The One Without the Junior Mints

Last night, I went to a movie with a gift card Joanna gave me for Christmas. $25, enough for two movie tickets and a snack. I skipped dessert at the restaurant so I could have my favorite movie snack -- Junior Mints. However, when I reached the candy counter, I was dismayed to find that AMC theaters, mine at least, don't carry Junior Mints.

What's wrong with this picture? I thought Junior Mints were a movie staple for everyone. How could a movie theater have no Junior Mints? In a Sex and the City episode, Carrie is on a date and when her date suggests popcorn, she says, "Uh-oh, I'm a Junior Mint girl. I'm not sure this will work." The candy itself is so great that it's featured in a Seinfeld episode. How can it not be at my movie theater? What a letdown.

I decided on Milk Duds, which are excellent, but I left the movie a little disappointed. It's been a long time since I've been to the movies, granted, but has anyone else noticed this disturbing trend at theaters?

The One Where Christmas Is Officially Over

It happened yesterday at lunchtime. Christmas officially ended for me. Yes, the drama created by my father's neverending quest to ruin every holiday I ever have ended Sunday as did the visit from my mom. Ross and I exchanged presents in October. I think I got the last of my presents from friends three days ago when I got my thoughtful package from Mon. I don't put up Christmas lights or a Christmas tree, and I don't listen to Christmas music, being quite the grinch I apparently am.

So what marks the official end of Christmas, you may ask? Well, I finished the last of my mom's toffee yesterday after lunch. That marks the end of Christmas. Even though there's still plenty of fudge, pie and peanut brittle, when my favorite Christmas candy is finished, so is my holiday.

This Christmas was actually the best I've had in awhile. I didn't go home for the holidays, so family drama was limited to a few nights of phone calls. Yes, it did put a damper, but there's a difference between being trapped in a house 20 miles from the nearest town with a stoplight with the drama and being able to hang up the phone, cry for a few minutes and then hit the 24-hour Starbucks. So there you have it, I survived again. :)

I've been off all this week, so even work drama couldn't get me down. Being the type of person who never sits still, I made a list of things I wanted to do, and I've done most of them. Yesterday, though, I wasn't feeling well after spending four hours hosting a detection dog practice session at the water recycling plant and actually took the day to rest. Four hours in the complete dark walking around in the cold (relative, of course) watching dogs sniff for dope and bombs can really take a lot out of you. My boss does it with her dogs, and they're always looking for new places to practice searching. She actually gets called out by the police when there's a bomb threat. But it's so fun to watch dogs do something they're trained to do. All she has to do with her experienced dog is say, "Find it" and he searches every bush, every car, every crevice, without her directing him at all and he finds the scent and alerts her by sitting next to it. He's amazing. The main thing now is training her. The trainer put down several things that represented trip wires and booby traps to show her that her following her dog so closely could get her killed. It really freaked her out. And, today, I'm even going on a date -- dinner and a movie, things I never make time to do.

I did have an excellent training session today with Chubbs. I took him to the park and had him sit while a bunch of kids came up and pet him. He's going to be such a great therapy dog. I bought the Delta Society home-handlers course so I can get him evaluated soon and get started.

Muggsy has been quite on edge. He attacked Chubbs twice this week and bit my foot when I tried to take a bone from me. He's also been barking at every noise outside. Guess I'll never know what makes him tick. He's in his quiet space cooling out right now.

Fenway has been having quite a bout of allergies, so I've been researching supplements online to make her less miserable. I hope I've found some combinations that will work. Poor thing.

We're finally less than a week away from the Rose Bowl. I was never able to get Ross tickets, so I guess we'll be watching it from the Texas Exes bar. I'm getting really tired of the hype, so I'll be glad when this is over, no matter who wins. Ross keeps complaining about how USC is getting so much hype, but imagine being a fan of a team that's in one of the other BCS bowls. No one is talking about anything but the Rose Bowl. I'm starting to forget who's even playing in those other major bowls since we never hear about them. Apparently, the guy I bet at work found a USC sticker that will take up my entire back window. How obnoxious is that? But he was kind enough to find one that won't leave sticker marks when it's removed.

Anyone who lives in Texas see anything obnoxious enough to rival that? I can't find anything around here...

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope 2006 will be as good to everyone -- or better -- as 2005 was.

The One With the Certificates

This is graduation weekend for my November classes, and today, I had the most fun. I was just exhausted yesterday because no one but me showed up for work Friday and I'm just swamped at my emotionally draining job. I couldn't sleep last night because I kept having weird dreams, but once I got to dog class, I just felt great. There are only two dogs in my Saturday class, but they're very well-behaved and fun.

Then, I had my final lesson of a seven-lesson package with a Golden retriever that I have been training for three months. When I left, they gave me a hug. It's like I've become a part of the family I've been visiting so often. But they are the perfect family. In general, you can always tell if people are going to have well-behaved dogs by the way their children act. As a general rule, people who let their children get away with anything will let their dogs get away with anything, and people who put rules on their children put rules on their dogs. When the mother of this family told me they had boys ages 6 and 8, I was dreading the job. But these are the most well-behaved boys. They shake my hand when I arrive and when I leave, they pay attention, they participate in the training and they listen to what I say. I've really enjoyed getting to know them. Never fear, though. They're in the Tuesday RPV class starting in January. :)

I also had another lesson with the two St. Bernards I've been seeing weekly. They are just so cute. And they're doing really well at their training. Today, the husband, who I usually work with, was out of town, but his wife, who I have never met, was in town, so I came by to work with her. They don't listen to her as well, but training still went well.

AND I got a certificate of my own today -- Chubbs received his Canine Good Citizen certificate. I'm so going to get it framed. I think it's so cute. I'm also going to get him a little tag for his collar. I'm looking into what organizations to join with him. I can't wait.

OK, that's all for now. I have five proposals to read for work and I have to clean the house this weekend for my mom's visit next week.

The One With the Bet

I thought you would find this funny. Despite all of the Kansas stuff (outnumbered only by pictures of my dogs) in my cubicle, several of the people I work with seem to think that I either went to Texas or heavily support them. I guess it's the Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Mike Modano and A-Rod bobble heads that I have on a shelf. Dunno.

Anyway, a guy who went to USC decided he wanted to bet me this week on the Rose Bowl. I usually play along with the teasing, pretending I really did care that Texas A&M gave Texas a real run for its money or that Bush beat out Young for the Heismann. And I played along this week as well, pretending that I actually do want Texas to beat USC in the Rose Bowl.

We bet bumper stickers. The loser has to have the winner's bumper sticker on his/her car for a week. All this really means to me is that I'll have to have a USC sticker next to the KANSAS sticker on my car for a week. It'll probably be more annoying for Ross than me. But I'm amused by it, so I made the bet. Anyone have a Texas sticker I can borrow, just in case? :)

The One with the Jealous Basset Hound

I need some advice from the dog guru! I'm having Muggsy/Chubbs problems with Maggie and Theo. She's getting aggressive towards him about food and lovin's. For example, this morning she started eating the food out of "his" bowl and when he came around to eat she growled, barked and bit at him. Chandler pulled her away and redirected her to "her" bowl. (How they tell the difference I don't know. The bowls look exactly the same to me! ;)

Another example: they have a big nyla bone they've been working on for months. Maggie will walk up to Theo and just stare at him until he drops it and slinks away. Then she grabs it. I've even seen Theo take the bone TO her!

And if she's getting petted and Theo walks up for some love, she barks at him. They usually get along, playing together and cleaning each other's ears (gross). She's NEVER been this way towards David, even though he commands a large portion of our attention. Help!

The One with the Superstar

I have to brag on my son! His school put on a Christmas pagent last night. Each class had a presentation ... even the infants put on a little fashion show. Very cute. David's class (Preschool I, who are all 3) did a manger scene and David was the angel. He had a solo! He was the only kid to sing a solo and his teachers selected him b/c he sings to the kids in his class all the time. Apparently they sit around in a circle and he stands up and sings for them.

I was a little nervous b/c they put his name in the program in big letters. I was scared he wouldn't actually do it! But he stepped up, took the mic and belted out his rendition of "This is the Day." Now, I realize this is not a traditional Christmas carol, but it's the song he has down by heart. He was like a little professional! At the end he even did a fancy finale! He sings the last three words really loud and kind of shakes his head (ya know, for vibrato).

He was the star of the show and everyone just couldn't get over that a three-year-old had the guts to sing a solo to about 150 parents and grandparents. I was a very proud mama. I'm going to post pictures as soon as we have them. And of course, Chandler's dad taped it, so I'll be distributing copies of those too. :)

The One With More Lies

It's almost getting amusing. Since I spent my last blog entry complaining about trouble with Ass and my consultants, I thought I'd give a brief update. Since Joanna threatened to quit if Ass didn't shape up, he promised that he would have the consultants submit the information design that I came up with as a compromise between what they wanted and what our staff wanted. Ass called us into his office yesterday to tell us that he had taken care of this and the compromise information design would be presented. He turned the consultants back over to me and told me to take care of it.

Naively, I made this phone call, believing that my boss might actually have told me the truth. Nope. According to the consultant, who was very surprised to hear what I had to say, that's not the conversation that had been had at all and they would be submitting the information design that they went over my head to submit to the Board.

They are using the reasoning that they did a useability study with 10 people from the public and found their way to be better. I'm a former reporter. I can disect those things, and I can give you a dozen reason why their study was bogus, the first being that they didn't compare it to any other information design. So with my design, they would have been able to find things in the first click as well. They just didn't make the comparison.

Anyway, after having this conversation and finding that my boss lied AGAIN, I just had to laugh. I can't be mad anymore. It's just getting too ridiculous. You'd think someone who was the General Manager of two powerful water districts would be smart enough to lie in a way that he wouldn't get caught less than three hours later. But I guess not.

So that's my job update. On the positive front, I have been having private lessons with two St. Bernard pups that I just love, and I recently finished a four-lesson package with much success. I had their recall so perfect that they would charge toward the house at the sound of their owners voice from down the street. The owners liked me so much that they want to do additional lessons!! I'm really excited. So I have another full dog training day Saturday, which makes me happy. I also graduate all my classes this week. We've started incorporating games into our teaching, so graduation is going to be several contests. Should be a lot of fun.

Alright, back to work now. Have to go drive a couple of recycled water alignments. I know you all are extremely jealous of my life. :)

The One Where Dogs Laugh

Scientists recently discovered that dogs laugh. When they are lightly panting, not tired or stressed, they are actually laughing. Apparently, they played this sound in kennels all over and 100 percent of the time, when the dogs heard the noise, they all calmed almost immediately and began to join in. Several dog trainers on my lists reported that they tried it with their dogs and saw them calm and join in as well. I haven't tried with my dogs because they're sleeping, but I have seen them start panting after a stressful event in a way that you can clearly see they have relaxed. And I can tell by looking at my dogs eyes if they are happy. So I can remember several times when I bet my dogs are cracking up about something. I think that's neat.

Speaking of dogs, I had a good experience with Muggsy today. A neighbor was shooting off fireworks and he barely reacted. I was able to calm him easily by having him look at me while I petted him. Pretty soon, he was coming to me for pets every time he heard the noise. I can't even explain how much he has improved in the last six months. It's amazing.

Weekends are so great. I feel so much better than I did last week. I can't wait until the week after Christmas -- I have the whole week off. Greatness.

Ross and I reached a compromise on the Rose Bowl. I've been offering to drop $1200 or whatever it takes to get him to the game. I just think it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience to have your team playing for a national championship nearby. It's fun. Even though it ended poorly, I wouldn't have traded that trip to New Orleans with my college roommate and her little sister for anything. Sitting in the rafters watching Kansas beat Marquette by 40, running from McDonalds to the stadium in the pouring rain to get to the championship game, getting caught sneaking into the Texas private room to get our picture taken with James Thomas, singing the Kansas fight song to some Arizona fans at 5 a.m. on Bourbon St., not sleeping for 24 hours and then sleeping until 6 p.m. with 10 people in our hotel room...all things I will smile about when I'm old and don't do fun things anymore. I can't imagine why Ross wouldn't want to go to the Rose Bowl. He keeps saying that it's not that important to him and he'd rather just watch it at home with me. With me? As much as I try to be a good girlfriend, I probably won't even be cheering for his team. At the very least, I don't care. I won't even let him cheer because it upsets Muggsy. I even tried to convince him to let me buy him a plane ticket to Dallas so he could watch the game with his friends. Hey, you're talking to the girl who bought airplane tickets to St. Louis in December last year because she was convinced her team would be there. It's important to me to watch these games with my closest friends. I don't think I'll ever outgrow that.

Anyway, after much arguing about this, we decided to hit the official Texas Exes Bar, which just happens to be a mile from our house, around lunchtime and watch the game there. That way, he can celebrate with Texas fans who are actually as excited as he is that his team is winning -- or cry in his beer with people who are as depressed as he is. I think that will be much more fun than sitting on the couch with me in our quiet house.

OK, guess it's time to get myself ready for another long and painful week of work. Good-night.

The One With the Crappy Job and the Canine Good Citizen

I know, I know. I'm behind on my blogging. I thought the e-mailing at work would be enough for you, Mon, but I guess not. I have been swamped at work. We have four huge documents due by the end of the year and I seem to be the only person in the office who knows where to put a comma, so I have to do all the editing and consultant managing. It's been quite a chore. So here's the long-awaited blog.

Let's start with the good news, shall we? Chubbs is a Canine Good Citizen!! He passed his test Tuesday, though he struggled a little with the down-stay. It's weird because he's never had trouble with that, but my boss said I was clearly nervous and making him nervous. But he did perfectly on everything that requires temperament testing, which is the important part of the test. He did great. Now, I'm going to get him started with the Delta Society. It will require another test, but we'll be able to go to nursing homes, assisted care living facilities and children's hospitals to cheer people up. I'm so excited. I think he will love that.

Muggsy is doing great as well. He still hates new people, but he and I have developed a very strong relationship. When we go running, I let him off-leash now, and he always stays close by. When he gets ahead, he stops and waits, looking at me and wagging his tail, like 'What's up, Mom. Hurry up.' We have so much fun. I've been so tired lately that I haven't done much training, but after the first of the year, we'll be back to training every day again. I'll also have classes five days a week, but one of those is a fiction writing class at UCLA that I'm taking because I want to enjoy writing again.

That brings me to how much I hate my job, specifically the people I work for. This week has been absolute crap. The consultants that we didn't want to hire but had to because of our corrupt Directors didn't like that I have been critiquing their work (hello -- I'm the client!!) and decided to hold a meeting with the Board members. My boss went and didn't invite me to at least defend myself. So my manager, Joanna, told me I could have the afternoon off. I had too much work to do, but I worked from home and I got a call from her. My boss, we'll call him Ass since that's actually very close to his real name, called her from a meeting across LA to come back and attend this ad hoc committee meeting, basically to be told by the Directors that she and I don't know what we're doing and we need to listen to the consultants more. So I was told that the people I manage need to start managing me. Just because the consultants are giving them kickbacks. (Once I can prove that, I'm going straight to the papers!!) The consultants kept throwing me under the bus, and Ass was doing nothing to defend me. And he backs me to my face, telling me I'm doing the right thing and don't have to worry about this happening. Thankfully, Joanna defended me and then went on to completely chew out Ass and tell him that all of us were thinking about leaving. He freaked out and said he would do better but he lies. And I'm still not sure how I'm supposed to manage my consultants now. This is just one example, but it's really starting to wear on me.

Here's my problem: I'm not fake. I like people who tell the truth. Even if I don't want to hear it, I hate people who are fake. Hello!! I used to be a reporter. I can't read bullshit. Don't feed it to me. But I work for the most unethical people. I could never survive in politics (good luck, Travis) because I hate games and I don't have thick skin. I just don't. I don't like it, but I can't help who I am. And I care about my job. I want it to mean something. I took this job because educating people about water in So. Cal. seemed like a great opportunity to do something that mattered. But elected officials don't care about their constituents. They care about spending half a million dollars mass mailing newsletters and $25,000 hosting town meetings that no one comes to but gets their names out in the community. They spend all their time campaigning and criticizing and not working on issues that really matter. I'm frustrated. I hate seeing that side of people.

And Ass has no backbone, so he just ducks and lets us get hit with all the shit that's flying around. I'm very lucky to have had wonderful bosses at the Morning News, and I'm just not sure what to do with a boss who's less of a man than I am.

That was a lot of complaining. I'm sorry. Back to good stuff. I did all my Christmas shopping online this year and will have all my presents mailed out by Monday. Those of you who know me (and usually get their birthday presents a couple months after the actual day) know what a huge accomplishment this is. But I didn't have to brave the malls and I'm excited about Christmas this year -- no family drama, just a quiet holiday with the people I love the most (except you, Mon).

And I promise to start writing more regularly again. As you can see, I didn't feel that I had much to say that wasn't bitchy, and my mom always says, "If you can't say something nice, don't say nuthun at all." :)

The One Where I Miss my Best Friend

I very much miss Rachel's posts. The blog is such a great way to keep up with my far away friend, and I loved hearing all her stories about dog training or her kids. She's a terrific writer, which makes her a great story-teller. I just felt more connected to her through this blog, like we had something that was just ours (even though we may have a few other fans out there ...) And now that she hasn't felt like posting lately, I wanted to let her know how much I missed her.

Heart & Smiles & Love, Monica

The One with the Dressing

Every family celebrates holidays differently. For my family, Thanksgiving was always a laid-back time of food, football and laughter. We don't get uptight about the food, but we do set out the fancy china and my sister and I always would make little placecards for every. My mom still has them back to when we were in grade-school. When you fall in love with someone, you get to spend a lot of those holidays with their family and of course, their traditions are different. That leads me to ... The One with the Dressing.

This Thanksgiving was spent at Chandler's parents house. Those in attendance were his parents, his grandparent's (the Mitchell's), his sister, her K-State husband and their two girls. I was assigned to bring the dressing. I took it upon myself to also make a pumpkin pie. So Thanksgiving morning, I got up and made the cornbread for the dressing (you mean you don't just pour the breadcrumbs out of the StoveTop cannister?) and made the pumpkin pie. Against my will, Chandler thought we could just assemble the dressing and bake it (for an hour) at his mom's. I was nervous. I had a foreshadowing that all food should be prepared when we arrived, but there wasn't enough time. We were supposed to eat at noon (another thing my family does differently, we usually eat in the afternoon), and if I baked it at my house, we would be late.

So Chandler walks in the door first, carrying all the groceries to make the dressing. I'm not sure what exactly was said, but his sister was not happy that we were so irresponsible and unprepared as to show up an hour b/4 we were supposed to eat and expect to cook the dressing there. I was irrate. The potatoes weren't even washed yet! No yams were yamming. Nothing was done yet. Then there was another comment, from the same sister, about how she "got in trouble for giving it away in the first place." Because we all know what an incompetent cook I am. So I'm not a Pampered Chef consultant. Sor-ry!

Anyway, I was pretty pissed. I didn't say anything, just got my ass to work on that stuffing. Chandler's mom apologized for her. But she, of course, never apologized. Just pretended like it never happened. Her job was to make a salad. B/c that's all she ate for Thanksgiving dinner. So I excused her behavior, assuming that her blood sugar was low.

Then today, not quite a week after Thanksgiving, I get an email from her apologizing for her behavior, and for all the times in the past that she may have hurt them. (Obviously, we're not the best of friends.) Holy shit, I thought. It must be the Apocalypse. Hell has frozen over. Someone informed her that she has been a royal bitch to me for the past 8 years. (Actually, it's gotten a lot better since we had David. Apparently I am more acceptable now that I've become a mother. Which is a whole other post ...)

So I guess I will reply and tell her I appreciate the apology. Becuase I do. But it's a little late sister to become the best of friends. That ship has sailed. She made little-to-no-effort to welcome me into her family. So I'm holding the infamous Weaver grudge. But you can't just poop on someone for years and then expect them to trust you. Even if I have forgiven her, I'm never going to let my guard down with her. I'm not going to let her in. Besides, if we didn't both love Chandler, we would NEVER be friends. We have NOTHING in common. We don't think alike AT ALL. Ahhh ... in-laws! Can't live with 'em and your spouse won't let you kill 'em.