Thursday, April 15, 2010

children are not dogs, but we all need to pee

today i was walking the jack-pug, and we were told off by by a man outside an apartment building.

he began his tirade with a smile and a hello, which, in retrospect, makes me angry because i did not equate the smile with potential hostility. i get lots of friendly comments and hellos from people when i'm with the jack-pug. he's a quirky looking little guy. and he was sniffing around, as dogs tend to do.

"i saw you this morning," said the man. (switching gears, now that he's got me all unsuspecting.) "you were on the grass. it's private property. there's a sign."

there is a sign, yes, at the front of the building, behind a fence. i do not take the jack-pug behind the fence. indeed, i do not take the jack-pug onto people's gardens or flower patches. and should i even have to say it, i pick up his poo, neatly, in bags.

"we didn't even come this way this morning!" i said, stung by the surprise attack. (actually, we may have. ooops.)

the patch of grass in question lies parallel to the sidewalk. i have yet to see a dog pass by it without stopping to sniff. it runs along the sidewalk for about half a block, and it's about ten feet deep. on the other side? a fence. beyond which is the apartment building.

so here is my narcissistic, excuse-making rant. i have no excuse for it except that i am, all out of proportion, hurt by this. why the fuck, angry apartment dude, are you so pissed off, pun intended, about dog pee? digging, i can understand. leaving piles of crap, i can understand. but what the hell bothers you so much about my twenty-pound dog treading on your precious, mangy stretch of unkempt ground to lift his leg and deposit a quarter-teaspoon of pee? and if it bothers you so much, so very much, so much that you have to stand there and wait for a recognizable dog to come by just so you can harangue the owner, why don't you move the fence so your holy ground doesn't look like public property?

that's all.

Monday, April 12, 2010

and we were singin', bye bye little anakin guy!

last friday i had an unexpected evening on my own. the lovely boyfriend and i live in a small apartment and tend to do a lot of things together, because, i don't know, we like each other, or something? anyway, last friday he had a work event to attend. i, as the shameless mooch half of this relationship, had no work to go to and stayed at home.

the first thing i thought of when i realized i had an evening to myself was - what am i going to make for dinner? i'm not tremendously hungry, but i need sustenance, and for once, there's no one's taste to take into account but mine.

i made a caesar salad, a big one. i pulled out the flexetarian card and added some bacon. what a sensual pleasure is eating alone, with nothing to focus on but flavour and texture and the feel of food in my mouth. soft but delicately crisp romaine, salty, smoky bacon, assertively crunchy croutons, silky bright-tasting dressing with the edge of strong parmiggiano cheese. it was good.

of course, woman cannot live on salad alone. she needs the word of lucas. after a quick skim of our dvds i popped 'star wars' into the player. oh goodness, that movie. it's so earnest, with some terribly obvious acting, but the pace is engaging and the story is compelling and the sheer charisma of alec guiness and harrison ford (and the enthusiasm of those less talented) just carries you along to the inevitable conclusion. yes! fuck you, empire! take that!

the lb and i continued with moody 'empire strikes back' on saturday (do you know, i never really noticed how bloody nervewracking it was to experience the millenium falcon being pursued through the entire course of that movie? the whole thing is just one long endless pursuit!) and finished up with feel-good 'jedi' on sunday. (we had another caesar salad, but alas, an inferior one. i blame tasteless metro-brand romaine.) 'jedi' gets a lot of (deserved) crap for those silly ewoks, who are a big honkin' ass metaphor for colonized peoples if there ever was one, but dammit, they are cute. and yes, harrison ford is less than thrilled to be there at this point, but when he says, "hey, it's me!" with that shit-eating grin i couldn't care less about contract obligations. and up to this point, the intrusive stupid retroactive in-jokes that lucas put in can be forgotten. yes, there's the foolish interlude with a digital jabba in 'star wars' that slows down the pace and adds nothing, but okay, it makes a good bathroom break. the sarlac (sarlaac?) has a silly snapping clumsily added beak, but so what? luke did a freaking triple backflip and destroyed the barge! up to this point i can forget that the prequels ever existed, which is frankly how it should be.

but at the end of 'jedi'? LUCAS PUT HAYDEN CHRISTIANSEN IN THE LAST SCENE. yes, yes he did. with yoda and alec guiness and looking all saintly-like. seriously lucas? what did you have to go and screw up my movie for? i will not see your prequels! you can't make me!
on second thought, i bet it's hayden's fault my salad tasted gross. yeah.