So my new friend Edward Alexander tagged me for a meme. And since I heart new people, I will happily oblige.

4 things I did 10 years ago: (1998)
1. Graduated High School (shit, has it really been that long?)
2. Smoked oodles of marijuana.
3. It’s a blur. See #2
4. No clue. See #2

4 things I did 5 years ago: (2003)
1. I met The Daver (again, REALLY?)
2. Got engaged
3. Had my very first colonoscopy!
4. Was diagnosed with small bowel Crohn’s disease

4 things I did yesterday:
1. Got my white patent leather go-go boots in the mail. I may very well look like a transvestite in them, but I don’t care.
2. Cleaned up massive craptastrophes. Interestingly, none of my own.
3. Paid someone to mow my lawn WITHOUT feeling guilty about it. Okay, I felt a LITTLE guilty. The lawn was so long that the puppy could get lost in it.
4. Ate glorious McDonald’s for dinner WITHOUT going off my diet!

4 shows I love to watch:
1. House, M.D.
2. American Idol
3. The Girls Next Door
4. Rock of Love

So I’m supposed to tag some people to do this incredibly thought-provoking meme, but really what I’m interested in is what YOUR answers are to this. Yes, YOU, my sweet and wonderous readers. So leave me a comment answering a couple of these if you want.

Aunt Becky would love you forever and ever.

Fuckity, fuck fuck fuck.

I am now interrupting my regularly scheduled self-absorbed blog post to ask you to go see my friend KC. She has just lost her beloved (and young) dog Sadie, and is understandably heartbroken.

I will be back tomorrow with more useless prattle.

Love you all for everything.

I approached having a puppy with the same trepidation that most people approach having a root canal. I wasn’t being coy when I said I’d never wanted a puppy. People who have raised puppies are always in an uproar about “never wanting to do it again” and “it was the hardest thing. Ever.”

Stupidly I listened to them.

Auggie came home with us, and a rock formed where my stomach had been merrily sitting hours before, and I panicked (inwardly). What the FUCK was I thinking? I thought to myself, here I am, finally having weened the kid and insisted he sleep through the night, like it or not, so I celebrate by BUYING A PUPPY?

Epic bad judgement, I told myself.

Yesterday night, it dawned on me as I waited for things to get REALLY HARD: yes, having a puppy is hard work, but absolutely easier than either of my children as babies. It’s the same nimrods who chuckle and tell you to kiss your sleep goodbye when you tell them that you’re pregnant that tell you how hard puppies are.

When you’re used to breast-feeding, being THE ONLY ONE who can comfort the baby, and NOT LETTING THEM CRY IT OUT BECAUSE THEY MIGHT HYPERVENTILATE THEN DIE, a puppy is a snap. Sure, he pees on the carpet now and again, sure I have to take him out every hour or so, and sure he doesn’t ALWAYS like it when I put him in his cage, BUT IT’S NOT THAT BAD! Especially when you compare the level of need to the level of need of a baby.

And to make matters better, the most unexpected side effects have also occurred:

1) Ben considers the puppy his puppy and is helping me out a shit ton. Despite having a menagerie for a house, Ben has never cared a bit about any of the animals. Sure, he’s fine with them, but it’s indifference at best. Now, he is thrilled to help with his pup.

2) Cash, the world’s most aggressive houseplant has taken a shine to the baby puppy. This is the dog who I cannot take out on walks alone with Alex because I cannot wrestle Cash while ensuring Alex’s safety should another dog come along. I have literally been in the middle of a dog fight with Cash, and had to yank all 40 pounds of him away and carry him home all while screaming for help (the other dogs owner was INSIDE and had LEFT HER DOG OUTSIDE). THAT was a fun time, LET ME TELL YOU.

So, after three days, the rock in my belly has lessened, and I’m feeling pretty okay with the whole situation. Our house is full of life again.

BONUS! PICTURES!

I’m trying to catch the proportions of the puppy, but I haven’t yet been able to illustrate just how teeny-tiny he is.

The houseplant in (in)action:

Now, part of the reason I feel so strangely about buying animals is because we tend to come across animals that need a home. This is how I happened to adopt Joey The Mean Hamster (a bad, bad idea) and the gecko that I named Robes Pierre.

I’d been oogling lizards for what was probably 10 years before we came across this gecko, who was owned by a kid who worked at the local pet store who had taken him when one of his friends had died (got that? He was third-hand goods). The Daver and I had been pricing out just what a gecko costs to set up when this kid offered us this gecko. Being the kind of people who take people up on these weird offers, Dave went to pick him up that night.

And Robes Pierre came our into lives already a geriatric. A scaly geriatric. And full of The Awesome.

He was never an awesome pet because he snuggled you or sought your attention, or even because he really gave a flying shit about you at all. He was awesome because he was neat to watch. I already have the world’s neediest animals, so I really didn’t need anything else clamoring for my attention.

Robes Pierre died over the weekend and although I knew that it was coming, I am still much more saddened by his ascent to, well, wherever it is that lizards go when they die.

Rest in Peace, Robes Pierre. You’re more missed than even you’d think.

So, yeah. Yeah. Rules. Yeah.

Now, I’m not much of a dog person. Really, I’m not. We have Cash, the dog equivalent of a house plant whom I love dearly. But we both know that he’s The Daver’s dog, and we’re okay with this.

And if I’m not a dog person, I’m REALLY not a puppy person. Sure, they’re cute and all, but so are puffer fish, and we both know what can happen when you tangle with one of those. Honestly, neither is The Daver; we both like established dogs whose personality is able to be determined upon meeting them. But Cash is a really territorial house plant, so getting another dog was out of the question.

But we found this puppy. This teeny-tiny puppy who looked like a mini-fox. And rather than walk away from him like we should have, we instead chose to hold him. It was then that this dog turned the cute to 11 and we were hooked.

We vacillated wildly as we always do in these situations, knowing that all we’re really doing is posturing for comedic effect. The dog was as good as ours when he first nuzzled into Dave’s neck. The puppy knew it, I knew it, The Daver especially knew it.

Sure, we TRIED to put him back into the cage, but it wasn’t gonna happen.

So we now own the world’s cutest puppy.

Problem is, he needs a name. And I suck at coming up with names. I just suck (one might argue I suck at many, many things) at this. Between the two kids with 15 names each, the foster animals, and my regular animals, I’m tapped out. I especially suck because I insist that the names be something either clever or ironic. Not an easy combination.

So far I’ve come up with

a) Little Guy

b) Vincent D’Onofrio

c) Gary Indiana

I’m not a cutesy name dog person, nor am I intending to become one. Mr. Jubbles, Foxy, Bear-Bear, or Sweetie are not okay for me.

Any ideas? It’s a dude and it’s a Shiba Inu mix.

Here he is!

And I hope that everyone had a great Mother’s Day. Or at the very least, that it wasn’t too brutal.

Last Friday, I was sitting here at my Mac marveling at the positive pregnancy tests that I had in my pockets as sort of a good luck charm. I’d pull them out, smile to myself the kind of “I have a delicious secret” smile and put them back in my pocket. Occasionally, I’d pat my pocket to reassure that yes, indeed the test was really real.

And here I sit, one week later, having thrown out all of my pregnancy tests and feeling…empty. Just so very empty.

Happy Mother’s Day, indeed.

The Internet has been a-flutter this week with talk of how Heather Armstrong of Dooce fame was treated on The Today Show, and I didn’t catch the segment, mainly because I don’t really give a shit about The Today Show. My mother watches it and the format is exactly the same every day, just with new people talking about the same damn subjects ad nauseum. But enough people were ranting about it that I finally broke down and watched it on YouTube last night.

And I have a bone to pick, although not with Kathy Lee Whatsherface (seriously, what is UP with her face? It looks like a melting candle). Sure, she was a bit dismissive of Heather, and that was pretty rude, but I’m sure Heather had her big girl pants on and is laughing her way to the bank. Good for Heather, I say. Good for her.

My beef is with another thing entirely. See now, I’ve been blogging since 2004 and it’s something I enjoy very much. I genuinely like to write, I love to meet new people, and I enjoy feeling like I’m not alone in this crazy mixed up world. I’m also incredibly bored as my only conversation during the day tends to go like this:

“Ball!”

“Yes, a ball!”

“BALLLLLL!”

“Yes, baby. A ball.”

“PEEENIS!”

“Yes, you have a penis”

(gurgles happily while playing with his junk).

I don’t tend to read most of the Big Time Bloggers out there for two reasons:

1) Since their readership is so incredibly large, I never, ever get a response. And let’s face it, if I wanted to write only for myself, I’d keep this private and not on the public domain. But these bloggers are so busy with whatever it is that they’re doing that you never feel like you can connect with them. So I don’t bother trying. This makes me sound much more like a petulant teenager than I really am.

2) I’m so sick of going to their sites only to have them try and pimp products out to me. I’m all for making a bit of cash (Like I’ve ever gotten a dime for being a blogger. I’m pretty sure I’m in the negative here, and that is a-okay with me) and I have no beef with that, but when every other post is hawking some new product or directing you to their paid gigs, I get annoyed. Maybe it’s my own immaturity talking, or maybe it’s just because I despise adults trying to pimp out products I’ll never buy.

See, I’m down with pimping out YOUR OWN products, ala Etsy, but I don’t really want to hear so-and-so’s opinion on some new-fangled product. I totally dislike that blogs are quickly becoming marketing tools for big name corporations. If I wanted to be courted and advertised to, I’d flip on the television. I read blogs to get away from that noise, and I guess it annoys me when they’re trying to do the same thing.

It sounds like I’m bitter here because no corporation asks me to review their products but I’m not. Not really. The last thing I want my readers to have to do is to actually look for the stuff I write amidst the product placements.

I love reading new blogs, and I love meeting new people, provided that what they do on their site is actually writing or photographs. This I can get behind.

I don’t even mind the ads on the sidebars (which some people freak the fuck out about), unless they cause the page to take a day and a half to load, in which case I click away never to return again. I doubt I’ll put ads on my site, primarily because I’m a vain bitch and absolutely hate clutter on my blogs sidebar. Besides, I’m fairly certain no one would take me anyway, since I talk about such disgusting stuff and refuse to stop using the word “fuck.”

Am I being too critical here? I’m all for people making cash from doing something that they love, but I don’t really appreciate people starting to blog simply to make money, which is what I’m pretty sure will happen after that Today Show segment, where they talk about ‘word of Mom’ as the hottest new advertising strategy. And this is not to say that ALL of the Big Time Bloggers do this, don’t get me wrong.

God, I sound like such a crotchety old bitch here, like I sit around on a park bench all day trying to trip people with my cane (which is precisely what I plan on doing when I’m old) and talking about how in MY day, I walked to school in the sleet up hill both ways with rags for shoes.

What do you think about blogs becoming a marketing tool? Aunt Becky is dying to know what you think.

So first and foremost, I’d like to extend a “howdy” to anyone popping by from that list that’s making it’s way around the blogs. I like meeting new people, so leave me a note so that I can come and visit you. This goes for anyone I’ve neglected to say “What’s up?” to lately; I’ve been a little pathetic and preoccupied lately, so holler and I’ll holler back this time.

Scout’s honor.

Yes, I was a Girl Scout. And yes, I sucked at it. Sucked majorly. Selling cookies door to door has turned me off cookies in general (something my ass is most pleased by) and causes me to throw money at any kid trying to go door to door and sell me stuff I don’t really want. Although the adults coming door to door do kind of freak me out.

Tomorrow morning I’m heading to Ben’s school for a Mother’s Day Tea, and to be completely honest (when am I not?) I’m ridiculously nervous about it. I don’t really know any of the other parents aside from knowing that they’re probably much older and wiser than I, and would therefore KNOW not to send chocolate to school with their children. I, on the other hand, am often tempted to upend a 5 pound bag of sugar into Ben’s lunch and empty a Mountain Dew into it. Just because I’m highly mature. And not the slightest bit vindictive.

I guess the simplest distinction between us is that they are crunchy and I still happily listen to Britney Spears. And maybe, JUST maybe I am hoping for her comeback. A lot.

*sighs*

What makes you insanely nervous for no real reason?

When I was younger, before I was your Aunt Becky and before I had a Ben, an Alex or even a Daver, and especially before gas cost the equivalent of a mortgage payment I used to unwind by taking an aimless drive. I’d fill up the tank of my del Sol, grab a pack or three of cigarettes and hit the road, listening to my CD’s and letting it all go.

There was, and still is, something magical about driving aimlessly to nowhere in particular, nothing on my mind but whatever song was playing on the stereo, and just existing. Just complete peace. It’s something I dearly miss about my old life, and something I hope to get back into when my kidlets grow up. I love them both tremendously, but having them squack at me from the backseat would lose a bit of the luster, I imagine, so I don’t take them.

Since I live in the northern part of Illinois, the easiest place for me to follow country roads is down South. It’s crazy how much difference in attitude there is down there and that always makes me desperately yearn to move down there. It doesn’t matter if I leave the state or not, the South is just so much more welcoming than the North is. I’ll never know if it’s the last remnants of the war or the vast amount of moonshine, but people down South are just different.

Now, the Midwest, where I lay my head at night is great, don’t get me wrong, but it conjures up images farmland, cows, and girls with thick ankles. And I’m flanked by the most boring states in existence: Wisconsin, Indiana, and….Ohio? Iowa? Not sure, as my geography skills are sorely lacking (along, truth be told with my spelling, punctuation, and fraction skills). Either way, none of those states make me go “YES, let’s go to…INDIANA!” not because they’re bad or anything, but just because there’s not much there to be pumped about.

Down South, there are plenty of exotic locals: Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, each with something new! and exciting! for a Yank like me. It’s alluring to me somehow, all of these locals, each full of nice people who may talk a bit slowly for my liking, but sweet and interesting nonetheless.

I’ll probably never understand the allure of Sweet Tea and probably always get a little sick from Barbeque (especially BBQ Spaghetti. What.the.fuck?), but since the North isn’t holding much in the way of appealing to me these days, I’m going to take a mental road-trip down South, past the Mason-Dixon Line (where that is, I’ll never know).

Who knows, maybe I’ll actually go down South one of these nights after The Daver is home to watch the sleeping kids and revisit my glory days when nothing much mattered except for the song on the radio.

Right about now, that sounds phenomenal.

Rather than sitting around in a Tylenol 3 haze (yeah. Tylenol fucking 3. They might as well have given me snake oil and Skittles. And boy, OH BOY, were they harsh about handing that out) and feeling acutely sorry for myself, which is actually what I have been doing since Saturday, I decided to turn that frown upside down, motherfucker, and take care of some motherfucking business.

Even I have my limits of feeling so sorry for myself and I hit it yesterday in the ER while I wept openly and loudly as the poor insurance dude tried to extract the handy Blue Cross from my grubby hands. I was unable to get it for myself as the nurse practitioner thought it fit to elevate my shame level to Extreme Shame by inserting a foley catheter into my delicate bladder. WITH NO PAIN MEDS. If you’ve had one before while you were able to feel it, you’ll know the excruciating pain that this causes.

This was before they realized I had a massive bladder infection.

So yes, if you were sitting in the ER in the room next to mine (you’d know mine because it had one of two bathrooms on the floor entrance in it. Which made things EVEN better. Nothing says “I LOVE life!!” like having to sit writhing in pain WHILE LISTENING TO SOME GERIATRIC BLOW ASS!) I apologize for the weeping and moaning. You see, I was ALONE and IN PAIN and full of THE SHAME.

I’m still fairly under the weather as far as pain and general malaise goes, but I refuse to sit around moping and groaning. So I did the only thing I could think to do: I hoisted my swollen guts up from the computer (I look about 5 months pregnant right now), I planted some patches on the lawn and once the sun goes down I’m going to plant me some motherfucking roses.

The people that we bought our house from appeared to be allergic to any yard work, something we didn’t realize when we moved in during February (not this year, thankyouGod), and left us with some awesome chores. Like a rose bush so overgrown that my next door neighbors put up some trellises to block the view. And massive patches in the back lawn from a trampoline and rabid (I can only imagine) dogs that I could safely have moved my queen-sized bed into. And bridal bushes so wild that they killed the grass for 7 feet in front of them.

The latter is what was taken care of today and I feel pretty pleased with myself (when don’t I?).

I’m not going to call this a comeback or anything, well, maybe I am, but it looks like the Universe is righting itself again for me. Must have been the bourbon and hot dogs I promised it.

What do you guys do to make yourself feel better when you’re down in the dumps and feeling rather pathetically pathetic?