And Now

i’ve made some serious headway this past week, with regard to that whole health and healing thing that’s been eluding me for many months now. my cough has gone from “accompanying every inhale” to “periodic.” i would normally be overjoyed at such a development if the chronic coughing hadn’t been replaced by snot overproduction. but now, instead of coughing so hard that my eyeballs risk popping out of my skull, it’s been my ears popping daily with the nonstop blowing of my nose.

this has left me in a constant state of irritable. i’ve never been a sickly person. in fact, i’ve always prided myself on having a strong russian constitution. i’ll drink milk past the expiration date if it smells ok, take my steaks medium rare and eat shellfish like it’s going out of style. feathers and cats have been my only serious allergies, and i manage to avoid both with great success. but now, i’m using a friggin inhaler to breathe right.

sadly, the disinfection was less than a raging success. febreeze’s anti-allergen spray may as well have been fragrant water because it didn’t do shit. i worry i’ll need to replace my mattress and bedding, all of which i bought new last year. the air purifier, however, does seem to be improving the air quality in my bedroom — somewhat. still, i need to sleep with a fan blowing in my face to keep the air circulating. otherwise, my sinuses impact with snot, causing me to spend the first hour of each morning being intimate with the tissue box.

also, i’m officially boycotting summer. first off, i’ve always despised the heat. it makes me tired, uncomfortable and, worst of all, sweaty. i don’t subscribe to sweating. aside from the few forms of exercise i enjoy, sex and dancing, there is no reason to sweat. it’s unbecoming. secondly, now that i’ve finished all the schooling i’ll ever need, summers are nothing to look forward to. they don’t provide the lengthy break or possibility for exotic travel like they once did. now, summertime means go to work as usual. no big whoop.

last summer i spent tied up in knots at the thought of turning 30, and the summer before was Angela’s suicide, the first big breakup with Mo and my own cancer scare. crapola. can’t wait to see what calamity is in store for me next summer. oh, that’s right. i won’t be observing summer anymore. i’ll be tucked under my covers, hiding from it, and probably still coughing.

ok, bright side. where you at, where you been hiding? one good piece of news is that i haven’t broken out in hives in many weeks. i’m sure that sleeping in full pajama armor has influenced this outcome. also good is that i’ve been exercising more and hanging out in my gym’s steam room, which make my lungs very happy. energy is also back, making me itchy to leave the house more. and i’ve been far more engaged in my work and generally more enamored with living a healthy life.

there. much better.

Disinfection

recovery has finally made an appearance on the horizon. i can almost taste it. and thankfully it doesn’t taste like a lugee. it tastes more like an ionic breeze, slightly metallic but clean, like distilled water.

also good is that the source of my sickness has been identified. i think this is one of those few occasions where the phrase “i’m allergic to work” can be used both literally and figuratively. ok, it’s a weak pun but let me claim my small victories. i’m still sick. cough cough.

but seriously, i am allergic to my workplace. i guess the bright aura i’ve credited myself with having lately was really a radioactive glow. my mistake for not noticing sooner. what i did notice was that i got sick soon after i moved floors at work in mid-may. i moved to a floor undergoing construction, and although the affected areas are neatly taped off and away from worker bees like myself, those allergens jumped the fence and burrowed into my lungs, causing the bronchitis. cute aryan doctor pieced this together when i mentioned the move, the construction, and that other peeps on the floor have also developed coughs.

he also cautioned that i’ve been bringing the allergens home, as they’re the clingy types that have attached to my clothes and hair, meaning they’re in my house and car, meaning that i need to disinfect pretty much everything in my possession. but here’s the best part: guess where the allergens are most concentrated? wait for it, wait for it.

my bed! awesome, right? guess that will teach me to hang up my clothes every day. at least i finally have an explanation for why i always felt more miserable after crawling into bed to rest. and it’s also nice to have finally isolated the cause of the hives.

yeah, the hives. they’ve popped up several times already, always in the middle of the night. it’s a fun little panic to awaken to. at first, i attributed their appearance to a new marinade, but when they refused to relent long after the marinade had passed through my system, all blame landed on these allergens.

so now i disinfect. the comforter has been dry-cleaned, the mattress febreezed and vacuumed, the sheets boiled, and an air purifier — yes, the Ionic Breeze from Sharper Image — is doing the rest. workwise, my supervisors have kindly agreed to my request to be moved off the floor until construction ends. and no, i’m not suing.

but i am still disinfecting. i have the sanitizing wipes attached to my sleeve so if i see you and insist on wiping you down with bleach before giving you a hug hello, you know why.

Out of Orbit

i’ve spent the past week and a half home from work, recovering from this lovely respiratory infection. the illness itself wouldn’t have taken me so far out of orbit but the antibiotics and other assorted meds i had to ingest for the past ten days leveled me in unanticipated ways. i seriously had so little energy that doing something as simple as laundry felt like a herculean task.

i slept most of the days away, left my house only when necessary and bitched nonstop to anyone who made the mistake of calling me to say hi. i might be a happy drunk, but a sad sick i'm afraid. i hated the forced time off, particularly because i couldn't do a damn thing with it. i laugh when i think of the ambitious list i wrote of all the things i intended to do when i first began my respite. instead, i did the following — and you can too should you ever find yourself in the position of looking for Things to Do While Recovering from Bronchitis:

• promise yourself that you’ll never ever smoke another cigarette for the rest of your life and ask your friends to put out their own cigarettes on your face if you try to bum. decide to buy an air purifier and visit the steam room at the gym more often to help detoxify your lungs.


• bemoan the fact that your medication causes sun sensitivity and that you need to stay indoors and out of the sun’s harmful rays which can now boil you like a lobster. then remember it’s july in los angeles, 90 degrees, and that you hate heat and wouldn’t want to be out there anyway. feel better momentarily.


• enjoy the time with your fantastic dogs who seem happy to have you home so much. apologize to said dogs profusely about being a dead-beat mom all week and promise them numerous trips to the dog park upon your recovery. bond with your new puppy who is finally starting to become affectionate with you. notice that new puppy has a serious gas problem.


• begin work on a freelance project that requires you to proofread an 850-page high school health textbook. find yourself actually learning something. giggle at the chapter on sexual abstinence.


• visit your cutie-patootie Aryan doctor for another checkup where you blather on about your cough. say inappropriate and nonsensical things such as you really like the cough syrup with codeine he prescribed because it gives you “kaleidoscopic” dreams. blush like a school girl when he uses his stethoscope to listen to your lungs, which, by the way, sound clear so no you don’t have pneumonia like you suspect and you didn’t have it last time either, remember? leave quietly and then kick yourself in the head for being an insufferable idiot.


• find one long, dense book to occupy your week. settle on the 625-page autobiography of Katharine Graham. find yourself once again fascinated by the world of journalism. vow to rent “All the President’s Men” as soon as you can.


• become alarmed when your puppy brings in a severed pigeon leg one morning from the yard. carefully dispose of leg and then reluctantly enter your yard to find pigeon feathers scattered throughout, but no carcass. inspect puppy’s mouth, face and body to see if she had an altercation with a pigeon and already ate the evidence. conclude that it was likely a possum who committed the dismemberment the prior night and puppy recovered only sloppy seconds.


• eat like a pig because you’re bored and need comfort. exercise not at all. have your parents come by to drop off food after you complain that your fridge is empty. hear your dad look at you and say, “hmm, i thought being sick would make you drop a few pounds.”


• wish Zsa Zsa Gabor would call you.

nowadays i’m feeling better, though the cough and congestion still linger. but my energy has begun its rebound, and resuming work and rejoining civilization have never sounded better. i’ve spent enough time sitting around cruising myspace and twiddling my medicated thumbs. time to be productive again.

Aggressive Upper Respiratory Infection

a few weeks ago, doc said it was “acute bronchitis aided by bacteria.” next stop on the infirmary train would be pneumonia if i left it untreated, but to me it already feels like pneumonia, or at least its seedling. i’ve been coughing for six weeks. no joke. i also haven’t had a solid night’s rest in six weeks, being that i’m awakened countless times throughout the night to get a good cough out, wet my irritated throat with water and take a few deep breaths to return the oxygen to my brain.

until i saw the doctor earlier in the week, i had convinced myself that i had TB and would need to be quarantined. i feared that i might be arrested if i didn’t do the quarantine like that guy who was in the news a month back for flying with TB. i wondered if i could have crossed paths with him and been exposed. maybe he was that drunken guy from the Knitting Factory in early June who stood too close to me at the bar. i swear that guy breathed on my drink. i even began to prepare for the quarantine, trying to figure out who could watch my dogs and wondering would they have WiFi at the TB clinic?

i’ve begun my second round of antibiotics, with this one being some super strong antibiotic made for horses or something. when i went to fill the prescription, the pharmacist was like, “wow, do you have pneumonia?” i guess the sub par Amoxicillin of the first round just won’t treat such an aggressive infection, one that’s causing my lungs to crawl up my throat in an effort to escape my diseased body. plus there’s the Mucusin that is forcing the — yep, you guessed it — mucus to crawl up along with my lungs, maybe to better lubricate their journey. and there’s also the cough medicine with codeine that is giving me some crazy dreams, including a very surreal semi-nightmare the other night that had me on a roadtrip with all my ex-boyfriends.

i feel dumb, like it’s my fault. even strangers on the street think it’s my fault. a few weeks back as i was walking to Whole Foods, coughing my brains out, i passed an old russian guy on the street who heard my bark, looked right at me, finger pointed and yelled “don’t smoke!!!” in russian. startled, i kept walking, took a moment to process the event before turning around and yelling back, also in russian, “i don’t smoke!!” what a fucker. i haven’t had a cigarette in months. before those months maybe, but that has nothing to do with now. neither does having been a heavy smoker for six years back in the day. i mean, come on.

am i complaining enough? please humor me some more, because that’s what good blog readers do and you guys are the best blog readers in the world. i also have a story about the trip to the doctor’s office, which sadly didn’t include a lollipop or bright sticker at its conclusion like it did when i was a kid.

instead i had to visit the USC Health Sciences campus just north of downtown for a coveted same-day appointment, which means i get to see a different doctor every time as well as the ever-friendly med students who do the intake. the one this time looked younger than me and seemed scared as hell to talk to or touch me. she began by asking why i came in, and i kindly supplied her with a demonstration of the barking cough that has been charming those around me for weeks. i went on for about five minutes rattling off a list of my symptoms only to have her nod vigorously without writing a single thing down.

she then stopped and glanced down at her blank sheet, looking defeated. “i’m a third-year medical student and this is my first day ever working with patients,” she smiled meekly. “and the doctor wanted me to finish your intake in 15 minutes so he could leave by five.”

i had to appreciate her honesty. she seemed so genuine that i tried not to let her inexperience irritate me. but after another five minutes of her looking lost and apologetic, i had no other choice but to grab the clipboard and write down a list of my symptoms, saying, “don’t worry about a thing, sweetie. i’d love to leave by five, too. let’s get this party started.”

she seemed relieved, thanked me for being “cool” and eventually resumed control of her clipboard, but she still managed to prolong the intake to 25 minutes by asking every last question on the sheet, including “are you having homicidal thoughts and is anyone abusing you?”

i wanted to say, “sweetie, is that the intake sheet for teenagers? because i’m here for a cough, so no, my daddy’s not touching me weird. is the doctor free yet?” but instead i smiled politely and showed what i believe to be an alarming amount of self-restraint by breathing out a simple “no and no.”

finally the doctor came in and damn was he ever cute — and in a very not-my-type sort of way, meaning he looked a bit Aryan when i generally prefer them darker. still, i began to entertain the idea that i would need a house call later when i could try on his white coat and test out his bedside manner, heh heh. but i quickly dropped any illusion that our interaction was flirtatious when he began talking about the diarrhea all my new medications could cause.

and so far the only thing the medication has caused is insomnia. note the time stamp. i can’t sleep at all.

Puppy Love

i know what you’re thinking: but i swear i’m not pushing their heads together to create these syrupy look-at-the-darling-puppies-cuddling photo opps. swear!


they play, too: yes, when they are not nuzzling or staring into each other’s eyes lovingly, they are playing tug of war. like nonstop.


no toy? no problem! Juice’s neck will do. it’s far more elastic than any silly toy. warmer and chewier, too.


i almost want to try it: it does look pretty chewy, like a hairy piece of taffy. downside is that all the neck pulling is turning Juice into a sharpei.


dreaming of the pre-puppy days: a few people have remarked that Juice seems “calmer” with Pinko around. i think she’s just tired. hell, i’m tired. but we’re making it work, together. our relationship has certainly evolved with the addition of Pinko, like we’re mom and dad now trying to raise this kid right.


juice’s dog: i’m convinced that Pinko is convinced that the sun rises and sets in Juice. she cannot bear to be two inches away from Juice before panic sets in. she follows her room to room, sleeps right on top of her, and just seems better natured when Juice is in close range. and me? i just provide the food — i’m the caterer to their love affair.


see? i wasn’t lying.


juice don’t mind: she loves to spread the love. she will face-lick homeless people. i can learn a thing or two from her, because on many days when i arrive home after a full day at work to find the speaker wire chewed through, the broom eaten, the tissue box shredded, i’m ready to hang the puppy upside down by the tail and skin her alive.


san jugo: contrast this with the jesus-like Juice. she tolerates all the terrorizing — the neck pulling, the shadowing, the theft of toys — and never lays down the iron paw in the way her 75-pound body can on this 30-pound squirt. and honestly, i never expected anything else from her. because with a dog as full of love as Juice, Pinko is just another lucky recipient.


could it be? is it my imagination or does Pinko’s face look sweeter than it did in the first round of pictures? i think she’s softening, finally! all my hard work of not killing her day to day when she misbehaves is really working! or maybe i just said her name in a super high pitch when i snapped this.


i jest, i jest: Pinko ain’t so bad. in fact, i can barely remember the life i had before she entered the household. i know it wasn’t as fun. and certainly not as active. Pinko’s done much to pull my fat ass outdoors, as we hit up the dog park each day for ball-chasing and runyon canyon each week for hikes.


a welcome alarm: my favorite Pinko is morning Pinko. that’s when she’s the ultimate cute cake, sitting by my bedside with tail thumping the floor uncontrollably, ears back and eyes full of excitement. it’s that face that makes it hard to leave for work each day. and she’s full of these drawn-out yawns and stretches that result in the greatest little howl, like “roo-roooo-wooooo.”


“Ju — i mean, Pinko!” i’m doing that mom thing now where i get their names mixed up. you know, that thing i’d never thought i’d do. the one that drove me crazy when my mom did it with me and my sister.


boobs: i don’t recall the exact moment when “boobs” became their current collective nickname, but i’ve gotten into the habit of calling them that. i suppose it’s fitting — there are two of them now; both warm, cuddly and soft; they look alike; and they’re mine.

31

now that i’ve finally crossed the threshold to become a true thirtysomething instead of just a thirty, i got exactly the push i needed to jump off the fence and arrive at the soft landing and happy acceptance awaiting me below. not that i could have hopped the fence to run back into my twenties. and not that i would have wanted to.

unlike last year when i found myself in a panic over the approach of this new decade — the textbook type of panic i’ve seen countless friends go through as well — this year there was no turmoil, no soppy lamentations, crazy chronicles or paralyzing thoughts of “oh shit, what the fuck am i doing with my life?”

this year, i felt happy on my birthday. this year, i knew conclusively that the only thing i could do with my life was to live it. this year, i woke up on the tuesday that was my birthday and went to work as usual, happy to have my career in copy editing. i received cards from a few thoughtful coworkers, with one even making me lemon bars. the evening i passed with my parents, eating a nice meal at fancy Maggiano’s. and of course nighttime i spent with my puppies, their wagging tails and smiling eyes confirming the suspicion i carried with me throughout the day — that i had much to be thankful for on this birthday.

that night, i leashed up the pups for a long walk in the twilight. the neighborhood looked lovelier than usual, peppered as it was with bougainvillea in full bloom, still bright by the moonlight. the weather was perfectly temperate, air crisp. big inhales and exhales.

as we walked, the reflections of the past ten began to roll in — the traumas and dramas, whether real or imagined; the joys, hopes, sorrows, fears and sensations; the boyfriends and broken hearts; the back surgery and resultant scar; the delirium of new love and anguish when he cheated; the people i thought i’d always know but haven’t spoken to in ages; the job jumping; the moving once a year; the summer traveling through europe; the inadequacies and self-doubts; the opportunities for redemption; angela’s suicide; the wild time in san francisco; the drugs and all-night parties; the youthful delusions, amateur epiphanies and yearly paradigm shifts.

they rolled in like a flood. the bad, the good, the ugly. those shiny moments that defined my twenties, that once seemed so vivid and relentlessly self-important, the way they latched onto me like leeches. but now, finally, after years of agonizing over how i could have done everything i’ve ever done better than the way i did it, none of it seemed to matter anymore.

it was really past — distant, remote, stripped of its gravity and put into perspective. finally, i had let it go. finally, i had moved the fuck on. and damn, it felt good. i felt relieved, lighter, brighter, almost tingly as i strolled the boulevard with my pups wondering what the hell was put in my drink during dinner to make me so damn clear-headed. but here it was, very clear indeed, that the past was just that: irrelevant and not worth agonizing over.

as someone who is an agonizer, ruminator extraordinaire, capable of psychoanalyzing everything within an inch of its existence, this was huge. and while i don’t expect to ever rewire myself out of that (exhausting) habit, i needed to throw out the old to make some room for the lifetime of stress that’s surely ahead of me. and just like that, with a long walk and a bit of mental abracadabra, the old stuff had gone.

it was the oddest, most effortless catharsis known to humankind. a velvet revolution, with ten years worth of baggage tossed out of my psyche like a tacky prom dress that’s crowding the closet. it made me feel so super free and invincible that making senseless analogies about prom dresses is suddenly a-ok. i’m feeling that fucking good.

and now, a week into being 31 — thirty-fun! — i’m still feeling pretty fucking good.

Whimper: Redux

so yeah, single again. blogging about it again. and again feeling compelled to say something declarative and profound about life and love, and how things work and don’t work for me. but i’d rather not get into all that this time around. it simply isn’t necessary.

what i do want to say is that i’m handling the breakup well -- perhaps uncharacteristically well. there was no big drama, no cheating or burning the house down. it was an amicable, mutual split that was many months in the making and free of any agonizing regrets. i felt prepared for it and confident that it was the right decision for both of us.

at the risk of sounding too mature, i will confess that i’ve been listening to sad music nonstop and eating copious amounts of buffalo wings with ranch dressing. but only on thursdays. and only when i’m not busy scribbling in my offline journal: Dear Diary, Why won’t anyone love me?

but really, all is well, and i’m glad we gave it a shot. we shared two fantastic years together, with a wildly romantic origin story that led into an irresistible and fiery love affair that i’m better for having. at times, even most times, it felt like Everything I Wanted, but there were deal-breakers that ultimately rendered us unworkable, despite how much i wished otherwise. still, Mo remains a permanent fixture in my life and a forever owner of my affinity. but as for being a pair, we can’t.

and now, i’m quite optimistic about the future and its assorted mysteries. i’m enjoying my alone time, with an empty house to myself and a new puppy to know. there are items to do, books to read, DVDs to watch and old friends to reconnect with. i anticipate this summer to be a strange hybrid of hibernation-motivation as i situate into a new routine that’s rooted squarely in my home, among my furry kids, sketching out the next chapter of my life.

sadly, this means no birthday bonanza extravaganza this year as the puppy is still too young to handle drunken guests walking through an always open yard door. i don’t trust her not to escape and don’t want to spend the entire evening worrying that she will. instead, i’ll turn 31 quietly among my closest friends and family. and then, i don’t know. but i’m curious to find out.

Introducing Pinko

i had been thinking about and talking about getting a second dog for years. i knew it would happen eventually, though timing and circumstances never made it easy. i had looked at a few dogs in the past, even had one stay the weekend with me, but it never clicked in the way i knew it would need to. then one day about a month back while i was cruising the pets section of craigslist, something i do regularly, something did click. i spotted a puppy and felt the familiar pinch of cupid and his damn arrow again:


deep dog: this might sound lame but there was something in the pup’s eyes that seemed deep and irresistible to me. she had been named Pebbles and her history involved a sad story about being rescued from a crackhouse in palmdale, where she had been mistreated, malnourished and left to suffer with a broken leg. a nice foster family took her in and nursed her to vitality. by the time i met her at an adoption fair a month later, she had made some mighty progress — putting on weight, learning basic commands and getting good with the housebreaking. i was impressed. but of course my interest meant nothing without approval from the big J.

we had one meeting at the adoption fair and another playdate at my house that went exceptionally well. they played, they laughed, they loved, they cried. and the planets aligned. with Juice onboard, i adopted the sweet puppy, who’s now six months old with leg fully healed, and renamed her Pinko after her pink cast and my communist roots.


co-pilots in crime: Juice and Pinko have become fast friends as well as sisters, united no doubt by their common enemy — me. i smell a mutiny on the horizon, with these two colluding against me during their huddled embraces. but what can i expect with three bitches in the house?


mystery meat: Mo says Pinko looks like she got her face caught in a car exhaust, that she fell for the old exploding cigar trick — a charcoal face characteristic of the Belgian Malinois. to me, she looks thoroughly shepard-esque mixed with the same mystery breed that gives Juice her floppy ears. but Pinko’s little with little, breakable bones. vet says she won’t grow to more than 35 pounds and that she might have some chihuahua in her.


Juice & Deuce: for being new, this runt sure has a lot of nicknames already. they include the very apt deuce, crazy, the little one, pretty in pinko and squirt. i had actually considered making Squirt her official name but then rethought that upon realizing i would forever have to introduce my dogs as Squirt ’n’ Juice. too much fluid. so yes, Pinko Jews is way better.


crazy in love: thankfully, Pinko is just as affectionate, cuddly, loving and warm as Juice is. unfortunately, none of this goodness is directed toward me, the evil dungeon mistress who occasionally drops kibble in the bowl when she’s not busy yelling “put that down! don’t eat that! off the bed! come back here! settle down!” it’s like chasing after a toddler. so most of the time, i get the cold shoulder, the dirty look, the silent treatment. and Juice the protector — who literally puts her big body between us when i’m trying to discipline the naughty puppy — gets all the unconditional awe and admiration a little sister could ever have for her older sibling.


still a sleeping cutie: and what a sibling Juice has been. i well up with treacle each time i consider how patient and welcoming she has been with this rat-faced terror whose favorite pastime is nipping at her neck and stealing toys from out of her mouth. but Juice never flinches; she totally gets it and even helps me out by modeling the perfect behavior each time i utter a request to Pinko, who turns constantly to Juice for direction.


hijacked: i will confess that i’m a bit jealous of their relationship. i sometimes think that Pinko is less my second dog than she is Juice’s first dog. she shadows Juice at every turn, needing to walk in her pawprints to sniff the same blade of grass that Juice sniffed. not that Juice minds having this captive audience of one who thinks she’s the center of the universe.


double the dirt and trouble: but oh my, the mess that two dogs leave behind. like Juice, Pinko has the shedding shepard gene that leaves a whole other dog behind, in hair, whenever she gets up. and there’s also Pinko’s proclivity of bringing in sticks from the yard to be eaten on the couch.


the twins: these two really have taken to each other in a way i couldn’t have predicted or planned better. Pinko simply lights up whenever she looks at Juice, just like she did the moment they met. and Juice is so fiercely protective of Pinko that she supervises Pinko’s interaction with other dogs at the dog park to make sure no one is picking on her kid sister. meanwhile, i'm still chopped liver.


the secret: behold the well behaved pupperonis who sit on cue and smile for the camera. i am the beastmaster! yeah, yeah, with some treats in my hand.


the temperament: this puppy is one tough cookie. she’s deep, she’s seen some shit, and it’s written on her face and imprinted in her eyes. like Juice, she’s smart and stubborn. like me, she’s full of needless pride. she’s a survivor — fearless and independent in a way that’s surprising for a six-month-old puppy. but with a bit of time and dedication that will all melt into love.

welcome home, Pinko.

Juice Retrospective

Juice is 5 years old now — and still so terrific. and of course i’m totally objective. but even if i’m not, i’ve heard enough complements from other folks to know conclusively that i have a special dog. even on day one, i knew i hit the jackpot. i well remember that day when i went to the South LA pound to choose my puppy. little did i know that they actually choose you. it was a Friday in mid-July, a hot day, making for one stinky animal shelter. i walked through the kennels and surveyed the barking pups. at that point, i wanted to take all of them home. city shelters are fucking depressing.

but then this little pup caught my eye. she wasn’t barking. she was sitting quietly looking up at me, blinking her dark eyes. in her kennel were two boys, presumably her brothers from the same litter, who were barking wildly and wrestling each other in an attempt to rope my attention. but she sat silent and calm nearby, just staring, staring. so i stared back. cupid must have surfaced at that moment to shoot his arrow into my heart. love at first sight. the decision had been made.

i walked through the remainder of the pound out of obligation, all the while knowing i had already found what i came for. that charade must have lasted five minutes before i turned to find the guard with the keys, who opened the gate, grabbed the lone female pup out of the litter, the runt, and placed her into my arms, creating a moment of sheer cosmic divination. this was the big it. we belonged to each other. she was about six weeks old.


at the shelter, the employees told me i was getting a rottweiler who would likely grow to 90 pounds. she had enormous paws and a black face with brown teardrop markings that are characteristic of rotts. the tips of her paws were frosted white, like a french manicure. and her puppy countenance seemed a touch serious, belying her gentle nature.


as she grew, however, it became clear that she wasn’t a rott at all. she was more of a Shepard with floppy ears and a snout like a lab. her cute face — which i found cutest when she slept — gradually turned brown and sweeter. and she grew to only 75 pounds.


she was crazy affectionate, too — almost bordering on needy. it took a long while before she could be left alone without incident. the first time i tried, i jetted to the grocery store for an hour and came home to neighbors standing outside my door, demanding to know what torture was being conducted inside. apparently, Juice had alarmed the neighborhood with her intense howling. this alarmed me in turn and really drove home the gravity of puppy parenthood. from that point on, everything became about training. and fortunately for me, Juice was a quick study.


people always ask me about the name. i can’t take credit; my ex named her. but it fits. she drools a lot, prompting the groomers i often take her to to call her Juicy Juice. she has a slew of other nicknames as well, which evolve with time. they include pretty girl, patoose, toots, cute cake, pinhead, perfect and bozo. but she is most thoroughly Juice. funny story about the first few years with her, when i lived in the fairfax & beverly area of LA, near the Hasidics, who would traipse through the neighborhood, usually to temple while i chased my pup up the street in a few botched attempts at walking her without a leash, screaming “Juice! Juice!” i got many stares and only realized later that they must have thought i was screaming “Jews! Jews!”


always a social and affectionate dog, Juice had many friends and admirers throughout the neighborhood, both canine and human. Chuck (pictured here) was her main man for a long while, before his owners moved out of state. they spent many a playdate locked in embraces. thankfully, they were both fixed.


but ultimately black Max took her heart. they’ve been best friends and lovers since puppyhood. Max is a year older and lives nearby, so they get to see each other weekly. from Max, Juice learned how to pee like a boy dog and how to wrestle with the best of them.


from me, Juice hopefully learned some of her good manners and how to while away her days by being lazy. she’s fairly mellow now, never aggressive or unruly, and she can walk without a leash. she’s definitely still needy, smiley, sweet, cuddly, gentle and perfect. i can’t imagine one thing that could make her a better dog.

but the question is — can lightning strike twice in the same household? Juice will have a sister soon. it’s my gift to her on her 5th birthday...

Other Matters

• been beyond busy at work lately. it's like that promotion actually meant something, increasing my job duties tenfold. it's odd suddenly to have to earn each cent of my paycheck like this. i used to have more sit-on-my-ass downtime where i could internet surf, instant message and draft blog entries, which happened almost exclusively at work before. but now, on a sunday afternoon, when i should be sipping a mimosa over brunch somewheres, i'm finally drafting this long overdue post.



• not to mention the abundance of freelance work that's come my way. i had this one project keeping me occupied the past few weeks -- a proof of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. i've read the book three times now and it still makes me think of Fred Gwynne playing Herman Munster. except that in the book, the Frankenstein monster is kind of a bastard.



• not that freelance work is a bad thing. in fact i'd welcome more of it. (Dave, you reading this? employ me!) i must save some extra rubles because, next year, i intend to buy a domicile of my very own. yup, you heard it here first. i'm on a mission to become a homeowner. this has been on my mind for a while, and with timing being everything, the softening LA real estate market is looking more hospitable to first-timers like me. plus, i've discovered that by the standards of the city of los angeles in this great state of california, i'm considered low-income, meaning i qualify for all these cool incentives offered by the state and city (that aren't subprime) to help get me into the market.



• but where would i move to? excellent question. of course, affordability is paramount here, and after careful consideration, i've decided that i can only move "east." not east like arizona or the orient, just due east of hollywood. it's a real momentous occasion for me to admit that i've finally grown tired of hollywood. the lack of parking, the congestion, the scensters -- over it! i guess i really am in my thirties now. (plus, i can't afford shit around here.) of course, i could never move to the westside because that's where my parents live, and north means the dreadful SF valley, which feels podunk to me since i grew up there; and south is far too close to orange county, so by default i must move my landlocked self to the eastside, to a deluxe apartment in the sky! of course, this is all very TBD. i'm still about a year away from move day.



• my pops turned 60 last month! he's a young and strapping buck, i know. 60 is the new 50, and he still has all his hair. we went to a laker game at staples on his actual birthday. it was the last home game of the season, the game the lakers needed to win (against the sonics) to qualify for the playoffs. luckily, they won, and kobe scored 50 points that night. we had kick-ass seats, and kareem, who was also celebrating his 60th birthday, was in the crowd, prompting all of staples to stand and sing him happy birthday. i told my dad to imagine it was all for him, and i think he did, maybe just for a second.