And Then . . .

Christmas blew like an enthusiastic whore with razor blade braces.  As I was shopping among the holly jolly holiday lights at Victoria’s Secret and deciding between the comfortable cotton jammies and the brittle acrylic slip that looked as if it had been Bedazzled by blind kindergartners, Bob Cratchit Mr. Dingo was in a nondescript office holding a slip of another sort.  It was pink.  Yes, the Tuesday before Christmas, Mr. Dingo lost his job.  We’re fucked.  The holidays have been spent deciding whether our bed will fit under one of the city’s main bridges and scouring the internet and classifieds for apartments we can afford with frequent flyer miles and an adjunct teacher’s salary (Hahahahahahaha! *wipes tears from eyes*).  We eventually nixed the bridges because there’s no Innernetz.  In spite of all the hype, there are no habitable bridges on the Information Superhighway.  I can live without cable, and electricity, and running water.  But who can live without Innernetz?  I love you, Innernetz.  I really do.  I also love writing comments I never post and sending emails I regret ten seconds after cutting the umbilical cord.  Besides, there’s no Starbucks under any bridges in New York City.  Not yet, at least.  Still, having investigated the bridge option, I now know where all my Starbucks Friends come from. 

So, that’s my Christmas post. 

And here’s my New Year’s post:  Happy Fucking New Year. 

Moving on….

About a week ago, as I sat in front of the computer screen transfixed by our bank account — what does it mean when all the numbers are preceded by a hyphen? — Dingo Girl had just about had enough.  She wanted to play.  She wanted to walk.  She wanted to run and be free of my foul mood and my phone calls canceling things.  Now, Dingo Girl, she’s my chill pill, my Paxil, my shred of sanity, my mutually co-dependent canine compadre.  Dingo + Dingo Girl = BFF4EVA!  Walks with Dingo Girl are never run-of-the-mill.  It’s more like run-after-squirrel and run-after-child-eating-cookies.  Her favorite thing, though, is run-through-puddles.  After the previous week’s rain, I knew the park would be the muddy stuff of a redneck Bubba’s wet dream — dirt so soggy it demands that monster trucks pull tractors, that bikini-clad women wrestle, and that you take your boots off to keep them from getting dirty.

Cresting a hill, we found a stream that had overrun its bank and covered the path.  Fallen trees icky with moss, fungi, and the rest of nature’s enormous assortment of snot blocked one side. The other was a steep drop off into a used condom- and beer-can-infested pond.  There were only two choices: through or around. The wall of logs looked stable, but that was as misleading as an Enzyte commercial.  I kicked the center of the gnarly mass and the log jam shifted.  Something scurried underneath.  I couldn’t really see it, but it looked like it glanced at the ring on my finger and whispered, “my precious.” Oh, hell to the no!  Dingo Girl, we’re turning around.  Dingo Girl gave me the “Bitch, puh-leeez” look as I backpeddled from the Leaning Tower of Nasty.  Mouth open and tongue flying, Dingo Girl cannonballed into the middle of the puddle.  And disappeared.  She vanished.  I looked around me to see if anyone had seen the thirty-pound dog in the fifty-pound body disappear but also half expecting Dingo Girl to be behind me, shaking her paws in my face and telling me I just got freaked.  But I was alone.  All alone.  Dingo Girl had pulled an Osama bin Laden on me without so much as a bark goodbye.

I could hear Gollum sliding around under the Leaning Tower of Nasty, but the puddle was still.  I searched the sky.  There had been a meteor shower over New York City a month or so before, and strange, flashing lights had been spotted all over the place right around Christmas.  That could only mean one thing: alien zombies.  “Give me back my dog you big-headed, one-eyed, undead motherfuckers!” I screamed at the UFOs hovering overhead. 

And it worked!  Suddenly, the surface of the water broke.  That little overflowed puddle was much deeper than it looked!  Dingo Girl emerged on the other side of the puddle sputtering blach, blaaach! blaaaaghhhh! and snarling at the water. 

Ha!  Served her right.  Puddles are one thing.  Total submersion without her wetsuit and fins is another.  She was one mad dog. 

I started to climb over the Leaning Tower of Nasty to get Dingo Girl when my disorder surfaced like a floater.  I was FUCKED.  At the pinnacle of the heap, one foot darted to the left.  I caught my balance. Then, my other foot went right. Leftrightleftrightleftright.  My feet slipped in an increasingly rapid rhythm until I was doing the hillbilly hoedown, knees up to my ears, hands flapping and arms waving like a pew-jumping Pentecostal on So You Think You Can Dance.  The more I tried to regain my balance the more I looked like a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man.  And then the logs shifted.  Gollum was coming!  I was running in place, trying to keep up with the rotation of the logs to keep Gollum from nibbling on my fingers — highkneeshighkneeshighknees — when suddenly my ass hit the log pile and I slid, branch by anal probing branch, until I landed on my back in The Puddle That Ate My Dog.  Dingo Girl whined and pawed at the ground. 

And then, something finally began to go my way. 

Unfortunately, it was the Leaning Tower of Nasty.  It creaked and groaned and swayed toward me like a withered old nun with a ruler in her hands.

Just then, the water moved.  The water didn’t ripple.  It moved.  By itself.

I was on my feet and by Dingo Girl’s side faster than Britney Spears speed-dialed her attorney after she woke up married to Jason Allen Alexander.  Dingo Girl and I were both sputtering blach, blaaach! blaaaaghhhh! and snarling at the water until, suddenly, Dingo Girl turned and ran, leaving me at the edge of the underwater portal to another dimension.  I turned to chase her.  As I turned to go, out the corner of my eye, I saw something slither out of the puddle into the pile of rotted wreckage.  I’m not joking.  It was not human.  Not animal.  Not my imagination.  Dingo Girl barked again.  I followed her in my water-logged boots — squishsplatsquishsplat.  You won’t get us, you big-headed, one-eyed, undead freaks, I muttered. 

Not today, anyway.

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