All Or Nothing

Overheard in the Store: New Feature!

Some of you are waitresses.  Some of you are teachers.  Some of you are lawyers.  Lots of you are parents.   Some of you are accountant-type people who actually specialize in Sock Monsters.  I am none of the above; a fact that makes reading what you guys have to say infinitely more interesting to me - because I have never had those experiences.  In the same way, none of you (that I know of) own a small women's boutique.  But I do!  And in the course of owning a store, I have the unique opportunity to overhear some of the most random bits of conversation you could possibly imagine.

So, in celebration of us all having different and somewhat interesting careers, I'd like to introduce a brand new feature: Overheard in the Store.  Today's episode features one of my very favorite salesgirls helping two women, one of whom has recently had a...err...very obvious breast augmentation.

SALESGIRL:  So, this top is really cute for going out, and you can do a lot with it - I mean, you can put this cami under it, and -

WOMAN WITH REAL BOOBS: (Ignoring salesgirl and speaking to WOMAN WITH FAKE BOOBS) Honey, I'm not sure that's gonna work....I mean, you have to think: what are you trying to accomplish here?

SALESGIRL: (gesturing to WOMAN WITH FAKE BOOBS, who is wearing the shirt in question without anything but a bra underneath it) Well, that's what I mean, you see, it's just sort of the type of shirt you wear OVER something.

WOMAN WITH FAKE BOOBS: (turning to SALESGIRL with a slight glare) Oh really?  Well, would YOU wear something underneath it?

SALESGIRL: (not sure how to answer this question, opting to go with honesty) Umm, yeah.  Definitely.

WOMAN WITH REAL BOOBS: (again, ignoring SALESGIRL) Ok, I have an idea.  Just take - no.  Just take that off (gesturing towards bra).  And we'll see what this looks like.

WOMAN WITH FAKE BOOBS: (takes off bra, shirt flaps dangerously in the very slight breeze coming from the air conditioner, making it abundantly obvious to anyone that unless she intends to apply as a stripper somewhere, the shirt NEEDS SOMETHING UNDERNEATH IT) Ok, so what do you think?  This could work....

WOMAN WITH REAL BOOBS: See!  I knew it!  Now all we need is a safety pin.

Poison: It's What's For Dinner

Well.  It's been a while, eh?  How are you?  Good?  I hope you're great.  Me?  I've been busy, you know, working, hanging out, poisoning my dog. 

Oh, is that weird?  You want to know why?  BECAUSE THE STUPID DOG WON'T EAT. 

Now, before you get all huffy and call Animal Protective Services (is there one of those? there should be) please allow me to explain.  I did not poison my dog out of a frustration-born rage.  Nor did I poison my dog out of any willful process at all.  Rather, I poisoned my dog unknowingly, because I have to work so incredibly hard to get her to eat her food.  You'd think I was feeding her, I don't know.  Poison?

Ha!

I've read, over and over, that German Shepherds are notoriously picky eaters.  They're also known to be a fairly intelligent breed, and will pick up pretty quickly on things like:

• Puppy parents who are suckers for puppy-dog eyes
• Puppy parents who are suckers for puppies who look forlornly at their full food bowl, sniff it, and turn away
• Puppy parents who are suckers for puppies who are total divas
• Stupid people
• All of the above, because they are all mutually exclusive characteristics of mine

So.  I'm a sucker, and also stupid.  We've got that clarified.  Now, Lydah (the GSD in question) has picked up on my stupidity.  Coupled with her natural tendency to never want to eat anything, or at least not more than she absolutely needs to cover her ribs (sidenote: WHY am I not like this? why the dog and not me?), we've ended up with a non-eating situation.  And because Cody is unreasonably insisting that what we have here is not actually a MINI German Shepherd, but a regular full-grown one, she needs to eat.  Because she's freaking skinny.  And smallish.

Unless she's a mini German Shepherd, in which case she looks perfect.  Just sayin'!

We feed her the expensive, organic, non-corn based, blah blah BEST FOOD EVER, and she won't eat it.  We've mixed it with other food that she saw another dog eat once and seemed interested in.  Won't eat it.  We've mixed it with shredded chicken that we cooked IN OUR CROCK POT, YES, COOKED FOR THE DOG.  Ate it twice, had a massive intestinal explosion in the backseat of my car, and then never had it again.  We've mixed it with grease from ground beef.  We've mixed it with tuna.  We have basically consulted the Tom Colicchio of dog food and mixed in his recommendations.  Involved lots of saffron.

No dice.

So we're pretty desperate, all the time, for Lydah to just eat anything at all.  After she passed her first class at dog school, she got a goody bag filled with all sorts of things like frisbees, squeaky toys, and some nasty "Pumpkin Desserts!" crap that comes in a can and supposedly dogs like.  Pumpkin.  But whatever!  I'll try anything.  And she did eat it, one whole time, and then didn't care about it ever again.

Really, if we would just stop all the frantic trying and just serve her the contents of the cat box, she'd be thrilled.  And I wouldn't have to clean out the cat box anymore!  Gross?  Was that gross?

I think you have a pretty clear picture of the situation at this point.  We'll try anything.  So when we were offered an entire 12-pack of unused, canned dog food, we were thrilled to accept.  Sure!  I mean, we were about to start pureeing cat poop to make gravy.  Beggars can't be choosers, right?  We started mixing this canned dog food with her normal food, and miracle of miracles, SHE ATE IT.  For like three whole days.  And then she stopped.  Which was not a surprise.  However, this time she stopped and then got kind of sick and then completely stopped eating altogether.  Like, nothing, not even her normal two-mouthfuls-disdainful-look-snub-the-rest combo.  Then she got really sick, and started having all sorts of....incidents inside, which never happens anymore, and so we had no idea what was going on, still no eating, and then all of a sudden, on a Saturday morning, I sat bolt upright in bed at 7am with an epiphany.

The real miraculous event was that I was awake at 7am.  Saturday or not, I don't think I have seen 7am in quite some time.  However, I was jolted out of my sleep with the sudden awareness that we had been feeding Lydah food from that horrible dog food recall.  I ran to the computer, pulled up the FDA's list of recalled foods, and found the brand we were mixing with.  Of course then you have to tediously match up every single lot number and bar code number on your can to the ones listed, to find out if you have won the Kill Your Dog Lottery.

I had.

What happened next was a flurry of vet visits, urine analysis, blood analysis, special food, medicine from a syringe, forcing electrolytes, etc.  And guess what!  She's totally fine now.  She actually loves this prescription dog food the vet gave us to help her kidneys and liver recover, and for the first time in her entire life, SHE EATS WHEN WE GIVE HER FOOD.

So, word to the wise: If you have a dog (or kid, who's to say this wouldn't work on kids, too?) who won't eat, and you've tried everything else, the trick is to poison the subject and then do the mandatory forced starvation (to clear the system) and then, VOILA!  Eating will commence!

Seriously, though, I know we are very lucky and that not all pet owners were so lucky with that tainted food.  And I want to thank the people who gave us that old canned food, because even though you didn't know it, you actually may have solved Lydah's picky eating problem for good.  And Cody won't have to go around telling people that yes, there really is a mini German Shepherd breed, and haven't you heard of it?

This Post Is Supposed To Have A Point, So If You Can Find It, Let Me Know

Anytime you end up sitting in an airport at 9am, eating a Whopper Jr. with fries, you know the last 24 hours have to have been interesting. 

Either that, or you're just a fatty.  Don't eat fries at 9am, fatty!  Just don't.  There are no excuses.  Not even the ones I'm about to give.

It all started with yet another trip out to the greater Los Angeles area, a place with which I have a definite history of a love-hate relationship.  Los Angeles is, according to one resident of the city, a cruel, cruel mistress.  The type of lady-friend who might, in the same breath, call you to her side and then slap you hard across the face.  With a traffic jam.  While wearing Eau De Smog.  Ugh.

Anyway, I am totally over it.  Did you hear that, Los Angeles?  I am so totally over you.  I don't even have the "hate" in my love-hate with you anymore.  It's more like an I-don't-really-care, you're-just-another-city relationship.  Ha!  The biggest affront you can give to someone like Los Angeles: Apathy.

So, I'm back in Los Angeles.  I go there about 12 times a year, not just because of my dysfunction with the city, but because of that pesky store I own and those pesky customers who demand fresh and new inventory.  The nerve!  So it's off to the California Mart for me, like, all the time.  The rental car guys know me by name, and have suggested, more than once, that I just keep a condo or something out there and save myself the hotel fees.  And I feel totally inclined to look into that possibility, especially since Southern California is so well-known for its reasonably priced real estate.

The good thing about these frequent trips (besides the small fact that they are keeping me in business) is that both of my brothers live near LA, and so does my blogging and real-life friend, Texan-turned-Angelean Adam.  Lately, the latter of this trio has been so kind as to accompany me downtown for my shopping forays, although I know full well that he is only doing it for the free tacos and for the chance to hang out with my freakishly cool family members afterwards.  Also because he has not yet ordered the Big Fish from the taco stand, and until that fateful day, he is stuck in a sick sort of holding pattern, where he doesn't realize just what is missing in his life, and continues to search downtown for something to fill the void.  It's the Big Fish, Adam.  The Big Fish.

Last time to LA, Cody went with me and we turned the trip into a sort of three-day vacation, rather than the 36-hour sprint to and from Texas I usually end up with.  The first of those three days was spent entirely inside, at my brother and sister-in-law's house, playing Guitar Hero 2.  Entirely.  As in, me and my husband flew 2000+ miles to sit inside and play a video game.  However, in our defense, that game is REALLY fun.  Have you played it?  I want it.  I hear rumors they are making one for the Wii.  Is it true?  Does anyone know?  More importantly, do any of you have Guitar Hero, live nearby, and want to play?  Because I am TOTALLY down.

Wow, I am rambly.  Back to the subject!  Eating grease, at 9am, Wednesday.  First, we have to rewind to Tuesday (don't we always).  Tuesday was my brother Nathan's birthday.  And because I am lucky in many ways, such as having a job that allows me to spend so much time with my brothers and having brothers that like to spend time with me, we all celebrated together.  We celebrated Christopher(my youngest brother)'s birthday last January, and they have assured me that if I can coincide my monthly trip to LA around my birthday, they will definitely take me out as well.  I nearly got all weepy Tuesday night, as we embarked on hour three of the birthday dinner, about how great it was that we all loved each other so much, and how not all siblings were so lucky, and how weren't we so lucky, loving each other so much and getting along so well?  They rewarded this rare burst of emotion with eye-rolls and "yeah yeahs" and maybe a nod or two of reciprocation.  Ahh, the joys of only having brothers.

The restaurant at which we chose to celebrate is a little Italian joint just up the road from where Nathan and Mary (my lovely SIL) live.  We've been there before, and honestly, it is just like those little restaurants you see in movies like Notting Hill, where a motley band of characters often go to eat and share their sorrows and joys.  Do you know what I mean?  Maybe everyone really DOES have one of those places, a local cafe where everyone, for lack of a worse cliche, knows your name, but I have never had one myself.  I've only ever watched from afar (my couch) while others (characters in TV shows) have these places to congregate and celebrate and just hang out and all have a good time.  But this restaurant is like that!  It's fun!  The owners are two brothers from England!  As the night goes on, the music gets louder and less Italian-esque and people start dancing!  There are free flowing bottles of wine and champagne!  There are double-cheeked kisses!  There are schizophrenic ladies talking to their dogs!  Dogs who sit in chairs!

Dinner lasted nearly four hours and our waiter got a really, really big tip.  And we got two (maybe three?) bottles of wine and I don't know how many bottles of birthday champagne, and I also don't know how many of those we actually paid for, but the ratio was definitely in our favor.

It was honestly one of my favorite birthday celebrations I can remember, and it wasn't even my birthday.  After dinner was over, we went back to Nathan and Mary's house to play (guess!) Guitar Hero.  Nathan doesn't own the game, and it turns out that the one Cody and I played for 18 hours had been returned.  The friend apparently wanted the game back after Nathan had kept it for about three weeks, so Nathan promptly returned the game, only like a week after the guy asked for it back.  Then, foolishly, the guy came back over to hang out, brought Guitar Hero, and forgot to take it back home.  That led to another two week stint for the GH at Nathan and Mary's.  So needless to say, asking to borrow it again would probably not have gone over well.  Luckily Adam solved the problem by hauling his game system, two guitars, and the game all the way out to Valencia just for Nathan's birthday.  He also brought another disk containing all of Nathan and Mary's wedding pictures (he was their photographer).  Nathan had somehow either lost or irreparably damaged the old disk containing ALL THEIR WEDDING PICTURES, so all I have to say is that it's a good thing your wedding photographer is a nice guy and your friend.  And that it was your birthday.

Mary and I got into a hilarious rendition of Surely-We-Can-Do-Better-Than-That-Let's-Play-Again Guitar Hero-ing, and all the guys sat outside on the deck, laughing and enjoying the night's reprive from the 105 degree weather SoCal has been blessed with recently.  We all ate ice-cream cake, compared stories about dealing with crazy people (always a hot topic) and generally celebrated the night away.  Adam left to make the drive back to Orange County, Nathan and Mary retired to their room, I fell asleep on the couch around 2:30am, and Christopher decided just to stay under the stars, dragged a mattress outside, and promptly fell asleep.  I woke up at 6am, hastily gathered my stuff, and walked out the door to fight the traffic on the 405, leaving behind a snoring brother on the deck, sleeping soundly although a cat had crawled on his chest sometime during the night and was absentmindedly batting at his face.

So that brings us to 8:45am, me waiting in line at the airport Burger King to try and assuage my champagne-fueled nausea with grease, and catch my flight back to reality.

Happy birthday, Nathan, and I'm only a little disappointed in you for not managing to steal Adam's copy of Guitar Hero.  There's always next time.