Must Love Dogs

Once upon a time, there was a magical dog named Falcor. No, not the good luck dragon from The Neverending Story. I'm talking about the half black lab, half golden retriever wonder dog whose full name was Falcor Bean Elmo Roach Rigatti. Falcor was a good pup, but he had one weakness -- bitches (and I say that in the most proper female-dog sense only). Seriously, though. He was a womanizer. Even as a senior citizen, he managed to sire a litter of puppies with a mutt who will remain nameless, thus leaving his legacies -- Bubby, Chewy, Peaches, and Stewball. As newborns, it was hard to tell if they would take after their mother or their father, as they could only be described as "pop bottles with legs." When it was time to be weened, Stewball soon found a home with the owner of a pizza parlor and lived a happy life until he fell victim to a reckless driver. Any time I heard "Only the Good Die Young," I can't help but think of dear Stewball. Peaches lived with her father for the majority of her childhood, until she was given to a family friend. Hopefully she is still out there somewhere, making her father proud. And that leaves Bubby and Chewy, the inseparable brothers. A wise man once said of them, "They are one dog in two bodies." The two boys lived out many adventures together until one day, Bubby, at a ripe old age, succombed to liver failure. Now the lone pet of the household, Chewy mourned his brother's loss, but also suddenly realized the benefits of being the newly crowned king. One such benefit is the receiving of all the family pet Christmas gifts. This Christmas, Chewy received a dog bed. He is used to sleeping on the carpeted floors, or occassionally sneaking onto a spare bed, but we thought his old bones could use some support, so Jonathan and Emily invested in a bed for him. Their college-student penny-pinching ways first led them to buy a bed that was a bit too small for a dog Chewy's size, which led to some entertaining photo opportunities, but that bed was eventually exchanged for a proper one -- one that Chewy still cannot quite get the hang of. See, for example, the scene last night:



A little smooshed, but so far, so good.

And then we have this...


I guess what they say about old dogs learning tricks is true in his case. Still, no matter if he never learns a new trick again, Chewy and his bloodline will always be remembered as quite the special members of the canine family.

Season's Greetings from the Psychotic Gingerbread Man

My company has an annual competition at the Western PA School for the Deaf for the best holiday illustration. The employees get to vote on their favorite, and the winning design is sent out on the company Christmas cards. There are a large variety of age levels and artistic abilities represented in the choices, which sometimes leads me to wonder what would happen if certain less attractive designs actually received the most votes. Would the company really allow that to be the winner, even if it's not picture perfect? This year, I had a clear favorite, and Beth and I tried to campaign to get it votes, but it only ended up with an honorable mention. Some day, I would like to meet the child that drew this picture and find out where they got their idea of what a gingerbread man looks like. I hope their parents save this drawing until they are old enough to appreciate its humor. Maybe I'll just have to ditch the half-off Martha Stewart Christmas cards I bought for next year and make my own cards featuring the Psychotic Gingerbread Man instead.

Generic, yet Intriguing Post

Even though I didn't fall into the category of those tagged by Katie, since I had in fact updated within a week of when she posted, I will succomb to the blog gods and complete this "five things you don't know about me" entry. Actually, I'm just bored and don't have a more interesting topic to write about, so here goes:

1. I crave candy or chocolate from the moment I wake up in the morning. In fact, I just finished an entire box of Necco conversation hearts (minus five white ones), and I haven't even left the bedroom yet.

2. I don't like kids and don't know if I ever want to have ones of my own. Yes, this is odd, coming from someone with a degree in Elementary Education, but let's just say that Grove City didn't offer a large choice of majors. Sure, kids are sometimes cute and do say the darndest things, but the thought of actually raising them and dealing with them on a daily basis is just not appealing to me at this point in my life. Who wants to think about rearing a moody teenager when they're not that far out of the moody-teenager stage themselves?

3. I love money. I know, I know. The love of money is the root of all evil, but I can't help enjoying seeing the flow of cash into and out of (mostly the latter) our checkbook. I enjoy putting things in our budget and planning for expenditures. If that makes me evil, so be it. Maybe I should have been an accountant.

4. I think that time never goes slower than when you're waiting for a microwave to cook. That's not exactly about me, but it can still count. I used to race the clock and see how many laps around the kitchen, squats, or other various activities I could do before the microwave stopped, and the numbers always exceeded my expectations.

5. I'm somewhat of a hypochondriac. I've recently started watching House, which is an incredible show, yet now I feel the need to document all of my daily experiences so that if I accidentally touch the garage door and then eat a cookie, thus transferring a deadly bacteria to my innards, the diagnostician will be able to figure out what's wrong with me without having to biopsy my brain first. Really, though, I have a lot of aches and pains that I continuously wonder if they are something more serious. Most likely, they're nothing, but coming from a person who's had shingles, many broken bones, kidney stones, and more, I don't think I'm being that unreasonable.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Coming Attractions

Since it seems perfectly acceptable in Hollywood to make film after film about white teachers "reforming" black students, a.k.a. the plot of the new Hilary Swank movie Freedom Writers and Dangerous Minds before that, Guy and I came up with a few of our own ideas.

At the risk of sounding racist or at least horribly un-p.c., our first movie is called The Bravest Mulatto. It's a heartwarming tale of the students at Lincoln High, where there's lots of racial rivalry. Then the mulatto comes (possibly a mulatto teacher) and feels like he is on both sides. He unites the groups. Then they win the basketball championship. It has all the ingredients of a box-office success.

The sequel is called The Minorities That Could. Same school, different group of students. It goes straight to DVD.

Fame & fortune, here we come!

*Watch for our other feature films involving white ballet dancers falling in love with black hip-hop dancers. Apparently this is another genre, if you can call it that, where there's no shame in making the same movie twice and calling it two different things.