Horndog

Pick-up lines we made up for Chickenbone, as he was violently humping my husband's arm in bed last night. It works best if you grunt and moan and thrust your hips back and forth while you say them:

"Baby, I AM the other white meat."

"There's no fuel in the tank, but the engine still runs."

"No boneless chicken here!"

(This last one you have to say in that REEEEALLY slow sexual drawl)
"Chick-en mar-SAL-a!"

That's just the kind of parents we are.

Kind of exciting, in a way

Dude, I had so many great plans for the post I was going to write today, all these neat vacation stories and photographs and witty updates on life in general. But now I don't have time to write! I gotta go home! WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY, MAN!!!!! So, you know that big, huge, beautiful peppercorn tree in our back yard? Well, giant piece snapped off the top! And it made a loud snapping noise! And .... and ... now everything looks like this!

I mean, remember how the yard looked back when I wrote this? Yeah, that gigantic green thing covering half the house? NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. Worst part is, that huge crazy broken part is resting on two other limbs. And me? I'm thinking that those other limbs probably ain't all that stable, since BRANCHES WITH NOTHING RESTING ON THEM WHATSOEVER apparently can't hold it together. So now we are frantically calling around to find an emergency tree guy to come over and, I don't know, do whatever the tree guys do in these situations. And if tree guy is smart, he'll charge me lots and lots of money because at this point I would pretty much pay any amount to make my beautiful yard stop looking like that.

No longer newly wed

Let's see, one year ago today I was running around town like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to finish umpteen-million last-minute wedding preparations. Meanwhile, Sal was at home, tasked with typing in and printing out place cards for our 162 guests. Therefore I was surprised when I walked in the front door and saw that, in fact, this had not happened. And by "surprised" I mean "ready to skin someone alive with my bare, but beautifully manicured, hands." The computer was dark, a bunch of ink-smeared, crunched-up labels were strewn about the room, and in the middle of the mess sat Sal looking slightly fearful of his wild-eyed bride.

But before I could go all waah-ooh-waaaah-don't-you-care-about-our-wedding on him, I realized what was going on: Evidently our printer hated the place cards I bought at Target. Chewed them up and spit them out. So realizing how likely I was to explode into full-on bridezilla mode if I came home to no place cards, Sal ditched the printer idea and began to write them out individually.

By hand.

In CALLIGRAPHY.

That, friends, is the kind of man I married. The kind of man who, two weeks after he proposed, bought a calligraphy kit at Barnes and Noble and spent hours at our kitchen table teaching himself the craft. I lost track of how many days it took for him to hand-address all our invitations. They were exquisite. And because he had ALL that practice, it was no trouble for him to crank out the place cards, too.

I married a man who saves the day, all the time, sometimes even saving the day multiple times in the exact same day.

So off we go to Southern California to celebrate one year of matrimonial good times. We're headed first to Los Angeles, where we'll see John Williams and the L.A. Philharmonic perform movie music at the Hollywood Bowl. And the Dodgers. Then we'll enjoy a few sunny days in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo before heading home. When we return, I'm sure I'll have many fine vacation tales to tell, and hopefully this time they won't end with a syringe in my spine. See ya!

P.S. Thanks, Gamy, for the hilarious anniversary card!

Breakfast with dad

He'd very much enjoy a refill, please.

Score!

A major topic of conversation around our house lately: How do you buy a whole bunch of new furniture with, oh, hmm, let's say, zero dollars?

Evidently we have a tough time picking our priorities. But priorities aren't easy when you ABSOLUTELYFRICKINGNEED four dozen things. For example, the guest bedroom and dining room are empty, except for one desk. So we need a bed, plus a dining table and chair set. We also need a dresser for the master bedroom, since our closet is so small. Oh, and we're also going on vacation next week for our one-year wedding anniversary, so, you know, the ol' money tree ain't exactly in full bloom.

One plan we thought could save money is to buy a new master bedroom set. We could put our current bed in the guest room, and also solve the dresser problem, all at once. Problem is, buying a new master bedroom set? Turns out there's not a whole lot of "saving money" going on there. Everything is so just so ridiculously overpriced, and gigantic, and ... I don't know ... EXPENSIVE! AND HUGE! Those, too! And I don't like 17-piece matching sets. And stuff that looks like it belongs to someone's parents. OK, Macy's furniture gallery? OK, crappy furniture stores with those creepy hose-monsters billowing out in front? (Seriously, how does anybody think those scary-assed things will make me want to buy something?!)

So, we turn to the used-furniture market. The guest bed is goal No. 1, as we have visitors coming this summer, and nothing is more worthless than having a house but not having a proper place for folks to sleep. So I go to Craigslist and find a full bed that is described as having "some minor damage on corners from regular use." Um, ew. Then I e-mailed about another and inquired how old the mattress set is. Guy says he doesn't know, which I'm thinking is not a good sign. I quickly realize that getting a new bed is really the only way to go, so on Sunday night with exactly 16 minutes remaining in the 4TH! OF JULY! ANNUAL! BLOWOUT! SALE! we bought a brand-new bed. Now you are free visit without the fear of catching a disease from all the "regular use."

Buying this bed unclogged the whole process, as now we were free to just buy one dresser, as opposed to an entire set. So I kept my eyes peeled on Craigslist, and yesterday morning I made the most wonderful find -- an antique dresser for $225. I headed over to this warehouse last night to see it, and it really is beautiful. It's beat-up, and in desperate need of a paint job, but it's solid, roomy, and best of all, it's interesting. NO! Strike that! Best of all, I wheeled and dealed my way to getting it for $200, PLUS the woman delivered it right to my house! Dude. That means all our immediate problems were solved for $750, which is far less than what we would have paid for a new set of anything. So, let's hear it for used shit!

Here are a couple photos of the new dresser. (Not pictured: Me doing backflips because now we can stop living out of cardboard boxes and garbage bags.)

Eloquent

Excerpt from a Yelp review:

The day I accept New York style audacity from a Los Angeles restaurant is the day I am run over by an MTA train, halved from the balls below, and am forced to dine exclusively at places that excuse my leaking colostomy bag because I pay them exorbitant sums derived from my insurance settlement.

Yep, still cranky!

First of all, it's hot. And I'm wearing one of those shirts that, when you pull it out of the clean laundry, appears to be a perfectly fine shirt. But if you are like me and you sweat like a goddamn sow when it's really hot, it just takes a couple hours for the previously invisible deodorant stains on the armpits to get yellow and crisp. THIS PISSES ME RIGHT OFF. If it didn't mean I would have to sit at my desk wearing just my bra, I would throw this asshole shirt in the trash right now.

OK, so also, last night I ordered a poached salmon salad for dinner. But the salmon was mealy, and the slices of avocado were crisp, like carrots. That is just wrong. So I only ate half. Then I went to see a play, and I had to sit next to a woman who smelled like hamsters. So I sat with my head turned toward Sal, who always smells nice, and then just craned my eyes sideways toward the stage so as to not hurl in my own lap. This morning, I broke a beautiful globe wine glass. (Doing dishes, not drinking, though now I wish that wasn't so.) And today for lunch I tried another salad, but the mushrooms were dark, stinky and gross. Remembering what happened last time I had a fight with bad mushrooms, I threw half of it away.

And another thing: POOCH, YOU ARE KILLIN' ME.

I'm certain my dark mood is partly due to sleep deprivation, since every morning for a week now, I wake up because Chickenbone's tongue is poking into my mouth bright and early at 7 a.m. Now, 7 is not an approved household wake-up time. A good rule of thumb is 8 or later. And not only is Chickens generally a strict follower of this rule, he's usually the LAST one out of bed, at 9, or even 10. So I don't know if it's the heat or the sunlight or what, but every morning this week has gone like this: Chickens frenches me, I sputter awake and briefly consider cracking him upside his wee hairy head, and then he does something so cherubic and adorable that I melt. Like, he'll drag over his stringy rope and lay it on my chest. Or he'll bury his little face in the crook of my neck, tail wagging under the covers. So we lay there cuddling for a few minutes, and I keep drifting back to sleep, but every time I doze off I get the tongue again. Or, worse, the deliberate paw scratch across the cheek. So after about 15 minutes of this, I give up. I put on my slippers and stumble to the kitchen to make coffee.

The best part is, this is when the little beast curls up and goes back to sleep. Next to my husband. In my spot.

Head. on. my. pillow.

That dog, he's no dumbass.