Zack has a dog cousin

Her name is Hazel! My sis and brother and law got her on Saturday! Oh god the cuteness. Look at those little pawses! [head explodes]

Front door and yogurt

We got a screen door! A screen door for our front door so we can get some f*@$ing breeze in the house (none of our front windows open)!!! Woo-hoo!*

Also this morning the Zacker got his head stuck in a big yogurt container while licking the sides and bottom of it (the yogurt's good for his tummy). I was busy doing something else and didn't realize anything had happened until I heard thunk, thunk. I turned around and little man was lightly banging his yogurt-containered head against a counter, trying to dislodge himself. I was partly horrified for him and partly thought it was hilarious. And his little face was just covered in yogurt when I got the thing off him.

And now, here's a partial transcript of the chat Aa and I had when I told him the yogurt story:

me:zack got his head stuck in the yogurt container this morning.

Aaron: oh POOR guy!

Aaron: that'll learn him...

me: i think he just started figuring out what was going on - he was moving his head around like "why can't i see?!"
Aaron: or..."Why is it all white?"

me: "how did the whole world turn into yogurt?! is this great or is it terrible?!"

Aaron: lol..totally. the confusion over what is good vs. bad is often at play in zacks life.

the door is open "is this good? freedom?" and "

the door is open...can the flies get to me?"

me: "the door is open. does this mean i will encounter a plastic bag or gnome statue??"**

Aaron: "can i fly now?"

me: "can gnome statues fly?!"

Aaron: "can i eat a gnome?"

me: "CAN THEY EAT ME?!"

OK, you can go back to your life now. Pictures to follow the next time Zack gets his head stuck in the yogurt container...like next week.

*Since this blog is supposed to be about the minty I thought I'd write something house-related.
**Zack is afraid of plastic bags and garden statues, particularly gnomes.

I'm not gonna do anything this week that's more awesome than what I did today

So today on the radio show I produce, I came up with THE. BEST. MUSIC. TRANSITION. EVER. Seriously. It was a transition between a discussion on the state legislature, whose 2007 session ended last night, and a political party in Scotland that's advocating for independence from England who're likely to win in the upcoming Scottish elections. Now I knwe what you're thinking. You're thinking, "My God Jeannie, how in God's name did you come up with a piece of music to segue between such massively disparate topics?!" I know, it's insane! So what did I do? I hope you're sitting down because this will knock the standing power right out of your legs it's so great. So the transition I used was the open to the Proclaimers' song "Over And Done With". This is scorchingly brilliant because

1. The Proclaimers are Scottish.
2. The legislative session is, well, over and done with.
3. If this Scottish pro-independence party wins the election, Scotland's being part of England is ALSO OVER AND DONE WITH. DO YOU SEE NOW?!

There's no way I'm coming up with any better idea this week. Possibly ever in my life. So, whatever, I'm not coming in to work the rest of this week. Why bother? I peaked already.

You know what it is about Kurt Vonnegut's writing? The first time I read it I felt like, oh yeah, that's exactly right. That makes perfect sense to me. Even the ranty stuff of his later years gave me that same feeling. It was so great to read his stuff because of that, it kind of felt like coming home a little bit. You know what I mean? Very few writers make me feel that way - I can't think of any others offhand, not even in my top three.*, **

Also, I didn't care about stupid Don Imus and then CBS Radio fired him and all of a sudden I started caring and got real fucking happy.



*Salman Rushdie, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston

**Why is Kurt Vonnegut not in my top three considering how his writing makes me feel? What the hell?

Wherein I'm an evil asshole and exhausted from sleeping OR I have a blog now! So you have to read about my dreams and imagined slights by baristas etc

I dreamt last night that I was somehow included in this weird military cabal where we were discussing what to do about the dinosaurs roaming the earth and messing everything up. There was particular concern about Tyrannosaurus Rexes (or is it "Tyrannousaruses Rex" like "attorneys general"? anyway) and what havoc they were wreaking in large cities. I remember feeling distinctly terrified, and also I remember Brontosauruses, who were not wreaking havoc. They were just eating leaves and scaring people and stuff. Someone at the military cabal table took pains to point that out. And there was one scary military dude who sat at the head of the table, and he did the evil guy finger configuration – you know the one where you splay your fingers and touch all your fingertips together – and said, “If we just let them destroy the earth, then there will be nothing left…MWAHAHAHA”. And I was both terrified and intrigued. We let the dinosaurs go nuts for a while, and then when the chaos is over and despair has swept in, we destroy the fat and lazy dinosaurs and become heroes. Think about how easily we could take over the newly destroyed world!

So then that part of the dream ends. And I wake up in my dream, and I am in bed. And I wake Aa up and tell him about my dream. Then I walk the Zacker and come home and get on my laptop (dream trick! don't have one) and blog about the crazy dinosaur / world domination / evil military / me becoming some power-hungry secret cabal member dream. Then I read some other blogs. And weird! One of the blogs I read has a story on it about A DREAM THE WRITER HAD ABOUT DINOSAURS WREAKING HAVOC ON THE PLANET. So I am instantaneously and dreamworld-ly transported to some place with tables and chairs and mugs and she (blogger) is there and says “hey! That’s so weird! I had a dream about the dinosaurs wreaking havoc too!” And I’m like, “That’s so totally fucked up! Did your dream include a weird military cabal?”

And then I think my alarm actually went off and I woke up for real, feeling like I got no sleep whatsoever. So then I lay in my bed, Zack sprawled across my torso, trying to figure out what sweet fuck-all went on in my head last night. I think I have it figured out. I’m obsessed with this cartoon Metalocalypse, which explains the weird scary all-powerful cabal. I’m also watching the entire series of The Sopranos, which I think has something to do with this but I don’t know what yet. Maybe New Jersey Mafioso = dinosaurs? And I saw my friend the blogger earlier yesterday. Uh...there it is. Yep

(also weird was this dream I had a couple weeks ago about two co-workers of mine cracking each other up by making really specifically denigrating comments about commercial country music – like one would say “the pedal steel is so STERILE on Shania Twain’s last two albums!” and the other one would be like doubled over in laughter, slapping her thigh and going “I know!” Maybe I need to stop eating cheese or something?)

Peru 5

For the second day in a row, we’re all getting up at 4:45 in the morning. This morning, it’s so we can see the sun rise on Macchu Picchu. I’m not terribly excited about heading up there. Even though I’ve been told how amazing it is, and how I shouldn’t miss it, I can’t help but feel it’s going to be an annoying touristy experience. I’m hoping the early visit will cut down on the crowds.

We head down to the bus stop to catch the 5:30 bus, the first bus up the mountain. We blink at each other in the early-morning darkness and tiredly chew the bananas we grabbed from the hotel lobby. Despite the early hour, the bus fills up to capacity. I am wedged between Aa and some guy who needs a shower. I spend the whole ride wishing him ill for his poor hygeine. Heading up the mountain, we see people wearing garbage bags hiking up and watch the rain hit the windows. After some unspecified time, the bus stops and the doors open. We’re there, apparently.

We stumble out of the bus and head to the front door. It’s still mostly dark out. We can see the very expensive hotel just to our right. Then we enter the park. For a while it kind of looks like Ireland – green and misty and hilly, with stone buildings. I don’t know exactly when it stops looking like Ireland or anyplace I’ve ever been before. ..But the sun is rising and the clouds are moving around us, obscuring some things and revealing others. The landscape is changing every minute. I look down and it's suddenly clear enough to see all the way to the valley and the river below. I look up and there’s another mountain, with a thin trail of stone stairs snaking up one side Nobody’s really talking, including me. Then I understand that the mountain I’m on isn’t really a mountain anymore. At its peak, it’s been dug out and flattened by hand. Plateaus were built for farming. Stones were hauled up and fitted together without cement or mud to build temples and houses. People lived and ate and fought had babies and died here. How strange that I ever thought getting in a bus before dawn was some big deal

twittervision...

okay...i get the whole web 2.0 thing.
whateve.
i was around for web 0.1
HOWEVER..this is cool: http://twittervision.com/
bye.

Peru 4

Cindy and I land in Lima and Rafael picks us up. Aa comes in two days later. It's close to 1 in the morning, and Cindy and I are giddy, exhausted, and greasy from travelling for so long. We check into our hotel and notice the lively dive bar across the street. Cindy and I look at each other. Are we too tired for a beer? We go back and forth until we finally decide to flip a coin. I'm so tired I accidentally throw the coin on top of a shelf. I get it right the second time, and the coin tells us to stay in. "How disappointing!" I say. Cindy starts laughing and says we don't need to let the coin actually decide for us. I realize she's right. Fuck the coin! So I grab my sweater and we head across the street. I order Cusquenas for us, which gets a nod of approval from Raf. We drink and laugh and drink some more and laugh some more, then we head to another bar with a dance floor. There we laugh at the dancers and drink more. We finally stumble back to the hotel around 6 am. Drunk, happy, exhausted, I text Aa, but my phone doesn't work in other countries so the message won't send.

Peru 3

Our flight home leaves at midnight. But we’re in denial. It’s only noon, and it’s a beautiful day in Lima - hot, sunny, humid. Cindy, Aa and I are in a cab on our way to our last ceviche. We’re pretty sure it’s going to be the best ceviche so far too. One reason for our confidence is that Rafael’s dad immediately knew about the restaurant when Aa and Cindy mentioned it to him yesterday. He pulled a business card out of somewhere for the place, and that card is what we’re using as our beacon. But even with the little map on the back of the card, our cab driver can’t find it. Not that it's a terrible ride. The driver’s really funny and a good storyteller. We speed down the road next to beach, making each other laugh. After circling where the restaurant is supposed to be, our cab driver stops and asks a guy pedaling a little jungle taxi where to find it. The jungle cabbie directs our guy, who is so happy to get better directions he yells a Spanish slang word that is the equivalent of “Fucking awesome!”. Cindy starts clapping and laughing – she’s only ever heard and used “awesome”, but not “fucking awesome”. Ten minutes later, we’re happily in the restaurant, ordering beers. We’re awesome, we tell each other in Spanish. But the cab driver? That guy was fucking awesome.

Peru story the second

The landing into Cusco is kind of crazy - the plane turns and sort of zigags past mountains and finally drops lightly into the flat area where the airport is. Aa and I de-plane, and after a long time bargaining with cab drivers, we get a taxi into town. We get dropped off at the Plaza de Armas and wander around in circles, tired and grumpy, unable to find our hotel. People everywhere are trying to sell us stuff - maps, finger puppets, dolls, postcards. One older woman in traditional dress comes up while we're looking at our map to try and sell us some dolls. I say "no, gracias" (this will become like a mantra while we're in Cusco). She looks at me and then goes for Aa, sticking the dolls in his face while he's hunkered down looking at the map. He says "NO" forcefully. The woman rears back, then sticks the dolls in his face more aggressively and hisses at him. Aa says "whoa!" and we both start laughing. The woman starts laughing too and walks away. We then look up to get our bearings and realize our hotel is four doors or so down from where we are - we must have walked past it three times. So we head in and are taken upstairs to an amazing room on the top floor - it's like a loft, with huge windows looking out onto the Plaza. The bed is huge and soft and we pass out for several hours.

Peru story the first

We're checking into our hotel in Aguas Calientes, which is where you stay when you go to Macchu Picchu. It's me (clearly not Peruvian), Aaron (so totally not Peruvian), Cindy (blonde and blue-eyed, so not Peruvian), and Rafael (Peruvian). Two younger, pretty women are checking us in. As Aaron and I converse with one young woman in our craptastic Spanish, the other sidles over to Rafael and mumbles, "we have massages, sir". Cindy, who speaks Spanish fluently, overhears. Rafael knows Cindy's heard the proposition and looks over at her, wide-eyed. He moves closer to Cindy and ignores the young woman. The young woman doesn't get the hint; every time we stop at the desk she sidles over to Rafael and reminds him of the special service the hotel provides customers who may need a break from their white tourist friends.