Dog Gone

My dog is a pain in the ass.

I should probably clarify. I have two dogs. One is reasonably well-behaved. The other is named Sookie.

It was about 3:00 today when I received a phone call from my neighbor informing me that Sookie had escaped the back yard. Again.

For those of you who don't know, Sookie is the reincarnation of Harry Houdini.

I'm not kidding about that. It's true.

One of Sookie's early daring escape attempts

Thanks to Ben and Charlie who graciously installed a now-defunct invisible fence on Sunday, Sookie can add breaking out of a shock collar designed to KEEP DOGS INSIDE THE FENCE! to her list of great escape credits.


While famously well known to me, Sookie first gained notoriety among my neighbors for her escapades with an incident I like to call "the purloined shoes." This occurred sometime last summer when she dug a tunnel underneath the 6-foot wooden privacy fence from my yard into my neighbor's yard. Like today, it started with a phone call.

"Your little dog is running around my yard."

Luckily I was already on my way home from work. By the time I arrived, Sookie had grown bored after realizing the grass really isn't greener on the other side of the fence and wriggled back home via her underground tunnel.

That was escape #3 or #4.

Innocent enough for a dog prone to adventure, right? At the time, I was relieved she hadn't wandered off and willing to chalk up the experience to an amusing anecdote.

Until I discovered the shoe. Size 12 men's Nike. I found it in my yard the next morning. Right where Sookie had left it.

Like most travelers, Sookie decided she needed a souvenir of the experience and dragged my neighbor's running shoe through her underground tunnel into my yard. Funny, right?

Wrong.

Sookie was not content with just one purloined shoe. She went back through the tunnel to steal the other one for a matched set!

So when I got the call at 3:00 today that Sookie was loose again, mission Capture & Contain was already a team effort. My neighbor K called J to call me at work because K didn't have my cell phone number. That's 2 neighbors involved already.

Now, I want all of you to remember the invisible fence, which actually worked for 1 day before Sookie figured out how to beat it.

So there I was downtown, 26 miles away, getting the news that my dog was running loose in the neighborhood after having just spent $142 on a freakin' invisible fence that didn't work. I couldn't drive home because I rode the bus to work. So I had to ask my friend Charlie to drive me home to look for the little bitch.

Yeah, that's right. I called her a bitch. Because, you know, she is.

So we wade through Atlanta traffic with me freaking out in the car imagining all that went wrong. Did the collar come off? It has a battery inside it. And OMG, if it fell off in the yard, could Finn have eaten the battery?

We get to my house. I have a plan of action worked out. We can drive around my neighborhood looking for Sook. But as it turns out, Sookie had outfoxed us.

She broke out of the yard, stole some kid's plastic ball, and then broke back INTO the yard.

She was there waiting for us with a great big grin when I walked out back.

So, crisis averted, Charlie and I set about trying Sookie-proof the yard again while she watched. Plotting her next escape.

Here's the note my neighbor left taped to my front door:

"Amanda, I just wanted you to know
I'm fairly certain your dog growled the "F" word
at me when I put the cement in her escape tunnel!"

Thanks to Charlie's DIY handymanliness, the invisible fence wire has been spliced back together, the escape holes filled in with cement stones, and the destroyed red collar replaced with a brand new pink collar--shock hardware refitted onto the new collar. 

Needless to say, Sook was not happy.

You suck!

Playing dead as a bid for sympathy in her new collar.

Don't be fooled by the cute face. This bitch is one bad dog.  

Childhood Crushes

It’s been awhile since I wrote a blog and the truth is I have nothing exceptionally interesting to say, which is probably a good thing since no one really reads this blog anyway.

So I can basically say whatever I want about whoever I want with no fear of repercussion.

Matt Schafer is a total girly-girl!

(Not that I have any fear, mind you – it’s just an expression.)

The actual topic I’d like to discuss today is Childhood Crushes. Having recently watched the  The A-Team movie based on one of my all-time favorite childhood TV shows, I started thinking about the men I admired way back in the days when cell phones looked like this.

Revisiting the icons of coolness who starred in my girlhood fantasies inspired the thought…What characteristics do these men have in common? And more importantly, is there any correlation between my past crushes and my present choices in men?

Let’s examine the contenders (in no particular order):

1. Christopher Reeve (Superman)



*Sigh*

No surprise here. Superman inspires adoration in pretty much the entire female gender. But for me, there is only one name synonymous with Superman, and that’s Christopher Reeve. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was madly in swoon with Superman growing up. So much so that as an adult, I forced my younger sister Margaret (15 years younger, who had never even HEARD of Christopher Reeve—GASP!) to watch the movies with me. I am proud to say that thanks to my efforts, I was successfully able to pass along my childhood crush to Margaret, who will continue the tradition some day with her future daughters.

2. Dirk Benedict (Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck in The A-Team)



Face + Mandy sittin' in a tree...

This one’s simple enough to figure out. I was a military brat and surrounded by soldiers living on base for most of my childhood. In his role as Faceman, Dirk Benedict played an ex-war hero and suave, smooth-talking con man able to get his hands on pretty much anything the team needed to pull off their missions. How cool is that? Plus, he was cute! What more could a young girl want?

3. John Wayne (The Duke)


The Duke on horseback. Note the manly posture.


I really don’t think this one needs any explanation. John Wayne IS The Ultimate Man. The Duke is still sacred to me, and I can’t even list off a series of roles he played to inspire my childhood crush, because I love everything the man ever made. I recall watching John Wayne films with my dad growing up and the complete awe with which The Duke Manned Up and handled a situation whether it be with words, fists, or guns.

5. Arnold Schwarzenegger (“Dutch” in Predator and the title role in Conan the Barbarian)

Men with big guns.  Mmm-mmm.

OK, I’ll admit both these roles are so over-the-top testosterone-charged as to border on B-movie cheesy, but that doesn’t change the fact that Schwarzenegger was a total badass tough-guy! The man kicked ass for most of his film career until some slack-jawed idiot decided he should start making crappy comedies like Junior and Kindergarten Cop. But however silly and ridiculous his roles eventually became, he still made some of the best action flicks ever produced. In much the same way boobs fascinate men, Arnie’s macho muscles kept my impressionable young eyes glued to the screen. It totally didn’t hurt that he could wield a sword or submachine gun with equal finesse.

6. Cary Elwes (“Westley” in The Princess Bride)


"As you wish, Amanda."

Merely the mention of this movie makes me smile with fond memories. The Princess Bride is without a doubt sheer, cinematic genius. Westley’s famous line: “As you wish” is the epitome of romantic. In classic hero tradition, Westley recues the princess and rides off into the sunset. Throw in his alter-ego Dread Pirate Roberts, and you’ve got Hero + Bad Boy all rolled into one.  How awesome is that?

7. Michael J. Fox (“Marty McFly” in Back to the Future)

He's a cutie patootie!

Michael J. Fox is a definite cutie. I first became enamored of him during his role as Alex Keaton in Family Ties, but it wasn’t until he played Marty McFly in the sci-fi classic Back to the Future trilogy that I developed a full-blown crush. Nothing beats watching Marty shred the guitar singing Johnny B. Goode at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance.

8. Marc Singer (“Dar” in the Beastmaster)

"Stay back--this beast is fierce."

Dar did it for me. You’ve got a half-naked, muscled hero in a loincloth—a loincloth people, did I mention that part?—who telepathically communicates with animals and is out to avenge the murder of his village by killing an evil sorcerer-king. With a sword. In a loincloth. That pretty much sums it up for me. Having the opportunity to re-visit my childhood crush by meeting Marc Singer in person at Dragon*Con 2007—getting a picture with him—and listening to him talk about his experiences filming The Beastmaster absolutely fulfilled a childhood fantasy.

Marc: This pic'll cost you $20 bucks.
Me: How much if you take your shirt off?

So, what do these 8 men having common?

*Shrug*

It’s not for me to psychoanalyze myself online.

But just in case any of you are interested….(Ben)

If you really want to dress in costume for this year’s Dragon*Con, any of these characters would be awesome!

Or, you know, if you feel like wearing a loincloth and wielding a sword in every-day life, that’d be alright too.

(Matt Schafer totally does this when he visits Swinging Richard’s.)