In the doghouse

Figuratively speaking, my dog, Bentley, was in the doghouse last week - for about a day and a half. For those of you who aren't in the know, a bit of background on Bentley - or "B", "B-Dubs" as I sometimes call him:

Bentley is a lanky ten year old hound mix. He's been my dog for the last 4 years. As far as B is concerned, 10 is the new 3 in dog years. He's 95% good dog, he really is, but he knows that he's allowed the 5% not-so-good and he uses it like personal/sick days on a union job. He's a bit too smart for his own good...and my liking.

For those of you who run with the theory that a dog doesn't remember what he does from one minute to the next, bite me. I swear to you, good people, this dog has a memory - albeit a very selective one at times. He knows my routines, keeps a schedule for his routines - I'm pretty sure the dog has a day planner on him somewhere, and there are times when I'd swear he owns a watch. I digress.

When he uses his 5% bad points, it annoys the living B-Jeezus outta me - and sometimes it just flat out pisses me off - big time. It's as if he's saying the following:

B: Dude, c'mon - I flippin' NEVER pee or poop in the house & you're calling me out for letting this guy who slow-walks by my living room window every single day know that he best watch his ass? He knows it bugs me - you think I don't get tired of barking at him several times a day because he just won't listen?? Really? Besides, I'm allowed 5% in the good dog/bad dog ratio. You want I should use it to drop a deuce by the coffee table? How about a decent sized puddle in the exact spot you land your feet when you wake up - which is almost always later than it should be if you ask me...I mean, I can do that, if you think you've got, say, two entire rolls of paper towels to spare, along with 20 minutes or so and a shit ton of Febreeze, Lysol, or whatever the hell you're gonna freak and wanna use to get rid of the smell...seriously. 5% on my giving that inconsiderate, slow walking dude some good advice, ain't a bad deal.

There are times when I call him out on his 5%, and he just gives me a look that says, get real. He's basically right - but that is not a hand I can show, because the F'kr has a memory and he will use it against me...in my own house, on his own leash, wherever/whenever he sees fit. So I'll admit that most of the time, his allowed 5% isn't so bad in the big picture. But there are times when he uses smart dog logic and saves up his bad points for something really worth saving for and dumps 'em on me. Last Tuesday, things were good - right up to the time he decided to cash in some bad dog points, big time:

A normal day as I place some plastic bottles of various flavored syrups I made for work on the counter. At the front of these, I place a quart container full of minted simple syrup - a different recipe, supposedly resulting in more mint flavor. I place all this on the counter because I know that when I come home from the gym, I'll have exactly enough time to change for work, grab the syrups and head back out the door. My bad.

I came home from the gym knowing I had exactly enough time to change and leave for work. Bentley made me wish I had another six hours before I had to leave, having knocked the quart container of minted syrup off the counter and onto the kitchen floor. Onto the front of the cabinets. They say water will find a natural path anywhere. So will syrup when it falls from counter height to the floor. There is no physical way to measure what percentage of a quart of sticky syrup will obey the laws of gravity. It will appear as though most of it would obey such laws, but it will amaze you (and not in a good way) just how much of it will defy laws of gravity and head upwards instead. Cabinets doors and drawers - ones above sink level, where you keep glasses, plates an' shit. On the far side of the kitchen floor, onto the back of the bookcase that divides the living room from the kitchen. Everywhere. Defying laws of volume and mass, quantity - like the loaves and the fishes. Oh there's plenty.

Thank God the syrup left some clean space by the entrance to the kitchen - where else would a dog have to do some paw painting? In dog logic, it's gotta be better to walk around in this stuff, head into the living room and see if any of it made it onto the carpet. Whew. Thank goodness - it did. To a dog, this stuff tastes pretty good - but you can't lick all of it up. Let it stay there - it's not like you can't benefit from a bit of traction on a linoleum floor that is wicked slick for four paws and nails that are a bitch - some pun intended, to keep trimmed.

Everywhere. That's where this syrup ended up. None. That's how many spare minutes I had to deal with this mess. It's not the end of the world, this I know. I'm not going to beat a dog - I know this too. I gotta be honest here and say that when I discovered this mess, I want my dog to think that it is indeed the end of the world - and that I will beat him. Like I said, the dog has a watch - I dunno where he keeps it, but he's got one. He knows I don't have time to end any world right now, including his. He knows I don't have time to beat him. He knows I don't have time to clean up any of what is on my kitchen floor, and that ain't gonna stop a hound tail from wagging. I may have said that I don't have time for any of this - but I don't remember what came out of my mouth in the string of sentences made entirely out of swear words that I let fly when I walked into that kitchen - and believe me, I let that shit fly like I'd eaten lunch at a truckstop for a year straight. God. DAMMIT. SHIT...all the hits, in all their glory. AIN'T. Nobody. Got. Time. For. That. F-bombs away folks, shit/fuck-fuckitty-shit-fuck-all-to-hell....

For the scant few minutes I now had to budget into my time in haste, I became a total moron. Like I'm going to tell you just how I set about trying to do a half-ass job of cleaning up the mess and getting out the door to work on time - please! Even in the running around frantically employing methods that were, quite frankly, retarded, I knew better. Shit. Fuck. Damn. Sorry, I'm in a hurry. I'm pissed, and so pressed for time. My dog knows this - and he's all, "Really? My ass is grass now? Shouldn't you be changing for work? I mean, let's face it - you can't be late to work, yet you're running around frantically trying to use a bath towel to spread whatever that stuff is around on the floor, yelling at me, bitching about the measly few million ants that are gonna show up? Dude, do us both a favor and get your ass to work!"

No, it wasn't the end of the world, and I didn't beat my dog - nor did I want to, but something has got to make him think twice here. Never mind that something should have made me think once! Oddly enough, not a single ant showed up for the feast of syrup. They must have had some other function to go to. Lucky me. I have mopped my kitchen floor eleven times since last Tuesday evening when I got home at 12 AM. I will mop it again, probably half a dozen times tomorrow on my day off. It wasn't until Thursday, that I began the healing process of forgiving my dog. Even then, as he nosed up to the counter while I was plating my breakfast, I told him he didn't want to go there - and he knew. All is forgiven, if not forgotten - and as I type this, Bentley is back to using his 5%. He knows that for all my pomp-and-circumstance of touting myself as Lord and Master of my domain, at the end of the day, it is Lord and Master (please), who picks up his poop. Winner, winner, dog dish dinner.

Cue the music - Installment #1, Lyrics - not exactly inconsequential

A bit of a slow waking process this morning, I'm barely one cup in and there are just some mornings when I like it that way - but not for long. More than I need coffee on a morning like this, I need music. Jams. Tunes. Too many directions to head in, so many songs, so little time. My head feels like a struggling comic book super hero....must..............yawn........wake..up.....need......music.................must.....have....music......coffee.....must.....get......coffee.

Yeah, it's like that some mornings. My collection isn't big enough some days. Then there are days when it's too much - but those moments are rare, very rare. Those moments never last long, thank God. Today I need words, meaningful lyrics that fall a bit short of Dylan - who pretty much stands alone in my opinion, the master of lyrics that are often unexplainable, unpredictable. Lyrics are inconsequential to many people, but not to me. Their importance may be less at times, and by that I mean they may not move me as much as the musical arrangement. Most times though, I like the entire package that is the song.

I'm a bit of a musical snob - I'll admit it, but I'm also very open-minded about my musical tastes and I'm always on the hunt for new music, different music by different artists - and I can't for the life of me, see an end in sight. I couldn't stop if I wanted to - I'd be miserable without the wide variety of music by different artists that I enjoy, and that's a list that is perpetually growing. Maybe it sounds a bit melodramatic, but music - i.e., good songs, are the air my creative soul needs to breathe.

Lyrics are not inconsequential, and it bugs me when I'm listening to a song that is new to me and I know the next line before the singer even gets to it. Small wonder why Bob Dylan is my favorite writer when it comes to lyrics. You almost never see it coming, and usually, you don't know why. Depth, humor - dig:

                     The pawnbroker roared
                     Also, so, so did the landlord

But one example. You don't see it coming - if you're thinking about a pawnbroker, chances are you either are going to see one, or you are one. If you're going to see one, you're short on cash - so much so that you're willing to screw your own self out of something, or at least take that chance. If you are one, you're gonna screw someone and convince yourself that you're actually doing them a favor - of sorts.

What about the landlord? Nothing but a man with a family that need fed, dude who own the shingles, that lie above yo' head. Makes you think, at least it ought to - if you're a thinker that is, and if you're not.....well, you probably don't listen to Bob Dylan, and maybe you shouldn't. There's a flip side to the lyrical depth/genius that is Bob Dylan. It's not the end of the world, and sometimes it's excusable, maybe even tolerable - but not much, to me, particularly when it's really....bad.

There's this God awful, semi-classic rock anthem that plays on a classic rock station every Friday around 5 o'clock - the universal quitting time for many. Most of my working life has not, by the way, been in that group, but never mind that. In this tune, there is some of the most God-awful lyric writing I've ever heard, one line in particular stands out as painfully lame - so much so that I will only say that it has the following words/names rhyming:  Donna & wanna. Hate that line. The delivery of it sounds moronic and completely white, completely lame. I suppose it's put a decent buck in the pocket of the dude who wrote it though. I don't even know who this song is by, nor do I know the title. I do know that if I want to know either, all I need to do is tune in around 4:15 on any Friday afternoon - but I practically never listen to classic rock radio - not because the music is bad, but more because I don't like knowing what's coming at me. I'd rather pick something and let it flow. I like songs, lots and lots of songs. If I buy an album, and by album, I mean a collection of songs by a given artist - the term being a throwback to the days when I actually bought records on vinyl, I want to like more than the hit single. Sometimes what I like about songs are the lyrics - sometimes a lot. One song out of two ain't bad, one song out of fifteen? Sucks ass if you ask me.

This morning, for reasons mostly unknown, I wanted to hear Ambrosia's Nice, Nice, Very Nice. That's not a mood that comes around very often, but seriously, what's not to like about the fact that the lyrics were written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.? I've always thought that was kinda cool - no, actually very cool. Like the movie where Rodney Dangerfield paid Vonnegut to show up at his son's dorm to tutor him. Pretty fucking cool. So lyrics are almost never inconsequential, at least to thinkers, I think.

Who needs a rhyming dictionary with Dylan? I mean, I have at least two, both of them were given to me by women I dated - both said pretty much the same thing to me when they presented me with them - I'm paraphrasing here:  I thought you could use this, but then I realized that you don't really need something like this, but I thought it would be funny just for you to have it.

I suppose that's true - I don't really need a rhyming dictionary, at least not when I'm on, and by on, I mean not struggling with maintaining any sense of poetic/phonetic meter, rhythm or rhyme. Sometimes when that happens, it's enough for me to see the spine of a rhyming dictionary on my bookshelf and the block that threatened to get the best of me fades away. I'd bet money on the fact that Bob Dylan doesn't have a rhyming dictionary though. Dig:

                    Well that big dumb blonde
                    with her wheel in the gorge
                    and Turtle, that friend of theirs
                    with his checks all forged

I mean, seriously - who does that? Dylan, that's who. Both of these Dylan tune examples I'm citing here were just random pages from the book of his lyrics (http://www.amazon.com/Bob-Dylan-Lyrics-1962-2001/dp/0743228278/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374948125&sr=8-1&keywords=bob+dylan+lyrics+1962-2001) that I opened up and spent about a second to grab two examples from. This book, is in hard cover - as it should be, because while there are many artists who wrote great lyrics and sang them with much more prowess, Dylan lyrics are biblical/epic in proportion because they make me think. Lyrics are seldom inconsequential for this music snob, even if I'm not exactly aware of them, and I feel that way mainly because of Bob Dylan. I can't say that he has a great singing voice, I can't say that he's my favorite artist - unless of course, we're talking about the lyrics he writes. To me, he's prolific - great songs, great lyrics, because even when I've heard him butchering his own material, his lyrics make me think - and for a multitude of reasons. Inconsequential? Nope. Hell nope.

A miracle and updates, blah, blah Blahsville

Morning! A beautiful Sunday/Summer morning at that. My first thought when I woke up, was that I forgot to wish Matt and Randi good luck last night as they welcome their baby girl into this world today - there will be many wonderful things that happen on this day, but in their little corner of this world, indeed, our little corner of this world that seems to get smaller all the time, nothing could be more joyous than this event. So forgive my being a bit of a social clod last night Chef, and know that my waking thought this morning was the hope that all goes well for you two today! Here's to the three of you!

Updates, I've been looking into moving the blog over to a paid hosting site and reformatting things with some very specific ideas in mind. The bad news is that I'm taking too much time with this whole process, the good news is that I'm focusing on making the right choices and changes for how the blog will look and the things I want to write about - and how I want to write about them. The more thought I give this, the more I believe in my ideas for how I want it all to look. This is the part where I wish the minimal farting around with things like HTML programming wouldn't have bored the living B-Jeezus outta me, because I could be doing the changes I'm visualizing myself rather than staring at the cost monster of paying someone to design my blog exactly the way I want it - which at the moment is not in the budget.

Things are busy at my day job(s) and there's tons of positive energy flowing - while I doubt that I'm the only one who notices this, I'm the only one who can pay attention to how this kind of energy flows over my journey and I am the only one who can do my best to make sure I give to this energy back. Personally, I believe that even on the worst of days, there are many things to be grateful for - and I believe it's my responsibility to notice at least a few of those things and give thought to the blessings they are. As many of 'em as possible.

So today, I'm thankful for the desire to notice and be thankful. I'm thankful for more things than I have time to list here - and this is true even on the worst of days, but this is not the worst of days - thankfully!
I could sit here and write/ramble all day, but for the fact that there is much to do before I go into work at 3:30, so here's a small handful of things that I'm very grateful for on this beautiful Summer morning:

Having my first waking thought be on behalf of someone else (Randi & Matt) and wishing them well with bringing their beautiful baby girl into this world, good coffee and good music (which I, admitting to being a bit of a musical snob, am NEVER in short supply of) on a Sunday morning, not one, but TWO good jobs that I enjoy being at, humor - and my often overly sarcastic and smart ass ways of seeking out laughs throughout the day, a dog that is always glad to see me, and always being around people that I enjoy the company of...

Not a bad way to start any day huh? Best wishes, congratulations and warm thoughts/well wishes for you Randi and Matt - what a beautiful day this is to welcome Olivia into this world!