I am groovy and rockin!

1-29-10

“Mom, Luna is a girl, right?” Bobby asks me yesterday as we are playing out back. I confirm this and he proceeds to ask me why it looks like she has a penis. It is reasonable observation based on what a dog’s underside looks like.

The conversation is light hearted and he starts asking about other animals and what their penises look like. He asks about birds and cats and even people to some degree. It is amusing, and I am impressed with his inquisitive mood.

Then the conversation turned dark. I don’t remember the exact transition but I can safely say you don’t ever want to hear your 4 year old say this to you.

“You are going to die soon.”

He said it matter of fact. It was like those creepy children of the corn or the kid from that Twilight Zone episode. Blond haired kids should never tell a grown up that they are supposed to die.

He clarified, sort of, what he meant. He went on to tell me that since I am old (cause that makes things better) that I was soon going to leave this world. I tried to explain that I wasn’t going to die for a long time (I hope!).

At this point, he almost made me cry.

“When you and daddy die, how will we be a family?”

Oh. My. God. Kid, you’re killing me!

I explained that when Daddy and I die, he will hopefully have kids of his own and an even bigger family. I also said the cheese ball crap of how even if we die we are never not a family and that we are always in his heart. He then said this.

“Mom, I will be really sad if you die and I will cry.”

It took every once of strength to not burst into tears myself and I quickly hugged him and told him that crying for someone who dies is normal and ok.

I was still reeling from his heartfelt words in the midst of the hug when he pulled away and said, “There’s a bad guy! I am going to shoot him to protect you!” He then ran off with his horseshoes (they were his shooting guns), killing various bad guys in the yard, oblivious to the ache he placed in my heart.

On the plus side, during my conversation with Bobby, Dax came up to us, only seconds after Bobby asked about us still being a family, and says to me, “Hey mom, you know what? I tooted!” He then proceeded to giggle and ran off. It is good that Dax still is lighthearted.

Our backyard time was actually quite good aside from the kid fucking with the hypochondriac. It was a much needed romp for all involved. With the rains, the yard had been a swamp land for the last week. Yesterday was the first real day that you could go out there without fear of sinking into the ground. I was able to clean up all of the Luna stuff which included a pile of roofers nails and various toys that were strewn about. I did not get to the bucket of aquarium rocks that she felt needed to be spread out on the driveway.

I played fetch with Luna for some time. Lycos didn’t want to play and just seemed happy to have us all out there as she destroyed some random ball she had found. I clearly had tired out Luna, so I thought I would take this opportunity to work on some training with her. Ok, I joke that my dog is a total blonde groupie. She is dingy, clutsy, and obsessed with the rock star that is Lycos. But I clearly underestimated just how smart she is.

We used the leash, a choke chain and a few pieces of cat food (I couldn’t find the dog treats I had purchased for this very purpose). We worked on “sit” first. She had it down pretty damn quick. We then worked on walking around on the leash and having her sit when I stop. She is funny about that since she will sit, but behind me a few inches. It is very cute, too, since she still sits on her full butt instead of her back legs. We then worked on stay, which she did shockingly well. I also worked on “come”, which includes her sitting in front of me when she gets to me. All of these she did wonderfully. Not too shabby being this was the first semi formal training I was doing with her. Sure, we had been working lightly on many things like “stay” and “basket”, but nothing where she got rewarded so greatly and did it over and over. I was super impressed. She is, after all, a golden retriever. They are supposed to be quite bright, but it isn’t something you realize until you really start working with one. I have to admit, it was a real pleasure. I also had forgotten how rewarding it is to train a dog. I loved how happy she was when she did something good. I was excited when she and I were in sync. Of course her training wasn’t perfect, but I loved the process. I didn’t push her for too long, maybe 20 minutes or so. But even after the official training time, we kept going back to many of the commands, making sure she knew that this was not just a game. One of the best things was the confirmation of my feeling that has always been, dogs love to be trained. Luna pretty much doesn’t leave my side now, but after the training, she was practically attached to me. It was clear to me that she appreciated the praise and the bonding and I feel confident that Luna is devoted. I had really wanted to make sure that she had some basic stuff learned for our trip to the compound in a couple weeks, and I feel like we are off to a good start. My big concern is that she will bound off into the forest and not come back. Ken pointed out that Luna just won’t do that since if Lycos and myself are present, she won’t venture far.

Before I even got home yesterday afternoon, there was adventure. Ken calls me maybe 15 minutes before I was heading out to go home. He tells me to not freak out when I walk in the door since there is a rat in a cage. Of course, that would not freak me out for a number of reasons. One, I like rats. We had rats so they don’t freak me out or make me run for a chair. My most importantly, does anything shock me anymore when it is in my house? Especially when I was gone all day? Not even a little bit.

So the story goes like this.

Ken noticed a freaky looking guy wandering the neighborhood with a big cage with a rat inside it. He was looking in trees, and kind of lurking through yards and just looking like he was up to no good. Of course, this was 100% true since the man was none other than Henry Zingali. For those of you unfamiliar with the name, he is the jackass extraordinaire who owned the dog that killed Goosh. He is pure evil on every level and I hate him with a passion. Ken, for some strange reason, has a strange fascination with the man, and feels bad for him. This is mostly because the guy is clearly strung out on several drugs and a total loser. Ken sometimes surprises me with his sympathy.

So Ken follows him around to kind of see what he is up to. He watches Henry put down this cage and run off. Of course, Ken goes and retrieves the cage and finds out it is a hawk trap, with the poor rat as bait. Ken sees Henry later, with the trap in the back seat of his car, and ends up talking with Henry for a bit. Mind you, Ken has already called the cops on him, giving not only a perfect description of him, but his address and name. Unfortunately, by the time the patrol car arrives, Henry was nowhere to be found.

Since Ken was in a hurry after the daring rat rescue, he quickly places the trap in our entry way and phoned me to let me know. I wasn’t sure what a hawk trap looked like, but I half expected to find Monarch trapped in it. It wasn’t what I had expected at all in terms of what it looked like, but I did find Ittles circling. The trap, luckily, was up in a position that it would have been difficult for the cats to get to.

Poor little guy looked dirty and mistreated. He didn’t seem mean, either, which made me wonder if perhaps he was at least handled a bit. I offered him some carrots, which he seemed pleased about. He didn’t really look nearly as scared as I expected. When Ken got home, he got him out and put him in a carrier for now. This morning, he was curious enough to poke his little nose out at me and looked like he might turn out to be a fun addition to the family. A lot depends on how friendly he is. I don’t think he has any disease as he looks like the garden variety of Petco rats. Of course, I don’t know that I should just trust that.

This weekend has a couple of adventures planned. I need to return my shoes to Hot Topic, and since the Galleria has a electronics recycling event, we figured we would kill two birds with one stone. We have a couple of old monitors and possibly a couple other things we are going to take down there, and then we can run into the mall to take care of shoe stuff. I need to also get a bottle of lotion from Victoria’s Secret, so the entire trip should be worthwhile. Maybe we will do lunch, too, since I have not had a chicken bowl in ages!

I am considering a Disneyland visit, although we are for sure going on the following Sunday since it is tradition to go to Disneyland on Super Bowl Sundays. When we used to go, it always seemed to be less crowded. Of course, this is probably not the case anymore, but I am hoping that since it is supposed to be a really good game this year, the park will be less crazy. So being that we will go then, I don’t know if we will go this week or not. It may just be a take the kids to the park kind of weekend since they love riding their bikes.

I am now wishing I had returned my Netflix movies as we might have had some new movies to watch. We still have Transformers, and a less damaged copy of Meet the Robinsons. Both can really go back. What I really want to see, though is the Hangover and Inglorious Basterds. Both, however, have listed as very long waits. I am tempted to purchase the Hangover, but really, it will end up sucking so I don’t know that I want to buy anymore movies at this point. Kids movies seem to be the only ones that make sense anymore since those are the only ones we seem to watch over and over. Although, who am I kidding. This weekend I really need to get my Glee fix and watch the last two episodes we missed. We will have to watch them on Hulu since the Tivo in charge of recording that show crashed, but that is ok since let’s face it, thank goodness for the net!

I was excited yesterday since when I was doing my workout, I got high score on 2 of the activities! I beat this one bubble game which is all about balance and stretching, and another one with similar skills. I also did a few new yoga stuff which were super hard. They were awesome! I loved the feel of the exercise afterwards. Nothing better than the runners high you get after a good workout. I am really looking forward to this afternoon! I think I may be ready to up it to 40 minutes.

Man, my company sure knows how to waste time and money. LOL! Yesterday was the company meeting. It started at 11:30. It was in the extremely cold warehouse, where we all sat around tables set up specific for the occasion. What I find strange is that they of course fed us, but they waited until AFTER the meeting to let us get food. Why not have us dish up, then all sit down at these tables and eat while we listen to the presentation. Especially when it was a 90 fucking minute meeting!!!!! Look, if it was at least interesting, I would have been ok with it. But much of it sounded like a sales pitch to a prospective client, which none of us are. They went over sales figures and budgets and all that mumbo jumbo, but really, 12 fucking slides on this new product, when about 8 of them were pretty much duplicates of one another, along with 5 minutes for each of those duplicate slides seemed excessive. Not only were we cold and bored, we were starving by the time 1 o’clock rolled around and we were excused to go dish up the now cold Chinese food that had been delivered 2 hours prior. It was poorly organized, and really you waste 2 hours of productivity. The meeting could have been condensed into a quick email. The best, or worst depending on how you look at it, was that they sat there and patted themselves on the back for providing us with this excess of communication, yet the one thing that they really needed to cover was the recent elimination of us offering cash discounts for early payment. Of course, I am not surprised since they neglected to tell the one department, A/R, that they made this decision. Instead, we were bombarded by customers confused by their lack of familiar terms on their invoices. Brilliant. It just confirms that just because you make a shit load of money and wear a fancy suit, doesn’t mean you know what the hell you are talking about.

I seriously have done no work yet as of this morning. I think I may have processed one spread and responded to one email, but other than that, I have been dinking around. Between writing this, listening to Kevin and Bean and just reading news articles, I have been as unproductive as possible. I suppose I can no longer fault my company for the only reason for lack of productivity.

Spike TV just had an ad for some kind of Steven Segal marathon on Sunday, leading up to the premier of his latest movie. Doesn’t Spike TV claim to be TV for guys? And if this is the case, at what point do they think that Steven Segal is still good?

I told Bobby that if this morning when he gets up if he just automatically gets dressed without Ken prompting him to, that tonight we will go out and get a friend for Carson. We are trying to teach him to be a little more self sufficient. Carson is his little stuffed tiger that has been his favorite “friend” for some time now. He is the counter to Dax’s Charles Emerson Pachyderm the third. Recently, when we were doing our toy cleaning, we came across Rowdy and Steven, which were Dax’s stuffed tigers. Rowdy was something I got for Dax when he was a baby. I tied a green ribbon around him and took him with us everywhere, hoping to somehow get Dax attached to the tiger. Dax liked him fine enough, but really, he was rather indifferent to all stuffed toys. JoJo ended up being his go to animal. At the time, though, I was convinced that he would fall deeply in love with the tiger, and based on Bobby’s attachment to not only his own blanket but Blue, I worried that if one of those precious lovies were to be lost that Bobby would be devastated. So because of this, I had two blankets made for Dax that were identical, and purchased a second tiger. They were dubbed Rowdy and Steven in honor off the two dead stuffed dogs on Scrubs. Not only did Rowdy not become the go to tiger, poor Steven never even got worn down. They were both placed in the box of baby stuff.

When we went through the boxes, I came across the two of them and for the first time, I saw Dax light up when he saw them. I pointed out that they were his tigers and he was thrilled. He was especially pleased that they were twins. It was at this point that Bobby was bummed. Since Carson is a little tiger, he wanted to have a second tiger just like Dax. Unfortunately, Carson was purchased by my mom on one of their trips, so it wasn’t like I could go out and just get him a second one that was identical. Luckily, he has not let this desire go. He really, really, wants a friend for Carson. So last night I proposed the idea to him. He seemed interested. He was a little concerned that he would forget, and I said it wasn’t like he was going to get in trouble if he didn’t do it. I just said that when he finally remembered, we would go out and get him the friend. I am really hopeful that he does good this morning since I really look forward to going shopping with him.

I feel strangely awake and alert this morning. I feel restless in my little cube. I think just the fact that my weekend is so close I am getting anxious.

I take the boys to my folks’ tonight for their hour or so visit. I am trying to determine what should be for dinner. We often use Fridays as our night out as a family. I would say we should not only because we got pizza earlier in the week, but in reality, we need to go to the grocery store for me to be able to make something at home.

Bobby did not get dressed on his own, so no shopping this evening for Carson friends. I am truly bummed. I am hoping he does it tomorrow morning as maybe just he and I can venture out.

Ok, I started to do a bunch of work and was very successful. The problem is, I got bored. LOL! I am getting sleepy, too, which I am sure is just because I just ate my lunch. I am quite restless. It also doesn’t help that it is almost noon, which means I get my 30 minutes of net time and 30 minutes where I end up dinking around before the boss gets back. Of course, then it is 1 and I only have a little while left before it is the end of my day! WOO HOO! I have not been this jazzed about a weekend in a long time. Ok, maybe that is not entirely true. I am probably this jazzed each Friday.

I really wish my radio charged iTty when it was playing it. My battery is low so I am not going to play it right now. Not that radio sucks or anything, but when you want to listen to your own music, it sucks. My mom made me 6 CD’s of songs she loves. I have been enjoying quite a few of them. Many remind me of my childhood since I was so obsessed with artists like Bobby Vee. It is really fun to listen to my old favorite songs. There was one song, Bobby’s Girl, which I will try very hard not to torture Bobby’s future girlfriend with, but come on! It is just so easy!