Overcoming Lameness.

So the other day I complained about how lame this blog was becoming. And then I talked about schnau-zas. And the economy. And Disney princesses. That’s how I roll. I’m deep like that. Real deep.

And Bagel and Finch, I have no idea who you are, but God bless ya. Thanks for leaving me a comment on yesterday’s post and telling me that it would be mean to shut this here blog down. God bless ya indeed.

Anyway, I was thinking of ways I could make my posts less lame. Actually, “ways” is too generous a term. I only came up with a way. One. Uno. Un- is that French? I took French in fourth grade. I remember numbers (or not), some colors and the fact that my French teacher, who was actually from France, couldn’t say my name correctly. She had a problem with the “th” sound at the end of it, so instead of ElizabeTH, I was Elisabet. Eeee-leee-sah-bet. Doesn’t that sound much more charming? I think I might start telling people my name is Eeeleesabet just to watch the reaction on their faces. And to charm them.

But that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post was that I was thinking up a way to make my posts more interesting. Lindsay made a comment over on my Facebook that Matthew looks like a regular mountain man in this photo:

Mountain Man or WMD?

He does sort of. Too bad he’s not wearing red flannel. And suspenders. He used to wear suspenders sometimes when we first met. But that’s when he was weird, before the Marine Corps flogged that out of him. I think he should wear them again, with a bow tie. He used to wear those in kindergarten. I should dig that school picture out sometime and show you. Remind me to do that. It’s unbearably cute. And a bit embarrassing. Which is why I should show it to you.

I think mostly, Lindsay was seeing the beard when she made that comment. She first met him when he was still in the Corps (Doesn’t that sound tough and gritty? Like Clint Eastwood. Or the Wendy’s cheeseburger I had last week.) and this type of facial hair would not have been acceptable so he was clean shaven all of the time. Otherwise, he would have been flogged. For his facial hair and the nasty civilian clothes he’s wearing. Did you know that’s what Marines call us, nasty civilians? They do. It’s what Matthew used to call me when we started dating again five years ago. I was his nasty civilian. And now he’s my nasty civilian. I tell him that a lot. It’s straightens him up.

Matthew and I had a conversation about his beard last night in fact. I told him that I didn’t mind him having it, but he has to keep it trimmed up. He was starting to look too much like a nasty civilian. He agreed with me. I think he was afraid that I’d tell him to get rid of it completely, but that would be counter intuitive, wouldn’t it? I mean, if he shaved it off completely, I couldn’t refer to him as Mountain Man on this blog, and then it would still be lame. And that would be sad.

But I could refer to him as Jason Bourne, like some of his friends do. Not because he necessarily looks like Matt Damon (Although my mom says that he reminds her of Nick Lachey. Does your mom even know who Nick Lachey is? Mine does.), but because he’s got mad killer skills like Jason Bourne. Seriously. He’s a trained weapon. A weapon of mass destruction. He even refers to himself that way.

Quite often.

Weapon of mass destruction. Maybe I should call him that instead, WMD?

The Pioneer Woman has her Marlboro Man and Stretch Marks has her Attorney General. I need something. What do you think, Mountain Man or WMD?

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I’m lame.

I’m lame. In the boring sense, not the physical one. Although, I often tell myself I’m lame and can’t possibly run as I’m approaching the treadmill each morning. Well, not really each morning. More like weekday mornings. Or at least four out of five weekday mornings. Or three. Like this week.

So how about that last post, huh? Deer. Big whoopty-doo! What am I, like 103 years old? Who wants to read a post about some deer in the yard? Geesh. Lame.

But without the deer, what have I got? I’ve got nuthin. Seriously, even I’m bored by this blog lately. Bored, bored, bored. I don’t want to shut it down. I think that would be mean. Who it would be mean to, I’m not really sure, but for some reason I think it would. So, I’ll keep writing, but it may get a little loopier. But that’s okay, right? Some of my favorite blogs are the ones that make me cry from laughing so hard, so the loopier the better.

Of course, that would mean I have to be funny and everyone knows that it’s really hard for girls to be considered funny. Why is that? I have no idea. It just is.

So Liz asked about my evil-miniature-schnauzer stories. It all started with Matthew. It seems like that’s how most stories start in my life. That boy has too much influence over me. Why did I have to fall so hard so young?

Anyway. Matthew had a miniature schnauzer as a kid. Say it with me, “schnau-za.” That’s how I prefer to say it. In my head anyway. When no one’s looking.

When Matthew and I started dating, we spent a lot of time hanging out at his parent’s place. We were good kids, so there wasn’t any other place we wanted to be on a Friday night other than his parent’s couch. Watching a movie. With his parents. What, that’s not what you wanted to do at 16? It is what it is. Or was what is was. I guess.

They had this dog, a miniature schnau-za. His name was Dusty. Now, I’m a HUGE dog lover. Huge in the sense of love, not pant size. On a good day anyways.

So, of course when I knocked on the door the first time I visited him at his parent’s house, this small gray and white furball came running to the door. As soon as Matthew opened the door and let me in, I bent down to pet the little guy. But before I could get my hand to his head, Matthew’s mom screamed, “DON’T TOUCH HIM!” and she scooped him up in her arms. 

Now, I was new to the scene when it came to the Seering family, so I though maybe she was just being a tad (uh-hum) overprotective of her little dog. I blinked once or twice in confusion and looked at Matthew. He just smiled and said, “He bites sometimes. New people.” So I figured I’d play it “cool” with the dog and he’d warm up to me. Animals always warmed up to me.

Have I ever mentioned that we had like 35,000 cats when I was little? Okay, that’s an exageration. But seriously, we had several cats that had been feral that I magically charmed into domestication. Like Snow White. Or was it Cinderella? Some princess. I was like a princess. A Disney princess.

So, knowing that I had this fantastic ability to lure wild animals into submission, I figured Dusty would get around to loving me sooner rather than later. Loving me more than he’d ever loved any human before. I would be his person. Sure enough, within a few hours, he had nosed his way over to me, sniffed my socks a bit and jumped up on my lap while we watched a movie. (With Matthew’s parents.) I was touched by his affection and rested my hand on him, thinking about how nice little lap dogs were to hold while watching a movie.

Before I could actually start petting him though, Matthew said, “Don’t move.” You know, really slow like, under his breath without moving his lips. Like what somebody says to you when you have a spider on you. A really big spider. With fangs. And poison. Poison.

Instinct told me to believe him, so I froze, but it didn’t matter. Before I knew it, a slumbering Dusty (boy, what a misnomer, that name was) roared out of his “coma” and sunk his gnashing teeth right into my sweatshirt sleeve. Thank goodness I was wearing that thick sweatshirt. I would have lost my arm if I hadn’t. My sweatshirt nearly lost it’s arm. Poor sweatshirt, made lame. What a punk that dog was. After that, I’m sure he was thrown into a cage and Matthew’s mom apologized 575,324 times, but it’s all a blur. I was traumatized.

Did you know that I was scared of dogs as a kid? Yeah. I have no idea why, but I distinctly remember being scared to death of strange dogs. At garage sales. We went to a lot of garage sales, okay? So that’s where most of my early childhood memories were formed. What, you didn’t go garagesaling every weekend? That’s a shame. Really. It makes this economic downturn a little bit easier when you’re already used to living cheap.

Anyway, so I was terrified of dogs then, but love them now. Go figure. Must be a codependency issue I have. Or something psychological like that.

Dusty and I met up several times over the ensuing years. Many, many, many times. He wanted Matthew. I wanted Matthew. We crossed paths. I can honestly say that I had never contemplated punting a dog across the yard until I met Dusty. I didn’t actually ever do it. But I was ready to. Many, many times. Maybe I even wanted to. Just a little bit.

This is going to sound really bad. Really bad. But I was actually happy to see him go. You know, pass. Away. The stinkin’ dog lived for like 45 years or something, so his time had come. I think he held on that long just to antagonize me. And the little kids in the neighborhood. And the big kids. And the schoolbus.

I’m almost to the point where I can look back on it all now and smile. But not really. And I can’t ever look at a schnauzer the same way again. I always have my eye on them, ready to punt if need be.

Schnau-zas.

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