I Should’ve Used A Car Wash

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system I can move on to brighter things.  Things like dingleberries.  Remember the last dingleberry incident? Dingleberry 2008?  If you don’t, you may not want to read this if you are eating lunch.  Take my word for it, it wasn’t pretty.  Is it a remarkable coincidence that during Dingleberry 2009, with a huge dingleberry dingle-dangling from Not a Dingo’s delicate butt, Mr. Dingo had to go to work early and then called to say that he had to work late?  I think that Not a Dingo is not the only pussy in the Dingo household.

I’m a delicate flower.  I have a sensitive constitution.  But with Mr. Dingo unexpectedly detained, I knew if I was going to prevent further befouling of my desk, papers, couch, and oh, anything Not a Dingo sat her furry butt on, I was going to have to take fecal matters into my own hands.  I should have known that things were not going to go well when I started to gather the pet shampoo and conditioner and both Not a Dingo and Dingo Girl made themselves scarce.  Normally, Dingo Girl is very protective of Not a Dingo.  During bath time, however, all bets are off.  When I located them under the bed, Dingo Girl was practically shoving Not a Dingo toward me with a “Sorry Sis, better you than me” look on her face.

Let me tell you right now, it is impossible to bathe a cat by yourself.  Everyone who makes snide comments about crazy single cat ladies had better watch out.  Any woman who bathes a cat by herself and emerges unbutchered is a force to be reckoned with.  I am not one of those women. 

As I’m trying to hold Not a Dingo steady, douse her with water, open the shampoo bottle, and keep myself from gagging, Dingo Girl has decided that it’s safe to come from under the bed and defend Not a Dingo’s honor.  She’s pawing at my legs, barking, and whining like a little bitch.  So, with one hand on Not a Dingo, one hand on the shampoo bottle, and one leg braced against the tub, I use the other leg to try to scoot Dingo Girl out the bathroom and close the door. 

On the best of days I am not a coordinated woman.  On my worst of days I’m lucky if I don’t end up in traction surrounded by hot male nurses feeding me ice chips and giving me sponge baths….  Hmmmmmm!  Let me think about this….  Hot male nurses….  Sponge baths….

Um, where was I?  Oh yeah, falling into sewage.  I lost hold of Not a Dingo who took that as her cue to dart for the nearest escape route.  Which happened to be underneath the gaping opening of my oversized t-shirt.  Everything would have been okay if she had gone up the shirt, popped out the neck opening, and scurried on her merry way to sun in the bedroom window. 

But that’s not what happened.  I am lucky if I can find a T-shirt to fit over my big head without stretching the neck opening large enough to allow Ann Coulter’s ego to fit through.  Fitting both my head and a wet, irate cat through said opening is not. gonna. happen.  Of course when she darted up my shirt I jumped up.  Being clawed by a pissed off kitty will make one do stupid things.  Not wanting her to fall to the floor and hurt herself, I put my hand over the opening of my t-shirt.  I had a feline Edward Scissorhands bouncing around my shirt like a bb and wailing as if someone just set her tail on fire.  Dingo Girl barking.  Me screaming.  It’s amazing that the construction workers next door and the Stiletto Sisters upstairs didn’t pound on the walls asking me to keep it down. 

I ran to the living room and stood over the couch before opening my T-shirt to dump Not a Dingo onto a soft landing pad.  There was no gratitude for my sacrifice of skin.  The bitches ran to the bedroom to hide under the bed and talk about what a mean mom I am while I surveyed the damage to my tender flesh.  Did I mention that I am a delicate flower?  My stomach and chest looked as if I spent the day playing in razor wire before exfoliating with a brillo pad.

Mr. Dingo came home a few hours later.  By that time Not a Dingo had emerged from her hiding place, matted and covered in dust bunnies and other detritus of questionable origin that clung to her damp fur.  “That’s some nasty-assed shit!” he said, “She needs a bath!”

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B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

Oh, the busy life of Dingo.  One of the perks of not living in the real world is that I get a month off for Winter Break.  An entire month!  Unpaid, of course, but who needs money when I can live on love Ramen Noodles?  I know, I know, Innernetz, you are thinking, “Bitch gets a month off and can’t bring her ass to post more often!” There’s a reason for that, Innernetz.  I’ve been terribly busy.  Please read that last line with a British accent.  No really, do it.  Out loud.  I don’t care if the person in the office next to you can hear you.  I think they’d be impressed that not only are you terribly busy but that you also know a foreign language!

So, what have I been doing you ask? 

• I finally got around to organizing my cookbook.  That took all of two minutes. I basically have two categories:  Soup.  Sandwiches.  I make awesome soup.  I’m still working on the sandwiches. 

• I went to the school at least five times to make-sure-they-got-my-thesis-and-why-haven’t-I-received-any graduation-information-yet-oh-my-god-what-if there’s-a-mistake-and-I-still-need-to-take-another-class-oh-look-someone-left-donuts-in-the-staff-lounge!

• The apartment is finally clean.  Well, except for the bedroom.  Apparently, the people who built our apartment back in the days when people weren’t expected to live past their 30’s obviously counted on tenants not living long enough to notice that there were no closets.  So we have piles of things, stacks of stuff, and mounds of madness just waiting to trip me when I get up in the middle of the night to pee.  The Cougar is coming to visit in a few weeks and I’m hoping that in a fit of nostalgia for my teenage years, she’ll clean my bedroom for me.  Maybe if I play Duran Duran and wear friendship bracelets and parachute pants, she will automatically start sorting and folding in a Pavlonian response.  Then again, she could just ground me until my room is clean. 

• Sleep.  ‘Nuff said.

But best of all, Innernetz, I found a place to cut my hair.  Yes, I went and got my hur did.  It has been months since my last hair cut and I’m still having post traumatic flashbacks. My previous hairstylist was apparently also fan of the 80’s because I walked out of the salon looking like an extra in a hair band rock video. So, I took a day off from eating bon-bons and having our cabana boy feed me grapes to interview a couple of hairstylists.  Yes, I interviewed them.  I asked them questions and asked to see their book/portfolio.  Most of the stylists I spoke to were quite willing to talk about themselves and their work.  I crossed the ones that talked too much off my list.  I don’t care how good you are, I don’t want a chatty stylist. You should be channeling that energy into making me look gorgeous. The ones that looked at me as if I were crazy and refused to talk were not only crossed off my list but I left a big red X on the sidewalk in front of their salon as a warning to others.  Okay, I didn’t really do that last part, but I’m sure if I had, curly-haired women citywide would thank me.  And maybe even throw me a party.

I also eliminated stylists who charged for consultations.  Charging someone a fee to take a look at your hair and the six inch stack of movie star photos you’ve brought in as references is ridiculous.  Some of the salons say that the consultation fee will be deducted from your salon service.  But what if you decide not to get your hair cut with them?  What if you pay your consultation fee and then they bring Bobo the Monkey out to play with your hair?  Although, thanks to my Discovery Channel obsession, I know that monkey’s are meticulous groomers, I just don’t have a purse big enough to carry around enough bananas to properly tip.

But I did find one stylist who met my exacting standards and yesterday was my date with destiny.  She was amazing.  After she was done cutting and styling my hair, I wanted to roll over and have a cigarette.  Walking home from the salon, I stopped at my corner deli to pick up something to eat.  I hadn’t seen the woman behind the counter in almost a month but when she noticed me her eyes got big and she rushed right over.  I was prepared to preen and bask in hair admiration.  She leaned across the counter, “I haven’t seen you in ages!  You look different!” I smiled, “I do?!”

“Yes,” she said, “Did you gain weight?”

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Ditto

When Dingo Girl and I got back from her walk this morning, a woman with a CSI: NY hat was walking out of our building.  Two things came to mind.  One, did Mr. Dingo finally snap and kill our annoying upstairs neighbors?  Two women moved in about a week ago and have already wormed their way into the darkest, crankiest part of my heart.  They are recent college grads – I know, I did reconnaissance when they first moved in – who apparently majored in walking around on hardwood floors wearing steel stilettos, with a double minor in high pitched squeals and drunken stumbling up stairs.  You probably met many women just like them on your campus.  You know, the ones seeking an MRS degree whose sole purpose for being in college is to graduate to a white gown and veil.

My second thought was that the nosy neighbors in the building across from us called Crime Stoppers.  Because they are nosy.  And they watch all those crime shows.  I know that because I can see their TV from my terrace.  Hey!  There’s a difference between reconnaissance and nosiness.  Reconnaissance is when I ask questions and peek through curtains.  Nosiness is when everyone else does it.  Anyway, one of these neighbors may have been able to peak into our window to see the No Man’s Land that is our kitchen (because no man has been in there to do dishes in ages – no woman either) and mistakenly assumed it was a crime scene. 

Dingo Girl and I made our way upstairs.  There was no crime scene tape and unless there were dead bodies under the piles of laundry, everything seemed to be customarily out of place.  In a few days, when the radiators start pumping thermonuclear heat, if the smell of decomposition fills the air I will have to take a look at the misshapen lump under the largest pile. 

The sorority party upstairs must abate before midnight — or at least during Grey’s Anatomy on Thursday’s — or there will be two misshapen lumps under the dry cleaning.  Their presence just adds one more con to the pro/con list Mr. Dingo and I compile every year at lease renewal time.  For all its faults, I like this apartment.  I don’t want to move.  I think I like this apartment even more because I don’t want to move.  No, not “I don’t want to move” but “I don’t want to MOVE!” Moving in NYC is about as painless as passing a kidney stone.  And expensive.  A one bedroom in a walk-up, no doorman, safe neighborhood, close to mass transit, dog-friendly, with appliances from this century will cost, at a minimum, $2500.  Add a broker’s fee of 20% of your entire year’s rent, a security deposit, first and last month’s rent, movers, blah, blah, blah, and it often ends up being cheaper to stay right where you are.  And buy ear plugs.  So, I think we’re going to stay in this apartment.  That’s the apartment hunting advice from this jaded New Yorker.  If you can tolerate where you are, stay there.  Believe me, the bar for what I can tolerate is pretty low.  I’ve lived in some pretty intolerable places.

When I first moved to NYC umpteen years ago to work for Pathetic Air Lines, I had grand dreams of the ultimate apartment.  I lived in Ft. Worth at the time.  I had a 980 sq. ft. two-bedroom apartment in a gated community, a beautifully landscaped pool, concierge service, a double balcony, and beautiful views of a field of wildflowers.  For that, I paid the outrageous price of $405 a month.  It was crazy to spend that much money for an apartment in Ft. Worth but I thought it was worth it.  So, during training, when four of my flight attendant buddies and I discussed where we would live once we got to New York and how much each of us could afford to pay, I said, “Well, I paid $405 for an entire apartment in Ft. Worth.  I suppose I could spend about $200 a month.” Mind you, many of us had spent much of the early 90s watching Demi Moore make ugly pottery over and over again in her New York city loft apartment.  Hey, if she could live in that loft on what an artist makes, well, so could we.  Especially if there were four of us to foot the bill. 

We scoured Bed, Bath and Beyond and The Container Store for fun and unique ways to decorate our yet to be rented crash pad.  By the way, does anyone else think the phrase “crash pad” is highly inappropriate for people working for an airline?  Anyway, we wanted the apartment to be walking distance from Central Park.  With a terrace.  And a laundry room.  And a gym.  And a doorman.

We didn’t end up near the park.  We didn’t even end up in Manhattan.  We hadn’t planned on landlords telling us that they don’t rent to flight attendants because we would just get pregnant and walk out on the lease.  We hadn’t planned on New York City being so damned expensive and our paychecks being so damned small.  We made just over the qualification for welfare. 

No loft.  No pottery wheel.  The only ghosts were the ones left behind by whatever crack deal had undoubtedly gone wrong resulting in the vacancy.  My first apartment in New York almost made me turn tail and run back to Texas.  It didn’t have a lock.  We had to place a chair against the door to “lock” it from the inside.  It had a gas stove with two burners that you had to light with a match.  Roaches and other multi-legged critters would run from the burners when the flame ignited.  I think that might have been one of the landlord’s selling points.  Pet-friendly, because believe me, those motherfuckers were the size of the cats that scratched at our windows at night to get inside.  Apparently, the mice in our apartment were tastier than anything they could catch on the street.  I lived in that apartment for three months before having enough money to move up in the world.  I moved in with seven other women into a two-bedroom town house.  I was lucky.  I got a top bunk and paid $500 a month for the privilege.

So, annoying noisy neighbors upstairs?  That, that I can tolerate.  And I’m sure they’ll provide tons of blog fodder in the months to come. 

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Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

Breaking news!  I ate a vegetable for dinner! 

I quit smoking two months ago (go me!), started running, and now, now I’m eating veggies?  What’s next, a cure for cancer?  Don’t roll your eyes, I’m sure whatever is growing in the Petri dish that is my bathtub has medicinal properties.  Mr. Dingo and I are trying to adopt healthier eating habits and so far, of all the changes in my life, this one that has been the toughest.  I mean, I was raised in a family where “fried” is the fifth food group.  If the food wasn’t fried it had best be smothered in gravy.  My culinary role models were not Julia Child or the Cajun Chef and his “un-yones.” I was more cosmopolitan in my tastes, preferring the exoticism of Outback Steakhouse and the intercontinental flair of The International House of Pancakes. 

Obviously, I am not a foodie.  Which, by the way is a pretentious label.  Do people actually go around calling themselves “foodies?” Wait a minute, let me ask my friend Google.  Oh my God, Google says, “Yes!” What does one wear to such an “intimate” event that the information on location will only be given to those who RSVP to the tasting?  Would my Red Lobster bib be completely out of place?  When should one use the finger bowl and when should one just lick one’s fingers and why does one always use the pronoun “one” when trying to sound high-falutin?  I would go to an event like this if just to report back to you but $85 is a lot of money to shell out just to make fun of people when I can get that sort of amusement for free just by walking down the street.  Or teaching my class. 

Speaking of class, yesterday — only two class meetings away from the end of the semester — I was informed that I have to give a final exam in the class.  As part of some new (“new” as in only TWO class meetings from the end of the semester!!) assessment program, all freshman literature classes must have a final exam.  My class took it rather well.  I softened the blow by telling them that I would only use the highest test grade, whether that was their mid-term or their final, when calculating final grades.  I was immediately hailed a hero.  I basked in the praise — “You are soo cool!” and “You rock!” — while secretly patting myself on the back for figuring out a way to avoid creating a new grading rubric.  Oh, and the students that the assessment team chose from my class to assess?  You guessed it, the plagiarist.  Also included in my assessment:  a student who hasn’t turned in a paper the entire semester and someone who has been featured quite regularly in my rants here.  They couldn’t pick my rock stars?  They couldn’t pick the students who amaze me daily with their insights and ability to discuss issues and the complexities of literature and life?  No, they pick the two students who I can’t tell whether they are vegetable or mineral. 

It’s enough to make me want to drink except that, after reading that foodienyc.com web site, I’m beginning to doubt my ability to taste and assess food and wine.  Maybe I should put together an assessment team for food and wine.  We could all meet at my apartment and eat fried food and drink my favorite wine.  I would even spring for one can for each of us.  Of course, since it would be such an intimate setting, I won’t be able to tell you the location until you RSVP.  And please, bring your own Red Lobster bibs.  My set is currently in the laundry hamper until the maid gets around to cleaning them.

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Furry Frenzy

I had planned to write a witty post this morning about how I quit my job and the how trying to find someone to replace me has my former coworkers in a frenzy.  I was going to gloat about how Mrs. Garrett runs late to meetings and curses the day I walked out the door.  I was going to write about all of that this morning.  Instead, I chased Not a Dingo around the apartment with a pair of scissors. 

Not a Dingo had a massive dingleberry hanging from her butt and I had to remove it.  It was gross.  Really gross.  I first noticed it this morning when I smelled a rotten stench on the bed.  At the time I blamed it on Mr. Dingo and the delicious burritos we consumed last night.  “Very funny, Sweetie,” I said, before making a quick escape to the living room.  Well, it wasn’t exactly a quick escape.  Not a Dingo sleeps on my pillow and Dingo Girl sleeps across my legs, but I extracted myself as quickly as possible without inflicting bodily injury and hightailed it outta there.  The girls were close behind.  I did not believe Mr. Dingo’s drowsy denials and was a little miffed that I was driven from bed and robbed of thirty additional minutes of sleep — robbed, I tell you! — by his malodorous wake-up call. 

About 20-minutes later, Not a Dingo joined me at my desk.  She often takes up residence in my outbox while I am working.  When she’s not in my outbox, she’s sitting on my keyboard, trying to sit on my keyboard, or sitting in front of my keyboard with her furry face five inches from mine trying to hypnotize me with those big eyes of hers to get up and get her a treat.  So, when my feline inhabited outbox produced the odor of a fully inhabited catbox this morning, I knew that I had unjustly maligned Mr. Dingo — but I didn’t apologize.  If he didn’t deserve my censure this morning, he certainly has on other occasions.  He had it coming.

Lifting Not a Dingo from her perch I was immediately disgusted and repelled at the nastiness appended to her.  And now, you are disgusted and repelled as well.  That’s what blogs are for, no?  But you didn’t have to wrestle with a pissed-off cat this morning.  And neither did Mr. Dingo.  Two seconds after I told him of our dilemma, he suddenly had to be at work early for a conference call or some such sorry-I-just-checked-my-calendar-and-noticed-it-have-to-run-don’t-want-to-be-late-very-important-bye thing, and out the door he went.  Oh Mr. Dingo, you will get yours....

So, this morning was spent running with scissors.  Not a Dingo was far from cooperative.  Without getting into the gritty details of this morning’s bout of Twister with my normally docile kitty (because I expended all the grittiness describing Not a Dingo’s poor hygiene), let’s just say that I’m reconsidering our decision not to declaw her and have notified the CDC that my local hospital will need antibiotics to counteract the effects of cat scratch fever. 

This was definitely a two-person job.  I could not hold a wiggling Not a Dingo and use a pair of scissors to clip a foul-smelling golf ball size mutant appendage while trying to calm Dingo Girl.  Yes, Dingo Girl had to get in on the act.  Any sign of distress from Not a Dingo caused Dingo Girl to whine, bark, and nudge my elbow with her nose.  Between the mewling, gyrating, barking, nudging, stinking, tears and tears, I was truly in awe of people who work from home and manage to be productive. 

When I quit my job a little over two weeks ago, I had blissful but seemingly realistic visions of morning workouts in Central Park followed by several hours of writing, preparing for my English subject-matter test, a break for some play time and a walk with Dingo Girl, working on my thesis, and then studies before running off to teach and returning home to a warm, hot, nutritious meal and glass of wine on the beach, the sunset glittering off my diamonds and too-white teeth.  But it was not to be.  There are not enough hours in the day when my days are filled with things like dingleberry distractions and extractions that prevent me from sitting at my desk and working.  I need to come up with a system that makes me just as efficient and as organized at home as I was at work.  Any suggestions that do not involve violence?

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