July
28
2010
Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
Today, I just realized that I missed the gladiolus season. I have the perfect vase for them, and I just missed them. You are really home, or should I say, I am home when I start putting flowers throughout the house.
This morning, I went to purchase some gladiolus… I had a sudden craving for those long stems and scarlet flowers which illuminate the side of my piano. I couldn’t believe I missed their time. I tried to recollect what was so important that I forgot about them, and my mind went blank. I finally settled on sunflowers. You can’t really go wrong with sunflowers even if they don’t have the grace of the gladiolus.
That is one thing I miss from Paris. Going to my flower shop to select my flowers of the week. I rarely settled on roses. Roses are too perfect, too stuck up for me. Give me daisies any day of the year! Or tulips. I love tulips. Some are shy and will stay quiet on one side of the vase, not even wanting to open one petal. And then the next one will blossom, curving her stem and not caring what the others will think, opening her petals to show the delicate or flamboyant colors hidden deep inside her heart. That’s what I call flowers! They don’t give a crap about what their neighbor thinks as they have perfected the art of freedom.
My craving for gladiolus flowers came after I bought the vacuum cleaner of my dreams. No, don’t start there. It doesn’t operate by itself, wandering around. I MAKE it wander around. For once, an advertisement was for real: the vacuum cleaner, roommate of your dogs! No crap! That thing would have almost swallowed the whole carpet if I had let it have its way! There should have been a tornado effect warning or something to the same destructible extent on its box. I read it later. I saw it, I liked what I saw, and I took it. End of story! My Georgetown girlfriend – the one who has been living without one for the last 5 years – asked me about its horsepower. Horsepower? Gosh, am I going to have to pay taxes on it? I did not read about it. I swear. Am I going to have some officials at my door demanding to see my horse powered vacuum cleaner? And then driving me nuts with the amount I will have to pay every month for having taken that monster under my roof? Is it going to be a nightmare similar to the shop that I closed over a year and a half ago, and still, every three months, I receive a letter from officials telling me that I did not report sales taxes for the last period and they threaten to do their own estimate of the sales? And on we go every three months with the same pas-de-deux: Me: “I closed my shop!” Them: “Oh you did. Let me take care of that for you.” Me: “Thank you so much!” Them: “You’re welcome!” Me: “May I have your name?” Them: “Have a good day!”
To go back to my vacuum cleaner, it’s the coolest one on the block! First, it’s like a lizard. You can peel off part of it, and it becomes this cool little thing that you can carry through the stairs. It can swallow the mutts’ hair in a second and practically screams at me: “More, more, more!” Then, when you put back the little one back into the big one, its mission is to impress the mutts! It works. I mean… almost. Most of them are taking refuge on the couches or beds (sorry Jessica for your unmade bed. Zoe decided to hide under your sheets!) The only one who stays napping in the middle of the living room is Jackson, and no, he won’t move, not even a whisker. I managed to vacuum around him. As I was expertly moving that thing around, I was keeping an eye on that snoring black thing which did not even open an eye. The only other dog who was ignoring the vacuum was Zeus, but I guess you already knew that!
I was so much into my carpet, flowers and vacuum cleaners that I did not even realize that our good old planet is under attack. So now I am all confused! You mean the Incas were totally wrong with 2012? Can we sue them? I mean, there is a difference between 2012 and 2182. Couldn’t they count or what? In 2182, an asteroid with the romantic name of “1999 RQ36” will probably have a close encounter with our good old planet and cause widespread devastation. I am confused while reading this report… I thought we were the ones devastating our good Earth. You mean it’s going to be worse than us? I don’t really buy that! Wait a minute. I just had the feeling that our good old planet is cracking a smile, waiting to recycle all of us and have a new beginning.
Iconoclastically yours,
Dominique
July
20
2010
Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
For once, I don’t even know how to start, am still kind of speechless which doesn’t happen that often with me!
Breaking news of the day: my mother is now thinking that I probably need to accompany all the Gibsons of the world to a psychiatric ward! How the heck did it happen? I have always been the one to think that I was brought to Earth by some aliens!
I have dogs. Are you aware of it? Just kidding! Then, among all those muddy paws and wagging tails, there was “the one” who connected with me so intricately that he will stay forever “my dog”, yes of course, it was Zeus, or Zeussy Macaroni like I used to call him!
The funny thing is that after any of our dogs passed away, I never, ever dreamed about them or felt their presence near me, or anything! No, I am mistaken. I had a dream some years ago about Deborah’s dog (Foxy), a miniature Pomeranian that I found in the streets in the middle of winter, tied up to a pole. I understood later why someone got rid of him…. Just kidding!. Let’s just put it that way: Foxy was not my kind of dog, but he was the shadow of my daughter’s Deborah shadow! He was sick for several years (the smaller they are, the weaker they are! And this one was the poster boy for this!), and then one day, it was time to put him to sleep. From sad it became horrific when my EX vet forgot to give him the first shot which is supposed to put them in a cozy sleep before the second shot to stop their heart. I saw that little boy fighting it, convulsing. It was one horrific death. The girls and I were so traumatized about it for so long, that maybe, just maybe, Foxy from his little cloud wanted us to know that he was ok, and I had that vivid dream about him in a green, a deep green field, running around, and rolling in the grass, and having just a ball. I took it as a message that he was ok wherever he was.
But besides him, no one ever came back to tell me they were ok, and to tell you the truth, I never even thought about it. I know that around there are some animal communicators, some real ones, and most of them crooks, but it never occur to me to contact one. My four legged were gone, but still so present in our memories of them.
I am just trying to briefly describe my mind’s background. Our four legged ones are gone, but they will never be forgotten, not one of them, even, Tarah the ferret who was supposed to be a girl, and ended up being a boy!
During his life, every Thursday Zeus had a rendez-vous with Ingrid, a Reiki practitioner, and I can tell you, my Zeus knew when it was Thursday. You couldn’t trick him, and the few times, we had to cancel one of his Thursdays, he knew it, and was waiting by the door with a look like “Hey, This is Ingrid’s Day today! Do I really have to remind you this every week?”
When we learned a few weeks ago that our Golden Retriever, Pouch, had leukemia, I decided to give Pouch an “Ingrid’s Day” as well. Amazingly, it is still on Thursdays. The first time, which was last week, was kind of awkward for everyone, myself included! I had never been back to Seneca Hills since Zeus’passing, and it was just weird seeing Pouch going almost through the same motion, except that Zeus needed some treats to make him walk a bit faster to the Reiki’s room! We had to cross a yummy pets shop with so many yummee and new scents, you have to understand his point! Pouch was much easier to handle. He went where he was supposed to go without arguing with me!
A minute after we left Seneca Hills, Jessica was handling her IPod and was already wearing her ears thing, when I heard two short muffled barks. I had no clue that you could make your iPod bark when you were looking for a song. Trying to communicate with Jessica, she looked at me like I were crazy (another one!) when I asked her how she made her ipod bark! Resolute not to have to hear her mother’s blabbers, she went back to listen to whatever she was listening to. A minute later, the two distinct barks again, and they sounded so much like Zeus. Pouch heard them too, and lifted his head, looking almost smart! Just kidding Pouch! All together, my dead dog barked at me five times. It was one of the weirdest phenomena I have ever witnessed if you forget the Voodoo ceremony in Haiti. The barks were coming from inside my car, but they were muffled like coming from far, far away.
I still don’t know how to interpret them. Should I be happy, upset, guilty? First, I chose the guilt trip with Zeussy Macaroni telling me “You, bitch how dare you to take someone else than I to Ingrid?”, or was it a message for Pouch “How do you like it, ole boy?”
At the end, I just decided to take it as a token of love between us, and that he just wanted to tell me “hey remember how special our time was on Thursdays?”
Iconoclastically yours,
Dominique
July
18
2010
Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
This morning, I miss Zeus. I miss his chocolate loving eyes, the wisdom of his face, the staccato of his tail greeting the new day to come. He had been a fixture in my life for so long, that even now, a year later, yes, I do miss him! Are you calling me crazy? You have to wait…. Don’t drool yet, and yes, after that, you will be able to call me crazy.
Breaking news: I am alive and well. Jessica’s Golden Retriever is alive and well too!
I just couldn’t write. You know, you should never give me so many topics to talk about. My brain couldn’t just take it! Right now, it is still asking for a break, people! I mean it!
The infamous manicure that Mel Gibson provided to Lindsay Lohan…. Hey, get real, he needs a job! He needed one before, since I have been boycotting him for some time now. It was not that difficult since he has a way to provide thousands of gallons of hemoglobin in his movies, just not my thing! And to tell you the truth, I really don’t give a crap about Gibson. The guy is sick, look at his eyes. As I am writing this, he is already flying over a Cuckoo’s Nest, so get ready for the landing! It is going to be far worst than the earthquake we had in DC a few days ago. The good thing about this earthquake was that for one day, we could blame everything on it! My poorly manicured nails…. Blame it on the earthquake! Jackson destroying the last sponge in my house…. Earthquake baby! The BP spill…. Are you freaking kidding? No way!
But while I am at the BP spill, what is that craziness around DC and the desperate Republicans going after our President because he took a weekend off (I have news for the morons who are so frustrated by his 48 hours in Maine! He is still the President, even there, and still working, yes, even when he licks that ice cream!). I am so tired of these people who say they love America but can’t stand Americans. What do you expect from him? That he goes to the Gulf with a straw and spends his time sucking out the oil from the Gulf? Or better, why can’t our president twitch his nose like Samantha and ooppppsss we go back to the US before the George/Dick’s mess? How about that one?
Republicans have to be desperate? When you see that blonde woman, who looks like Ann Coulter’s twin, with her new book, being so upset about Michelle Obama and her arms, and her fight against obesity. I know, I know, it’s a lost cause, as lost as the guns thing but at least she is trying! I do prefer Michelle and her fitness fight that Laura and her librarian look at the world. I do agree with the blonde bimbo though that the parents should do the job. Get the junk food out of your house, kick your kids out of the couch, and make them move! But in these days, parents have a tendency to forget the meaning of parenting. It is so easy to just let go, and stuff your kids with an ice cream to make them quiet, the same way they put the pacifier in the baby’s mouth! I still don’t get it, the pacifier thing. My kids never had one. Babies look stupid with those and what’s the point? When the pacifier falls, they scream, so sorry but I never wanted the position of pacifier concierge! No, thank you!
I am just exhausted looking back at these last weeks…. No, I won’t forget the Russian spies who must have flunk Spy school. What kind of spy leaves Post-it notes with their passwords by their computers? Even I, don’t do this! OK, I don’t have much imagination for passwords, so they are easy to find but still! I do not write them on Post-its, just on my address book at the P section!
And then, there was Pouch, my old guy who has been diagnosed with leukemia, still not sure which one, but looking at him, it has to be the chronic one. We’ll know that for sure in a week, but one of the hardest moments was to start giving him those three little red pills called Leukeran. It’s chemotherapy, and the first time I had to give them to him, he had a taste of my tears mixed with some cream cheese and the pills. You see, you look at him, and he is normal – I mean as normal as he has ever been -, and I knew that those pills even if they were the right thing since they are aggressive little ones and are going after the cancer cells, the meaning of giving them was heart wrenching for me. It felt like there was the old Pouch, and then the new one with the red pills going after the beast. It was an acknowledgement of his illness, and it was just a tough moment.
He has no side effects of that chemo, he is just good old Pouch. The funny thing though, is that I knew it was most likely the drug which was going to be prescribed to him – thanks to the net and my multiple researches! I am getting real good at it. I should be able in a few months to enter any Chronic Lymphocytic K9 Leukemia contest. I bet I will have most of the answers right! So, before he was prescribed those, I went on the net to find out the cost of it. They are used on humans as well, and there came the big Mystery! A well known online pharmacy selling Leukeran had a special: you buy 30 Leukeran pills and you get 4 free Viagra pills. Up to this minute, if someone can explain to me, how when you get into chemotherapy, you will want Viagra at the same time??? Guys, I need some kind of explanation there, because I just don’t get it!
To resume the situation, if you mix together: earthquake + Russian Spies – Gibson/Lohan team + Leukeran – Viagra, there is no more time to tell you why my mother would think that I am getting crazier by the minute! Maybe in my next column!
Iconoclastically yours,
Dominique
June
27
2010
Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
As soon as we entered my vet’s office, everyone was under the charm. He is so handsome, he looks so good; look at those beautiful eyes, and his mouth. He is smiling. Pouch, his leash was in his mouth, as usual, and he was taking the compliments like an old pro. His eyes were saying “hey I have been around the block. I know I look good! You should see the girls at home. They are always around me!” and then, being honest “there is no more competition now that Zeus is gone!”
But I have to acknowledge that he is cute! The older he gets, the younger his face and attitude become. Our 13 year old Pouch has a puppy face, or maybe it’s his attitude, the look in his eyes, there is just something about Pouch!
He was there for a manicure, and a blood test, I hate the word “geriatric.” You can’t think geriatric when you look at him! Feels more like kindergarten to me!
Chet, our vet, was ecstatic about him! His teeth look good, his ears are good (hey he was the one who had ear infection after ear infection, then one day after shaking his head one too many times, he managed to have a swollen ear filled with liquid of some sort, and the vet had to sew his ear in order for the liquid not to be able to make its home there! And of course, since it was Pouch, the ear did not have to be sewn once, but three times! The magic number!).
But going back to Chet, Pouch was his kind of guy, easy to deal with, lean, handsome, and in good health! That was until the results of the blood test appeared on Chet’s computer a few minutes later. Jessica got it right away that something bad had just happened. Suddenly the world stayed still. His lymphocytes were high, far too high: over 40,000. More tests went on, X-rays, and I saw a puzzled look on Chet’s face: everything else was normal.
In a week, most likely, we will know what we have to fight against or to live with. Since I am not the patient type, I did some research, and like everything else in life: there was the good and the bad stuff. The bad stuff is that one day, he will die. The good stuff is that since he has no symptoms and since his lymphocytes were slightly elevated 18 months ago, he probably has chronic leukemia, which is the best one to get if you have a choice.
Cancer is there, no doubt about it. As soon as those darn lymphocytes are over 20,000, the beast is somewhere. All the other illnesses would have killed him months ago. So it’s good, right? Without any chemotherapy, the average survival after diagnosis is 2 years. Our boy would be 15 by then, not bad for a big goofy dog!
Yes, it’s sad because we know that most likely, he won’t be in the Book of Records for being alive at 35 years of age, but at the same time, and for the first time, we have time. All our other four legged ones have always been diagnosed and put to sleep the same day, so Pouch is giving us a chance we did not have before: to enjoy our last part of the journey together, to make it a bit more special for him, and to make more special memories of him. I mean, don’t worry, we already have some, but more than anything else, when it will be time to let him go, we won’t have regrets of not having walked him that day, or scratched his tummy, or, yes I know what you think: play ball! Forget about that one: our Golden Retriever doesn’t retrieve, and he doesn’t swim either by the way!
Pouch has followed Jessica from 4th grade to college, and he is only happy when she is around. He is the shadow of her shadow the same way than Zeus was mine.
I could have started this column by saying “Pouch, the Golden Retriever who liked Tabasco, clean Cognac glasses, and croissants!” He is just Pouch! Sometimes he drives you crazy, especially when he has that stubborn look in his eyes if you are trying to make him move, but he makes you melt in his honey brown eyes!
Every puppy should come with a warning “Provides unconditional love, joy, happiness, but also causes broken hearts.”
Like with our other four-legged companions, the only thing which will matter at the end is his quality of life. That’s one thing we can and should give to our four legged: to die with dignity.
Iconoclastically yours,
Dominique
June
10
2010
Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
Do you ever feel like you are manipulated? I said this before, but Deborah, my oldest daughter, is addicted to a game called “The Sims”. Don’t even ask, this is not my thing, OK? But sometimes, I wonder if we are not, you know the humans – even though I sometimes have a hard time finding something human in us -, the most sophisticated game in the universe, and if some darn kid from another planet is having a ball with me and my life! Do you ever feel that way? Because I do!
Someone told me not long ago that if my life was a quiet river, I would not have anything to write about! Choices, choices! But why does everything have always to be so difficult? I mean, I am not trying to be a cry-baby, far from that! But in the last two weeks:
My baby girl, my Jeep Wrangler, – what did you think I was going to talk about? – had its roof blown away by a freaking pipe in a freaking garage in Alexandria. I know it, that pipe was waiting for me. It was hanging like 3 inches down compared to the other one, and was already licking its lips waiting for my roof! How do I know it? I saw it in its eyes! The good side of it is that my baby girl is going to have a brand new roof. It’s going to look so pretty. Of course, after that, it needs to go to the doctor because it just vibrates like if I were some kind of lettuce in a salad spinner when it reaches 50 miles per hour. At 45 it’s ok and at 55 it is too. Go to explain to a cop that I can’t do 50! Lost battle right there!
The day before my movers from Russia came, my computer crashed. Not really, it just decided not to wake up anymore. I bet it was laughing out loud while I was screaming out loud! Not today pleaaase, come back to me baby y, don’t die on me yet! Don’t look at the bright lights in the tunnel and come back to planet Earth! Of course, it did not listen to me. I took it to a shop where the guy tries to screw me over by selling me a used computer and trying to keep my old one, I guess to play with it, and sell it back! Then, not content with this, he did not give me back my original hard drive, and I just gave him hell today about it! Is there something written with invisible ink on my forehead telling people that I can be mentally tortured?
I am not done yet! I can’t watch TV anymore and if any of you ever send me a picture of an alligator or a pelican covered with oil, it’s going to have a boomerang effect, I am telling you! I do not want to see any more pictures of it. Call me coward, call me whatever you want, but there is one sure thing, BP won’t have a dime from me anymore. I will walk in the desert instead of driving if the only gas station is a BP one. You got that BP?
Oh, and I was going to forget about Craigslist! Before moving, I wanted to get rid of two couches. I am downsizing, and I had to decide between keeping the mutts or the sectional couches. Bingo! You already know the answer, right? Got the mutts on Craigslist! A guy e-mailed me for the couches, free to good home, and told me how desperate he was for couches, and I just melted! The son of a bitch, sorry Lola – Lola is my yellow lab, mother of the mutts -. I was saying the son of a bitch came in his work van! He is one of those guys who are getting the films out of the cameras for the speed traps in Montgomery County! He was so happy and took all the pillows from both couches, and told me he was coming back with his wife and his pick up truck! Yeah right! After 20 e-mails, phone calls, and his mail box full of my messages, I finally realized that he was a son of a bitch, and that I had to kill the remaining of the couches, right there in front of me. I called my trash company and they did a special trip for them. When I saw them coming with a regular trash truck, I sighed “my luck” How were they going to fit those in the truck?” You know what; I now look at these trucks with so much respect! The guy laughed at me when he saw how concerned I was. The truck had already swallowed a boat and its trailer, and a small car. The next trip after me was for sodas machines! I saw my couches being crushed and crushed and then they just disappear in the monstrous stomach of Monstro the whale! My couches were not supposed to be killed, they were supposed to have kids or dogs taking them over, but a jerk named Larry changed the direction of their lives. Thanks Larry! You are a jerk to remember!
Of course, I could also talk about my ex landlord, but I do think that his sleaziness deserves a whole column, just for him, did you hear this Don?
Today is a brand new day in Muttsville, and besides the fact that Jackson is still totally obsessed with Bud Light, it is going to be a beautiful day, and I am hoping that the little brat from another planet has been extremely bad and that his parents took away his game “My pet human”. Did you hear that brat?
Iconoclastically yours,
Dominique
June
8
2010
Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
I know, I know, I have been silent for a while? Until today, I did not realize how much I missed my keyboard, except that it’s a new keyboard since my beloved laptop decided to die on me the day I needed it the most, but that’s another story. Now, that I am back at my keyboard, surrounded by boxes, opened, unopened, half opened. You mix that with the mutts lying between them and you get the picture. Anyway, I did not realize until this minute that my brain was boiling with thoughts and that I almost needed tens of drains to get all the words out. Imagine my spiky hair and drains sticking out with words bubbling around like soap bubbles! Wouldn’t it be a cool picture?
I moved. Yes, I did. I left my lovely house in the middle of nowhere to be in the middle of somewhere. In order to do that, what did I need? MOVERS! Yeah, you got it! I used to have a great company, Town and Country. Great guys, energetic, nice, non smokers, and they did so many moves for me: homes, my shop, but then I had a claim against them for a broken marble top, and apparently they don’t want to hear from me anymore. Chris Plummer if you read this, you are going to enjoy it, believe me, and I bet you will think: “That will teach her!”
Since it was kind of a last minute thing, I found those movers called “Prestige Moving” (http://www.prestigemovingstorage.com). I can tell you this right away; the only thing prestigious about it is their NAME! Nothing else. I don’t know if I ever told that story on my blog, it’s a Yiddish joke: It takes place in a “shtetl” (a small town) in Poland. There is that guy who goes to see his rabbi, and complains about his household which is so noisy that he cannot study the Talmud. The rabbi listened to him, and then, with a smile, told me to get a goat. Our guy doesn’t get it, but still goes to get a goat. I could have loaned him the mutts if I had known him but since he did not have this privilege, he got the goat.
A week later, he comes back to the rabbi, and told me that now with the goat in the middle of the kids and the wife, he cannot even hear himself think, and the rabbi told him: “Get rid of the goat.” The next day, the guy comes back and thanks effusively the rabbi. He is so happy. His home is now so quiet, and he can go back to his studies…..
Take Prestige Movers, and you will get the same results. I am telling you! They arrived on time, but the foreman was very upset and was explaining to me that truck big, driveway small, no truck on driveway. I discarded that, and after a while he decided to give it a try! And it worked!
We started with the paperwork. Yes, I knew already that I was paying extra to have my piano in one piece brought to my new home. Then, he pointed out the scotch tapes, saying that anyway, nothing to initial there. He had to use scotch tapes, and I had to pay for it $ 5.75 a roll. I kind of discarded the scotch tape from my brain, and was trying to make them understand that I wanted the antiques from the basement first in the truck since we were first going home, then to a storage facility. I started to wonder after a while, if my foreman had ADD, since he probably asked me a good dozen times: Storage, home? Right? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The other way around! And they started packing! Everything got a blanket with tapes, I swear, when I have insomnia now, I count feet of tapes!
During that time, I was not trying to stalk them but was lingering around, trying to understand the concept of their packing! Hold on a minute, this taped blanket is moving…. It’s my dog! They wrapped my DOG! Just kidding, wanted to see if I still had your attention!
Every half an hour, my foreman was coming to tell me that they would be ready to go in half an hour until I pointed out that maybe they had forgotten my daughter’s bedroom, or the stuff in the patio! I am not going to make you relive the whole ordeal, but when it was time to move the wrapped stuff to the truck, they had no clue how to do it. Even I would have been a better mover at that point or Jessica without any doubt. She has an eye for those things! The foreman was freaking out with the piano, and then he started moving stuff in the truck. I tried to tell him AGAIN about the antiques in the back of the truck, and then just decided to let it go!
He started complaining about the house SO big. Just 2,000 square feet baby. Tell me about big houses when you move out the Potomac mansions!
I am not that patient and decided to help a bit by bringing my outside table by the truck with the barbecue….. Ooopppsss they have forgotten about those. That’s when my foreman started to get upset! He basically sent me to hell with the rest of the stuff and closed the doors on my barbecue! Needless to say I had then to rent a U-Haul to finish the undone job. Smart though, they left me to deal with all the heavy stuff!
Problem again when we got to the new house. He started gesturing to me: “road too small, truck too big.” I have to say I handled this with elegance. I just ignored him, but my postman, my new postman started to help him with the logistics to back up the truck!
The mess went on of course! What can you expect when everything is sausaged with blanket and tapes? I am not psychic, and how could I figure out where everything was going or even if it were going home? Like a mad woman with aggressive clapping scissors, I was going after every foot of scotch tape to get my furniture butt naked again!
The storage trip? I don’t even want to talk about it, ok? But when the exhausted foreman gave me the pink slip, I choked at the almost $ 300.00 of scotch tapes! Are you kidding me? They should have been called “The scotch tapes Maniac” instead of the Prestige crap! I paid, filled out a survey and no, I won’t refer them to any of my friends? My enemies? I have to think about it. Sorry guys, but I don’t have that much hate in me!
My foreman came proudly at the end to tell me that he had been in this country for 3 months and he was so happy with the way he was handling the English language. I know I know that English is not the official language, but Russian is not either, ok?
Yesterday, I was looking for Zeus’ cabinet. Of course they put it in the storage, and of course it was the first thing they put there, so I had to dig among buffets, chairs, and tables before reaching it. Zeus is now home. Jackson developed a love for Frisbee and Bud Light! This morning, he was trying to open the fridge! And it was not to get a diet coke! So, I would say that everything is back to normal in Mutts town!
Iconoclastically yours,
Dominique
May
17
2010
Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
I am not a dumb redhead!
First, redheads are not dumb! Second, ok, ok, I am cheating, but I have been cheating for so long that I have more the personality of a redhead than a brunette! And there is one thing I hate among almost everything is to be taken for stupid on a Sunday morning at 9:00 am! Wouldn’t you?
Some months ago, I received the form from the Census Bureau, and filled it out immediately and sent it back. I just don’t wait on those things otherwise they disappear in the fourth dimension that exists somewhere in my soon to be ex house. I am not even sad about it anymore, by the way. My ruthless landlord made sure that my heart was not broken anymore. He took me for stupid too, and the main result is that now I can’t wait to get out! So, ok, is it because I have an accent or because I am a redhead that people think I am dumb? I have news for everyone: I am not! From my sweetheart Landlord with the dollar signs in his eyes to the Charter House Restaurant in Alexandria and now the Census Bureau!
I answered the phone and that lady one the phone asked me if I were me. I said yes! And then, she asked me to state my name???? I told her you just said it! How many times do we have to acknowledge that I am who I am? I asked her if they were calling me because they did not receive the questionnaire back, and she told me no, they did receive it – Wow! I did something right! – but they were now checking the answers??????? Then, she started reading me all the articles related to this case, trying to demonstrate that if I don’t answer, basically I am good for Guantanamo Bay for the rest of my life!
I don’t know if you know that about me. I have a flaw, ok, I am not PATIENT! And I just cannot stand dumb people, I just can’t! And, then, she went on with her questions…. that I have already answered, but since the Census Bureau thinks that Americans are stupid, they call you to ask you the same questions to be sure that you will give them the same answers. As Judge Judy said: “it’s easier to say the truth, you don’t have to remember your lies!”. To give you a clear image of me, I was changing the filter for the A/C while talking with that Census agent. And she asked the whole nine yard again! “Yes, I live here. No, I did not have anyone with no visa here – WTF? – Where was I on April 1st? Are you freaking kidding me? I don’t remember what I was doing a week ago, and YOU want me to remember what I was doing on April 1st. Ok, Ok, I got it! It’s April’s Fool, right? Then, questions about my lovely daughter, Jessica?
“Is she living with you?” “What’s her address on the campus?” “Where was she on April 1st?” I let her answered that one! LOL! Then came far more complicated questions! I don’t know why, but my lady was focusing on the month of April. Dumb me! I sent back my Census form too early, and now they have no idea what I was doing in April? So, like a hammer, she was questioning me…. I mean, give me a break? What was her background? The KGB or something? “Last April, were you in jail?” WHAT???? “Were you in a shelter for abused women?” ????????? “In a psychiatric ward?” Gosh, I was not, but I might just end up there now! “Were you in a foreign country?” I WAS HOME, HOME, HOME! And while answering her, I was hammering my poor filter which did not need that kind of treatment! Sorry filter, I just got overwhelmed with the Census thing!
At one point, we were done. I mean, after I lost 15 lbs (I wish!), and was so exasperated that I almost needed a bag to breathe! Then, she asked me if I was willing to answer a few questions in order to judge her performance…. Are you kidding me? We have serious problems in this country, we are in the red: China almost owns us, and you want to tell me that my tax dollars are paying for thousands of people calling every head of family to ask the same questions that they have already answered in writing. Do they really thing at that Census thing that American people are so freaking dumb that they have to make sure that we understood the questions????
I am telling you, we are really screwed up, but screwed up or not, I am not a stupid redhead! You got that?
Iconoclastically yours,
Dominique
May
4
2010
Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
You know what I enjoy the most in the morning? Giving the mutts their vitamins with cream cheese and dropping a bit of cream cheese on their noses, then, they lick each other, and almost look normal! OK, ok, they are normal, they are just feisty between them!
I got so busy working on the sign that the mutts and I will hold at the intersection of streets “Will work for a roof above our heads!” that I almost forgot to write about Laura Bush!
Just saying her name makes me sigh…. Can’t they just go away, pleaaaase! No, I certainly won’t buy her book but I read excerpts of it, and it just hit me: besides trying to rewrite History, and wanted to show another George than the one she is stuck with, she talks about her car accident at 17 when she killed another 17 year old boy. I just couldn’t believe it when I read it. I mean if you write about something as traumatic, can’t you at least be honest about it! A 17 year old died because she went through a stop sign. PERIOD! And now at 60 something, can’t she take RESPONSIBILITY for what she did? I know it’s not a word that the Bushes seem to know, but still! If she goes public at her age, NOW, about it, do not blame it on the dark road, or on the fact she was driving a big car, or for Zeus’ sake on the fact that the boy had a very dangerous car. Are you kidding me? Maybe she should have sued the boy’s family for it! Why can’t she just say just a few words like: I ran a stop sign and killed a boy. End of the story. It would be a much better way to show to the youngest generations that it happens – I am not sure that 17 year old imagine they can get killed or kill someone – and that it’s a trauma for the rest of the life of the surviving one. That would be a good thing to write, not the crap she hides behind.
Did she realize what a pitiful character she shows in that book? Saying that she never contacted the parents of the dead boy (it’s never too late, maybe it is now though), or that she lost her faith in God (another good one! Did she think she was Carrie Underwood asking God to take the wheel, and HE did not do it?” Pitiful!) That’s what it is, and I would have hoped that they knew when to stop! Are we supposed to be the Dr. Phil of the Bushes and we are not done yet! George is coming with his own thing, and let me tell you, I do not want to know what’s going to be in it. I don’t even want to mention that she thought that the US delegation was poisoned in Germany…
There was another book written by a First Lady, Danielle Mitterrand. Don’t trust her look, she is the mousey type a bit like Laura Bush, but the comparison stops right there! She is an incredible woman with a great sense of humor who did not hide (but hey this is France!) that after marrying Francois Mitterrand for love, and being miserable since he started cheating on her right away, she took a lover too at the suggestion of her sister who couldn’t take it that she was staying crying night after night.
I would have loved to be a tiny mouse the day Mitterrand came home early to find his wife ready to leave. He was so disappointed not to be able to spend that special evening with her, and asked her where she was going. “A night out with my lover, see you later!”). No, Mitterrand did not go to the French Dr. Phil (am not sure he exists anyway!), he just took the blow! Years later, when she become the First Lady of France, she had to let go of her lover at the instance of her husband, but for Francois, like many powerful people, rules don’t apply to them, so he went on with his affairs, fathered a child with the last companion he had, and everyone was there at the cemetery when he died! This is the French way of Life!
This part is just a tiny one of the book who showed her as a “little girl who got wrinkles but did not forget her dreams”, and has a strong personality. She mentioned at one point that she did not lose her identity when she married Francois. He never called her his wife. Her being was hers not who fathered her or whom she married. It is just called Respect.
Iconoclastically yours,
Dominique
April
27
2010
Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
WARNING: MY WRITINGS ARE COPYRIGHTED. IF YOU WANT TO COPY PART OF IT, YOU HAVE TO ASK ME PERMISSION FIRST. TELL ME THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO PAY A FINE!
I spent my weekend with Richard Clarke and his latest book “Cyber war” which now makes crystal clear why the Mayas Calendar stops in December 2012. By then, we will be back to Stone Age if the whole world starts to play war through cyber space. Isn’t that cool? And, I mean talk about collateral damage if you screwed up our cyber space: planes colliding with each other, trains derailing (not that it’s so uncommon unfortunately!), no more money, electricity, water. I am telling you, we have to go solar at home and be totally independent of all that BS!
Funny how the world is. If I had read that book 30 years ago, I would have thought it was a great science-fiction story. Now, I am helpless! I don’t even have a red phone, like moronic Glen Beck to call the White House and ask why we don’t have any plan to keep our cyber space safe. Yes, I know all the federal sites are safe or supposedly safe, but what about what makes this country live: Wall Street (Ok, maybe not so much a great example!) banks, utilities companies, and the list is almost endless. Richard Clarke said so, and I have a tendency to believe him. Yes, I know he needs to sell his book, but mostly he wants to send the message that we will be helpless if this attacks happen. 9/11 would be nothing compared to this. China started that crap not long ago! And a general at the Pentagon was saying that he just did not care if people who enrolled in the Armed Forces are overweight as long as they are the meanest hackers on the earth! Great! So now, it’s not even the crappy policy “Don’t ask, don’t tell”, but add to that The stuffing policy: “Stuff yourself as long as you can hack”, who cares about your health!
I think we are becoming more decadent by the minute these days. Bill Maher had a good point last week. He was showing an old poster of “the biggest man on the earth” showed in a circus in the1900’s, saying that now, the same guy would be a size Medium at Wall mart, and would go to the circus to see what? The only teenager on earth who doesn’t text, and communicates only with her mouth moving?
So, after seeing the end of the world coming soon, I decided to go for a lighter book “A good dog” by Susan Wilson (not the Marley’s type book but still on a lighter note than “Cyber war”). And, as I said in the beginning, the Mutts have spoken. They ate the last four chapters of the book. I don’t know what’s going on with the Mutts these days, they feel like rebellious teenagers, and five of them at the same time, it’s quite something! I wonder if I can take insurance on my books, you know, like on the cell phones that Zeus was swallowing like Reagan with his jelly-beans? All things considered, I will probably take it if it existed. But I am positive, Amazon got it before anyone else, and buried it somewhere. Like that, poor me and I am sure thousands of others have to order the darn book twice!
They should not be that bad though because they are becoming the “Tasters Mutts”. I had that idea for a while to create organic treats for mutts. I know it was done before, but my idea comes with an edge that others don’t have but shhhhhhhh it’s still a secret. The Mutts should be careful though because I can go right to my neighbor and ask their dog to be my treats taster! I discovered one thing today: Jackson doesn’t like oatmeal. I was eating my breakfast and he was around, and I guess you might know if you had followed me, that he is absolutely nut crazy about cream of wheat. I gave him my last spoonful of oatmeal, and he SPAT IT back at me, then with a disgusted look, went to sleep on the couch.
Spring is here today, and I do intend to enjoy it as much as I can. These last few days have been so hectic that I thought maybe Nature should give some lithium to Spring. Its behavior was so erratic, but who knows, maybe it did since today is just a perfect Spring day!
I used to be a taxi driver for my two girls, now I am just the Concierge of the Mutts. Open the door, close the door, open, close, open, close…. STOP! Getting dizzy here in Mutts country!
Iconoclastically yours,
Dominique
April
23
2010
Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
WARNING: MY WRITINGS ARE COPYRIGHTED. IF YOU WANT TO COPY PART OF IT, YOU HAVE TO ASK ME PERMISSION FIRST. TELL ME THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO PAY A FINE!
Don’t ask me how my brain works but this morning, I was thinking about Emile Zola. More than a writer, I always saw him as a journalist because that’s what he really was. He just gave us the most accurate vision of the 19th Century in France from the eyes for the wealthy as well as the poor.
Emile Zola, it was the famous “J’accuse!”. I mean, I don’t think anyone did better that this! Why on earth did I go to Zola from eating my apple this morning, and giving a piece to Lola after peeling it. Was I the only one not to know that except if you buy organic apples, never ever eat the skin which contains all the poisoned stuff. We don’t even need the bad witch to become Snow White, or maybe the bad witches have invaded us, poor mortals who still believe that if it looks good, it has to be good! Sometimes, I just take a chance and eat it. It feels so healthy to devour an apple with its skin. Myth! Like being tanned is a healthy symbol, but that one, I really don’t care about it. It was written in my genes that I have to be tanned. Did you see that glorious NASA picture of the sun by the way? I fell in love with His Majesty the Sun so long ago! So, just be quiet, I don’t care: even if it’s bad, it feels too darn good. My vice, and I intend to keep it.
I used to be interested in keeping up to date with what’s good for you, and you know what? Forget it! A glass of red wine is good! Best news ever, and then cold shower, red wine might not be that good for women and might have a role in breast cancer! And it might even be true since it’s not coming from the Vatican. Barbecue is bad, cheese is poison, meat… I don’t care, never really liked it anyway! And you know that in France they eat horses and rabbits? My mother was taking me for an idiot when I was a kid trying to make me eat horse meat. The thing is the regular butcher was closed an Monday but not the Horse one! So, every Monday, she was trying to fool me by getting, out of the fridge, horse crap wrapped in the regular butcher’s paper. Now, I realize on top of it that there must have been so many germs from that paper that she kept from another day! Yuck! And it did not matter for her that it did not work, weeks after weeks, she was trying and trying. Sigh.
A girlfriend of mine has just been diagnosed with uterine cancer, and apparently that specific cancer happens a lot in women who love sugar. So, I guess I am safe on that one, but what kind of cancer do you get if you like cheese? Give me any day of the month a crispy baguette with cheese and a glass of red wine, and I am a happy camper! Are we getting paranoid with cancer though? I wonder how Zola would have written about us if he had been living now. I am sure he will have found a way to write his “J’accuse” and maybe still for the same reasons…. The French are still very much anti-Semitic. There are always been some taboos when I talk to French people. For instance, that Palestinian terrorist playing president at the end, no matter what, that guy was a freaking terrorist. Yes, Yasser Arafat? The Nobel Prize, give me a break please!!!! But the French loved him, hey he was married to a French woman, and you know, he couldn’t be that wrong if he married French. Really? Talk to my ex-husband about it!
And then, this movie I just saw, and I have to apologize! I used to say that I couldn’t stand Audrey Tatou. The real truth was that I couldn’t stand the movie “Amelie”. I know, I know it has been a hit here! So refreshing…. so cute! Are you kidding me? The most boring and pompous movie I have ever seen, or almost. And that movie was her! How did you want me to like her after that? But then she is just amazing in “Coco before Chanel”. She became Coco instead of that stupid Amelie. Edgy, sassy, desperate, just an amazing character. She became Coco as Marion Cotillard became Piaf in “La vie en rose”.
My sparrow came back. I just saw her this morning. Smart and resilient little bird which builds the same nest at the same place under the porch every year. Why is she still playing the game when the last year baby died in the pond while trying to learn how to be a bird? Yes, life sucks the same for sparrows or humans even when they are surrounded by mutts’ love. This year, no one will have to tiptoe out of the house to respect the sparrow’s peace, and witness another Nature’s miracle. This year, the door will stay closed on a soulless and lifeless house.
Iconoclastically yours,
Dominique