A morning when Zoey did not want to get up.

Unfortunately for Zoey, her mommy uses the iPhone as our alarm clock, and thus started taking pictures of the process.

The following is that story.

k-walla: Wait, is your dog sleeping with its head on the pillow? Like, like a person?
Claris: Yup.
k-walla: did you teach her to do that?
Claris: :sigh: no, she figured that out all on her own.

…eventually, (grudgingly, excruciatingly) we did get the beast out of bed.

Luckily for Zoey, my apartment offers other sources of consolation for the fact that I continue to heartlessly abandon her each morning.

Music: Ooh Ooh Baby – Britney Spears (Blackout)

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That’s right, I totally typed that out loud on the internet.

Faggot.

f-a-g-g-o-t

faggot. faggotfaggotfaggotfaggotfaggot — Faaaaaaagooootttttttt…

hey, guess what?
faggot!

No @^#^&*#@, no shying away from it, just tossing that bad boy out into the stratosphere.

Personally, I love the word faggot. I think it’s great. I love when people use it in a sentence. I’m delighted when someone drops the fag-bomb in my presence, and have openly laughed at its utterance.

Do you know why I have no fear about using that word in a sentence?

Because I know that that word means something which is not what Bret Ratner thinks it means.

A faggot is a bundle of sticks.

Wanna see it in context? Read Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native, acquire some knowledge, and share in the torture of my high school sophomore year’s required reading materials.

So go on. Use the word faggot.

I think it’s great that you’re choosing to show your illiteracy.

I’m delighted to know that in attempting to slag someone else down, you’ve only managed to publicly display your own ignorance.

Because in that moment when you have mustered the same courage as a drunken college boy sitting in a folding chair on the front lawn of his frat house bellowing incoherently at people walking by, I will openly laugh at the fact that the pinnacle of your ability of insult someone is to call them a bundle of sticks.

Way to go, ya fuckin’ faggot.

Music: F*ck You – Lily Allen (It’s Not Me, It’s You)

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So remember how, a bit back, I said I wanted to play with some sms stuff, & so could you guys hit the like button & comment, etc? And a bunch of you have, & it’s great.

Except that I meant to do it in the blog.

’cause while the likes on my actual facebook page are rockin’, they’re also locked from the public & thus do roughly nada for me being able to ‘speriment with the interwebs while I try to prep Project #1 & #2. There’s a button up there ^ on the right, another bunch to play with down there at the bottom, and a couple more over there on the right>, so while I know we’re all used to being able to critique the world from behind the flimsily-constructed iron curtain* of Livejournal’s security features, I’d appreciate the help by allowing the sometimes harsh light of that mysterious burning ball of light in the sky to fall upon our (occasionally) witty repartee.
*As lawgeekgurl said when she saw my apartment for the first time, “Okay I love you, but this sh*t is so totally not built to code.”

Plus, if I get things the way I like, I can work on taking over my own little enclave of the internet, which means that if the Tea Party prevails and the terrorists win, we’ll have somewhere to hide from The Crazy. And even if I can’t eat them, you know my bomb shelter will have cookies.

…because that’s how I roll, yo.

Awesome: discovering that somewhere along the way in packing lunch you’d put two of the single servs of Colby Jack Cheese in with your veggies & hummus, and because you’d forgotten having done so, it was a pleasant surprise. Yay cheese!
Dismay: the fact that you had trouble getting the packaging open.
Depressing: knowing that somewhere there’s a 5 year old that could do it faster than you while playing Angry Birds on their iPad.

my powers are mysterious, diverse, & influential. Forget that not, mine readers.

The latest Friends Are Fun! Reader Feedback comes from edwud:
Puggles? What the hell is a puggle? And why does it look like a much smaller version of a proper dog? Why am i looking at a facebook gallery of puggles and then at the local pound listings? Damn you, Claris!

The reward for your prize:
Because someone on your facebook queried regarding puggles in bow ties, the answer is that it looks something like this:

For the record, there were shots of this puppy looking happier about his bow tie in that shop, but judging by the look on his face, I do believe this fellow had hit the end of his Patience For The Silly Human That Feeds Me and actively began Plotting Nefarious Revenge. I venture this opinion as the mommy of this dog’s twin brother — or at least, that’s what Ernie looks like when he hasn’t decided to get his pudge on by eating his sister’s food.
We’re down half a pound! 22.8! yay Ernie!

Also edwud, the answer is yes — I totally think you should get one. While a big guy/chihuahua combo might be odd & off-putting, I think you’ll find the stout hardiness of a wee puggle will actually make you a total chick magnet for the pure cute-but-not-wussy awesomeness of having a dog that looks like a perpetual puppy. Go for it, edwud! you know you wanna!

My next public appearance: The photo shoot for Merriam-Webster’s definition of “bad influence”.

Dear Neighbors I Don’t Have: We’re not moving in. You’re welcome.

–> How to build a ball pit on your balcony
Yes, you totally read that right. On the one hand, the part of me that was too tall for the ball pit by age six is tempted, but the part of me that’s Ernie & Zoey‘s mom knows there’s simply too much opportunity for chaos inherent in this entire idea.

• Just off the top of my head:

• Zoey could would try to bury Ernie
• I would constantly be tripping over the balls they’d inevitably scatter throughout the house.
• I have often looked at the apartments just north of the Grove with their cute little individual balconies, seen the dogs who often laze in the sun on them & thought, “Zoey would so totally drop stuff on people passing by.” Best not to give her any extra ammunition.

Hrm. Now that I think about it, probably best not to get an apartment with a balcony period, or at least block off the bottom three feet if I do — once he gets back down to fighting trim, Ernie is probably small enough to be used as Balcony-Drop Ammunition.

You see? You see what I have to anticipate? Whoever said pets were relaxing were full of sh*t, man — if I ever have kids their toddler years are gonna suck simply because Zoey & Ernie will have already taught me the lessons I’ll need to circumvent any trouble. Ha ha, Future Minions 50% of Whose DNA is Still Chillin’ in my Ovaries. The dogs are already working to ruin your fun. Ha freakin’ ha.

Claris: So I was writing today about this guy that made a ball pit on his apartment balcony -
lawgeekgurl: That’s awesome.
Claris: I know, right? And then the whole thing descended into how I don’t think I could have a balcony in my new apartment.
lawgeekgurl: Or you’d have to put chickenwire or something across it so that Zoey doesn’t push Ernie off.
Claris: see? yes! Thank you, that’s totally where my brain went. That makes me feel so much better, because I thought I was just being overly.
Lisa: No, it just means that you have two dogs. Isn’t it great?

Music: Awake My Soul – Mumford & Sons

previous adventures

• museum of me, macbook thievery, & greenwash balls.

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So while I compose this tale of stomach-emptying woe which may have resulted in me thanking the gods I got an apartment with hardwood while I laid on my living room floor in my underwear during LA’s only heat wave this summer, I thought I’d share some of the non-yicky part of last week with you.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to resume sipping on my Nalgene full of watered-down Gatorade and cursing the part of me that told Museum!Co, “Sure, I’ll come in Monday so we can get it done early!”

My son has 46 friends on his facebook page. He’s five days old.

~ Pawswithclaws

This is what happens when you have nerd parents.
…and a nerd auntie, and they all have nerd friends.

Welcome to the future, people – it’s gonna be great.

I know, right? If I was you, I’d totally want me teaching you to row.

Text’d by me to another coach:
I just signed up to teach my sculling I requirement for the december class. I can’t wait ’til flip test day, those poor shivery bastards.

The German language – crushing souls one word at a time.

Actual German word that I had to type out for one of my contract jobs:
Wissenschaftgeschichte
Ha! It is too a real word, I totally linked it ’cause I knew you’d say I made it up.

As someone of primarily German descent, I’d just like to take a moment to look at my ancestral heritage & say:

why on earth would you do that to the children? ’cause you look at that word, & you just know that somewhere, at some time in history — that word completely killed some poor kid’s dreams at a spelling bee.

Is it pathetic if you’re just bein’ honest?

One of the project managers at Civic!Co & I were talking about project management/availability for the fall, & my response was:

yah, I’ll be around the next few months — my life’s boring like that.

After I sent it, I thought, “Wow, that’s kinda depressing.” Then I realized… doesn’t make it any less true. :shrug:

This is totally making my life better.

Texts from Pawnee

First, if you’re not watching Parks & Rec… wtf, man. You really need to. It’s okay if you’ve held out, for a while I did too. Then I had a weekend at the Menagerie following a week of texts from amypop about the greatness of Leslie Knope & there was this Roku box loaded up with Seasons 1 & 2 via NetFlix, & yeah. It was all over, I just can’t even tell you.

Second, if you’ve ever worked in the nightclub/bar/restaurant/nighttime entertainment industry, the captions are awesome because I’ve totally heard the real life versions, and no comic could sit down & make up the sh*t people say when they’re trashed.

Awesome because…

• Not gonna lie, situations like this are how I learned the majority of what I know about the internet.
• Based on how he parties, it would seem Tom Haverford would make a great Bronzer
• Technically speaking, he’s not entirely wrong…
• I know people that have made this particular life choice. Sometimes it actually works out better.

Plus, I just really like this one because it kinda defines a lot of my friends:

I can tell that we are gonna be friends…

There’s often a staff mtg for my department at Museum!Co on Wednesdays, and CaptJack will bring bagels for it — even when there’s not a meeting, he still brings bagels. (this kind of works out for me since as a contractor I don’t go to these meetings, so either way — bagels!)

But Claris, you might be thinking — no wheat, no bagel, yes?

Well… yes. but the New Yorker in me likes the free bagels concept on principle. shoosh.

Anyway, so it’s Wednesday, and there I am in the staff kitchen, putting my bowl of fruit & yogurt together for breakfast across from the mountain of pastries & bagels delivered by the CaptJack Express.

One of the girls that got hired the week before comes in, looks at the bagels & gave a sad little sigh, so I laughed & said, “I know, right? There’s almost always food out here, it’s actually kind of evil.”

She looked at me & replied, “It’s not just that. I’m actually gluten intolerant, but I really like bread, and that’s kind of my idea of hell.”

What can I say? Men have brothers-in-arms, women have sisters-in-intestines.

I cracked up. “Oh my god yes totally. I actually have the same problem. Hence my gluten-free breakfast.” :holds up bowl of fruit:

It was kind of awesome, I’m not gonna lie – we both admitted to constantly eating fruit & the fact that you just… reason out having bread every so often & resign yourself to the part where you’re gonna pay for it after.
example: later in the day, I told myself that the the half a bagel that I had wasn’t bad nutritionally because the cream cheese had lox in it, so I was actually just using the bagel as the vehicle to deliver extra protein to my system, so the protein outweighed the gluten… right? Right. totally. that’s what I said.

The conversation petered out, & she went, “Okay, so what’s your name again?”

“Claris. I’m sorry, yours?”

“lyssa.”

“Awesome. talk to you later?”

“Totally, we’ll exchange recipes.”

It’s like this whole little club that I never even knew I belonged to…

Music: After the Storm – Mumford & Sons

previous adventures

• babycakes, Enrique eff’s up, & I’ll be in my bunk.

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As part of my inevitable world domination (after which I shall hand things over to Anya to run, I have no patience for administration) I’m working on some SEO stuff.

While I flipped to the new template (that MrWhyt hates) due to functionality, I’m slowly changing things a piece at a time so it’s all so much more… me.

As part of figuring out what works & what doesn’t, while
I know a lot of you comment & Facebook like through the FB listings, if you could get in the habit of doing it here, that’d be rockin’.

Yes, I have a Pinterest account, but stuff like this is why I’m afraid to use it.

Why yes, actually I do turn everything to sh*t by Bloggess

They have a little blurb article on ApartmentTherapy.com called Expressing Your Love In Your Home. Any time I see something like that, I automatically have the urge to put my finger down my throat and imitate the dramatic huuuuuuuaaawwwwwk noise that I get the pleasure of hearing when Zoey eats grass then goes to the bathroom to throw up. (Yes, my dog throws up in the bathroom. We’ve been in LA a decade, that’s what she picked up. :sigh:)

I need… balance to my cuteness. and possibly learn to become a nicer person.

… eh, who are we kidding — the first one is more likely.

Well, I am looking to move this fall…

Swedish house up for sale, complete with skeleton
On the one hand, that’s actually kinda cool. On the other, I fear I’d never be able to get Zoey out of the basement — she’d just sit in front of the glass all day, trying to figure out how to get to the treasure trove of chewies…

Not to sound like a stalker, but just so you know, I’ve been in your car.

So last week, I told you the story of how I may or may not have had… an experience with our IT dept desk.

During that, I mention that Abrams & I had a mystery email that disappeared in her attempt to schedule coffee with me. Which for all I know, may have been the cosmos trying to help her.

Well we finally managed to defeat scheduling, the email system, and buck the gods enough to acquire 16oz of sugar & caffeine mixed with a small amount of milk.

In the course of this, Abrams mentioned that her husband worked as one of the South Park animators, which seriously is pretty freakin’ cool to begin with.

But then a thought occurred to me.
I know, I love when that happens to.

And I said, “Okay, this is probably gonna sound weird, but I think I’ve been in your car.”

–> Enter the backstory:
In the course of my time gettin’ my doll on as I ran around Los Angeles wearing pink & parking everyone’s car but mine, one of the parties that we did was the staff party for the South Park 100th Episode. It was up in this out of the way place north of PCH in Malibu, across from (one of) James Cameron’s house(s) — I remember that because James Cameron has these massive black dogs, and when I stand there & say, “Damn that’s a big dog” — that says somethin’.

Anyway, at that time, there were some concerns that the party might get hassled because the South Park crew had been having a small… problem with a certain supposed religious sect regarding an episode involving a certain actor whose name might rhyme with… “Com Schmooze”. It seems that the two parties were having a philosophical difference regarding the fact that Scientology believes they’re full of aliens and the rest of us think… they’re crazy.

Thus, the procedure for this party was that the cars were taking to an offsite lot & then driven back up to the out of the way location. (Incidentally, the event site did involve driving over an actual small body of running water through a rather dark, heavily aborial area, & all I could think of the whole night was Cartman in my head saying something about going over the river & through the motherf*cking woods & Grandma turning out to be a freakin’ Christmas poo.)

But, outside the Secret Garden, back down in the parking lot for the Malibu Public Library, I had an assignment. My mission: to put one of the plush South Park characters into the backseat of each car & seatbelt them in like actual children. (Yes, those were our actual instructions.)

Well, being me, I noticed that a great many of these cars had carseats, which not only filled me with joy at the thought that the people who gave us South Park are breeding to help combat the rabbit-like proliferation in Red States, but also allowed me to amuse myself by situating the dolls into the car seats instead of just in the backseat. Because when you’re spending six hours on a Friday night wandering between a parking lot & a secluded wood in Malibu, it’s the little things that make life better.

Thus, last week I was able to look at my co-worker & say, “…and you got in the car & there was a doll in your carseat. Yup, that was totally me.”

\m/

Welcome to LA, people — eventually, you discover that everybody really does know everyone, and the reason the car washes do such great business is that at some point, we’ve probably been in your car.

Music: 5 years time – Noah & the Whale

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- commentary on my bookcase that, sadly, is also a good summary of my life.

——————————–

you know you live in LA when…
you get a groupon thingy for 50% off a Brazilian Wax and Vajazzling‏.

Really? Even that gets a Groupon now? Really?

“sugar coating Satan’s sandwich,”
I guess that term was used in reference to the recent debt negotiations in Washington. As far as I’m concerned, “sugar coating Satan’s sandwich” just might be the best thing to come out of the entire mess. I think I might adopt it as my new phrase. It can come home with me & sleep on the bed that Ernie refuses to use. I’ll hug it & kiss it & call him George.

Scariest. Smurf. Ever.

As someone whose profession often gets classified as working in Marketing, I would like to take a moment & apologize to parents everywhere for this night-terror-inducing product tie-in:

Seriously? That thing startled the crap out of me at the corner of Venice & Overland Saturday morning — to the point where I actually pulled my car over and took a picture of it — I was that disturbed. Later that day, I showed the picture to my IT guy Jayson, saying, “You have a daughter — this is totally nightmares waiting to happen, right?”

To which he said, “Oh Christ, yah. Smurfs are weird enough as it is, but having them all giant is just wrong.”

So to every parent who will get to wake up to the sound of terrified screams in the middle of the night because their child is convinced that a giant Smurf is coming to rip out their guts… sorry dude.

To those kids — keep on screamin’, buddy. Those Smurfs are totally coming to rip your guts out.
Sweet dreams!

Today’s lesson: TV really is educational
The following moment of geographic ignorance totally could have been avoided by watching Season 7 of The West Wing.

Sachiel: no, there were more earthquakes today.
Claris: Near me? I didn’t feel anything. I’ve been working all day, I haven’t been online.
Sachiel: no, near Japan.
Claris: Jesus, those people just can’t catch freakin’ break.
Sachiel: Well I mean come on – I am Asian, & I think that building your civilization in a location named The Ring Of Fire has its risks. It’d be like… well you’re in California — what if you guys looked around & went, “Screw the fact that we’re in a fault line, let’s build a nuclear power plant!” That’d be kinda dumb.
Claris: We did. It’s in San Diego. I actually worked on the website for it when I worked for SCE.

:moment of silence:

Sachiel: Oh. oops.
Claris: lil’ bit, yah.

:moment of silence:

Claris: You know I’m gonna put that in the blog, right?
Sachiel: Yeah… I earned it.

How long do you keep your CDs?
As readers may know, I’ve been slowly cleaning out my apartment so that I can move this fall. I’ve gotten through a lot of stuff – my studio corner is neat, I’ve cleaned out my closet, I’m actually caught up on all of my mending.
(Yes, I have a sewing machine, & I can mend. It also means that should the need arise, I can sew yer trap shut. ;p~)

The next thing to go after is my office, which contains not only my bookcase, but also my computers , my filing, and this:

(yes badapplebetty, that’s totally the same shelving you sold me for $25 when you moved from LA.)

For the younger members of the audience, those are called CDs. (noun \cee-dees\)
Once upon a time, that was a vehicle on which the majority of music was listened to before Steve Jobs sucked us all in. (:sigh: Oh Steve, you magnificent bastard – savior & enabler, all in one turtlenecked package.)

Due to the fact that
a) I’m a big nerd
b) I did an initial cleaning of my CD collection over winter break from Museum!Co

I’ve already got all of my music ripped to electronic format & burned to a hard drive and a backup. I never actually use my CDs, and yet, I’m loath to let them go. It just seems so strange to be without some semblance of a physical backup other than a hard drive that is literally the smaller than my hand.

And yet, I could just bring the whole lot of it to Amoeba & either get store credit towards buying a dvd/bluray set of something, or take the cash & put it in a “Buy a firesafe for your backups” fund, which would really be the more practical solution. Plus, there’s a whole WALL of my apartment that I’d get back — I could hang up my violins & pretend I might actually play sadly attempt to practice on them again one day…

What do you think, interwebs? Should I give the vestiges of my musical hard copy the old heave-ho?

Music: 5 years time – Noah & the Whale

previous adventures

• my friends are better than yours, a plan, and higher learning.

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