He uses mouthwash, too.

I awoke before dawn this morning, maybe 5:30 a.m., because I felt some rustling around at the foot of our bed. Sat up and saw Chickenbone laying there, gleefully chewing on some kind of toy. Only it didn't really look like any toy I had given him. For a moment I thought it was one of his rawhide treats shaped like cigars, but ... well, no, looks a little too long to be that. Doesn't really sound like that, either. So I reach down and pluck it out of his paws. Ah. OK. It's my friggin' DENTAL FLOSSER. You know what kind I mean? The long plastic wand that has those little replaceable hoops of floss on one end? Like this.

Evidently, Chickens grabbed the flosser right off the coffee table. (Guess this is where I admit that I floss while I watch TV.) But what really kills me is, it's not like he saw me flossing and immediately wanted the stick. No, he actually went to bed, slept for five hours, woke up and thought, "Ooh, I wonder if that cool stick is still out there!" He jumped off the bed and headed to the living room, and stood on his tippie-toes to drag it off the table. Then he came back to bed and enjoyed a fine little snack.

So I'm staring at the slobbery end of the stick, which was mangled all to shit, and I realize with horror that the little plastic flosser hoop? Gone. You and I both know what that means. I told my husband I was worried about it working its way through the ol' system. But he was like, "Eh, it'll be fine." And it strikes me that he's probably right. Why? Because Chickenbone's stomach has probably seen worse.

Last night, he ate a snail. It had been raining, and when we went for a walk, Chickens wasted no time in feasting on a crunchy (and some might say gourmet) little treat. A few months ago, in the middle of the night, he plucked not one, but BOTH earplugs out of my head and swallowed them. My earplugs and I were reunited 8 to 10 hours later.

Chickens has also devoured poop and barf and a whole bunch of other crap while walking around our neighborhood. You really wouldn't believe all the stuff you find on the ground when you have a dog. We live in downtown San Jose, right next to beautiful old St. James Park, and we take Chickens there three or four times a day. But there are a lot of bums there, and boy, do those bums love to throw away food! Thanks to his finely tuned sniffer and appetite, Chickens and I have discovered two withered hot dog wieners; a peach pit; a microwave burrito; an entire cheese sandwich on white bread; a green apple; and believe it or not, at least a dozen actual chicken bones. Those are his favorite, which grosses me right out. And every time he grabs something like this, I scream "Noooooooo!" while I stuff my hands into his face and pry his little jaws open. Then I wrangle his head around so his mouth faces the ground and I jiggle his head back and forth, and once in awhile, if I get very lucky, the offending object will fall out. It's not a pretty sight, and it's probably why I scare all those homeless guys a hell of a lot more than they scare me.

P.S. Here's a handsome photo of Chickens in the park!

Do you want to see a picture?

This post will be ABSOLUTELY HUGE for me, if only I can figure it out. You see, earlier, I was really hoping to post a picture of Madonna, but I'm not entirely sure about how all that works. I mean, I can't very well just go running all over the Internet posting other people's pictures on my blog, can I? Won't that break all sorts of laws or something? Won't I get in trouble? And aren't I the most conscientious journalist you ever did see?

Anyway, someone just sent me this silly photo of my husband and I taken at an event Saturday night, so maybe it's time to practice my photo-posting skills! Get ready, blog! First photo post ever!



There I am! Haha! It worked! Holy crap. (Funny: I'm pretty sure that posting my first picture made my face look EXACTLY like it does in that picture!)

Why I don't take lunch breaks.

Sometimes I'm fully convinced that I am too busy to maintain a blog.

Then I look at the clock and realize I have spent the first half hour of my shift poring over Associated Press photos from the Oscars, looking for a picture of Madonna's boobs, because I read that they looked funny in her gown.

Making his point

Him: Good night.

Me: Night!

...

Me: I'm not tired. Are you?

Him: Yes.

Me: Do you have a busy day tomorrow?

Him: Yes.

...

Me: Don't you want to talk about "Lost"?
Him: No.

...

Me: What do you want to do tomorrow night?

Him: How about I get a stick and beat you in the head?

Reno doesn't suck!

We spent the holiday weekend in Reno, celebrating my mother-in-law's 67th birthday. My mother-in-law pretty much rocks. She is beautiful and dainty and vibrant, a woman who is seriously able to ooze class and sophistication at the exact same time she declares that she's "so hungry she could eat the asshole off a skunk."

That was during our wait for breakfast in Boomtown, a funny little casino where I washed a bacon omelet down with a Bud Light, and then won $78.55 in a penny slot machine. A fine ending to a fine weekend! Before I left, people couldn't get enough of telling me how much Reno sucked. One friend sneered, saying the best thing about Reno is that "if you drive far enough, you can find a Macaroni Grill." But I'm here to tell you, people are wrong. Cheap gambling! Booze flowing! You can get a hot dog and a plastic cup of Coors for TWO DOLLARS! I ask you, what's not to love about Reno?!

We stayed at the Peppermill, a hotel and casino bulging with so much neon and mirror that it literally caused my vision to blur several times. I mean, it had to have been neon and mirror, right? No way could it have been the incredibly cheap liquor they used to make all those great free drinks! (And did you ever notice how after awhile, shitty gin smells a tiny bit like pot?)

The highlight of the trip was probably Saturday night. Unfortunately we had to leave the birthday girl behind (she had a terrible case of food poisoning), but it was fun for my husband and I to set off on our own. We started the evening with a very, very good steak dinner, and then, having grown tired of crappy alcohol, we found a bartender who could make us a real drink. He was a bit of a grizzled old fellow whose nametag said Stephen, but all the other servers called him Stevie. And let me tell you, our good friend Stevie does not give a fig about his employer's profit margin. Stevie was that swell, one-in-a-million kind of casino bartender who pretends not to notice that you're calling your liquor while playing 5-cent video blackjack. And, he brought refills (me: Sapphire and tonic, husband: mandarin and tonic) before we could even ask. Good ol' Stevie! After four or six drinks there, we visited that cool magic money wheel and each picked up an extra 30 bucks. Candy from a baby! Then we retired to a bar surrounding the "cabaret" stage, where dudes with guitars rocked out 90s hair-band tunes. Next to me sat a sweaty (but friendly) old fat man who talked my ear off about how passionately he adores tequila. Tequila this, tequila that, tequila, tequila, tequila. That's pretty much all I remember about that conversation.

Anyway, now I'm back and ready to blog some more! Thanks to everyone who reads this blog. I think now there are ... there are like eight of you! Wheeeee!

The way dogs think

Q: See a beautiful, shiny green apple sitting inexplicably in the middle of the sidewalk?

A: Wash it in a torrent of urine!

Not to mention, it's also sexist.

Got some spam today with this subject line:

"With Ultra Allure Pheromones women will run after you like dogs run after a stick."

Powerful advertising. If I'm a dude, nothing I want more than a vision of dogs gnawing on my stick.

Not very Valentine-y

At lunch today a woman told me about her worst Valentine's Day ever. The story began "When I was in the third grade, I had a crush on this boy ..." I was secretly amused by this, since MY worst Valentine's Day ever starts kind of the same way. Only I was in seventh grade, and I had simultaneous crushes on not one boy, but TWO boys who were best friends. David and Dean. Liking two guys at once seems kinda slutty now that I think about it, but back then it was all very innocent. In fact, as a younger child I fearlessly harbored crushes on five, ten, twenty boys at once. In third grade, I used my red leather-covered diary to record rankings of boys I had crushes on. Every night I would dig the little book out of a dresser drawer, unlock it with a tiny gold key, and review the list from the night before. Then I would make a new list ranking all the cute boys in my class who were fortunate enough to be the object of my incredibly discriminating taste. I was always an oddly organized child.

But anyway ... David and Dean. I'm not sure exactly why I had crushes on these boys. I mean, they were super-cute. But they hated my guts! And they were always so mean to me. Teachers would always be, like, "Amy, they are mean to you because they like you!" I always thought that was such bullshit. Still do. Anyhow, here we are, Valentine's Day, 1990. I didn't have a boyfriend, but that didn't mean I wasn't completely optimistic heading to school that day. I mean, who knows what sort of romantic surprises the boys with secret crushes on me might come up with?! So it was with a shriek of glee that I opened my locker after second period to find a gigantic heart-shaped box, trimmed with white lace and big flowery writing that said "Be My Valentine." O, can you imagine the delight?! I threw down my schoolbag and reached into the locker to retrieve my treat. Only when I picked it up, I thought, "Hm. Awfully light for a five-pound box of chocolates!" Then I opened the lid and read this message scrawled on the inside of the box:

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
you suck,
you fucking bitch.

Or, I don't know ... something like that. Something that began with "Roses are red," and something that ended with the eff and the bee. After I read it, my face grew hot and teary. Don't recall what I did next, but I do remember hearing those horrid boys cackling down the hall. To this day, I haven't the faintest idea how those assholes broke into my locker. And what I really hate about that story is that it bubbles up in my brain on this day every single year. Isn't that depressing? Isn't that sad? Well, I'll share with you the thing that always makes me feel better. I know for a fact that despite being cute and athletic in junior high, both of those guys went on to be losers as adults. And I didn't. I win!

I'm sorry when my posts are gross.

My husband and I have only been married seven months, not quite long enough to begin producing human children. We do, however, have a child of the hairy, four-legged type. This blog is named after him.

And while we have long joked about the dog being our "son" and us being "mom and dad," I'm not sure we ever enjoyed a genuine taste of parenthood until Saturday, when I awoke from a sound sleep at 4:30 a.m. to see little Chickenbone at the foot of the bed, gasping and hacking and generally causing a great big throaty commotion. Even in the dark, I could see the barf dribbling down his favorite blue blanket. Gah.

So I threw back the covers, howled at my husband to turn on the light and reached over to pluck the dog off the bed. While dad soothed the sickly hound, I frantically scrubbed the blanket in the bathroom sink, saying a prayer of gratitude that we decided to get a SMALL dog, whose SMALL stomach only produces a SMALL amount of tossed cookies. Anyway, I go back into the bedroom and we all decide that everyone is OK and it's cool to go back to sleep. As we are drifting off, I say sleepily, "Boy, it sure was considerate of Chickens to barf ONLY on the blanket and not on the freshly washed duvet cover!"

(pause)

I bolt upright and inspect the bed closer. Even in the dark, I could see the FIRST great big barf stain.

Now we decide that Chickens isn't just a little bit sick. He must be really sick. I mean, two barfs? That is friggin' sick. And while I'm dragging the duvet off the bed and flooding the stain with Shout, we decide that he probably needs a walk, because maybe he also needs to poop. This might be a good time to explain that having a dog means you talk about poop. A lot. Chickenbone's dad and I trade information on poop at least several times a day. Did Chickens poop? How much did he poop? Was it a good poop? Or was it a bad poop? Maybe it was a hard poop! Those are the worst poops of all. So it makes sense, then, that our natural reaction to his sick tummy was that he obviously could use a nice, healthy poop.

Now it's nearly 5, and we're strapping on shoes and coats, and Chickens is looking at us like we're nuts because guess what, barfing? Not that big a deal to dogs. This thought occurred to me way too late. I mean, I have watched my dog EAT barf. Someone else's barf, even. So it is seriously not the end of the world to cough a little up now and then. But drag him outside we did, on a mission to help him empty his little system of whatever else needed emptying.

And I'm really sorry if you thought that was the end of the disgusting bodily-fluid-filled evening. Because when we opened the stairwell door that leads out of our condo, we encountered two enormous puddles of diarrhea left by some thoughtful homeless person. Isn't that a wonderful new chapter of this story? Aren't you glad you kept reading? Anyway, luckily Chickens was too disoriented by the middle-of-the-night walk to notice/nibble on/roll around in that mess. The best part is, HE DIDN'T EVEN GO POTTY! We walked him around the entire block, and nothing. Which was kind of disappointing, since a little pee would have made the night some kind of crazy and impressive parenting trifecta.

Shame on you.

OK, as the owner of this blog, I know for a fact that every single Chickenbone Jones reader (there are four of you!) is not only a phenomenal speller and grammarian, but is in one way or another actually paid a wage to make sure that the words of the world are used correctly. And yet not a single one of you pointed out that I misspelled "experiment" in my inaugural post! Horrors! Now, I know the reason you probably didn't say anything is because you knew I was nervous about blogging and you didn't want me to leap off a building over one dumb misspelling. I understand that, and you are forgiven. But I'm just here to say, I know you noticed, and if I pull that sort of thing agian, you really need to sack up and let me know.

For ladies only. (Trust me.)

When you have reached age 3o, after having roughly two decades of periods, tampons, pap smears and breast exams, woudn't you think you are pretty darned well-versed in the department of all things womanly?

I thought so. And then I was perusing one of my favorite blogs (mightygirl) and I followed her link to something called The Ticker Factory. Now, Mighty is pregnant, and her post made it seem like this Ticker thing was all about the lovely little countdown to the due date. "How lovely!" I think. And then I poke around on the site a little and find this reader-submitted question:

When I check my cervical fluid before having sex it usually feels slippery. Should I record "eggwhite"?

GAAAAAH! What? The? Hell???? I mean, really, is there an entire chapter of womanhood that involves the word "eggwhite"? And what are the other options this poor thing could "record"? Margarine? Shortening? Evaporated milk? I dunno, maybe I'm excited that there appears to be even more to learn about the ol' reproductive system. Or maybe I'm alarmed. But I'm probably not eager for the day I compare anything in my uterus to items on my grocery list.

And I was on such a roll...

I'm so disappointed that I haven't written more frequently. This blog didn't do anything to deserve that kind of neglect.

I have good reasons, though. The best of them being, Lost. What you need to know here is that I wasn't smart enough to start watching Lost at the beginning like everyone else. Even way back in 2004 when people shook me wildly by the shoulders screaming "YOU MUST WATCH 'LOST'!!!!" I was like, um, no thanks, I'll stick to Survivor! Because there's no way THAT wacky and unpredictable program has jumped the shark!

Anyway, since then, every time somebody mentioned how groundbreaking and exciting this show is, I got this sinking feeling in my stomach. Like the whole country had these awesome island friends they partied with every Wednesday night, and nobody invited me. Well, when the third season rolled around, my husband and I finally forced ourselves to take a look at what we had missed. The regret was instantaneous and painful.

So with a month before season 3 was set to resume, we decided to make a run for it. We borrowed the first two seasons on DVD and watched them all. "Watched them all" doesn't sound nearly as grueling as it should. Maybe numbers would help. We watched 14 disks. That, my friend, equals 57 episodes. In. Four. Weeks.

Which even then wouldn't be so crazy, unless you knew what kind of sick-assed TV fans we really are. Unless you knew that, as our numb asses made permanent imprints on the couch cushions, where we sat bleary-eyed for four friggin' weeks, our Tivo was busily recording all the other shows we watch. And there are so, so many. Too many to count. Too many to confess to. But the thing is, they are all quality shows. My husband and I aren't the types to just flip on the TV because we are bored. We watch TV because we love TV. Because our shows are like our little babies. We love them. We looooooove them. Big shows! Little shows! Funny shows! Sad shows! Crazy shows! And we have so darned much love to go around.

Back to Lost, you can probably tell that we are now fans. So here we are, almost Wednesday night, and how nice it feels to be caught up with the rest of you.