Chloe

I still remember the day I first met her. I was in high school back in 1996 and my family decided it was time to add another new family member to the group. We piled into the minivan and drove to a little shop called "Le petit chien".

We didn't really have in mind what we were looking for, but instead were waiting for her to find us. The owner went into the back and brought out two tiny silvery gray miniature schnauzers for us to hold. Little Chloe decided that we were the family for her and chose to come home with us.

None of us had had the pleasure of living with a puppy - we had only the memory of our old mutt Muffy and she was already well into her adulthood when us kids came along. To have a teeny puppy to train and love was just such a novelty. We adapted quickly.

Chloe was the most docile sweet dog you would ever want to meet. If you could overlook her stank poop breath (it is well understood that she liked to 'snack' on her own body's producings) and her constantly wet muzzle from her rather nasty habit of licking whatever was near her, (ie - carpet, clothes, furniture, people) that was harder to break than a heroin addiction, you would have just as easily fallen in love with her too. Chloe flourished in our home where she was dressed up like a baby (mom), showered with treats (dad), cuddled in bed every night (Fush, Cesaro, myself), taken to 'Stupid Dog Trick' training camp and groomed every month. Chloe loved it when you noticed her new haircut and fancy bandana and would put her little chin up on your chair for a good rub down.

When Chloe was about 4 years old, we turned her stable and loving world upside down by thrusting a neurotic little 2 lb. black mini schnauzer named Pepper into it. To see a puppy not even 6 inches long launch an attack on our full grown Chloe was astonishing and amusing. Chloe hid out beneath an end table for months, lamenting the perils of her new existence. Eventually though, the two pups became inseperable and could often be found at the end of a long day lying on their bellies facing each other, kissing.


In my humble opinion, dogs are family members, albeit much cuter, sweeter, less annoying family members. When you share your life with one of these creatures for 12 or more years, you tend to grow a bond so tight even you aren't quite aware of it until your little pal is taken away from you.

Chloe was never big on exercise, and had been known to down 3 bowls of dog food in one sitting as well as being caught after stealing and finishing off a 1 lb. chocolate bar. It is a wonder she never ended up on Jenny Craig with her own commercial alongside Kirstie Alley talking of all of the weight she lost after realizing that her eating was not out of hunger but out of emotional necessity, and then going on the Oprah show to talk about her screwed up puppyhood complete with crossdressing as a human and dealing with an annoying and neurotic little sister after which she would inevitably don a bikini and show off her svelte new figure.

Alas our little pup went the other direction and ended up with a terrible heart condition. We first noticed it when my parents took her on a springtime walk and she collapsed from the exhertion. (We thought she was just being melodramatic but turns out she wasn't kidding). Several months later we found out she had congestive heart failure. We put her on meds that would give her a greater quality of life but would only delay the inevitable. Chloe seemed to have her old pre-Pepper puppy spark back and we thought we were out of the woods for a while.

Then on March 22, 2009 Chloe decided enough was enough and left us.

Dear Chloe,

Today marks nearly two weeks since you decided to go bounding across that great rainbow bridge in the sky toward an afterlife filled with endless bowls of meat chunks, licking parties and bark-fests. I never fathomed that this day would ever come. I have tried to write this letter to you many times over the past weeks but find that even though I thought I was getting over it all, it all comes rushing back in a wave of emotion complete with tears, snotty noses and several bowls of peanut butter chocolate chip ice cream.

I often find myself looking for you in your little bed whenever I come downstairs at night. Every so often I go up to dad's office where he put your collar on your favorite Garfield toy and jingle it just to remember you. I always tried to shush your incessant barking whenever I (or anyone else) walked through the front door, but I now find myself longing for your head jarring voice. Pepper and Lucy wait by the outside door everytime we let them out to play, looking for you, not sure when you are going to be coming back from wherever you went. The first few days after you left us, whenever we mentioned your name they would run around the house trying to sniff you out. Knowing that those two pups were grieving your loss breaks my heart.

I can't honestly say you are in a better place because I know how much you loved your life with us. We loved you so very much. You weren't hurting or in pain when you went in Mom's arms, thank goodness. I just wish we had a little bit more time with you.

I thought I was doing good until your vet sent us your very last paw print with "Chloe 3/1996 - 3/2009". It all seemed so permanent.

Enjoy your romps through fields of dog biscuits and the occasional turd. Be sure to wait for us at the pearly gates when we get there.

Love,

Me

Lowery Park Zoo - Tampa

Pics from our family's spring break holiday. Lucky for us Mr. Hot Pilot hails from sunny Tampa Florida so visiting family is always a beach vacation.

Happy 8th Birthday to my crazy little mutt.

My dog Lucy and I have been together for nearly 8 years now. That is longer than taking every crappy relationship (which is every single one up until the meeting of Mr. Hot Pilot) and rolling them into one steaming pile of relationship dog poo.

From the beginning, Lucy has adopted a role of being my unwavering life defender, protecting me against the likes of just about every other human being that walks on this earth. She has perfected the art of rigid tooth baring and deep internal growl that would scare any evil Mormon or Jehovah's Witness into submission.

Those kids walking by the house on their way home from school? They are secretly wielding machetes and other weapons of wrath that could potentially harm her mommy.

That nice lady from down the street who waves at everyone? According to my little dog, you can't trust anyone who is that friggin happy all the time.

Lucy's junkyard dog instincts don't only convey to those outside the home. While my dad thinks Lucy is the coolest dog that has ever walked the face of the planet, and tries as hard as possible to snuggle and cuddle and offer treats that any dog would roll over in submission for - Lucy just doesn't give a crap.

While sitting in his lap, she will growl at the slightest pat on the head from him. As he is showering her with words of adoration and apple slices, she will bare her teeth, all the while snuggled right up tight to him. Some may say my dog has borderline personality disorder. The only people she will show affection and sweetness to other than her treasured mommy are her granny, Mr. Hot Pilot and Munchkin. Try to come into my room with her either guarding the door or sitting on the bed however? Don't. Even. Go. There. Just avert your eyes and run to the safety of another room.

I love my little weirdo dog with all my being. I realize that her feelings of protection for me may just border on completely insane and slightly neurotic, but she is my dog. She has been through everything with me from divorce, to cross country moving, to living with two evil roommates to moving back in with granny and grandpa and adjusting to life with two other half-wit dogs with nothing more than walks and balls on the brain. I find Lucy to be eternally patient with all of the changes in her life.

So Lucy likes to show her dominance with a friendly ankle bite here and there? So what. She and I are a package deal. And I am lucky to have found a man who understands that.

Here's to you Lucy, aka - Looty Pie Jones, Poopy-head, Floofy, Loot Loot, Looty Lou.

Happy Birthday you crazy little loon.

Censorship for kids!

When we were kids growing up, there were many things our parents put the kibosh on and kept us sheltered from : rap music, rock music, any music found on mainstream radio, The Simpsons, horror movies, crack smoking, swearing, vodka shooters and any movie with a rating higher than PG. Looking back I can certainly understand the extreme measures they went to to ensure that my brothers never saw a set of boobies before the age of 21 and I never saw a mans 'danger zone' until at least 3 years after I married.

I still remember going through the annual 5lb JC Penney catalog as a teen trying to find my style, and realizing that my mother had ripped out the 'lingerie' section in order to keep my brothers from fulfilling their curiosity by viewing middle aged women modeling granny panties or maternity bras. Very enticing.

When it came to movies and television, my parents were very guarded about what we were and were not allowed to watch. These rules lightened up quite a bit by the time my youngest brother was a teenager, but I had to live my younger years without the likes of "Roseanne" or "The Simpsons". Not good for a kid trying to be cool in the 5th grade.

Any time we watched a movie, my mother would sit in her chair, poised with the remote control to scan forward in case a woman were to dance bare chested across the screen. There had been more than one occasion where we would be watching a movie as a family when a love scene would suddenly appear and out of the corner of our eyes a small figure clad in flannel kitten pajamas would move in slow motion from the side shouting "No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!!" and block everyones view with her nightshirt. It was quite a picture.

Now-a-days we are used to seeing every movie imaginable with my parents. And I believe that they have become used to having grown children whom they don't have to censor movies for. It is because of this new and more grown-up life that we got caught in a sticky situation on Thanksgiving day.

As usual we were looking for a movie to go and see after Thanksgiving dinner. My dad suggested "The Four Christmases" with Reece Witherspoon and that guy that Jennifer Aniston once shouldn't have dated. I thought it looked funny and we decided to all go, Mr. Hot Pilot and Munchkin included.

We should have known something was amiss when we didn't see any other elementary aged children in the audience. Then Mr. Hot Pilot whispered "are you sure this is rated only PG?" to me as the rather grown-up previews flashed across the screen.

I hadn't even thought about what rating this movie was. I'm not accustomed to even thinking about it.

Then the first scene of the movie flashes up and after the two characters begin ripping each others clothes off in a bathroom, I realize we have trouble.

Without a second thought, Mr. Hot Pilot had Munchkin in a football hold and was racing down the steps and out of the theater. Looking back it was rather funny, although I was quite embarassed that we even went to see the movie with Munchkin.

Luckily we got our money back and all was right with the world again.

Maybe, just maybe, I will become the mom who will wear flannel kitten pajamas and ensure Munchkin never sees any womans bits and pieces until he is at least 35.

The Death of a Christmas Tradition

My family is a family of many traditions. Traditions that my mother and my father put in place in order to create a deep rooted sense of family, security and lasting memories.

As of yesterday, tradition is dead in my family. Officially DOA when I walked in the door last night from a long and un-eventful day at work.

For as long as I can remember, we have always bought a real christmas tree for christmas. And not just any live christmas tree, mind you. A lush, gorgeously scented Frasier Fir christmas tree. Each year after thanksgiving, my family would pile into the minivan or SUV and drive to one of two primo christmas tree lots to pick out our tree for the year. We would often stand out in the freezing cold (with the exception of one wacked out year when it was actually around 70 degrees - and unicorns were dancing through the backyard whilst singing show tunes from 'The Wizard of Oz') and walk through row upon row of deeply scented christmas trees in order to find just the perfect one. Not too fat and not too skinny. Certainly not too sparse or too short. It must be the right height for our living room. It was acceptable however to buy one with a nasty patch, as long as it could be hidden discreetly in the corner.

My mother and I would then walk up to look at the wreaths and pay for the tree while my dad and brothers made sure the tree was packaged up and trimmed to our specifications. It would then be tied to the roof of the car and driven home where it would sit in a bucket of water for a day or two to ensure no needles were lost in the process. Of course being a family of five with many opinionated and stubborn individuals, there were a select few years when I remember tensions were running high, and I especially remember the year that my mother told my father he didn't know his arse from a hole in the ground.

Funniest. Phrase. EVER.

When decorating day would arrive, my mom would be sure to set up a mini family party complete with egg nog (of the non-spiked variety) cookies and other treats. She would then turn on the christmas CD and we would all decorate the tree from our boxes of ornaments. It was great to see the 'Baby's 1st Christmas' ornaments from both 1980 and 1981 for myself. You see, I was born at the butt end of December 1980 and my parents had been CERTAIN I would be born before christmas that year. I however had different plans and celebrated my first christmas 5 days shy of my first birthday. How many of you can say THAT?

As we grew older, we grew less and less enthused about tree decorating. By the last couple of years my mom would have to guilt trip us into decorating the tree, or even make it a mandatory chore for my brothers and I. We would then balk at this and my mom would get mad and then someone would begrudgingly decorate the stupid tree. And then complain of how they were missing "The Office" or some silly crap like that.

So I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised when I came home from work late last night to find an intruder sitting in a box on the family room floor.

An artificial, pre-lit, 7ft tall FAKE AS FAKE CAN BE Frasier Fir tree.

As soon as I saw it I looked accusingly at my dad and said "Christmas is dead. You both have just killed it."

My mom then went on to say that it is our turn (us kids that is) to be buying the christmas trees for our own homes and that she wants grandkids. Like, today. Or else. Because she isn't getting any younger. And my ovaries are going to fall out soon, so "Carrie Anne you had better use those suckers to the best of your ability".

I'm beginning to see that maybe this whole fake christmas tree thing was just a sick ruse to get one of us to use our God given talents to produce grandkids.

Maybe christmas isn't dead after all, but just in a vegetative state for the time being.

If you can't cook, don't.

It's thanksgiving and once again I am mooching off of the cooking of another. I have never in my 27 years made a thanksgiving meal, let alone roasted an actual turkey. I plan on keeping that tradition alive as that is my favorite tradition. Eating what others have bestowed upon me.

In the honor of mooching, I have decided to provide you a link to one of my favorite blogs. Happy Thanksgiving!

From Passive Aggressive Notes

Those kids at school — they tease you, Kenny. Because they['ve] never tasted hell. Today, we turn the tables!

I'm going to go out on a limb and admit something to you. I was a weird kid in high school. I know, I know I seem to be the epitome of normalcy and class nowadays but it is true. I was a weird kid and all of my friends fed right into the weirdness.

My friends and I have known each other since 1st grade. In high school we suffered together through the brutal torture that is known as marching band, learned how to drive together, hid our first crushes from each other and often wrote wacky stories about all of the kids we went to high school with. Let's just say those stories were our outlet for what we saw to be injustices in our lives. Instead of resorting to the normal ridicule or torment of our fellow classmates, we would often sit down and write a story about them in which we could inflict all sorts of humility and chaos in order to nurse our own personal wounds.

Often our stories focused on a set group of people (ourselves included) although no one was immune to being thrown into the fray. In fact our own parents would often be caught in the middle of our literary outbursts, often to our immense amusement. One example of this was when an email was sent to my dad from my friends regarding his "Star Trek" collection. Here is how this email went (I have included a picture of the original):


"Subj : This is what we sent to Carrie's dad at work

Want to join the Star Trek haters club?

1) Well first, we're gonna sue them for indecent exposure of the pigment (meaning their deranged faces). I mean, I don't want to look at that crap. Come on, this is TV!

2) We're gonna hire a hitman to kill all the main characters including your favorite "Captain Kurt (sic)". We're gonna check his wallet first to retrieve any personal photos of back when he may have been half-normal so we can see where he went wrong with his looks.

3) We will have a part and appear on the show. The ratings will be so bad that the show will sink with the Starship Whatchamacallit.

4) We'll set the roof of the studio where it's taped afire so Star Trek memories will be buried in the soot.

5) We will replace the show's former timeslot to show the movie "Outbreak".

6) We will track down ANY person or persons possessing Star Trek figurines and take the stuff and build a campfire for the boyscouts with it.

7) Finally we will donate the Star Trek official costumes to the homeless so the whole "DOWN WITH STAR TREK" theme will have accomplished something positive.

Write back and tell us if you would like to jump aboard our mission to erase Star Trek out of the hearts and minds of helpless pupils forever!!

Thank You"

My parents never really said anything of the email and nowadays will often remark about how amusing our "little stories" were. Looking back, these were things that brought my friends and I closer and helped us through that awful part of life called "the teenage years". Whatever it takes!

No Promises, I'm Feeling Lazy

Saturday is not a day off for me. My entire work week consists of hovering over trauma patients on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with Monday - Thursday either being travel days or days I park my ever expanding booty in front of a computer and work from home for an ungrateful little pharmacy that really should have been punished more as a child and sent to bed early with no dinner instead of only receiving the requisite time out.



In honor of my brain feeling like mush from the rather hectic day (you mean just because someone smashed up their car on the road due to their drinking too many Vodka tonics I ACTUALLY HAVE TO WORK??) I have decided to post a couple of pictures from my latest trip to the wasteland that is Del Rio, Texas. If it weren't for the fact that the hottest Puerto Rican man on the face of the planet lived there along with his cute little sidekick, Munchkin, I would never venture that far south. Ever.




Hope your weekend is fantabulous!

Superhero dreams

Growing up in my home as a kid, the most significant piece of pop culture we were ever introduced to was Superman. My dad was (and is) a huge sci-fi fanatic, collected GI Joes starting from back when they were first produced, and harbored a secret love for Superman, Batman, and anything else of the superhero genre. When I was younger, my dad would take my brother Matt and I up to Woodlawn to go to the DC Comic book shop, where he had a standing order and his own cubby with all of the latest comic book issues. This is the man who hung movie posters of the Batman, Superman and Star Wars movies in our family room. And yes. My mother let him. Rumor even has it that I was named after Carrie Fischer, the actress who played "Princess Leia". (However my mother tells me that it was actually after his great aunt)
A long while back, my dad suggested that we go and see "Superman Returns". As long as he was paying, I was totally game. This was the third time my dad was going to go and see the movie. For him it is more than a comic book made into a feature length movie. It was the perfect metaphor for good against evil, for the complicated relationship between a father and son, for the emotional and spiritual quest every human experiences when trying to figure out why we are here. For him it was the meaning of life.
The first note of the theme song in opening credits gave me chills. I was on the edge of my seat for nearly the entire movie. I guess watching this movie with my dad was a way for us to bond. This was something that I grew up on, and something he was passionate about. I was glad to be able to share that passion with him, if for just one afternoon.
My only question is this. How in the holy heck, after zooming to outer space to save an aircraft full of people, come back through the atmosphere, and carrying that plane to a safe landing, does he keep that freaking curl so freaking perfect? Huh? I would love to know what hair gel "the man of steel" uses. No more bad hair days!

Happy Birthday Mr. Hot Pilot!