A Heartfelt Plea

I hate to use my public forum to take care of a personal problem, but I need to take a minute to straighten something out with Johnny Depp. Allow me to explain. Last week, the husband and I were on vacation to celebrate our anniversary. I use the terms 'vacation' and 'celebrate' lightly - we spent most of the time doing things to ready the condo for sale, looking for houses in CollegeTown, and hanging out with family. These things had left us more stressed out than we were before the vacation. So when Melinda emailed to see if I could come watch Sweeney Todd, I declined. The husband and I were going to be all couple-y. In the email, I uttered (typed, really) the following ominous sentence, or something like it: "Perhaps Johnny and I are not meant to be." That was a mistake, and I realize it now.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I should explain what I had in mind for the remainder of the vacation. I thought perhaps we would find a beach and walk along it hand-in-hand. (Yes, this is the Midwest in early April, but dream with me, people.) I thought we would find a coffeehouse and engage in spirited but intellectual debate before lapsing into silence and staring lovingly into each other's eyes. I did not think we would get a lesson in plumbing, Murphy's Law, and why you shouldn't live in a building from 1911.

On Friday, while I was in the shower, the husband noticed that our desk lamp was acting weird. When he examined further, the bulb exploded, and popped the circuit breaker. The husband went downstairs to fix it. And thus our adventure began. Rather than finishing my shower in peace and sitting down to a relaxing evening, I watched as the bathroom light went off and on and off and on again. (Our breakers aren't labelled.) Then I heard an "oh crap." While the husband was downstairs he had seen water dripping. After a lengthy series of tests involving taping over drains and turning on and off various configurations of faucets, we determined that it's the shower. The shower pipes are ensconced behind the wall. To fix this problem, we will either have to remove the bathroom tile and put a hole in the shower wall or take down the kitchen cabinets and put a hole in that wall. Bear in mind that we figured this out over the course of our last two days of vacation, and that solving this problem will require either the spending of $1,000+ dollars or an entire day of the husband working closely with his father. Neither appeals to anyone involved.

Now, Johnny, I haven't forgotten about you. We need to talk. My husband says that the paint being worn away near the drip probably means it's been happening for a while, but I know that you are behind this. You were, after all, in Crown Point, IN shooting a movie recently. That is right over the state line, and very near to where my parents and siblings live (parents and siblings who could tell you my address, I might add). And your exposure to movie set design and special effects would make it relatively easy to fake some eroded paint.

Look, I know that it must have hurt when I said we weren't meant for each other. But Johnny, here's the thing. I'm married now. And you've got a little thing going with that nice woman from France, right? You just can't spend your free time shimmying up my shower pipes and committing vandalism any more. Plus, Johnny, you were never really mine, were you? You belong to all of the people of the world who like men (and especially the aforementioned French woman). I belong to the husband, and that's for the best, since he also belongs to me. We've got the papers and everything.

Johnny, you'll always have a special place in my heart. I'm sorry to have hurt your feelings, and I forgive you for causing us a giant headache. But you need to leave the husband and me in peace. It's really what's best for everyone.

Actually, Johnny, wait a moment. If you want to make it up to us - and I'm sure that you do - I know of a beautiful 2-bedroom condo for sale. It's in need of some small repairs, but what's a little plumbing between former soulmates? Call me; we'll work it out.

Major Life Changes

Goodness, but I've been a horribly negligent blogger. I apologize for that. In my defense though, Major Life Changes are afoot.

The husband has gotten accepted into graduate school with a tuition waiver and a stipend. This is super exciting, of course. For too long, we have come home after hellish commutes, tired from our jobs - of which mine is frustrating and his is soul-crushing - to a dog who is sad because he's been alone for nearly 10 hours. But no more! Now we will live in CollegeTown in the central part of the state. We will own a house! We will not deal with traffic! We will own chickens!

Have I shared about the evolution of our dreams? Remember alpaca? That was so four months ago. We moved on to thinking we wanted a few acres with some sheep. (They are more affordable, among other things. I'd be happy to elaborate, but I doubt that you care.) And while we always wanted plants and chickens, those things became more important. So we visited CollegeTown to look at land, and the thing that we realized is that to buy an affordable plot of less than 10 acres, we are probably going to need to be a bit too far from campus. So we talked and drove around and eventually decided that a house in the vicinity of campus with a relatively large yard for a vegetable garden would be fine, so long as we could have chickens. Shortly after resolving to Google "CollegeTown chicken ordinances" when we got back, we drove by a house and saw two chickens, strutting and pecking and generally looking chicken-y. Sure enough, Google confirmed that chickens are allowed in CollegeTown.

So we're pretty excited. We will be more excited if someone buys our condo and/or I get a job. In my weaker moments, I get entrenched in the more negative, anxiety-ridden aspects of it all. But life is about risk, right? And someone will buy the condo and someone else will hire me. It will work out. And when it does, we will be much closer to our Beautiful Life, in which we are hipster hippies who buy nothing from the Man but implements with which to screw him.

Can You Fire a Dentist?

Why am I posting the horrible tooth photo again? I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you all about it.

On Saturday, my temporary crown fell out again. That is not a huge deal in and of itself; I would abandon my mouth if I could and I don't expect dental implants to show more loyalty than I do. So I called the dental office's emergency line on Saturday evening and left a message, but no one called back. That was strike 1. I called back again and sent a page. No one called back, not that evening and not Sunday. Strike 2. It wasn't causing any pain as long as I kept it from the cold, so I figured I'd wait till Monday. On Monday when I called, which was after the office had been open for 90 minutes (I was in programs most of the morning), no one was even aware that I had called the emrgency line at all. Strike 3 - you're out a patient.

Actually I was upset, but I would have been somewhat mollified if someone had explained or at least apologized when I came in to get it fixed on Tuesday, but no such luck. I am getting my permanent crowns put in there - they're already paid for - but after that I'm done with that office. Of course, that would be a greater statement if certain Major Life Changes weren't going to force me to find a new dentist anyway, but I can say no more about that right now. (I will say that I almost changed that "force me" to a "force us", but screw the husband and his stupid mouth. Mr. 'You Do Have a Cavity But It's So Small We'll Just Fill It Today Without Novocaine' can tag along to whatever dentist I pick.)

Anyway, my mouth is better for the moment, but my mood seems to have been damaged for the week. Probably not the best condition to enter the annual ritual known as Staff Institute Day, but what can you do? At least this library has the decency to close for the whole day, unlike some other libraries I've worked for. Today was all about self-improvement, as we learned about recycling and did yoga. Actually, it wasn't so bad. The absence of mostacholi nearly gave me a heart attack. I was afraid the midwestern food police were going to burst in and give us a citation. Perhaps we got a pizza exemption. Actually the administration's efforts to force us to interact with people who we don't normally see meant that I only had to bite my tongue a few times around the one person at my workplace who drives me batshit crazy. And really, that's a very good thing - until I get my permanent crown, I am trying to avoid biting anything.

Dear god! Is that a tooth in your hand?

Why no, it's not a tooth, but that's an excellent guess. Not even I have reached the level where my teeth just randomly fall out of my mouth. It is, however, a crown. And while I was told that the crown was temporary - never meant to stay in my head for more than a few weeks - I was also told that it would stay in my head until the next time that I went to the dentist. And friends, as you can tell from the picture, I was lied to.

The crown in question is a temporary that had been in my mouth for three weeks when I went to the dentist on Tuesday. Its time with me was supposed to be coming to an end, but there was a problem with the permanent one, so back went the temp. Also entering my mouth on Tuesday was a filling and another temporary crown. I was told not to eat sticky things and not to floss the temporaries, and then I was sent on my merry way after a mere three hours of dental hijinks. (Yes, you read that right -three freaking hours. Also, the hygienist said I have fat cheeks, leaving me with the opening to say "They were a hell of a lot thinner before your incompetent ass stuck the suction thingie to them for an hour and a half," though I didn't. But I digress.) So Wednesday morning, while I was eating oatmeal (oatmeal, a food safe for infants and the elderly, but apparently not for me), my tooth hit something, and it was my crown.

After I spent a moment feeling with my tongue to see which of my many dental implants I had lost and establishing that I was not in pain, and after crying the type of hysterical weeping that comes naturally upon realizing that somebody up there really does hate you, I finished my breakfast and called the dentist's office. And after another hour spent there (that makes four hours there this week, for those of you keeping score), all of my teeth, real and fake, are back where they belong. But seriously. Do any of you out there have anywhere near this degree of tooth problems? Because at this point, when I tell people at work, they just say (or at least I can see them thinking), "You had to go to the dentist again? Do you ever brush your teeth?" And even though I know for a fact that I brush and floss twice a day, and even though I have cried plenty of real, honest-to-goodness tears about the genetic curse that is my mouth, it makes me want to cry some more.

Lighting the corners of my mind...

Children today all seem to have their television rationed, and as good of an idea as that is, I kind of pity them. As a child, my television consumption wasn't really limited all that much (or at all, really). A co-worker and I were comparing notes on our childhood viewing though, and we realized exactly how weird and disturbing these shows were. It also made me realize that I have always had the sense that nobody else watched these shows. Clearly that's not the case. So here we go. Do you remember the 80s?

Pinwheel Honestly, I don't remember much about this show except that it was like Sesame Street, only instead of an American street, it took place in a Canadian house (most of Nickelodeon was recycled Canadian tv at that point). More important is the fact that, in my head at least, it's the first show I watched when my grandma introduced me to cable. Ah, memories.

Today's Special A mannequin (Jeff, I think his name was) would come to life every night (I think his hat was somehow involved) and engage in hijinks with a store employee, who was human; Sam the night watchman, who was a puppet made to look like a human; and Muffy, a puppet mouse who, I think, talked largely in rhyme. What was the fascination with living mannequins in the 80s? Mannequin was weird enough, but I feel that the addition of creepy humanoid puppets takes it to an entirely new level of disturbing.

Zoobilee Zoo Technically, I was too old for this show when it was aired on PBS, but my brother was right at its target age. It starred Ben Vereen (I think - but if I googled each of these shows, I'd end up on a downward spiral of nostalgia-induced marathon YouTube viewing) and other humans dressed as animals. My brother, showing remarkable insight for one so young, was absolutely terrified of this show. The mere sight of the credits would bring him to tears. In fact, if I did it right, I could sing a bit of the theme song ("Zoobilee Zoo, Zoobilee Zoo. Magic and wonder are waiting for you") and he would cry like a baby. And this, friends, is why siblings should really never be left alone together.

Clarissa Explains It All Technically from the early 90s, but oh my God, I still think this is one of the best shows ever (based solely on my disturbingly detailed memory of it). Remember how Clarissa loved Johnny Depp? Remember Sam and Ferguson? Remember how she would create computer games? Remember when she and Sam wrote their school song ("Thomas Tupper Hii-igh" - why oh why do my brain cells cling to these stupid songs?). I loved this show so much that I was willing to believe for at least the first season or two that Sabrina the Teenage Witch was a good show for a 15-year old to watch.

You Can't Do That on Television This show was so twisted. It was one of the few kid shows that my parents enjoyed as much as I did. There was one episode where communists took over and the green slime was turned red. (The slime was dumped on anyone who said 'I don't know'. Why? I don't know, but why question greatness?) The intro credits referenced Pink Floyd's The Wall. Crazy shit, people. And yeah, yeah, everyone talks about how Alanis Morissette was on it, but that show was all about Lisa and Christine. (On a weird note, at about the same time, Dave Coulier, supposed inspiration for the song "You Oughtta Know" was on a show called Out of Control, in which he was already in his late 20s, at least. Both were originally produced for the small world of Canadian children's television. Do you think that's how they met? Ew! In my own remarkable show of insight, I thought he was a total tool when they showed the reruns on Nickelodeon.)

As you can see, once my parents got cable, I embraced it wholeheartedly and never looked back. And there is my childhood in a nutshell. Probably I also spent some time outside or socializing with family and friends, but sometimes the brain has to prioritize and decide what to let go. Apparently Clarissa and Ferguson acting like babies because they think their mother is pregnant outranks the first time I rode a bike. Go figure.

Ode to a Weiner-Licking Dog

Valentine's Day is just not that big of a day in this house. The husband is all "I don't need to be told what day to tell you I love you." That's fairly valid, since he's pretty good about being sweet and romantic, and also he is in the process of preparing a vegetable lasagne for tomorrow, the noodles of which he made with his own hands, which pretty much excuses anything. However, it means that much as I love him, he is not my valentine. You want to know who is? Here's a hint:

That's right, my valentine is Beckett the dog. Beckett, also known as Mr. Puppy and The Boy, was given to me by my parents when I got my undergraduate degree. Little did they know they were buying their only grandchild. Though the now-husband, then boyfriend, did not approve of him at first (he thought he only liked big dogs, but we showed him), he soon realized that Beckett is the son he didn't know he wanted.

Beckett is the weiner-licking dog mentioned in my profile. I know what you're going to say - aren't all dogs, or half of them anyway, weiner-licking dogs? That's true, but my dog licks his weiner on command. It's his own fault, really, that he was taught to do this. He learned that oftentimes when we would say 'oops,' it meant there was food on the floor, and now whenever he hears the word, he comes running. This caused us to realize that it is relatively easy to get him to do on command those things that he already wants to do anyway. So, the husband had an idea, and a week later, if you said "Lick your weiner," the dog would obey. The husband's only regret is that he didn't teach him to do it on the command "Go to town".

This is not his only talent. He can identify and retrieve most of his toys by name (as in, "Get your moose.") He lets us know when there are people in our yard. (We've chosen not to tell him that the "yard" is actually the softball field for the elementary school across the street.) He protects us from such dangers as the paper shredder and any and all other dogs that we happen to encounter as we tred life's path. He does an awesome Princess Di impression:

And he is skilled at camouflage:

And finally, thanks to his dislocating his shoulder when he was 2, he can, when forced, poop while balanced on three legs. (Think of that as you view his pain):

So happy Valentine's Day, Beckett. You are the best dog we could ask for.

Pissing in the wind

So I lied about telling about the dog. That will happen (with pictures and everything - you'll even get to see his Princess Di impression!) but today I want to talk about the elections. You see, I've got something to tell you. I'm feeling guilty for hiding things from you, my invisible blog friends, and I've decided to share my dirty little secret. So here goes... in a primary year where I had a choice between a woman and an African-American, I really wanted to vote for a white male. Dennis Kucinich won my heart in college, and even though I'm a different person than I was back then, he still has it.

You see, I want to vote for a candidate who isn't afraid to say that gay marriage is okay. I want to vote for a candidate who talks with candor about poverty and the hellish mess that is our education system. In short, I want to vote for a candidate who says what he thinks - and, let's face it, who thinks what I do. I am fully aware that the only reason Kucinich's ideas get any respect whatsoever is that he's a white male. (Not that anyone in the mainstream will publicly admit to him being anything more than a crackpot, but he would most likely not have any voice at all were he female or a minority.)

So that's what I think of when I'm in my happy place. In practice, I think that my prime wish is for a president who can say what s/he thinks without dividing the country. And that is why Obama was my candidate. He did vote against invading Iraq, way back when it was a political risk to be against taking immediate, albeit poorly thought out, action. He gives speeches that make people excited about hope and change. Most of the high school students who registered at the library last month were talking about him. I want that kind of integrity and inspiration in the White House. Unfortunately, the reality of his campaign has left a lot to be desired. All that idealism needs to have some ideas to back it up. More ideas than "Hilary is so totally establishment".

Actually, after all that, you know what I really want? I want not to be pissed off every single time I listen to the news. I'm not sure that anyone could really provide that (I have some anger management issues to work through), but I don't know that anyone could be much worse than Bush. So that's really all I'm asking. (Oh, and please, please, please, no Huckabee!)