A nice thing you can use a blog for is like a time machine. I used to live on this island as part of the Dharma Initiative and we had to go back and forth in time all the time and boy, did it give me a headache. Wait. Actually, not. Those are the people in the tv and they are the ones stuck in time. I don’t live on an island, never crashed a plane and so don’t look hot in castaway low rise trousers. But I CAN go over on the right hand column of this blog, and see how much fun I was having last March. With my shorter hair and skinnier stomach, but basically having the same exact life I am having this March, but more fun. Last March, skinnier and laughing, ha ha, funny in the photos. This year, blobby and flabby and all I want to tell you about is gray. That doesn’t seem right, does it? Shouldn’t life get funner, not crappier?
Did we know about the recession last March? Did we do more situps and eat less candy? Did I envision that I would be having such weave pole troubles with Gustavo as I gleefully taught him weave poles in my driveway? Did I know Timmy Best Dog was going to die in 5 months? Grandma horse Jane soon after that? That life would just sort of roll along and in one year, what was I thinking?
If you had asked me last March, what life would be this March, I would have told you that we’d be off of the island and John Locke would be alive and Charlie is a real asshole and don’t trust Juliet the blonde obstetrician. Wait. Not real friends. The people in the tv. Really I would have told you Gustavo would be the next agility superstar and Otterpop cured of all her hangups and I would actually be a size 4 and Oprah was going to discover me as her new favorite thing and invite me to the Santa Barbara ranch and then just decide I should have it. And give me one of those giant caramel covered apples all pre-sliced because she thought I was too skinny. And that Ruby would be all cured of her aches and pains and back on the path to agility greatness. And we would magically, poof, have figured out how to buy not just any ranch but a super best ranch. Or actually, Oprah’s ranch.
Instead, everything a little bit less shiney than I thought it would be. A little fatter. A little worse behaved. A lot worse in the weave poles, with occasional motivational issues. Less sound. Less awake. Less money. Less friends. Leaving the house without even making the bed. And using NON MATCHING SHEETS/PILLOWCASE/DUVETS. My god. The bar has dropped that low.
And then comes a straw, which maybe doesn’t break a camel back. Am not now, nor will ever be a camel, and going to take a lot more than a straw to break this back. Going to take one crappy, nasty, mean ass horse to do that. However. If there was that whole straw scenario happening, it would be from the Wicked Voodoo Queen Herself, Susan Garrett.
Susan Garrett. Now in my email every day with a helpful tip to be, well, more like her. She is a shiney Canadian Christian home remodeling vegan with world champion dogs and her own pond. Her emails, supposed to be helping me be Exceptional. Just like she is. So I get her emails, and I actually read her blog. It’s a blog which is hard to read, in the way it makes my skin crawl of her perfection in dog training to my mere ass sucking methods. And her inspirational blah blah blah which I read and think, holy cow, thank god my mind doesn’t work like that and then without skipping a beat how I am the lamest excuse for a dog trainer that I know because my mind says go get the dogs and throw stuffed animals at them from the couch while you watch the real estate channel instead of teaching 2×2 weave poles in the living room. And then I have to read the WHOLE THING, which is saying a lot because I am so not a whole thing reader. Total skimmer of most things on internet. Especially blogs. OK. Maybe don’t read her whole thing, but much of it. Even though I’m thinking, I hate reading this. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.
And here’s the part where I have the inspiration ending paragraph about how, goddamnit, I’m just going to shake that frown upside down and go out and work on that little doggy’s poles and go make some more money and WASH that floor. Because I’m a hard worker and tenacious and by golly, I can. I can fix Otterpop. I can make life Beautiful and Better. And I should be thanking Susan Garrett for trying to help me improve my life, not stomping my foot and calling her a witch.
Like hell. But I could be a one eyed-one armed, toothless old hooker, living in squalor with cockroaches for friends. Could be her instead of just having a mediocre month with sheets that don’t match. Hell. Could be Susan Garrett. Trade with either of them?
The thought of that, sending me right now to go dig out some stupid, matching pillowcases.
Dear Lost Laura. 1) Please don’t feel so bad because it is upsetting to me, and we know how important me is to me. 2) In fact, you have many, many, more Friends, than last March; remember, “Make new Friends, but keep the old. / One is silver and the other is gold.” I don’t think they told us Brownies which was which, but that was before Facebook, so it probably was not necessary, that’s all. 3) If you will come to the SMART meeting after work tonight, I will sacrifice myself and eat your piece of pizza so that you can be on your way to a size 4. 4) (That was foresight to use half a parentheses in front of my numbers, or that would have been confusing, unless I went back in time and changed the periods I might have used, which because we have computers I could have gone back in time a lot easier than when we had state-of-the-art Selectric II lift off tape, or before that white-out or typewriter erasers, so maybe would have just gone ahead and sacrified clarity in list numbering, or else would have gone ahead and become a veterinarian instead of a typist). For clarity, I will now repeat myself (keep in mind that March repeats itself, but repeating is actually never the same; I may have learned that in grad school, but I still haven’t gotten over that trauma, so maybe not, or maybe I shouldn’t have (mis)learned it): 4) We spring forward on Sunday again this year (but on a DIFFERENT DATE), so it will be light enough to see and avoid HMS at Lighthouse Field, which is a clear indication that things are getting better. 5) I watched The View, Maury and Oprah this week when I was sick. I don’t think you would be happy on Oprah’s ranch. I really don’t. 6) I recommend installing a little cocktail bar on your new front porch, and perhaps some tiny brushes painting to decorate it. Wicker chairs. I know bonding with your particular neighborhood is a little iffy, but, like I said, who is silver and who is gold was not specified by The Girl Scouts of America, so maybe it is IN FACT not necessary (to specify). So, turn that frown upside down, and don’t forget that you have the BEST DOGS (except mine).
Part Deux: Beware people who seem to be perfect and give out free advice so that you will buy their videos! Here is how they do it. 1) Send free tip via e-mail that people will see before they read Team Small Dog because they read their e-mail first while still groggy because not yet enough coffee. 2) Make tip something the receiver ALREADY KNOWS, so the receiver thinks, "Great tip! I (happened to) know that one (wow! I'm as smart as the expert advice giver!) <– #2 is so exciting and gratifying that one forgets that the *actual* tip is the one you gave today when you so eloquently spoke truth to power: You have to APPLY the tip you already know. The applying part can be a little depressing. Normal.
Part Tres or Trois: Boy, I hope you are a little cheered up because now I’m late for work.
Well, what a nice peppy talk. I don’t mean to upset anyone. I just want March to be funner. Susan Garrett might still stick in my craw, but that is a fine idea for the tiniest cocktail bar in the world on the new front porch. We do have a signature house cocktail called the Walk Circle that hasn’t been poured in years.
I am pretty sure I would be happy on Oprah’s ranch. She feeds people those giant apples. And cashmere.
I will miss SMART tonite. It starts at 6 and I am still working then, far away from Salinas. If they start talking about all the high tech whizzy gigs that I can put on the website for money taking, please remind them that Laura will try to help but remember she actually only KNOWS how to make pictures for websites.
Well, although I read email (and tip) before TSD, I do read TSD BEFORE Susan’s blog. So there you go, a Susan Garret oreo.
True story: Once we were out of town trying to find a hotel room at midnight on a friday and all the hotels were booked. Then this one guy when we begged said, well, there is this one room that mostly the owner uses but I guess since it’s midnight he’s not coming tonight. You can use that. Well–the curtains in the back window were a pale blue-green. The ones in the front window were red. The carpet was fluorescent orange shag. The bedspread had little blue and pink flowers all over it. The tile in the bathroom was maybe Mamie Eisenhower green but I think some had been replaced with tan. The room was clean, but I was so creeped out by the mismatches that I couldn’t sleep all night, I just lay there in bed in the dark with those colors running through my mind like some grade C horror film.
So you better make those pillowcases match.
Was there significance to your decision to juxtapose the Canadian-Christian-vegan-perfect-dog-trainer with a putrifying raccoon?
BTW, March *is* going to be funner. The Sierra snowpack is now up to 90%, which means the rain will stop soon.
I’m not a Lost fan, but I am an American Idol fan.
Having said that, I would have to say that Susan Garrett is the Tatiana of the agility world.
Has talent, but jeeze, she annoys the crap out of me. And this is probably true for most of America.