My true colors shining through.

I am the first to admit that I've turned into one of those people who treat their pet better than they treat themselves. It is not a secret in this blog (see examples here, here, or here) that Mondo is both amazing and awful all at the same time. 

One thing that Mondo does that really, really, really gets on my nerves is whine for his wifey at night. 

If I've abruptly ended Mondo and Seeley's play time, and gone down to the basement for the night, Mondo will get really upset once he realizes that it is a) not bed time, and b) he is sequestered from his love. If it is past 10pm, he usually just puts himself to bed while I read or craft or Internet (making verbs out of proper nouns, that's how I roll). 

The other night I was watching IK, an easy enough task as he was already asleep. I was sleeping on the couch in case he woke up, which meant that Mondo and Seeley got to stay up way past their bed time and it was as if they were two pre-teens at a slumber party. 

After getting up and yelling at them several times to knock it off ("it" being fighting, growling, running around the house), I finally took matters into my own hands. 

In my defense, I was really tired, it was after midnight. 

This might be me at my laziest and I'm not proud of myself. 

There was a broom standing behind the couch, a leftover pole from a couch fort I once built for IK . I grabbed the broom and reached out to break up the dog's rambunctious endeavors. 

Now had it been Mondo alone, it would've worked. But Seeley lacks the flight part of the fight or flight response. She immediately attacked the broom. 

And then turned into a robot. 

It was at the exact moment that I took her picture that I realized what a lazy hobo I actually am. And I could see her judging me.  

What is the laziest thing you've ever done? 

I bet I could top it. 

Please accept these frozen beverages as reparations for the tragedy that almost befell you.

Today I went to 7-11 with my little roommate IK to get a Slurpy. It was hot as balls today, something I guess I'll have to get used to for the next three months.

When we arrived at the 7-11 there was a woman and her two children blocking the door. I thought it was very polite of her to move so quickly out of the way so that IK and I could enter the store.

Inside, there were some boisterous men having a conversation near the ATM. IK and I moved over to the Slurpy machine to discuss which color tastes best (orange, because it tastes like its name. But we got pink because pink was watermelon which means that watermelons taste pink).

It was then, as IK was thankfully protected by the back wall of the register, that I realized that woman who quickly got out of our way was actually fleeing the store and the men who were having a boisterous conversation were actually having a heated argument over who could and could not be on that side of town, something that was so important they felt the need to threaten each other with a shanking.

That's right. IK and I walked into a gang war.

In my defense (three words I seem to utter a lot lately), it was hot as balls, yo, and I'd just carried little 45 pound IK for five blocks. It is a little too early in IK's life to be explaining to him that the only time you carry your roommate is when they are drunk and you need to get to the car before the cops show up. Or in times of war, domestic or otherwise.

As it turns out, today was "See A Gang Fight, Get A Free Slurpy" Day at 7-11 and we scored three free.

The two clerks working the store at that moment reminded me of Dante Hicks and Randal Graves, except Randal is gay and Dante has multiple piercings which sounds about right for Portland, Oregon.

Just another day in paradise at Casa de Tres Senoritas y el Chico.

My inner-thoughts and ways in which I'm a creeper.

Yesterday at work we were talking about the serial killer house, which naturally segued into talking about the Tom Waits songs "Don't Go Into that Barn" and "Murder in the Red Barn".

We sat for a time talking about the lyrics. And then I had terrible flashbacks to high school English with  Mr. Woods. Every Friday we would listen to songs and then talk about what we thought the lyrics meant. I remember we analyzed Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," Metallica's "Enter Sandman," and Matchbox 20's "3 AM." Some really profound music, for sure.

It doesn't take a sophomore English teacher to decipher Tom Waits lyrics. It takes drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.

Sometimes when I'm listening to Tom Waits, I think he sounds like a 40-year smoker on LSD. He sings about some weird shit. I can totally see him as the kid in fifth grade that smelled like pee and sat in the back row, drawing pictures of death on graph paper. But then that smelly kid grows up to write songs about all the weird dreams he used to have.

One of my favorite Tom Waits songs is "16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six". I like all his songs about crows, like "Shiny Things." Crows. I want to get a crow and keep it on a leash.

One day I was pulling into the Starbucks drive-up and there was a crow in the way. I knew he would move, being squished by a car would seriously hinder the crow's ability to eat puke, and crows love puke. IK was in his car seat in the back and saw the crow but didn't see it hop out of the way.

"You ran over that crow!" he shouted.
No I didn't. He moved, see. I pointed to where the crow was back eating piles of junk off the asphalt.
"Oh." IK was quiet for awhile. "What do you think is inside of crows?"
Candy, I told him.

A little 3 year-old Tom Waits in the making.


I've developed a mild fascination with crows and I think my spirit animal is the crow. I don't know this in some sort of official capacity. I mean, if you want a spirit animal, shouldn't you just pick it yourself?

Crow. I'm going with crow.

I was mildly curious about how one figures out which animal is their spirit animal and turned to the Native American mystic know as Google to figure that out.

Step 1. Google "How do I figure out what my spirit animal is?"
Step 2. Pick the first search result that doesn't appear to have been written by toddler.

According to wikihow.com, a website that I believe is maintained by Viagra ad copywriters, there are nine easy steps to finding your spirit animal.

Nine steps! That sounds like a lot of work. I like my process a lot better. Step 1. Pick whatever you want to be your spirit animal.

Actually, I do know how you pick your spirit animal. You get really high and sit in a darkened, incense and candle infused living room, meditating and periodically banging on a deer skin drum while a cynical and sarcastic teenager looks on in disbelief. I know this because I was a cynical and sarcastic teenager and I grew up in Montana where people do a lot of weird shit.

Tom Waits had this to say about crows, in a NY Times article from last fall.

Crows…they say if you can find a wounded crow and nurse it back to health it will never leave you. I’m always looking for limping crows. I’ve even considered wounding a crow then, like a doctor – they break your leg and then fix it, just to have your business. I saw a crow building a nest, I was watching him very carefully, I was kind of stalking him and he was aware of it. And you know what they do when they become aware of someone stalking them when they build a nest, which is a very vulnerable place to be? They build a decoy nest. It’s just for you. So that you think, well, that’s where he took the gum wrapper. That’s where he took the sticks. That’s where he took the tinfoil. But the nest is somewhere altogether different that you’ll never know about. That’s a form of intelligence that’s very curious.

And I also think someone would be real scared of you if they saw you walking down the street with a crow on a leash.

What was I saying about people from Montana doing weird shit?

Pancakes and Bombs: Suburban Living 101

I believe I've told you a time or two that I do not like pancakes. Turn your head to the right and there, in the margin of this website, you will see "pancakes" on the list of things I hate.

They are gross, the devil's food I like to say. And maple syrup is even worse. Don't get me started. They are little sponge pads covered in poison.

While I do not like pancakes, I am aware that most people do, and I'm aware that "most people" are actually children and Marshall Eriksen.

So when little IK, age three, asked me to make him pancakes on Friday morning, of course I said no.

I really did. Mostly because he was supposed to be going to school within the half-hour. Then I tried to tell him pancakes are gross.

"Will you make me pancakes?"
No.
IK looks genuinely confused for a moment. Did she really just say no?
I think pancakes are gross. 
"Why?"
They are mooshy and taste yucky. You should eat an egg-in-the-hole instead.
"No, I want pancakes."
Well go ask your mama, I'm not making any.

I went to my room and was reading a bit when I realized I could still hear IK mucking about which meant he had not left for school and also meant that MK was probably unaware she was about to be late for work.

After a brief conference, it was decided that I would take IK to school and MK would go to work.

IK was a bit fussy about this change of events. Well, it looks like I have time to make you pancakes, I told him, immediately cutting off the fuss.

I survived making the pancakes. I didn't gag as I mixed the batter and it didn't make me gurggly in the tum-tum to pour the syrup on top (especially since I piled a bunch of strawberries on top).

not the pancakes I made, but I think pancakes all look and smell the same...like death

Immediately after the pancakes were eaten, we got a knock on the door. It was the cops. I kid you not. They were there to arrest me for making pancakes.

Or they were there to tell me there was a maybe/sort of/probably/we are not sure, but just in case, BOMB across the street.

"Get thee to the furthest corner of the house until we knock again," said the Victorian Portland Police Officer (or not).

Was it the pancakes? I wanted to ask. But instead I said, Oh my gosh! Okay! Thanks. 

Like a crazer, I grabbed IK and shouted for AM to meet us in the back bedroom. Cut to AM and I cooped up with a three-year-old and three dogs for more than an hour.


(Somewhere in there is an Anne Frank joke I won't make because that would be in poor taste.)

How neither of us lost our minds, I do not know.

I can only conclude that making pancakes could possibly piss someone off and force them to plant a bomb in front of the house. I completely understand, pancakes are very irritating. And though the suspected bomb turned out to be nothing, it served as a reminder that we are living in tumultuous times and sometimes the terrorists win.  The solution is to never, ever, ever make pancakes again.

Later that night, after picking him up from school, I asked IK what he wanted for dinner.

"Pancakes," he said.