Muffy Needs a Travel Agent

Well, folks, it looks like Muffy still has some life left in her. We have ourselves a new Muffy story...enjoy!

My mom just got back home from visiting me and helping my sister get settled in her new place here in MD. While she was here, Muffy was boarded at the kennel, which she hates. Well, it turns out that my mom had to leave town again rather suddenly. Muffy tends to get upset when suitcases emerge because that usually means that she is going to the kennel and/or somebody she likes is leaving, usually me or Ashley. So we generally try to hide our suitcases until the last minute to keep Muffy from getting too stressed out. Well, this morning my mom could wait no longer and the suitcase made its appearance before she went to get her bath. While she was in the tub, she heard a very strange sound...THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. Thinking someone was breaking in, she got dressed and went downstairs only to find Muffy jumping up at the closet door. Keep in mind that Muffy is 14 years old and does not do much jumping of any sort anymore. Yet there she was, jumping repeatedly at the closet door. Naturally, my mom opened it for her whereupon Muffy immediately jumped on top of her Sherpa bag that she rides in when she goes on trips with my mom. So, my mom took the bag out of the closet and went back upstairs to finish her bath. Once again she heard THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. This time she finished bathing, but when she came downstairs, Muffy had dragged the Sherpa bag to the front door and was sitting on it again. My mom opened it for her and she sat in it until my mom's ride to the airport arrived. Thank goodness my mom was already planning to take Muffy with her this time!

So, I think that's pretty clear...."Fine! If you are leaving again, lady, I am coming, too! There will be none of this kennel business this time!" I've said it before and I'll say it again...Muffy is one scary smart dog.

Good Help is Hard to Find

A Lowe's recently opened not far from us. Alison and I were quite happy to see that, since Home Depot never seems to have what we want, and the salsefolk never seem to know anything.

I went to the Lowe's this morning and asked where I could find steel pipe. I was pointed to the plumbing department, even though steel is not the ideal material for use in the wet. Here's a summary of the actual conversation I had with the salsedude in plumbing:

Me, politely: "Do you have any steel pipe?"
Salseguy, confused: "You mean like copper?"
Me, a little irritated: "No, steel."
Salesguy, even more confused: "You mean like cast iron?"
Me, more than a little irritated: "No, steel."
Salesguy: "You mean like rebar?"
Me, almost more amused than irritated: "No, pipe."

Eventually, we determined that there was no steel pipe in the plumbing department. I was directed to building supplies at the far end of the store. When I got there, the salesdude seemed to understand the concept of steel pipe, but he didn't believe there was any in his part of the store. I poked around but came up empty handed. Finally, I gave up.

It appears that our dreams of a hardware store stocked with what I want and staffed by people who know where to find it are dashed. Dashed, I say. Ugh!

How is She Still Alive?

I've just learned that my lovely and intelligent bride is entirely incapable of flipping a coin. She had to do it repeatedly today as part of her TA gig, and it apparently went rather poorly. She gave me a demonstration of her "technique" this evening, and she nearly had to administer oxygen to me after the laughing fit that ensued. Please, the next time you see her, ask her to repeat the demonstration for you. Just be sure that you aren't eating at the time. I only hope the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration doesn't see her attempting this "feat," or they'll surely revoke her license to drive.

Apparently, in the same class, she needed to open a Venetian blind to let some light in. When she pulled the cord, the entire blind came right off the wall. Maybe she should lay off the CrossFit for a bit.

She told me, "I'm sure [my adviser] thought I was a spaz, but I really wasn't doing it on purpose." When I explained to her that a klutz wouldn't do it purposefully either, she replied, "So Elizabeth correctly thought I was a spaz." Yes, correctly.

I realize that I'm not the most athletic person in the world, but for crying out loud! I think this could be a deal-breaker.

Muffy Story #3: Opposable Thumbs?

Muffy is, as I have said before, a very smart dog. Here is one example of her uncanny canine intellect.

When Muffy was a puppy she was very, very tiny. This made us very, very lax about keeping things out of her reach. However, one day we came home to find that she had learned to jump up onto the coffee table where my mom kept a little dish of Hershey's Kisses. Of course, we were horrified since chocolate is poisonous to dogs. Once we got over being horrified, though, we were frankly amazed. I imagine that when most dogs get into individually-wrapped chocolates they eat as much foil as they do chocolate. Not Muffy. She had perfectly unwrapped her prizes, as if she had opposable thumbs! There were perfect squares of foil all over the floor. They were barely even torn! She even managed to leave the little Hershey's Kiss flags behind.

Well, no more of that! We put the chocolates on the sofa table which was much taller...way too tall for Muffy to jump up on. Except Muffy learned that if she jumped up on the sofa and then climbed up the arm and across the back of the sofa, she could easily hop onto the sofa table and knock the chocolate onto the floor and have a feast. At least, that's what we assume she did since we came home to, you guessed it, perfectly unwrapped and totally eaten Hershey's Kisses.

Now my mom keeps the candy dish on top of the antique icebox which is about four feet high and sits by itself in the corner. Muffy has not figured that one out yet, thank goodness, and it has been eleven years now, so we feel pretty comfortable keeping the candy dish up there. I'm not convinced, however, that Muffy has not been plotting this whole time. I half expect that we will come home one day to a rope ladder made out of her dog bed lining, an empty candy dish, and very neatly unwrapped candy wrappers all over the floor.

Canoes + Booze + Beans = Hilarity

\begin{SurferDude}
Dude! You totally gotta check out Brian's latest story! This dude totally gets his...well I won't ruin it for you, dude. It's hi-freaking-larious! Chah!
\end{SurferDude}

Wedding Dress Fitting...Oh Boy!

I went to IL this past weekend to have my first wedding dress fitting. I was SO excited! I spent the weekend hanging out with my sister who is home from college; Monday was the big fitting appointment. We were planning to go to the fitting at 11am, grab some lunch afterward and then Ashley was going to drop me off at the airport because my flight was at 5:30 in the evening.

We showed up at the bridal store and they remembered me. All the ladies who worked there got all excited and went in the back to get my dress. They hung it up in its opaque pink garment bag in the dressing room and I went in to try it on. My wedding dress! How exciting! I unzipped the bag and.....

...it was not my dress. It was some completely different dress that I HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE. OH GOD, WHERE THE HELL IS MY DRESS?! So, attempting to be calm, I went over to the woman who was ringing up another bride at the counter and informed her that that was not my dress. She proceeded to look horrified (as did the woman odering her dress!) and go look in the back to see if something had been switched while I tried not to cry in public. It turns out that the factory transposed the dress number. Instead of sending dress #672 they sent dresss #762. Fan-freaking-tastic. And, oh yeah, they don't have a dress #672 in stock in my size, so the earliest they can get it to me is mid-late July. Keep in mind that the wedding is August 12.

So, at this point the ladies who work there are totally freaked out. I can tell that they are genuinely upset about this, and the woman who owns the store offers me two options:

1) They will order the new dress in my size and when it comes in they will ship it to me in MD and pay for me to have it altered out there.
2) They have a floor model of the dress I ordered in the store that has only been tried on a couple of times and is one size smaller than the one I ordered. They can have their seamstress let it out a bit and I can come back that afternoon to see if it will work and if I take that one, they will give it to me for half price.

So, I took option 2 with contingency plan 1. I tried on the smaller dress which mostly fit except for being a bit tight in the waist. Ashley and I stayed in the area. We got some lunch and hung out at the mall until they called us at 2:40 to let us know that the dress was ready for me to try on again. It did fit, actually, and so they took the measurements for the hem and sent us on our way.

Now, Ashley and I had to make it to O'Hare airport in time for me to make a 5:30 pm flight, which was a bit dicey since it was, at this time, 3:10 or so and we had to stop for gas on the way. Plus, we were coming from a different suburb than usual so we had to take a different route with which we were unfamiliar. Oh, and on the way we encountered a bad accident and a major traffic jam.

It all ended up okay...actually, it ended up better than okay since I made my flight AND I am getting my wedding dress for half price. Still, it was an extremely stressful day to say the least! *sigh* I should have gone with a Greek theme and worn a white bedsheet...I mean toga.

Cranking it Up to Eleven

Brian---Biostats Brian, that is---brought back a souvenir from his trip to Rick's Coast. He relates the story with surprising humor here.

Muffy Story #2: Eau de Bounce

Muffy and my mom live in a northern state where it is cold for many months out of the year. This often confuses Muffy because if it is pretty and sunny outside then she wants to go sit on her back porch. She doesn't quite grasp that if it looks nice outside, it is not necessarily warm outside. My mom's house has bay French doors leading out onto the patio and there is a step that runs along them where Muffy loves to sit and watch the world go by. However, on days when it is sunny but cold, Muffy will beg to go out and then very shortly thereafter beg to come in. Of course, within 10 minutes or so she will have forgotten that it is cold outside and she will once again want to go out because, "It's sunny out Mom! Let's go sit on the step!". In, out, in, out...you get the idea.

Well, one day when Muffy was a puppy, we were having an "in, out, lather, rinse, repeat" kind of day when suddenly she stopped begging to come in. Frankly, we didn't really notice. We were probably just grateful that she had decided to stay put for a while. Well, when she finally did come in some time later, we realized when we picked her up that she smelled...oddly clean. In fact, she smelled like fabric softener! This was somewhat disturbing since the fabric softener, along with all of the other laundry implements, is kept in the basement where, to our knowledge, Muffy had never been.

A few days later, when it was again sunny and cold, we figured out how Muffy got her new perfume. The dryer exhaust vent is situated on the side of the house directly above the step where Muffy likes to sit. She had figured out that it was warm and was sitting there on cold days when she wanted to be outside. She still does it to this day. In fact, my mom has admitted to doing a load of laundry specifically so that Muffy can have her space heater on cold days.

Muffy the Mom Trainer

So here is part 2 of today's puppy-related posts. Pupposts I call them. Ha! I crack me up.

Anyway, for those of you who have not heard me prattle on and on about my family's dog, Muffy, I am going to begin a series of stories about her. I have a million of 'em, but here is one of my (and Michael's) favorites.

First of all, Muffy is a malti-poo. Check out the link for a picture of the breed. Basically it is a cross between a maltese and a toy poodle. Muffy is little (10 lbs soaking wet), girly, and as a puppy was about as cute as any animal can be. Between her utter cuteness and the fact that she was often home alone with my sister, who was seven years old at the time, Muffy didn't get trained much...or, um, at all really. In fact, she is extremely smart so she has done a bang-up job of training us. One example of her people-training prowess is illustrated in the following story.

Last Christmas, Muffy received three different kinds of treats from Santa Paws (Santa Paws is, of course, the doggie Santa). When she wants a treat, she will go stare longingly at the pantry until she has been ignored for too long, at which point she will go find you and bark at you. Anyway, one day after Christmas, she indicated to my mom that she wanted a treat. My mom gave her one, but Muffy did not run over to her usual treat-eating spot (the braided area rug). Instead, she stood there looking at my mom, with the treat hanging out of her mouth uneaten, wagging her tail uncertainly. So, my mom opened the pantry again. Muffy immediately dropped the first treat and got all excited. This time, my mom gave her a different kind of treat and Muffy trotted off to eat it on the braided rug. So, the next time Muffy wanted a treat, my mom put a few of each kind in a little tin. She then held it down so that Muffy could pick which kind she wanted. See? A perfectly trained mom!

The really funny part of this is that Muffy would not always choose the same kind of treat (although she did have a favorite) and, moreover, she would only choose one treat each time rather than trying to eat all of them when she had the chance. She is nothing if not polite, huh? :)

Anyway, stay tuned for more Muffy stories in the future!

Jon Story #2 - Jon vs. Food

So, continuing with my Jon stories, here are two short anecdotes about Jon and his tendency toward culinary ineptitude.

Apparently, when Jon first moved into his own apartment (as opposed to the dorms where they cook for you), he decided to make a frozen pizza for dinner. Ah, frozen pizza. The ultimate bachelor food. It's sooooo easy! All you do is throw it in a frying pan on top of the stove and heat!

Wait, you mean that's NOT how you cook a frozen pizza? Well, tell that to Jon. He swears that it turned out OK, but I imagine it wasn't pretty. Apparently, he ate it anyway, though.

Jon also likes to call me up for advice on various girl-related things such as cooking rice. He called me up one night and said, "Hey, how do you cook rice? I bought a bag of rice, but I don't know how to cook it and I have a girl coming over soon." I patiently explained that the way to cook rice was to turn the bag over and read the back where it said, "Instructions" or possibly "Directions" and then do what it said. He was pretty amazed at my culinary prowess. "Wow! How did you know to do that?" he said admiringly.

I really enjoy these two stories because it wasn't like he screwed up complicated French recipes or something. He just didn't read the darned package! Twice!

Ah, Jon...

The Ultimate Jon Story

OK, so I have a friend Jon who is the king of doing goofy things. He is not at all stupid...he's actually quite smart, but somehow he ends up in situations that beg the comment, "Wha...?” Thus begins a series of blog entries. Every so often, I will regale you with one of the vast number of Jon stories in my repertoire. Jon is, aside from being a very good friend, endlessly entertaining. :)

Jon always starts this particular story by saying, "You know when you were a kid and you made concoctions in the bathroom?” When everyone continues looking at him blankly, he gamely explains further, "You know, like, you mixed the toothpaste and the mouthwash just to see what it would smell like?” (Blank stares from the crowd) Anyway, at this point Jon just goes on with the story. Apparently, he liked to make concoctions in the bathroom when he was a kid, but he was not allowed to keep them in the "mouth rinsing cup" that his mom kept in the bathroom. He had to rinse his concoctions down the drain when he was finished to keep the "mouth rinsing cup" clean and tidy. So, one day he invented an AMAZING concoction. Man, did it smell good! He really needed to keep it and, being unable to keep it in the aforementioned cup, he began looking through the bathroom cabinets for ways to preserve his creation. Lo and behold, under the sink he found the perfect do-dad! He stuck it into the cup whereupon it absorbed all of the concoction, and it still smelled great! Heck, it even had a string so he could hang it up like an air freshener! Perfection! Jon proceeded to tack his new ornament up on his wall.

When Jon's dad came home from work, he went up to Jon's room to see how his son's day had been. Somewhere in the middle of their conversation, he laid eyes on Jon's ornament and immediately addressed Jon by his FULL name (uh-oh!) and announced that they needed to have a talk. The way Jon describes it, he learned a lot more than he really wanted to know about girls that day.

Now, the really funny part of the story is....how old do you think he was?

Go on, take a guess...

Fourteen. Yes, seriously. Fourteen.

Ah, Jon... :)