The first pet that I (or technically my parents) had when I was a child was a Mutt named Mudd. I really don’t remember Mudd very well, but I have heard the story countless times of how Mudd bit me and they had to give her away. I never really held the fact that she bit me against her. The bone (haha) I had to pick with her is the fact that my “porn name” (first pet+childhood street’s name) was horrible, partly due to the fact that her name was “Mudd.”

Mudd Oakview, to be exact. Now that’s not very porny now is it?

But I digress. After Mudd, we had a Brittany Spaniel named Copper, who I loved dearly. She had a penchant for escaping our backyard and got ran over when I was still in Elementary school, and I was devastated.

After Copper passed away, my parents got another Brittany named Cedar, and I got a couple of my very own  mice- Hershey and Snowflake. It was around this time that I began to spend many of my afternoons hanging out at the neighborhood pet store- chatting with the owner and gazing into cages as snakes swallowed mice whole and Guinea Pigs hid in giant plastic tubes. My best friend and I even formed our very own “Animal Club,” where we would read books about animals and discuss our favorite species. I know what your thinking. And yes, I have always been this cool.

My pet “collection” began to grow at a very rapid pace. We got a Red Spectacled Amazon Parrot, who loved Cheetos but was bald because another bird plucked all of his feathers out. We got an iguana named Spike, who enjoyed whipping his tail at me if I tried to hold him. We had a box turtle (Strawberry Shortcake) who either got ran over in my backyard or eaten by my dog,  I can’t remember. We had an evil Sugar Glider named Sprite who would make this awful hissing sound every time I tried to get him out of his cage, and then he would proceed to fly on top of the curtain or to some other surface that I couldn’t reach where he would sit for days. On top of that, we had several frogs (I don’t remember their names,) a few other lizards, a couple parakeets (Blanco and Shreck,) a cockatiel, several hamsters that were all named Gizmo, a few fish tanks of fish both bought and caught with a sane at the farm.  Eventually the 2 little mice  procreated and so on, until we had at least 30. Needless to say, there were times when my room was quite smelly.

With each new addition, I would have a 3 month or so obsession over my new pet, until I set my sights on a new species and my attention would slowly wane.It wasn’t that I loved the pets any less, I just have always had a short attention span and I like to spread my love over a variety of different animals.

By the time I left for college, all of my pets with the exception of my sister’s beloved toy poodle with an under bite, BB, had either been given away, had died, or had been let go at my farm. I still remember the day that I looked around my room and noticed that my 30 mice and the many cages with plastic tubes connecting them were missing. I started crying and asked my dad what happened to them. He told me they had all died… which I believed for a few days until my sister told me that he had let them go at the farm. ***The same devastating thing happened with the rat that my parent’s inherited from me when I moved into a house with a bunch of cats, just a few months ago.

The first few years of college I was content with not owning an animal of my own. Most of my attention was spent on my new friends and drinking copious amounts of alcohol. There was no way I would have been able to remember to clean out a hamster cage or coddle a bird.

One day a friend of mine decided that she wanted a dog and recruited me to go with her to the local humane society to help her pick one out. A few of us crowded into her Jeep and got ready to talk her out of anything too crazy. It was my first time in a pound in many years, and I had no idea that it would hurt so bad to see so many dogs who needed homes. We walked down the caged hallways and I stopped at each cage to stick my fingers through and pet each puppy dog on the nose as I read to see how much time they had left before they would be put down.

This was when she was skinny.

I still remember the yelping. It was high pitched and painful. I looked around to see what kind of animal could be capable of making such a sound. I made my way down the row until I found her.

She was up on her short hind legs, and she was shaking… probably from the pain that her own screech caused her ears. She was skinny, and had a head that was much too large for her body. My friends all crowded around holding their ears, proclaiming that “that” was the ugliest dog they had ever seen.

As soon as we caught eyes I knew. It was an instant connection. I knew with certainty that there was no one else in the world who would want such a creature.

I asked permission to have a few moments with the Franken-puppy. The lady who worked at the pound seemed a little surprised, but she obliged. She told me that she was most likely a mix of Pit Bull and Dachshund, with perhaps a bit of Shar-pei. The weird little dog shook her butt violently as the lady put her on a leash and led her to the waiting area. After only a few minutes of holding the dog in my lap, I had made my decision. I told the lady that I needed to run out to my car to get my check book (yes check book) so that I could pay the $10.00 for the puppy. (What a bargain!!!)

As soon as I opened the door to go out to the parking lot, my new dog bolted and took off in a sprint across the field nearby. I took off after her, and yelled the first thing that came to mind: “STELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAA.”

Stella smiling with my sis

And so my new Picasso puppy had a name.

The first few months with Stella were a disaster. I kept her a secret from my parents while I attempted to potty train her and keep her from eating too many containers of roach poison. Stella ate everything and anything plastic, much like her momma. (What? I like chewing on pens!) She wet the floor every five minutes, and wouldn’t stop with the screech-bark. We had a couple close-calls with a razor and a few dozen Christmas ornaments, and I spent at least 30 minutes everyday chasing her around the neighborhood.

Eventually, as Stella and I grew closer and my patience grew stronger, she started learning how to behave- and I learned how to deal with her. We grew inseparable. She was literally my best friend.

My Stella bear and I on Christmas

A couple years ago I moved into a place where I couldn’t bring a dog. I had to take her back to my parent’s house for the time-being. I know, you are probably all thinking I’m a horrible Dog-Mom, but I swear to you this isn’t the case. I miss my puppy dog every day. More than getting home-sick, I get Stella-sick.

Lately, more so than ever. I had been contemplating bringing her to live with me when I move in a couple weeks, but she has spent the last few months out at the farm with my dad and her new best friend Penny, and now I think she really loves being a farm dog. Plus I think my dad really needs her right now.

My sister took this pic of my brave farm dog scaring off a cow!

I’m starting to have that “need-to-have-a-pet-itch” again, but now I’m worried that there are no other animals that will fulfill that void besides my Stella-bear. Who else could make me smile with their short little legs? Their Danny Devito body? Their dramatic personality!? (Stella cries like a baby when she gets a sticker in her foot, but I don’t blame her!)

What should I do??? Maybe get a Ferritt? A guinea pig?? Another pound puppy?

***SOBBB***

I  miss STELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

I think my dad and I are going to have to work out some sort of joint-custody arrangement.

Really my whole point is, there is a reason the Westminster dog show isn’t open to mixed-breeds… and that’s because Princess Stella Rosita Devito Tootsie Bertha Brown Jr. would win every year.

My boyfriend John Cusack would say the same, I’m sure.

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with horror flicks. I really like to watch them. Really, I wouldn’t turn one down no matter how “B-rated” it may be. Zombie movies are my favorite, but I will watch ANYTHING. In fact, I got started on “horror movies” way earlier than the average pup. I’m not sure whether my mom just didn’t see anything wrong with showing them to me, or if she really didn’t think they would affect me- but I can honestly say I remember watching Poltergeist at 5 years old.

As much as I like them  and I appreciate that my mother didn’t censor them from me, I have a feeling that movies of the horror genre had a greater influence on me than anyone would have guessed. You might even say I have been scarred for life. So in light of it being “National Scary Movie Week” or at least “My House Scary Movie Week ,” I share with you the 5 movies that had the most profound affect on me as a child.

Arachnophobia: I recently re-watched this movie and I have come to the conclusion that I must have been thinking of a different movie. When I watched it way back when, it was definitely, in no way shape or form- a comedy. This movie absolutely terrified me. I remember making my sister come and sit in the bathroom with me while I showered because I was thoroughly convinced that a spider was going to come up the drain and instantly kill me with it’s poisonous venom. I was scared to eat popcorn because of the scene where a spider is in the bottom of the bowl.  And to this day, if I see a spider, no matter what breed- chances are you will see me pull a cartoon and run straight through the door.

Child’s Play: I have to preface this with the fact that my parents were of the belief that I really liked playing with dolls. Every year they would drag me to the local doll show and buy weird creepy used dolls that I had to pretend to enjoy. Truth was, the only “dolls” I ever really loved was a Teddy Bear named Teddy, and my Teddy Ruxpin.  Even before I saw this movie I was convinced that my dolls would come alive when no one was around. I blame this on my viewing of Jim Henson’s “A Christmas Toy” about a kajillion times. (If you haven’t seen this, it was basically an earlier, more primitive version of “The Toy Story.”) I was already very sensitive about my doll’s feelings, and didn’t want any of them to feel more important than the others. So after I caught a viewing of Child’s Play at the ripe old age of 7, I was more scared than ever to piss any of my dolls off. Every night before I snuggled up to Teddy, (the regular stuffed animal not Ruxpin because he was hard) I would walk around my room and kiss each and every doll goodnight and tell them that I loved them.

There was one doll in particular that frightened me the most. It was nearly life sized and had red unruly hair, very a la’ Chucky. I grew convinced that this particular doll in a one piece swimsuit would be my demise. I paid it extra special attention, even though it really frightened the bejeezus out of me. I started noticing that it was never in the same place that I left it. I finally told my mother and she swore that she would get rid of it for good. She said she burned it. Years later, when I was a Junior in High School I came home to find that swimsuit doll on my day bead. You might say I went a little ballistic. I thought it had come back for the sequel. My family thought it was hilarious.

Image by Echo9er via Flickr

Pet Cemetery: My dad grew up in the house where my grandparent’s still live. He had 3 other siblings, and came from a family that really loved animals. I loved my grandparent’s house because they had woods in their backyard where my cousins and I would frolic and build forts and such. I loved it all, except for one little area, just barely visible from the back room where I had to sleep. Their pet cemetery. Ah hells no. This shit even has gravestones and everything. I never really thought much about it until I saw the movie. Then I would think of practically any excuse not to have to stay over at their house (even though it was my favorite place on earth) and if I did have to stay the night I would ask to sleep with my sister. On the occasions where I had no choice but to sleep in the back room, I would stay up all night, one eye steadily focused  the white grave stone in the distance. I imagined seeing dogs and cats and raccoons rise from the graves to attack me. Those gravestones still scare me to this day.

Image via Wikipedia

Jaws: My mom had an obsession with pretty much everything that could hurt me (vampires, zombies, spiders, boogie men) and sharks were no exception. Jaws was one of her favorite movies, and consequently one of the movies that I watched as a very young child. As if that movie didn’t scar me enough, every summer my family would make a six hour drive to the coast. My mother would spend the entire six hours reading true stories of shark attacks out loud. As a result, I spent the better half of every summer vacation scouting the ocean for sharks. While my cousins would all take their floats out as far as they could go, I would stay knee deep-eyes out.  I am finally to the point where I’m not afraid to go in the water, but you can bet I would be VERY aware of any dorsal-like fins that may appear in my near vicinity (3 square miles, to be exact.)

The Return to Oz: I haven’t seen this in a very long time (because damnit it was scary) but I do remember it quite clearly. I think. Am I even thinking of the right movie? All of Dorothy’s old friends were stoned (in the turned to rock sense, not doing drugs…)

She meets up with a talking reindeer, a weird robot thingy called Tick-Tock, and a man with an empty pumpkin head. If that is not creepy, then I don’t know what is. I was mostly scared of the lady that changed her heads like they were wigs. Even Dorothy played by that scary girl from the Craft, and she is creepy enough by herself. I don’t have much else to say about this movie, but I know it terrified me.  The trailer is below, just in case you are curious.

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As always, stay classy on this wonderfully beautiful Tuesday.

*Please imagine these “cheers” as being of the beer or shot variety. You know, the kind where you raise your glass, then tap it on the table before you take a sip. The other night my friends and I made the mistake of doing the “table tap” with a glass of champagne, and it just didn’t feel right.

Cheers to fall. And more specifically October. Tis one of the two months of the year where the weather is nearly perfect round these here parts. I love everything about fall. I love watching the trees change, I love not sweating my ass off when sitting on the porch, and I even like “watching” a football game every once in a while. Also, my hair seems to do particularly well in this fine weather.

Cheers to Halloween. Halloween, though it technically could fall under the larger umbrella of fall, is so awesome that it deserves its own cheers. In fact, some people really get into  decorating their houses for Christmas, but I would really like to push the less popular trend of decorating houses for Halloween. How great would it be to drive around looking at scary decorations? I’m thinking if you really put your heads together with your neighbors, every neighborhood could be like a giant Haunted house.  I also really love carving pumpkins. Scrap that. I like to watch as other, craftier people carve the pumpkins, but I like to be the one who pulls out all of the gunk.

Cheers to socks. I am the queen of flip flops, but there is nothing like the feeling of putting on a pair of fuzzy socks, a pair of sweats, and curling up under a cozy blanket. It’s finally the time of year where I don’t break out into upper lip sweat from just looking at socks.

Cheers to the Backstreet Boys. I’m not really a fan, but I have to give these boys some props for their comeback effort. I haven’t listened to pop music in years, but there is a little bitty section in the left corner of my heart that still has some boy band love. I really really had a thing for NSYNC, but I guess The Backstreet Boys is the next best thing. Plus, there is something about old guys singing and dancing like they are still in their late teens/early twenties that just makes me smile.

Cheers to New Kids On the Block. Because I can.

Cheers to getting to dress like a zombie. Ok, I realize I am getting a little specific here, but I  feel it’s my duty to  give these things the justice they deserve. Respect, people. I know most girls (and some boys I know) like to dress a little slutty for Halloween. I understand the logic behind it. It is after all, the only day of the year where you can go out scantily dressed without people actually thinking you are a hoe. I think it might be my upbringing, (I was started on horror movies at a very young age) but Halloween just isn’t as fun unless I dress scary.

Last year I was Regan Macneil from The Exorcist

I thought I had more pics on-line of Halloween costumes past, but I guess I deleted them. All you have to know is that I was pretty much dead or possessed for the last few years. This year my friends and I are dressing up as Ghouls Gone Wild. I asked my roommate J. how I should make scary saggy boobs for the costume, and he told me I should just go without a bra. Thanks friend.

Cheers to yummy beer. Can I raise a glass of what I’m drinking, to what I’m drinking? Sure I can. YAYYYYYYY beer! There is something about the weather change that really makes a beer more appealing.

The best beer in Texas... or at least the cheapest.

Cheers to good music on long walks outside. I know I’ve may have taken this “fall” thing a little far, but it really has been amazing. I get so sick of working out at the gym with all those chode heads, so it has been a really nice change to take advantage of the 9 mile trail by my house. Never mind that I will probably never be able to go all 9 miles without dying. Still, there is something to be said for walking outdoors, watching families play football and seeing all the cute puppy dogs. Yesterday I saw a guy on a bike whose bra was clearly visible through his white t-shirt. Yes, I saw a guy wearing a bro. That was possibly the best thing I’ve seen all month, but I don’t really see the problem with it. If ya got em’, support em’! I have to also raise my hand to good music on this one. There are certain songs that I literally have to stop myself from skipping along to. One of my favorites to work out to lately is Umphrey’s Mcgee.

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Cheers to old friends. I absolutely love my friends. Last weekend, my friend LA cleaned out her closet and gave me 7 pairs of Banana Republic pants that she has grown out of, and a pair of Sevens jeans. I literally didn’t have any pants to wear this winter, and she has saved my life. The company she works for, Philip Stein, is also announcing their sleep bracelet today which I am really excited about. You’ll have to google it yourself for the details, but from what I hear- it is a bracelet that has been compared to ambien in its ability to help you get some zzzzz. Doesn’t seem possible, but we shall see.  It was so nice to catch up last weekend with people who I haven’t seen in a while.

My friend Moops has recently been reading this a little more often, and I think he deserves a shout out. Don’t tase me for this, bro.

Ohhhhh... the moment you realize the shirt you tried to steal has Carebears on it.

Cheers to new friends. I’m talking to you, fellow bloggers and people of the internet. I am really beginning to love this part of my life. You have made me laugh so many times in the last few weeks, and I am really enjoying this new journey!

Even if you’re not from the area, you may know that Dallas is often nicknamed the home of the 30,ooo dollar millionaire- and this is not a joke. Being a single female in the area for the last, oh- ten or so years, I’ve kind of learned that the “trendy bar” spots are not the types of places where one should ever go to look for guys. Actually, if I listened to my parents at all- I should follow the rule that no bar is the place to meet guys, but really- in this day and age what other choice do we ladies have, except maybe…church.

The following pictures are only a sampling of what this place had to offer. I didn’t have much battery left in my camera, and  douchbags are like dogs (in more ways than one) and often don’t like to be photographed. But I think you can get the point of what this particular night had to offer. Maybe I’m not with the times, but when did straight guys start wearing more sparkles than girls? I just don’t get it…

this one needed a close up

this one tried to get away, but you get the point

Sooo.. in a nutshell, I think these boys would pull better game in a wolf t-shirt. But regardless it was a fun night! No thanks to those fools… or thanks to them because they provided a lot of laughter!

Which, if you’re in the least bit bored- you should check out the comments a proper wolf -shirt can generate. You will not fail to be entertained.

Happy Birthday Jodie! I hope you have a wonderful one! You’re the best!

Things have certainly changed in the life of BB over the last 14 years. She’s no longer the cute little poodle that we were so proud of. She has an extreme underbite and a huge… something… growing out of her forehead. She often gets looked over by members of  our family in favor of the other, younger dogs. The only way she gets a piece of table food is if it happens to drop and inch from her mouth, and the person who dropped it is too lazy to pick it up.  Instead of sleeping on pillows like a princess, the poor thing walks around with nuggets of poop hanging off her tail because the only grooming she gets is an occasional trim with the kitchen scissors. Sad, I know.

However, I have just found a really good excuse as to not feel so bad. In fact, I’ll be happy the next time someone asks what kind of dog BB is. Check out horrific article about a boy whose poodle got “fried to death” at the groomers…

BB