No, the Thursday Thirteen is not going away. Yay!

To those of you pooh-poohing this idea, this grand scheme to leave the moldy-wet, expensive and fast-paced Pacific Northwest and move to my husband’s hometown of Iowa City, I ask, do you even know what the Big Ten schools are?

Harry: Yeah, nothing from her, not even a smile. So I downshift into small talk, and I asked her where she went to school and she said, “Michigan State,” and this reminds me of Helen. All of a sudden I’m in the middle of this mess of an anxiety attack, my heart is beating like a wild man and I start sweating like a pig.
Sally: Helen went to Michigan State?
Harry: No she went to Northwestern, but they’re both Big Ten schools. I got so upset I had to leave the restaurant.
(from “When Harry Met Sally”)

And without further ado, they are:

* University Of Illinois
* Indiana University
* University of Iowa (which is IN IOWA CITY, thank you)
* University of Michigan
* Michigan State University
* University of Minnesota
* Northwestern University
* Ohio State University
* Penn State University
* Purdue University
* University of Wisconsin

I know. Penn State makes it eleven but everyone still says Big Ten. Midwesterners are generous that way.

Also, the naysayers are not the readers of this blog. Oh, no. All of you are asking me, “How can you put up with that rain? Yes, move. Damn. You cannot build a rainman, can you?” No, and I would not want to. I am saying, “We will move.” And we will. Because I am Through with this place. Through.

See? I blame it on Nora Ephron.

Harry: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally: And Ingrid Bergman is low maintenance?
Harry: An L.M. Definitely.
Sally: Which one am I?
Harry: You’re the worst kind. You’re high maintenance but you think you’re low maintenance.
Sally: I don’t see that.
Harry: You don’t see that? “Waiter, I’ll begin with the house salad, but I don’t want the regular dressing. I’ll have the balsamic vinegar and oil, but on the side, and then the salmon with the mustard sauce, but I want the mustard sauce on the side.” ‘On the side’ is a very big thing for you.
Sally: Well, I just want it the way I want it.
Harry: I know, high maintenance.

You know why I love the Internet? A lot of reasons, really, all of them starting with I can look up the lyrics to any Sly and the Family Stone song that I want, ANYTIME I WANT. This still amazes me. But you know, I’m easily impressed so that’s not saying much. I also adore the Internet, the Information Highway, running willy-nilly from here in Oregon all the way over to North Carolina, down to Rio by the Sea-O, then flying ZOOM like a CRAZY BOOMERANG all around the world, BECAUSE IT MEANS I DO NOT HAVE TO PHOTOCOPY AS MUCH STUFF. (more…)

“I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.”

— Helen Keller

Going through old boxes of cards, clippings and journals here, getting ready to move. I refuse to drag too much of the past with me, especially when it’s bad journal entries circa 1992. Haven’t found jobs yet, but we’re readying the house for sale, just in case, and getting as much packed as we can.

Turns out you can accumulate quite a few Very Important Things if you live in the same place for seven years. You look at them again, these things, and you think, “I can live without this.” So you pack it and hide it in the attic, put it in the Goodwill box, or give it to a friend. It is amazing how much we’ve gathered. And a little crazy, when you start wondering how it’s all going to fit into a moving van???

Here’s something funny from one of my old journals — I started collecting family mottos from my friends. A few of the funnier ones:

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“If you leave it in a public place it becomes public property.” (from my friend KC, who came from a large family)

“Better late than dead.” (From my friend CB, who came from a family of too-fast drivers.)

“It looks just fine.” (A good all-purpose motto, no?)

“Take it as it comes.”

“I didn’t do it” and “You smell like a goddamn brewery.” (ha ha — same family for both of these mottos. Denial, anyone?)

“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” (EQ, another member of a large family)

“Don’t grow up too fast.” (and from the same family…) “Date an educated man — they’re more civilized.” (and, for family members who refused to get out of bed…) “OK. Be a loser.”

My family’s: “Roll with the punches” and “Men are like streetcars — there’s another one along every fifteen minutes.”

What’s yours?

If you were looking for:

wacky mommy
mommy sex
volcano cake
chocolate volcano cake
pictures mardi gras shoebox floats
norovirus puking
nasty neighbors
money makin mommy
quotes from because i said so
nasty neighbor

Well, here I am, baby.

WM

I have to give you something here, because Jesus. It’s bad enough I’m miserable, and torturing myself, but I have to do the same to you? Misery loves company, or what? Nothing is making me feel better, not even making the Internet, my husband and my father-in-law cry (usually this would help, but noooooooooooo it’s not helping), but then I came across this. Which made me think of my boyfriend, circa 1989, and how he wanted to look just like Milli Vanilli. (Milli and Vanilli, I used to call them.) He even grew his hair long and had it corn-rowed (I found out later he slept with the hairdresser, a girl I worked with).

He was white. (Probably still is.)

With not that attractive of a face.

It was not such a good look for him.

Oh, what a loser.

“Honey, do you look at him now and say ‘What was I thinking?‘” my cousin asked me, in her Louisiana accent.

Yeah, and then some. He was also gay (or bi, who knows, and needed a pretty girl “cover” such as myself so no one would suspect.) Guess what? Everyone suspected. Or knew. Except me and his mother. And probably the hairdresser. So he didn’t want to just be Milli Vanilli, he wanted to be with Milli Vanilli.

I will not run his name here, but if you send me an e-mail I’ll send you his website. Where he claims to have graduated from Portland State. (He flunked out.)

Goddammit — I think this might make me feel better.

Ed. to say: Don’t get me wrong. I do not give a fig that he was queer. Be gay. Fly free, friend. Don’t worry, be happy. Just don’t be having sex with anonymous men in bathrooms hither and yon, as was the case here, I found out later, and then come home and stick it to me. Because I will not be happy with that. Also? His mother informed me awhile back, “He’s not gay anymore” and told me that he married a girl. Poor thing. Go light a candle for her, would you?

Also, if you’re asking himself, Wacky Mommy, how did the date end? I fell in love with someone else. He was 6’5″ tall (my ex was 5’6″, tops). He was a comfort to me. You know, as I rebounded.

My husband is over the dog and moving on. The kids are over the dog and moving on. Thankfully, they’ve stopped asking if I’m going to get them a new kitten. The kids, not my husband. Somewhere they got the idea that when a pet dies you run out and get a new one. This is not happening here. No one could replace Wacky Dog and all his crazy lovey ways. No more dogs. I cannot take this heartache again, this horrible decision I had to make. By myself. Because my husband was nuts about the dog and couldn’t let him go, and I can’t fault him for this. I loved the dog, too. He was my dog — he was our dog, but he was my dog. And the kids are little. Too little. If they were teenagers I would have discussed it with them. As it was, I just told them, before I left to take him in, “He’s really sick and the vet doesn’t have medicine to make him better. I don’t know if he will make it.”

And I’ve decided that when I start to break down, it’s okay to cry and break down, but I don’t need to answer the kids’ each and every question, when I’m a mess over this. They wanted to know specifics and I don’t want them to have that information. I just tell them “This is too difficult for me to talk about.” Because it is. And because I want them to be kids for as long as they can. That’s why I’m the grown-up.

I didn’t stay there with him, in the room. I sat with him in what they call “The Comfort Room” for a long time, petting him and talking with him. (And it was comforting. It was softly lit, with a nice couch, and art on the walls, and several boxes of tissue placed around.) I was counseled by a vet tech, who was just an angel, she was so kind and understanding, and a vet who was equally compassionate. It sounded to him like Wacky Dog was showing signs of senility, the way he’d get confused (wanting outside, then back in, not going to the bathroom outside, then going in the house). And the way all of his obsessive-compulsive stuff had gotten worse (chewing on the woodwork, gnawing on his paws and tail, not being able to sleep at night, fretting over everything). The vomiting and the diarrhea had gotten worse. Medicine wasn’t helping. He was such a big puppy, my guy, but when the vet said that, about the senility, I knew he was right. I told my dog, you don’t have to worry anymore, and I let him go.

I’m not over the dog.

I still hear him everywhere — I think he’s scratching at the door and I go to let him in. I spill food on the floor and whistle for him. I peek at the weather and the clock and think, “We have time for a walk, good,” then I remember. I can’t figure out why my foot is cold, then I realize he’s not lying on it. He was a cuddler.

It’s only been a week and a day. That’s not very long. Of course everything is dogs, dogs and more dogs at the moment — the black Lab (just like mine!!!) who snuggled up to the lost climbers (yet more people here, lost in the snow, but they were OK) on Mt. Hood; dogs are running all over the park; they’re jumping into the backs of people’s cars and they’re going places. Then on “Grey’s Anatomy” last night, there’s Meredith in the after-life, with Denny and the bomb squad guy and she says something like, I don’t really want to see you guys, the one I want to see is…

And her dog, Doc, who she had to have put to sleep, bounds up on the table.

I’ll see you somewhere over the rainbow, Wacky Dog.

Let’s have some happy puppy stories on this blog — enough sadness. My dog, Wacky Dog, was Good Dog and Crazeeeee Dog and he was awesome. So my Thursday Thirteen is in his honor…

And this post is in honor of Leanne, who is saying “No more Thursday Thirteen.” I am hoping she changes her mind. Because I love the Thursday Thirteen.

THIRTEEN HILARIOUS STORIES ABOUT WACKY DOG

13. One time a pig truck drove by us on the highway. An extremely large pig truck that was full of smelly, yummy, snorting pigs. You have never seen so much happy sniffing in your life as my dog that day, with his head hanging out the window, tongue out and drooling.

12. There was the time two girl dogs fell all over him at the park. No, I cannot go into details, but he was Happy Wacky Dog. Then there was the time I was throwing a tennis ball for him and a guy driving by yelled, “Sit, Ubu, sit! Good dog!” out the window at him, which cracked me up.

11. When we first got him my husband said NO DOG ON THE BED! Which explains why a week later there we were, napping happily with Wacky Dog snuggled between us. On his back. Legs waving in the air. Snoring. (This is my happiest dog memory.)

10. About a week after that, we couldn’t find the dog. Called for him, and up he popped from under a quilt on the floor, where he was completely covered up, snoozing. Woof!

9. I have beautiful memories of Wacky Dog and Wacky Girl, age two, racing laps around our kitchen, into the entryway, the dining room, and back into the kitchen. (This is Wacky Girl’s earliest memory, and how sweet is that?)

8. My son’s second-earliest memory is of his sister chasing him around, into the kitchen, the entryway, the dining room, and back into the kitchen, with Wacky Dog chasing both of them.

7. The Dog Who Loved the Game of Pounce. Wacky Dog liked to watch us from across the yard, and when we’d call him, he’d skulk, wiggle, hold as still as he could, for as long as he could stand it, and then finally SPRING across the yard and race to us. Pounce!

6. The dog loved to howl and never missed any opportunity to do so. He could bay like the hound dog he was. We’d have “Family Howls” where we’d all throw our heads back and bay. The neighbors, they did not know what to make of this.

5. There was the time he crawled through the window.

4. There was the time our housesitter and her husband did not know what to do with him — he wouldn’t stay in the house (without chewing it to bits), you couldn’t crate him, he wouldn’t stay in the back yard (why should he, when he could sit in the front yard instead?) and they couldn’t take him with them.

Solution: “We put his bed on the front porch, told him ‘Stay’ and ‘Good dog!’ and he was still there when we got home!” What a good puppy. He loved everyone and everyone loved him. “People aren’t strangers to him,” one of my girlfriends said, “just friends he hasn’t gotten to know yet.” I loved seeing kids’ reactions to him. They’d ask, really quietly, “Is it OK if I pet your dog?” then would love all over him while he wiggled and smiled. He was a smiley dog.

3. There was the time he rolled in a dead porcupine at the beach. Actually, this was not hilarious to me at all, and only hilarious to him for the first couple of sniff-happy moments. Yowch.

2. When one of us would call, “Who’s there?” he’d bark like a maniac. Ditto if you just said, “Who” or “There?” Also, he loved squirrels, birds and cats, and didn’t mind sharing his yard, but when I would tell him, “Git ’em!” when I saw a squirrel, he would go into this barking frenzy and chase it out of the yard. Then he’d strut.

1. This one isn’t hilarious, but I am happy knowing that he had almost ten great years with us. (We’re not sure how old he was, but think he was one or two when we got him.) It makes me smile thinking of all the good times we had.

Love you, Wacky Dog. Miss you.

Your Wacky Family

dear internet,

I miss my dog. The way he slept at the foot of my bed. His crazy Tourette’s-style barking that lasted daily from 3 or 4 in the afternoon until my husband got home at 6 or 7. The kids running to the window to see if their dad’s car had pulled up (at 3:30, 3:45, 4 p.m. — you get the idea) then telling the dog, “He’s still not here, Wacky Dog!” This used to crack me up. His soft nose. His soft ears. The way he’d nuzzle my hand. The way I had to look behind me before I pushed my office chair back, because nine times out of ten he was sleeping there and I didn’t want to roll over his foot or floppy ear.

I miss him all the time.

Please tell me this will get better because I feel like it won’t ever.

Our black cat, Wacky Cat One, has started greeting us at the front door when we get home, just like Wacky Dog used to. She’s never done this before. This makes it a little better. That, and everyone being so nice about the whole thing. I wasn’t the only one who was nuts about that dog.

WM