Uh-Oh

No one explained this to me in college. *

While I am freaking out by the idea of having to deal with 10 more cats (plus a chihuahua, ay dios mio), I am very excited about the idea about getting to wear Prada while cleaning the 12 litter boxes.

*the thing with Salon links, like my link above, is you first have to watch their 'ad of the day' before you get to the actual article link. Click the next, watch the ad, enjoy the magic. Unless you are me and you just pay them their annual blood money for premium log-in service so that they will just leave you alone already. I am here for all your tech support needs.

Get Thee to a Nunnery, Perhaps Though a Buddhist Nunnery

There are very good reasons why I have not been keeping you all updated on my dating life. It is not because I have not had dates. Know this people: I get play. It's just, well, let me illustrate with two recent examples.

* A guy asks me out to dinner. Says, "Can I take you out?". Vetoes the place I suggest for a place three times as expensive. Asks to split the check. I am not one of those girls who reads 'The Rules', I am feministy, I do not follow traditional gender roles. I just think that whole thing could've been communicated differently. That's $45 I could've spent on strippers.

* Same guy, at said dinner. Asked what books he has read recently. Says, "I don't really read books, I have a hard time finishing them." That is not something you say to an English Major. He might as well mentioned his love of taking sex tourism vacations in order to meet young boys. I glanced down at my plate and attacked my overpriced (but tender, so tender) chicken mole.

* Then he mentions that he did, a couple years ago, manage to get through 'The Tao of Pooh'. A book with slightly less words and pages than 'Goodnight Moon'.

*That same night I come home to a frightening email. Another guy. I read the words no woman wants to hear (or see typed). "I'm really into soft rock." Aren't rocks, by definition, supposed to be hard? I bet it is easy to cheat when challenging this guy to rock-paper-scissors. 'Scissors cut rock. I win!' Envisioning a life chock full of Kenny Loggins' songs. I clutch the chihuahua to my bosom and cry.

And yes, you want to know about Maui, of course you do. It was wonderful. Wailea smells like plumeria, Hana smells like guava, and Kihei smells like surfers and mai tais. More to follow once I get the pictures loaded...

Maui

There is a chance that I will not blog at you for awhile. Please don't leave nasty phone messages if I don't (you know who you are, Suzanne). If things go well in Maui, I will not have time to blog or I will only blog after the mai tais and then promptly delete the posts when sober. Thanks for your understanding, now I have to pack my things:

brazilian cut bathing suit

bikini waxing kit

patent leather go-go boots

camera (what happens in Maui, will make its way back to California)

sun screen

advil

attorney's cell phone number

food who packs food on vacation? Um, me. It's a condo, so I just wanted a few things available before we have the chance to hit the Hawaiian supermarkets. I'm only bringing essential items, things you can't get on the islands. Coconuts, pineapples, sugar, kona coffee...

Winnie

That's my Grandmother. This was the last picture we had taken together. I dreamt about her the other day and am still processing it.

Ugh. This just happened to me a couple weeks ago and now here it is again. The other week I had this break up dream, where I broke up with a long term partner. I went around the entire next day feeling like I had just dumped someone. Who wants that? But, the most recent one is worse. In this dream my Grandmother had just died (she died in June and we were very, very close). Instantly, with her death, I was cut from my family. Not in a rude, I saw what you blogged about me way, but my main connection to them got severed. So, in the dream, I am in my Grandmother's house. In the tiny room I like to sleep in when I am there. I am trying on pairs and pairs of her shoes because I didn't have the right ones of my own to wear (this is how you can tell it's a dream). Everyone is running around and ignoring me.

I am having a shoe crisis, my Grandmother has just died, and I am alone in a busy, busy house.

So, I wake up and I know that the dream was not how things really went down. In the reality, my Grandmother's passing was still a hard, hard thing (we shared the same birthday, she helped raised me, she bought me shoes). But my family was great and I had never felt more connected to them. I loved being around them and cracking jokes, eating food, making someone buy me another beer. And, of course, in reality I had the right shoes. I always have the right shoes.

I also feel, I hate to get too woo-woo, but I feel like I haven't really lost my Grandmother. She was older, her health was failing, and I got to spend so much time with her in this last year. I was sad not to see her anymore, but felt like it was a relief for her to move on.

Still, today I am sad.

The Lion, the Lamb, the Lolita, the Fondue

Even though they normally fight like, well, cats and dogs (figuratively, literally, constantly), Lolita and Fondue have found some common ground. United in peace for minutes on end, they spread pet hair over my freshly laundered sheets.

When, I showed how upset I was at the prospect of washing the same sheets twice in one day, Fondue responded like so:

The Big and the Small

A tiny dog, named Fondue, encounters the ocean for the first time while camping in Big Sur.

"Oh, what is that? It is so magnificant. I must hike down, must get closer. It's smells fishy, heavenly. Oh, birds. Soft, soft sand. Wait. No! What is this? I hate when my paws get wet. This sucks. Let's go home to the kitties now."

Vay-Cay

Oh Kittens. It is an exciting time around here. Next week, at the tender age of 22 (can I get away with 22 or is that pushing it? Maybe 26?) I am heading off to Hawaii for the first time ever. Maui even. Which I hear is very romantic. Sadly though, I cannot bring the pets with me.

What makes this trip exciting and different for me is that I will be forced to do nothing the whole time. Nothing. I am what you call more of an adventure traveler. I like to hike until I get blisters, hit every museum and rodeo in town, and then spend the last hour left in the day shopping. I get back home and am exhausted. And I sit at my desk at the HR farm with my head against the keyboard. People talk. But on the island I will be sitting on the beach in a bikini that I will surely look good in again by next week, sipping drinks that involve fresh juice, colorful umbrellas, and buckets of rum, and eating the flesh of young coconuts.

Oh, and to be on an island that feels like an island and not just because I am in Alameda, at the small dog park (the dogs are small, not the park, except the park is also small), with a floral print shirt on trying to force the issue. I can only imagine what it will be like, but I know I will have a gdamn flower in my hair. That is for sure.

TMDTTE

(things my dog tried to eat)

• Toothbrush, while it was still in my mouth


• Beloved silver, sequined votive holder


• My aunt's cosmopolitan (drink, not magazine), I don't know how many sips it takes to get a chihuahua drunk, but she was sipping for a little while before we realized it. Of course it was hard to tell if she was running around in circles and nipping at the other dogs because she was drunk or because she is just plain crazy.


• Long overdue library book, mmm the sweet taste of the new Murakami novel.

Too Much is Never Enough

Ever see the movie 'Heathers'? It is exactly like that with me and my friends except we are all named Rachel. Or Rachael. But, mainly Rachel. Right now there are two Rach(a)els in my core friend group, and 3-4 more by association. Plus my hair dresser is named Rachel. And my physical therapist. Rach(a)els like to support their own. And we are all really nice. Plus we can all accessorize. I guess that means it's nothing like 'Heathers'.

A few weeks back, Rachael was sick. And Rachel was out of town. What to do? Sometimes during this time I would go to a dinner party and half the people there would not have my name. I was very confused. I was worried about the Rach(a)el to non-Rach(a)el ratio. I was worried the balance of the very universe would be jeopardized, that the fabric of our very lives would be torn in unrepairable ways. I needed to get us more Rach(a)els.

So I did what the kids do. I got on My Space. I created a profile, complete with a chihuahua picture and got to work. I searched for my high school best friend, Rachel. And I found her. And this weekend we met up for coffee. She's great. She looks good, she is Buddhist, she has fantastic tattoos everywhere, she is doing something with her life. All these things are wonderful on their own. Even better all together. And down right miraculous if you went to our high school. I'm just saying: ghetto. So, I have a new Rachel. A new, old Rachel. My scarcity issues are in check once more. The life fabric is untorn or maybe just torn in repairable ways. The universe is saved.