A family member was explaining to me that she is “good in a crisis.”
I have to say that’s true, that this person is in fact at her best in a crisis, which explains why, in times of tranquility, she’s always looking for some way to escalate things into a crisis.
He looks up the trail trying to see what’s ahead even when he knows what’s ahead because he just looked a second before. He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about somewhere else, something else. He’s here but he’s not here. He rejects the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be farther up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then it will be “here.” What he’s looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn’t want that because it is all around him. Every step’s an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant.
I love movies about dogs! Wait — is Owen Wilson in that? I HATE Owen Wilson!
Whenever I meet a new bitch at the dog park, the first thing I ask her is “Do you think Owen Wilson is funny?”
And if she says yes, I am OUTTA there.
Rating: Two paws down.
— Lightning 
My wife and son brought home some Pillsbury cookie dough sheets (see photo) but we’ve got a problem. Even though the packaging shows cookies with festive holiday shapes (“I want the ones shaped like Christmas trees,” my son says), the sheets are not pre-cut, and we don’t have cookie cutters.
I say, “It looks like what you’re going to get are cookies shaped like rectangles.”
I tell my son I’m going to the urgent care walk-in clinic.
“What for?” he asks.
“I want to find out why I’ve gone deaf in my left ear.”
“You’ve got an ear infection,” he says. “I had one when I came back from Thailand. I was also coughing 24/7 so I had to take this insane cough syrup and ear infection pills.”
“I’m not coughing 24/7. I’ve got a lot of congestion though.”
“You’ll just get the ear infection pills then.”
“When you took them, could you feel your ear canal cracking open? Man, that’s the best! It’s almost worth it to have a clogged passage just to feel it cracking open again.”
“Yeah, but it takes a couple of days.”
The nurse takes my blood pressure. “100 over 60,” she says.
“Is that good?” I ask. (I already know it’s good . . . I just want to hear her acknowledge that, even though I’m much older than she is, I’m in excellent physical condition and could undoubtedly satisfy her sexually.)
“Yes. Now I’m going to take your pulse.” She takes it and writes it down on the chart.
“What was it?” I ask.
“Sixty-four.”
“Is that good?”
“Yes. The doctor will be right in.”
The doctor looks in my ear and tells me I have an ear infection. She gives me a prescription for antibiotics and recommends Sudafed — “the kind you have to ask for” — for the congestion.
I pick up my prescription and I ask the pharmacist for Sudafed.
“What kind?” he asks.
“The kind you have to ask for.”
(A couple of years ago, the original Sudafed, and all other products containing pseudoephedrine (PSE), was moved “behind the counter” by federal legislation because PSE can be used to produce methamphetamine, also known as crystal meth. The over-the-counter version of Sudafed is now called Sudafed PE and contains phenylephrine instead of PSE.)
So the pharmacist brings the Sudafed, asks for a photo ID, and says, “You have to initial the form there to indicate that you’re not going to resell it.”
“Really? How much do you think I could get for it?”
“Kids resell them at clubs for 3 to 10 times market value.”
“Wow. That really highlights my lack of initiative. I’m just hoping it makes the inside of my head feel less like a toasted marshmallow.”
It was a weird day for dog walking. Just after Lightning had a run-in with a rottweiler, who fortunately turned out to be docile, we came upon a young man and what looked like his mom walking a pit bull.
The woman said “Hold ‘im, Cody” to the kid in a chain-smoker voice and I veered Lightning in another direction.
I wasn’t taking any chances because they looked exactly like the kind of people who’d own a violent pit bull. You’ve got Ma, the chain-smoking meth addict, and her boy Cody, the kid with the white trash name.
Whenever I hear someone say “Hold ‘im, Cody” to a guy with a pit bull, I am outta there . . .
FYI — I’m a small dog, but I’m not a “pretend to be brave at the end of a leash” small dog, I’m a “this leash really is holding me back” small dog, as a neighborhood Rottweiler learned when he bounded across the street at me a few minutes ago.
I don’t like big dogs running up on me — it’s disrespectful — but the woman walking him was too small to hold him back. So I put my front paws on his shoulder and growled in his ear, and when he couldn’t look me in the eye, I knew everything was going to be okay.
My owner said later he thought at least one of us was going to be killed . . .
— Lightning
Below is a short film shot entirely on a cell phone. It uses an unusual technique — a very simple technique — to present a narrative without the use of an actual voiceover narration . . .
Outside the window, snow,
A woman in a hot bath
Overflowing.
See the river flow
In a long unbroken line
On the field of snow.
Confined within doors
A priest is warming himself
Burning a Buddha statue.
Through snow,
Lights of homes
That slammed their gates on me.
One of my owner’s friends gave me a Christmas pug to use on my blog. My first present of the season! Thanks, MS!
The pug looks a little sad, probably because someone made him wear that stupid Santa hat. Pugs don’t like to wear hats. We may look like funny little animals, but don’t forget we are descended from the mighty gray wolf. Before you put a Santa hat on a pug, try putting a Santa hat on a wolf. That will teach you a good lesson.
Don’t think that the pug is sad because of the snow. Pugs love snow! A day in the snow is the best day ever! Now that I think about it, every day is the best day ever!
Oh, one more thing: I do NOT endorse Popdarts.com. Do not go to that site. Go to sites that support pugs.
Oops — my owner just told me that if you tell people not to do something, that just makes them want to do it even more. It’s called “reverse psychology.” That doesn’t make sense to me. Pugs can be a little stubborn, but mostly we like to do what we’re told, because it makes our owners happy.
Here’s another phrase my owner taught me recently: “eating your own dogfood.” To humans, it means doing what you tell other people to do. To dogs, it means . . . well, I guess it’s pretty obvious what it means.
Merry Christmas, everybody! I’ll post some more Christmas pug pictures later.
— Lightning
I’m reviewing my year-end Benefits Summary at work . . . I’ve got life insurance plus supplemental life insurance at a multiple of my annual salary.
I’m having a Willy Loman moment where it seems like after all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive . . .
Thus spoke The Programmer.
I had an office visit with my doctor, who is also my wife’s doctor . . .
We always spend a few minutes talking about my wife, who, to use the medical terminology, is “really crazy.”
“She is really crazy,” the doctor says. “I don’t know how you keep your sanity. You always seem so calm. I bow to you.” And she stretches both arms out and actually bows.
I’m glad someone is able to get a laugh out of it.
Then she refills my Paxil prescription so I can make it through the next six months . . .
My son had a drum set part in the Northwood Holiday Concert last night . . .
Drum set parts are a showcase for high school percussionists because usually they stand at the back of the orchestra, the audience can’t actually see the instruments, and nobody knows what they’re doing.
He told me after the concert that was the worst he’d ever played that song but it sounded great to me, maybe because I’m a parent . . .
There’s a guy at work who tells me he’s the best IT customer in the organization.
When I ask him why he’s the best IT customer, he says it’s because he understands that we in IT are very busy so he doesn’t bug us too much.
That’s funny because the person I think is our best customer is just the opposite — she knows what she wants, and she doesn’t mind being difficult if it leads to better results.
Yes we’re busy, but we’re trying to do this stuff as well as we can do it and it helps to get a sense from the customer that the work is important and that doing it well is worthwhile.
“I wish I could go back and be eight years old again for a couple days . . .”
This guy is beyond satire:
[Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich] rarely turns up for work at his official state office in Chicago, former employees say, is unapologetically late to almost everything, and can treat employees with disdain, cursing and erupting in fury for failings as mundane as neglecting to have at hand at all times his preferred black Paul Mitchell hairbrush. He calls the brush “the football,” an allusion to the “nuclear football,” or the bomb codes never to be out of reach of a president.
So instead of “The Lakers didn’t play very well last night but they still won the game,” they’ll say “We didn’t play very well last night but we still won the game.”
We?! What position do you play?
