I am still, almost three weeks later, stewing over the guy I passed on the freeway doing 75 who had an albino, 3-legged dog in the bed of his truck WITH THE TAILGATE DOWN.

So instead of giving it to Jesus and politely letting it go, I decided to have a chat with him. I paralleled his truck for about 20 seconds, whilst waving my arm and yelling at him that your tailgate is down! And you are GOING TO KILL YOUR ALREADY-MAIMED DOG, YOU NUT JOB!

Never mind that I was so hysterical that I forgot to roll down the window.

And never mind that instead of yelling back at me, he did something far worse. That man waved his hand in a condescending motion, like he was patting a dog’s head. And don’t think I didn’t catch the “Calm down, crazy lady, I do this all the time and my dog loves it” words he mouthed.

Right. I’m sure your dog thoroughly enjoys the terrible flashbacks he gets while hanging on for dear life in the bed of the truck that he lost his leg falling out of THE FIRST TIME.

I’m also sure your dog is thrilled at the prospect that the next time you take a sharp turn, he’ll be walking on TWO legs the rest of his life like a circus monkey.

Unbelievable.

Every morning when I take Emma for her morning business, WITHOUT FAIL, she positions herself to pee standing on an incline. Which means depending on her position, she ends up peeing on her front or back paws.

Does she incline-pee any other time of day? NO. She’ll walk miles to find flat ground when R and I take her out at night. She only slantways-squats in THE MORNING.

And I just stand there. Staring.

And then she trudges back into my apartment. With her paws. On my carpet.

I wish I had a picture for you. It would help you to grasp the frustration.

It’s not like I’m motivated enough to fix the peeing problem, only motivated enough to whine about it.

What would I do anyway? Anticipate her sniffing and then reposition her the instant she squats? Like I have the reflexes of someone with really good reflexes? And IN THE MORNING?

PLEASE.

Maybe I would do more about the problem if it wasn’t happening (have i mentioned?) IN THE MORNING at the ungodly hour of 7:45am which, AS EMMA KNOWS, is a good hour before mama starts caring about anything. Including people.

I don’t even know how to end this post. It’s past my bedtime and all I could think to to write about before I slip into sawing the BIGGEST LOGS EVER is how Emma is going to pee on herself tomorrow morning?

I am sorry if you read this post. Truly.

Goodnight.

Tonight R and I watched the closing Olympic ceremonies. And by watched, I mean R sat on the couch watching and I sat on the couch texting my niece who is in junior high because how long before I am not cool to her anymore–days, weeks, maybe? Time is of the essence with 14 year olds. And the winter olympics comes around every four years, people.

Anyway.

As you may know, Sochi is the Russian city that will host the next winter olympics.

I’m not sure if you watched Russia’s little presentation at the closing, but
I caught bits of it in between LOL/OMG/IDKing with my niece every 9 seconds.

And it just so happened that the bits I caught were SO DISTURBING TO MY EYES. I mean, we all know that the Russians are like the South Korean short track speed skaters of the ballet world. We get it. You’re good at ballet. But why the Russians dressed their ballerina-men (what is the name for a male ballerina? Ballerino?) in nothing but long shirts and leotards that exposed everything up to their backsides is beyond me.

Dear Sochi: PLEASE CLOTHE YOUR MALE BALLERINAS POST HASTE. Thank you. And putting nude nylons on them is not “clothing.” Ahem. You have 4 years to find appropriate attire. Chop chop. And also, it will never–I repeat–NEVER be ok to put your men in a one piece swimsuit leotard thingy. Thank you.

And to top off the night, here’s a little convo that happened during the closing ceremonies.

Me: Why does that big sign and all the “Sochi” promo jackets say “Zoiy” (my pronunciation: zOyee) underneath the word Sochi?

R: What?

Me: (pointing to the screen) See? Right THERE. It says Z-O-I-Y underneath the word Sochi. Is that the Russian word for Sochi?

R: No, baby. *Sochi* is the Russian word for Sochi. And that doesn’t say Zoiy. It says “2014.”

I rest my case.

So much has happened between the time that I fell off the blogging face of the earth and when I made my comeback.

For instance, I started going to bed earlier. Like, before 10pm. I KNOW. I, too, once thought it was impossible for a girl who spent the last 3 years or so-ish stalking far more witty blogs than hers (hollatchaya Big and Boo Mama) till 2:36am every night, while hoovering salt n’ vinegars, to ever break down and start a BEDTIME ROUTINE by 10.

(I won all sorts of awards from my AP English teacher with run-on sentence doozies like that one).

Anyway.

My husband gets a BIG OL’ PLATINUM HUSBANDY AWARD for turning his crazy bachelorette, Mcdonald’s eating, never-met-a-routine-she’s-liked-so-don’t-fence-me-in girlfriend into a wife who freakin’ takes VITAMINS and WASHES HER FACE before bedtime.

(The angels, they are a fallin’ off their clouds in sheer awestruckyness).

So there you have it. The bedtime routine has entered my life. And overall, it has been good. I’ve actually almost made peace with The Morning. (Almost). (Like twice a week).

And yes, at first R experienced what you might call a little resistance from me in the form of IN BED BEFORE 10? WHAT ARE YOU, 90? and whathaveyou. But he eventually won me over — not so much with sweet words of how an early-to-bed routine would make me healthier and happier but more along the lines of him just going to bed without me. Which, as we all know, will drive any only-child to the brink because HELLO DO NOT LEAVE ME BY MYSELF.

So as you can see, I developed a bedtime routine out of fear of abandonment and an abnormal desire for social interaction while washing my face and brushing my teeth.

Amen.

Y’all. Seriously. I haven’t written since November? I have serious issues.

Thank you to AE and Erin for pointing out that I’m the blogging world’s biggest loser. And for asking me to write again.

I’ve been gone so long that I forgot my WordPress password and nearly locked myself out for eternity. (Sidenote: thank you to my iphone’s autocorrect function that helpfully changed “locked” to “licked.”)

(Cause that wouldn’t have made me look weird at ALL).

I’ve also been gone so long that I neglected to approve a comment from a sweet gal at Compassion who asked me to update a linky (auto correct: kinky) on my sidebar. I’ve also been gone too long to remember how to do that. So I promise to get to it!

And just in case you’re wondering, I’ve been married for a little over 4 months now. In that time, I’ve learned some valuable lessons, such as:

- Turning down the brightness on your iPhone will not prevent your husband from waking up and catching you checking Facebook at 1:14am. Even if you had strategically pulled the sheet over your head.

- Just because you are perfectly fine wearing mismatched socks (who really sees them anyway?), doesn’t mean your husband is. Which means he also might not appreciate–nay, he may loathe–digging through the “socks without a life partner” basket to see what combos can be made.

- It is possible that your husband will enjoy eating at the dinner table instead of sitting on the couch with food trays watching Entertainment Tonight. If this is the case, greenlight to blame his mother for bringing him up civilized.

- You might think you can stay awake long enough at night to finally catch your husband snoring. Be careful. It’s 99.999% likely to be the 55 pound dog curled behind your knees sawing logs.

- If your husband leans into your cheek in the middle of church and says you smell like sweet potato casserole, get rid of your sunless face tanner. YESTERDAY.

-

So yesterday as I was walking down the stairs after work, my right high heel caught in my left pant (trouser?) leg.  I’m not sure if I can accurately describe the terror one feels when one is talking on an iPhone one second, and then diving head first down the stairs holding her purse in one hand, and a laptop, 2 dirty coffee mugs, a makeup bag and an empty tupperware container in another.

My entire professional career flashed before my eyes.

And things like this went through my head during 1.3 second fall:  what will I look like when I land? Will it hurt?  I hope the puffy parka I’m wearing will absorb some of the force of the fall or else why did I buy a coat  that took the lives of 36 Canadian geese? Who gets her high heel and her pant leg tangled like this?  It’s like someone tied my ankles together.  Why did I wear these high heels anyway?  Is anyone watching me right now? Should I let the iPhone drop and try to grab the railing?  Why don’t things like this ever happen to my husband?

Anyway.

I’m fine.

The pant leg and the high heel decided to stop making out about 2 seconds before I broke every bone in my body.

But it was a close call.  I’m just sayin.

I have been married for 18 days.

18 days ago I was doing this:

And then after that, all the wedded bliss comes. In the form of this:

And this.

And again.

And then we returned from our honeymoon.

And did this.

And this.

And this.

And I would write more.  But it’s 10PM and my husband, bless his soul, cannot sleep with me “clicking loudly,” as he told me last night. Ahem.

What’s that you say? She hired a personal trainer to get her in shape for the wedding? Who would do such a thing?

R’s fiance. That’s who.

Because let’s be honest, McDonald’s and My Metabolism have been in cahoots to sabotage my big day ever since I got engaged.

So R and I hired personal trainer Satan Ann to help us get in shape.

(And let’s be honest, R doesn’t really need her. Case in point: the other night while I struggled through 30 God-forsaken minutes on the cardio machine, he breezed through lifting weights and then hopped on the treadmill all chipper-like.  Nice).

And we couldn’t just hire any trainer.  No sirreee.  Ashley had to find the person who trains female bodybuilders for competition.  Go big or go home, people.

So tomorrow we start our 2 hours with Ann.  I predict she’ll measure my percentage of body fat, I’ll cry, body slam her six times in my head, and then she’ll tell me to suck it up and start the cardio machine while she works up a “nutrition” plan that entails eating celery and dirt for the next 6 weeks.

The she’ll look @ R and tell him “you’re doing just fine.”

Stay tuned.