Deuces

My dad cooked everyday. And when he wasn't cooking for his heathen children, he was cooking for his other beastly creatures: the dogs. Who cooks for their dogs?  Not as uncommon as you'd think, but Lord have mercy on me if I ever thought about cooking for my cats. Spoiled enough, indeed.  The cats eat as often as Hobbits and have bellies and shiny coats to prove it.  They laze around like they live at the Chateau Marmont and yet they still have the audacity to ignore me when I could use a good cat-hug.  And here I am now, drenched in the stench of a home-cooked meal.... for my dog. Oy yes.  I need to back-track.... We kept the dog. You knew we would, didn't you?  Go on, say it.  "I told you so..." Well what no one told me was that I would no longer enjoy sleeping in quite as late as I'd like.  Penny Gwen, our poochy pooch, who sleeps beside us, is sure to paw at my face and dig her wet nose into my dry face as a way of saying "woman, I nee

My mother and I drove that long and windy road to Vegas this week.... Just us two.... and my in-laws and husband drove separately for the sake of comfort and perhaps for the sake of saving them from "inside" stories that only people in my family would understand and laugh about. As we drove that long and windy road we shook just a bit.  I know I am in need of a wheel alignment, but where is the fun in "funemployment" if I can't enjoy being laid off to procrastinate things that need to be taken care of?  Hmm? And as we started to shake just where the speed needle hits 65, my mother said "what is this?  The Bobcat?" Laughter ensued. Memories of the Bobcat. Do you know what a Bobcat is?  The Bobcat was a car.  The ugly cousin to the Pinto.  And like the Pinto, she was hideous. There is some discrepancy as to what we paid for that used car.  I say $600.00, my mom thinks it was $400.00.  But, we definitely got what we paid for. I suppo

I don't believe in class distinctions.  I do, however, believe in class...  I don't believe in buying cats and dogs as pets. Maybe because I love me a good deal, but my free dog and my bargain kitties are the best damn pets in the whole wide world...  I don't believe in exercising too much unless there is a pending pool party.  Some might say its because I have severe bouts of laziness- in which case I would have to agree...  I don't believe that everything happens for a reason.  I often wonder how people can use that expression so candidly and not realize how vapid it can sound when some people are suffering for no good reason. I don't believe I have a green thumb.  10 brown withers-and-dies thumbs have I... I don't believe I will ever understand mathematical equations, aside from general adding and subtracting.  I have shed many a tear over algebraic formulas in college... I don't believe most salespeople.  God blessed me with an ability to cock an eyebrow

I love my in-laws... I do. I do. I do! And tonight by special demand they will be arriving in sunny (?) California to stay with us.   I am excited.  I am. I am. I am! O.K.... so outside is a bit bleak at the moment.  But bleak means snow-capped mountains tomorrow, and there is nothing quite as breath-taking in California as beautiful sunshine and white mountains at the same time.  Nothing. And I remember Lloyd's first visit to California.  It was a spring day much like today.  And he could not get over how gorgeous the mountains were.  So gorgeous, in fact, he insisted on taking multitudes of photos of them.  And for those of us spoiled by a lifetime living in one of God's most glorious places on Earth, we could not appreciate something so beautiful.  And I kept asking him why he was taking pictures of the mountains, and on a day like today, I know why. Ad my in-laws will be able to see, for the very first time, what a California coastline looks like.  And if we are luc

The day after we brought the tan puppy home we discovered 3 things. 1.  She is not tan.  She is a beautiful reddish, coppery color. 2.  She is not a puppy, but around 5 years old. 3.  She will not be ours forever. The first 2 discoveries were "Oh, really?" moments.  The third discovery made me take a deep breath, and then I smiled warmly. The pup is a lover, not a fighter.  She stares at you with the deepest look of love and when you put her in a warm soapy tub her eyes close just a little and you feel like her personal masseuse.  If only I can get my cats to behave so beautifully.  And at 10.8 pounds she is smaller than even my smallest cat, and you best believe those cats make sure she knows it. When they come near her she crouches low and she is submissive.  And she is at her happiest when she hears the neighbors' dogs barking, yapping and rolling around in the homes and yards that neighbor ours. In the 2 days since she has been at our home, this is wh

If I hadn't been sick this morning, my day would have gone much differently.   If I hadn't awoken with the intense abdominal pain that left me in the fetal position for the better half of the morning my husband would have went about his morning and gone to the gym. But he didn't. If I hadn't been so sick I wouldn't have been in bed all day. And if I hadn't been in bed all day I wouldn't have decided to stay local instead of going to my mom's house for an Easter dinner. If I hadn't been so "over" being sick, I wouldn't have asked my husband to take me on a date to the movies. And if I hadn't convinced my dear, sweet man to take me to see the latest Jennifer Aniston film, we wouldn't have gotten into our truck. If we hadn't gotten into our truck and stopped off to pick up coffee and a treat, our night would have gone much differently. If only.... If we hadn't taken Iris to Perris Blvd. enroute to said film that was

For years I didn't think I had a favorite color.  In fact, the question always irked me a tad. And it's on every friggin' survey, isn't it?  What's your favorite color? And because I love doing random, mindless surveys thanks to my myspacin' days, I had to encounter that awkward question on numerous occasions. And I sat and thought about it yesterday and realized that the color I always come back to is gold. But is it very cliche that my last name is Dorado and I love gold? I'm not sure. And most people born after 1967 find gold to be repulsive.  It's been all about the white gold lately, which I still need someone to explain to me- how is gold silver-colored?  I just can't wrap my head around it. But it's not necessarily yellow gold but that brilliant bronzey, cheap-costume-jewelery gold that I adore. It just calls to me.  There is something ghetto-fabulous about it and yet it speaks 1980's-big-hair-royalty to me.  That was w

Society makes it fairly easy to be unemployed.  And that's okay, of course.  My husband makes it fairly easy, too.  No demands.  Of course, the easiest way to survive a layoff is to prepare months and years in advance.  Not that I'm bein' all Preachy Preacherson, but.... it helps. Last summer we stopped using credit cards.  And some people don't think they can stop, but.... you can.  Ask Lloyd's socks.  It was time for some new ones for my boo, but we held out and those socks held on for dear life.  We ate more meals in, gave more excuses for not going out, and slowly started living within our means.  I won't lie.  It was annoying.  Window shopping made me want to pass out with despair and as I often did in my youth, I became resourceful and creative with my outfits.  Because no broad wants to be photographed in the same outfit twice.  Damn you Facebook. And Thank God for that sense of responsibility then to prepare me for the now.  And of course we have h