I Heart Electricity

It has come to my attention recently that I LOVE electricity.

I just love it. I need it. I take it for granted.

And when the power goes out because of a borderline-tornado going on outside, like it did last night, I lose all knowledge of what things in our house run on it.

"Wait...so will the microwave work?"

"We'll still have air conditioning though right?"

"I'm just gonna go online real quick and check the weather to see when......oh.....wait...."

"Oh, well the cable's out but we can still go watch a DVD!"

No, no, no, and no.

NOTHING. WORKS. when there is a power outage. I'm intelligent-ish. I know this. Yet every time it happens, I walk around the house with the flashlight, flipping on switches every time I enter a room, continuously looking at the oven to see what time it is even though the time's not there, trying to turn on fans because it's starting to get balls-hot without the AC, etc.

So last night, once we all (me, Sister, Suz, Steve) got over our initial fury over not having power, we all found ourselves in the kitchen just staring around at each other like retarded zombies. We were so lost without our beloved electricity.

First, Sister and I tried to entertain ourselves by reading the books we're currently in the middle of. For me, Kafka's Metamorphosis. For her, Eat Pray Love. Of course, we were going to have to read by candlelight. So the kitchen scene looked a little something like this.




We tried our best to be entertained by this activity, but after about 30 seconds we were cursing our blackout situation and lamenting about how much it would suck and how quickly we would die if we had been pioneers or colonists or born anytime before 1980.

There needed to be a Plan B, and fast.

But then we had an epiphany...

You definitely didn't need electricity to drink beer, and that's MUCH more fun than reading by candlelight! And we had better get to doing it fast, because soon the refridgerators would all get hot, and subsequently the beer would get hot.

The situation got exponentially better from there. We went to the fridge and discovered the at-home mini keg of Coors Light we had bought a couple days earlier. Eureka!

hooray beer!

We brought it inside, figured out how to open it up, and poured away. Even Steve, a die-hard pinot grigio loyalist, wanted a pint of the good stuff.





Alas, though, we soon found ourselves going a little bit insane again. The situation had improved, and people may or may not have been getting tipsy, but we were jonesin' for some more action.

All this time, our 3 dogs (the doodles) had been trotting around the kitchen from one human to the next, probably wondering why we were all just sitting there and ninja-licking our legs and stuff.

My sister and I looked from our beer cups, to the bowl cabinet, to the bored dogs, and then furtively to each other. We crept down from our perches atop the kitchen counter and filled a little bowl up with some Coors.

We had long suspected our dogs were alcoholics, especially Dixie, so we thought, why not support their habit a little bit to selfishly satiate our own boredom?

They. lapped. it. up. And before any of you crazies run screaming away from your computers to call PETA, we didn't give them THAT much, and we're pretty sure only Dixie got a little buzzed, and we're also pretty sure she loved it anyway. No harm no foul, right?




just a couple of drunk doodles.

We also realized our iTunes would still work until our computers ran out of juice. So we had a few little dance parties and made a few little home music videos on iMovie, which will hopefully never surface in a highly incriminating way sometime in the future.

Circa about 10:30 PM, 3 hours after it started, the blackout ended. The power came back on, and 4 simultaneous personal celebrations could be heard from various parts of the house/kitchen. We were so excited, and although we had a good time drinking beer and getting our dogs drunk, we were also totally cognizant of our pathetic dependence on our computers and TVs for entertainment.

For all you people who grew up in decades that pre-date the 90s, I am impressed you're still with us. I don't know how you did it.

PS. Should you happen to hear a shrieking fit of hysterics later this evening emanating from the vicinity of upstate South Carolina, don't worry. That's just me, flying into a murderous rage over the fact that the Bachelorette is coming on at 8pm and our cable is still out, and I am a Bachelorette addict who hasn't had a fix since last Monday.

Who's fiending? This girl is.

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The Greatest Place on Earth

I'm obsessed with dogs. Obsessed.

My friend Heather is obsessed with cats. Arguably even more so than I am with dogs. She's nuts.

So today after class we decided to trek on out to West Columbia (gross) and spend some time at the greatest place on earth, a.k.a.....Pets, Inc.

Pets, Inc. is your typical little dog and cat adoption establishment. Heather wanted to bee-line it to the cat room when we got there, but I made her investigate the puppy/dog situation outside first before we went in.

And that's when I met Wilma.

The I.D. paper attached to her enclosure said "Wilma: 9 years old. Terrier." (Pause here to rhetorically ask what kind of heartless bastard abandons a dog they have had for 9 years?)

Wilma had a lot of things working against her. Obviously she had been owned by some kind of craptastic family to land her in adoption-land, she was making one of the most horrible noises I've ever heard come out of a creature of the canine variety, she was 9 years old (not exactly a top-of-the-lister for potential adopters), OH--and she was UGLY. AS. SIN.

She kinda looked like a black, furry Salacious Crumb.



She kinda looked one of those weird ass beasts from The Dark Crystal.


She kinda looked like Splinter from TMNT.


You get the point.

But I thought Wilma looked spunky; like she had character. I went over to her cage and she was practically clawing her way up the chain link to get to me. Wilma was flippin' excited.

I picked her up and she settled right in like I had been her owner for all of her 9 years. I turned into a big ball of mush for this horrible-looking, sweet as molasses little creature. She was so pathetic I almost couldn't stand it.

I would've gone home with Wilma today if Heather hadn't finally pried me away from her cage. I mean, the dog is 9 years old, it's not like it would be a long term commitment. In all morbid honesty, she's got, what, maybe 2 or 3 good years left in her?

And she has a sweet ass name already. And she looked like she was bursting with the potential to hunt and eat roaches. And I could enter her into "World's Ugliest Dog" competitions and win 1st prize.

I'm really hoping Suz reads this and tells me she thinks it's a good idea for me to skedaddle back over to Pets, Inc. and scoop Wilma up. I have no doubts that she would still be there if I went back tomorrow. Nobody wants to adopt the sorry little excuse for a dog that I'm about to introduce to you in the pictures I took of her while I was there.

Except me. What can I say? I have a soft spot for freaks.

The Saga of Stella

On May 22, 2009, just 14 days after I graduated from college, I drove out into podunk, SC, on a tip from one of my then-roommates, to check out a litter of puppies up for adoption in Lancaster, SC. I had been told they were goldendoodles, only the coolest type of dog I've ever known to exist. So I went. When I got there, it was to my dismay to find out that they were not, in fact, goldendoodle puppies. But I had driven over an hour, damn it, and they were close enough, and they kind of looked like Ewoks, so I decided to go home with a dog that night anyway. One phone call to Suz (my mom) and a $125 adoption fee later, I became the proud owner of this adorable creature:




On the way home from Lancaster, I stopped at Petsmart, where I picked up a kennel and some food, and a name came to me: Stella. Being 8 weeks old, little Stella slept most of the way home, and here I was thinking I had just nabbed the most perfectly-behaved puppy in the world. I was such a noob.


Stella, still innocent and "flawless" on the first day, snoozing on a sweet Return of the Jedi blanket.

Stella and my then-roommate's maltipoo, Winston, getting along famously.


My roommates fawned over her when I arrived back home, and I even thought about letting the little ball of fur sleep in my bed that night. But, like a diligent new owner, I made Stella sleep in her kennel, which I paid for in exchange for getting ANY sleep that first night, but which I would be very glad I made her do come the next morning.


(From here on out, it may be better to just bring you through the various phases Stella progressed through from that second day until the present...)






Phase 1: Stella is infested with fleas.

Stella was a pretty furry little puppy, so it wasn't until my second day of owning her that her fur shifted in such a way to reveal to me the INFESTATION of fleas that were having a freaking PARTY all over her little bod. Darting every which way, mocking me with their crazy flea speed as they effortlessly escaped my desperate, futile fingers. Behind her Ewok, stuffed animal-esque exterior, the nasty little dog was packing some serious flea-heat. Naturally, I had a slight (major) panic attack. I called my mother no less than 15 times that day, begging for instructions on what to do and how to eradicate this end-of-the-world (in my eyes) parasite problem. Back at Petsmart again, I bought Advantix and some flea-spray for the home. I spent the remainder of that evening holding Stella hostage on the lightly-colored couch, so that when the dying flea carcasses fell off of her, I could pluck them up and run to the toilet to flush them (no way in HELL was I going to actually touch them to kill them). This went on for hours, and probably made our water bill go up at least several dollars that month.





Phase 2: Stella eats her own shit.

Okay. I know and accept that I freak out more than the average person, usually over irrational things. But about a month after I got her, Stella disappeared from my sight for no more than 5 minutes. When the little mongrel came trotting happily back into my room, carting with her, in her mouth, one of her OWN POOP-LOGS, I. LOST. MY. MARBLES. I was screaming at the dog. I was googling "Why does my puppy eat her own shit?" I was calling my mom (again). I was trying not to vomit. I was attempting to locate the rest of the shit-pile that was surely waiting for my bare foot to step in, warm and steaming, around some unsuspecting corner. The experience and the way Stella came running so proudly gave a whole new meaning to the term "shit-eating grin." This unfortunate little episode occurred at least two more times, possibly more that my mind has simply blocked from memory because they were so F-ing disgusting. It is my firm belief that creatures of any kind should not consume their own feces, and, thank the sweet lord above, this phase eventually came to an end.

(Sadly, I don't have a picture to share of the shit-eating phase.)






Phase 3: Stella gets a haircut.

In mid-July, I went to the beach for a weekend, and had to board Stella for the first time. While she was there, they asked if I wanted her to be groomed. Thinking that was the logical, efficient thing to do, I said "Yes! Cut her however you want!" NOOB MOVE. When I went to pick her up, she looked like this:


I tried to tell them, "No, no. That sorry excuse for a shih tzu isn't mine. I dropped off a cute dog."

I went from having the cutest dog in the world, whose outward appearance kinda sorta made up for her neurosis, to having a skeleton with fur whose external look finally matched the freakish interior.


I learned the hard way that telling an over-eager dog groomer to "do whatever they want" has the same detrimental, embarrassing outcome that telling your hairdresser that same thing does.

I went from owning the cutest dog in the world to owning a glorified rat. Luckily, fur grows back (and it did).






Phase 4: I try to re-home Stella.

About three months after I got her, I decided I was not the best equipped person to continue rearing Stella. Shocking, I know! What?! A 22 year old college student decides they no longer want the enormous responsibility that owning a dog entails?! Anyway, I put Stella up on Craigslist, and thought I found her a home with a nice family out in Lexington, SC. They kept her for ONE night, then emailed me saying I had to come back and get her immediately. She was too much of a neurotic freak....oh, I mean, "she wasn't a good fit" for them.

*I suppose I need to pause and explain this one. Stella is a Freak with a capital F. Anyone who has EVER encountered her knows this. She might as well be a cat or a rock for as interactive as she is with most humans. She is scared of everything, from her own shadow to a cockroach, and especially any male she has ever come in contact with. The fire alarm went off in my townhouse once, and I'm pretty sure Stella would have stayed balled up in her kennel, holding in her pee and shit for weeks if I hadn't dragged her out by the collar.*

So, the family in Lexington was a no-go, and it was decided that Stella should go and try living at my brother, Michael's, house in Greenville, with his wife Mandy, and 5 year old son Reeve. So, I schlepped Stella off to Greenville.


Stella met, and became friends with, Reeve. Here they are pre-fetching.



Stella enjoyed running and fetching. Pictures like this do nothing to add to her normalcy factor though.



Stella met Mellow, the beagle-mix Michael and Mandy already owned, and it was realized that for as much as Stella despised most humans, she loved other dogs.

And that's where Stella stayed for almost two months, fetching for her new 5-year-old friend and living the good life in a big backyard with another dog. Alas, this home did not end up working out for Stellz either, and yet another new plan was concocted for the fate of Stella.






Phase 5: Stella temporarily lives with me again, and then Stella flies to Texas.

When it was decided that it would not work out for Stella to stay at my brother's, she temporarily came back to my townhouse to live. Stella and I were best buds again! After all, she wasn't eating her own shit anymore, or any other animal's shit for that matter, and it was only temporary, so how could I not enjoy her company? During this brief stint....


Stella discovers she loves closets!


She also sharpened her creeping skills (like owner, like dog) by not moving from this window-observation position for hours at a time.


Then, I packed her up in an airline-safe crate and brought her with me on the plane when I flew home for Fall Break. Well, sort of. She was in the cargo-bin of the plane, a traumatic event that took her at least a few days to recover from. Nevertheless, she had made it to Texas, where she would be re-homed for the 4th time to my Mom's house with my mom's 2 other goldendoodles, Dixie and Ginger.


Like I said, the freak-dog loves other dogs, so my Mom's house seemed to be a great fit for her.







Phase 6: Stella moves again. This time, with my Mom and dogs back to Greenville, SC.

Two months after I brought and left Stella in Texas, my parents moved to Greenville. Stella tried her best to be a good travel companion, and now resides in a house with the 2 other doodles in Greenville. She appears to be doing fine, and, under the authority of a much more able-bodied dog dictator (Suz), she has had no further bouts of flea infestation or shit-eating!

This is a very typical expression for Stella: sheer terror/disgust. She even managed to be afraid of the 6 month old baby.



Stella over winter break in her final re-homing spot, Greenville. Tail between the legs, look of panic on the face. Yep, typical Stella.




To my utter shock, instead of being terrified and suspicious of it, Stella loved the snow. Who knew. This is the most recent picture of her, taken just last week. Looks like a normal, happy canine right? Ohhh how deceiving pictures can be.



Which brings me to the present. Stella still lives with my mom and the other goldendoodles, and seems to be happy as a clam.

After spending my summer last year house training, crate training, trick training, and enduring a whole series of disgusting puppy-phases with her, I relinquished Stella to a new home, which wasn't the easiest thing to do. Luckily, that home is with my own mother, and now, much like I am with my niece and nephew, I get to be the "cool aunt" to Stella. I get to spoil her and not follow the rules when I see her, and leave at the end of the weekend, with all of the responsibility now falling to someone else :)

Maybe it was a mistake adopting a dog so soon out of college, when my future plans were still so up-in-the-air, but I don't regret it. Stella and I had a good run, and what summer isn't complete without a few encounters with blood sucking parasites and feces consumption??




And despite all the shit (figuratively AND LITERALLY) Stella put me through, I would be a heartless curmudgeon if I could stay mad at a face like that :)






Stanley Kowalski: Hey, Stella! Hey, STELLAAAAA! ---A Streetcar Named Desire