Sit, STAY…

Dogs are funny, aren’t they? We, as humans, are expected to train these mammals to obey certain basic commands so that they become upstanding members of society. They should be able to “sit” and “stay” and do a few other things of that nature.

But what really happens after years of sharing your life with an animal (or three)? What do they know or hear or understand? Most mornings when they wake me it really is time to start my day. It’s up and at ‘em time but not on weekends. In most cases I can go back to bed.

This morning was one such example. I could go back to bed. We went through the usual “go out, get fed” ritual but then when my boy was ready to jump back into the sack for some extra shut-eye with his daddy (yeah, we’re mommy and daddy, make something of it, I dare you; we’re mammals, they’re mammals, and they were adopted, so there). I let him in the bedroom so I could take care of some (ahem) personal things before returning to bed. When I walked into the bedroom there was my boy, comfortable with his body where mine should be and his head on my pillow. Cute, sweet, but in my way because I could actually lie down again and dammit, that was my goal. .

I took one look at him, rolled my eyes and said, “Tugg, really? Move somewhere out of MY WAY.” Sure ‘nuff, he scooched over so I could snuggle in without disturbing his post-breakfast nap. .

How do they know? Does he understand my words, my eye-rolling, can he read my mind? .

Dogs know more than they’re sayin’, because they aren’t (technically) saying anything. Just today I read (actually watched) about the find of more than $2 million US dollars in some phone cable headed to Venezuela, who found it? A dog. Dogs can find cancer, detect a seizure, sniff out drugs and diabetes but we treat them like they’re some kind of idiots simply because they can’t say, “yo, you shouldn’t eat that, you’re on track for some serious Type 2 diabetes by next year this time.” Would we listen to them as attentively if they COULD say that? I think not. I think they know better which is why they have their own sneaky way of communicating with us. .

If they just blurted things out like we humans do they wouldn’t be taken as seriously as they are for their more covert communication style. .

Pay attention folks, that dog is talkin’ to YOU!

Shop like ya mean it….

People don’t go to Costco to shop. They THINK they go to Costco to shop but they are really going there for an afternoon of free food and socializing. It’s true. You go to Costco with the intention of buying 3 lbs. of bananas, 5 pounds of chicken wings and 3 dozen eggs and you leave with a $100 pool float.

I’d like to go on the record that I DID NOT leave with that $100 pool float (I really didn’t) but I’ll bet that a lot of other folks did.

Costco’s marketing department is BRILLIANT. For a nominal fee you get to be a member of this private little club where they sell stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. The trick is to get out of the store with ONLY WHAT YOU NEED. Is a 5 pound bag of wings a good idea? Sure, they do okay in the freezer for a while and if you’ve got teen-agers you can blow through that in one busy weekend, yes they qualify as a good purchase.

The hot tub I bought at Costco, EXCELLENT PURCHASE. Yuppers, that one was a bargain and the customer service was amazing, delivered it right up to where it was supposed to go, quick and easy. Oh and that was a PLANNED purchase we were actually LOOKING for a new hot tub it wasn’t an impulse purchase in the warehouse.

That’s the danger zone…the store itself. The pretty, shiny new objects all over the place, they drag you down quickly and completely.

It’s easy to get sucked into the spirit of the whole retail event as they stuff you every few feet with some other delectable treat, some new way to serve up salad dressing or salsa. It’s just like being at the county fair or your town’s founders’ day. You eat and run into people you know. Every time I’ve been in Costco all of the display seating for whichever season of the year is currently being pitched is full of people chatting each other up. Currently there are some lovely sets of outdoor furniture gracing the warehouse floor and each one was a living vignette showing happy people chowing down and catching up with each other.

In the middle of this social experiment are strategically placed items like that aforementioned $100 pool float. I was drawn to it. The box was lovely; it showed a young woman drifting on this item surrounded by a clear blue sea. The thing itself is about the size of one of Costco’s much loved dog beds (they really are a good purchase there, inexpensive, pretty and good quality) and it claims to be like floating on a cloud. That’s all well and good but it also costs $94.99 plus tax. I have a few pool floats that I bought over the past few years at the Five and Below store that work pretty well and if I only get one season out of it, well, it was $5 (or below).

The more I fixated on the $100 pool float the more I realized the beauty of Costco’s marketing. Here was this thing that did not fold up and store easily but cost $100. Let’s do the math on this little item. In the Northeast it is often said that Summer lasts approximately from Memorial Day to Labor Day weekend which, depending on the calendar that year, is roughly 100 days. Do you really go in your pool all 100 of those days? Nope. Some days are too cold, some days it rains and other days you’re just too busy. Hell fifty days is even a long shot but if we go with that number it comes down to costing you two dollars a day for this pool float. It just doesn’t add up for me. And here’s what’s gonna happen with said pool float. Summer will end and you’ll pack away all the Summer stuff; you’ll do your best to make sure everything is dry and packed up nicely. Those $5 pool floats will be deflated, dried up and rolled into a nice little, easy-to-store ball. Simple. But that $100 float that’s not gonna store so well is it? You’re gonna toss it in the shed or garage or basement and over the course of the long, cold winter things will happen to it. It’ll grow a little mold, it’ll stiffen up a bit (losing it’s “cloudlike feel”), it’ll just become dingy and next Spring as Memorial Day looms large in the future you’ll unpack it, shake your head at it and toss it to the curb.

Then you’ll head over to Costco to buy 5 pounds of chicken wings and 3 dozen eggs and you’ll be sucked into the next best $100 thing that you have no use for.
It’s brilliant, it really is.

I can think of a whole bunch of stuff that are smart things to buy at Costco but that isn’t why people go there, they think they are going there to “shop smart” but they’re really going there to be lured into consumer bliss.

I’ve gotten better of late. Much better. I don’t buy 5 pounds of grapes for a family of two, I go to a regular ol’ grocery store and buy 1 or 2 pounds of grapes so that we can enjoy them before they become unidentifiable mush in the fridge. I make a list now when I go to Costco and I try REALLY, REALLY hard not to be swayed. But I see it all around me, people slurping down free food, socializing and buying $100 pool floats.

Oh retail bliss, what suckers we are.

One plaintive bark

I woke up on Friday morning to one plaintive bark. Not a frantic bark or frantic barking. Not a whine. It was just one bark, in the hallway outside our bedroom.

We have three rescued Australian Cattledogs. The third one, like in so many families, was an “accident”. She was supposed to be a foster and she WAS a foster. We adopted her out once but she got returned to us ten days later and she’s been ours for keeps for nearly two years now. She’s a bit jittery sometimes. She’s more hyper than the other two and she’s still pretty young. Hubby won’t let her sleep in the bedroom, he says she twitches; she kinda does twitch.

She’s definitely the one I wanted to be ambivalent about; I didn’t want to love her, she was just “the third dog”. That plan failed.

She tries harder, I swear she does. She’s funnier, sillier and more sincere than the other two.

That one plaintive bark said, “mom, I want you to get up. The sun is up, I’m a cattledog and get up with the sun…and I probably have to go potty; so mom, will you please get up?” It was such an honest communication. No human has ever communicated as simply and sincerely as my little girl did at 5:34 Friday morning.

Maybe we’re learning though. Just maybe us humans are figuring out who our teachers are. This story in USA Today says that there are now more households with dogs than with kids. I’m one of them. I was shocked to find out that there were more like me. Wow, what does it all mean?

Who cares? I love it.

I don’t love 5:34AM so much but when it comes with that sweet little “WOOF” I guess it sounds a bit like a love song. Secretly I’m looking forward to that next little morning “WOOF”, it reminds me of how good life is. Smart dog.

Summertime and the livin’ is easy

Try some of these…

This first one might sound odd but trust me, okay? It’s an awesome Summer dessert and if you’re having company this one is super sophisticated sounding, looking, smelling, all those things…

• Buy a store bought angel food cake (it’s Summer dude, don’t bake it, BUY IT, don’t be a hero)
• In a bowl put a wedge of the angel food cake.
• Pile on some fresh blackberries and sliced strawberries
• Drizzle some black cherry balsamic vinegar over this. You can buy this awesomely divine vinegar here: http://carterandcavero.com/vinegars/balsamic-vinegars (I tried to make this a live link but blogger didn't seem to like it very much so you'll have to copy/paste the link)
• Top with some whipped cream (this you can make fresh if you’re so inclined)
• Then top the whipped cream with some coarse ground walnuts.

Yeah, it’s amazing. I mean REALLY amazing. It’s also really easy to make and sounds like something a swanky restaurant would serve with some amazing marketing copy on the menu to sell it.

What kind of drink are ya gonna serve with this awesomeness? A coffee drink, natch!

Make a big ol’ jug of iced coffee well in advance (I always have this on hand).

• Put a lot of ice in a blender
• Put in two shots of vanilla vodka
• Dump in two shots of Bailey’s caramel Irish crème liquor
• Dump in 4 shots of that iced coffee
• Blend that whole thing up and serve in frosty cold stemmed glasses.

If something creamy isn’t your thing here’s a lighter alternative…

• For this one put ice in a shaker (bartending supplies, it’s that big silver cup)
• Put in that vanilla vodka (one or two shots, to taste)
• Two or four shots of that iced coffee (see above)
• Shake up the coffee and vanilla vodka until FROSTY cold then strain into a martini glass ALMOST to the top.
• Top off the glass with some vanilla seltzer (Polar makes this, good luck finding it if you’re not near a Wegman’s)

This drink is light and refreshing and you can stay awake AND get drunk, note that you may need to add your sweetener of choice to this one since there really is nothing very sweet in it but if you’re into coffee au naturel then don’t mess with the sweetener of choice.

If you’d like something fruity, frozen and fun here’s one of those…

• Put a pile of ice in your blender
• Toss in two shots of (Absolut) Mango (or Peach) vodka
• Four shots of Trop 50 orange juice (I say Trop 50 because really, you want to save those calories for the good stuff)
• A shot of peach schnapps
• Blend this up until it’s the consistency of a smoothie and serve in stemmed glasses

This one is dangerous, it tastes yummy good and is frosty cold, they go down the gullet smooth as silk and POOF you’re DRUNK! Plan to NOT drive when drinking these. Hell, plan to not do much of anything except perhaps have fun.

So those are my early-Summer dining suggestions, notice there’s no “real” food in these suggestions; if you can’t figure out how to toss a burger and/or a hot dog on your grill and make yourself a salad then you’ve got bigger problems than I can cure here.

Go forth this weekend and make merry, it’s FINALLY SUMMER.

Power Play

Gov. Christie, NJ, I’m not a fan. If you’ve seen the recent news he’s big (well, if you’ve seen his BUTT he’s BIG) in the minds of the Republican Party as a potential presidential candidate and also for his helicopter rides to his son’s little league games.

Here’s the problem. His response embodies the typical parent move these days. He’s just trying to do BOTH his jobs. Look, it was HIS CHOICE to run for governor AND it was his choice to be a dad so if you can’t juggle those two things without the assistance of a taxpayer funded helicopter then you aren’t doing a very good job at BOTH of your jobs.

Us Childfree by Choice people often feel ourselves getting’ a tad riled when a co-worker uses their children as excuses to get special privileges. The governor of NJ isn’t the only one cashing in on his “parent” status to get some extra perqs. It happens all the time when someone leaves early from work to pick up a sick child or brings their sick child to the office. There’s an expectation that those of us without kids will pick up the slack or be understanding of their special needs. I’m not. Not often anyway.

Christie just happens to be a public worse-case scenario. If he feels the need to use a state helicopter to get to a little league game then he may need to give up one job to attend to the other. I can’t stand Sarah Palin either (oh can I NOT stand that woman) but at least she had the good common sense to quit her job as governor to go after her own self-serving needs instead of cashing in on the taxpayer’s dime(s).

That leads me to another thought altogether. Why in the WORLD would anyone want to seek political office? My BA is in psychology but Oooooo how I’d love to pursue a PhD in psych and specialize in the political mind (if there actually IS one). What is it in a person that makes them want to run for office? Do they have some sort of savior complex? Do they actually believe that they’ll be the one to save the day? No politician, no matter how well he (or she) does is ever lauded as great, especially not during their time in office (sometimes not even while they’re alive). Who wants that type of job?

I really want to know the answer to this. I want some politician to dig deep down into their soul and tell me the truth. Tell me why they wanna be president or governor or even mayor but I guess the first thing they need to do is tell themselves that answer. Is anyone honest with themselves? Do they know in the pit of their soul somewhere that they’re pursuing this because of the power of the position? Are they honest enough to know that they’d enjoy the public aspect of it all?

What the fuck? Candidates, why you doin’ it? No one really makes a difference in office, you’re all tied to the system you want to change. As soon as you get into office you realizes you’re faced with insurmountable obstacles you can’t change for all the purported power in the world.

I’m not sayin’ no one should go into politics, I guess if that happened our political system would implode into itself and I’m not sure quite how I feel about that but I think all of us need to get a little more honest about those politicians we’re electing. They aren’t saints. They do dumb shit. They exploit the power of their office, they don’t have all the answers, they have their own agendas, basically it’s a hot mess that we just have to hope can be mitigated a little tiny bit with good luck and good intentions.

I still don’t like Governor Christie and Sarah Palin leaves my mouth agape but could we ALL admit that those assholes running for office will never be perfect…just like the rest of us fuck-ups?

Thanks and have a good night.

Honey or Vinegar

I honestly wasn’t going for that 20% discount. I swear I wasn’t.

I live in a rather resort-y area so the first long weekend of the pseudo-Summer (because Summer doesn’t start until late June which makes Memorial Day weekend “pseudo Summer”) is a BIG DEAL where I live. Roads are congested, bars are packed, and forget about eating in a restaurant.

Hubby and I were doing the usual early-Summer stuff of deciding what we needed, what was broken, etc. I decided to take a trip to K-mart which is pretty close-by. Sure, they must have a hammock or two and some fans and one of those glass sun tea jugs, right?

Why? Why did I think that K-mart was the answer to my needs? No hammocks, the selection of fans left much to be desired and the sun tea jugs were some hideous plastic that I couldn’t imagine drinking something from. Bad move.

I bought a few fans and some sunscreen, spent way too long in line and headed to Bed, Bath and Beyond which should’ve been my first choice anyway.

I can actually get to the Bed, Bath by me without getting onto a highway which should’ve been my first clue to why this would’ve been a better choice but I was thinking “discount store” not “pretty comforter store”.

Bed, Bath was a like a consumer’s dream date on a holiday weekend. They had a ton of staff on and each and every one of those staff members was polite, helpful and attentive without being obnoxious. It was amazing.

I buzzed through the store, I found the hammocks. They had a wide selection, hmmm. After some thought I chose the striped fabric one. I looked at their fans and immediately had buyer’s remorse about the crappy ones I just bought at K-mart but decided to soldier on. I couldn’t find any sun tea jugs so I asked an employee who, I admit, looked like he wasn’t gonna be all that helpful but to my surprise he led me directly to my desired item. AMEN!

I got to the front of the store and someone asked if I was ready to checkout and led me to a register where she cheerfully checked me out and wished me well. Truth be told the whole front-end was littered with helpful employees moving people quickly through the checkout process.

I normally go to Bed, Bath when I have one of their many, many, many 20% off coupons. They seem to send them out weekly and will honor them FOREVER (go ahead and try it, they never care if it’s expired). I had no coupons which broke my cheap little heart.

I got home and tried to put up the new hammock only to discover that the fabric seemed a bit flimsy and it was too short for our hammock frame. After a quickie beachfront bike ride I made a return trip to Bed, Bath. It was creeping up on 7PM by then and the area seemed to have slowed down to a peaceful simmer. Everyone that was on their way had arrived at their destination. The roads were passable, the stores were empty, it was delightful.

I went to the courtesy desk in Bed, Bath with my recently purchased hammock and explained that I needed to return it and why. The young man behind the counter (though quite dorky, a toast to dorks everywhere) was very pleasant and helpful. I promised him I’d be right back with my alternate hammock purchase.

On my way back a female employee asked if I needed help or was ready to checkout, I thanked her but explained I was exchanging an item. She joined the young man behind he courtesy desk and started to do some retail-ish tasks.

I asked if either of them was the store manager, the female employee said that she was the front-end manager in charge and asked if there was anything she could do for me. She did NOT ask if there was a problem which was really nice of her to not assume that everything equals a problem. I told her that all I wanted to do was let a manager know what an absolutely pleasant experience I’d had shopping in that store TWICE today. I told her that my K-mart experience was less than desirable but that my experience in that particular Bed, Bath store had been truly lovely.

During this little discourse the young man was doing my exchange, he asked if I had any coupons and I told him that, sadly, no, I had no coupons today. The manager leaned over and swiped something and punched in something and PRESTO…I had 20% off my purchase just as though I’d trotted in with one of those blue and white coupons many of us are so used to.

What was today’s lesson? That just like momma always said, “ya get more with honey than you do with vinegar”.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend and remember the people who serve this wonderful country this weekend as you enjoy your hot dogs and beer!

Shake yo’ groove thang, babeeee

I think the thing about inertia is that you don’t realize you’ve actually become inert. It’s true. When you’re in it you’re just too close to it. When you get out of it you can’t believe you didn’t notice sooner.

I just shook loose of a ten year bout of inertia. I suppose the inertia wasn’t the full ten years. The first few years I’m sure I wasn’t actually inert; you tend to achieve that state over time, it doesn’t just happen at the outset of something.

There I was plodding through the days at the same company year after year. It didn’t really hold much meaning for me. Over some time I stopped having to engage my brain each day for my job. It was just there.

Actually the only activity the job provided me was finding new and better ways to avoid it. I sought ever more creative ways to avoid going there each day. I’d look for reasons to be out of the office, sick, vacation, personal, business travel, offsite meetings, you name it I’d find it. I also noticed I’d developed a creative edge at shortening my work days, I’d come in later, leave earlier. My focus wasn’t on work but on getting out of that office as much as possible.

Coupled with that was this feeling that I couldn’t get out of that job. That I’d be left stranded, unemployed and unemployable if I left. I had this feeling that it was the last job on earth. I couldn’t leave it no matter how much I dreaded it.

Previously this was NEVER me. I would change jobs every four years or so. I was on the move, ever onward and upward but once that solid brick of inertia landed in my lap I was immobile.

I’ve officially been at a new job for just four days. It’s been nice. It really has. The benefits aren’t as good, some of the “policies” are better; there are distinct differences to be sure. One thing I need to do to complete the disconnect; I need to stop making those comparisons. It’s not the same, plain and simple. I’ve moved on. Certainly if you take into account my title and salary I’ve moved onward AND UPWARD but the most important thing right now, right this minute, is that I’ve moved ON.

What I feel more than anything else is freedom. I actually feel like I have options. It’s an odd feeling to have just started a new job but to also feel like I could move on if I had to. Right now I don’t want to but I like…no wait, I LOVE the feeling of freedom again; the feeling of being accountable to ME. My inertia at my previous job tipped the balance of power over my life away from me and onto the inertia (not really onto my previous company), I felt that I couldn’t move on, I was out of the game.

Now I feel like I’m back in the game and it feels GOOD.

I had to clean out ten years of crap from my old office. I loaded up box after box and dumped them in my car. My initial intention was to just transfer those boxes from my car to my new office but the fact was that I had no room for groceries in my car so I brought the boxes into the basement where they remain. I brought nothing into my new office from my previous life! Even that felt refreshing and new. I plan to go through the boxes and bring in select items that are useful to me. I plan to print out all new pix of the dogs to put in my office. It’s a new beginning for me.

I’m not going to claim that this is going to be perfect from a job perspective, but for right now, I feel like a new person in so many ways.

I feel like I’m shakin’ my groove thang, and I think I like it.