Holy crap, how did I convince myself that's what I saw? This is what was standing on the hill behind us:

NO! Not specifically this guy, but one just like him. This is Quentin, photo courtesy of The Conservation Agency, Narragansett Bay Coyote Study. What a beautiful guy! Just a little alarming to see materialize behind you as you're walking at twilight with your sidekick/dog...

Enough about me: Check out the Narragansett Bay Coyote Study's website! They do really interesting and important work.

Call The Uh-Oh Squad

Uh-Oh #1
Last night, Lily saw a UNICORN in the back yard. Okay. It was not a unicorn. It was a deer. Yet, it might as well have been a UNICORN because she has never seen a deer before. And it was in her back yard. Let me clarify: The UNIDEER was in LILY'S BACK YARD.

Perhaps you will understand when I tell you that Lily became emotional. She has a complex thing that she does when confronted with foreign wildlife. She growls a little, throwing in a bit of barking, and wags her tail enthusiastically. Now, that makes me want to say to her, "Lily? Girl? You're sending mixed messages." Don't you think? But, I leave it to her good judgment.

Usually, she needs to drink quite a bit of water after being emotional. Tank up. Wet her whistle. Then she lies down and takes a nap. If she has recently seen a, for example, UNIDEER, she tends to have flashbacks in which her little legs pump along dream-running, the smell of dream-unideer fills her nostrils, and she lurches her upper body up off the floor mid-snore (Lily snores), looks around wildly, and lets out a half-choked sob. "Well, good morning, sunshine," I say, meeting her startled eyes, "Good girl, Lily." And, she slumps back down on the floor in a "meant to do that" kind of way, heaves a deep sigh, and is off to snore land again.

I am pretty sure Lily's head will blow off her small, silky body if she ever sees an elephant. I'm hoping one won't turn up in the back yard.

Uh-Oh #2
This will shock you, but Sparkle Plenty is not my real name. Yet, I've grown rather fond of it, and I am sometimes tempted to make it permanent. Mostly, I dig the jolly nicknames. "Yo, Sparks!" "Party over at Sparklah's house!" Very pleasing, I must say. Of course, "Sparky" is also a possibility--a bit too much like a plucky little puppy to be much fun as a nickname, but a possibility that must be considered. Here's what's holding me back, in addition to the actual hard work of changing credit cards and bank accounts and god knows what:

1) Won't people expect me to be eternally sparkly? I'm reasonably sparkly on a day to day basis, but it would be a real pain in the tuchus to have people call me on not being sparkly. "Uh, that wasn't such a sparkly thing to say, Sparkle." "Well, you can have plenty of THIS, mister!"
Follow-Up Thought: On the other hand, if I'm having a bad day and someone says "You're not being so sparkly" I could always reply in a gravelly voice: "It's Sparky, doll. I'm an electrician" or "It's Spark, doll, I'm a pyromaniac."
2) My senior citizen aunt: Does she really need to deal with more nonsense in her lifetime? I think not.
Follow-Up Thought: On the other hand, I personally have never created any nonsense for her and, given that she's an outlaw, she might really enjoy it.
3) My sister and my friend M: Would both laugh their asses off. Now, that's not such a bad thing, that's a good thing--I live to make them laugh. But, I imagine they would be "slow adopters" of the new name, if at all. No. I wrong them. First they'd laugh--or, first they'd cry, then they'd laugh...however that works--but then I think they'd adapt.
Follow-Up Thought: Does a follow-up thought count if it's the same as the first thought?
4) My clients. How to explain the new name to my clients, with whom I already occasionally use a business name as an identifier? For a one-person operation, this would mean a significant amount of re-rebranding.
Follow-Up Thought: Given the fact that I come up with names for their businesses and projects, they really shouldn't give a whiz. If I feel like I need to be more professional, I could always call myself "Sparkle Plenty, Inc."
5) The paper towel company--would they sue?
Follow-Up Thought: What the heck kind of a name is "Sparkle" for a paper towel, anyway? Wouldn't "Absorby" be a better name?
6) The Dick Tracy people--would they sue?
Follow-Up Thought: Oh, bring it, Prune Face. Briiiiiiiing iiiiiiiiit.
7) Isn't there a rapper named Sparkle--wouldn't she sue?
Follow-Up Thought: Yes, there is a musical artist named Sparkle who--based upon a YouTube comment--should "bump the haters and keep it moving." I've decided to pop the band Tina Sparkle up in my YouTube video spot, 'though. This is a catchy little song.

Okay. I think I'm safe. I talked myself out of it. But, now I think I'm subtly trying to change the dog's name as a way of getting the name-change thing out of my system. I've noticed that I've been calling her "Yily" from time to time...At least she doesn't have any credit cards to change and the unideer won't give a hoof.

Monday is Stuff Day!

Yesterday, I gave Lily a nice bath with the green dog shampoo that smells like mountain meadows and piney forests and put some flea and tick stuff on her that smells like eucalyptus and orange peel. Thereafter, I took every possible opportunity of enthusiastically sniffing her fur and telling her how nice she smelled. Today, I brought her out front with me as I gardened and discovered her rolling around on top of a fully intact yet fully dead mouse. It was inconvenient (and icky, I might add). There has been no further sniffing, although I imagine she smells like dead mice shrouded in eucalyptus and orange peel buried in a mountain meadow outside a piney forest.

Hey, Movie Dude! Get A Cat!

Lily hasn't had very much experience with television. Actually, I don't think she has had ANY experience with television. In the old country, it was enough to sit and stare at a blade of grass. So now, she has a very emotional experience if a dog comes on the television and starts barking. She swivels her head around sharply as if saying, "WTF! How the heck did he get in here and why is he stuck in the shiny box?" Then, she advances toward the television giving hoarse cries of sympathy. If she just happens to looks up and SEE a dog on the television--barking or not--she advances toward the television, pops up on her hind legs, puts her front paws on the television stand, and stares at the screen. This is pretty cute and fascinating, but sometimes I'm watching a movie and I just want to watch the movie without Lily having an emotional reaction.

Here's the problem: Everything I have been watching lately has a dog in it. Often, a barking dog is in some kind of dire peril which makes Lily very, very emotional. As it turns out, dogs are key players in many kind of films and, distressingly, they're often leading humans into great danger. Such danger-magnets are dogs that I've decided that many plots would collapse without a dog and, on a human level, the characters in the movie or television show would be far, far better off if they had a cat.

1) "The Brave One": Jodie Foster and Guy from Lost do not need to go to the park to walk the dog because they have a cat. They stay in, eat Chinese food, watch a movie featuring a dog (that the cat is not at all phased by), get married, and live happily ever after. Title must, therefore, be changed to "The Contented One." All because there is no dog.
2) "I Am Legend": Will Smith happily lives out his life in his super-reinforced house. Sure, he doesn't find a cure for the dread mutant zombie plague, but his cat shows no desire to venture outside--definitely not to run willy-nilly into a stronghold of mutant zombies--and he and his cat spend endless enjoyable hours playing with a piece of yarn. Title must, therefore, be changed to "I Am Cozy." All because there is no dog.

Then, of course, we have more jolly fare--comedies and Disney snuff films.
1) "Best in Show": Sorry, we have to get rid of this whole movie which is unfortunate because I love it.
2) "Old Yeller": Sorry, we have to get rid of this whole movie which I don't regret that much and which Lily is just never gonna see.

Oh, my what a world: http://www.themoviefordogs.com/ I just found this as I was sniffing around the Internet. You're supposed to show this movie to your dog so it doesn't get lonely. Hoo boy. The second I opened the link (what--I was curious, I'm not gonna buy it), a tiny little "Woof!" came out of my laptop speakers directly into Lily's ear. She awoke instantly and trotted to the back door to see who was outside. She's still not sure what happened and is restlessly conducting a room-by-room search.

And now, for something completely different.
I was looking at Web sites to help a friend find an apartment, and I came across this text. It's kind of like someone ate the real estate ads of a newspaper and threw them up. Or something:
"This is a foxy and magnificent neighborhood with fine, symmetrical, classy, and bewitching houseboat, apartment, hacienda, and houseboats. Co-workers, denizens, and better halves inspect and frisk and determine mountain chalet, log houseboat, resort chalet, and oceanfront houseboat. Our site does accommodate various locality beachfront, private, lakefront, and beachfront bungalow, cottage, and villas. We made and composed our webpage to be fair and sightly. The beachfront listings, log listed properties, log indexes, and studio advertisements for these can be mapped.

"Householders and companions who are studying houses for rent and are trying to conceive homes for rent OR VRBO rental homes, and condos for rent can rake our website and our ski in/out classified ads, resort classified ads, loft listings, and beach advertisements. Usually, collaborate and bail out your roomers, buddies, and roommates to a spinach, well-known, extensive, and winning sector. Our online website consist ofs vicinity, domain, and block poop sheet, customarily. Using our website, real estate agents numerate vacation home, hacienda, vacation home, and villa listings."

If a Web site can partake in hallucinogens, this one has done so.

Watchful Sidekick

Spring Has Sprung(ish): Film at 11:00

I cannot decide whether to call this photograph "Triumph Over Winter" or "Holy Shit" which is what I said when I found the flowers last weekend.

These are snowdrops; daffodils are beginning to pop up behind them in the flower bed, and I think I have some lilies of the valley sprouting up under a tree in the backyard.
The sidekick is deeply unimpressed by this flora. Her attitude is: If it isn't in my food bowl and if it doesn't crawl, squeak, scuttle, hop, trot, or fly, who cares?

Thursday Potpourri

1) Mission Accomplished! I have made someone snot tea out of their nose laughing. This makes me very, very happy because I live to make people snot liquids out of their noses. I began at quite a young age, doing whatever I could to make my sister snot root beer out of her nose. This often won me the gift of not just her girlish laughter, but a fierce little slappy fight; it is very painful to snot root beer out of your nose.

2) Fight Lily the Monster! What is your monster and can it beat my monster? My monster Lily is a Giant Dragon that spins Vast Webs, has X-Ray Vision and a Humorous Nephew Sidekick, and CANNOT BE STOPPED. The Web site that the monster fight is on is fun--check it out.

3) Mission Aborted! Every morning, I pull up the blinds and look out the window at this birdhouse. I love this birdhouse, and the other day I decided I wanted to stick a plastic dinosaur in the entryway of the birdhouse and take a photograph of it. This might not surprise you.

Anyhoo, when I got closer to the birdhouse, I noticed a ton of nesting materials bunched up inside. It would bum me out to have a giant plastic dinosaur butt thrust into my house--yeah, you too, huh?--so I can't take the photograph. RATS!

4) England Beats America!
All these years, we've been deluding ourselves into thinking that we "won" the Revolutionary War. Well, take a look at all of their different kinds of potato chips (aka crisps) and realize the depth of our folly. Here is a very brief sampling: Brannigans Roast Beef and Mustard Flavor Thick Cut Potato Crisps, Brannigans Smoked Ham and Pickle Flavor Thick Cut Potato Crisps, Burts Hand Fried Potato Chips Hot Chilli Lemon Flavour, Burts Hand Fried Potato Chips Mature Cheddar Cheese Flavour, Eat My Goal! Hot & Spicy Cheesy Balls, Eat My Shorts, Golden Wonder Curry Flavor Quite Hot Crisps, Golden Wonder Sausage & Tomato Flavour Crisps, Hula Hoops Prawn Cocktail Flavour Potato Rings, McCoy's Flame Grilled Steak Flavour Ridge Cut Potato Chips. WALKERS ROAST TURKEY WITH PAXO SAGE AND ONION FLAVOUR CRISPS! GIMME!

5) Exercise Moderation in Moderation 
Last but not least, here: Have some festive baked beans with "moderate amounts of wine." To enhance the festiveness, I recommend discarding the idea of moderation and perhaps limiting the amount of beans involved.