Dinosaurs and Darned Best Friends.

Eventually all of the household pets will make their way into an angry Facebook rant. The hampsters have fallen from "highly obnoxious" to "mildly unpleasant". Even Mango, since she saved me from certain death at the hands- er, paws- of a local black bear has become more tolerable. (Really, if I wanted to run with the wildlife I would join the high school boy's track team.) Today, however, the angry eye has fallen upon the last remaining furry "friend", Tika. (Imagine said 'angry eye' as resembling something like the eye of Mordor, peering from behind the bamboo curtains of a bedroom window.)


Before I continue, you should know that there are multiple levels of anger in everyone's personality. There is:
Annoyance- characterized by grimacing/mumbling, such as when someone other than yourself ate the last piece of pie.
Irritation- characterized by much whining, such as an outdoor homework assignment on a rainy day.
Mild displeasure- characterized by glaring/complaining, such as when you are up to your elbows filleting a fish, and your nose itches.
More mediumish displeasure- characterized by muttered swearings, such as when one's hairtie breaks when one is climbing up a cliff in 90 degree weather.
Anger- characterized by throwing non-life threatening items (eg: mashed potatoes or silly putty) at the offender, and yelling loudly. May be incurred by such an incident as little brothers using your womanly undergarments to to tie up captured indians.

And the most violent of all...
Intoxicating rage- characterized by the impulse to skin and roast over an open spit the object which is making you angry. Usually reserved for the event of terrorist attacks, and barking dogs at ungodly hours. Other symptoms of such rage may include spontaneous literary ranting.

So, dear reader, after I narrate my morning, I will grant you exactly one guess as to whether I was grimacing, or reaching for a battle axe. Five days a week, I awaken at 4:15 am, in order to begin work at 5. Two days out of the week I get to sleep until 7:30. And believe me, that extra three hours and fifteen minutes of sleep is like Christmas. Today, my last day of partial rest before the holocaust of pre-morning rising, at exactly 6am, both dogs erupt into such racket that naturally I assumed that there was a T-rex on the loose or a horde of marauding vikings. At the very least, a rabid squirrel. Of course, when I groggily peered from the window, not yet with the angry eye, I saw nothing, so it was most likely a bear, which is therefore justifiable barking. 5 minutes later, my mental arrived at the more mediumish displeasure stage, and I screamed a rather unpolite request for immediate silence through the window. Mango laid down immediately.

Let me skip ahead an hour and let you know that there is a stage past intoxicating rage. At that point, a degree of despair occurs which calls for desperate measures. Tika, it turns out, it impervious to all manners of sailor-jargon, threats of sudden death, threats of slow death, and threats of being mailed express to the Siberian Tiger exhibit donation section of the Alaska Zoo. Believe me, I blew right on through the intoxicated rage level; I just wanted to sleep. I propose a vote as to whether to exchange this specimen of "man's best friend" in for a more tolerable companion, such as a beta fish. Because at 7:30 I arose from where I had laid down an hour before, in a last hope attempt at rest, the only place in the house where the incessant alerting of non-existant dangers was drowned out. When was the last time your best friend made you sleep next to the fridge?

Vigilant Vocal Chords and Violence.

Dear Mango,

I hate you.
You are a stupid dog.
Normally I would tolerate your unintelligence if only for the fact that a little girl named Abby adores you.
But lord knows that it is 1:30 in the morning and that I have to be semi-consciously flipping eggs in five hours.
To sum up, deal with whatever problem you are having outside, or I will walk out the door in my bathrobe and crocs and remove your vocal chords with my bare hands.
Love always,
The girl who feeds you, takes you running and secretly is planning your assasination.

PS: If your problem is something like a grizzley bear, mongoose, large dinosaur or an alien invasion, please leave it alone. I'd like to kill you myself.

PSS: (Five minutes later.) Great. You woke the marathon hampsters up. Your life is so over.

Idle Hands Catch Frogs.

Today was a good day. I didn't have to work, which meant I didn't have to get up particularly early. I did though, because I'm crazy. At least, that's what I decided around mile six and a half. It's a good rule of thumb when running to reserve just enough energy to take a shower afterwards. Today I really pushed that boundary, and let me tell you, it is a pathetic feeling to run out of breath while shampooing your hair.


One chick flick/recovery nap and a handful of trailmix later, I was ready to enjoy my day offCanoeing sounded like a pretty fabulous idea since the sun had finally decided to poke out. After the preceding few weeks of monsoon weather, I was sure there were an abundance of lakes to choose from, though we decided to visit an already established one, since it happened to come equipped with a canoe.
Lisa/mom, and Abby/8 year old goblin-mad scientist-wannabe dictator-ballerina-frog hunter, and I/Brenna, loaded up our oars and flotation devices and headed out for Long Lake. Putting a 3rd grader in a semi-unstable boat is a recipe for an impromtu bath, but thankfully the only disaster we encountered was a renegade spider in the boat. For being a cool headed frog hunter, worthy of her own show on the Nature Channel, you would think that Abby would have a better tolerance for arachnids. But no. I personally would rather squish a bug than hold a slimy reptile. At least spiders don't poop on you.

Threatening to maroon Abby for being too wiggley turned out to backfire, since being stuck on an island and living off the land (aka: eating 10 million blueberries) and digging for treasure didn't sound too bad. I can remember having similar thoughts a few years ago, but only when the sun was shining and there was no sign of man-eating mammals (bears, leeches etc) and my mom was sitting right next to me.

When we returned to the main land, I decided that the next order of the day was definitely to give my car a good wash. Note to self: wanting to stay dry, and handing an 8 year old a hose is an oxymoron. Actually, it's more like just being a moron. Because they won't do it "on purpose", and they will be "sorry" that the spray went over the truck onto your side, and that there were just trying to "help" by spraying on full blast the door you were scrubbing (while standing back themselves). What can you do? Besides grab a towel.
Or don a wet suit.

Sensible Say-so's.

Mom always told me that she would rather I learn from her mistakes than to make them myself. Her logic was perhaps flawed because, to my knowledge, she was always right. In fact, thought I have been out of her house for quite some time, I keep finding out she was right about all sorts of stuff I thought she didn't know a thing about. This sortof makes me nervous because it's likely that I actually got away with a lot less than I thought I did.


But anyways, like I have said before, you learn new things every day. And though she was an unfailingly amazing mother, there were just a few things she forgot to mention in her raising of me; or perhaps they are things that were covered in the "common sense" lessons that I didn't pay enough attention to. Since I have learned them now, I will pass these on to you.

1.) Microwaving avocadoes does not hasten the ripening process. Similar to the theory that coffee will not make a person any less intoxicated, and all you will have is a hyperactive drunk, if you microwave an avocado, all you will have is a very warm, very hard (fruit? vegetable? Mom you should know this.) and it is still impossible to make guacamole.

2.) Balancing on one foot on a beer keg is a bad idea, no matter how badly you need the garlic that some moron put on the top shelf of the walk in.

3.) Don't anger an 8 year old with a tennis racket, although it is perfectly acceptable to bestow sweaty post-run hugs if said child is unarmed.

4.) Boys are picky about food, but only in what it tastes like, whether or not it looks like bird barf, and how much they can have. They really don't care whether you made your pasta sauce from scratch or borrowed the work of Classico.

Also, don't introduce them to new ideas without explanations. Such as the breakfast cookie. Undefined, breakfast cookie could simply mean balls of scrambled eggs with chocolate chips.

Or Guryere cheese. Grey cheese? Like grey matter? No. Guryere.

Or pesto. The male ear hears a cross between Raid and Draino.

5.) Mascara is not condusive to crying. A cry is good once in a while though, at least until you can get your running shoes on. If your main focus is breathing it's difficult to be in hysterics. And it might save you a small fortune on kleenex and chocolate ice cream.

Of Boys and Bumpers.

Hang around Alaska Magic Mountain sled shop long enough- or even for just 6 hours- and you will learn a surprising variety of things. Stuff I learned today:


1.) I'm lucky if I can keep my vehicle in running order, but boys are determined to spend hours modifying perfectly decent equipment. Hence, Cooper's front bumper is now a viable apponent toward most objects: foreign hotwheel cars, moose, double wide trailers and possibly Mt. Rushmore.

2.) Stitches do not have to be removed by a doctor. In fact, a grumpy sled mechanic can do it on a greasy work bench with a razor blade and/or clippers.

3.) The same batch of pasta can be served in more than 8 different ways to accomodate picky eaters.

4.) I accomplish crosswords at a rate of about 1 every 3 hours.

5.) Household birds are louder than dogs, small children being pinched, car alarms, and southern gospel choirs.

Common sense and Backpacks.

Back packs are handy items. They are especially useful for carring around neccesities. Commonly found in my lime green backpack would be my keys, my gym pants, a chef's hat, a toothbrush, and an odd assortment of peanut butter and other ingredient (eg: banana or cheese) sandwiches. Since the depths of the average backpack is a dark and jumbled mess, and to find anything one must dig violently around, carefully consider the dangers which you are subjecting your hands to.


Such as fillet knives. If you are going to keep such items in your backpack, at least do more than just make a mental note that they are there. Mental notes may be compared to dry erase boards filled with important messages, but which are cleaned by a zamboni at random intervals. Use red tape, or draw a skull and cross bones on the front, or invest in one of those sticks of gum that when you pull it it shocks you and use that as a zipper pull. Anything to slow down the mental zamboni.

Reasons to store knives properly in knife cases and not create backpacks of death:

1.) Stitches hurt. (Though they do make you look like a pirate, which is pretty much sweet.)

2.) Bandaids are expensive, and sometimes there aren't any normal ones left on the shelf and you end up with something like spongebob or Hannah Montana personalized bandages.

3.) No matter how small of a cut it is, blood is a very sneaky substance and will end up smeared across any white article of clothing you are wearing.

4.) In case you haven't realized, the average person only has 10 fingers. The average person also lives to be about 70. That means that you can only afford to lose about 1-1/2 fingers every 10 years. If you keep your knife in your backpack every day, for your average career of 40 years, and you cut yourself once in every 10 times you're digging for your lunch, and you lose 1/10th of a finger every time...well. Don't ask me what the math is but I'm pretty sure you don't have enough fingers to go around.

5.) If your thumbs are the first to go, your wardrobe will be limited to sweatpants, velcro shoes, sports bras and any shirts you don't have to button.

6.) Even if your teeth are in perfect condition, you will have to nourish yourself through a straw. If you are still foolishly intending on keeping you knife in your bag, I would suggest you invest in a blender. (On a side note, once you're down 6 or 7 digits you won't be able to hold a toothbrush anyways either.)

7.) You will be hungry a lot because there is a knife guarding your sandwich. This problem will eventually be eliminated, however, by reason #6.

8.) You will always have to tip your waitresses around 75%, because not only will they bring you food, they will have to feed you. Or provide you with a blender and push all the buttons for you.

PS: Other items which should never be found in backpacks: rattlesnakes, chainsaws, vials of hydrocloric acid, rabid guiney pigs, and last month's peanut butter sandwich.

Epic of a Hampster.

Dude, so. This is the story, of a hampster.

An epic hampster.
An epic, nocturnal hampster.
An epic, noctrunal..marathon-running hampster.
The very hampster which, in fact, lives right outside my door.
My bedroom door.

This hampster runs enough miles on its little wheel thing, that if we could somehow wire it to a generator, it would power the house.

(This is not taking into account the number of hampster we would most likely electrocute before the contraption was correctly wired. Which might be why all good inventors use guiney pigs. But moving on..)

If you were to come over during the day, you would not believe my story. Because during daylight hours, this hampster is the most lethargic being you will ever see. Like a teenager in small rodent form.

But when the lights go out, or more specifically, when I crawl into bed and roll over, fully intending on being asleep in the next few moments at the latest, a starting gun somewhere on a hampster wavelength sounds.

Which leads me to wonder, what the heck do they make those hampster wheels out of? To describe the noise, it resembles the sound your car makes when you are traveling those 20 miles an hour over the speed limit you know you drive on potholey back roads because you just can't stand how long you have to be on them traveling at 35 mph. That hang onto your dentures, hold your glasses on with one hand, your rear view mirror is about to fly off noise.

I have thought of a few different solutions. One, I could remove the wheel. But that involves standing in a dark hallway and reaching into a cage that I can not see, and fishing around for a rodent with unknown sized teeth. All I will say about that is that I have personally seen this hampster stuff an entire pecan into either side of its mouth, so I know there is more than enough room in there for my thumb.

Two, I could clean the cage and accidentally "lose" the hampster, but unfortunately the phrase "man's best friend" has become rather a broad term as applied to pets and the emotional attachments laid upon the rodent by other members of the family would load onto my shoulders a guilt trip not worth the crime.

Like I said, I thought of a few other solutions, involving super glue, duct tape, a hampster treadmill, a few blankets, and, most recently, a shotgun. However, as I lay here writing this, Bilbo (Yes, the hampster is indeed named after a beer guzzling midget that wears the same shoe size as Shaquiel O'Neal'.) is nearing about mile 7.

So, dude.
What would you do, what would you do
If your roommate hampster
Could outrun you?