On the weekdays I worry about my dogs coming across dead animals.
On the weekends I worry about my dogs coming across my unconscious, sloshed neighbors.
Posts about Ingrid the Labradoodle and Gunter the Chiweenie.
On the weekdays I worry about my dogs coming across dead animals.
On the weekends I worry about my dogs coming across my unconscious, sloshed neighbors.
Juddson brought his roommate’s pitbull-terrier over. Meet Jabroni:
This is what I have to deal with every time I want to sleep in:
I gave some snark during the dog walk:
Mousy Girl: “Oh god, I can’t believe someone would just tie them up like that!”
Gawky boy: “Yeah, how pathetic and inhumane.”
Mousy Girl: “Too many bad dog owners in the neighborhood…”
Me (coming out of the cafe) : “They’ve been pissing for the past five miles, so they can wait five minutes while I pee for a chance.”
What a busy, hilarious week. There is too much to write about, so I am settling for pictures and captions. This is choppy, but appropriate given the state of things…
This week featured a massive iced-tea spill at the office. Amber is cackling as I run to fetch napkins:
Judd and I took the dogs on a walk around Lake of the Isles this morning. He now realizes that I do not exaggerate the craziness I run into on these walks.
There were vicious mini-dogs, creepers that went out of their way to talk to us, and a lot of awkward “why is the dog doing that?” moments. We survived with a lot of lysol, some silly string, and a taser.
There were also mansions. The Lake of the Isles is cluttered with them.
This is my favorite:
Bam! I know there are grander mansions directly on the lake, but this is my favorite. I will live here someday. I will wear a long, flowy bath robe and saunter out to the front steps to fetch the morning edition of the New York Times. The dogs are dead at this point, the bad-ass kids are away at boarding school and Juddson is off on business.
It is just me, my mansion, my coffee, and the lemurs…
The mansion straddles a hill slightly off the lake and is surrounded by dramatic old churches. Living directly on the lake seems inconvenient. The constant stream of cars, dogs, and gawkers is not worth the status boost. Then again, maybe my opinions will change when I’m fabulously wealthy and in need of a prestigious address…
In which Gertrude establishes who’s boss:
I moved some furniture around so that the Rottweiler can no longer see me leave the apartment. This might help end her kennel-hysterics.
Harley decided to camp out behind my books during the furniture move:
And yes, I’ve decided that I’m going to construct a book-fort around him when I move from this apartment.
My apartment building is old and decrepit, aka vintage, so bathroom wall leaks in odd places. This isn’t new.
Two weeks ago I had a mysterious leak from my medicine cabinet. The landlord eventually came, fixed the leak, and said, “OH MY GOD! Look at the water damage to the paint in your bathroom! We need to fix this!”
Turns out that the paint in the bathroom has had water bubbles and stains since before I moved in a year ago…
After a week of scheduling, the painter arrives. I leave the painter (hoping he doesn’t rob me) and walk the dogs around the Lake of the Isles.
Spring break was exhausting.
The week was strewn with awkward middle-of-the-day appointments and my entire salary went to the vet.
I come home from work on Saturday night to find my apartment covered in scat and blood.
Apparently stress caused the Rottweiler to have a bacterial imbalance, and erm, yeah. Blood. Everywhere. It was disgusting.
I was on the phone with Madre Jansen while scrubbing the blood from the floor:
Me: “Ugh.”
Madre Jansen: “What’s wrong grasshopper?”
Me: “I’m scrubbing blood from the floor. The Rottweiler is having issues again. I’m going to vet.”
Madre Jansen: “This is getting expensive. Maybe you should give the dog back to the humane society.”
Me: “Ugh. We’ll see. I still want to make her into a handbag.”
Madre Jansen: “Maybe she’s on her period and – excuse my language – just a sloppy bitch.”
I laughed so hard that I almost dropped my phone in the blood.
Mom cursing = hilarity every time.
It was my third vet trip within a week. Harley did a good impression of my face when I saw the bill:
I came home from work, Gertrude was out of the kennel, and the floor was covered in blood.
Another trip to the vet, $230, a hospital stay, and a dozen tests later, the doctor tells me that stress induced a bacteria imbalance which causes the rottweiler to pee blood. Charming.
The only thing that’s keeping me from killing both of the dogs is the cuteness:
Two small miracles happened.
Spring break is complete.
Sassy Sue: “Are the dogs scared of bikes?”
Me: “I guess we’ll find out.”
Sassy Sue: “Oh hell nah!”
Me: “What did you say?”
Sassy Sue (getting off bike): That answer was unacceptable!”
I then ran into a pack of kids coming out of a youth center across the street.
Everyone has a syrupy facebook friend: the one whose status updates constantly mention their significant other in a cheesy, overly-sentimental way,
Syrupie Smith: “Off to lunch with my amazing boyfriend!”
Syrupton Bergsteiner: “Going to see my beau! Love you babe! Xoxo!”
Syrupy ~LOLZ~ Adams: “So excited for tonight! I get to see my sweety! Tee hee hee!”
Etc.
These are also the people with the preggers pictures and baby-profiles, or the gay guys who upload dozens of nearly-identical shots of themselves posing with their not-so-cute boyfriends. Hay!
We all know these tacky people, and I am trying desperately not to become one. But it’s hard. The new relationship is more Beyonce than Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
Today the temperature was well into the 50’s and everyone was waltzed around without coats, and most of us had shorts on.
I had time for the multiple dog walks because I left work early.
My coworkers and I are probably going to start boycotting most of the food options at work. Amber got food poisoning from a cafeteria salmonella salad, and I became deathly ill after eating a pack of sugar-free gummi bears from the company store.
I, of course, ate an entire pack of the jelly beans AND the gummi bears. And yes, the warnings are there for a reason. My goodness.
This coming week is Spring Break for my school. I will work a lot, but I have grand fitness plans. We’ll see if I can force myself into a Jillian Michaels workout routine, or if I will have Har Mar’s curves for another season.
Kenneling Gertrude, my Rottweiler, has been a problem recently because she paws and flings herself against the kennel door until it opens.
I like to keep the rottweiler kenneled when I’m away because of her propensity to eat cellphones, and after a week of successful rottweiler escapes, I get the brilliant idea to secure the kennel door with my U-bike lock.
This, of course, is a disaster: 1/3 of the time the bike keeps her in the kennel, 1/3 of the time she escapes and the other 1/3 of the the time I come home to this:
Fail.
A few days ago, I find my Rottweiler half-hung with a pool of dog drool and hair on the carpet in front of the kennel:
Turns out that she really hurt herself when she got her head/collar stuck that day. I noticed puss and bleeding and skipped Friday morning’s bail hearing to take her to the vet.
I’m standing in the vet’s office with both dogs, thoroughly convinced that they are going to call the police. Gertrude had three wounds around her neck from rubbing her skin raw, but the worst part was when the vet tech looks down and says, “And she’s also missing a canine tooth.”
I am mortified. She ripped a tooth out while trying to escape from the kennel?! What the hell?
A hospital stay, sedation, antibiotics, and $509 later, she’s back home, looking decrepit:
She destroyed the plastic kennel, but Judd gave me a metal crate that he had from his prior dog.
The metal crate works and Gertrude doesn’t even try to escape anymore…probably because she doesn’t have that many teeth to spare.
I’m walking the dogs when I run into my mailman:
Mailman: “Eek! Those are huge dogs! Makes a mailman wanna piss himself! Are they friendly?”
Me: “Oh, most of the time.”
Mailman: “Heh. Huge all the same. What apartment do you live in?”
Me: “53B.”
Mailman: “53B?”
Me: “Yes.”
Mailman: “I’ll make sure you get your mail on time then.”
Me: “So that’s how to get service!”
I always release the dog treats a little before Harley bites down…
Now you know why.
The “treat” in that picture is a pig ear. They come in sacks of 20 at Wal-Mart and the dogs love them. And yes they are greasy and absolutely disgusting to handle.
Oh, and that mess of wires is the power-strip for my laptop and speakers. I’ve decided that the futon is a better study area than my desk, aesthetics be damned.
Dog time comes at a terrible price:
Luckily, Judd wore two shirts, and took the button-down off before letting the dogs use the other one as a kleenex. He’s a smart cookie.
The temperature is above freezing for once, so I decide to take the Rottweiler on her first run.
We reach the Lake of the Isles before I realize that Gertrude does not run, at all.
She trots for a few seconds and then plants her bum on the sidewalk like, “Oh, you think you can rush me, foo?”
I panic. I am stuck in a park, during the daytime, with a dog!
This is a disaster.
Walking in a dog in Minnesota is like wearing a red polo in a Target store: an invitation for harassment. Walking a dog feel like having a big sign across my chest: “I AM APPROACHABLE AND WILL LISTEN TO YOUR OVERSHARE!”
The cliché of “Minnesota Nice” is really a euphemism for “Minnesota Batshit-crazy.”
The constant conversation-starting and overshare1 makes me feel like I walked into one huge group home. Strangers tell me about any dog they – or a friend – has owned, their AA meetings, their relatives’ social security checks, their children, juicy canker sores… it’s…just…terrible.
But I have a plan! I turn up my MP3 player so loud that everyone will know that I can’t hear them and then just avoid eye contact! Brilliant!
A few people actually wave and invade my personal space to get my attention, but I flash a curt smile and keep walking. The message is clear: “Sorry if I appeared approachable. I’m not. Bye now.”
The long dog walk was also a bit of a chore because the Rottweiler is so awkward. She dives into chest-deep snow banks and flails around as if she’s swimming. This is cute for exactly 12 minutes before I yank the leash and drag her home.
This Gertrude after she scaled a retaining wall:
What an awkward duckling. I think she suits me.
And my Minnesota-induced social anxiety is not limited to dog walks…
Edit: I wrote a rather lengthy post about the “crazy” I’ve encountered in Minneapolis, but I had some unexpected time to think due to internet problems and I decided that I was unfair.
Here are my findings of fact (what’s the point of a JD if I can’t inject legalese into blog posts?):
Heck, many of my now-regular readers thought this blog was socially inappropriate when I started law school. A flamboyant, non-anonymous law student? Blogging? Tweeting? What? Gasp. “That’s inappropriate!”
Not anymore. One year later, Huma and I aren’t shocking at all, are we? Watch us give fashion claws…
“Social appropriateness” is a safe, but also a surefire way to be bland. It’s just like how Kelly Clarkson sells, but we how really prefer Madonna, Gaga, and Beyonce.
My problem with my Minneapolis crazies is that I constantly feel harassed, but this may be the price of living downtown in any city.
At least I’m not bored.
1 And before you go there, there’s a difference between a blog that YOU have to look up and someone randomly oversharing on the street to a complete stranger. And if you have a problem with my foursquare updates, I won’t be offended if you unadd me from facebook, dear.
I think she’s being dramatic.
Harley’s unimpressed.