Moving back to the Condo in the Closet.
Before Friday was a wandering, free spirit around the apartment he spent his days in the Condo in the Closet, which we affectionately named because it was much more lavish than his previous digs. Post-crate training we moved him to the walk-in closet in the office, where we left the door open and used a baby gate to block of the entrance. His sleeping and wandering space was almost 400% bigger than his old pad, thus earning it the name “Condo in the Closet” since his penthouse would obviously consist of a lavish backyard complete with thick grass, bushes to urinate on and a squirrel to chase.

When the shelves that were holding storage items in said closet fell, it took the apartment staff quite some time to fix it, so Friday got used to roaming freely while we were gone during the days. It was working out . . . until this week.

It seems the well-trained Mr. Friday is shirking his doggie responsibilities and has taken to sleeping on the couch and chair during the day. Knowing full well that he’s not supposed to be up there, he’s smart enough to not only get off the chair before we come home, but to do so hours in advance as not to leave a hot spot as evidence. The only thing he leaves is hair and drool marks.

We thought large throw pillows might discourage him from invading the couch, making the impending jump even more intimidating for his short stature. They worked for a day or two, but then he just decided to push them aside or sleep on top of them. I’m not fully convinced a Scat Mat will work or moreso, that I even want to spend the money on it. Combine that with the chicken wings incident* and add three chocolate protein bars to The List and voila! We’ve downgraded the little sh*t to his Condo for a while. That said, he’s still the cutest little dog in the world.

*on that note: I never needed to clean up the stains from the chicken wing incident. Friday licked them clean while we were gone one day.

posted by paula 9:37 AM

Oh boy. This oughtta make you howl at the moon.

posted by paula 10:52 AM

Seeing Ghosts
When long distance relationships break up, there’s really no mess to it. Especially when the decidedly severing party in the relationship decides to do it over the phone. My last ex was one such party. And I’m learning that living in a large metro area might as well be just as convenient, because in my years here I can’t say that I’ve ever really bumped into anyone I know. So ironically enough, it’s recently occurred to me that unless some unfortunate curse should befall me, I will never, ever have the awkwardness of dealing with my last ex again. That is, until today.

I find the whole situation a little ironic, you see. Both of our exes are Aarons (or Erin, in Ryan’s case). Both had left us for someone else, although my Aaron wasn’t quite sure exactly who that someone else was; it just needed to be someone in the same city for all he cared. Both of them were not from the Midwest. Both of them had preoccupations with odd things; one was Disneyland the other juggling. I’ll let you presume which is which. One was a hopeless cynic and the other naïve, which in my book is reduced to the fact that one was looking for someone to fix and the other was just look for a fix. I still haven’t decided if either one of them got what they wanted.

Today I was in the cafeteria when a gentleman accidentally nudged me. Even irony couldn’t have orchestrated a better plot. What stood before me was the spitting image of my ex or what I presume he would look like today. Sweater vest and all he was nonchalantly filling a cup of Starbucks and I took note of how every detail was specifically Aaron; all the way down to the geeky sweep of his hair and the eerily familiar smell of his cologne. It was like seeing a ghost, simply because to everyone else but me my ex is alive and well. Having severed our relationship so quickly, I assume that my subconscious has filed him somewhere under the category of ‘deceased\muerte.’

I followed him to the checkout and took note of the name on his badge. Unless he had been entered into the witness protection program as of late, it wasn’t my ex. I skipped the awkward “I know your identical twin” talk that could take place and headed back to my desk. What an odd day it’s turning out to be.

posted by paula 10:24 AM

Marky Mark and his Funky Bunch.
Aside from watching the DFL convention on TV last night, we went to see The Truth About Charlie at the luxurious new AMC theatre in Eden Prairie. I must be getting old because despite the fact that movies will always be an entertaining pastime (last night’s was no exception), I felt like complaining about how expensive the whole experience is. And yes, by ‘whole experience’ I mean the movie, popcorn and something to drink. Movies in EP are wallet-breaking $8 now, and popcorn and pop for two people can run you up to $10 or more. But that’s neither here nor there.

The Truth About Charlie is probably the better movies I’ve seen in a while – which I haven’t quite decided if that’s saying much. Of course it helps that Thandie Newton and Mark Wahlberg provide enough eye candy to arouse a blind person, despite the fact that they remain clothed through the great majority of the movie. Then again, I think that Thandie Newton is perhaps the one of the most strikingly beautiful women to come along since Audrey Hepburn. I thought she was gorgeous in Mission Impossible 2 and manages to look even better in TTAC, despite the character’s waify-like personality and naivety. Seriously. This woman is stunning in a way that women can’t even be jealous of. We just admire. Adore. Appreciate. Should I have been lesbian, she would no doubt be my crush.

But weirdly enough, I just tried going to www.thandienewton.com, which to my surprise bounced me to a company called e-Scripts-MD.com, a medical consulting and online prescription filler. It appears that the owner of thandienewton.com is a marketing company that has warehoused a number of websites and gets paid to bounce them off the e-scripts-MD.com, which leads me to believe that he or she must agree with my statements about Thandie’s beauty. After all, why would they bounce her site off to a pharmacy if they didn’t think she should be bottled up and sold? Sure she’s stunning. But intoxicating? That's going a little far.

posted by paula 10:10 AM

This is our newest acquisition. I hesitate to photograph it since photographs never do the actual artwork justice, but this was the painting that I bought on our most recent trip to Wausau. I realize that art is completely subjective so I don’t expect anyone else to love it (although several have). But for some reason this piece certainly strikes a chord with me.

The painter is Julie Daul, a local artist around Wausau, WI. I saw it in the best damn floral shop ever and was mesmerized by it immediately. Julie is showcasing several pieces of artwork in Evolutions in Design, which also include works in mosaic and lamps that she’s painted and turned into art.

I’m no art monger, but this baby is mine.

posted by paula 8:08 AM

Add ‘hot buffalo chicken wings w/ bones’ to the List of the things my dog ate and survived. Last night we forgot that the garbage was sitting in paw’s reach of Friday and we left to go out for the night. He must’ve had quite the time, licking the blue cheese and ranch dressing containers clean because they were shoved into corners of the kitchen, where you could tell he pushed them until they stopped and he could get a good grip on them.
The only problem was that he followed his doggie nature and tried to save some of the wings for later by ‘burying’ them around the house. He buried them in the living room floor, the rugs in the bathroom and dropped them by the kitchen, leaving plenty of buffalo sauce stains all over the place.
Now really, actual children can’t be much messier than this, can they?

posted by paula 7:46 AM