Fries With Mayo

When I got my dog off Craig's List two years ago, I was told he was some kind of German Shepherd Lab Mix, maybe-and-we-can't-remember?  Apparently, every dog on Craig's List and in every dog shelter is a German Shepherd mixed with something.  Those German Shepherds... watch out for them.  Lock away your pretty girl dogs!  Here comes a German Shepherd and he looks like a player... I digress (again, are you shocked?).  I figured that this pup was the perfect dog for me because a) I like Labs, and b) I like German Shepherds, and also c) our family had owned both and I knew their energy levels and felt I could cope with them. HAHAH!  That's funny!  You know what else is funny?  My dog isn't a German Shepherd Lab Mix.  He's mostly English Shepherd.  And lastly, the most hilarious part about all of this is that his energy level is just like that of a German Shepherd Lab Mix, if that German Shepherd Lab Mix happened to be on speed. ...

For some reason I can't understand, things don't happen to me like they do to everybody else.  I'm the one who, when everyone orders soup, gets the bowl with, say, someone's severed digit in it or something. Dating then, has been intriguing for me, and has never "just happened" like it does to normal people. As an example, we will slide back in time to my pre-knee-surgery days, when my Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings were spent in two-hour kung-fu classes held on top of the university parking garage. My brother's friend, whom we shall call Ernesto (although that is certainly not his real name but I doubt he'd want me to reveal his true identity 11 years later), would bum a ride with me to class because he lived Far Away From Class, which is also where I lived.  The ride took a total of 45 minutes each way. Ernesto and I had secret crushes on each other, but could not possibly admit our love because my brother was his best friend.  So w...

It rained a lot yesterday here in my area.  The creek behind my house flooded its banks and took over the whole park.  Even the footbridge was completely submerged. When I took the HyperHund for his morning walk today, he stopped abruptly with his nose in a puddle and jumped back several feet.  Upon closer inspection, I noticed a foot-long catfish under his nose, in all of one inch of water, its back out of the water and its gills flailing to try to absorb whatever it is fish need to get from puddle water. The whole back area of the park was covered in dead catfish from the river overflowing.  They were actually harder to see than you'd think, because they were not moving, were roughly the color of mud, and mostly because they were dead-but-not-yet-stinky. In this small puddle that was slowly drying up, though, were two live, roughly 5 lb. fish (I could tell they were alive because they were right side up) and one dead roughly 5 lb. fish. Now, I am not some p...

I am friends with several guys in their 30s who mistakenly believe that a Zombie Apocalypse would be Flippin' Cool.  These guys are also looking forward to 2012 with a vengeance, settling for an apocalypse without zombies but secretly hoping that somewhere along the way the zombies will become involved. Of course, in this fantasy, these guys are the strong, the survivors.  They are the ones shooting zombies left and right with enhanced, double-barrel potato guns and post-apocalyptic slingshots.   They are are not the ones who, as soon as the zombies come out of the ground, are the first to have their brains slurped down like a 7-Eleven Slurpee in the middle of a group of prepubescent baseball players on a 90 degree day because they accidentally tripped on a rock in front of the first zombie to un-die. In reality, a zombie apocalypse would be Darwinism at its finest.  Only the very strongest would survive.  You get migraines?  While you're suf...

I used to not really like cats. Now, I don't like cats but I have two of them. When I broke up with Last Boyfriend and bought a condo, people automatically began suggesting I get a cat or two.  It's like as soon as you are single and above 30 and live alone, you must begin Cat Hoarding.  This will usually involve, according to cat experts, one litter box per cat, plus one extra.  This complex algorithm was meant to keep cats from doing annoying little things such as peeing on your duvet.  I think that in most cat-hoarding situations, though, this isn't really an issue anyway because the whole house is a giantlitterboxcumfoodbowl, and cats can feel free to pee anywhere they like, even if it is where they eat, and which, incidentally, is probably also where you sleep. So, I went to the shelter and fetched myself two cats, feeling rather noble in my actions as I had Saved A Life (two actually), and gotten myself love to last at least fourteen more years, which i...

 Perhaps, if one did not know better, one might assume that a teacher might be good at all sorts of stuff like reading books, using hand sanitizer, and following directions.  We have many wonderful nuggets of wisdom to impart, such as: "Timmy, stop picking your nose," or "Mikey, stop eating your binder. You don't want to ruin your lunch, do you?"  A lot of times, we say things like, "Follow directions, Susie," and we want the kid to do that, really we do. So you would think that, as a teacher, I'd know to read and follow directions carefully.  The truth is, though, that many times I feel that directions do not apply to me because I'm a Teacher, so I know better and clearly do not need silly rules. At one point in my late 20s, I was in the market for a new make-up case. What better place to go than the sparkly mecca of plastic facial-type goods that is Wal-mart!?  Yay!  Wal-mart! Wal-mart, unfortunately, likes to put things high on the top ...