My Calendar Fetish

Isn’t Daniel Craig dreamy? There were no calendars like that available, and besides, I don’t buy man candy calendars. That would be sexist . . .

Just Like Books, You Can Never Have Too Many Calendars

So today, we did one of my favorite after-Christmas things: We went to Barnes & Noble to scope out the 50 percent off calendars. Now some years, I buy calendars for everyone before Christmas and wrap them as presents, but lately, I’ve found that buying them after Christmas is not only more cost effective, but it also allows the kids to pick out the calendars that they want as opposed to my buying what I think they might want—big difference.

I mean, when they were smaller, it was pretty easy: Thomas the Tank Engine, or then later, Sponge Bob, or something like that. But now, they have branched out. This year, Brett picked out a calendar with black and white pictures of trees. This after first picking up a star chart, then a night sky calendar.

Eamonn shopped by phone. His first choice was a Red Sox calendar, but sports calendars sell fast; then he wanted a Venice calendar (?), no Venice, but could I interest you in a landscapes of Italy? No. Then I remembered that he liked motivational quotes. I mentioned that. He wanted to know if it was too girlie, so I had to describe the pictures. That one seemed to meet his approval.

Moving on to Alexis. She has pretty eclectic tastes. One year it was Jimmy Hendrix, the next Bob Marley. Far Side always works. This year, I knew that I could win with a Family Guy, so I grabbed what appeared to be the only one in the store. I could not find, however, a daily planner, lots and lots of weekly ones, but no daily ones. That search was quickly sapping the little energy I had left (we had made two stops before Barnes & Noble). Not to mention, my daughter is very persnickety about her planners; i.e., they must be a certain size with the pages laid out in a certain way. No way I was going to chance that one.

Then it was my turn. I used to buy four calendars: one for work, one for the kitchen, one for the bedroom, and one for my purse. Now I don’t have to buy one for work, even though I dreamed this morning that I had to go back to work on Monday for a former female boss whom I absolutely loathed, and I hadn’t done any of the projects that I was supposed to do while I was out of work. Don’t you hate those kinds of dreams?

We won’t discuss the number of calendars that I actually ordered at work or you might think that my OCD was/is truly out of control. And it was three, by the way, not counting the one that I brought from home, or the one that I had in my purse. And yes, I used all of them . . . moving right along . . .

So I found my first calendar right away, the kitchen calendar: it was an orchid calendar, beautiful miniature orchids in very simple vases with lots of open light. The bedroom calendar was giving me fits. That’s the one that I write all of my doctor’s appointments on and keep on the wall next to the computer, so it needs to have fairly big boxes, and be of good quality paper. I also need to like it a lot. I looked at the motivational one that I had picked out for Eamonn, which is why I knew about it in the first place.

I looked at other flower calendars, a Celtic calendar, a wildlife calendar, a fairy calendar (I like fairies if they don’t look too overdone), and a Dalai Lama calendar. I knew that I wasn’t in the mood for a country (as in Italy or France or whatever, which I’ve had before) or an animal (which I’ve also done before). What I really wanted was black and white, and the only one that I had seen was the tree one that Brett grabbed. And then there it was, on the bottom shelf of course where it is hard for me to bend down to see, a black and white Zen calendar. I grabbed it and put it in the basket.

Then I picked up a small weekly planner for my purse to duplicate all of the doctor’s appointments, etc. But I still manage to confuse times and days somehow, even though I check the calendar on the wall and the calendar in my purse. Don’t ask me how I do that because I’m still trying to figure it out. And don’t suggest that I use the calendar on the computer, because I’ve done that, too, with the reminder system and everything. I still show up at the doctor’s office on the wrong day or at the wrong time because I really don’t remember what day it is.

I didn’t have this problem so much when I worked because my body clock was set the same as normal people’s, but when you find yourself finally closing your eyes at 5:35 in the morning, it’s hard to be in sync with the rest of the world, and unlike one of my regular correspondents who can get by on four (4!) hours of sleep a night, I now need at least 9.

What’s really hard to believe is that I used to get by on five hours of sleep without any problem, and I would wake up early on purpose to get in at least 30 minutes of work out time, including 150 crunches every week day morning. This was when I was a single mom and had to fit in the work of two parents into one parent’s body.

You adapt. Then, I was buff and strong. Now, I’m a slug.

So back to Barnes & Noble . . . Brett and Corey are off looking for reading material because Brett has decided to try to spend less time playing video games and more time reading, and I am trying to find just one book (which is very restrained of me): the sequel of Into the Woods by Tana French. I don’t know the name of the sequel, but I know that it is out because of  Publisher’s Weekly, a really wonderful online publication that I receive that keeps me up-to-date on new releases and things that are happening in the publishing world.

So Corey finds out from the help desk that the sequel is indeed out, that there is supposed to be one in the store, and an associate walks him over to where the book is supposed to be located, but of course, it is not there. Of course it isn’t because I could spend all day in bed tomorrow reading it. It would be wonderful. I can just imagine it. Ah me. Reading nirvana.

By the way, if you like mysteries, read Into the Woods. It’s a first novel by French, and it is masterfully written. I finished it, and I started having a tantrum to which Corey asked, “What’s wrong now?”

“It’s just not fair,” I whined in my most petulant only child voice. “This is her first book, and it’s wonderful. And, it’s a cliffhanger. I hate her and I want to be her.” Yes, Lola logic at work once again.

So we left the store with just one little problem: I set off the security alarm, which I had done when I walked in. I had asked the people at the checkout to scan my purse and explained to them that I had set off the alarm when I came in, and when I entered and left Kohl’s and had no idea why. They obligingly scanned my purse, said there was nothing there, asked if my coat was new, to which I replied, “nope.” We walked out the door perplexed until I realized that I was wearing new jeans that Corey had bought me for Christmas from Old Navy. Maybe there was a magnetic strip somewhere inside one of the seams?

Why me? When I get home, I take off the jeans, and lo and behold, there is one of those bulky tags that says, “remove before washing.” It’s one of the new security tags. No wonder I’m setting off alarms. I’m just glad that I look too much like a goofball to be thrown to the ground and manhandled by some security guard because my back couldn’t take it.

Speaking of Kohl’s, Brett’s jeans were exchanged, and so ends the great Levi’s 569 saga of 2008. Let peace reign again. I left a message on his father’s voice mail and told him that we were near a Kohl’s (true) and that we exchanged the jeans without any problems (also true), so everything was taken care of (also true). Now if he can accept that, everything can be fine. (We’ll see).

Also ends the great calendar quest as well as the jeans saga of 2008 as we approach the end of the year, and I have to say that I am awaiting 2009 fervently hoping that I can find a curse breaker to end this long-running streak of bad juju that has befallen our family. If you know of any good curse breakers who aren’t complete frauds and charlatans, ask them to send some good juju my way.

More later. Peace and goodwill to you all.

Advertisement

My Life Has Gone to the Dogs

 

“Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you

 in the car, in case the need should arise for them

to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.” 

 ~Dave Barry 

 

 

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our life whole” (Roger Cares)

So I’m sitting here pondering. That’s what I do before I being to write: I ponder. And in runs Tillie to show me her latest interesting conquest from the yard. The only problem is that it has been raining, and Corey is not quite as thorough as I am in drying off the dogs when they come back into the house after being out in the rain. Let me pause here. When I’m sitting at my computer, I am usually wearing some kind of sweat pants or yoga pants and a white sweater. That’s because I have a surplus of soft, white sweaters from my buying days. I went through a white sweater phase, and now I have about six old white sweaters that are thoroughly broken in, too old to wear out of the house, but perfect for wearing around the house.

So Tillie runs in and share her bounty with me. She’s a lab puppy with all of the inherent lab puppy enthusiasm. My white sweater now has a wonderful brown puppy paw pattern. A few years ago, this might have bothered me enough to change my sweater immediately. Now, I’ll just finish my coffee and my entry, and then I’ll change. She’s a puppy. She’s happy. It’s infectious. If I still had a white couch, I might think differently, but I don’t, and I probably never will again. I had a white couch when my OCD was in full bloom and the boys weren’t born yet. My house was pristine.

It’s not any more. Which would I rather have: my dogs or a white couch? My dogs. No question.

Shakes Waiting for Christmas

For example, I don’t know how many of you are familiar with The Golden Compass, but armored polar bears play a large part in the plotline of that story, which is book one of His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman. However, Shakes, my largest Jack Russell, has now reached the proportions of a small polar bear. I like to call him horizontally tall. I tell him that it is time for him to build his armor so that he, too, can become a majestic armored bear like Iorek Byrnison. Shakes, however, is much too lazy for such work, and prefers to spend all of his time at my feet as I work at the computer. From there, he moves to the bed with me where he takes his place beneath the covers.

Before the Jack Russells, I never had dogs that actually liked to get beneath the covers, but both Alfie and Shakes are very particular about it. They burrow beneath the bedding on either side of me. That is, unless Alfie is sleeping on Corey’s head. Alfie, you see, is psychotic.

Alfie Would Prefer to Have the Bow Removed

We finally determined that Alfie has “doggie rage syndrome.” I kid you not. He can be very quiet and unassuming, sleeping on Corey’s pillow when Corey is not in bed, and then, all of a sudden, he will charge across the bed at someone. It’s extremely unnerving. He takes medicine for his “condition” now, and he is much better, but sometimes he still has episodes. Of course, my dogs cannot be normal. That would be too easy. Alfie is the smallest dog in the house, so we thought for a while that maybe he was suffering from “short man syndrome.”

The interesting thing is that even though both of the boys have been “tutored,” (got that from “Far Side”) every once in a while, Alfie still thinks that he has all of his working parts. It’s kind of sad, and I don’t tell him any differently. Who am I to spoil his delusions? It would be like taking away his birthday.

At some point, I don’t know when, the human boys created a MySpace for Alfie, or at least, that’s the rumor I heard. I haven’t searched for it. I think that I’m afraid of what I’ll find. They threatened to put one up for Tillie, but then we thought we’d attract a lot of pedophiles. I know, it’s a warped house. But our dogs really are a part of our family. Tillie talks, is very opinionated, and has verbal hissie fits when she feels that she isn’t being paid enough attention, and she brings her bowl to us when she wants to order takeout.

Shakes has been termed the fat, gay, mama’s boy, which I think is entirely unfair, because I don’t believe that he’s fat, just fluffy, and as to his sexual preference, I really don’t think that he has one. Alfie is everyone’s favorite at first because he’s so small and cute until he literally turns on the person giving him love. Personally, I think that Alfie is into S&M, and hasn’t found the right partner yet. Everyone is just fooled by his innocent face.

As far as their outside lives, Alfie and Shakes are escape artists and used to get out frequently, so much so that pretty much everyone in the neighborhood knew them. Believe me, it wasn’t because we didn’t try. We had a privacy fence, but if there was a weak spot in it, they found it. It was as if it were “Prison Break” for dogs. You would have thought that we mistreated them, no cookies, no chewies, made them sleep on the floor. They would find a hole, and it would be “RUN! The humans aren’t looking. Run now!”

We replaced the fence, which cut down on the prison breaks significantly, but every once in a while, the wind blows the gate at such an angle that it sticks open, and wouldn’t you know it, Alfie taught Tillie how to make a break for it. Shakes came back. I think that he got too tired. The other two were in the baseball field next to the house. “BE FREE!”  

“Labradors [are] lousy watchdogs.  They usually bark when there is a stranger about,

but it is an expression of unmitigated joy at the chance

to meet somebody new, not a warning.”  ~ Norman Strung

 

I’ve always wondered what dogs actually call themselves. You know that they can’t possibly use the names that we give them. I mean, Alfie probably thinks of himself as “Zoltar, Biter of Hands and Thief of Bread Loaves,” while Shakes is “Rombus, Owner of Container of Treats—Trespassers Beware.” Tillie on the other hand is probably Tillie. Let’s face it: Labs don’t have time to be concerned with such things. They want to know about three things: when they can have their next treat, who is going to play with them next, and when someone is going to scratch their belly next.

 

I love my dogs. They bring me pure joy, except when they are barking at nothing but air and leaves, and I have a migraine. Then, I have to admit, I wish that they were cats, but only momentarily, because cats have totally different feelings about people, as in, cats truly believe that people are superfluous. There has only been one dog in my life that I didn’t really like. He was a poodle that we owned when we were in London, and he was definitely my Dad’s dog. His name was Sooty, and that dog hated me. Swear to god. Sooty used to chew little round holes in everything I owned, my clothes, my toys, even my curtains. If Dad paid any attention to me, you can bet the next day there would be a new hole in something I owned. 

When we went to the park to play, Dad would take Sooty for a walk on his leash, and the two of them would sit at the bench while we played. Sooty always had this superior look on his like, “Ha, you have to climb on those metal things while I get to sit here with my human.” (Okay, so maybe I’m imagining things, but I don’t think so.) When we came back to the states, we were planning to go across country and then to the Philippines. Sooty would have had to stay in quarantine for six months. Mom and Dad gave him to some friends. It didn’t break my heart.

Aside from that one blip on the screen, though, all of the dogs in my life have been wonderful companions that I have loved and missed terribly once they were gone. Getting a dog may be a gamble because you never know how long he or she will be in your life, but it’s definitely a gamble worth taking. Dogs love you unconditionally. They ask so little of you and give you so much in return. Looking into a dogs eyes is like looking into a well, an endless pool. You can see pretty much anything you want to see there.

If you ever want to know the quality of a person’s soul, look at how they treat their animals. Especially, look at how they treat a dog. If an individual has no time for a dog, views dogs as beneath them, sees dogs as stupid, thinks of dogs as expendable, or worse, would kill a dog without batting an eye—run, don’t walk, because how an individual treats a dog is a good indicator of how that individual treats other people, especially women and children. Animal abusers are people abusers.

Always remember,

“Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms”

~ George Eliot

And one of my personal favorites: 

I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love.

For me they are the role model for being alive.

~Gilda Radner

 

More later. Peace.