So, anyway, while I wait for my rejection letters to pile up, I’ll probably have more time for the little things.  You know, stuff like feeding the children, letting the dogs out, saying “hi” to my husband on at least a weekly basis.   And, oh yeah, writing in my blog.

  Speaking of doggage, Fergie and her crazy brother Leo are off pretending to be show dogs in Texas right now, but never fear.  Since our home obviously isn’t complete without more dogs than we can possibly manage, we have two geezer Ridgeback fosters right now, Cooper and Sara.   They’re 12 and 14 and apparently, just got to be too much for their owner to handle.  Um, yeah–I can see how all of that sunning and sleeping might pose a challenge.   Grrrrrr………

Anyway, hopefully I’ll post photos of them here soon, and I’ll post a link to Ridgeback Rescue once their photos are up there.

More soon……

Evil Swimming Coach–Boy, when they started handing out school spirit, you never even got in line, did you?

Buffy–No, I was in line for ’shred of sanity’.

In non-Buffy related news, I’m making pretty good progress on the manuscript.  Well, all except for the part where, in her frantic attempt to purge the two minuscule raindrops from her coat (because she might have melted otherwise), Skye proceeded to burrow the comforter right into the back of my laptop.  Which would have been fine, had I not been peering closely at the screen at that exact moment, looking for a file.  The end result?  Said laptop crashed down and nearly severed my nose from my head.   There was blood and everything.  I’m okay today, but my nose seriously is still a little crooked.  And painful.  And I have to laugh at the irony.  Skye is, like, the only halfway well-mannered Ridgeback I own.  If she ends up being the one to have broken my nose, which survived countless alteration attempts from Seger, Sunni, Fergie, et al., it’s going to be pretty darn funny.  All except the part where I look like I went two rounds with Mike Tyson, that is.  I guess on the plus side, my ears are intact.

At any rate, consider yourself forewarned, and on with my story, which happens to be about how I am so disorganized that I managed to use species-inappropriate womanly cycle devices. 

You see, recently, I just started having my womanly cycles again (somehow, I’m finding it unbelievably amusing to use that phrase as much as possible in this post–chalk it up to my uber-maturity).  Now, one would think with my vast experience in the womanly cycle arena, I would be beyond making mistakes of this variety.  In fact, one would think my five-year old son would be beyond making mistakes of this variety.  Okay, granted, between pregnancy and nursing, I hadn’t had a womanly cycle (how many times is that now?  four?  five?) in over two years, but really, when you think about the fact that I have over twenty years previous experience in the womanly cycle department, I should be familiar with the equipment that goes along with it.  I mean, how hard can it possibly be? 

And yet, there I was, reaching for another, um, piece of womanly cycle paraphernalia (yes, I’m still snickering like a seventh grade boy) when I make a little discovery. Mind you, I’ve been using the items in said box for the last few days and didn’t notice anything unusual.  Possibly because my bathroom cabinets are in such a state of a disarray that I don’t know if I’m grabbing my hairbrush or a stray porcupine half the time.  But I don’t know–maybe it’s not that big of deal.  I mean, I don’t think Fergie or Skye would really care that I accidentally borrowed from their stash:

 Um, yeah.  So maybe it is a little out of the ordinary to erroneously be sticking your dog’s womanly cycle products in your undies for days without noticing.  But in my defense, notice they don’t actually put the word “dog” or “canine” on the box.  Granted, it would be a little odd to buy a box of human womanly cycle items with a picture of a Yorkie on the front, but really, that’s just a minor detail.  Besides, advertisers are getting crazier every day–who’s to say the next Tampax commercial won’t be sporting a Labradoodle in a white dress, waxing poetic about the joys of riding the white cotton pony while playing tennis and sipping a cosmo?  Okay, now I’ve really gone and done it–my apologies to any males who are feeling completely violated right about now–I may as well piss off the feminists while I’m at it and blame it all on hormones. 

And actually folks, I’ve got a little secret to share—those dog products really aren’t half bad. 

Of course, who knows?  That could just be me growing fond of that ‘fresh from the groomers’ scent.

But I’m back.  At least for now.   See, I’ve been trying to keep up with the writing gigs that actually contribute towards my monthly mortgage payments, rather than just gleefully ranting away on here for free. Okay, so maybe my funded articles really only contribute towards a few outings to Target.  And rather minor ones at that.  But given my dollar bin addiction, it’s probably a worthwhile endeavor to continue.  Even if I do sometimes get to write about less than scintillating topics. (Don’t ask.)

So, on to more crucial stuff.  For starters, can I just say–what is up with Meaningful Beauty?  I mean, have you people read the commentage coming in about that rotting honeydew excrement masquerading as face cream?  No?  Well, all I can say is–if you see Cindy Crawford walking down the street, peg her with a melon, then run like hell.

Speaking of melons, Thanksgiving was great.  Not that we ate melon. or even anything remotely resembling melons, come to think of it.  Unless sweet potatoes count.  Although they’re not all that melon-esque.  But we did go to Chicago, kids in tow. Because everyone knows what a hoot it is to take a four hour plane trip with a 13 month-old and 4 yr-old.  We just kicked back, watched the in-flight movie, read a little, had a beer, and slept.  Well, maybe in a parallel universe somewhere that happened.  Just not in our world.  Actually, the kids were troopers. Provided, of course, that we entertained them for virtually every second of the plane rides.  And there was that one baby barfing incident involving parmesan peppercorn cheese spread.  But we don’t need to sweat the small details.  At least no melons were upchucked.  All in all, it was a nice visit.  I mean, who cares that our house smelled like an immense urinal once we came home?  Just chalk it up to the joys of dogs on prednisone. 

As for what I’m thankful for this year?  Oh, the usual stuff.  Like family, good friends, and a (fully mortgaged) roof over our heads.  And the fact my husband was the one holding the baby during the above-mentioned plane hurling episode.  What can I say?  Sometimes, it’s those little things we cherish the most.

I realize that Ridgebacks love to sun, but surely there should be some boundaries involved?  Like, say, no putting your stinky hound dog body on the same surface where I might eat my lunch?  I mean, God forbid she has to be in the yard for even a millisecond without at least a drop of sunshine.

Next she’ll be demanding I actually polish the sucker before I let her out in the morning.

You’d better watch it, hound dog.  Or else I’m moving your sun-lovin’ tushy to Seattle, home of the dreary gray drizzle. Nothing like trying to satisfy that UVA jones on some damp chilly glass.

….of course, it’s easy to be okay when your station is Queen.

At least Her Royal Fergieness was gracious enough to allow hubby a blankie while he broke his back on the floor.  Perhaps in the future I can persuade her to toss him a pillow as well.  And while she’s at it, maybe pass a decree mandating the use of matching socks.

From my angle, it’s hard to tell if we’re looking at Ridgebacks or kangaroos.  Although, I bet kangaroos inflict less damage on remotes and shoes.  (Yes, Zag, I’m talking about you.  Even if you are a black nose.)

At any rate, I’ll try to write some about my adventures this weekend, but for now, here’s a photo of me and the Ferganator in our hotel room, with all the awards she helped win.  As it turns out, Fergie apparently is good for something other than destroying random objects around the house.  Although saying she was ”good” at the show would probably be a bit of an overstatement—just ask my aunt.

Any mother with even an ounce of sanity would spend her first kid-free days in over a year doing something relaxing.  Like soaking in a spa while eating bon bons and getting a foot massage by a young Antonio Banderas doppelganger.  Or lounging on a squeezably soft yet tasteful comforter at the Four Seasons while ordering room service and reading trashy novels, only venturing out to float on a raft in the pool while sipping a strawberry margarita.   Or perhaps even sending the kids away so she could hole up in the house ALONE while eating Dulce de Leche Haagen Dazs and watching endless reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Veronica Mars.

But apparently all my sanity was sucked away into the black hole of motherhood long, long ago.  Because instead of doing any of those things, I’ve chosen to squander my hard-earned freedom at a dog show.  Where the dogs will be pampered more than I.  This wonderful trip involves me flying on a red-eye (read, no sleep whatsoever) and arriving at 6:00 a.m.–just in time to shower and throw on some show clothes so I can take the Ferganator into the ring.  Where instead of humiliating me with her naughty antics in front of just a few local Ridgeback folks, she’ll get to take on the whole nation.  Then, there’s the endless pottying of dogs, exercising of dogs, grooming of dogs (okay, so at least with Ridgebacks, the grooming part is pretty brief–thank god I didn’t choose Samoyeds), before staying up late at the Top 20 event, followed all too quickly by the next show morning, where I will attempt to split myself in two so that I can show multiple dogs and puppies in stud dog and brood bitch.  Speaking of which, maybe I should just enter myself in the latter category.  Think I’d have a shot?  My kids are pretty cute, if lacking in ring demeanor.  Which basically is to say they’ll fit right in with the rest of the crew I show.

And then for the grand finale, I get to drag my kid-free butt out of bed at 4:30 a.m. so I can have the supreme honor of driving 50 miles to the lure coursing field, because nothing says relaxing like being dragged willy-nilly across a dirty old field by four absolutely bunny-crazed Ridgebacks.  And of course, there’s the peaceful event of chasing the especially naughty ones down after the course is over.  To add to my vacation, I’m sure I’ll fall a few times, as well as almost pass out from the humidity.  Oh, and lets not forget that during this entire “vacation”, I’ll be pumping at least four times a day.

And then there’s the return home, where my house will surely look like a condemned property inhabited by one hundred transients and ten families of rats upon my arrival.

So, please, lock me up.  And make sure you do it before 7:37 p.m.  Otherwise, save me a strawberry margarita (or five) in Pennsylvania–I think I’m going to need them!

We had Fergie get preliminary scores on her hips and elbows, since we plan to let her chase the plastic bunny bag (or perhaps pick up a few pylons again) at the National Specialty next week.  As expected after viewing the X-rays, the hips came back excellent.

Alas.  If only excellent hips were linked to excellent behavior.