The Great Canine Christmas Caper of 2012

This only peripherally involves a "real" dog, it's really the story of an iron doorstopper.

The back story; hubby was working with his brothers a few years ago to get their parents into a nursing home and then sell the family home. One brother (we'll call him "GB" for "good brother") was great and very helpful hubby and GB would spend entire days getting rid of a lifetime of crap out of that house. It wasn't a big house but it sure contained a lot of CRAP. The other brother (we'll call him "PiA" for "pain in the ass brother") lives further away, is basically un or underemployed (by choice) and is generally a pain in the ass. PiA managed to cruise by one day when hubby and GB weren't there; his contribution to the clean-out was to pile up any and all metal he saw so he could sell the metal and keep the profit from it, he also brought his bulk trash all the way from one state away to leave at the curb.

Hubby went over, found this pile and was FURIOUS, how DARE PiA make this decision for his own gains. Hubby picked through the "trash" metal and found a lovely iron dog. He brought the iron dog home and looked it up on the internet, it was about 4 inches high at the withers, the head was probably about 6 inches from paw to the top of the head, it was a fox terrier (we have Aust. Cattledogs so there was no emotional connection to the breed). The internet (as usual) revealed some interesting details about the little bugger; they were Victorian era doorstops, there were certain breeds, all sorts of stuff. He excitedly read off details to me as he found out more and more about the history of the little iron dog. It was nice that he was so excited about this. It was interesting to look at. We have a sorta Victorian style home that is nearly 100 years old so it even "fit" nicely in our home.

Hubby named it "Ironsides" and Ironsides quickly won a place of honor in our home. He was placed on a soft mat in the center of a side cabinet in our living room. Ironsides became a family member. We were glad he was rescued from the trash heap…just like our three flesh and fur "real" dogs had been rescued.

We're not collectors. We don't have Precious Moments figurines or beanie babies or anything collectible. I can't stand the clutter and even without that stuff we STILL have clutter so we are NOT collectors of anything. Hubby made it clear that we would not BECOME collectors either, despite his clear love of ol' Ironsides he would remain our one and only iron doorstop and we were both good with that. Despite his obvious value on eBay, we didn't rescue him for profit or to become hoarders, we rescued him because he was on the junk heap at hubby's parents' house and he certainly was NOT garbage to be sold for the price of his metal weight.

Hubby and I have been together since December of 2001 and been married almost ten of those years. We're not new to each other so Christmas giving between us has become quite a challenge, add to that the fact that we have no kids to buy for so we can't even divert our gift giving attention to our kids or grandkids. It's just us (and some friends, etc.). I struggled this year over what to buy him, I actually bought AND RETURNED gifts before Christmas even dawned. We had agreed to buy ourselves a new TV for the living room as our "gift" so we were really just getting some smaller items but once the shopping frenzy hits it's tough to stop.

I had finally come to terms with the mediocre array of gifts I had stashed in the upstairs closet. It was the eve of Christmas Eve (that'd be December 23^rd), other than buying some scratch off lottery tix, I was DONE with my shopping. Put your pencils down folks and close your test booklets…you are DONE! Awesome.

Hubby and I were sitting in the living room enjoying The Sound of Music on TV with the dogs (3 live, 1 iron) strewn around us and the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree adding sufficient atmosphere when hubby mentioned that in his shopping travels he wandered into a local antique center and was AMAZED by the many interesting things there. I grunted in agreement and let him continue talking. He went on to say that he was surprised to find another iron doorstop there, he mentioned it was tagged at $140 and he didn't buy it because he doesn't want to become a "collector" but then he went on to say that maybe after the holiday he would go back and offer them $100 for it and see if they would take it.

EUREKA! A "special" gift…but it was at an antique center in a small downtown area where they kept variable hours AT BEST…would they even be OPEN on Christmas Eve? SHIT! But suddenly I was fired up by the thrill of the hunt.

Hubby rarely has a day off but he DID have off on Christmas Eve so I needed a reason to leave him the morning of Christmas Eve and go on my hunt. Enter one of the LIVE dogs…"Honey, I'm taking Maggie to the dog park…." Perfect, we can spend HOURS there so how would he know if we were there for an hour or 3 hours? Off we went.

We did legitimately spend an hour and a half at the dog park because I had to give said antique center time to open for the day, I figured if I got there between 11AM and noon I'd be able to get in because they'd either be open from early-ish until noonish or from noonish to whenever. We (meaning me and Maggie…the youngest of our dogs) got to town around 11:30ish. Maggie hunkered down in the car tired from her hour and a half of running around like a lunatic at the dog park and off I sprinted to the antique center. SUCCESS, according to a crayoned sign on the front door (not lying, blue crayon) the antique center was open on Christmas Eve from 11AM-2PM; YAY!

The place, like many antique places, is really an old store (Woolworth's in this case, I believe) divided into little booths with different vendors for each booth but they usually cover for each other. The guy manning the front booth was a grumpy guy; I explained what I was looking for, an iron fox terrier doorstop my husband had just seen the other day. Grumpy Guy (his name is actually Rudy) kinda shrugged and said he wasn't sure if he'd seen one of those but there was a Boston terrier somewhere in the back…maybe. Three other women, booth owners, were also there; they were MUCH more enthusiastic than Rudy. We spread out across the space to start looking for this silly iron doorstop. We were shouting across the store as we found things that might be "my" doorstop. Two more shoppers wandered in and got sucked into the hunt for the iron fox terrier. Dare I say this, it was FUN!

I was starting to wonder if maybe I should settle for that Boston terrier in the back and wandered off to use the ladies' room while the hunt continued in full swing. Suddenly I heard someone shout, "GOT IT!" I ran out of the ladies' room still drying my hands, the booth vendors and the other patrons were all shouting and pointing at a glass case RIGHT UP FRONT BY GRUMPY GUS RUDY ("GGR")! It was right under his NOSE. They fumbled around to find the key and finally liberated the little guy from his glass prison and placed him in my hands. He appeared to be in good shape and the genuine item but he was priced at $195 and I KNOW hubby said the one he saw was $140. Hmmmmmm.

I told GGR that I was sure this was the one but that my husband told me it was $140 and this one was marked $195. Without flinching GGR shrugged and said he must've told hubby he could have it for $140 so I could have it for $140. He barked out (HA, DOG…BARKED…soooooo funny), "you want it?" YES! YES I WANT IT!

I was soooooooooooo happy.

I figured I'd leave my little treasure in the car overnight and sneak it in the next morning when I got up with the dogs. I snuck it in, wrapped it in tissue paper and then tucked it into one of those holiday bags and then I stashed it in the cabinet in the living room where the Christmas tree was and where Ironsides resides.

Hubby FINALLY wandered downstairs at around 10ish, made coffee and said we'd open presents once he got some coffee in him.

I was like a little kid, so excited I was ready to POP!

We did the usual "you open one, I open one" and giggled and oohed and aahed over each gift.

When we were all done I said, "hmmm, the cabinet seems to be open a bit, did Santa hide something here?" DUH!

I handed hubby the bag from the cabinet, he remarked that it was awfully heavy (DUH) then he ripped the tissue paper off and his face went into one of those truly surprised faces, the kind where your mouth forms a perfect "O" and your eyes get big and round. I thought, "wow, he IS a good actor"…or maybe he really is surprised?

And then I found out that he really was surprised…and why.

It turns out that the eve of C'mas Eve I hadn't been listening to him all that well, he hadn't seen the fox terrier doorstop, he'd seen the BOSTON TERRIER one, he was kinda willing to SETTLE for the Boston terrier because he had no hope of finding the matching fox terrier to Ironsides, the FACING one. He asked where I'd ever found it and I sheepishly told him that it was at the antique center where he'd seen the Boston terrier doorstop, I admitted I thought he DID see this one. He said that had he seen this one he would've bought…at $195 and I admitted that I had gotten it for $140 because I thought this was the one he'd seen and I told GGR that it was $140 so he gave it to me for $140.

It was so much better than perfect. My mistake turned the gift into something so much better. He spent the next hour or two scouring the internet to learn more about our now perfectly matched pair of iron fox terriers, one left facing, one right facing. He'd occasionally grunt then shout out some little factual tidbit.

SUCCESS!

And there ya have it, The Great Canine Christmas Caper of 2012!

 

The SATs of Shopping

Christmas shopping is like taking the SATs (those are the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, you knew that, right?). You shop and you shop and you shop right up until the end. It's like when the teacher tells you that you have to shut your test booklet and put your pencil down. That's it, suddenly it's Christmas Eve and you are DONE shopping, whatever you didn't get you are NOT gettin'.

I thought that I was down to just buying some scratch off lottery tix tomorrow and I was DONE. DONE. I could finish before the time was up and I had to close my wallet and put down the stylus used to sign the credit card receipts. I thought I was there…then I remembered that essay question I skipped back on page three.

FUCK!

I bought hubby some small and rather benign gifts. We've been together quite a while and with no kids to buy for we just kinda buy ourselves whatever we want…within reason…when we want it. Awesome, right? Yes but it really would be nice to surprise him (or me) with something…well, UNEXPECTED (like the year hubby got me a commissioned portrait of our dogs at the time, we've since added one to the pack).

And when did that opportunity for me to do that for him rear its ugly head? Ooooo, at about 8:30 on the eve of Christmas eve. Yeah, swell.

And is it something easy? No, because easy would not fall into that category of the "ah-ha" moment on C'mas morning.

So what is this rare and precious item?

An iron doorstop in the shape of a dog that is somewhere at a local antique center that may or may not be open for some random and unpredictable hours tomorrow…and I don't know what booth the damn thing is even in.

So here I am realizing at the last minute that I forgot that essay question back on page 3 of the test booklet.

We have Christmas Eve plans starting at 3PM tomorrow including a 7 fishes dinner with a newly engaged couple and yet I'll be up early banging on the doors of the antique center two towns away and willing to pay any price for the damn thing.

And pencils down students.

Christmas Fun

Today was a really DIFFERENT day for me. For one thing I spent the day Christmas shopping with my best friend of more than 30 years. Now that should sound perfectly normal except that my best friend HATES to shop and I used to love it but no longer do. I was a solo shopper because I wanted to steep myself in the moment, she was a solo shopper because she wanted to be over and DONE with it all. Somehow, without trying, we've managed to meet in the middle.

We set out by meeting in a parking lot where she'd just run into one of my many ex-boyfriends in line at the ATM. We started to head to the local outlet mall and before we got far we agreed we were STARVING. Awesome. She had a $5 coupon for Applebee's, I had a $15 gift card I'd recently won. We NEVER eat at Applebee's. There was an Applebee's right there. WOO-FUCKING-HOO! Awesome.

We had a reasonably decent lunch for which we each chipped in $8, that's right EIGHT DOLLARS. Cool. There was a Harmon Store (that's one of those kinda health and beauty products discount stores in case you all don't have them) in the same strip mall, she needed stuff from there. She checked out and had COUPONS! We have never remembered to use coupons in our LIVES but there we were…using coupons and gift cards like we had done it forever.

I also had a Starbucks gift card I had won. I had used some of it but didn't even know how much, there was a Starbucks in said same strip mall. We don't even LIKE Starbucks…we went and each got a small coffee and a little package of chocolate covered graham crackers (one for each of us). AWESOME. It turned out that we owed 30 cents after the gift card.

The day was shaping up really well.

We headed up the highway the few miles to the outlet mall. Interestingly we actually got a parking space! Cool.

She needed a pair of brown boots for her 18 year old daughter. I had a coupon for $10 off at Famous Footwear. And there they were, the perfect brown boots, on sale and then there was that $10 coupon! And I even got hubby a pair of slippers (the coupon specifically excluded slippers).

Off we went to The Gap outlet…she had a 40% off coupon there. She did well there and even got herself a few things.

Next stop the G.H. Bass outlet. Massive sale and with my $5 rewards coupon the scarf I wanted was just over $6!

The jeans she wanted at the Levi's outlet store were only $24.99…and they had her size and style! Whoop-Whoop!

Off to the Eddie Bauer store…she found a great duffel bag for her daughter…and a super soft and comfy flannel for herself…and I had a $5 coupon.

What an absolutely exhausting, fun, coupon-filled, hilarious day with my best friend.

We're both exhausted but I have to say it was a lot more fun than I could've ever hoped for, today, TODAY was my perfect Christmas. Everything else is just icing on that cake but a few hours of coupon-crazed, giggling madness was the real joy.

Feliz Navidad!

Still not over it

I'm not over the events of last week in Newtown, CT and I'm 90+ miles away with no kids of my own. If I'm not over it will those people EVER be over it?

No matter what I do, no matter how my brain tries to twist it, I cannot understand how any human being could pump 11 bullets into a little kid with two missing front teeth and cock-eyed pigtails. I can't. It makes no sense. I get upset with myself if I yell at my DOGS for barking too much.

Those people in Newtown, CT will NEVER have a joyful Christmas or holiday season again. Those little kids who lost siblings last Friday will carry that with them forever. Those twins that were cut in half by a crazed gunman? The remaining twin will always feel that loss.

Every bit of it, every little nuance is unimaginable. As the news media continues to camp out in Newtown the images show people surrounded with holiday decorations that can't possibly bring any joy to those people.

I love the corniness of this season, I love stumbling upon an ancient re-run of a Sonny and Cher Christmas special, I love Holiday in Handcuffs with Mario Lopez but all of that has even lost its corn right now.

WTF? Let's get rid of these fucking guns. These guns that allow someone to pump 11 bullets into a smiling, gap-toothed six year old.

Guns that allow you to shoot your way into an elementary school.

Do we even NEED THOSE?

Gun advocates are saying this wouldn't have happened if the teachers had been armed! Really? My best friend is a teacher, she teaches art to little kids, 3 and 4 year old kids. She's barely 5 feet tall herself and wears a size 5 jeans, she's tiny. Could she even safely wield a gun? Could she safely wield a gun that would combat what that killer walked in with? I'm sorry but I don't think so. Even if she could though, I know she doesn't WANT to. She's a TEACHER of SMALL children, a peaceful, loving person. She has no interest in learning to shoot a deadly weapon, she doesn't even eat MEAT for goodness' sake but the gun lobby is blaming the un-armed for this. Should we have also armed a room of SIX YEAR OLD CHILDREN?

Yeah, I'm wounded and I'm pissed. It needs to stop NOW. Get these guns GONE. I'm sorry but you don't see this in urban communities, you see it with middle-class white folks. That best friend I mentioned? She works in a dangerous urban area. Know what? I'm more worried she'll get mugged walking to her car at night than that a crazed gunman will burst into her classroom, another friend who is a school teacher works in an upper class neighborhood, I'm scared for her and her kids. She's a more likely target it would seem.

Anyway, once again, hug your loved ones tonight, two legged, four legged, whatever and tomorrow? Tomorrow do something nice for a stranger. Buy a cup of coffee, pay their toll, let them go in front of you at the grocery store. Nice feels good and we all need to feel good right now, hell I'd settle for feeling BETTER right now.

The year without a Christmas

Today is the day after my 54^th birthday. It was the end of a stressful and busy week at work. I routinely check the news on the internet. By 11AM I had a chance to do that before I made a quick trip to the mall at lunch to do some Christmas shopping.

TWENTY CHILDREN WERE DEAD. WTF? Really?

I'm childfree by choice but I do have tons of kids in my life. My friends have kids, some of THOSE kids even have kids. My next door neighbors have a kid who will be 5 in a few months. We love that kid. We love our neighbors. I wave to the little guy every morning on his way out to school with his dad. R's backpack is usually hanging jauntily off his back and he waves to me as they head out. In the evening I'm usually getting home from work and letting the dogs out when R and his dad are on their way in. We wave, sometimes R has something to tell me and he runs over to the fence before he goes inside.

Little kids like him were killed today. I don't know why. I hate it. I hate guns.

My heart can't help but try to understand what those parents are feeling. It's 11 days before Christmas. I'm sure that they had most of their Christmas shopping done. They had presents stashed all over the place, they were hoping that the kid liked it or that it fit. It's one of the last days of Hannakuh, was there some little kid excited to go home and light another candle with his or her family tonight and get another gift to continue to memorialize the 8 nights the lamps burned bright?

I can't help but think of all the kids in my life. My friend Ei's grandkids. She has many. I just saw an adorable picture on facebook of her youngest grandbaby, she'll be a year old soon, wearing an awesome Winter ensemble as she strolled the streets of NYC with her parents. She's only been with us for a year but I couldn't imagine her being taken away…not like that.

There are a lot of people asking us to pray. Pray for the souls of these angels, pray for the souls of the adults and pray for the soul of the killer. Pray to whom? I want a God that I don't have to pray to when something like this happens, where was this God WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING? Before it happened? Where was this God to stop the killer?

I believe in a deeply spiritual place. Something that exists in SOME OR MOST of us that is good and honest and spiritual. But who is this God that allows 20 little kids to die today? 20 little kids who were looking forward to Christmas, 20 little kids who recently sat on Santa's knee and whispered their deepest desire for whatever is currently the equivalent of a Red Rider BB Gun.

My heart breaks tonight for those families, all of them, not just the ones who lost their babies today but the ones whose babies had to be told to close their eyes so they didn't see bad things as they were led to safety and their waiting families.

Love hurts, it always hurts, even when it's happy and good it hurts in the anticipation of loss, today's losses were inconceivable. This needs to stop. It needs to stop NOW.

That 2^nd amendment that the NRA is so fond of is about bearing arms as a MILITIA, a military fighting unit when there is none, it doesn't mean that we can have semi-automatic assault weapons. Might I add, the founding father had no idea how good we'd become at inventing efficient killing machines that would bear the name "guns" same as their old, slow muskets.

Please hug your loved ones tonight and I don't care if your loved one is your spouse, your kid, your dog or your turtle, hug 'em, love 'em and feel free to be angry; we've all been stripped of something tonight, some more than others but we've all lost something and I'm fucking PISSED.

Today…in New York

I'm an NBC kinda gal. As long as I can remember I've been an NBC kinda gal. Not necessarily NBC shows but NBC news and news related shows. I never gave my NBC loyalty much thought, it was always just THERE, a family tradition as far as I can remember…we were an NBC family. The Today Show has long been the cornerstone of my NBC watching. I lived through the heartbreak of Katie breaking up with us and warmed up to Meredith after an appropriate period of mourning the loss of Katie. I cheered when Ann finally took her rightful place next to Matt and cursed them all when she was rudely dumped.

Now of course the rumors are flying that Matt will be shown the highway (though I'm not believing that one).

The bigger question though is why NBC? Why the Today Show? As their ratings continue to tank and people seem to be migrating over to GMA (I don't even know what network that's on) I had to ask myself what is it about NBC that holds my heart.

So here it is, best I can tell the NBC shows based in NYC come from Rockefeller Center and growing up in the general area as I did…Rock Center is THE CENTER OF NYC. When NBC lights a C'mas tree…they light THE CHRISTMAS TREE, sure there's some tree lighting up at Lincoln Center, but let's face it, that's like the understudy of trees.

When people gather outside of The Today Show they're gathering at Rockefeller Center not wherever those other shows broadcast from.

So maybe it's snobby of me but that's it, my comfort zone is right there where the Rockettes high kick and where the living nativity gets walked around the neighborhood each morning during the holiday season.

Oh yeah, and Brian Williams is a member of my triumvirate of awesome guys on TV (Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon round that out).