Hi – it’s me, JoJo.  Amy has been neglecting her blog lately and I decided to take matters into my own paws and be her guest blogger.  I’m thinking of calling this a “dog blog”.  (I’m also very clever – not just another pretty furry face). 

This blogging stuff is challenging because I don’t have opposable thumbs and I need to take frequent bark breaks.   You never know who’s going to walk by the front window.

In case you don’t know me, here’s a mug shot for you:

This was taken a few years back and I’m not quite so scruffy these days.  I was practicing for my license photo when I realized that dogs don’t drive.  In fact, the only place I go in Amy’s car is to that “vet” building where they try to talk nicely to me while sticking me in the butt with some sharp instrument.  I swear that I’m going to revolt and refuse to take that crap anymore, but I forget between visits why I hate it there. 

Anyhow, Amy has always been a little squirrely but she’s especially distracted these days.  She hasn’t been feeling great and has been known to lie on the floor lately, which I especially like.  She also has a lot of homework and housework.  I know all this because she has a running dialogue with me all day long.  Her teenage daughter said that it’s strange to talk to dogs, but I don’t mind.  We all have our quirks.  I personally like to chase cars, so who am I to judge?

Anyhow, while we’re waiting for Amy to get her stuff together and become clever once more, I thought I’d give you a recommendation of my own.  It’s a book called The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.  It’s told in first dog by Enzo, a very wise lab-terrier mix.  You just gotta love books about dogs of mixed lab background.   Although I found some of the human characters in this book to be so annoying that I wanted to pee on them, I generally enjoyed it.

I’m off now – I’ve got a fence that needs watching and there are lots of people to bark at.  I’ll leave you with one of my very favorite cartoons, with many thanks to Gary Larson.

Wishing you a tummy-rub happy day. 

JoJo

Last week I realized that I had thrown away my fork when I tossed what was left of my lunch.  This is a huge problem since we are down quite a few utensils in the silverware drawer.  Perhaps the fact that I have a bad habit of dropping them down the garbage disposal might explain it.  All of our teaspoons could double as grapefruit spoons due to their garbage disposal induced serrated edges. 

I was then putting plates away and I smashed two together, sending shards of Sakura all over me and the counter.  Upon closer inspection, ALL of my salad plates are chipped.  The dinner plates are looking pretty worn out too.  I’m also slightly embarrassed that half of my dishes are a fetching mix of Correlle ware and plastic plates that my kids made me in preschool and kindergarten.

The drinking glass cupboard is really no better.  I have Buzz Lightyear and Woody cups circa 1994 along with plastic tumblers that don’t match my unmatched dishes.   If you’re really thirsty, you could use one of the many special edition Seven Eleven Slurpee cups that my family has collected over the years.  Or, how about a Cedar Point Snoopy cup?  Any of these classy options would make a guest feel young again.

You’re getting the picture, right?  I really don’t need to add that my mother took pity upon me this past birthday and bought me a Farberware cookware set because my children complained to her that there was a pan drought.  Nor do I need to talk about the fact that our sheets are so old that the fitted ones no longer have elastic at the corners.  They’re beyond pathetic.  Yes, things have seen better days at my house.

So, I propose that women should be allowed a shower every ten years.  I am eight years overdue for my 10-year shower, and that would explain why things have gone downhill so rapidly around these parts. 

These showers (let’s call them”pimp my cupboard” parties) would be very casual affairs.  The needy hostess would send e-vites to sympathetic friends and family along with a wish list (no Waterford crystal or ridiculously expensive china settings, please - this is for everyday items only).  This event could double as a coupon-swap, wine tasting session or bitchfest.  Lunch would be included, of course and games such as euchre would be allowed. 

What do you think?  I think that this would be a smashing success.  Target and Macy’s may even want to add another gift registry category. 

Please let me know what days work for you and if you prefer chicken pot pie or a sandwich.  I’ll be posting my list shortly.

This past Sunday, after a long day working at the library, I was finishing up my dinner with Youngest Son.  We were chatting amiably when he casually mentioned that  he was the only kid in his class who didn’t have a parent at lunch on Friday.   The kids had gone to the one room schoolhouse in our township for the day and the teacher had invited parents to come to lunch, but I had to work. 

He continued, “Yeah, I was feeling pretty bad.  I ate with my head down.  I felt really sad.”  

This was almost too much to take.  Never mind that I work to feed my family, pay for their essentials and send them one day to college.  Never mind that I would donate a vital organ to any of my three kids if they needed it or take a bullet to shield them.  Never mind that I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in 16 years.  Disregard all the laundry, cooking and caring for sick children that I’ve done over the years.  Don’t pay attention to any of the field trips that I have indeed gone on.  Forget all that. 

The bottom line was that I didn’t show up for lunch and, therefore, I am a bad mom and just one step closer to Bad Mommy Hell.

I’d like to say that I can take the advice of Working Mother magazine and “allow yourself to not feel guilty”.  However, this would require a lobotomy on my part.  I wonder what the editor of this magazine would do if HER 8-year-old son came home from school and stuck a knife in her heart by saying that he was singled out because his mother worked?  Would she “allow” herself to not feel like pond scum?

Not long ago, I ran into a woman whose daughter had been my friend growing up.  When I inquired how she was doing, she gushed about what a fantastic mother her daughter was.  She breastfed all her babies for a year, took long maternity leaves and cooked all her food organically from scratch.  She marvelled at what a natural her daughter was with motherhood since she had been a working mother.

After listening politely and saying  how nice it was to hear about her daughter, I “allowed” myself to think of a word that rhymes with rich and is generally thought to be rude. 

And I didn’t feel guilty.  Imagine that.

Meet you in Bad Mommy Hell.  If you need a ride, let me know.  I call front seat.

In honor of one of my very favorite days of the year (that would be Halloween), I’d like to tell you all about a book I finished recently called The Graveyard Book by the strange and creative author, Neil Gaiman.

Nobody (better know as “Bod”) Owens has a very interesting life.  At the tender age of 18 months, Bod’s entire family was murdered by an evil and incredibly creepy man named “Jack.”  Bod, being a curious toddler, miraculously escaped and found his way up the hill to the ancient cemetery located there. 

The dead, who took up permanent residence at this particular graveyard centuries before, take pity on the little tot and give him the “privileges of the graveyard”, thereby allowing him to talk to the spirits as well as find his way around the forgotten place.  Silas, a figure shrouded in mystery, vows to be Bod’s guardian, since Silas can living amongst the living as well as the deceased and can therefore provide Bod with all of his human necessities. 

Gaiman relays the stories of Bod’s life in the cemetery bit by bit, with each chapter containing a new story.  We watch while the residents of the graveyard raise young Bod to become a young man, determined to find out what happened to his parents and sister. 

One of the best things about The Graveyard Book is that it’s written for upper elementary tweens/teens.  I happen to like YA literature because it reflects the audience very well.  It’s real and down to earth because that’s how young people view the world.

Gaiman’s snippets of Bod’s world are sweet, endearing, creepy and absolutely captivating.  I have to say that this is one of my favorite books of all time. (Bonus points to Gaiman for narrating as well.  He’s a great reader who adds a lot of character to his books). 

I used to be afraid of cemeteries – I thought that they were incredibly creepy.  However, I think back to something my grandma used to say to me. She’d tell me, “It’s not the dead you have to worry about, it’s the living.” 

So true, especially in The Graveyard Book. 

Happy hauntings!

I’m reading a brand new book called “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress” by Rhoda Janzen. (It hasn’t even been published, but thanks to LibraryThing, I got a pre-pub copy.  Run, run, run and sign up for their Early Reviewers group.  You will thank me.)

This book is worthy of an entire blog post (stay tuned), but I will share with you one small passage.  Janzen, an English professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, while talking about reading a friend’s dissertation writes,

 ”It is not unreasonable that English professors are often targeted for this favor.  If you also happen to be a grammarian who creepily who knows how to diagram every sentence in the English language, there is an even more urgent need for your services.  I’m the sicko who can explain why a gerundive phrase must attach to a possessive adjective pronoun rather than an object pronoun.  True, you wouldn’t want me at a party, but if the survival of the human race depended on the successful parsing of the Constitution, you’d be knockin’ on my door, baby.”

This paragraph greatly distressed me.  Although she’s deadpan funny, Rhoda Janzen described something that’s been on my mind since I was in my 20’s.  Did I even know what a gerundive phrase was?  Obviously, it’s a phrase with a gerund stuck somewhere, but how about that possesive adjective pronoun stuff? 

It was all coming back to me.  No, not my English education – that’s tucked back in the recesses of my brain.  Alas, the fact that I tried so hard to avoid it was indeed becoming quite clear.

I used to love to write creatively, but when it came to breaking down the English language into minute, bite-sized portions, I just couldn’t have cared less.   True, I watched “Grammar Rock” with the rest of the gen-x kids, but it apparently wasn’t the answer to all of my questions beyond a noun being a person, place or thing (or being able to buy adverbs at Lolly’s).

I also never liked the constraints that proper English put upon a person.  For example, I happen to hate semicolons.  I find them to be awkward and stuffy.  I realize that I need them; I tend to write long sentences that just barely escape being considered run-on.  However, dashes are so much more vibrant.  They say, “Hey – I’m not done with my sentence yet.” 

You get the picture.  Teaching me English wasn’t going to be easy.

My inability to remember how to analyze my native language has bothered me for quite some time.  Coincidently, while looking for a book for a patron regarding verb tenses, I came across a very fun looking volume called “Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog: the Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences” by Kitty Burns Florey.   It had a cute boxer dog on the front and was an appealing shade of blue.  A good sign, thought I, so I took it home.

Florey, another fan of English grammar, reflects back upon her education under the tutelage of her sixth grade teacher, Sister Bernadette.  She writes, “I thought diagramming was fun, and most of my friends who were subjected to it look back with varying degrees of delight.  Some of us were better at it than others, but it was considered a kind of treat, a game that broke up the school day.”

Clearly, Kitty and I don’t exist on the same existential plane. I remember diagramming sentences, and, in my most sincere questioning mind, wondered what exactly the point was.  Ah, the folly of youth.

I’ve had conversations with people whose English abilities I revere about this parts-of-speech problem that I have.  I specifically remember talking to my BFF “J” about it one day. “So, J, I’ve been thinking that I missed out on learning the parts of speech and I wonder if you could help me review.”  ”Of course”, she said in her best school teacher voice, “what do you need to know?”  

At this point, I brought out a yellowing stack of papers that had the purple mimeograph type that smacked of the 1980’s.  Wondering where I got them, I explained that I had been saving them since middle school and would she be so kind to go over them with me?

So, for an hour we went over sentence structure.  The crisp answers that she gave are lost in time but I can still remember how I felt.  It’s too late to go home.

Perhaps I should accept my fate and move on.  Or, similar to my struggles with math, I can buy some sort of book like “Basic English for Dummies” in order to be a better role model for my children.  In the meantime, I will probably continue to dangle my participles and incorrectly punctuate my sentences.     

After all, ain’t nobody gonna correct me.  The English language police are too busy dealing with the effects of texting.  Theez daze there r wors problms than forgettin wut a possessive adjective pronoun is. K?

My life runs in two week cycles.  Here’s how it goes…

Week one is a payweek.  Things are pretty tight and there’s no milk until the paycheck goddess arrives and deposits money into my account.  Then, I am magically richer.  It’s like Christmas and I feel independent and blessed.

Dancing happily through the grocery aisles, I fill all requests.  Sure you can have that expensive, semi-nutritious breakfast treat!  Of course we can fill our freezer with frozen pizzas!  I am a worker!  I help the economy!  More wine!

Then I pay bills.  This is sobering.  In my head, I am wondering why I allowed the kids to talk me into spending so much at Target.  What was THAT charge for?  I need to stop this frivolity.  Ridiculous.  The school district should watch my child after school for free.  Blah blah blah.

Week two is fun free.  The bills are paid and the kids have eaten every crumb of the food that I had purchased the previous week.  I am crabby.  I say things like  “Does money grow on trees?”  “Do you really need a new kind of cereal?” or  “What do MEAN you need money for paper?” or  “Stop using so many pencils.” or  ”I don’t care if we have no snacks.  When I was growing up, we never had snacks.  Ever.”

Sometimes I exaggerate a little.  It gets my point across.

It doesn’t seem like the cupboard could get more echo-y.  The leftover hamburger buns are looking bad and we’re out of orange juice.  Somebody save us!  And then… miracles happen.  I get paid.

Just looked in my bread box.  The bread (what’s left of it) is looking sad and there is a package of buns from September. 

Must be a payweek.  Will be skipping through the supermarket aisles in just a few days. 

Thank you, paycheck goddess.

From www.passiveaggressivenotes.com

In every organization/office that I’ve worked in, there has always been issues with the kitchen or coffee room.  You know, “Your mother doesn’t work here-clean up after yourself!”

For the longest time, we had warnings on our staff blog to stop being slobs – you know who you are.  Then, there were gentle reminders and finally there’s just a notice that the refrigerator will be cleaned every other Friday. Come get your Tupperware or it’s gone. 

Things could be worse.  I once worked at an office where some klepto was stealing entire lunch boxes full of food (not just a sandwich or a forgotten snack).  One of my co-workers’ Snoopy lunch bag disappeared into thin air, ham sandwich and all.  Even her ransom note taped to the fridge did nothing to bring it back. 

There have been similar incidents here at the library.  I think that we have someone who likes to steal things that seem abandoned, such as a stray yogurt or a can of pop. 

However, we here at the library fight back with information.  There’s a sign on the refrigerator that says, “Wanted – sneaky food thief.  Help is available @ 616.86.” (For all of you non Dewey decimal users, that would be the addiction subject area).

One has to wonder about the psychological makeup of people who pilfer food from others in a group setting.  Is it exciting to steal food?  Are they truly hungry and have no money?  Do they feel that the company “owes them”? 

I also remember a time when one of the secretaries at a company I worked for posted a sign on the ice cube tray.  It said, “These are mine and I will not share.”  Quite frankly, I always wondered about her, ice cubes or not.

Today, there was a wine glass sitting on the back of the sink.  Apparently, they have nothing to hide.  Their mother doesn’t work here, remember?

Youngest Son is going to be 8 years old on October 5th.  So exciting.  Our little guy is turning out to be pretty funny.  He’s got a keen eye and is constantly reporting the state of the world as he sees it.

He’s also turned his keen eye to his sibling situation and is not happy about it.  Not at all.  In fact, he’s pretty disgruntled, particularly with his sister, and would like some answers as to why things have turned out the way that they have.

On more than one occasion he’s asked me why I didn’t have more children.  He’s actually more specific than that.

YS: “Mom, why didn’t you have a twin brother for me?”
Me: “Well, sweetie, that’s not something that a person can plan for”.
YS: “Why not?  I could have had someone to play with all the time.”
Me: “Your twin could have been a sister.  Would you have wanted that?”
YS: (After a long pause) “Well, it would be better than what I have now.”
Me: “Sorry, honey, I just couldn’t have any more kids and you can’t order twins like fast food.”
YS: “Why couldn’t you have more kids?”

How to answer this question?  I had flashbacks of sitting in the hospital and gestating for a month before his brother was born, taking medication to stop my pre-term labor with his sister and being rushed to the hospital five weeks before my due date with Youngest Son.  Even though YS was only there for a day, the sights and sounds of the neonatal intensive care unit still haunt me.  Should I share any of this with him? 

Just like those Expedia commercials where people imagine the very worst case scenario on their vacation and then change their itinerary, I simply say, “I just couldn’t do it, buddy.  You’ll have to appreciate our dog.  Someday, you and your sister will love each other and become great friends.” 

He just gives me a withering look and says, “Yeah, right.  That’ll happen.”

I have a feeling that if I had indeed had another child, Youngest Son, who would be Second to Youngest Son, would find a reason to complain about him or her too.  There would still be trouble in paradise.  It’s just the nature of being a sibling.

Normally, I would tell Youngest Son to be careful what you wish for, but in this case, there’s no need.  He’s not going to get it.

I’d like to talk about something that has been an irritant since I was 12 and no longer young enough to wear tights.  They’re called pantyhose. 

I’m bringing this up because I went to find a new pair at Target yesterday.  The first thing I saw was their “Assets” brand, which consists of overpriced hose masquerading as the ONLY brand they sell.  Neatly hanging in enticing rows with chic artwork on the packages, Target appears to be very proud of these ridiculously expensive undergarments. 

Not to be sucked into spending $16.00 on an item that I will ruin after one wearing, I went to find the Leggs stand. 

Target punishes women who want to buy the cheaper brand by placing the Leggs display in an inconvenient corner.   They further deter a purchase by strategically messing up the entire display with no apparent organization of the sizes, colors and types.  A size Q off-black pair can be side by side with a size A suntan.  Do you want control top?  You’ll have to shove aside all of the Silken Mist and attempt to reach to the back to search.  It’s beyond inconvenient.

I meant what I said when I refuse to purchase something that I will ruin almost immediately.  If I get three wearings out of a pair of hose, I consider that a personal success.  I will inevitably hit my leg on something that will snag them, put my finger through the hose while trying in vain to put them on or find a run while doing absolutely nothing.  Did your hose ever have a collision in the washing machine with a velcro item?  It’s not pretty.

It’s a conspiracy, I swear it.

Do you recognize the movie picture above?  If you’re too young to remember seeing The Graduate, then you probably don’t wear hose.  I’ve been told that 20 something crowd has shunned them.

In the meantime, I’ll just take my support hose and deal with it.  Assets indeed.

Anne Taintor Art

If you’re a Facebook fan, you probably remember those “25 Things About Me” lists that were circulating around a while back.  Some people thought they were silly – I personally loved them.  I learned more about people in five minutes than I ever could by asking them directly.  Most people just aren’t that forthcoming in conversations – social networking is truly a place to let it all hang out.

So, here’s some more vital information about myself that you can think about.  It’s all about me, you know…

• Have you ever heard of synesthesia?  Well, I’ve often wondered if I have it.  I think of numbers as humans, complete with personalities,  genders and colors.  For example, the number 2 is a nice guy and he’s typically blue.  The number 7 is also a very nice guy, he’s green.  The number 4 is a bossy female and she’s colored red.  Letters and months also have personalities.  (I know… I’m in my own little world, but it’s okay, they know me here).
• I have always hated Sundays.  Always.  I’m sure that I’ve hated them since infancy. 
• I cry when I see commercials about animal charities.  Every time.
• If I were rich, I would build a new house.  It wouldn’t be much bigger than the one I have now but it would have the most magnificent mudroom you’ve ever seen. 
• If I had a mudroom, I would sit in it daily and contemplate how lucky I was.  I might even entertain guests in there.
• I could spend my entire paycheck on home organizational stuff.  I love cabinets, bins and shelving units.
• You can’t always tell that I love organizational stuff by the way my house looks.
• I have a bad temper.
• I was chubby growing up and I still remember how that made me feel.
• I love fall and think about it all year long.
• I think I would have liked living in the 1940’s – I love their clothes.
• Growing up in the 80’s was like living during a 10 year long costume party.
• We didn’t have football field lights at my high school so our games were on Saturdays.  I’m still mad about that 25+ years later.
• One of my life goals is to visit as many US National Parks as I can.
• If I were rich, in addition to having a mudroom, I would donate millions to the US National Park Service.
• I used to dream about visiting Europe.  Now I dream about taking a vacation, period.  Ohio looks good right now.
• I’m one of the only people I know that hated The Da Vinci Code.  Tom Hanks got points off in my book for starring in that movie.
• I need footnotes to truly understand Shakespeare. 
• I used to want to be an art historian.
• I have a stuffed dog from when I was two years old.  Her name is FiFi and she has had many cosmetic surgeries.
• Sometimes I sing to my children just to get on their nerves.   Works every time.
• I hide under blankets or behind chairs when I watch horror movies.

Okay, that’s enough revelations for this time.   Please share something with me – don’t be shy.  We’re all friends here.