Parallax

Yesterday a friendly and smiling and Hello Ma'am-ing cop showed up at my door to inform me that the house next door had been broken into. "They lost a coupla tvs," he told me. "Didja hear anything?"

(I've noticed, lately, that I'm getting a lot of "Ma'am" from people. I am not sure how I feel about this. I'm not yet old enough to really enjoy my age, and while I can't wait to get there, I am also doing the typical female thing and clinging in confusion to my fading youth. But anyway.)

I had not heard anything, though I'd got home around midnight or one, which was a damned nuisance since the porch light had gone out and I haven't gone to the shop to get more bulbs. Then I spent another few hours failing at falling asleep, watching a movie while curled up with/on/under Riley in bed. Riley hadn't made a sound to indicate anything was amiss. Though in Riley's defense, the comings and goings of homo sapiens next door are none of her concern. She probably noticed, but didn't see fit to raise the alarm.

Last night, about two in the morning, I was living the wild life - curled up on the couch with the dog, watching Dr. Who. I was watching the tv, that is; she was getting her ears scratched. Then she hauled herself upright, putting an elbow into my spleen, raised her hackles, and let me know that something was not right. This was the alert/warning noise, not the LOL I LIKE TO BARK AT SKWIRLS noise. There is a big difference. Her alert involves lots of watchful stillness, and perked ears, and low growling with the occasional "hey, boss?" woof. I take it seriously, because when it comes to guarding me, Riley is very good at her job.

Being me - thus, completely fearless when I should be spooked, and terrified of useless things - I snagged one of the big boat flashlights, poked my head out the front door, and had a look. I couldn't see anything, but I could hear it. Scuffle. Scuffle-shift-quiet-slide-quiet-quiet-quiet-scoot. Indi the Stupidly Fearless told the darkness, "I can't see you, but I can hear you."

Then I went inside, thought for a moment, snagged Riley by the collar, and called the police. I was very apologetic and sort of embarrassed - "yeah, uh, the house next door was broken into last night, and my dog's pretty good about letting me know when something's up, but I don't know if there's really anything to worry about there, I didn't see anything or anyone but I heard something" - and the dispatcher assured me that I'd done the right thing and cops would be by shortly.

I put Riley's leash on and we both resumed our spots on the couch - me a bit tense, Riley at-ease but alert. Before too long she started up the alarm growling and I saw flashlight beams bouncing around in the darkness. A cop knocked on the door. I manhandled Riley out of the room, then opened the door.

"I hear y'got a prowler," a cop said. I couldn't see him, with the lack of a porchlight and the bouncing flashlight beams.

"Heard something," I said. "I didn't see it."

"Well," the cop said, swinging the flashlight beam across the yard, "there's yer suspect."

And there it was: a big full-grown armadillo, all pale and hairless, blinking stupidly in the blue-white light.

I couldn't help it. I started laughing. I giggled my way through apologizing and oh my god and I am such an idiot and my dog is such an idiot and really jesus I'm sorry, this is so stupid.

"That's all right ma'am," the cop said to me, "but I'm not gettin' anywhere near it." Which just made me laugh more. So I thanked them and said goodnight.

Once Riley was released back into the rest of the house, she growled a bit more because the Suspect Dillo was still out there, sticking its snout into ants' nests and eating small frogs. THOSE ARE RILEY'S INSECTS, DAMN IT.

At least it wasn't an alligator.

There may be something mildly wrong with me.

I'm pretty sure normal people do not go off to take a shower, realize they wanted to paint their nails first, start doing that, stop midway through to make dinner, get distracted by a special on whether aliens helped build pyramids, and then suddenly realize it's almost two in the morning.

And then, instead of going and taking the damn shower already, instead I come back to tell the internet about it.

For what it's worth, while I like the idea of aliens showing up in historical times, I reckon that modern archaeologists do not give the builders enough credit. A bit of a What Ho Colonialist attitude, that. (Though it makes for great scifi.) I want to believe, but I need some airtight proof first. Riley, on the other hand, does not care, as long as I share the rice-crackers and stop curling up so my hair gets into her ear and tickles her.

To make this a somewhat slightly less useless post: I spent a decent length of time filling out my absentee ballot, today. I like doing absentee ballots because I always get bogged down on the justices and things, and I always forget that happens to me, so at home I can just search them and see what I find. I left a few things blank - having no idea whether an internal auditor should or should not be politically affected - and in one particular case when both choices sucked, I went for the write-in line and added: "NOBODY - BATMAN?"

Here's a thing about voting that bothers me. When you vote, you do it at a poll. A poll, in plural, becomes the polls. And yet: there's no official name for where the polls are. All my literature tells me about Your Polling Place, and/or Su Centro de Votación - reminding me to be sure I know where it is. We have names for every fiddly last bit of the democratic process, down to what you call the paper bits punched out of hole-punch ballots, and nobody's done better than "the polling place?"

The best thing about mail-in voting though is that it comes with a SECRECY SLEEVE. Which is ridiculous, but brilliant. I vote for Miss Scarlett in the library with the rope. Or Batman.

ps: very thankful October is almost over. You have no idea.

Fun things to do with the dog on a sunny winter's day. Jowls and ears a-flappin'!



( This is never gonna stop being funny. )

Riley woke me up with a lot of fuss and bother and saliva around 8AM today. (Today is Saturday, this is so wrong.) I stumbled out of bed and went to pee and put on some pants and found some shoes so I could take her out, because usually when she wakes me like that she wants out.

Meanwhile the little bitch had curled up quite contentedly in the exact center of the bed and when I said the magic words - wangoSIDE? - she just raised an eyebrow and went, "Suckerrrrr."

Who is the pack leader again?

I just spent ten minutes in the tub with a soaped-up Riley, rubbing her back and singing Beatles songs at her. As near as I can estimate, ten minutes of Beatles is the first half of 'I Am The Walrus,' and then all of 'With A Little Help From My Friends' and 'Yellow Submarine,' complete with whistling and onomatopoeia for the musical interludes. Oh, and I was naked. Because if I wash this dog with clothes on, I wind up with wet and soapy clothes.

I CAN EXPLAIN THIS, I SWEAR.

See.. she's got a Thing. On her neck. An icky oozy thing. We went to the vet today and learned it was a sort of skin infection, which requires medicated soap and antibiotics. Said medicated soap (which smells pleasantly candylike, sort of like liquorice) stated on the bottle that, For Best Effects, I was to cover Riley with a good lather, then spend ten minutes letting it soak into her skin. Massaging was optional but recommended.

So what do I do? Sit down on the side of the tub, assume each Beatles song is roughly 4 minutes long, and sing while I rub the dog.

I am either a very good dog owner or completely crazy. Although I'm thinking the former may require the latter.

If we were a sitcom, the action montage would sound like this:

Mahah mahnah doot - OW - doot do do, mahnah - CRASH - ah, doot do do do - HEY STOPPIT - mahnah mahnah doot do do - BAROOOOO! - do do - AURGH - do, da-da-da, da-da-da, badaba - SNEEZE - da-da - EURGH!- da da da!

I don't care, you Northerners, you can mock me if you want, but when the temperature drops 40 degrees in 12 hours it is a bit of a surprise.

Anyway, with it being pleasant outside, Riley and I engaged in a fun game: Barefoot Dogsoccer. Afterwards we played I Am Going To Grab Your Tongue, which is kind of like playing with those gel-tubes you can get at science shops, if the gel-tube was salivating and muddy and attached to a mouth that, I swear, is bigger on the inside.



( Happy Riley and dirty feet. )

Forget what I said about a lot of rain last week. It wasn't, and I can say this because the streets never disappeared like they did yesterday. The water either soaked in or burnt off enough that they'd reappeared by midafternoon yesterday, but this morning my lake is back. It's kind of neat. And when there's standing water, for some reason it smells like the ocean.

My immediate instinct, of course, is to roll up my jeans and kick off my boots and go splashing around in it, because I'm still ten years old. And, judging by how often I did this as a kid, I am also totally immune to things like leeches and ringworm. But I did that yesterday. (I need new flip-flops too; mine have some sort of stringy plastic on the soles that looks like Brillo and is supposed to be nice and cushy for toes. It isn't. What it does do is never dry off, which sort of defeats the purpose of such footwear.) It's ghost-hunting weather, tadpole-catching weather. It reminds me of the day Bleu and I picked up a pallet of strawberries at the flea market, took them to the park with the Indian mounds, and ate ourselves into diabetic shock. I want to go explore under the trees with the Zeiss, and get rained on until my hair looks like an unhappy mop. I love this part of summer.

The best stuff yesterday had nothing to do with rain though. Vinny's still ours! The big-ass contract kicked in and, according to some guy from the paper, Vinny can run the show if he wants. Which is a nicer thought than him being mailed off to Edmonton or somewhere. This part is especially true: "Vinny wins any matchup with ownership in the eyes of Lightning fans. Vinny is the good guy. He'll never be the bad guy." We also got Mattias Ohlund, bringing our total of Swedes up from None to Two, as compared to this time last week. And we got Matt Walker, who I'm sure will have competitions with Meszaros to see who is more indestructible.

In other news, it turns out Riley really really really likes Elvis....

Things that fit into the Fifty-Nine Cent Ikea Bag of Gigantitude*:
- Precisely one load of laundry, as determined by bleukarma's washer, a bottle of soap, a trade paperback of one of the BEST NOVELS EVER, six DVDs, one CD, and a package of replacement Venus razor blades.

Or, if you dump all of that out:
- Me, with room to spare.
(Theoretically Riley will fit, since she's half my size, but I get the idea she won't let me try it.)
*First mentioned here.

Reasons I get excited every time the postman, the Fed Ex guy, and the UPS guy drive by:
- The shiny new flat monitor that is coming to replace this pieceashit that blurs out on me, unless it's my eyes doing that.
- The shiny new Dell computer where everything is new and will work that's coming to replace ol' Feverish Frankenstein here.
- The shiny new 500gb external hard drive so that I can back all my things up onto it and yay I finally have one.
- The not-shiny new hockey socks that oregoonie told me I should get. What the fuck am I going to do with hockey socks? I ordered the kiddy ones because the sizing chart thinks that I am a twelve-year-old boy. The problem with this is that if you tell me I should do something because it'll be funny, I WILL DO IT. Especially if I'm tired. This is how I wound up owning Stormtroopers.

(As I was writing this, Dell emailed to inform me that the computer & external drive are now scheduled to ship on 1/1/0001. Doesn't that mean they'd be here by now?)

Now I need advice. My showerhead thinks it's funny to divert 25% of the water in a perfect arc over the top of the curtain and smack into the center of the three inch space between toilet and sink. I'm telling you, an inch to the right and I could leave the toilet lid up to catch the water. The rest of the water shoots out of approximately ten remaining holes in the rain-can head, with enough pressure to knock a nipple off. The water here is so hard you could hurt people with it. I have to dismantle the whole shower assembly every two or three months and soak it in LimeAway, and even then I have to scrub the showerhead with a nail brush before I get under it. This is what happens when all of your water is sucked out of a limestone aquifer.

I am considering just wrapping the pipe with that metal tape people use to fix freezers. My reasoning is thus: shortness + standing on tub edge + 2lb murder-weapon wrench + gravity = a tragic end, or at least a bathtub with a giant hole in the bottom. My stopgap measure has been to put a washcloth over the spraying part of the pipe, but that's... stopgap. Anyone have suggestions?

Lastly, Riley performs an emoticon --- :D

(Shot this morning when she finished her breakfast and proceeded to rub her face all over my bed. She has her own bed, yes. Riley's bed is new and too nice for wiping kibble-dust out of mudflap lips, so she does it in my ratty old non-Ikea bed instead. Punk. My dreams smell like Purina Chicken And Rice.)

Remind me, one of these days, to tell you about the massmarket paperback version of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy that almost cost me fifty-five dollars.

Dogs + yoga = "Doga." No, really, go read that.

I would say I don't have words, but I've thought about it and I have quite a few. I'll skip the WTF, because I'm sure you're right there with me. I'll also skip the "but dogs don't need yoga," because again I assume you're right there with me.

I'm sure some of you are thinking, but this is just the sort of whimsically insane thing I would expect Indi to do! I have a dog and I do yoga, but that's not the point. One, this looks crazy; and two - hey. I'm sure I'd get months' worth of amusement out of attending a "doga" class, but I'd also only ever be able to go one time, since Riley would get us kicked out for ruining the flow of positive chi. Either she'd pick a fight with someone or she'd emit loads of negative chi from her rear. Maybe both.

Now. Riley - being a two-year-old child in a dog suit - likes to be near the center of attention when she can't be the center of attention. She likes to participate. If I'm doing anything she's nearby, watching and interfering and getting in my way. I've adapted to this, because it's a Boxer thing, and you can't get a Boxer to go away any more than you can get a Border Collie to stop building a nuclear reactor in the garage. This means that when I am doing yoga Riley is there supervising. Or interfering. Or thinking it's play time. I've mentioned this before.

I would like to propose a list of more realistic dog-assisted asanas, with which I have personal experience. (By that I mean bruises.) These work best when Dog is of goodly size; if your Dog is too light to knock you off your balance, or small enough to be injured when you fall on top of it, borrow a larger one.

1. Cow and Calf. Human gets into Cow pose. Dog crawls under Human and nuzzles Human's belly with face-whiskers, because Dog knows that if Human is touched on the belly, Human makes all manner of funny noises. Human's job, therefore, is to hold the posture (with extensions, balancing, whatever) while being tickled. This is good for abdominal muscles and preparation for future tickle-torture.

2. Hidden Soldier Under Collapsing Structure. Human gets into Plank pose. Dog belly-crawls, like soldiers do, under Human. Human thus cannot get out of Plank until Dog leaves. Dog, however, is hiding from the bad guys and WILL NOT MOVE. Human holds Plank until arms give out, at which point Dog gets squished. This works your biceps, legs, etc. Do not, however, attempt Side Plank with Dog beneath you.

3. Tree and Lumberjack. Human assumes Tree pose. Dog, therefore, will be the Lumberjack, whose job it is to fell the Tree. Dog can use any method to knock Human down: licking feet, hip-checks, jumping up, throwing toys. This is good for balance, patience, and learning how to say "fuck off, you rotten monster" on the inbreath.

4. Get Off The Mat Before Your Claws Put Holes In It. Human will say this a lot. Dog won't actually do it. This is good for learning what it's like to have children.

5. Wake The Dead. Human is in Corpse pose. Dog does not like this corpse business and wants Human to act alive again. Dog's goal is to get Human to stop relaxing and start reacting. This is, again, good for learning how to not get distracted.

Doga. I really don't know how this can be in any way serious.