October 18, 2010
$1000.00.
That's how much our mangy mutts have cost us this month.
So far.
Don't be looking for Christmas presents.
Or cards or cookies or wreaths for that matter.
We'll set the dogs in front of the back window, throw some lights and garland around them, and sit around them Christmas morning, oohhhing and ahhhing, while we unwrap the cats, and other assorted household items I wrap in lieu of actual, store bought gifts.
On the upside, they're no longer contagious.
Meaning Annette-the-greatest-dog-trainer-in-the-world (http://www.barkbusters.ca/) can now return to us.
Because we really need her.
Frank's hair trigger, instantaneous, volatile and unpredictable response to *any* noise within a 50 kilometer radius has lessened my lifespan by at least 5 years per outburst.
It keeps happening in spite of my vigilance in watching for "the signs" that he is poised for an attack on the front window. My futile attempts to intercept him before he runs to the window, barking at the visibly blanched blue jay who chanced landing on our lawn, or the startled squirrel who happens to be in our tree, or the nosy neighbour who drives slowly past our house, the peacefully passing pedestarians out for a leisurely stroll . . . .
At the rate he's going, I'll be lucky if I make to the end of this week.
Imagine you're in the kitchen, working at the table, computer keys clicking at a dizzying pace because you're "in the zone," when you're abruptly yanked from your reverie by the maniacal, bellowing clamour of two hounds barking, yelping, snarling, growling, a jarring racket that will jangle the nerves of even the most stalwart, undaunted, unwavering individual.
And you can only imagine what it does to Stephen.
Two bottles of wine and a bucket size snifter of brandy, accompanied by a club pack of Prozac, and a case of Melatonin is usually enough to calm his shattered nerves and restore him to a somewhat sustainable peace.
Until the next time.
When the two of them start their hellish cacophony, I leap into action.
Grabbing the water bottle, finger readied at the trigger, I bodily relocate them (but no hands!) "bahing" at them, and gently remarking that there is nothing here for them to see, to move along, to hustle their pappies and move their shtaneh (a poor, Anglosized translation of "pants" in Ukranian).
I man the front window like a goalie at a World Cup game. Not even the hair of either canine makes it past me, arms stretched out, feet planted firmly apart, scrabbling back and forth in front of the window, bahing, firing the water bottle spray with expert precision . . ..
Either the NHL or a European World Cup team is going to call me, when some one films my impressive barricading skills and puts it on youtube.
Something has to happen, or I'm gonna have to start exploiting the dog's labour skills in order to afford them.
And once that happens, it's a short step to Reilley becoming a feline pimp Daddy managing Goblet's street corner carnal activities.
Apparently, it's 80s week on Facebook.
Gnarly Dude!
Lots of statuses are encouraging me to upload a picture of myself from the 80s so everyone can see how much I've changed.
Or not.
If you're in the "not" catgeory, reality make-over tv shows would love to get their hands on you.
What I can't figure out is how come anyone would want to remember the 80s at all, let alone what you looked like.
I graduated from Oromocto High School in 1985.
Meaning the 80s for me was not some bygone era imagined in the nostalgic, cerebral meanderings of my 16 year old daughter.
They were real.
Very real.
Some things about the 80s were great: John Hughes' films for example.
The falling of the Berlin Wall.
The Cosby Show, Friday the 13th: The Series, and Fame.
Swatches.
Rubik Cubes, Trivial Pursuit.
Raiders of the Lost Ark, Police Academy, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
The end of M*A*S*H (I was just never a fan!) and Dynasty (which never should have started, really.).
80s music is remembered for its simultaneous creativity, hideousness and incomprehensibility.
Duran Duran, Culture Club, Michael Jackson, Thompson Twins, Men at Work, Men Without Hats, Cyndi Lauper, Loverboy, Rick Springfield, John Cougar, Pat Benetar, Madonna, Wham! . . . .
I still have no idea what The Reflex is about, but when I hear it I am transported to sock hops and high school dances where I pretended like I could dance.
Instead of the unco-ordinated and in all liklihood obscene gesticulations I engaged in on the dance floor.
You can imagine my Archie Bunker-inspired father's opinions about Cyndi Lauper and Culture Club. . .
Other things about the 80s were not so good.
Namely, fashion.
Legwarmers, neon everything: from shoelaces to underwear to sweatshirts with half the shoulder missing. . . shoulder pads, Madonna-esque fingerless gloves, one rhinestone glove, and other Michael Jackson inspired haute coutere catastrophes, gawd-help-us stirrup pants, metallic prom dresses with sleeves so puffy you had to turn sideways to get into the door, oversized shirts and sweaters with big gaudy belts bearing enough metal trim to prevent air travel for 100 years, parachute pants, jelly shoes and sandals, mesh shirts, sunglasses, Miami Vice look, . . .
Big, big earrings. The bigger the better.
Some where so heavy, they stretched your earlobes to your boobs.
Who needs ear stretchers? Just get your hands on some 50 pound 80s earrings, for .10 cents a peice at a thrift shop.
Glasses so big you wondered if the bridge of your nose would collapse from the weight.
The 80s are also renowned for some of the absolute worst hairstyles ever created.
Side ponytails, headbands, scrunchies. . .
Big bar hair, achieved with mousse, hair gel and hair spray enough to not only put a hole in our ozone layer, but the ozone layers of any other planet in our solar system.
But the worst. . .the peice de resistance of all 80s hair styles. . .
The Mullet.
(Head down, face filled with embarrasement and shame)
I had one.
1981.
Business in the front.
Party in the back.
Parted down the middle with my s-shaped cowlick for all to ponder.
And if the mullet wasn't bad enough, to add insult to injury and salt to the open wound that was my hairstyle, I had another folicle faux pas:
A rat tail.
One September, during the annual FREX, I had my rat tail adorned with so many roach clips its a wonder my neck wasn't permanently pulled back, forcing me to spend the rest of my life looking only at the sky.
Any of my friends won a roach clip, found a roach clip, or procured a roach clip, it was afixed to my rat tail.
And, because I was incredibly niave (how else could you possibly explain a mullet and rat tail!) I had no idea what roach clips were used for.
But I paraded around the exhibition grounds with at least 25 roach clips securely clipped to my rat tail, like a walking advertisement for any and all drug dealers to entice me with their marijuana marvels.
I shudder just thinking about it.
The picture of me with the mullet adorning my head is in my parent's basement.
A constant reminder, a metaphor, of all that was wrong with the 80s.
Thankfully, the rat tail was hidden.
Because there is only so much humilitation to be crammed into one school photo.
In conclusion, the 80s were a fashion disaster.
A decade where fashion designers and couture wannabes experienced, collectively, an acid flashback so severe, with such daunting reprecussions that young people in the western world adorned themselves with blindingly inappropriate colors, forgot how to speak English as a result of music that made no sense, while boasting hair styles that made Ray Charles shake his head in bewilderment.
And if you happened to live so far off the fashion grid that clothes shopping took place in the nearest strip mall that housed such Holy Grails of Haute Couture as Reitmans, Woolworth's or Bi-Way, and you have the fashion appreciation of a color blind two year old, you were, in one succinct word,
Screwed.
So, am I rushing to my parent's house to procure a picture of me in the 80s so I can then whiz to work to have someone with far more computer savvy than I possess scan said picture, to my office, turn on my computer and upload this dashing daguerreotype to Facebook so everyone can see how much I have (not) changed?
Not.
Bloody.
Likely.
I'd rather dig lint out of my bellybutton.
Title Lyric: 1985 by Bowling for Soup
No comments:
Post a Comment