It really is all about me

I've finally reached the 21st century and bought something on eBay. Okay, I've bought something once before- an awesome tin can that says Sareka that my brother pointed me to- but that was at least five years ago.

Every time I've gone onto eBay since then, I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff. Just so much...stuff. I'm not a big online shopper when it comes to clothes and purses anyway, so I never know what to look for. The only thing I've ever purposely looked up is "Barry Manilow" and "Sarika" to see what pops up. Actually, there is a super cute pairof Nine West sandals out there called "Sarika," but I can't ever find a size six and apparently they're not very comfortable. I shudder to think of the women out there limping back home mumbling "Stupid Sarika" and "I hate these Sarikas."

But yesterday, I came across something even more awesome. A Sarika t-shirt! For a girl who has never been able to get her name on a chintzy magnet, keychain or necklace (a la Carrie Bradshaw), this is pretty exciting. It says Property of Sarika. So I bid. And naturally won. I think I feel an eBay addiction coming on...

A Little Idolry

I'll try not to go too American Idol heavy, since few people I know are still watching it. Story of my life, really... The Apprentice, Top Chef, Top Design... I know I have terrible taste in television.

But what I don't get is how Simon just referred to one guy as "Just an okay singer." Okay, I mean I get it, because he is. It's second guy who just got booted- and I swear I don't even remember his name even though he's singing at this very moment. He's cheesy, kind of ratty looking and has a very generic wedding singer quality.

So why after putting us through 6 weeks of auditioning did he make it on the show? Usually I just assume the judges see something that I really don't with these singers, or they think that they'd make for good TV. But as far as I could see there was nothing out of the ordinary with this dude, and a lot of others for that matter, so why on earth would they make it over the thousands of auditioners? Surely some of them must have been better than him.

Well, all I'm trying to say really is that I don't get the casting choices in these shows sometimes. I suppose that's actually a good thing.

Who am I becoming?

I've officially turned into the person I never thought I would be. I don't mean referring to myself as "mommy" and coercing my husband into playing a rousing game of "Who does Otto love more?" Oh no, it's gone far beyond all that.

I bought our dog a sweatshirt.

A blue hoodie with rhinestones, to be exact.

Now in my defense, I must say that he is part chihuahua and they get chilly. And after his near escape the other day, I thought it would be a good idea to put something reflective on his tiny black body. And, um, Aaron and I often wear hoodies and it's really cute to have a matching dog. And they didn't have anything without rhinestones.

Otto also went to the groomer today for what was probably the first time ever. The groomer was a very friendly, capable looking woman who seemed to truly love dogs. But the place seriously looked like a dry cleaners. Actually, it may well have been a dry cleaners at one point. It had the front counter thingy and a window to a big back room filled with dogs in various stages of washing. It was also very loud what with all the running water and barking dogs.

The groomer was very swift in not letting me coddle Otto, reassuring me that he would be just fine. As I left the place, I looked back and realized he was in a crate right by the window- and he saw me walking away! He stared at me with such a confused look on his face that my heart just broke. I really didn't want him to have any weird flashbacks of being left at the shelter. But, as my mom pointed out, I've developed a tendency to put human characteristics on him, so whether or not such flashbacks really exist are beyond my scope of knowledge.

Fortunately there was a Petco nearby where I did some serious guilt shopping. This included a squeaky stuffed cow, as he already tore apart his new sheep. And the hoodie. He loves it. And I love it too. So I'm sticking by it and standing up for the person I've become:

Okay, so he didn't *love* the hoodie at first. It confused him, especially when I put the hood over his head.

But I think he likes it now, don't you?

The groomer put a bow on him. I know, if our dog turns out to be gay it'll be my own fault.

Bad mommy

I had a real mommy moment tonight. I put Otto's leash on wrong before we went for a walk tonight, and he escaped from it in an intersection. Ack. I meant to take him for a long walk to de-hyper him, but I got home late due to massive traffic. So I guess I just wasn't' paying attention when I put on the collar- it's a Martingale collar which involves all sorts of loops, and I put his head through the wrong one.

We were two blocks from the apartment and I decided not to cross at the intersection because there's no light, and only one side has stop signs. So we headed back toward the apartment and were about to cross- I told him to wait, as I always do at curbs, and suddenly he was in the middle of the street! There was a car approaching him, thank god it was one with a stop sign.

I think I may have frozen, not sure if I should run after him in the street or if that would make him run away further. I screamed his name, he stopped halfway across the street and looked at me. I ran into the street, holding up my hand to the car at the stop sign to KEEP STOPPING, and scooped up my little guy. Oh my lord, I was so scared.

I had a very awkward grip on him, not to mention a bag of poop in my hand, but I kept a tight hold on him until we finally got back inside. So much for our long walk, but whatever. My schmoopie is okay.

Not about my dog's poop

The only person who comments regularly on my blogs is someone I don't think I know. I've been debating calling out Wilson, since it could be someone I know well, or someone I've never met. The latter sounds like a level of public exposure via blog that I'm not comfortable with.

But Wilson did make an insightful comment that demonstrates that whoever it is probably knows me. Because the question was "Any insight on Anna Nicole?" See, I'm kind of obsessed with pop culture. Not in any disturbing way, I just read two or three gossip blogs on a daily basis, so I'm usually ahead of the game when it comes to knowing what's going on. And loving to hate the Lindsay Lohans and Paris Hiltons of the world because the media tells me to. I know what's going on, I do. I know I'm being manipulated, but I accept that.

So I've vaguely been privvy to the whole DNA scandal over Anna Nicole's baby and the mysterious death of her son. But I'm also mildly obsessed with bad reality TV, so I've actually seen all the episodes of her reality show. I try not to use cliches, but good lord it was such the epitome of the train wreck metaphor. I couldn't look away.

So anyway, when I heard she was dead, I was a little surprised by how involved I got with the media coverage for the past day or so. One blogger put it quite well when he asked in the middle of a post, "Why am I so sad?" Because it is sad, and I think many people are mildly surprised at their own reaction to her death. Public figures have faces, and I suppose we need to associate some kind of personal tie to someone before we can feel realy sympathy. So, you know, it's a sad soap opera that's going to grip the nation for a while, and I'm very curious to see how it all plays out. Still,I feel terrible that a little girl has to be caught up in all of this. It would be nice if we could all be entertained by the saga without any other people having to be hurt, but I don't know if that's possible.

Am I a drama queen?

Not everyone knows this about me, but I'm actually a petty, envious bitch at lot of the times. I try to keep it inside, but I have jealousy over anyone who has a more successful career than I, and at the rate I'm going, the numbers are piling up.

So last night I had a mild case of "what am I doing, what kind of career am I heading toward, why aren't I more successful at the age of 30." Not so bad, nothing unusual. Then I came home and happened upon an article online that a girl from my high school has written a book! Why is a random new book being written about on headline news? Well, she's written a "Devil Wears Prada"-style tell-all about working for Judith Regan. The kicker is that she sold the book BEFORE the Judith Regan scandal, which means that she's guaranteed to skyrocket to success while still being a nice person!

Yes, as I recall, this girl was a very nice person. Like ridiculously nice. Like the kind of girl you like on sight, that the boys fall in love with and the girls can't hate. I may be projecting a bit, since I didn't actually know her all that well. But I do remember that she came into my high school a little later in the game, like in her sophomore year when I was a junior. One friend (frenemy) of mine was devastated with this girl snagged the lead in the school musical. I was a little in awe when she started dating the senior boy whom I had a crush on years earlier- he's actually kind of a douchebag and seriously I only had a crush on him in 7th grade, but even he's a more successful writer than I am. And, um, oh yeah, she went to Harvard. I went to Tufts which is unofficially known as the dumping ground for students who can't get into Harvard. And now she writes the chick-lit book that I've always dreamed about writing...AFTER an illustrious editing career that involved working in places like Vanity Fair AND Simon and Schuster (where I had my very first, rather short lived, quite unsuccessful first job after college.)

Sigh. I'm wallowing in my own lack of ambition. I know all the wonderful things I have in life, and Aaron even held up the dog as evidence of all the nice things I've achieved. Then I drank most of a bottle of champagne, got into a fight with Aaron and cried on the sofa for a while. Drama queen? Me?

Otto and doughnuts

I'm proud to say I managed to go another 5 days without sweets. Lots of fruit and yogurt instead. I've decided that no sweets during the week, and indulging over the weekend is a dandy plan for me. Friday night was pancakes again, and Saturday night involved a doughnut and a half (we went out for a fancy dinner and followed it up with an 11:30 p.m. doughnut run. We're classy). And okay, fine, I ate the other half doughnut for breakfast this morning. Mmmm...doughnut.

I weighed myself yesterday and discovered that I'm 5 pounds down from the massively hefty heights I had reached a couple of weeks ago. Whether some of that is water or whatever, I don't really care. At least it's less and not more.

Otto is sleeping next to me. I worry when he sleeps a lot, but then again, I also worry when he's overly hyperactive. I think he just knows that with me it's snuggle time and with Aaron it' s play time.

We brought him to the dog park yesterday after obedience class. I figured he should be socializing as much as possible, and lord knows he could burn off some excess energy. The normal doggie park is full of playful canines, leaping and bounding and chasing balls with abandoned glee. The segregated small doggie park involved about eight dogs about Otto's size, calmly roaming around sniffing each other's butts. There was an inordinate proportion of weiner dogs in the little guy section. Those things are so goshdarned cute. Stubby legs and curiously long noses. Anyhoo, Otto did pretty well with the rest of the dogs. It was surprisingly mellow- he just went along with the butt sniffing and piddling on various parts of the ground.

Omg, I totally forgot to blog about this earlier. It's horrible and an total invasion of Otto's privacy...but he's developed this new habit of... HUMPING THE BEDSPREAD. I swear, every night we go to bed and he goes nuts. He stands up, grabs the edge of the bedspread, starts thrusting his tiny pelvis against it. It's so weird.

Awww... how cute is he?