wolly's world

it's true that wolly has been marginalized in the past year - much like the guy in the office who's really annoying but too nice to fire.
after the inital shock and then after-shock and then after-after shock, i think he's finally accepted that he really is a dog. i think he's maybe even gone the extra step and accepted that being a dog is, in fact, pretty damn good.
look at him here. he's stone-cold sober. he hasn't been this mellow since tayloe fed him half a bottle of dog prozac five years ago.
being the dog in our family isn't such a bad deal. there's a lot to envy (tons of sleep, tons of love), but the thrice-daily showers of table scraps are probably his primary reason for sticking around.
keeping up with (enduring) t2 has aged him, though. he's whiter around the muzzle for sure. he has arthritis in his back leg. he moans sometimes when he has to get up. he has a very hard time jumping in the car.
earlier this week i became convinced that something was terribly wrong with him. he was scratching like a madman, was an ashy, flaky mess and wasn't even walking on his back leg. wolly can be a total pain in the ass and i cuss at him more than anyone, but i'd die if something happened to him. just die.
i hauled him to the vet.
my vet is a bitch. she's cold and stodgy and has no bedside manner whatsoever. however, she really knows dogs and she especially knows dogs with skin problems.
wolly hates the vet - not just this vet. all vets. it's like he smells the fear and it sends some kind of wacko surge to his brain. it's a wonder he doesn't poop all over himself everytime we go.
three vet technicians later, wolly's heaved onto the examination table (which blows my mind, but that's something else entirely). he's standing stiff legged, hot breath panting like a beast while one woman is trying to calm him down, another is holding his left side and yet another is holding him on the right. the vet is at his rump, trying to examine his hind leg.
for some reason she's trying to get him to sit. on the leg that hurts. while perched like a damn parakeet on this exam table.
when he won't do it, homegirl says TO ME, "wolly's not trained is he?"
and then she told me he's overweight and needs to be eating weight management (or at least senior) dog chow. AND THEN she tells me i need to brush his teeth.
i told her that i don't even brush my child's teeth.
my $56 exam fee bought me all of that, plus a little peace of mind. turns out the only thing wrong with wolly is that he's gettin old.
just like the rest of us.

giggle

secret lover

this is the conversation i just had with my washing machine:
me: oh washing machine. what would a day be without the warm, lush way you drench my clothes and the hum of your spin cycle?
wm: hands off, woman! i need a break.
me: no breaks, wm. don't blame me, blame the weapon of mass destruction. he's hell on a t-shirt.
wm: sigh. hey, speaking of wmd - can you ask him to stop banging his blocks on my front side? i'm bruise easily.
me: rub some dirt on it. (pause) i miss tayloe.
wm: well he can't be far. only moments ago he was french kissing my torso.
me: no, no. tayloe the husband.
wm: husband? i've never seen a husband. what husband?
me: my husband.
wm: wwhhaa? oooooohhhhh. OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. well, thank god. i seriously thought we were going to have to have an intervention over the fly fishing shirts and army pants.

kiddie p.e.

leave it it pharida to find the grooviest, most old-school kid activity in our parts. this morning she and i and sadie and tayloe went to gym class with dave rabb. dave himself greeted us, hawaiian shirt, nose hairs, jersey accent and all. he and his wife run the place and they romp around with the kids, let them climb on everything, bring out buckets of balls, build obstacle courses, sing songs, jump on trampolines and play country music. it's a little hole in the wall that's low (way, way low - so very low) in pretention and high on good, clean fun.
i never knew such a place could exist in los angeles.
dave took lots of time to meet tayloe (who he called 'Thor' for the first 15 minutes because he misunderstood his name) and taught him how to do a backwards somersault, which thor liked very much.
next time, i'll take pictures.

swimmy

lets not forget

who the best dad in the whole world is. my father and me, winter 1979

happy father's day

top 10 things we love about tayloe the dad
10. he does a mean 'n sync/boyband impression that always makes us laugh
9. he knows every single word to 'my favorite things' and 'edelweiss'
8. there are very few things he won't do for cake
7. he watches soccer in spanish at high volumes for abnormally long periods of time
6. he reminds me of my dad
5. he sings in the shower
4. he does very good work for a very worthy cause
3. he rocks our baby to sleep
2. he makes up silly stories and sometimes he tells the same stories over and over again, but they never get old (almost never)
1. he grows and evolves without ever changing.

wait, wait, wait

i got this little walker thing earlier this week, wednesday i think, and t2 couldn't do a thing with it. in fact, it was useless to him just yesterday. he'd stand up, hold on to it and then flop down on the floor.
today i sat down with him to play and he gravitated toward it and took off.
is that really all it takes - 3 days - for him to get the hang of something as complicated as walking upright? it takes me three days to get our books back to the library on time (why isn't there an online rental service for books, anyway? netflix for novels).
i feel like i savored just about every moment of his babyhood. i really do - i mean, if anything i over-enjoyed it. i double-dipped, went back for seconds. i ate the fat. and i'll tell you, it was delicious.
i'm being a little over-nostaligic, but how can it really be just about behind us? i mean, i still have 10 lbs of pregnancy weight that i vowed to lose before t2 was a toddler so please dear god say it's not true. say the deadline isn't lurking over me like a very, very knarly thunderstorm.
i want my baby back, baby back, baby back. ribs.

just peachy

i have messed up and cleaned up the kitchen four times today and we've yet to have dinner. sometimes i feel like it's all i do. pull things out of the fridge, put them back, pull out bowls and plates and forks, wash them, put them back. repeat, repeat, repeat.
tayloe's leaving for a week on sunday and the only good thing about that is that my kitchen work load will significantly decrease. kinda like at my old jobs when the boss was out of town.
i do my best thinking in the kitchen. lately there've been about 6 or 7 things that are repeatedly on my mind when i'm standing at the sink or chopping or stirring something on the stove.
they are:
1. we don't have to separate our recycling, it just all goes in one huge bin in the back. so who does separate it? is there a machine that weeds out the plastic from the paper and glass and if so, how big is it and how does it know? a trip to the recycling plant might make a good field trip one day.
2. our neighbors have a bumper sticker on the back of their car. it reads, "who would jesus bomb?" this question occupies my mind for hours.
3. what will i be in my next life? a seal? a flamingo? a rock?
4. what would my spare change sign read if i were homeless? need cash for alcohol research? sign for sale? help me pimp my box?
5. what do they use to ship styrofoam?
6. what will be the first thing i do with the money when i win the lottery?

go to work with dad day

i hope my look in the photo with ben affleck says it all because i'm just not sure what to say about today, or the week we've had for that matter.
will there ever be another time my little boy doesn't seem to care that he's being cuddled by a supermodel? i cherish these days.
da-da? dddaaaa-ddddaaa? what 'wicked game' video? what happened to her top? mom said she was very young in that video and it was obviously made before she had children. da-da, what does sultry mean? why don't i want to fall in love? hhuuuhhhmmm? da-da?

la woman

of course i decided to leave my camera in the car on our fancy night out, so tayloe took this glamorous picture of me filling up the car on the way home. (did you know i cut my hair even shorter? no? well, i cut my hair even shorter.)
ladies and gentlemen, she walks the red carpet and pumps petrol (tayloe was at the atm).
**applause**
we had a great time and i could have kicked myself 1,000 times and then picked me up and kicked me again for not taking my camera along. we really did get to walk the red carpet into grauman's theater, in front of all those cameras and lights and screaming people and na-na-na oscar night hollywood music.
can you believe that? they really play music outside to set the mood.
it worked for me. the sounds rang in my ears as my little black sandal touched the red carpet for the first time. it took all the will power i had not to take off in a delirious sprint, striping off my clothes as i ran like a maniac toward george clooney.
that would have really embarrassed tayloe, though. so instead i walked slowly and tried to act like i'd been there. which was very, very, VERY hard. because, um, i hadn't.
no one was looking at us, obviously. but who cares. i sure didn't because just inside there was free popcorn and soda. FREE! and i didn't have to wait in line to soak my snack in buttery topping because it's very f-a-t-t-e-n-i-n-g. pity for them.
we munched and chatted and watched people and counted fake boobs. then there was the movie, which was fine. oh and the theater! it was gorgeous.
as if it wasn't already an amazing date, we got to walk on the red carpet AGAIN to get to the after party. there were people everywhere waiting to get a glimpse of someone famous. that we were in the middle of all that makes me laugh so hard.
it was just an amazing hollywood night, with movie stars and oppulence and acrobats and fireworks and drink and food. we sat and talked with matt damon and his wife, who are lovely. for me, seeing my favorite entourage character, lloyd, and for a moment really believing that i was living the perfect reality of a tv show was the highlight.
that and the free popcorn.

red carpet ready

this pic was taken a few days ago, back when it was sunny. it's been grey and cool for three days and for some reason it feels like eternity. phewy on june gloom.
tayloe and i are going to the premiere of ocean's 13 tonight at grauman's chinese theater. i finally cleaned out my closet friday and rediscovered one of my favorite dresses. i zippered my skin trying to see if it fit and thought maybe that was an indication that it didn't so much, but then tayloe came in and helped me and turns out it fits just fine. this does volumes for my self worth.
i just waxed my eyebrows because maybe i'll meet brad pitt and if i do, i sure as shit don't want a jungle on my forehead. it's been so long since i've done it that i forgot that it's not the best idea to wax and plan to go anywhere within 5-6 hours.
oops.
i'm pretty excited about our night out, but what i really can't stop thinking about is grauman's theatre and whether they sell pop corn. oh, i hope so.

lovers

well i'll be damned - a picture really is worth a thousand words.
check out a few more here.