OK, my dog Polly is one enthusiastic dog. Black Lab, loves EVERYthing. Vegetables, running at high speeds, licking, hugging, toys, sneaking an entire pound of cooked bacon off the kitchen counter, you know, the whole 9 yards. One thing she especially loves is to get the Paper in the mornings. Any time of day, just the mention of “paper” makes her ears go into full-on bat-wing alert. Sometimes a head cock to boot.

(Do you need me to get the paper again? It’s no problem! I love to get the paper!)

This morning, while JWo was out picking peppers (he’s gonna pickle ’em!) she snuck off – and came back with – yep, a paper! Aaaaaaand she’d already fetched ours this morning. So she’d run down the street, looking for another subscriber, because obviously we needed all the papers collected, and she was ON IT.

So my apologies to one of our neighbors – I know the Star will bring you another one – but our doggie just can’t help herself! She loves to get the paper. PAPER!
JWo, get the PEPPERS! I guess that leaves me to get the Patrón!

Thanks, Scorpy.
I love me some quizzes…

…. putting mentholated lip balm on the dog. Just a smidge.

Hey, she wanted to know what I was doing. So I shared!

Just to let you know, my tagline for the summer will be: “I’m Melting! I’m Melting!”

Two more months and then hope is in sight.
Sweltering, sweaty Jen until then. Purty!

Over at Becky’s blog, she wrote about going to an adult store to shop for an upcoming bachelorette party. It reminded me of some of my (always hilarious) ventures into those stores, the funniest being a time many many moons ago in Chicago. We were in some store in the Boystown area, and were strolling around, giggling at some things, marveling at others, furrowing our brows at some…… and then at the counter I espied a little note taped to the cash register, written in all capital letters: NO RETURNS ON BUTT PLUGS.

Well, never shying away from an opportunity for a laugh, I asked the guy, “So, do you get a lot of people trying to return butt plugs?” And he (VERY seriously and oh so VERY gay) responded, “OH, yes. People are ALWAYS buying them way too big. They think the small ones look too small, so they don’t buy them, and then they come back the next day, wanting to exchange them. And we just won’t do that.”

Okey dokey. Good to know! And I can’t really blame them!

Until one of us dies, JWo and I will always always always disagree on the matter of time. His alarm clock is set 17 minutes faster than “real world” time. My clock is jacked up and off by a few minutes, because I still haven’t fixed it since I randomly set it after the power went off a couple weeks ago. It’s a mind fuck, in my opinion, to live by a clock that is not reflecting the current real time. It’s playing a game with yourself, so that wherever you end up, you’re there early. And me? I’m always late. I get distracted easily and I long ago gave up excessive worrying about timeliness, because it wasn’t something I got raised with – my father being the chronic late arriver, every time.

Take today’s fish fry – his grandparents? Arrived an hour early. I no longer am surprised by these events, but instead have the opinion that in arriving early, they will then get what they get – which is me sweating profusely in a nightshirt, vacuuming. Hey, if the party ain’t startin’ ’til 4, no tellin’ what you’ll discover at 3. Pretty don’t get out of the box ’til 3:45, and you can marvel at the transformation.

And take the term “Fashionably Late”. Fashion. Style. As in, vogue, trend. Dare I say, cool. You never hear about “Nattily Early” or even “Ravishingly On-Time.” I’m just sayin’ – the terminology doesn’t judge or say late is bad. I can find the differences between us & laugh at ’em, because neither of us is changing dramatically tomorrow, and despite the differences, there’s nobody I’d rather wake up next to – even if my clock says 7:02, his says 7:19, and Naval clock in Maryland says 6:59.

The reason I’m lovin’ the photo of the old people behind me is that I actually captured their reflection (and possibly their souls) in my rearview mirror, exactly as I saw them from the driver’s seat. (I figured if I tried to wrench-around & shoot it through the back window, they’d have seen me!) Plus, if I’d turned around for their picture, it would have allowed you to see all the crap in my backseat. I use my car as a very large, very not-paid-off purse.

I love the idea of a series of photos like that, what you can capture in a small mirror – but if you’re using your rearview mirror, just remember you have to hold the camera up further than your eye, because you don’t have much error room & cropping when you’re that close! (thus the ten pictures & two stoplights…)

Is it a blogging photo challenge? Just don’t do it WHILE DRIVING peeps, that is too dangerous! Safety First!

~Your Iowan Good-Driver Blog Hostess

My birthday is fast approaching, and I already started to flip out about turning forty. (In three more years, but I figure if I start prepping now, it won’t be a big deal by then!) So aging & life & whatnots are top-of-mind right now.

On my way to meet the KnitChicks for a field trip to Lawrence, to the Yarn Barn & dinner at Free State Brewery, I take a different route than planned, staying off the highway and on the bigger streets. Not too bad, it worked out ok. Being a GOOD DRIVER, I am always checking my mirrors, noting who and what’s around me, etc. At one of the stoplights, I look in my rearview mirror, and see JWo and Me, in forty years. The woman is wearing those enormous plastic sunglasses you wear over your regular glasses (which I already know I’ll end up wearing, when I can’t find my Jackie O dinner plate sunglasses). The guy looks like he’s been married to her a long time. I could see them talking to each other, and I could imagine them griping about the traffic and who had the brilliant idea to go down Quivera during RUSH HOUR, and the other one saying YOU’RE the one who had to go to Red Lobster tonight, and then they laughed.

It just struck me as FUN-NY. It took me two stoplights and about ten pictures, but I finally got the shot, from my perspective:

Looking backwards at the future…. 

Last night at dinner, James told me about one of his summer school kids having a tooth that was ready to fall out – and it’s completely capped in silver. Dude! What is up with that? I don’t know how much that stuff costs, but I know that capping BABY TEETH is like throwing twenty-dollar bills out the window! Sheesh! Cap the teeth you keep!

So of course, I get all squirrely and start talking about how I’m going to get all my front teeth done, but not completely capped, no, I want just the bottom outlines done. Unless they can do little stamps in the metal before it hardens, and then I’ll have images of Polly & Suzy put in the two front ones. DAWGGS! Fly teeth for life!

And then I did a goofy overbite and dipped my front body down and semi-shouted “CRUUUUNK”! (like Li’l John does, you know, I am hip to the hip-hop culture sweeping the nation. We watch MTV2. I am a hip-hop SPONGE.) I was delighted that it made JWo laugh really hard. I would have shouted louder, but you know, we were like, OUT to dinner and it would have been a little rude.

Then, when someone tries to give me a hard time, I can yell, “DON’T YOU BE GETTIN’ UP IN MAH GRILL” and I’ll have grill teeth to bare at them, and they will know my teeth are the grill and they will run to save their hip-hopless soul. And I will tell them to get MTV2 on their cable provider, because then you can learn all the hot fashion tips & lingo, as well as learn great songs that really affirm and praise women. OK, that last part? Total bullshit.

Saw this article, and sent it off immediately to further prove Iowans are, indeed, the best drivers around. Now it’s backed up by the insurance industry. Go Iowaegans!

So I sent it to JWo, along with a smug line about the co-pilot commentary now being put to rest. And he wrote back, with a quote from the article.

“I’d like to think it’s because everybody is so polite,”

JWo: Uhhh…didn’t you tell someone to “Fuck Off” while driving last week? I don’t think the article applies to you! :D

fiiiiine. But those boys were being really rude, FIRST. I just responded in kind. And didn’t get in a wreck doing it, despite the anger, middle finger & half my head flying out the window. I’m an EXCELLENT driver. Ten minutes to Wapner.