Love you!

You know how sometimes you see a stranger and you fall in love with them a little bit? And not in a sexual way, but in a, "You're so adorable!" way. Or maybe you feel a kinship with them for something you observe -- a button or a pair of sneakers they're wearing, something you hear them say, whatever. But you love them for that moment in a special little way for whatever it is and I think we should start telling them.

I once got an email from my friend The Universe.

Ever have one of those days, Susan, when you're feeling so good, crossing a street, driving your car, shopping at the mall, when, from a distance you see a complete stranger, with a kindly face, and you simply can't help yourself from whispering a silent "I love you..."?
Oh, cool, because there has been many a time, in many a place, when some unknown face whispered the same to you....

Love you,
The Universe

And the thought of someone on a train or in a theater or crossing the street seeing me and feeling that "stranger love" for me made me happy. And sometimes when I'm going into work (When I had a job, that is.), or I'm out walking Chulo, I remember that email and get a little tingly thinking that maybe right that second someone in my vicinity is sending me stranger love. I think people would like to know when they're receiving stranger love.

So why don't we tell them?

Because it would be creepy.

The thing is, I think it could be a good thing -- like a pass it forward/random act of kindness thing. We've just got to figure out how to do it without sounding skeevy or lecherous. Like, you can't just say, "I so totally love you," to the little rocker who looks just like all of your ex-boyfriends from 1986. Either he'd make fun of you (the absolute worst) or he'd think, "Why's this old lady saying this to me?" (Takes place of "absolute worst" if he says this out loud.), or people around you would think you're a pervert (Not the first time ...). And all you were saying was that seeing him in those skinny jeans with a black t-shirt and hair-band hair reminded you of a super fun time in your life when all you wanted was to see the Ratt-Poison tour. (Twice!)

So. You see our problem. To tell the person the entire background of why you are having a little moment about them is cumbersome. Saying, "You are so adorable to me, I totally love you," doesn't explain enough. Maybe I'll make buttons to hand out. Or those wooden nickel things. With some sort of catch phrase printed on it. Like, "Just wanted to say I love you, but not in a creepy way," on one side and, "Have a nice day!" or a smiley face on the other.

My New BFF

So.

This morning I'm walking Chulo -- it's my week. That's the system. Erica does a week, I do a week. If it's your week you are in charge of feeding and walking Chulo every morning before work.

Erica actually has some system where she makes sure she is occupied downstairs in the bathroom until Chulo has become so frantic with starvation that I give in and feed him. So her week she just walks him. And frequently she will pull a whiny, "Will you walk him this morning? Puh-lease." Erica is a lazy dog owner. But, she's a good runner. As in errand runner. So, I let her get away with it. (Though I very rarely fall for that puh-lease crap.)So. I'm walking Chulo on the usual route this morning and I see a little gathering of pigeons on the sidewalk. Then I realize that they're there because food is being thrown down to them from the third floor window of this building. Naturally I look up.

Guess who.

Mr. Bud in a bag.

No. Really. I swear.

He loves dogs and pigeons. So this man, who I run into at the shelter is not only a Budweiser lover, he's an animal lover too? People, my heart just pure swole up with love for this man.

As I looked up and saw him there in all his morning hair, bare-chested, hands full of crackers, leaning out of his window glory. Our eyes met and gave me a huge smile. And he yelled down something ... about the birds I think, or maybe it was about Chulo. Who knows? It's hard enough to decipher what he's saying when we're face to face on the street. From three stories up, it's impossible. But I think he remembered me this time and I think he might love me too.

I know he tried to hide his Bud from me on our first date, but things are moving so quickly. I think the next drink's gonna have to be on me.

God Bless You

The first thing Erica and I noticed about our potential new neighborhood when looking at our current apartment for the first time was the fact that directly across the street is a specialty cheese shop directly adjacent to a wine/liquor store. If the next shop had contained an Italian butcher, I would have agreed to buy the place before I ever saw it.

As you can guess, I visit the wine store a lot. We did a lot of cheese in the beginning, but fancy cheese is as expensive as it is delicious, so we cut back. The wine however ...

I love my wine store. They have a wine club card that is divided into four sections: $10, $15, $20, $30. Each time you buy a bottle of wine you get a hole in the appropriate box according to the cost of your wine selection. Know what happens when you buy twelve bottles? You get a 13th bottle -- the value of the average price of the prior 12 -- for 99 cents. This is a great thing. Although, it gives Erica ammo when screaming at me during some of my less pleasant moments when I've had too much to drink. "How many 99 cent bottles have you gotten since we've been here?" I usually answer something like, "Four." (This is a huge lie. We've lived here since November. Four 99 cent bottles = only 48 bottles of wine (+ 4 of the 99 cent bottles = 52) consumed here in the past eight months. As if.)

The point is, I'm a frequent visitor of Slope Cellars. So frequent that whenever I walk Chulo past it, he tries to go in whether that is our destination or not. And it's not like they give out treats or anything. He just assumes.

My drinking and my Pavlovian dog are not the point of this story. The point is my neighborhood.

Erica and I live on the southern end of Park Slope, Brooklyn. It's a fantastic place to live. We've got great shopping -- for example, the aforementioned cheese and wine shops. There are great brunch places, cute clothing stores, an Italian specialty store within walking distance, and a women's shelter. We are also on the edge of a lower income neighborhood. These things all make for a fascinating array of people on the sidewalks.

Usually in New York you can watch people from afar -- just walk by, make mental notes, move on without even making eye contact. Of course, being me, I haven't ever been able to execute that very well. People talk to me all the time. It's always been that way. I must look like a tour director. Or like I'm friendly. I blame this, like most other things, on growing up in Fitzgerald.

In Fitzgerald (and most of rural South Georgia) when you pass people you greet them. Every single one of them. If you're driving and you pass another car, you greet them. You know, that left elbow out the window of your dually truck, steering with your right wrist, simultaneous raise of right index finger and nod of your head greeting. Once a college friend of mine was driving home with me and as we were crossing the Florida/Georgia line I pointed at the first car I saw. "Watch that car. The driver's gonna wave at us." He, being from South Florida, looked at me in disbelief. "No fucking way."

Sure enough. We got the one-fingered, "How-do-ya-do?" We got it from that car and ever other car, truck and tractor (I'm not kidding) that we passed, all the way to Lobingier Avenue.

What I'm saying is that friendliness is in my breeding. And, then I got a dog. Walking a dog in the city is like a neon sign for people to approach you. Dogs are worse than babies. Most of the time you're approached by other people walking dogs. Which I don't mind. It's kind of nice to chat with the people and I get to meet the puppies which I adore. However, I also have this other group who love to approach me.

It's the elderly, sometimes drunk, always with a story about a dead pet AND a thick foreign accent that reduces me to nodding and smiling or frowning as I think is appropriate. In our last neighborhood it was the ridiculously short Italian woman who was at least 80 and wandered around in her house dress and her slippers. One day I was walking Chulo and she came up to pet him. Then she starts with her story.

In broken English with occasional phrases in Italian, she tells me how she had a dog just like Chulo who she loved and who was all she had in the world and then he got sick and died. And then she started crying. I was so caught off guard and stunned that I still can't find words to respond to her. I just kind of stared at her with my, "that is so sad" face on while she wiped tears with one hand and was petting Chulo, who was in my arms, with the other. It was awful. It's still awful.

Then. Two days ago I'm walking Chulo past the shelter and this old Spanish man approaches me. He's got a tall-boy Budweiser can in a bag with a straw that he's trying to hide behind his back as he comes up. From the glaze in his eyes, it wasn't his first Bud of the day.

You know. I have dog. Jack Russell terrier. You know this dog?

(Assuming he's asking if I'm familiar with the breed) Yes (Then I unintentionally flash the smile that implies, "Yes. I love those dogs. Please go on.")

I have this dog. He best friend. (Gesturing toward Chulo, the fluffy white boy dog.) She you best friend, yes?

Yeah.

My dog. He die. I have him twelve year and he die. You know what? I no get another dog. Because I am old. I die, no one to take care of dog.

And he starts crying.

Well, today, I was in the liquor store buying wine for Kristin who is Chulo/housesitting for us while we're in Nevis next week. While I was checking out at one register, there was a 70ish year old man at the other register who was buying a pint of bourbon and as the clerk was handing him his change, he also handed over a plastic cup so that the man didn't have to drink out of the brown paper bag. I noticed, bought my wine and went home.

I grabbed Chulo and went out for the walk around the armory, and as we're rounding the women's shelter, there he is. Mr. Dead Jack Russell/brown bag Budweiser. And he's having a conversation with Mr. Bourbon in a plastic cup. And as Chulo and I pass, Mr. Brown Bag Bud, obviously not realizing we had bonded over dog ownership just two days ago, stops me.

You see this dog?

Yes.

There is another dog. Just like her. Over at twelve street. Just like her, but blind. This dog she walk by door and cat, he ...

Here he pauses because he can't remember the word and he just waves his claw in the air and makes a woosh sound, indicating that the cat scratched the dogs eyes out.

Now she blind. No see nothing. And he walk around and I try to see him and he no see me. He walk around good. Sometime hit wall, but not always.

During this whole story Mr. Bourbon in a cup is watching me with what I perceive as a, "Sorry he won't shut up," look.

So, I tell Bud in a Bag that I was sorry to hear about the dog and that I'm glad he gets around okay for the most part and I start to leave and tell the men to enjoy their evening and Mr. Bourbon says, "Thank you honey." And I smile, thinking he means that he appreciates me taking the time to listen to his drunk friend tell his blind dog story. Then he adds, "God bless you honey."

Now, I grew up in the Southern Baptist church and I have been "God blessed" millions of times. This was not that kind of "God bless." And as I was walking away, Mr. Bourbon confirmed this.

"You look real good."

No. Really. (or) Fucking Cat: The Sequel

Will you look at this?

Do you see what I'm saying about this cat? My cousin used to be my arch nemesis. You know, the one my grandma always compared me to?

Susan, you know she met her husband in church. Maybe if you went to church more you could find a nice boy like him.

She did not meet him in a church. She met him in a bar. In fact She was the one who took me to visit her at college one weekend and got me into this bar called the The Front Porch, snuck me in with her ID and let her frat boy friends get me completely wasted. I was sixteen. I got so drunk that one of the nice frat boy friends took me back to the car and sat on my freezing feet (at my request) while I passed out until She was ready to go home. The next day, She took me to watch a football game at the same friends' house where we drank more beer. I believe that was the day I learned about "hair of the dog."

This trip was often referred to as the time A.N. tried to save me and show me how important getting a good education was.

So, not only did She have Grandma completely snowed, She contributed to the delinquency of a minor (not that I was an unwilling participant), She flat out lied about how She met her husband, and I lived with constant remarks about how She was someone to look up to and I should try to be more like her. She is also the one I mentioned before who outed me about my tattoos and broke my mother's heart. Arch nemesis. She has been dethroned by a little 5' x 8' gray cat named, Mittens. These photos are what I collected this morning. When was the last time I collected? Last night. Chulo is still in the trenches, doing all he can to destroy Mittens strand by strand. Sometimes he struggles, but I just force him to let me open his mouth and pull the wad out, and he goes right back in. That is a good dog.

Fucking Cat

Erica and I bought this rug recently. We ordered it in January. It was backordered until March. We got offers from Crate and Barrel to cancel the order because it was taking so long. But dear Smoking Baby did we want it. So we waited.

We've had it for three months now and every since it came in the door, I have hated this rug. For one, I hate the color. The photo is from my phone, so it's not super precise with tones, but it's a grey rug in a room of greens and oranges and I just feel like it's too light or something. I hate it.

Now, I do love the texture. It's super comfy and I sit on the floor a lot more than I used to. I even take naps there occasionally.

Of course, it's wool, so I end up having an asthma attack most times I do, but still. This isn't my problem with it.

This is the problem:And this:See those fur balls? They're absolutely everywhere.

This rug sheds so much that I started calling it Mittens. You know like, "Aww. Mittens!" as I pull a strand off my clothing or a sloppy, gross wad out of Chulo's mouth when he can't work it out himself. It's like having a cat. A cat that I really, really despise. Whenever I'm picking up the wads, I'm usually mumbling, "Fucking cat."

I feel like we might as well have a Golden Retriever. I get asthma from Golden Retrievers. God knows they shed like maniacs. But they're Golden Retrievers. Anyone who knows a Golden, knows what I'm talking about.

I knew this Golden Retriever once -- Casey. During the early nineties, Casey adopted an injured quail -- eventually dubbed Dan, of course. What kind of animal, bred to retrieve dead animals, adopts a live, injured quail and loves it back to health? At least that's the story I remember. My friend, Jay, who was Casey's owner may remember a different story (probably the accurate one -- I have a tendency to amend history in my mind), but that's what I think happened. I definitely know Casey had a quail during Dan Quayle's Vice Presidency and his family named the quail Dan. And, to me, that's story enough.

So, what I'm saying is that Golden Retrievers are way more worth the extra effort than this fucking feline rug that spreads its fur not only all over the interior of our place, but it trails into the hallway. I've found pieces in the yard. There are strands on my shirt right this very minute.

And now, Mittens, cat I never wanted, has developed the mange.Obviously, Chulo hates the rug as much as I do. He's the cause of Mittens' mange. He has begun to methodically rip the rug apart strand by strand. Erica thinks it's a conspiracy. She likes the rug. Or so she says. I believe that she hates the rug as much as I do but just has a harder time admitting that we simply made the wrong rug decision.

"Don't touch the fucking ball!"

I turn my head and see the coach of the outfield lesbian softball team screaming in the direction of the Little League game on the next field. I was kind of watching the game as I passed, so I knew someone had just hit a home run -- if not a grand slam, at least a triple. (Sexy show.)

I was in Prospect Park walking Chulo and Ziggy, our next door neighbor's dog who is an adorable black fluffy something and we were circling the four or five softball fields there. We watched the lesbian coach dramatically argue with the old Italian man umpire for a minute until we realized, like all lesbian drama, it wasn't going to be resolved any time soon, so we moved on. As we neared the field with the little leaguers I saw the sponsor of the home team was Immaculate Heart of Mary.(I found that picture on Flickr. I swear to god. I mean, God.)

They were playing Holy Name.
Now. Am I just being Southern, or is this completely inappropriate? It's Brooklyn, I know. Kids in Brooklyn hear and speak worse than I do. Me. And I'm sure the kids weren't representing the actual churches, but rather the schools associated with them, but still. It got to me a little. And, of course, I thought it was totally funny at the same time.

The next scene I came to was two teenaged girls sitting on a hill.

Girl 1: [Squealing] Oh my god! We could bring our books and totally hang out and just read all day!

Girl 2: [Bouncing on her knees.] That is so perfect! I love it!

Girl 1: [Pulling out a well-worn journal and her (no doubt) favorite pen.] We could invite Jen and Aubrey and Missy.

In essence they were planning my 15 year old self's fantasy birthday party. And I prayed that they got something I never had at that age.

"Dear Jesus. Please let them have nerdyness and popularity."

(Side note. Who am I kidding? This is my 36 year old self's fantasy birthday except now it would require red wine.)

Anyway, the point is I love, love, love Brooklyn in the spring. My favorite part of Brooklyn is all of the different people and the way that we're all in such close proximity that we get a chance to catch glimpses of people's personal lives. Not in a creepy, voyeuristic, Peeping Tom way, but in an almost anthropological study way. And it's different in Spring -- in other seasons it's either too cold or too hot and no one lingers the way they do when it's gorgeous outside. There's something special and beautiful about it. And it doesn't matter whether it's the man I saw on the street this morning who handed his girlfriend her dry cleaning and stomped away after she screamed, "It's just you don't know when to quit!" or the guy I saw on the train the other day who, I promise you, solved, messed up, and re-solved a Rubik's cube within two train stops.

As we were leaving the park, we passed the skater kids. I could have hung out and watched them all day. They are so adorable and teenager-ish. They're uber cool in only the way a 15 year old can be, they had all the players -- the boy who was smoking hot, the girl who was smoking hot, the smoking hot girlfriend's cool in a nerdy non-conformist way, the couple of hangers-on ... you know the scene. They all had skateboards and I believe I saw two of them actually using them as something other than a prop or an accessory. I felt myself becoming very grandmotherly and wanting to go over and hug them all and tell them how great they were. But then I was afraid that I would be ridiculed, just like when I was 15 and no one should ever have to go through that twice.

Now, I do admit we New Yorkers have our Peeping Tom side. The fact is, New Yorkers are all notorious for looking into people's windows at night. If you live in this city -- especially Brooklyn or Manhattan -- and you have windows facing a public street, you know that if have your lights on and your curtains open at night, people will be checking out your decor as they walk by. That is just the way it is. You either keep 'em closed, or you accept it.

For some people looking in windows at night is a hobby. I'm definitely a big fan.

Shameful Truths

So, I'm reading Elizabeth Wurtzel's book, More, Now, Again. I picked it up off someone's stoop around the corner from my apartment. I was walking Chulo and Eliot, the Miniature Pinscher who shit all over our new rug this past weekend, and I saw this pile of books. Then I realize that it is the trash of someone with whom I could be very good friends.

I walked away with five books that day. Three of them were memoirs about drug addicts. The other two wore the Oprah sticker of approval. I almost grabbed one more because it was this mangled and obviously dog-chewed copy of Don't Shoot The Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training and I thought it was funny.

I also think this is funny:

Anyway. I love this book. It's got super tiny print and it's making me crazy because it's the size of a book that I can usually get through in a day or so and this one is taking way too long. But not because I don't love it, I do. I really, really love stories about addicts and stories about addicts recovering ... or not, and stories of the outrageous things addicts do for their Drug of Choice. (It's an industry term.) And, as I was sitting here reading I realized that I have group therapy envy.

There's a passage about one of Elizabeth's first days in rehab where she's in group therapy and she describes the "feeling wheel". In group, you discuss your issues, but you can only use six feeling words: peaceful, mad, sad, scared, joyful, powerful. I love the idea of that. I love the structure of it and the idea that I could identify my basic emotions -- which I rarely do. Though I love sharing the gory details.

When I was younger I never talked to anyone about my problems. I'd cry to my friends about teenage dramas with boys I loved and who didn't love me back, but I never talked about not having a father or having a mother who slept most of the time. When I got pregnant at 19 and didn't know anything about the father of my fetus other than he was a sailor named Chico, I didn't tell anyone. But that all changed when I left home. No. When I left Georgia.

I started telling my stories to almost anyone who would listen. But, they couldn't be people who were too close to me. And they had to be what I considered worse than me. Or at least as bad. I could be really honest about my drinking, say, with someone who I believed to drink as much as, if not more than, me. But, with people who were casual drinkers or who never found themselves throwing up for the entire day after a night out (or two if it was from tequila), I'd play it down, or not discuss it at all. Basically, I edited my stories based on how I believed that my listener would react.

It didn't start all at once. I let things slip little by little -- testing my friends to see if they still liked me after they knew shameful truths about me. Once I did it a few times, and they did still like me, I couldn't shut up. I had packed in years and years of stories that I had covered up because I thought if anyone knew what a horror I was, they'd desert me. After that worked out, it was if I forced more and more terrible stories onto my friends as if I were daring them. Or as if I were pushing them to abandon me -- I'm not sure.

In group therapy I could tell my stories without any ulterior motives. I'd be surrounded by people just like me -- at least as far as our common issue goes -- and I could simply work it out. Erica's mom stayed with us this past weekend and we got into a conversation about group therapy after she overheard me suggesting to my friend D that he get a copy of, Co-dependent No More. Turns out she knows a great program in Pennsylvania that works wonders for the co-dependent lunatics. (I know that's redundant but I couldn't think of another way to put it besides calling them "co-dependents" and that sounded stupid. Okay. Who am I kidding? I meant, "besides calling US "co-dependents.")

I think I'm going. It's a week-long program full of emotional breakdowns and stories from other people who just might have more issues than I do. Who could ask for more? It's weird, but I get so excited thinking about possibly working through some of my shit. I mean, I've worked through a lot. Seriously. A. Lot. (You should have seen the list I had to get through ...) But there's so much more. And the thing is, now that I have worked through some things and I know how much better I feel about those issues, I just want to get on with it. Let's solve more problems! And if it takes two grand and a week off of work with a bunch of mopey co-dependents and living with a, (eek!) roommate, then by Smoking Baby let's do it.

He's a Daredevil!

Hi people.

On behalf of HRH and myself, I would like to apologize. We have not been very active with the blog lately. It's the holidays ... so many parties, so much shopping, so many hangovers .... You know how it is.

Anyway. I wanted to let you know what happened recently. As you know, Erica & I moved into a new apartment, complete with spiral staircase. Which, as you may have guessed, has led to drama.

Chulo is injured. He is currently on a strict regimen of no activity, twice daily pain medication and wound cleansing every 6-8 hours. Turns out, this little tubby pooch who appeared to be frightened of everything (especially plastic bags), is a four-legged Evel Knievel.This past weekend Chulo suddenly decided he was ready to give the spiral staircase a go. From the top. As he crashed into the artwork on his way down the wall, just moments before the plummet ended at the slate floor, Chulo had a realization.

He sucks at spiral staircases.

I'm sure his crash made a loud noise but it was drowned out by the hysterical screaming coming from all the dramatic girls in the apartment. (Our friend Flea was visiting from North Carolina and witnessed the entire event.) You see, we all heard the launch and freaked out. Our little Chulo is known for randomly falling down from a standing position. (He takes after Uncle Klutz-O.)I was sure he was dead. However, praise Smoking Baby, he survived. And he handled the ordeal surprisingly well.

He did have a very pronounced limp and as we discovered an hour or so later, a pretty nice cut in his back that had been obscured by his fur in the initial assessment.

We took him into the vet, the leg is not broken, the wound is not serious and Chulo is expected to make a full recovery. He's already walking better.

Plus -- he looks like he's been shot so now he can pretend to be "Gangsta."