When Good Pets Go Cold

On the way home in carpool today (it was just Madd Dogg and Sparky), Sparky was telling me about his turtle wanting to snuggle. I know, a turtle who wants to snuggle? They're hard and cold and I guess I thought that Sparky was a little, well, projective when he said that his turtle wanted to snuggle. Anyway, he told me that yesterday his turtle was staring up from the floor, looking longingly at his dad, and indicating, apparently, that it wanted to snuggle because it's been so cold. Sparky, who was on the couch, under a blankie and with plenty of room to share, informed his turtle that that he wasn't "in the mood" to snuggle.

I thought this was most abominable behavior, so I got all superior on his ass. I explained that, as a pet owner, it's not about the person - it's about what the pet wants. If the pet wants to snuggle, hard and cold as it may be, the owner better damn well snuggle with it! By way of superior example, I told him that I was going home and, in the dark, sub zero weather, I was going to take my dog running because I had promised him that morning before I left for work that I would. So I get home, get out of my work clothes, bypass the flannel pjs, and get in my running clothes, hat, gloves, the whole works. I'm like 100 degrees before we even leave the house. But we're out and we're going, just like I had promised my dog.

The first two blocks go well. He's running like a mad dog (ha!). But then I feel a tug at the leash, and figure he's just stopped to pee where 10 other dogs have peed that day. Only then I look down and it turns out that he's just sitting there on the sidewalk looking at me. Granted, I look like a freak all bundled up (did I mention it was dark and freezing?) so I thought maybe he had one of those little kid walked up to the wrong parent in the grocery store moments. But when I tug at the leash, he doesn't budge. At all. I tug some more, and he just continues to stare at me like I've lost my mind. Remember, this run is for him, not me. I'm perfectly content to be at home at that moment with my pjs and a glass of Italian red wine. I tug some more, he doesn't budge, his collar comes off and he's running away. I use my most imposing voice, he comes back, the collar goes back on. I tug one last time and I'll be goddamn if he doesn't LAY DOWN in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. Flat out lays down like I killed him. I tug a little on the leash, and he just kind of gets dragged along on the road. Any longer and I'll be hooked up for animal cruelty. So I say, okay, let's go home, and damned if the little love of my life doesn't set a new record for how fast he ran those two blocks back home.

The moral of this overly involved, overly long story? Sparky, you had it right. I would've been better off getting off my high horse and agreeing that sometimes, it's just okay not to be in the mood to dote on your pet. Woulda saved me a cold ass "run" in the dark.

Sparky Sandwich

As many of you brown-baggers know, the "sandwich" is named after the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu. That factoid is rather strange, and probably unfortunate, given the vast array of other notable things that the good Earl did. In addition to being dubiously dubbed the inventor of the sandwich (see below), he was a member of the House of Lords, a Commissioner of Admiralty, an army colonel, a Secretary of State, and the Postmaster General.

With all of those honors, you might wonder if Montagu would be more than a little disappointed to find out that, all of these years later, his name has become synonymous with a type of food that usually is considered to be sort of "ho-hum." Don't feel bad for him. As it turns out, the "sandwich" rightfully should be called the "hillel," after it's true inventor, Hillel the Elder. Hillel came up with the idea of putting food in between pieces of matzo way back in the first century B.C.E. Although really, what Hillel created would now more commonly be referred to as a "wrap."

At any rate, both Montagu and Hillel are now dead. Consequently, I highly doubt that either of them give a crap about who gets the credit for "inventing" something that really shouldn't have needed to be "invented" in the first place. I mean, come on, we're talking about two pieces of bread with some sort of filling. We're not talking rocket science.

And speaking of stuff that is not rocket science, I will now give you all SFZ's coveted recipe for a delicious Sparky Sandwich. The ingredients are easy to remember: Sparky, Madd Dogg, and Fidget. (Some people might wonder if Mumbles would be a substitute for either Madd Dogg or Fidget. I doubt it.)

After assembling the ingredients, start by placing Sparky on the sidewalk, where he will walk toward work. Then, gently place Madd Dogg and Fidget on either side of him, walking at the same pace. From there, the ingredients themselves will take over.

Much like yeast magically makes bread rise, Madd Dogg and Fidget will make very subtle eye contact. And then, at precisely the same moment, they will ram their shoulders into Sparky from either side. If the impact is forceful enough, it will cause coffee to spill out of Sparky's travel mug and splatter onto the front of his dress shirt. Sparky will pretend like he is angry (especially if he has a meeting that day), and he will show up in Fidget's office later to point to the stain accusingly. But because a Sparky Sandwich is best served with coffee, you'll just have to offer him "Spray-n-Wash" and hope for the best.

Warning: The recipe can go terribly wrong if the eye contact between Madd Dogg and Fidget is not subtle enough. Under those circumstances, Sparky may catch on to the fact that he is about to become the key ingredient in a sandwich, and he will stop walking at the right moment. If he does that, Madd Dogg and Fidget will ram their shoulders into each other, and the result is less appetizing.

[photo by paul goyette]

Superheroes? Not so much.

Great things can happen when spiders bite. Remember what happened when a radioactive spider bit Peter Parker? That’s right, he developed super spider strength, the knack for climbing walls, and the ability to spin webs directly from his wrists. Although Parker’s super abilities were nothing more than a wicked web of inconsistencies (see Note, below), the spider bite nonetheless turned Parker into one of the greatest superheroes of our time.

Still, we at SFZ want nothing to do with super-heroics, at least not if spider bites are a necessary part of the equation. Want proof? Listen:

On Friday morning, all four of us were in carpool. I (Fidget) was in the driver’s seat; Mumbles was riding shotgun; Madd Dogg and Sparky were in the back. When we were somewhere near the Woodburn exit, Sparky squealed out loud (not unlike an eight-year-old schoolgirl). After Madd Dogg’s pleas for help joined Sparky’s frantic spasm-like yelps, we discovered that a spider had found its way into the car. It had climbed from the back window, and came to rest somewhere near the dome light – directly above Sparky’s head.

Pandemonium erupted. And the SFZ members quickly found themselves unwittingly thrust into a frantic crisis, not unlike the crisis that the Apollo 13 astronauts faced after Kevin Bacon stirred the oxygen tanks and caused the spacecraft to go "teats up" on the way to the moon. But whereas the astronauts had to find a way to fix a crippled lunar module with duct tape and tube socks, we had to find a way to get a spider out of a moving car with only our shoes and Dairy Queen napkins. The following is a partial transcript of our tribulation:

Sparky: Help! Help!
Madd Dogg: Ah! A spider!
Mumbles (Looking back): Remember, he’s as scared of you as you are of him. He’s just as scared as you are.
Madd Dogg: Here, I’ll squash him with my shoe.
Fidget: No! Don’t use your shoe! Put your shoe back on!
Sparky (To the spider, which had started descending by a thread towards Sparky’s face): Don’t jump! Don’t jump!
Fidget: No, no, don’t worry. Spiders don’t jump. (Yes, I know that’s complete horse shit.)
Mumbles: He’s just as scared as you are.
Fidget: Here, take these [Dairy Queen] napkins. Wrap him up in the napkins, and then just fliffer him out the window.
Madd Dogg: What does “fliffer” mean?
Fidget: You know, just (indicating with his hands) “fliffer” him.
Sparky: Ok, ok. I got him. (Sound of window opening). There, he’s out.
Madd Dogg, Sparky, Fidget, and Mumbles: Whew.

Note on the inconsistencies of Spider-Man’s abilities:
Ok, so in the movie version of Spider-Man, Spidey shoots web out of his wrists. But then he puts on a long-sleeve shirt that covers up his wrists. How does the web still come out? Similarly, the movie version explains that Spidey can climb walls because he has microscopic spider-like hairs, which come out of his fingers (and presumably, his toes). But then he puts on gloves and shoes. How in the frick do the little hairs touch the walls?
It just doesn’t make any sense.

[photo by freezelight]

Play Ball(s)!

For as long as baseball has been an organized sport, one recurring debate has raged in the sporting world:

Is baseball is a boring sport?

On one side of the debate are the purists. Those are the people who know the difference between a curveball and a slider. They know what a double switch is. And they think that the people who decry baseball as "boring" are too simple-minded to form an educated opinion on the subject.

On the other side of the debate are the people who insist that sports have a certain amount of action. They like their sports to be, well, sporting. They don't respect any sport that would accept into its loving embrace someone as out-of-shape as John Kruk. And they don't like the fact that the strike zone is a transient, amorphous rectangle suspended in space, subject to the non-mathematic whims of fallible human eyes.

We at SFZ have never formally entered the debate. But a recent carpool conversation -- which led to a bet between Mumbles and me -- clearly shows which side we would take if pressed:

Madd Dogg: So I was watching the game last night. At first, I was wondering why all of the players scratch at their balls so much. And then I realized that it was because they are all wearing cups and they are constantly adjusting them.
Fidget: I don't think they all wear cups; I think only the catcher does.
Madd Dogg: Really?
Mumbles: No, dude, they all wear cups.
Fidget: I don't think so. Do you know how hard it would be to run with a cup?
Mumbles: Dude, I used to play lacrosse, and we all wore cups, and we ran around the whole time.
Sparky: I don't know, Mumbles. What about the outfielders?
Mumbles: Yeah, I don' t know if the outfielders wear cups. But the infield and the pitcher definitely do. Dude, do you know how bad it would hurt to get hit in the crotch with a baseball?

And so on . . .

So what does the above conversation say about the members of SFZ? Are we perverted? Do we have an obsession with genital protective gear? Do we have too much time on our hands?

All of those questions are, themselves, subject to debate. But I, for one, think that our conversation sends a pretty clear message about whether we think that baseball is boring. Let me put it this way -- after a hard-fought pitcher's duel in the NLCS, the most interesting thing that we could find to discuss was why the players scratch their nuts with such frightening frequency.

So if you ask us, "Do you think that baseball is a boring sport?", our answer will be a resounding "You bet your ass, we do. Except maybe during the playoffs."

[Photo by SquadLeader]

The Carpool Rules of Sleep

In case you three faithful readers haven't been paying attention, we have a lot of rules in carpool. Lots and lots. It's hard to keep up, we know. So I thought I'd educate you on one of rules: the rule of sleep (and the difficulties I've been having with sleeping in the 'pool lately).

The Rules of Sleep

1. You can sleep in carpool anytime.
2. You can't use your carpool mates lap or shoulder as a pillow, lest you drool on them.
3. You can't pretend you're sleeping and then interject randomly into conversations. It's disconcerting.
4. You can't leap into the front seat at the beginning of carpool, only to fall asleep. It leaves the driver lonely.
5. Related to #4, the person in the front seat really should stay awake unless the two in the backseat have fallen asleep (I may have recently violated this rule, but I was so tired) .
6. You cannot drop things down a sleeping person's shirt, mess with their stuff, or otherwise disturb them while the person is sleeping. And yes, this rule is violated all the time.
7. You can't snore....oh wait. That brings me to the difficulties I've been having sleeping...

TWICE this week, I've been in a beautiful slumber, deep in R.E.M., when lo and behold, I hear a distant rumble. Is it an overhead low flying plane? Nope. Something wrong with the car? Not that either. So I drag my eyes open, pissed as hell, only to realize that it's another carpool mate slumbering and sawing logs. Now granted, we're in a confined space so it sounds louder than it probably really is, but it's loud enough to wake me up. And I'm a heavy sleeper. So each time this has happened, I promptly violate rule #6 in some manner. I guess in some respects, it's a little endearing that someone would feel so comfortable in the 'pool so as to fall asleep so deeply as to snore. But seriously, I need my beauty rest too. So my Doggs, I think a mass distribution of earplugs is in order.

Mumbles is back! Now I can talk about his nose hair...

So Mumbles is finally back from his honeymoon in Hawaii. Welcome home, Mumbles, we missed you.

But, now that you're back, we can talk about your nose hair. Awhile back, I said that I was going to post about Mumbles' facial hair (and now the lack thereof) but then a much more interesting subject came up. In fact, it opened a door for me into the lives of men and their nose hair and it's completely fascinating. Who knew? Well, apparently all women who live with men.

Anyhoo, Mumbles was talking about his facial hair (of which there used to be a lot) and how he was going to cut it all (in preparation for the wedding). But then he said what he found much more fun was trimming his nose hairs. I inquired about this comment, and he said that he has a "thing" about trimming his nose hairs. Then he explained that it really hurts, but that "I just can't stop." Now, being a woman who has lived with another woman for the last decade, this was completely baffling to me. So I did some informal research and lo and behold, this is like, a big issue with men and the women who love them. A source who shall remain nameless said that she could "tell me some stories" about her ex-husband's nose hair issues, but she was going to spare me. I appreciate that. And, it turns out that there are all kinds of products (a whole aisle at Fred Meyers according to Mumbles) designed to help men eliminate and/or shorten their nose hairs. I mean, I knew that all people had nose hairs but I had no clue that they ever required trimming.

So, thank you Mumbles, for providing me with this educational experience. I appreciate it.

Our Competitive Roots

America is defined by its competitive nature. Oh, I know, our teachers told us that America began as a handful of colonists who got angry at paying taxes on tea (of all things) and decided to tell Mother England to "Go and get stuffed." But the real impetus behind America's Declaration of Independence was a bet that Thomas Jefferson had with some uppity Englishman. Their bet arose out of a conversation like this:

Lord Uppity: I say, Thomas, you could never spark a revolution and start a new country.
Jefferson: Do you wanna' f#cking bet?

And our country was born -- a country born, not of our love for "freedom" as our president would tell us, but because we are really, really competitive.

Mark Twain -- the quintessential American who, much like a contemporary gangster rapper, tossed out his given name in order to pick something that sounded cooler -- understood very well the competitive spirit of Americans. In his short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Twain wrote of a man who would bet on anything. The moral of that story: Always give your frog syrup of ipecac before entering it into a jumping contest. Who knew?

All of the above is a roundabout way of saying that Madd Dogg and I have recently made yet another bet. And it might just be the stupidest bet that any two people have ever made:

Fidget: (Noting Madd Dogg's bag of Rold Gold pretzels) Hey, pretzels! And you got the same ones that I had the other day in the car.
Madd Dogg: Yes, except mine are the smaller, thicker ones. I like those better.
Fidget: No, they're the same thing.
Madd Dogg: No, they're different.
Fidget: Whatever.
Madd Dogg: Do you wanna' bet?

And so we did. The problem now is that I can't really remember what type of Rold Gold pretzels Madd Dogg had. I think that they were the "Tiny Twists" (one-pound bag) that you see above, but I can't remember for certain. That's ok, though. My crappy memory has turned into a truly revolutionary idea. For the first time ever, a bet will be settled on this blog in front of our entire readership! Madd Dogg, the SFZ readership awaits your response. . .

On a related note, the other day Sparky and I were talking about new-fangled sports. After briefly discussing the quickly growing "sport" of competitive eating (to be sickened, go to the International Federation of Competitive Eating), I was reminded of a sport that involved throwing a tennis-ball-sized metal ball down a winding road. After convincing myself that I must have come up with that bizzare idea in a dream, I did some reasearch: Irish Road Bowling.

WTF??

We at SFZ don't have anything hugely exciting to report...just your run of the mill commuting back and forth, back and forth. Only the back and forth is being further complicated by not one, but two detours and frankly, it's starting to piss me off. We at SFZ are creatures of routine, perhaps more so than most. Sparky, in particular, doesn't like change. So, this morning, as I drove down towards our carpool meeting spot, I noticed giant DO NOT PARK HERE and ROAD CLOSED signs. What the bleeping bleep is that about? Do they not know that we PARK THERE EVERYDAY? Did they ask us before they closed it? Nooo....instead, we had to drive, like, miles away to park somewhere else, a location much more likely to lead to breakins and dogs pissing on our wheels. Grrr.

If that's not bad enough, there's the detour once we leave PDX and get to Solame. Oops, meant Salem. We take the same path to work every day. Did I mention that we're creatures of habit? Then, one recent day, we encounter a sign that says that our road will be closed for months. Do they not know that WE DRIVE THAT WAY EVERY DAY?? Did they ask us whether the bridge needed to be seismically upgraded? I think not...

What's my point, you ask? I don't have one, people. I'm just irritated that it's dark when I get up, it's dark when I get home, and I can't drive or park in my usual bleeping places.

Two Two

They say that great things happen in twos.

Ok, maybe they don't say that. But if they did say that, it would really apply to us here at SFZ.

Listen:

In the last two days, we've had two big things happen to SFZ. First, Madd Dogg and her significant other (that is, the two of them) finished the Portland Marathon yesterday. And second, we at SFZ reached our 50th blog posting.

Eerie, huh? But the two coincidence doesn't stop there. Observe:

• Two SFZ members were actually at the marathon yesterday: Madd Dogg (doing her marathon thing) and me (handing out Ultima replacement fluid).
• Only two members of SFZ consistently take the time to post on this blog: Madd Dogg and me.
• And the number of postings that Sparky has posted on the blog? That's right, two.
• Number of weeks that Mumbles is going to be on his honeymoon: two.
• Number of "m"s in the nickname "Mumbles": two.
• Number of people who regularly read this blog: two.

Ok, this is all getting a little too creepy. Or just really, really dumb.

At any rate, congratulations to Madd Dogg and SFZ -- two great American institutions.