What would have been my President’s Day post if my dog hadn’t unleashed the contents of his bowels all over my living room yesterday

First of all, you should know that the hubby and I had a splendid (yes, I said splendid) Valentine’s Day with Nora and her boyfriend TDH. She captured the day’s events perfectly with a timeline post so if you want the play-by-play of all the fun we had, please visit her site. Or if you don’t feel like clicking, I’ll just tell you that we had a blast!

Secondly, I have a new header, thanks to the fabulous Stephanie. Between work, her hectic travel schedule, cooking adventures, home repairs, and life, she still found time to design a new header for me. If that isn’t bloggy love, then I don’t know what bloggy love is.

Thirdly, I was interviewed by the lovely Jennifer as part of some type of interview-y game. So here are her questions and my answers:

1. What’s your current obsession/addiction? I have a few. Twitter/iPhone/Running/Vacation planning/and foods with lots of fiber (think Fiber One granola bars, NOT Metamucil or Benefiber. I’m getting old, but not THAT old.)

2. What was the last thing you said aloud? “Ok sounds good.”

3. What was the last thing you bought? A Cherry Coke Zero and a pack of gum. But what I really wanted was a bag of jalapeno Cheetos. I’ve never had them, but they looked better than my soda and gum.

4. List 3 places in the United States that you’d like to visit: Oh Jen, you know me and my travel addiction so well! Actually, due to an earlier weekend getaway cancellation, we now have two tickets with Southwest that we need to use by the end of 2009, so we’ve been contemplating where to go. I would say our top three choices are:
1. Napa Valley/San Francisco
2. Boston
3. Lake Tahoe (because Southwest doesn’t fly to Hawaii)

5. What is your most challenging goal? Losing weight. I’ve struggled with my weight my entire life and unfortunately, I think I always will (see Cheetos confession above). That and my goal to win the lottery. If only I could find out what the winning numbers would be BEFORE the drawing. My life goals would be so much easier to attain.

Ah, I love interviews.

If you would like to play along here are the instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. You know, to pay-it-forward and keep this little interview game going.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions and so on and so forth
The first five ‘askers’ get the interview! (Though I’ll interview anyone who plays along – even if I get more than five requests. Because I’m nice like that.)

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President’s Day must be my own personal Friday the 13th

Warning: If you’re eating, you may want to stop. Or bookmark this post for when you’re not eating.

I had a perfectly uneventful, non-stressful day at work and expected my evening to go just as smoothly. I was a little tired from yesterday’s workout so I decided not to try and attempt the gym again tonight. I spent my entire commute home thinking about how to spend the rest of my night. I decided on a simple night of a low-cal dinner, maybe some laundry, blogging, and turn-in early for a little extra sleep.

So when I walked through the door, the last thing I expected was to be knocked almost senseless by a cloud of dog shit fumes. Apparently the dog was struck with a bad case of diarrhea and lost control of his bowels not once, but twice on my hardwood floors. Oh and he also threw up on the carpet. And if that wasn’t bad enough on it’s own, he apparently did this fairly early in the day because it was starting to, uh, harden around the edges. And my only point in divulging that amount of detail is to convey just how long the smell had been permeating and tainting the air within my home. There wasn’t a room in my house – not even the basement – that contained breathable air. I opened the windows, lit all my candles, sprayed air freshener and went to work while trying not to pass out. I’m surprised at how well my gag-reflexes stayed in check. Nearly an hour, three pairs of plastic gloves, and a half a roll of paper towels later, I did all I could. But the smell…it lingered. I was starving for dinner but the thought of eating anything in that environment just repulsed me, so I left – with the windows down and the candles burning – to go to the grocery store and kill some time.

Just a tip: Don’t go to the grocery store hungry. Also, don’t go pissed off, or you will end up with roughly four bottles of wine in your cart. Four bottles of wine, and ice cream.

I saw one of my neighbors at the store but pretended not to see her. The last thing I wanted to do was make chit chat while trying to ignore the smell of dog crap that must be clinging to my nose hairs. After half an hour, I could still smell it. I sniffed my hair, wondering if the fumes were like that of cigarette smoke that tends to cling to every fiber it comes in contact with.

I came home thankful to find that 1) my house was still standing and hadn’t been broken into and 2) the smell was gone, replaced with a mixture of apple pie and vanilla (from my candles). It was a tad frigid, but who’s going to complain about that when just a couple of hours ago it was a sweltering sauna of dog shit?

The most frustrating part of all of this though wasn’t the mess itself. It was the fact that my husband wouldn’t answer his damn phone. Nothing is more aggravating to me than having something urgent to tell him and then not being able to get a hold of him. He’s notorious for never having his cell phone on him. Usually I just hang up and don’t even bother with leaving a message (because he never checks those either. He just calls back.) but tonight, I had just spent an hour cleaning up dog mess and another hour away from home, waiting for the stench to clear out so I could come home and fix dinner. I was hungry, tired, and a tad on the irritated side, so I left him a message. A message that basically said he shouldn’t even have a cell phone since he never uses it. Except with a lot more cursings. A message that was probably so vile that if I would’ve threw in a few more f-bombs, it may have rivaled one of Christian Bale’s recent outbursts. Good thing he doesn’t know how to save voice mails and post them to the Internet.

But life gets even funnier. Thinking the worst was over, I wasn’t about to let a little (okay, like 5 lbs) of dog shit ruin my night, and my diet, not matter how much I wanted to use my unfortunate luck as an excuse to say “fuck it” and eat Steak N Shake. I came home and microwaved a piece of frozen fish. The first bite was a little chewy, but still edible. The second bite however left me with a fish bone stuck in the roof of my mouth, jammed so far up there that I wondered how close it came to hitting my brain. I threw the rest, including the other filet in the box, immediately in the trash. (Gordman’s frozen blackened/Cajun fish fillets? You’re on my shit list.)

So popcorn and wine it is! Except I didn’t check the label of the popcorn and ended up making kettle corn instead of regular light butter popcorn. Can nothing just go my way today?!  I think I’ll just go to bed before I hurt myself falling up the stairs.

*And for those of you who are genuinely concerned about the health of my dog – all two of you – I assure you he is fine. We fed him some leftover steak fat from last night’s dinner – something we rarely do – and apparently it didn’t sit too well with him. As strange as it sounds, I think my dog is steak-intolerant. This is only the second time he has ever had steak in his life. The first time ended with him projectile pooping in our car on our way back from Memphis. Trust me, that story is just as bad as it sounds. At the time, I didn’t think it could possibly be the steak, but today’s incident proves it. Steak = projectile pooping. So no more steak for him.

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