Tag: Dogs

  • My Dog

    People love animals, especially dogs. If you have spent all of three seconds on my blog, you’ve seen my picture with our dog. She’s a mix, small, smells bad, has bad teeth, hates every other dog on the planet, but is wonderful with people. We joke that our dog won the Doggie Lottery, as she got a family that totally lets her be herself, and is even rewarded for it. Our dog doesn’t do shit, other than shit, pee, eat, sleep, occasionally play, and sleeps some more. And she’s wonderful and we love her.

    I bet if you have a dog, no matter how odd or awful that dog is, you’re going to tell me that dog is wonderful, awesome, and you love them unconditionally. AS YOU SHOULD! Dogs are great, and we are so lucky to have them in our lives. And if you haven’t seen it:

    And I bet you know where this is going. But I’m not here to beat up on a Governor who thought a story about shooting a fourteen-month old dog was a good one, and needed it to be included in her book.

    No, this is more about how Cricket did one thing that no politician, or leader, could do in this country. Cricket united us. On both sides of the isle, we all came together to say that killing a dog, an adolescent dog, for the crime of being “untrainable,” is wrong. Our dogs share their lives with us, are there for us when we need them, they give so much love, and can help us in many different ways.

    Rest in Power, Cricket. In your very short life, you proved that there are still issue that we all can get behind.

    This is my dog, and if you met her, she would love you.

  • Short Story Review: “This is a Dog” by Joanna Theiss

    (The story “This is a Dog” by Joanna Theiss appeared in Milk Candy Review.)

    It is hard to pack an emotional pay off in under 1,000 words. Not impossible, just hard.

    Joanna Theiss does this rather masterfully in her flash piece “This is a Dog,” which is one of the best examples of a story paired down to the essential, the marrow of it, and at the same time, leaving enough gaps for the reader to fill in, thus allowing the story to come alive, and have an impact.

    The story is about a dog, if you couldn’t figure it out. And it’s about loving another, and the hope that you did right by them, maybe never knowing for sure.

    Theiss does use a story trick of starting each sentence with “This is…” I’ve seen this type of trick before, from armature writing groups to the pages of The New Yorker. Yet, I will say that Theiss does it correctly. The “This is…” creates a rhythm to the story, helping it charge ahead, and as the piece progresses, the “This is…” begins to take on different meanings from the narrator. Also, Theiss structures her story very well, dividing the piece in five sections, each with a specific narrative function, that not only builds to the climax, but lands perfectly at the conclusion. And that conclusion also nicely ties up the “This is…” motif, making the whole story feel that we have completed a journey with the narrator, who has been changed forever by the events.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Back on the Moon, Cats, and Home Repair Videos

    (I was here first.)

    You guys! The USA landed on the moon! We haven’t landed on the lunar surface since 1972. And when I say “we” I mean a private company that landed a probe, but still – American stuff is back on the moon. I actually do think this is rather cool news, but I also can’t help but feel underwhelmed by it. We have entered the era of private space exploration and exploitation. I hope we do a better job in this age of “exploring for profits,” than the last time. It’s bad enough that there are tons of space junk floating around in low orbit which we have no plan on cleaning up. I would hate to think that the moon is going to get trashed up, and Mars might have Tesla billboards.

    In my core of being, I am a cat person. Now, I do have a dog, and I love my dog, and dogs are great. But I do miss having a pet that tolerates me. Gives me affection when they want to. And who slaps me in the face when they want me to wake up. I’ve always been suspicious of blind loyalty.

    I’m working on breaking my IG addiction. I don’t post as much as I used to, and I guess I should rectify that if I’m building a brand here. What I do find myself doing on IG is watching home improvement and renovation videos. Especially people who put up drywall and tiles. Part of it is the desire to be more “handy” which I feel is a measure of “manliness” is our culture. But I also know that if I am to buy a home in the near future, there will be an element of having to “fix it up.” I want to believe that I will be able to take on these home projects and watching videos is a good way to prep for that eventuality. So, I’m doing myself a service but spending all my time on this. Right? Yeah…

  • ODDS and ENDS: Yippie Dog, The Week of Black Friday, and a Movie Marathon

    (But I wanted a torta…)

    We have a new neighbor in our building, and they moved into the “Bermuda Triangle” apartment. That’s the unit no one stays very long in, maybe six months – tops. Anyway, they moved in, and I have only seen the person once. They seemed friendly and we exchanged pleasantries. But they brought something else with them; a little yippie dog. Oh, how that little dog likes to bark its yippie little bark. Day, night, walking by their door, and sneezing too loud. Yip! Yip! Yip! At first my dog was annoyed at the yipping, but of late, she seems to have resigned herself to ignoring it. We can block it out, and it’s more of a novelty of an annoyance than an actual annoying thing. Yet, I still have to wonder what it’s like in that apartment, as that dog yips and yips and yips day and night. Yip!

    So… “Black Friday” is a week-long thing now. When did that happen? I don’t really care that there is now a week of shopping deals – whatever needs to happen to sell TVs is fine. It’s the use of “Black Friday” to represent an entire week, and in some commercials, the whole month. It feels like this is the first year of the week- and month-long Black Friday title’s use, but I can also see retailers gaslighting me, saying that it’s always been like this. And I should be shopping more. Do I need a new TV? I should get a new TV.  

    As we are closing in on Thanksgiving, and I am a huge MST3k fan, this would be the time to start thinking about watching a marathon of awful movies while on vacation. Sadly, I don’t think I can get the wife and kid on board to watch a bunch of old Joel episodes, let alone actually look for some bad movies in general. (Maybe Rob Hill over at Bad Movie Bible should put out a list of suggestion awful movies to marathon through for Thanksgiving?) No, I think if I want to make this happen, I have to actually be rather creative in my movie selection. We have done all the Star Wars movies, and Harry Potter, and even did all the Marvel movies once upon a Covid. I think I might have to sub-genera it, like all the Spiderman movies. Or, maybe all the different versions of Fantastic Four? Or all the Marvel films? How about Bill Murray movies he later regretted making? Or Gene Hackman “paycheck” movies? This could be fun, come to think of it.

  • Try Again Tomorrow (Unedited)

    I took the dog to the groomer, and that threw off my entire day.

    I mean it was scheduled. In my calendar, so I knew it was coming. The end result, other that the dog having a very nice “puppy cut,” is that I got nothing dome that I wanted to get done.

    Normally I blog in the morning, but I didn’t get around to it until 6pm today. I didn’t do any journaling, and the sketchbook is just a hope at this point – maybe even a wish.

    But the groomer. Walking the dog twenty blocks to drop her off is what really did it. I know lots of people take their dogs on the subway now, and it doesn’t bother me. But I can’t do it. Only because if another dog got in the car, my dog would go apeshit. That and she’s take a dump on the train. (She once took a huge dump while I was in line at an ATM. That was a good day…) So I have to walk her, and I really don’t mind. I do like our neighborhood.

    Also, this is the closest groomer to our apartment, just in case anyone is wondering…

    Which I know no one is…

    That extra forty blocks really took it outta me. Zapped my energy, and the only thing I kept turning over in my mind was that Lauren Boebert was kicked out of a touring performance of the musical of Beetlejuice in Denver because she was being rowdy and using a vape.

    Ahh…

    Try again tomorrow…