No one would even notice if one of these wandered into my yard

Sassy and I were supposed to be in her bed reading good-night books. Point of fact, it did start out that way. The book she chose was about Uno, the first and possibly only, beagle whowon Best in Show at The Westminster Dog Show. I was reading my own book on my iPad, William Shakespeare the World as Stage, by one of my all time favorite authors, Bill Bryson, when she asked me to Google something about Uno. One search led to another and before you know it we were watching puppy videos on YouTube.

That was a really bad idea. A person with a clinical case of puppitis has no business watching puppy videos on YouTube. In fact, I wish they wouldn’t even let me on that stupid site. If YouTube read my blog they’d know it was a bad idea just as you all do.

Nevertheless, we watched a few beagles run around and growl adorably. Then a couple of rottweilers babies and a whole passel of bulldogs. I dimly recall there being super fuzzy golden retrievers, too. And then things really went to hell.

I typed in “Newfoundland Puppies”. Sigh. God, I was so stupid. My Sweet Sophie was a Newfoundland. She’s been gone about three years now and, boy, do we miss her. I honestly don’t know if I’d be able to control myself if a Newfoundland puppy should just happen to appear in the newspaper. Or, God forbid, if I should happen to see one wandering alone in the street. I’d consider selling a kidney to buy one from a breeder if one should happen to be close by.

I’m certain that no one has ever died from puppyitis. No one’s heart has ever broken from pining away for a bouncy, yippy, chewing machine. No one has met the true death because there was no sweet smelling, gently snoring, warm fuzzy ball of fur to snuggle with at night.

But there’s always a first time.

Bandit and the Idiot Dog were playing. Everyone in the neighborhood knew they were playing by the boy’s screams of delight and the dog’s excited baying. The noise was epic.

I hid myself in the laundry room. I had a major project going on in there. Once again, I was using a toothbrush and a cocktail of smelly chemicals to get red, blue and green crayon out of the kid’s school clothes. I swear to Zeus, crayons are my mortal enemy. Even more so than insane Tea Party politicians and the crossing guard lady at my kid’s school.

The Bandit came in and climbed on top of the wine fridge, hopped onto the chest freezer, and liberated a dog treat.

“We’re playing hide and seek,” Bandit told me. “I’m gonna see if Roscoe can find this.”

“Good luck,” I told him, my voice laden with skepticism. I’m not convinced Roscoe’s nose is hard-wired to his brain.

I continued my battle with the evil manufacturers of wax based coloring instruments.  It wasn’t long before the boy and dog were back.  The dog’s breath smelled remarkably like dog treat.

“Roscoe found the dog jerky,” Bandit informed me. The dog panted, pleased.

I raised my eyebrow. “He found it?”

“No,” Bandit admitted. “I finally just gave it to him.”

Just as I suspected.

“What else can I hide from the dog?”

This was an easy question. “Why don’t you hide yourself and see if he can find you.”

“Mooooooo-oooooom.” The boy turned my name into a five syllable word. “Great. You said it right in front of him!”

“The dog doesn’tunderstand, honey.” I wiped the sweat from my brow and stretched my arm out, rotating my elbow to ease the cramp forming there. Holy wars are tiring work.

“He does, too, understand.” Bandit was indignant. Apparently I had offended the dog. Roscoe, however, didn’t look too put out with his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth and his butt comfortably perched on the vacuum cleaner.

The Bandit put his hands over Roscoe’s long, silky ears. “Don’t listen to her, boy. She’s crazy.”

Crazy? Of course I’m crazy. You read this blog. It’s not like I don’t have plenty of reasons to be totally crazy.

“How about this,” I suggested, “why don’t you take Roscoe around and see if you and his nose can find every single crayon in this house.”

And my mind. Now there’s a real challenge for you.

 Doesn’t this look like the most fantastic room?

Just imagine a long day at work and when you come, you open the secret panel and slip into your hidden room walled with books. Maybe in the corner is a comfy chair and a matching ottoman. There’s a side table just waiting for your teacup, and a floor lamp behind the chair with a soft, white bulb. A silky throw blanket hangs over the arm of the chair just waiting to toss over your legs.

It’s very quiet in your hidden room.  All the sounds of traffic and your family are muffled by the insulation of the shelves and books.  You can’t hear the phone ring or the sound of the television or the door bell. You can’t hear dogs barking or children fighting.

I used to have a fantasy about being marooned on a deserted island with just a hammock and a truck of books, but this room, this fantasy, just might surpass that.

Avast! It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  The Sisters can really get into something this silly. 

Every year, when this day rolls around, I am surprised by it and I’m not prepared with an appropriate outfit or anything. I haven’t even had time to rent a parrot. Or a monkey. Oooooh, a monkey would be fun.  Ava doesn’t think she likes monkeys, but I’ll bet if I brought a cute one into the office she’d be totally into it.  Aside from the biting and poop flinging, what’s not to like?

At lunch today, Ava and I went to the mall because the Clinique counter is having their free gift giveaway. The clerk that helped us was NOT helpful. In fact, I’d go so far as to say she was snotty and rude. She certainly thought that Ava and I showing up and demanding things like assistance was too much for her to bear. She actually looked down her nose at us, which wasn’t easy considering how much makeup the woman had on. That’s a problem with working at the makeup counters at the mall. Those chicks have on so much makeup it looks like they put it on with a trowel and take it off with  a belt sander. This girl had absolutely no facial expression what-so-ever. Maybe, during her lunch break, she shot up with Thorazine and thus her personality was severely limited by a drug reaction.

Anyway, Ava and I have been dwelling on how shabbily we were treated by that little chippy and then it occurred to me the whole thing was our own fault.

Maybe all that time she was waiting for us to break out our Pirate-ese and dazzle her with an Arrrrrrr!

Ahoy, there ye land lubber. Get me some eye shadow and mascaraaaaaaaaarrra.

Maybe I’ll go back after work and try that out. I’ll report back later on how nice the security office is at Dillards.

I was watching Project Runway. I love this show. I love the crazy, pissy, over-the-top designers – men and women alike. I want to be Heidi Klum when I grow up. I have several Michael Kors pieces  that I just love. Tim Gunn is fabulous. If you’re not a regular viewer, then you should be. Some of these designers are geniuses.

The challenge on this episode involved the designers pairing up with regular guys to design an outfit for their wives or girlfriends. It was quite comical to hear the words men used to describe what clothes their women liked, what their style was. One guy said to a completely befuddled designer, “she’s cutsie only elegant.” The guys absolutely could not describe the colors their women liked. Apparently in kindergarten when the colors periwinkle, fuscia and mustard were discussed the boys were all off in a corner discussing Matchbox cars and touch football.

The other thing that had me shaking my head in wonder was the men’s complete obsession with boobs. One guy discussed his wife’s boobs ad nauseum. It was disturbing. Everyone found it disturbing. If I was his wife, I would kill him after I watched this show air. Totally embarassing.

“Are all guys like that?” I asked My Honey who was studying across the room. I don’t know why I asked. I knew the answer but I still find it hard to believe.

“Uh, yeah.” he told me while looking at me like I was an out of touch moron. “Ever heard of ‘titty bars’?”

“Really? Why?” I knew he wouldn’t be able to answer this question to my satisfaction. I don’t think women will ever get it.

“Maybe because we don’t have any?” he suggested, lamely.

“Bullshit,” I countered. “We don’t have penises and, I swear to God, we don’t sit around thinking about them all the time.”

To add a more disturbing edge to my realization, I had to acknowldge that even The Bandit at six years old is fascinated with boobs. He’s always absently patting mine.

When I mention this to his father, My Honey just smiles indulgently and says, “That’s my boy.”

Oh, for crying out loud. What ever.

The Sisters together are a force to be reckoned with. That sounds ominous, no? It’s pretty true, though. For example, you get the three of us together when we’re in pissy moods then baristas beware. Probably worse, is the three of us together when we feel feisty. No waitress will go away unscathed. It’s not that we’re mean – we’re just complicated.

“OK, this is what I want,” Ava told the guy at the counter. “I want the the mozzarella, fontina and basil pizza cut exactly in half with basil only on one side. Do you understand?”

“Sure,” the young man nodded and smiled. Ava was not confident that he did indeed understand.

“Exacty in half,” she reiterated.

‘OK,” he nodded again. Ava squinted her eyes at him and, standing next to her, I started the low chuckle I do when I know we’ve got about five more minutes of this conversation still to go.

“Use a ruler if you have to,” Ava suggested. “I don’t want it to show up at my table with the basil on a bigger half.”

“I think I’ve got it,” the guy started to sound bemused. Was this blond woman for real?

“Are you sure you’ve got it?” she asked him with a pointed expression. By now, I was truly laughing.

“I think you made your point,” I volunteered, trying to give the guy a break. Ava simply glared at me which did absolutely nothing to quiet my giggles.

She turned back to face the guy behind the counter. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she inquired.

He nodded clearly terrified of where this line of questioning could be going.

“Then you know what it’s like sharing with them.” He made a small movement of his head that indicated he’d had many of the same issues with his own siblings. “My sister here always gets the biggest half and I’m very hungry today.”

“I promise, it will be cut exactly in half.” He smiled at her. Gone was the fear of Ava’s apparently instability. In its place rested an expression of mutual understanding of the unfairness of hogging siblings.

Ava glances over to me with a wise-ass smile. “Mom always liked her best,” she tells him of me.

I order our tiramisu and my ice tea with much less trouble, and we saunter over to a table to wait. They bring our pizza and it does appear to have been measured with a circumfrence before it was sliced. The delivery person took our table number, though, and I express some concern that they won’t remember to bring us the tiramisu without the number.

“Don’t worry,” Ava told me around a bite of pizza with absolutely no greenery anywhere near it. “That guy won’t forget us.”

I snort. “Yeah, unless he up and quit.”

Note from Ava: This story is absolutely true.  I know I should be ashamed for tormenting the poor cashier – but I’m not.

I’ve driven My Honey crazy for years quoting from my Policy Book.

“You can’t eat at the dinner table with no shirt. You know the policy”

or “You have to get your homework done before TV. You know the policy.”

You get the idea. I don’t know why it bothers him so much that I call them “policies” instead of rules. Whatever, it’s all semantics. Of course, I’ve kept it up simply because it does drive him batty. That’s what married people do.

I have a lot of policies. Lots and lots. All the best mothers do, right?

1. We don’t put rice in our armpits
2. We don’t swing from the dishwasher rack
3. We don’t bite the cat – you’ll get hair in your mouth and the cat doesn’t like it
4. We don’t lick the DVDs no matter how much sticky candy is on them
5. WE DON’T TOUCH MOM’S STUFF (this one is roundly ignored no matter how often I scream it)
6. We don’t flush Army Men.
7. We don’t hide peach pits in the furniture
8. We don’t use Mom’s good hair brush on the dog
9. We don’t wipe pudding on the curtains
10. We don’t shove mushrooms up our noses

This is a small sampling of The Bright Family Policies and Procedures Manual. I’m sure your family has plenty of them that sound remarkably similar no matter what you call them. Well maybe not. It’s true that some of the policies in our P&P are admittedly strange. It is alarming how many of them involve food, but then again, The Bandit lives in our house and he’s like a shark: he must constantly eat or he’ll die. I can’t wait until he’s a teenager.

So, what kind of wacky policies do you have? Please share, otherwise My Honey is going to have proof that our house is weirder than anyone else’s and I can’t take that. I have a delusion I hold very dear, one I cuddle with at night and nurture tenderly after I pull all the Nerf darts off my china cabinet and wipe up the spilled juice coating the top of my desk and double check The Bandit for underwear on the way to school.

“My family is normal. My family is normal.” It’s best said in the fetal position.

Wanna guess how my Monday went?

I kept telling myself that as soon as I got my first advance check I’d allow myself an iPad. Or a particular Coach purse I’ve had my eye on. Well, the wonderful Mr. Bright bought me an iPad for my birthday. I allowed myself to be thrilled with it even though it was decidedly less fuzzy than the puppy I’d asked for.  So now I don’t have to spend that precious money on an iPad, and probably THAT Coach bag will be old season by the time I get that damn advance check.

Honestly, the more practical thing would be for me get a new laptop.

The one I have is darn near antique when it comes to electronics. I believe it is seven years old, which I’m sure you’ll admit is ancient. Nevertheless, the software is up to date and it works perfectly well except for a few minor things. 

For example, there is the issue with the “K” key. It happens to be missing. Completely absent. I have to push down really hard on the little rubber thingy to trigger it. The K isn’t such a big deal since, it’s not that common a letter. That is unless you’re writing a story where the hero’s name is Jack. Then it’s a giant pain in the ass. I’ve considered renaming him Jacque and giving him a French accent.

Also, the “O” key is loose and flops around all over the place.  The O is a bigger pain since, as you know, it’s a vowel. It gets used quite a bit more than the K.

The integrated mouse is almost completely unusable anymore.

N w that I thin  ab ut it, it might just be a hun  f  jun  after all.