Word Verification

Sorry, folks. I know typing in those stupid gibberish words are annoying as all crap, but I'm getting spammed left and right, so I've added it. Sue me!*

*Please don't sue me. I'm getting out of debt and I'm on a budget right now.

And I don't like spam!

Smells like freedom... and burning plastic.

Jake filmed the destruction and posted it on his YT page.


(sorry if you see this more than once in your reading list... was trying to remember how to size the video down)

[CLOVER] I got crabs!

bahahahahahahahaha

LOL, made ya look. I'm not that kind of girl! You should have already knowed that from my last post!

Okay so, my Uncle Jake is a children's worship pastor and he's always doing these super weird things to entertain the little peoples. Like this one time he had the little peoples play this gross game where they had to make two lines facing each other and then race to the middle to pick up a slimy, squishy octopus! Like, a real one! Uncle Jake is so totally weird! And awesome!

So, the other day he decided to do a illustrayshun for the little peoples with these two big ol' Dungarees Crabs. I didn't know crabs wore jeans! So anyways, he said he was gonna put the crabbies into a bucket to show how a single crab can crawl out of a bucket wiffout problems. But if there is more than one crab, they all pull each other down in an effort to be the first one out. I can identify, because I always have to beat Snuggles out the door to the back yard. And sometimes we look like the Three Stooges (or just two of them) when we get stuck in the doorway together. I think the illustrayshun with the crabs wearing jeans was about selfishness or about crabs being weird and stinky and gross or maybe crustacean fashion for 2011. Whatever. It had a point. I think.

I dare you to even TRY and catch me.

Here's a video of me checking out the crabs. I was very fascinated with how smelly they were. It made me want to roll around on them like I do when I find a worm in the grass.

Snuggles was not at all interested in the crabbies. Here's how he felt about them:

Get those things away from me.

If you ask me, he was acting a little crabby about the whole thing.

Um... anybody still out there?

I know, right???

I have not made a peep on this blog in LITERALLY millions of years (my definition of "pet peeve": using the word “literally” completely wrong).

So since you are dying to know, and by “dying to know”, I mean “couldn't care less”, I will update you on my stellar life…

My niece, Piper, is still the awesomest thing since unsliced bread. She’s now a year-and-a-half and the new things she does every time I see her are just amazing. And hilarious. She is so awesome, it is just beyond.

Behold the cuteness.

My nickname is “Aunt Tootle”, so she calls me “T” and that just simply rules. Also, she is turning out to be SO much like her Aunt T, and of course you know I just heart that. For one thing, she laughs really hard and really loud, with a bit of a scream-y edge at times, which only serves to make me go like this: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! And then I go “neener-neener-neener” to my brother because he always gets mad when I laugh too loud and wake the baby, and now I get to say, you better get used to it, buddy!

Second, I took the Pipe shopping with me and when I was ready to pay for my purchases at Sephora, she grabbed my credit card from me and handed it over to the cashier as if she’d been doing it all her life. Oh, the pride that swelled within me. On a related note, she’s also resembles a much younger but equally cute me in that she already has a killer fashion sense. She almost shattered the Richter scale of cute when she recently wore tiny baby boyfriend jeans complete with dark wash and fat cuffs and a long cardigan thrown over it. ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

Wearing the ultra-hip owl jammies I got her for Christmas.

Modeling for her one-year photo shoot.

And she’s almost as crazy about animals as yours truly…

Exhibit A: The “chore” that she’s taken upon herself to do at home is letting the dog out of her crate. She goes straight into Annabelle’s room and opens the latch on the crate (by herself usually) and then it is all business as she leads the little foofy Yorkie-Poo to the back door and commands her to “pee-pee!” And she FREAKS OUT if you try and do her “chore” for her.

Exhibit B: She’s also bonkers about my pit bulls. She yells to them incessantly, “Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup-pyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” 43 times in a row if they are not perched right next to her. She yells this as she beckons with a come-hither hand signal and then pats the spot next to her. She has taken to leaning in for a kiss right on their moufs and going, “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmwah!” as she puckers. Then giggles like a school girl when they kiss her back. Also, she doesn’t mind when they try and eat her, as pit bulls are wont to do with small children.

Fear me.

Exhibit 12: She loves the zoo. On a recent day off work, Christy, Piper, and I went to the OKC Zoo mainly so that Christy and I could torture ourselves after watching The Cove. If you haven’t seen it, it will shatter you. Anyway, we had a great time despite our guilt over oppressed dolphins. Piper kept yelling to the buffaloes, “Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup-pyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” I mean, it was pretty cute when she called the wolves “puppies”, but come on… gigantic buffalo puppies, Piper? Now that’s just getting a little ridiculous. Despite being in a zoo around lions and tigers and bears (I will not say “Oh, my!”), her favorite animal was always the “duckies”. I taught her what the goat says, which wasn’t difficult because they were “maaaaaaaaaah”-ing away locked behind the fence in their pen. I was pissed because the petting zoo was closed that day and we couldn’t even go in there and play with them. Besides, I really wanted to interview one of them and ask why their eyes are so creepy. Like Satan. Christy and I were gonna teach The Doodle what a giraffe says, but then we decided we don’t know what a giraffe says, so instead we taught her what the goose says. We saw some puppies (AKA foxes) going nigh-nigh (AKA sleeping) on a big rock in the sunshine, then listened to an old man regale his wife with fascinating trivia about the little critters he referred to as “MeerRATS”, and later we caught a glimpse of the rare Great North American Domestic Housecat as he stealthily stalked a trashcan. The trashcans got spooked and started a stampede and it all got a pretty crazy and I think I blacked out for a little bit shortly after yelling to my sister and her daughter, “SAAAAAAAVE YOURSEEEEEEELVES!!!!!” But the best moment of the day by far occurred in the ape house. There was a scholarly-looking nerdy dude sitting by the exhibit window sketching a gorilla. We sat down the way a bit right next to two other gorillas, one of which was pressed up against the glass as if he was leaning on Piper for support. We were pointing out the “monkeys”, naming them thusly for simplicity’s sake, and we were having a rousing game of “What does the monkey say?” when the artist guy, who was clearly on holiday from his home country Pretentioustan, dryly remarks, “AK-tually, these are apes.” *facepalm* I think Christy and I rolled our eyes so hard and so high up into our brains that we actually had a collective stroke. I think even Piper was heard to mutter, “OMG, what a buttmunch.” I’m pretty sure I heard her say that.

In other news… I’m going to be an aunt again!!! Christy is 6 months along and due late April. Just as Piper was nicknamed “Tater” before her gender and real name were revealed at birth, we have nicknamed the new baby “Beanie” because of that one time when Christy told us she was the size of a bean. Which leads me to the next thing… she... is a SHE!!! Just as they have with all other things baby, Christy and Jake announced this bit of info in surprise fashion. When they found out they were expecting Piper, they showed up to my parents’ house and took off their jackets to reveal these shirts they had made:


Then at my 31st birthday dinner this last September, their gift to me was the tee-ninesiest little onesie that said, “I heart Aunt Tootle.” My reaction? “This is so cute! But…………. it won’t fit Piper………?” To which Christy replied with a knowing look, “That’s because it’s for a newborn.” It took literally a bunch of seconds before it finally dawned on my dad, mom, and me what that meant. Best birthday present ever, though! Even if I was a little slow on the take.

And so, on par with the aforementioned shenanigans, my dad opened a package on Christmas morning labeled “From: Beanie”, which contained a DVD. Jake and Christy said it was the ultrasound they’d just had done. We were so excited, even though we knew that they had planned to wait for the birth of the baby to find out the sex, just as they’d done with Piper. We popped it in to watch and after several minutes of cooing over the grainy moving images, the song “Sisters” from White Christmas suddenly started playing. Thing is, we had watched White Christmas the night before, so at first my parents and I thought something was messed up with the sound and that we were hearing the other movie somehow. Which made zero sense because that DVD was no longer in the player, mostly due to the fact that the ultrasound DVD was. We are not rocket surgeons as you’ve surely surmised. And yet again, it was forever and a day until we finally figured out they were trying to tell us something. And that that something was that Piper would be having a little sister. We didn’t even notice at first that the labels came up on the screen pointing out the “girl parts” as the scan caught the, uh, business shot. Can’t get anything past us, no sir. We’re about as sharp as a feather bed upholstered in velvet floating on a sea of bubbles. As is typical, the response was in this order: me screaming and laughing, Mom bawling her eyes out, and Dad just sitting there with the proudest grin on his face.

My children, Snuggles and Clover, are still the cutest and funniest inventions since breadboxes were invented in order to store sliced bread. They are just complete dorkwad nutcases and they make me laugh everyday. I bought them backpacks to burn off some of their energy on our walks. I’m excited about that. Plus, they can carry all my crap. Like bottles of water. Poo bags. Trail mix. Mace. Trolls. A first aid kit. Emergency flares. My Smith and Wesson. Red lipstick. And spaghetti. It’s pretty handy.

Yes. Those are trap door jammies.

So……………………………… my parents moved in with me. They say it’s because they’re building their dream house and need a place to stay since their other house already sold, but really I just think it’s a classic case of “failure to launch”. It’s a pretty funny dynamic. Usually it’s a kid moving back in with his hapless parents and things quickly go south. Like when I moved back into my parents’ house in Oklahoma after having lived in Indiana for three years, one of which was spent solo in an apartment, only to find that the parentals were ready to reinstate the 8:00 o’clock curfew I hadn’t had since I was a toddler. During that first summer back home, I spent a lot of time of an evening at a coffee house located in an artsy, granola-type part of town. I would chill with my homies in the outdoor café area until the wee hours, just taking in the sounds of poetry slams, the wafting scent of patchouli, the snatches of conversations between self-righteous atheists, the wafting scent of clove cigarettes, the bitter taste of herbal tea that’s supposed to taste good but really it just tastes like freshly-mowed ragweed, the wafting scent of what I like to call “The Reefer”, and the mournful strains of an acoustic guitar behind an open mic. My Dad didn’t like this one bit. He would chide me, insisting, “Didn’t you know that’s where all the Vietnamese gangs hang out, Heather?” Dad likes to remind me that he grew up in Oklahoma City and knows everything about it, including, apparently, the fact that art snobs and Asian gangstas like to kick it together. I tried to tell him that all I had to be afraid of was dirty hippies. The worst they could do was kidnap me and force me to not shower. The fit really hit the shan the night I was “accidentally” out past 5 AM. Come on… 5 AM is not that late. I mean, actually, it’s early since it’s technically the next morning. So uh, yeah.

But that was then and this is now. And we’re having so much fun. I probably should mention that I sold my house and bought a new one back in April. I moved into an awesome 1938 Cape Cod/Colonial on a historic block and it's like a dream home. I will post pictures soon. My parents have an entire guest suite to themselves since the top two stories have a guest room, bathroom, and TV room. The dogs think they’ve died and gone to heaven what with Nan-Nan and Pa being accessible 24-7. And I have to say, since one of my parents usually beats me home after work, they go ahead and let the dogs out of their room and it’s so nice coming home to butt wiggles at the front door. Mom and Dad are roughing it, though. They’ve had to downgrade from their king-size bed to the queen in my guest room. And since the garage was converted years ago into an office, which has now became my dogs’ room, they are having to get used to the idea of parking Mom’s beloved Mustang and Dad’s F-3000-or-whatever-it-is gigantor monster truck out in the weather. In the driveway! What’s worse is my dad had to rent a storage unit for his Corvette. It must be rough. My heart bleeds for them. In all seriosity, they are model tenants and never complain even though I’m charging them $3,000 per day for rent. What? Baby needs a new pair of shoes. Preferably Louboutins. Speaking of, I get to indulge my love for dressing my mom up like my very own life-sized, middle-aged dolly. I think she doesn’t mind that part either. She’s also declared that she is taking over kitchen duty. And it’s not rare for me to walk out in the yard and find my dad raking the leaves. Word.


Let’s see… what else…

Oh yeah, almost immediately after turning 31, I received an AARP membership card in the mail. Not just once. But TWICE. Really? 31? Oh, and my little brother just turned 30. LOL. Wow, getting older is so weird!

We are so mature.

Other updates…

I am a rapper now. You read that right. I will put the videos up soon.

I am no longer addicted to “Words With Friends”. That ship has sailed.

I have never played “Angry Birds”.

The group I sing with actually got to perform the National Anthem at an NBA game recently. I will post more about that later.

I haven’t read any of your blogs in ages so I’m sorry for that and will try and get caught up soon.

Michael Jackson is still dead.

Snuggles and Clover have been asking to post more on the blog. Thus demonstrating that their mom thinks that just because she enjoys reading dog blogs that everyone else does, too. But how can I tell them no when they are just so darn adorable?

My hair is now a deeper auburn shade of red.

I still hate Nickelback.

And Michael Vick is still a grade-A, 100% certified, genuine douchebag.

What's new with you???

Piper's Diapers

My beautiful sister-in-law Christy and my niece Piper were on the local news the other day for a story about cloth diapering. Check out Christy's blog post with a link to the vid!

OMG

This video has changed my life.

Do you hear me?

Changed.

My life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oavMtUWDBTM&feature=related




P.S. I have been AWOL because I am busy house-hunting and packing stuff in anticipation of selling my house.

What I DID Buy Last Weekend: Vehicle Edition

I'm so pumped cuz I finally bought a Honda Element A.K.A. Lego Car A.K.A. Blue Toaster last weekend.

Snuggles really likes riding in it, which is awesome and a great change of pace from how he acted in the Smart Car:

Those of you who cart your dogs around in SUV-types, what do you find is the best way to secure your pup? I've been putting on his harness and clipping on his 2 point-contact leash, which is looped around a caribiner, which is connected to the caribiner that attaches the fold up seat to the side of the car. Just wondering if there's a better way. Please share your thoughts, rejoinders, comments, retorts and insults.

We thank ye muchly.

Appreciating teh Simple Things in Life

I like to stop and smells dah cloverz sumtyms.

Life is sooooooooo byootiful. Speshully when I get to run around all nekkid-like in dah back yard after my baff. Baffs are not byootiful, however.

[Other contributer note: Dang it! Why didn't this show up as a Snuggles post? He posted it, not me! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... annoying!]

Pit Bull Attack!

Snuggles attacked the Leaf Hog last night. Mehbeh he thought it was a real hog? Anyhoo, watch the jowl action.

No.

So, many of you are familiar with my distaste for PeTA. Reason numero uno: they are pibble-haters. They want to ban and euthanize all pit bulls. They wanted to PTS every dog confiscated from Bad Newz Kennels. And despite the amazing stories having come out of the Vick Dog camp, they continue to declare that the dogs still should not have been allowed to live.

They also think having a "companion animal" (read: "pet") is slavery. And when I say they call it slavery, I mean that they literally compare having a pet to pre-Civil War America's enslavement of African captives.

Now, I thought they had pretty much fallen off the deep end already when last year they actually requested that Ben & Jerry's change their ice cream formulation to use breast milk in lieu of cow's milk. That's just dirty hippie on a whole new level.

But just when you think you've heard it all, here's Reason No. 1,782 to believe that PeTA is truly one coconut short of a migrating flock of swallows: they have sent 80's pop group the Pet Shop Boys a letter urging them to change their band name to "Rescue Shelter Boys." No, people. This. Is not. A joke. Except maybe in the metaphorical way. You can't make up stuff this stupid. As you might imagine, the Boys have declined the request, although they have also made it clear that they do not in any way support pet shops.

PLEASE don't get me wrong here. I am as staunchly anti-pet shop and puppy mill as they come. And if you are wondering why that is, then please, please, PLEASE check out Best Friends' A Puppy-Store-Free L.A. campaign.

Lastly, I'll leave you with one more tidbit... PeTA is now going on the PR defensive for fish, redubbing them "Sea Kittens" because they believe that people would think twice about fishing for, killing and eating "Sea Kittens." You can even go on their site and create your own huggable sea kitten. I tried to put mine on here but I couldn't get the html code to work right. Suffice it to say, it was awesome. It had a mohawk, a unicorn horn, and Water Wiggles.

But I still don't like PeTA. Cutesy Flash-animated fishy dress-up games notwithstanding.

Happy Easter Massacre!

Check out my friend's pit bull Sharky with his little furry friends.







What. Did you see him licking them chickies?



Here's one other...








Sharky has tons of other cute videos up on YouTube so check it out!

Good Friday

In general I'm not a huge country music fan but this song and video always make me cry.






And remember... "It's Friiiiiiiiiiday! But Sunday's comin'!"

Snoozy-Pants Baby Ducks

Not really sure why ducks seem to = Easter but I'm okay with it.

My Quartet

Three of my friends and I formed a quartet last year. This was our first time to sing together as a group. The entire song is a cappella.

We are learning a new song now and will be singing it this Palm Sunday.

Happy Birthday, Emma!

These are for you!

Hip-Hop Puppy-Dawg

We had a weird late-March snow situation happening here this weekend. Oklahoma weather never ceases to amaze me. Here is Snuggles checking it all out. Note the silly little hop he does into the snow from the back porch.

Go Shawty, it's y'berfday...

Happy Birthday, Sissy!

I love, love, love, love, love you like a summer thunderstorm or the smell of freshly baked bread or a 1954 Chevy pickup truck. Yes, I love you THAAAAAAT much.

I hope your day is really special, Preggers.

XOXO (kees-hohg-kees-hohg),

Sister-Face

P.S. Here is a little sumting for you.

This is why I need to hire a dog-walker...

And now, let us all pause for a moment of silence, to mourn the tragic and sudden death of Froggy. I came home tonight to find that he had... wait for it... *croaked* after being lobotomized by Snuggles. Poor Froggy. He was a gentleman of a frog. Perhaps a bit (ahem) *stuffy* at times, yes. But he lived a good life, albeit short.

Witness, if you can stomach it, the carnage...

Yahweh be praised, Sheepy was mercifully unharmed in the bloodbath. Although, for quite some time now he has been mysteriously missing both ears. I like to refer to him by his Spanish nom de plume, "La Oveja Sin Orejas," just cuz it sounds so poetic and rhyme-y and stuff.

Methinks it's time to hire a dog-walker to come and take the Burgle-Bean for a long walk on the days that I have class. Ya think?

Hed. Asplode. From too much cuteness!

Instructions for chasing all your blues away:

Step 1: bottle feed a puppy.

The end.

Several weeks ago a gal named Carrie found a litter of 5 pibble puppies in a shed on her property. Momma was nowhere to be found and the babies' eyes hadn't even opened yet. Carrie contacted Forever Friends Humane Society and after a lot of scrambling around by a group of folks, the pups were rescued. Two stayed here with my friend Sabrina and three went to Missouri with my friend Lillian. Both of these women have bottle fed puppies before so they were eager to take on the challenge.

So a couple weekends ago Brina let Mom and me come over to visit her 2 babies. Words cannot express the extreme cuteness. We even got to bottle feed them ourselves. Holy crab. Just. The best thing. EVER! Tiny puppies whining and grunting and crawling around like little army men with milk mustaches and goatees.

I mean.

Just.

What.

I can die now.

And the puppy breath... oooooooh, the puppy breath. Did I mention the puppy breath? I was kissing one of the pubbies goodbye and he started biting my nose and I almost had a seizure from the complete and utter adorability of it all.

Here are some pics of the visit. On your mark... get set... be jealous!!!

Pat-pat-pat-pat-pat-pat-pat-pat-TINIEST BURP EVER!

Parting is such sweet sorrow. That I shall say "goodbye" 'til it be morrow...

(taken with my mom's iPhone - that's why these 2 pixes are iBlurry)

Here are a couple of short video clips I took, too.

Can you even believe the itty-bitty growlage? ACK!

Sigh...

Lilly sent me some pics of the other three babies this week, too. Here they are, being ridiculously adorable, making out and playing with the rest of their puppy play group.

Thanks, ladies! Brina and Lil, you two are my heroines (the girl version of "heroes"... not the kind you have to detox from. Although, truth be told, I may have to check myself into puppy rehab after this.)

Yea for Pittie Heroes!

And yea for "paws"-itive press!

Check out this story about a local pittie who took 3 bullets for his owner.

http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=9494086

Family Dog Takes Bullet to Save Family
Posted: Dec 9, 2008 07:00 PM CST
Updated: Dec 10, 2008 11:46 AM CST

The family has no idea why the man broke in or how their dog, D-boy, survived.


By Amy Lester, NEWS 9
OKLAHOMA CITY -- A family dog made a lifesaving move when the family needed him most.
The dog's more than a friend, even more than a companion and family members said he's the reason they're alive.
The family's hero is their dog, D-boy.
Roberta Trawick was sitting on the couch when a man busted in, through the front door.
"He came in, pointed a gun at me and said, ‘Get down on the ground'," Trawick said.
The next thing Roberta knew, her dog ran in from another room, ready to attack.
"I was too scared to move, I didn't know what to think," Trawick said.
But before the dog could get a hold of the intruder, the man started shooting.
"I seen him shoot the dog twice," Trawick said. "He shot him once in the head and he was still going after him and the guy shot him again."
D-boy was shot three times, altogether. The intruder, apparently spooked, took off out the front door.
"It is amazing, it's amazing that he want after that guy, and that I still have a family," family member Angelic Shoemaker said.
The family has no idea why the man broke in or how the dog survived.
"The vet said if it wasn't for his hard head he wouldn't be here," Trawick said. "He's got a hard head."
That hard headed dog was determined to protect his family, and a family that owes a debt of gratitude to their four legged friend.
"I'm sorry my dog got shot, but I still got my family and we still got our dog," Shoemaker said.
The family now faces another obstacle. They don't have enough money to pay the dog's medical bills. So far, they owe around $1,500.
Police are still looking for the man who shot the family dog. If you have any information, call Crimestoppers at 405-235-7300.

To donate to D-boy, you can send a check to:

Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Hospital

1800 W. Memorial RoadOklahoma City, OK 73134

* Checks can be made out to VECCA and please add D-boy to the memo line.

The phone number at the hospital is 405.749.6989.

I spoke with the vet tech and she says D-Boy has basically made a miraculous recovery.