Crissy’s Boobies

I have several people to thank for awards I’ve received over the past several weeks (ahem, months) and I also want to whine and cry about a knee injury that’s going to have me off my feet and on ice packs and vicodin Advil for a week.  But you know, this blog isn’t all about me.  No, no really.  It isn’t.  It’s also about you, dear Innernetz!  You’ve been with me through thick and trying to be not so thick, in sickness and in health, outrages, plagiarists, and the general craziness that is my life.  I thank you.  To show my appreciation I am participating in a multiblog contest that is about rigging winning a contest.  A contest within a contest, how very Edgar Allan Poe, don’t you think?

Many of you know Crissy, The Queen of Fucking Everything.  For those of you who don’t, you’ve been missing out on one of the funniest bloggers around.  Crissy doesn’t pull any punches.  She may fart, plan the demise of cute garden-devouring critters, save drowning children, and plot to serve peanuts to her daughter’s pre-K class, but what Crissy doesn’t do is pull punches.  Oh, and she’s hot.  Hot.  Hot.  Hot.  And this is where you come in Innernetz.  Crissy is in the running for The Blogger’s Choice Awards Hottest Mommy Blogger and I want her to stomp Dooce into the ground win.  Now, before you get all misty-eyed thinking that I am oh so wonderful to pimp my bloggy friend, I have to tell you there’s an ulterior motive.

You see, several months ago Crissy made an offhand remark on her husband’s photo blog that if she won Hottest Mommy Blogger she would post a naked photo of herself on her site.  Now, tell me, when has a mommyblogger been such a ho so much fun? 

Get to the point, you say.  What’s in it for me, you ask.  Damn, Innernetz!  You are so impatient!  So here it is… you can win a Sony DSC-T300 Cyber-shot® 10-Megapixel Digital Camera - Silver — list price $499.99, A Sony LCS-THM/B Genuine Black Leather Case — list price $49.99, and a Sandisk 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo — list price $39.99.  Yes!  All of that!  For one of you!

Ahhh, now I have your attention, don’t I?  All you have to do for a chance to win all this loot is to vote for Crissy for Hottest Mommy Blogger. How easy is that?!? Stoogepie originated this contest so check out his site (he’s an artistic genius) for the official rules.  BUT because this is a multiblog contest with several bloggers being Richard Gere to Crissy’s Julia Roberts, if you win this contest because you read about it on MY site, I get something too!  See, we’re all winners here in Dingo Land.  Vote now!

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I Should Run With A First Aid Kit

I haven’t written much about my marathon training lately because, well, it just sucks.  Trying to fit it into my schedule has meant running in 80-degree heat and pouring rain.  But, on a good note, I bought new running shoes!  They’re the same brand as my old shoes but instead of the run-of-the-mill (what the hell does that mean anyway?) blue and white, I got silver and yellow!  Oh yeah, I’m looking like Flash Gordon these days.  Although sometimes I wonder, if I looked like Commissioner Gordon would Christian Bale come rescue me around mile 12 when I’m floundering and my pace has the waddling, decrepit gait of The Penguin instead of the breezy gazelle like leaps of a jogger? 

Mr. Dingo mocks my running belt, which holds 40 ounces of water and fruit-punch-flavored Gator-Aid, four packs of energy Gu (delicious Vanilla Bean), keys, and my homemade emergency contact information card.  Well, it’s not really a card.  More like a post-it note with my name, address, and a message that says, “If my prone, desiccated body is found sprawled on the side of the road, please touch up my hair and make-up before contacting the media.  Oh, and call Mr. Dingo.” But the running belt really is cool, if a bit heavy with all that liquid.  In fact, although Mr. Dingo mocks my belt, he admits that there may still be enough room between some of the water bottles to attach a grappling hook and a flashlight that would emit the Bat Signal.  He laughed but I am scouring the internet for just such a thing.

Since my running schedule has changed, I haven’t seen the usual freak parade.  Mr. Jazz Hands has been absent but he could just be off mourning the closing of Rent.  OLWW hasn’t been seen for weeks.  She probably finally succumbed to heat stroke.  In her place, however, is some guy who looks as if he was trying to get to the Bingo tournament at the Home for the Aged and Infirm but made a wrong turn at the cafeteria and ended up at the hilliest part of Central Park.  Unlike OLWW, his walker is motorized.  He just can’t seem to find the speed controls.  The last time I passed him going downhill, his walker was about three steps too far ahead of him.  He had a panicked look as his sweaty, gnarled fingers began to slip off the handles.  I would’ve offered to help (Shut up!  I would have!  Maybe.) but just then his walker decided to veer off to the right into the curb effectively stopping his downhill plummet.  I figured if he was still there on my second lap I’d steal his walker because by then I’d need it I’d offer some assistance. 

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, that I’ll stop to help a dog but I won’t stop to help another human being.  I suppose this isn’t the time to mention the guy who had a dufflebag and picnic basket precariously attached to the back of his bike.  As he slowly pedaled up the hill the picnic basket would swing widely to the left.  And then widely to the right.  The guy looked like a tightrope walker as he swayed back and forth trying to keep his balance.  All the other runners gave him plenty of room because it was just a matter of time before he fell over.  And he did.  The picnic basket spilled all over the road and the dufflebag made a loud CRACK! sound.  Oh!  Did I mention that there was also a little girl strapped into a child seat on the back of the bike?  And I do mean strapped.  In lieu of a seat belt the guy decided that duct tape was an appropriate restraint.  The little girl wasn’t hurt so I didn’t stop.  No, really!  She wasn’t hurt!  In fact, she was laughing so hard she was crying. 

The fact that I was close to tears myself made me a little less open to whatever terror she was feeling.  Brat, you don’t know the meaning of terror.  Terror is having already gone eleven miles with your legs aching, blisters forming, and knowing that you have two more miles to go.  That, my dear whiny kid in your Hello Kitty bike helmet, is terror.  Pick up your spilled apples and smushed PB&J and shut up.  Get back to me when life gets really hard and then we’ll talk.

So, the marathon is a little over a month away.  Mr. Dingo and I have made our reservations at a cute little bed & breakfast.  I don’t know how much I’ll be able to enjoy either the bed or the breakfast as I’ll be too nervous to eat and then too sore to care.  I’m excited though.  I never thought I’d be able to get this far and I don’t think I would have if it weren’t for Mr. Dingo and you, my dear Innernetz.  I keep thinking of the great party and all the gifts and money you are going to shower me with when I complete the marathon.  Gifts + Money = motivation.

I’m right about the gifts and money, right?

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Outrageous! (NSFW)

It’s not very often that I am outraged into silence.  In fact, Outrage and I are old friends. Our get-togethers are spontaneous.  Just last week during one of my training runs in eighty-degree heat I spotted numerous other runners with their canine companions.  While such a sight would ordinarily turn my bitter, black, little heart to mush, the sight of faithful but overheated dogs with tongues touching the ground vainly trying to keep up with their oblivious owners made me angry. Before I knew it, Outrage decided to join me on my run.  She’s very outspoken and often after she unleashes her vitriol on the deserving imbecile, I slink away wishing that she had more tact.  But this time, when I saw a beautiful Chocolate Lab stumble to the ground with his eyes rolled back into his head, I let Outrage have her way.  Running over to the poor creature (taking two nanoseconds to stop my Nike Sports Band – hey!  I’m in training!) I doused his head and neck with water from my water bottle.  I poured more water on his chest and belly and called for other runners to immediately hand over their water as his owner stood by dumbfounded and useless.  While I channeled my inner St. Francis and Florence Nightingale, Outrage channeled nothing.  She has no inner bitch to channel.  She’s all bitch and all business.  Outrage gave the owner an earful about heat, running, dogs, selfishness and stupidity. 

As I handed the owner a half-empty water bottle so that I could put my ear against her dog’s chest to make sure he was still breathing she actually tried to take a sip of water.  Outrage put the kibosh on that,“Put that down!  That is not for you, you ignorant twat!  That’s for your dog!” The ignorant twat complied.

With a stern warning that the dog needed to get to the vet pronto because he was still in danger from heat stroke and a threat that if she ever saw the owner running with that dog and no water she would report her for animal cruelty (Outrage got the dog’s license number off his tag), Outrage let the humbled and embarrassed owner go on her way.  I stopped Outrage in time to prevent her from slapping the dumb bitch upside the head.  Outrage sputtered and griped through the next half-hour of the run and then just as quickly as she appeared, she was gone.  It was a beautiful day, a great run, and Mr. Dingo had promised that when I got home I was in for one of his incredible massages to ease my aching joints and muscles.

So this week has been somewhat of a surprise to me.  Outrage has been by my side but she has been silent.  Sure there have been things that have pissed me off this week.  The clusterfuck that was the first week of school, the fact that our power went out on Saturday afternoon and neither the landlord or the super contacted us until THIS MORNING! come to mind immediately.  But the truly outrageous happenings have had me walking around in a fog.  I didn’t want to write.  I couldn’t sleep.  Reading, with my mind and emotions in turmoil, was futile.  And what has Outrage been doing?  She’s been wringing her hands.  She’s been saying that nothing will, or can change, there’s nothing we can do, blah, blah, blah, blah.  She’s been a great big whining pussy.

I’m sure you have been outraged this past week as well, right?  Surely, the criminalization of dissent that occurred in St. Paul has you frothing at the mouth.  You don’t know what I’m talking about?  I don’t blame you.  The mainstream media has been sickeningly silent on the unwarranted and often warrantless raids leading up to the Republican National Convention.  Other bloggers have written about it in great detail and I urge you Google and to read about American citizens (including the elderly and the very young) peacefully exercising their right to dissent and being hauled away in handcuffs, unreasonably detained, and in at least one case tear-gassed by the KGB Gestapo St. Paul police force.  Allegations that the police are lying about the items found in the protesters homes and vehicles are making the rounds of the blogs but not CNN, FoxNews, or my local networks.  What?  The police lie?  You mean like how the police brutally injured a Critical Mass rider (yes, they are annoying and a pain in the ass, but still) stating that the cyclist tried to run him down until video aired showing that the cyclist was blindsided by the policeman? You mean those kinds of lies? What can you expect when our highest penal authority lies about weapons of mass destruction?  Yes, “penal” still makes me giggle like a fourth grader but what doesn’t make me giggle is that our highest penal authority is a real dick. 

The mainstream media doesn’t have the balls to air the violations of our right to protest and the independent media has been prevented from doing so.

But should we be surprised?  We’ve condoned torture, kidnapping, and unlawful imprisonment.  We’ve authorized unlawful wire taps, denied people the right to confront their accusers and we’ve made a sham of our Constitution.  Outrage doesn’t know where to direct her rage.  How can you bitch slap the violation of our principles when those violating those very principles are the same ones who took an oath to protect them?

All this outrage with no outlet has made me tired.  Outrage is begging me to turn on the TV, tune into something trashy and mindless, and drop out of this whole mess.  She doesn’t have the energy to muster pointed, snarky responses about McCain and Palin’s convenient use of choice as it applies to real or hypothetical unplanned pregnancies in their families as they deny choices to everyone else.  She doesn’t have the energy to gnash her teeth at McCain’s obvious disdain for women and his belief that we will vote for anyone with a va-jay-jay.  By the way, if you are voting for Palin because she has a va-jay-jay and you wanted Hillary Clinton in office you need to do your homework.  Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton.  If you vote with your va-jay-jay mark the date on your calendar because if anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-equal pay, anti-marriage equality McCain and Palin are in office, they will do their damnedest to make sure that your va-jay-jay vote is the last thing that you ever do that doesn’t require the approval of some white male.

I’d better go.  Outrage is getting nervous.  She keeps thinking that she hears jack-booted thugs coming up the steps to the apartment.  Hell, she may be right.  So, if you don’t hear from me again my dear Innernetz, I will send you a postcard from Gitmo.  And remember, don’t take your dogs running in hot weather.  Because if I find out that you do, after my waterboarding for being a subversive – which, since Bush and McCain don’t consider it torture, I must assume it’s one of the many luxurious spa treatments offered to political prisoners – Outrage and I will hunt you down and bitch slap you.

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I’ll Give You Descriptive Language!

I am feeling a little bit overwhelmed, under the gun, and out of sorts.  Summer classes ended last week but I haven’t finished grading for my summer students because I’ve been working on syllabi, lesson plans, and reading for Fall classes that begin this week.  I didn’t intend to leave everything until the last stressful minute and the whys and wherefores of how I came to be sitting at my desk at 10:30 this evening with Mr. Dingo looking for dinner and Dingo Girl doing the pee dance and tugging on her leash by the door are irrelevant.  What is relevant is that I am trying to figure out how I’ve been to meeting after meeting after meeting at the school this last week and not-a-one of them has been informative in any way.  Sure, I’ve learned how to use technology in the classroom and can now include the new grading rubric that that the school is so gung-ho about, but will someone — ANYONE! — tell me why I have a sixty-page handbook for English Composition that includes nothing about what they actually want us to teach these kids?

In this desperate hour, I say “fuck ‘em.” I’m going to teach what I want.  What is English Composition about if not how to communicate with someone else?  So, this semester I’m going to teach my students important things.  Things that are applicable to their everyday lives.  For instance, in the analysis portion of the class, the kids are going to learn how to give directions like a true New Yorker.  This skill is particularly important when sending out invitations to a rave or a top secret sample sale that you want all your homeys to know about.  It’s also important that you can communicate this information in less than fifty characters because your Sidekick or cell phone screen will only display messages the length of the fortune in your cookie from Happy Fun Szechuan. 

I think teaching them to use language that describes or explains how to perform a task is going to be the easiest lesson.  Just this week I heard a young ‘un go into great detail about how to perform a seemingly complex task.  The first student was telling her friend how to stop his two-year old sister from dropping his cell phone down the toilet.  What follows is — no kidding — a near-perfect transcription of their conversation.

Young ‘un #1:  You just beat ha’!

Young ‘un #2:  Beat ha’?

Young ‘un #1:  Yeah!  Dat bitch mess wit my shit, I’d just beat ha!  Bam! Bam! (slamming fist into palm).  You have to teach them ‘spect and discipline.

Young ‘un #2:  No shit, mothafucka!  I’m gonna beat ha’ when I get home!  Hey, when you gonna see you kid?

Young ‘un#1:  Tomorrow.  I gots to wait until my moms gets off work so she can take me to her daddy.  She live wit ha’ daddy.  Man, these supavised visits suck. 

Young ‘un#2:  Yeah.  Dat suck.  So, anyway, when I gets home, I’m gonna beat ha’.

Young ‘un#1:  Yeah, beat ha!

Now, see?  That was descriptive language to describe a process.  If they had written that conversation in my class I think the grading rubric would give them an A.  An A+ if they gave a presentation complete with Michael Jackson impersonations and demonstrative visual aids such as “Bam! Bam!” (slamming fist into palm).

No Fs this semester.  If one of my students doesn’t get it, I will just beat ha’.  This system is so versatile.

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New Addition

We have a new addition to the Dingo family.  No, not that type of addition.  For the love of Todd, people!  Don’t you think I would’ve said something if Mr. Dingo and I were expecting?  Something like, “Save Me!” or “For Christ Sake, How Did This Happen?!” No, our new addition is of the feathered variety.  I’m just going to lay it all out there.  It’s a pigeon.  Now before you get your panties in a bunch and revoke my New York City citizenship, let me explain. 

Like all TRUE New Yorkers, I hate pigeons.  But this pigeon, well, he’s special.  You see, being a runt, his mama kicked him to the curb, which in this case, means our terrace. And there he sat looking up at the nest where his Mama and his fat fuck of a brother sat eating and lounging in pigeon luxury as he cried out, “Cheep, cheep, cheep!  Mama, I’m hungry!” and “Cheep, cheep, cheep, Mama, I’m scared!” It tore my heart out how excited he would get when his Mama would come out of her pigeon penthouse (the abandoned air conditioner unit from the apartment upstairs) only to have her ignore him and even chase him away.  I am tearing up thinking about it right now.  And so, I decided to feed him.  At least give him a chance to grow up to be the ugly, disease-infested vermin he was meant to be.

I refused to name him until I was sure he would live.  Having a dead baby pigeon on our terrace would be bad enough, having a dead baby pigeon that I named and anthropomorphized would be worse. 

Don’t ask me how Mr. Dingo got him to eat.  It was a Christmas miracle fluke.  It took a while but once he realized that the crumbs Mr. Dingo and I spread before him like a sumptuous buffet at The Luxor was food, he began to eat with relish.  In fact, if Mr. Dingo and I are a late with his breakfast or dinner, he bangs on the terrace door with his wings until we come out.  So, he’s going to live and I decided to name him.  Innernetz, I’d like to introduce you to McJagger.

Dingo Girl has learned that she is to chase all pigeons except for McJagger off the terrace.  McJagger has no fear of Dingo Girl or of me and Mr. Dingo.  He often hops onto our laps to make sure we really are out of bread and not just putting one over on him and he’ll dart toward a piece of bread to get to it before Dingo Girl does.  And Not a Dingo?  McJagger is not afraid of her either – bravado or stupidity, I’m not sure.  Mr. Dingo and I make sure we leave the terrace door cracked open enough to give her a peek at her foster brother but not enough so that she can pounce.  And pounce she would.  She eyeballs him through the door and licks her lips.

McJagger’s next obstacle is learning how to fly.  He doesn’t fly.  He flops.  He executes leaps worthy of Michael Jordan (without the grace and style) before landing in a hail of feathers and fluff.  But he doesn’t fly.  He crashes into walls.  He falls off the banister.  He hops around the terrace like one of those wind-up chicks and Easter eggs that are popular every Spring.  Mr. Dingo has pulled off the miracle of teaching McJagger to eat.  I’m waiting to see how he teaches our newest addition how to fly.

I started this post with the intention of writing about my encounter with the hostile Pigeon Lady that menaces the neighborhood and ended up introducing you to our newest family member.  I’ll write about Pigeon Lady another day – if I’m not arrested for grinding her bones to meal and feeding them to her feathered legions first.

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