#*@& Dog!!!

That bleeping dog stole and ate an entire bag of my kids' valentine giveaways. 11oz of chocolate will not seriously harm an 84-pound dog, but I am vexed just the same.

Said chocolate were those mini bags of m&ms. Acme had 'em on sale, two for $5, and I considered myself lucky to grab two of the last three bags. Needing 33 bags, I knew I'd only have a few to spare once everything was assembled for V-Day distribution.

Then this bleeping dog eats an entire bag. Well, not the entire bag. She left two puny packs of candy behind. Drooled upon, of course. Out of the 17 mini bags she consumed, I can only find seven of the wrappers. I imagine I'll be scooping those off the lawn in the coming days.

Who am I kidding? I probably won't scoop them until April.

All this evening she's been trying to snitch and steal food. I keep catching her daintily picking at things with her front teeth: The trash can liner, the lid to her dog food box, wuzzles on the floor, even the corner of the cake pan I used for the crumb cake I just baked and can't wait until it cools so I can eat a piece because it's utterly divine. Yep. She boldly nibbled the corner of that pan, and I was sitting right there shaping crumb-cake crumbs. Normally she's a big sneak, waiting until we leave the room. She doesn't even slink onto the sofa until we're in bed.

I wonder if my dog has a tapeworm. Or Pica.

Whatever it is, part of me secretly hopes those wrappers hurt coming out. Not that she'd make a connection or anything.

My Knuckleheaded German Shedder

This is Duh-chess.

In 12/2002, after ending Strudel's miseries, The Oracle made me promise that we wouldn't get another dog for two years. I readily agreed. Precious Daughter was a little over a year old and I was pregnant with Mighty B. I knew that the rigors of training a puppy would be well beyond my abilities for quite a while.

I was still employed part-time in purgatory, and one of my office mates -- no, both of them -- were frequently browsing the critters on Petfinder. Every once in a while, I'd succumb to temptation and browse the German Shedders, and I'd close out with a pang in my heart.

Eventually Mighty B arrived, and I had many, many late-night feedings with him. Having a two-year-old and a newborn is not easy, and I was so tired I practically dozed off wherever I was sitting, even the bathroom. I was petrified that I'd drop or squash Mighty B if I fell asleep, so during those late-night feedings I'd browse the internet or stare at QVC.

On a side note, my father, whose wallet has fallen victim to my stepmother putting QVC on speed dial, says QVC stands for Quickly Vanishing Cash. In F's defense, QVC makes it way too easy.

In February '04, following a late-night summons from B who was six months old and adamantly refusing to sleep through the night, I took him out of his crib (I know, Bad Mommy!) and parked my butt in front of the computer hoping to bore his butt back to sleep. I really wasn't in the mood for more of the same junk I surfed, and I bumbled over to Petfinder. Without thinking, I visited the Shedders, and I saw Knucklehead. "What a pretty dog," I thought, "and she seems to be good with kids and cats, too." I wistfully closed out and went back to bed when B finally passed out again.

The next day I revisted Petfinder and took a closer look. Hmmm... young dog. Her shelter isn't far from here. I really liked the look of her, and her story seemed pretty typical for a Shedder who spent most of her day cooped up in an apartment instead of being properly trained. She was big, unruly, and destructive, and now her owners' landlord demanded they "get rid of that dog."

I took the plunge. I emailed The Oracle (too chicken to face him in person) with Knucklehead's picture and one sentence:

"Sigh... Her name is Duchess." (He has never let me live it down.)

The Oracle grouched that I should "do what I want," and I think he hoped this displeased approach would deter me. He wasn't thoroughly against adopting her, but he wasn't pleased that I'd gone looking well in advance of the two-year mark.

I drove with DEB and the kids to the shelter for a "meet & greet," and I played with her for a bit. And I fell in love with her soft fuzzy ears and her big goofy feet. I filled out the adoption application. A few days later, I paid the adoption fee and brought her home...

...on Valentines Day.

Happy "Birthday" Knucklehead!

Is This Common?

Pardon my scungy fridge for a minute and take a look at this arrow. I don't know if you can see them, but those little squares are individual magnets with Disney princesses on them. They came in a big sheet as part of a sticker book I gave to Precious Daughter as entertainment during a long ride. She separated the magnets and stuck 'em all over the fridge.

Mighty B is four and a half. He made this arrow pattern on our fridge about three weeks ago. Is this a common thing for a kid his age to do? Is it a sign of intelligence? Is he talking to aliens?

In his pre-K class, Mighty B is the youngest child, having made the birthday cutoff by a mere two weeks. He is the one that can't sit still; he is the one that hums while he works. His grades are excellent despite his behaviors. In truth, he is humming to tune out his teacher (and I know this because he does it to me). Mighty B has no patience for multiple repetitions of anything. After once or twice he's had enough instruction and he's ready to run.

Mighty B is frightfully good with his hands, assembling 100-piece puzzles and building towers out of anything he can find. He's good with sporting equipment. Once he gets his brute strength under control, I suspect he'll have a marvelous time tinkering with anything he can take apart.

He loves touching things. He has played with my hair ever since his infant hands could grab. he loves squashing the soap between his fingers, and loves making lots of foam with his bath scrubby. He loves different fabrics and our pets' fur. He does not like clothing tags. He hated having his hair cut today, but not because he fears the barber. No. He hates the itchy clippings on his skin.

Today, after a few minutes watching the workmen at the house next door as they collected wheelbarrowsful of wet concrete from the truck and roll it to the back yard, he retreated to our sandbox, pouring sand down the sliding board until it formed a pile at the bottom. He carefully smoothed the pile with the back of his shovel like the workmen did. I told him to put the sand back in the box when he finished. He might.

I am 41 years old, and I am no match with this child who is one-tenth my age.

Fasnacht Fiasco

I've been very whiny lately, and I apologize. In fact, I'm so sorry that I'm going to whine some more. Yesterday's post by my friend, V, reminded me of something else I needed to vent.

My kids had a "sweets day" at school. The flier requested individually wrapped goodies, suggesting brownies, Rice Krispie treats, and cookies as favorite student-body purchases. ("No cupcakes, please.")The kids could buy goodies for a quarter each. The quarters would benefit the Home and School Association. Well, hey, H&S sells used uniforms at $2 apiece, so I'm more than happy to donate my baked goods to a worthy cause.

Since I couldn't bake until late Monday night (too many reasons to waste your time), I was up until 3:30 a.m. baking chocolate chip cookies for Precious Daughter's contribution and brownies for Mighty B's donation (and waiting for them to cool), because that's what they each asked to bring, and I'm a sucker for their big blue eyes.

Since the goodies had to be wrapped for individual sale (time-consuming purgatory), I nearly depleted my supply of sandwich-sized Ziplocs to wrap 'em up. Because they were home made, I also Scotch taped a list of ingredients on the outside of each Ziploc.

Bleary-eyed, I drop my kids at school on Tuesday morning with six quarters each to buy whatever goodies they wanted. They arrive home and proudly show me their purchases: puny lollipops, mangled Laffy Taffies, and mini-sized candy bars that all looked like Halloween leftovers.

What happened to the suggested "brownies, cookies, and Rice Krispie treats"? Am I the only parent that bothered to bake? I feel like I've been ripped off, and I'm a bit insulted that my own children wouldn't buy the stuff I labored to prepare. Humph!

Too Easy To Lose Touch

Yesterday I received an urgent call from the firm I work for needing a transcript now. To my horror, I'd barely started editing the job, and I had to have it finished by 3:00. Thanks to The Oracle, who happened to take the day off, I was able to get my job finished right before he left to work a sporting event in the evening (his seasonal job).

I was thoroughly frazzled and (naturally!) had nothing in the fridge. My in-laws were at the house to meet with the architect designing their in-law suite (if they ever sell their house). After the architect and The Oracle left, they took pity upon my starving, whining children and treated us to dinner at a nearby diner.

While there, a lovely woman approaches me, puts her hand lightly on my shoulder and says hello. I am ashamed to admit that I drew a total blank on who she was until she gave me one of her fabulous smiles. Oh, my heavens! The lovely woman is my friend, T. I hadn't seen her in quite a while, at least a year or more. Well, okay, part of why I hadn't recognized her is because she lost 93 pounds. She looks utterly fabulous, and I am very, very proud for her.

I met T in 1995 when I started working for a neighboring township. She also worked there, and we "clicked" from my first hours on the job. During the remainder of her employment with the township, she helped me tremendously through some rough emotional times, and I like to think I was able to return the favor.

What's so awful is that we lost touch shortly after she moved to a house one mile away from mine. Her telephone number is burned into my mental Rolodex despite the fact that I only used it a dozen or so times since she moved in, and yet we rarely see each other unless it's by accident. You'd think that getting together for a Rita's Water Ice (mango, please) should've been easy being so close, but it never happened. Why, exactly? We still exchange the occasional email, we talk about getting together, but no meeting ever materializes.

I feel terrible over this. In the last ten years, I only need one pathetic hand to count the number of times we saw one another. Our lives have undergone a good number of changes since then, so that's probably how this came to be. Still, T has clearly undertaken a number of things to improve her life and health, and I was nowhere in sight to lend a hand or an encouraging word. Simply put, I suck as a friend.

Back in middle school, I remember a teacher expounding on the notion that we have many acquaintances in our lives, but we should consider ourselves lucky if we can claim to have one or two true friends in this life. On a rough count, I can claim four without hesitation. How did I get so lucky? I clearly can't claim much effort toward cultivating and caring for my friendship flowerbed. On occasion, I'll send an email or pick up the phone, and sometimes we're successful in getting together for a bit. I know that these people would drop everything and be here for me in a heartbeat if I needed them. I'd be there for them too, without question.

When I think about my thoroughly-neglected friendships, like mine with T, I am amazed that there's still something really good growing there. I guess all the bull[censored] that precipitated so many discussions in her living room made for some mighty rich soil.

Hey T, are you in the mood for a little gardening?

Reduced-Fat Skippy - A Culinary Abomination

My local supermarket had a sale on peanut butter. At a buck a jar, my eyes boggled and I blindly grabbed one and dropped it into the cart. Later, after I paid for my purchases and returned home, I realized to my dismay that I accidentally grabbed the reduced-fat variety. Uh-oh.

My mother was a high-fat, high-sodium cook. Very few of her recipes did not contain her essentials of butter, salt, or sour cream. Simply put, fat tastes good. Scientists spend countless hours trying to reduce fat and preserve the taste. As I opened the jar, I reminded myself that not all reduced-fat foods are disasters. A prime example of this is the reduced-fat version of Hellman's mayo. You really can't taste the difference.

I open the Skippy and take a sniff, and I am not impressed. I sample a smidgen and I am grossed out. Damn. I wasted a dollar. At least I didn't pay full price for this jarful of peanut-flavored paste.

Normally I don't buy Skippy or Jif (except for my favorite sandwich), because the hydrogenated oils are well-known evils to the arteries. Shortly before I became pregnant with Precious Daughter, The Oracle and I made a concerted effort to improve our eating habits. I've stopped buying many of the quick and easy, chemical-laden prepared foods to which we were so addicted. (I sorely miss those cheapie envelopes of quickie noodle side dishes with assorted powdery sauces. And Pop-Tarts)

One of the first "bad" items to go was hydrogenated peanut butter. Now we buy Smuckers or organic peanut butter. We buy organic foods whenever possible and affordable (the meats are pricey!). And I try to keep veggies and fruits domestically grown (except bananas, since there are no US-grown bananas). Bacon and hot dogs are varieties containing no nitrates. If I could afford to shop at Whole Foods every week, I'd do it in a heartbeat despite the drive. The stuff really does taste better.

*sigh* Back to the Skippy.

Regular Skippy contains remarkably few ingredients, healthy or not. "Roasted peanuts, sugar, hydrogentated vegetable oils (cottonseed, soybean, and rapeseed) to prevent separation, and salt." Two tablespoons contains 190 calories, 16 grams fat, 3 grams saturated fat, and 150 mg sodium.

The reduced-fat version contains: "Roasted peanuts, corn syrup solids, sugar, soy protein, salt, hydrogenated vegetable oils (cottonseed, soybean, rapeseed) to prevent separation, mono and diglycerides, minerals (magnesium oxide, zinc oxide [diaper rash ointment!!], copper sulfate), vitamins (niacinamide, pyidoxine hydrochloride)." Two tablespoons of this one contains 180 calories, 12 grams fat, 2 grams saturated fat, and 170 mg of sodium.

Summary: Lousy taste, funky chemicals, higher sodium, and not much of a reduced-fat reward.

I sound like a food critic.

Seriously, though, many reduced-fat or non-fat substitutes for the "real" thing share this common problem. Who hasn't heard that America is an obese nation? It makes me ill to see that we're getting sucked into buying lousy products loaded with crappy and sometimes questionable ingredients, and what do we gain? A mere 4 grams reduction in fat, a piddling 10 fewer calories, and scary multi-purpose chemicals. And I'm not even getting into the chemicals and additives plaguing the "regular fat" versions of convenience foods. That's a whole separate nightmare.

I have reacquainted myself with my cookbooks. If I can't make it with identifiable ingredients, I don't make it. I am proud that I haven't made a recipe involving Campbell's soup in years, not even the Thanksgiving favorite, green bean casserole. Instead, I found a recipe that uses cream and fresh mushrooms instead. I only make it once or twice a year, so I don't sweat over the fat content as I would with other things.

Thank you, God, for giving me children. Aside from the daily joys and frustrations of having school-aged kids, our desires to feed them healthy food has moved us toward healthier eating as well. I am one of America's overweight, and I am slowly trying to change that without the use of chemically-generated substitutes for the things I love.

Well, okay. Every rule has an exception, and mine is Cherry Coke Zero.

The S- Word

What on earth is going on around here? It's February-stinkin' 1st, for crying out loud. I've only been S'ed upon twice since Thanksgiving, and neither instance was anything worthwhile.

You know, that fluffy white stuff. Snow.

There. I said it. Hate me if you will, but I want snow, dadgummit. I neeeeeeed snow. I love snow. Sure, driving in it can be a pain. For me, snow is the thing that makes winter bearable. That lovely white blanket covers up the mud and the dead grass and the dog poo I haven't scooped since Christmas. The whole world looks brighter.

(Why haven't I scooped since Christmas? Because it's been too blinkin' warm and wet. Scooping rainy, wet poo makes a nasty job even more disgusting. If it would freeze out there already, I'd be scooping poopsicles with little effort. We had a brief freeze the other week, and I forgot, so here I am with another weeks' worth of poo getting rained upon.)

This is gross. Let's move on.

A good snowfall will give my children something different and fun to do. They're just about sick of playing pirates on the swing set, coloring the driveway with chalk, chasing each other, and riding bikes. The sand box sand is damp and cold. It's all I can do to get their butts away from Gassy Gus and outside for ten minutes of fresh air. If it ever snows, for Pete's sake, I won't be able to get their butts inside. I can't wait.

Maybe it's a rose-colored memory, but I remember getting real honest-to-God snowfalls around here as a kid. I dimly remember snow up to our dog's chest and well above my knees. My mother would send my sisters and me out into the yard, and we'd play until we were stiff with cold. We were inside just long enough for our gloves and hats to come out of the dryer before going back out.

When I was smaller, we had several inches of snow followed by an ice storm. I remember working with my sisters to scoop the snow from beneath the crust of ice on the hood of my parents' car so they could lift it off and use it as a roof for their snow fort.

A few years later I made a monstrous snowball and a friend's house, and I was so proud of it that I rolled that thing all the way home. It was huge, easily coming up to my hips, and it took every bit of energy and muscle I had to roll it home along the snow-packed streets to our front lawn. The following Monday, to my juvenile horror, the high-school kids shoved it back into the middle of the road in an effort to block the school bus. I thought my snowball was a goner.

And sledding!! Sledding rocks!!! Except for the time rode my sled head first (literally) into the bumper of our neighbor, Mr. W's, truck, our street was great for sledding: smooth, sloped, and little traffic. Even better was sledding at my friend's house. Her parents' house sat atop a steep hill, and their driveway met the road directly across from an intersecting street. So, in short, they sat on a hill at the top of a T intersection. We were absolutely forbidden to use their driveway to accelerate our descent down the road due to the risk of getting squashed by cross traffic, but (Sorry, Mr. & Mrs. N.) I did it anyway when they weren't home. Hey, it was okay. Clearly, I didn't get squashed. I had a great view of the road and could easily check for oncoming traffic in both directions before leaping onto my sled and rocketing across the road. (I recently remembered this after a neighborhood kid skateboarded down his hilly driveway and whooshed across the path of my oncoming my car. I was a good distance back, but it gave my heart a good jolt.)

In high school, they'd plow the parking lots and make monstrous snow piles around the school with the cleared snow. These piles were seriously huge. You had to scale it at least halfway before you could see over the top. The best part was being the first in the after-school snowball fight to do this and bombing Karl F. with a huge snow boulder as he stood on the other side. The worst part was sinking into the pile up to my thighs and nearly losing my shoes as I yanked my feet out. It was then that I first learned that snow does not stick to nylons, and if you don't wallow in it they stay fairly dry.

I want to hurtle my kids down a snowy hill already! There's a perfect spot not far from here for it, and we haven't had enough snow for sledding since Precious Daughter was two. What gives?

I look out my window, and I see rain. Lots and lots and lots of stinkin' rain. If this were snow, we'd be inches deep by now. It'd be an awesome blizzard from the look of it. Mighty B. would be catching snowflakes on his tongue. I'd be busy throwing snowballs for Knucklehead to fetch, and Precious Daughter would enjoy an early dismissal. There would be no bread, eggs, or milk left at the supermarket, because the panicky people (and there are lots of 'em) can't seem to get it into their heads that we haven't been truly snowed under in decades. With our community as it is, we'd need one big-butted blizzard to keep us housebound and off the roadways for more than two days. I'd welcome such an event!

But noooOOOOooo, as Steve Martin would say. It's raining with not a snowflake in sight because the temps are expected to climb into the upper 40s. I can guess when it will finally snow. It will snow in April when I'm sick to death of cold and rain and aching for the smell of spring and the sight of green grass and flowers. I usually start feeling that way in the beginning of March.

Can you imagine what my scooping situation would be like by then?