I need simple things. I know it’s a lost fight, but I need a cellular phone which is a phone, and not a TV or an IPod or whatever, and I need Band-Aids which are just that: Band-Aids, and I don’t need to read two pages to understand how to apply it to my finger!

Have you noticed at Giant, or I bet, anywhere else how many kind of Band-Aids they have, it’s worst than Starbucks and their coffees! I am already lost at Starbucks but in front of the band aids aisle, I was helpless! I wanted an assortment of Band-Aids. I did not need antibiotics, or Mickey Mouse, just freaking regular Band-Aids! Am I that difficult?

While looking for them, I couldn’t help but took a peak at the next door shelves and aspirin. Wow! Sometimes, I feel like I am a dinosaur and just woke up and can’t believe my eyes (a dinosaur would freak out, let me tell you!), but do you know how many kind of aspirins they carry now. Sit down, and I mean it! You have the baby aspirin (the one you want to take if you don’t want to ever go to the emergency, especially on a weekend), then you have the regular one for pains and fever. Then, you have now the “Wake me up aspirin”, not kidding! In all the households now, it’s not going to be “Honey where is my paper?” but “Honey, I need my aspirin. WTF did you do with it? I need to wake up fast and free of pain!”. Do I need to go further? Yes, of course, you guessed it, they have also the aspirin to make you sleep. I felt trapped in that aisle, I had to get away as fast as possible. I don’t want to wake up, I don’t want to sleep, I just want some darn Band-Aids! I grabbed the first box I saw and flew away.

I went to a self cashier thing with my cart, just because I am not patient, and here was the winner of the day! An older guy told me that it was my lucky day because he was going to scan everything for me. Sometimes, I think I should be rude, but I was not. So, I let him scan my 12 items.
My guy:“What is that?”
Me: “Artichoke.”
My guy: “Oh, and what do you do with those? They look weird!”
Since he did not get an answer from me, he went to the next item: “And what is THAT?”
Me: “Belgian endives”
Him: “Do you know the code?”
Me: “Why don’t you pack for me, and I’ll finish scanning.”
Him “Are you kidding? I told you it was your lucky day! I’ll do it for you. How do you spell endives?”
Suddenly, I felt old.
I refused that he scanned my credit card for me, and I let him pack. Of course, he put the pineapple on top of the bread (Jessica is going to have a fit when she is going to see the shape of her bread!).

Home Sweet Home! The mutts greeted me with love, and trying to sneak into my bags to see if any thing was worth stealing. Believe me they are not picky! Especially Sophie, Sophie is the devil! Compared to her, Cheney looks like an angel. The good thing though is that I can put Sophie in time out. I would have loved to be Donald Trump for one day and tell Cheney: “You are FIRED!” OK, it did not happen. Anyone can dream!

I open my box of Band-Aids, grabbed one, opened the little envelope a little too fast, and here my Band-Aid was all crumpled and torn. What on earth did I do? I took another one, found the way to open it, and then put it on my counter to study the beast. There was a cute little white thing all around the Band-Aid. I removed it, and my second Band-Aid shrunk in no time under my eyes. I applied the third one directly on my finger without even looking but that little white frame was in the way. The box was saying “Seals out water, dirt and germs”. The way I put it, it looked like I was sealing water, dirt and germs INSIDE my Band-Aid.

Nexcare had won. I went to get my reading glasses, and looked for explanation on the box. There was just a scary warning “See insert for complete directions for use.” Are you kidding me? I never, ever read the directions for anything. I like to make mistakes, ok? But this time, I decided to try to retrieve the Magic Note and I found it. The thing which really scared me was that I still did not understand how to apply my Band-Aid! Miracle! On the other side of the sheet, there was a simple drawing (drawing for dummies like me!), and my 5th attempt was the successful one. It doesn’t look as good as in the drawing, but you know what? It will have to do!

Iconoclastically yours,

Dominique

Each time I receive my TV cable bill, I cringe! Am I the only one to hate them all? The Dish, FIOS, Comcast…. I hate them and honest I think I could live without them. I love movies, but I mean after a while even “Sleepless in Seattle” gets old! They have the ability to ruin any movie by putting it on every paid channel forever. And I mean it. I know, I know, I have some “comfort movies”, you know…. The kind that you can see even half sleeping. They make you feel good, there is no surprise there anymore. That’s why they are my comforting movies but after a while from comforting it becomes boring, dull. Sleepless in Seattle must have stopped being one of my comfort movies in the last Century!

There is a way though to still see some interesting movies on the cable! I have my secret recipe! Being awake at 2 or 3 in the morning, and no Sir, they are not adult movies! My mutts are “the” secret. On good nights, they allow me to sleep 3-4 hours in a row, on bad nights, I watch TV!

Not long ago, I started watching Jill Clayburgh in a recent movie called “Never again”. What’s wrong with Hollywood anyway? Why can’t we see her more often instead of the unsavory Jennifer Aniston who is doing her own therapy in mediocre movies for the displeasure of almost everyone, so why is she making them, one bad one after the other? I am hopeful though now that she gaffed a few times and I just saw the tabloids at my food store: “Jennifer Aniston’s career is over!”. Really? You are not kidding, right?

To go back to that movie “Never again”. Jill Clayburg was a fifty something woman looking for love…. OK, ok she did not know that the bar where she went to was a gay bar, but she did manage to find a straight guy exploring his sexuality! Not too bad when you know that there are 8 men for 10 women….. Women, Ready? Set? GO! Nothing vulgar about it, but I can tell you I almost peed in my PJs! Then, controlled myself: Max the mutt is already wetting his bed when he sleeps. One is enough in Muttstown!

That movie is just hilarious! OK, if you watch Glenn Beck or miss that good old devil of Cheney, the movie is not for you! Talking about Cheney, I sent a cute video to a friend of mine showing a mutt taking care of a litter of kittens, rescuing them from her bowl of water or any mischievous troubles that kittens have a wy to get into. The reply from my friend was real good, and I never thought about it before! Do you think that Cheney would have been a different Cheney if he had been breastfed by a mutt half Labrador, half a few things else? Do you think he would still have gone hunting people instead of birds? My friend had a really good point there, and now there is a doubt in me forever. Am I going see the evil Cheney with other eyes now? I wouldn’t go that far!

To go back to Jill Clayburgh, one of my favorite scenes in that movie, besides the last one, is the one where she listened to her BGF and to try to keep her man interested – hey the way she met him, there might have been some issues right there! (she probably knew about the statistics!) she goes to buy a strap on dildo and she is in her bedroom trying on that stuff and jumping around like a teenager. I swear she was SO cute! And then, someone rings the bell! Surprise, surprise, it’s the boyfriend who wants to introduce his mom to her! She panics, tries to remove the strap on, breaks it, can’t get rid of it, tries to cut the dildo with a knife, then with a meat cleaver! OK, she should have asked Lorena Bobbitt for some tips there!. She can’t get rid of the darn thing! So, as last recourse, she just wrapped some duct tape around it and around her thigh, and puts on a robe, and goes to open the door.

The boyfriend comes in with his Mom in front of him, and then, he turns to explain to his girlfriend that his mommy is the most important person in his life, and suddenly out of nowhere, the dildo wins against the duct tape, and showed its nose outside the robe. Barely serious, Boyfriend decides to just leave fast with his mom. A few minutes later, her phone rings. It’s him saying “I love you!”, not the soapy I love you, but a real fun one!

And it goes on and on. Great movie, great actors, mostly unknown to me! Give me that guy anytime against any Mel Gibson! Refreshing movie without vulgarity, without violence, but just fun, tender, sweet, witty, and smart.

Now, I have a question. Why on earth do I have to stay awake until 3:00 am to watch it? Do I have to wait until all the Glenn Becks of the world have gone to bed ?
Iconoclastically yours,

Dominique

They are there, everywhere, at a corner of a street, under a bridge. Chameleons almost: blending so well with the grey color of the cities, they just became invisible. Nobody pays attention to them. Dead or alive, nobody cares. Do you ever notice them when you walk in the streets of any city? I can tell you, they are there, alive, drunk or not, high or not, sick or not, they live next to us but we have mastered the art of ignoring them, declaring them inexistent and dead while alive. Grey heavy spectres, very often wearing layers and layers of clothing, they move in slow motion with heavy bags, or the most modern ones with their stolen store carts. Like in a parallel world, they will cross your path, bent face with their eyes fixed on the asphalt. Sometimes, you will see some looking behind them like if they might have been followed. They won’t look at you, they are just rooming with us on this planet

Before, I used to wonder how you become one of them. Is there any recipe for disaster? You see them, with their long hair, grey faces where sometimes if you have enough guts to look at their eyes, you could see a sparkle of life, of humor, and realize that yes at one point, they were teenagers with dreams, adults with responsibilities and then, not as lucky as Alice in Wonderland, when the fall happened, they landed on the hard asphalt and became the anonymous homeless that you could find anywhere. Were they starving for that anonymity? Gosh, if they did, they got it!

This morning, I received an e-mail from a perfect stranger and it was not even meant for my eyes, but my ex step-daughter’s ones! We have the same name! Hey sorry, gal, I did not do it in purpose, and yes I was born before you, so priority should prevail! My perfect stranger was asking me for any news from one of his best friends, Michel, my ex step son. You would tell me that he waited 11 years to ask, not exactly though. He did what I have been doing for the last four-five years since he really disappeared: googling his name, going through articles on homeless in Paris, on homeless dying in the cold, set on fire, and more, hoping to see a sparkle of life from him at a corner of a page or an article, but the only thing which came back to me, slamming me in the face has been the silence. Kind of weird, don’t you think, that coming from a pretty big family, the only two human beings concerned about him were basically two strangers: his friend, and the evil ex step mother! Yes, Michel, family sucks!

Before Michel, I had always wondered how people end up in the streets, becoming as grey as the streets where they live. Then, in front of my eyes – not only mine! – I saw Michel’s journey and even now, when I know that, most likely, he is dead and has been anonymously buried somewhere, I still look for him. Michel was a quiet teenager with a very dry sense of humor that even his father sometimes did not get, but my ex doesn’t have much of a sense of humor anyway! I identified a bit with him. Like me, he must have been brought on this planet by aliens! Sorry Mom!

Michel became a refined, educated young man, getting a Bachelor then a Master from the University of Maryland. Yes, he did lost at 21 his partner in life, killed in front of him by a car while crossing that route 1 outside the crosswalks. He survived it, or he seemed to have. He started teaching at American U. His students loved him, loved his wacky way of teaching sometimes! What happened next? I guess like many, there is somewhere a point of no return, something which suddenly made his whole life sent to Hell. For others, it would have been nothing to lose a job, for Michel, it just became the last blow. The one that put him KO on the ground, and he never had the energy of getting up again.

From that brilliant young man who was always joking that 30 would be so old, he started becoming the ghost of the University of Maryland’s Library, living there, sleeping there, but with the last remains linked to a normal life, he supposedly always had some contacts to check, some great job waiting for him. Thanksgiving 2000 came and he stayed at my home for several months, then left. He already, somewhere in him, had some weird satisfaction of being in the streets. He left for Las Vegas, just moving his problems somewhere else, then left for France.

France could have been a chance for him. You know, you arrive there, and you get health care etc… He was diagnosed with paranoia and other great stuff, and for a while, regularly came to the medical center to get his meds until one day, he just disappeared. And then, he became the problem of no one, the son of no one, the friend of no one. He was just one of these grey shadows who are more invisible than if they were invisible. The ultimate indifference. When his friend contacted Michel’s father, the answer was precious: “He had no contact with his son because he did not approve of his lifestyle.” Still wonder what kind of lifestyle he was talking about. Being a skeleton skillfully hidden in the family closet?

Iconoclastically yours,

Dominique

Jackson

Iconoclasticallly yours by www.iconoclasticallyyours.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License

What a weekend! While Chelsea Clinton had a no-fly zone over her head, I had Canadairs, those cool water planes, niagaring (I decided to create words like my pal, Sarah!), my yard. Ok, I was kind of distracted, and while mowing my lawn, I did not keep an eye on the lawn mower and that thing went ballistic! The screws jumped out of their sockets, the top of the motor went flying, kidnapping with it the lid of the oil tank. The oil started leaking over the lawn mower. The lawn mower started smoking. And, when I realized what was happening, everything was on fire, and I thought “Why can’t I have my life back, you know like before the oil spill.”. Pleaaaaase do not send me to Siberia. I don’t want to be with the moron from BP. Is there any rehab for stupidity? You know it’s so “in” to go into rehab. I think stupidity would be the busiest one! Did I just give you an idea for a new venture?

Honestly, I did not understand the big fuss about Chelsea Clinton’s wedding???? Can someone explain to me while it was the “wedding of the Century”. So, the no fly zone, the 2 millions $ wedding, etc…. obscene? I don’t even know if I find it obscene, I just don’t care, and I never thought so many people were so interested in it! I am just trying to pay for the chemotherapy pills for my dog, ok? So the millions dollars weddings have no interest for me! On top of it, if the Clintons wanted my opinion, I would have saved the money for the 2nd wedding, since 50 % of first marriages end in divorces. But I never realized that the rate is ever worst for the 2nd one ( 67% ) and I am not sure I want to know that 74% of third marriages end in divorce. So, I might be wrong, and the Clintons might have been right to spend the big bucks on Chelsea’s first marriage! With these statistics in mind, why on earth do people get married again, and again, and again? See, I learned my lesson. NEVER AGAIN! Despite of my oldest daughter who went to see a psychic who told her that I will marry again, and that I was not done with my ex husband! In your wildest dreams ladies, and ex honey, wherever you are!

The marriage issue settled, I am not even sure my whole household won’t end up with pneumonia before the month is over! It is so cold inside. Everyone is sneezing, cats included. This afternoon, I discovered fat cat # 2 and fat cat # 3 under my comforter. The only happy one at home is Pouch. His cancer treatment gives him hot flashes. So, you should see him happy by the A/C vent while the rest of us are freezing with heavy socks, sweatshirt, etc… If you see in the news one evening, a house in Maryland covered with icicles where they discovered frozen bodies of various species, don’t look further. It might be my house!

The mutts are doing pretty well. It’s getting harder to have Jackson going to his crate. Each time I say “crate” before leaving, the four other mutts go obediently to their distinctive crates and wait for me to close the gate, but there is always one missing, and I am such a sucker for that dog. I am almost as infatuated with him as the bimbo bachelorette and her brand new fiancé! That show cracked me up! You know I might have to go into stupidity rehab too! It was cliché after cliché. In French, there is an expression saying “opening open doors”. Gosh, Ali, the Bachelorette spent her time opening open doors. You could hear deep thoughts like “Today Roberto has to open up more. I need to be sure!” And then, you see the Barbie Ken telling her “I think I am falling in love with you!” which makes Barbie girl happy! I did not fall in love with the Barbie couple but I am head over heels with the Polynesian Resort. Fast, I went online to see if I could ever afford to be in one of those amazing over the water bungalow. It’s barely $ 900 a day. The good news for my bank account is that the resort is booked up forever or almost!

But the main difference between Barbie and I beside that my Barbie’s days are over, lol! I am not saying again and again that I don’t deserve Jackson because he is so handsome, or that I would never have thought that such a handsome one could ever be mine! No, Sir! I deserve my Jackson! Between Jackson and I, this is love, not infatuation!

Iconoclastically yours,

Dominique

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

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

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

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

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

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