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.

aw, shit

i've been feeling a little unhinged lately. t2 is going through some kind of nap transition that has our days jumbled and all this crawling and exploring and keeping up with is hard on a gal. so the end of the day comes and just about everything around us is a complete, turned-over, spilled-on, crunched-up cheerio mess. because i'm a bit of a tidy tina, messes get to me. bad.
i feel like my brain has ridden the scrambler 678,000 consecutive times.
that said, the other day i was trying to clean out my closet while t2 poked around in our bedroom. my closet is a nightmare right now. i've been either going barefoot or wearing flip flops for the past month because i can't find any of my shoes.
so i'm on task and making progress when t2 has an explosion. i pick him up and dash him to his room for a change when i realize that a big, wet glob of dung has spilled out of the back of his diaper and onto my arm, shirt and (somehow?) foot.
very soon, there's splatter on the walls and on his FACE and well, everywhere. it's sticking to absolutely everything.
whoever invented glue had a baby, i'm sure of it.
we got through it and later that day went for a walk to the park with wolly. only the dog park was closed for cleaning. so i tied wolls to a poll and decided to push t2 on a swing until it reopened. that didn't work out, though, because i turned around 5 minutes later and a bevy of spanish nannies were shouting perro! perro! consiga ese perro loco!
there was a black dog standing at the gate of the kid park prancing and panting and drooling and generally acting like a rabid madman.
do i claim him or do i just act like nothing's happening?
wolly, good ol wolly, chewed through is leash. isn't that just precious?
i scurried to get t2 in his stroller and get over to the wolly before he did something really stupid. the dog park was still closed (it's all mulch, but they actually spend an hour a week watering the goddammned thing), so we shuffled over to a grassy area, pushing the baby and holding wolly by the 10 inches of leash left attached to his neck.
i was busy convincing myself that someone very nice would find wolly if i just took his collar off and left him at the park when a ranger found us. i was sure, absolutely sure, he was going to tell us to leave and i was going to have to start crying because i had a long walk ahead of me that would have been murder with a stroller, a hyper lab and no leash.
instead he handed me a new leash, one he'd found and presumably been waiting to give to someone just like me.
someone pathetic.
i thanked him, probably with tears in my eyes, and he said he was about to turn off the sprinklers and we could go in the dog park - 5 minutes earlier than he was supposed to let us in.
a random act of mercy.
and i sometimes wonder why i'm so tired at the end of the day.

tayloe in the wild

sometimes i feel like a species scientist in the field, watching some kind of beast. i think it's funny that when we're just sitting around like this, my brain downshifts and i think about as little as possible while his little thinker is no doubt in motorskill overdrive.
the movie grizzly man kinda makes sense to me now. i get why that dude went a little bonkers and actually thought he was connected to the bears in a way no one else was. he watched them all the time.
of course, they ate him in the end, but anyway.

traffic in the kitchen

ol wolls is dealing (just barely) with t2's love of balls, which must really be reeking havoc on his mental state. especially because t2 will grasp a ball in his hand and wiggle his way over to wolly and offer it up to him. i mean, literally bonk him in the nose with it or drop it right near his feet. for some reason, a reason i really can't begin to understand, wolly doesn't respond. most of the time he just gets up and tries to find a peaceful place to sleep. which, of course, prompts t2 to scamper along behind him, panting.
other times i swear wolly actually plays opposum. leave me alone kid, i'm dead.
very un-wolly.
the only thing i can figure is that these two worked out some kind of cheerios + goldfish for hours of torment trade, with wolly writing in some kind of all-day, everyday fetch policy that'll become active as soon as t2's old enough to play that game.
anyway, how bout that speed crawl, eh? there's just one speed - superfast. i kinda want to paint little flames on the outside of his thighs. the trouble, though, is that his limbs can't always keep up with his overdrive. so at least once a day his zip turns into a flail and he face plants on the floor. ouch.

what does a doggie say?

ruff, ruff? woof? arf? gggrrr?
not in our house. i ask t2 what a dog says, specifically what our hyped up, over-bred crazy dog says, and he pants.
heh, heh, heh. heh, heh, heh.
nothing's truer than the truth.

happy campers

we got a wild hair and went on a camping trip up the coast last weekend. it's interesting with a baby. i didn't know dirt could stick in so many places and you just haven't lived until you've hiked a 10 month old to an outhouse and tried to bathe him while you shower.
we spent one night near the beach, all hunkered in together with bellies full of fajitas listening to waves crash. the next day, we trucked up to big sur and camped in a redwood grove. the canopy was so beautiful we left the rain fly off so we could stare at the trees all night.
inspired, we kept going up to mendicino county, where our friend kevin lives in a tree house near the beach. we ate like royality and drank more anderson valley wine than i really want to remember. by the time we got home we looked like a band of gypsies. even wolly was tired.
we've driven the entire pacific coast highway, from the very top of the olympic peninsula in washington to los angeles. the stretch between malibu and san fran is some of the most amazing.
it's t2's 10 month birthday. here's a pic to mark the day.

bubbles

ball buster