Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Ca-Crack!

That is the sound of my heart breaking just a little bit today.
If you know anything about me, it's this. I love my dog. My Tootsie is my baby. I treat her like my child because essentially she is. She relies on me for food, shelter, general health care and tlc. Yes, I realize there are people out there (people who are friends of mine...family for god's sake!) who find this ridiculous. And I have this to say to you....bite me. We all have things that are important to us and she is just one of the things that is utterly important to me and my happiness. She is my family and if you don't treat your pet like a part of the family maybe you shouldn't have one.
That being said, not everyone needs to talk to their dog or have their dog sleep in their bed with them like I do...I'm just saying don't judge, bitches.
Anyhoo, back to my story. A while back the Tooter (as we affectionately call her) was attacked by another dog in our neighborhood. If you know the Toot, you are aware that she has a bit of a Napoleon complex. She is about 10 pounds and acts like she's a Rottweiler. She is a sassy-pants....especially on the leash. Off leash she will run, cavort, and of course bark in other dog's faces. But never in an aggressive way. She is a dominant female but she has never laid a tooth on another dog. But when she is on the leash she apparently gets very upset that she can't get to the other dog...or maybe it's that we pull her away, I don't know. All I know is that she looks like a crazy, rabid brat when we are walking her on leash. Once again, she never snaps or anything....she just barks.....like crazy!
Because of this I am always aware while walking her. I keep her close to me while other dogs go by and try to warn other owners of this behavior before letting the dogs meet.
Okay, so long story short....this "attack" was nobody's fault. Both dog's were on the leash it was just bad judgment in general. I shouldn't have let them meet knowing Tooter's behavior and the other dog (a black lab) was being walked by the owner's mother...who didn't realize that the dog she was walking would mistake my dog for a squirrel...aka dinner. I took my girl to the vet, got her some pain meds and the other owner paid for all of it. Done and done...so I thought.
Lately when we've walked her she hasn't wanted to go near their house. Now she wasn't attacked near their house so I was confused by this. Sometimes she gets all stubborn and just won't go, other times she's just fine. I let it go, chalked it up to a lazy dog.
Today, like many of my days off, the Toot and I were a bit lazy. A nice lazy day filled with laundry, Sex and the City, and many cups of cinnamon coffee. Halfway through my second load of laundry I decide the girl and I should go for a long walk. The rain had stopped, the sun was peaking out and frankly, Tootsie and I could use the exercise. My plan was to walk down passed the speedbump, passed the black lab's house, around the block to pass another dog named Kelly's house, down to the river and back up past our mailbox to get the mail. We start to head towards the speedbump....sometimes we only walk to the speedbump so it made sense that Toot would get stubborn thinking it was gonna be a short walk....I kept pulling. We made it passed the speedbump and start rounding the corner to the black lab's house. She starts to stop, I keep pulling, I drop my poop baggie, I bend down.....just as I do this I hear the barking. The black lab has come out onto her fenced deck...she can't get to us but she is sticking her head out of the fence barking like mad. I look over at my tiny little girl. Her tail has tucked itself under her little butt and she is pulling so hard on her leash in the other direction that I almost drop it.
I calmly turn in the other direction and continue our walk, I don't want to stress out my baby but folks I gotta be real with you. It was so sad to see that my baby girl was still affected by this. That the sight of this dog would get her so worked up again. She is still a sassy-pants with other dogs that I just assumed she was ok. It really did break my heart a little bit.
Not sure that we will be walking past that house again.
(.....makes me feel bad for the future bullies of my kid cause frankly, i wanted to walk over and kick the other dog for scaring my Tooter)

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Let's talk about a little thing called Spring Break.
Remember in college, or even high school when Spring Break was this elusive, exciting, full of fun, trouble, love, dancing, drinking, get away from it all party? Remember that?
You'd plan these extravagant (well extravagant for a 20 year old) trips that involved beaches or road trips and definitely the opposite sex and booze.
And then your ass grows up and you can't afford Spring Break...or maybe you don't even get one. Maybe when you do, your landlords decide to get new siding done so that every morning at 7:30 they start banging on one of your apartment walls. Or you get a shitload of bad news and are back and forth from the hospital. Or you have to do your taxes.
In honor of our craptacular Spring Break (by the way, I don't get Spring Break, but Ty does) I will now write about a few Spring Breaks that were pretty f'ing cool.
Spring Break 1988
That's right folks! I had Spring Break when I was 11. Back then we called it "Energy Break" and it inevitably fell on the week of my birthday every single year. This particular year we had a dual break/work trip planned to San Francisco. Now you wouldn't think that S.F. would be a fun trip for a couple of pre teeners, one of which was on crutches but I remember it very fondly.
We stayed in this fantastic bed and breakfast that had THE best cornflake cookies in the lobby and gosh darn it if they didn't make my birthday kickass! We walked into this room and it was filled....I mean FILLED with teddy bears and there was a bottle of sparkling cider and champagne glasses with a card that said Happy Birthday!
We went to Chinatown, went shopping, my brother got a hundred dollar haircut. One day my parents were bickering about something (as parents often do) before we left for the day and my brother, god love him, said...."I am not going anywhere with you people if you don't stop fighting"...it was awesome.
But my fondest memory is a story ALL of us still tell to this day whenever we get the opportunity.
.........................................................................................................................................................................
That was a pause to see if any of my family can guess which story I mean. Got it yet?
One day we got into this cab. There were four of us so somebody always had to sit up front and that was usually Dad. This day was no different. We all piled in and Dad started up his shtick with the cabbie and we got to a stoplight at the top of a monstrous hill, I mean it was so incredibly steep we all thought we were about to go down headfirst. The cab driver looked at my dad, who was not wearing his seat belt.
The cab driver said "Sir, could you put your seat belt on please?..........I wanna try something!"
Did the cabbie actually go flying down the hill? Did my breakfast land on Dad's lap? No, he just wanted Dad to put his seat belt on, but he had us all going for a second. That was a fun trip!
Spring Break 2000
Now this was in college. Nobody had ANY plans. Our school took a New York trip every year but my friends and I had already gone. We were stuck. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. Then one night, 5 days before Spring Break began, over cheap beer and karaoke we concocted a plan. You see my parents owned this van. This nice van. And none of us had ever been to New Orleans before. And by golly wouldn't you know it? Five days later we finished a dinner theatre show, took some pictures by the van and we were off!
There were six of us and we drove 24 hours pretty much straight through to Louisiana. We stopped for breakfast in Kirksville, Mo, missed Graceland by 5 minutes (who knew it closed at 4 p.m.?) and had pizza instead, and frankly, got a little nervous driving through Mississippi at night.
Once we got there, it was fantastic. We stayed in a hostel the first night and moved to a hotel thereafter. We shopped, went to the zoo, toured a graveyard, ate at great restaurants, drank at great bars, some of us got tattoos while others showed their boobies for beads.......ok it was just me that showed my boobs but dammit, we were in New Orleans, somebody had to!
Spring Break 2008
That's right folks, one measly year ago. Was. My. Honey. Moon.
San Francisco again. But this time with my love. My husband.

So, Sara, how was your "Spring Break" this year? Well technically I didn't have one, I was sick, my husband was pissy cause of the noise from the siding and I found out my folks can't come see my show. So compared to the above it sucked big time.
But I have pretty new green siding on the roof over my head, my hubby loves me, I haven't lost my voice yet (knock on everything), I can talk to my mom on the phone anytime I want and dammit I have a great show opening this weekend!
Not bad...not bad.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Complete cop-out, stolen from Jill.

1. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Broadway Actress and Orthopedic Pediatrician

2. What have you done in the past week to help someone else?
Babysat the niece and nephew and gossiped a lot(hey gossiping helps).

3. Who is the best-dressed person you know?
Hmmmm....probably my friend Ashley.

4. What is on your nightstand?
Oh lordy! Random jewelry, a cup o' water or two, a pair of glasses and some other unmentionables.

5. If you were a cat, what kind of a cat would you be?
A lazy one...oh wait...

6. If you lived in a house surrounded by acres of trees, what particular type of tree would you want flourishing on your land?
Totally stealing this answer cause I never would've thought of it myself.....Pecan tree...I freakin' LOVE pecans!

7. What do you find to be very overrated?
People and having to deal with them.

8. How many email addresses do you have?
2

9. Have you ever felt replaced?
Sure have

10. Would you rather watch football or baseball?
Top Model

11. What is the wallpaper on your phone?
A pic of the Tooter

12. Name a lyric from the song you're listening to.
Not listening to any music right now...but i have a song in my head. "For yoooouuuuuu"

13. Do you use a feed reader?
A what?

14. What chocolate do you always leave in the box?
Jill and I really are similar in a totally creepy way....the cherry.

15. What would you do if you found out your ex is engaged?
They are all pretty much married too...but i will say that one ex I was really happy for when I found out and another I was pretty devastated at the time but I got over it...quickly.

16. Do words hurt you?
Sure do

17. Are you a talker or a listener?
I would like to think I am a good mix of both....unless I've been drinking.

18. Have you ever walked on the beach at night?
Yeppers....and then I peed on that beach

19. Who is your favorite professional athlete?
I'll say Michael Phelps...only in the hopes that I can score some weed.

20. Which TV show have you seen pretty much every episode of?
Six Feet Under