Falling in Love Again

When I moved to Texarkana, I inherited somebody else's house and furniture and dishes and giant stereo speakers. I also inherited Frankie. A three-year-old Boston Terrier who had belonged to my stepson Eddie before he moved to Iowa, Frankie lived outdoors most of the time on our screened-in back porch. And, even though I am not a dog person, and even though he had a habit of throwing up at the drop of a hat, and was not to be trusted indoors on account of his penchant for chewing things into bits, I felt sorry for him. He was so lonely.

I wanted to find him, as my mother put it, a "good home." Before we got married, my husband had indicated that he would be fine with that. Before we got married, my husband said a lot of things. But when I brought up the possibility of giving The Frank away to a family ("a family WITH KIDS, kids who would play with him" I would promote), the story changed.

"I can't give him away," my husband agonized, "I love him. He's like my grandson." What?! GREAT.

So I'm stuck all day with a dog I never wanted while hubby works like a workaholic. I am a CAT person. I did not know what to do with a dog. I don't like the way they smell. I have to wash my hands (twice) every time I pet one and then put on lots of Purell.

I tried some experiments on the dog. First, I decided to find out what he would eat. He ate peanut butter sandwiches and chicken salad and even Portuguese Bean Soup. He ate restaurant leftovers of eggs and grits and hamburgers and fries. OK, so he would eat anything.

Next, I wanted to see what he would do for the above food. I found out that he would do ANYTHING. He would sit, he would come, he would jump as high as he possibly could, over and over and over again. I had some fun with that. But then I suffered through the clean-up of dog vomit often enough to stop feeding him random human food and making him perform like a trained seal to get it.

So I started playing with him. First I got him a rope and tried to play Go Fetch. Nope. He would run and fetch it, all right, and then bury it and come back with a muddy nose that he'd wipe all over my crotch. I got him a ball, which he seemed kind of interested in for a little while, but which he ripped into shreds as soon as I left him alone with it. He seemed most interested of all in playing his own games: Mudlap, Slapdog, and Slippery Pig. Let me explain the rules. In Mudlap, a muddy dog runs into the house as fast as his little legs will carry him and does a solo lap around the furniture, grinding the mud into the carpet, and possibly throwing up for good measure, all without slowing down for a second. Slapdog is a fun little game of jumping and biting at flailing human arms that are pretending to get close enough to slap. But the favorite game of all--by far--is Slippery Pig. In this game, the players chase each other around and around and around the living room furniture, with the humans (there can be 1 to 4 humans) desperately trying to catch the "slippery pig" before they pee their pants from laughter. Everybody loves a good game of Slippery Pig. I started to like it as much as Frankie did.

Finally, I decided to costume the beast. My own children had enjoyed costume play so much in their youth that I was a huge proponent of make-believe. I bought Frankie a doggie pilgrim hat for Thanksgiving. He wore it. And looking at him in that stupid hat, standing there so happy to be inside and willing to do anything to stay, my heart kind of melted a little. The game we played after that, and are still playing, is Housedog. Housedog comes in during the day, off and on, and hangs out with me, in the dog bed next to the table, while I'm on my laptop. We go for a walk together every day, and watch a little TV together at night. We play Slippery Pig at least once a day. And we love each other. I am still not a dog person. But I AM a Frankie person.

My Favorite Things

Tonight is the Relief Society "weekday meeting," or the meeting-formerly-known-as-Enrichment. It's the first time since I've moved here that I've been in town for the meeting and I'm going. But there's homework for this one--I have to bring stuff. My favorite stuff. It's made me really think about what my favorite things are.

Music that lifts your spirit and soothes your soul:

Listening to this boy makes me happy. When it gets really turbulent on an airplane and I need to go to my Happy Place, I put on my headphones and listen to Jason Mraz on my iPod and he takes me there.

Just look at him. This is my favorite CD of his. Well, it's my only CD of his.

Favorite book:
Where to begin? There are so many. My two most re-read books during the last year were Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love. Both books have dog-eared pages and highlighted passages throughout, and both books were consciousness-raising for me, teaching me lessons I needed to learn--about trusting my instincts, listening to my heart, recognizing the "omens" on my life's path, and accepting the direction that path takes. Tonight, if I can find my copy, I'll take the witty and wise Eat Pray Love with me instead of the metaphysical allegory of The Alchemist. Don't want to blow too many minds.

My personal "feel-good" movie:
Return to Me. Filmed in Chicago and directed by Bonnie Hunt, this is the story of a man who falls in love with the woman who received his dead wife's heart. The tagline was "A comedy straight from the heart." It's funny, charming, full of great performances. Just lovely. The last time I visited Chicago, I went to the little restaurant that is the setting for many of the scenes and sat and thought about the movie and how much I like it.

A painting or poster that makes life brighter:

This one has me stumped. Well, I love Impressionism. I love the light and the lift it gives me. I don't have any Impressionistic paintings, though. I have books of paintings. Looking, looking.

"Water-Lilies, Evening Effect," Claude Monet. I saw this very one in Paris.

"Must-have" make-up, lotion, or shampoo:
I'm gonna go with perfume instead. For years, whenever I visited EPCOT's Norway Pavilion I enjoyed dousing myself with the sweet, fresh Laila perfume sold there--"an infusion of Norwegian mountain wildflowers." Two years ago I finally bought some and now I am hooked. After falling in love with two fragrances (No. 1 by Laura Ashley and Perfect White Dress by Bare Escentuals) that were discontinued, I am so happy to have found one that will always be available. The only negative--the bottle is made of slippery glass. I've already broken two of them. The bathroom smelled good forever, though!

Favorite dessert:I'm pretty simple. I love the chocolate croissants at La Madeleine. Buttery, flaky pastry filled with just the right amount of warm semi-sweet chocolate really does it for me. And they are a cinch to re-create!
So there you have it. Some of my favorite things. How am I going to fit them all into my purse to take to Relief Society tonight without looking like I am the over-achiever in the group? I'll just pack it all into another one of my favorite things--my Lily Waters fabric tote. When I use mine, I feel as happy as the girl in the ad.

The Truth of Battlestar Galactica

Ever since my dad handed down his tattered copy of The Warlord of Mars to me when I was a kid, I have been a science fiction aficionado. I have a Star Trek uniform in my closet (a couple, actually), a collection of Star War action figures in the garage, and an unfinished science fiction novel on my computer. I go to conventions, where I get autographs and buy things like earrings in the shape of the Enterprise.

I have read the classics--Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, 2001, and more, and have seen every single episode of Star Trek (the original, Next Generation, and Voyager) and even a lot of Deep Space Nine, which I'm sorry, just didn't work for me. I have stood in line with my kids for the midnight premieres of science fiction blockbusters and own them all on DVD, soon to be replaced by Blu-ray. I love the excitement, the escape, the hope of possibilities for the future of science fiction. But I have never experienced anything like Battlestar Galactica before.

Battlestar Galactica felt real. That is the highest compliment I can give it. There were no aliens-of-the-week, no beaming down to the planet with expendable Red Shirts, no perfect heroes. Just a bunch of people like you and me who were trying to survive, making mistakes along the way, learning lessons, growing, and working hard. By the time the series was over, I believed in those people and I felt like I had learned a few lessons along the way right along side them.

Shot in documentary-style, the show aims to deliver filmic truth. In the show's "Bible," Ronald D. Moore, the creator of the series, calls it "Naturalistic Science Fiction," or "Taking the Opera Out of Space Opera." I call it genius.

You should watch it.

Keeping Our Eye on the Prize

I have a really good reason for not posting anything for two months, oh gosh, has it been three months?

All of our spare time has been spent either:
1. Hanging out together at restaurants (screw cooking),
OR
2. Hanging out in front of the TV, watching all four seasons of THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION SERIES OF ALL TIME:

We've been floating...in time...and space. That's all I'll say for now. We have to go watch "Caprica" right now to get ready for the new BSG series that starts this month. I'll explain it all later, I promise. But we have kept our eye on the prize this long, so I have to maintain my focus. Actually, I can't wait to explain it to you. You will LOVE it!

So say we all.