Pug & Pug LLC

You know those cheesy commercials that come on at 2 AM on Lifetime? The ones that say, "Hello! Are you hurt? Have you been injured in an accident? You may be eligible for damages, up to $1,000,000 dollars! If you want to find out more, call us at 1-888-I'M-GONNA-STEAL-YOUR-MONEY!"

Yeah, those. You know those. So I'm chatting with The Boyfriend tonight, and I'm discussing my overwhelming urge to parachute into the Amazon jungle and live off bananas and roots for the next five years - adopting a little monkey who I eventually name Yoko, who fathers a whole family I dub "Yokonites".

And he says I'm being impractical and unreasonable, to which I heartily agree (but when am I really ever reasonable? It's no fun to be reasonable). But I still insist he should take long vacations with me, feeding the Yokonites and feasting on crushed roots. Unfortunately, The Boyfriend has other things on his agenda. Things like, for example, working for the Public Defender's Office. Which is all well and good until you realize that a beginning attorney earns 1 vacation hour per week. WEEK - yes, I said week. Which, according to my sloppy calculations means he'd have to work for about 3 1/2 years before he could take a week off for vacation. What kind of retarded system is that?!

So, in shock and desperation, I order him to cease and desist all Public Defender activities and come join me and my side of The Force. Or rather, my own little private practice I'll set up when I graduate law school (the reason being cuz no one will hire me and my bad bad grades). I plan to name it Pug & Pug LLC (you know, Keller & Keller, Brown & Brown, blah blah blah). Our commercial jingle will be: "Is your dog in trouble? Has he been injured in an accident? Has your dog suffered discrimination? Has he eaten too many chicken wings? We can help! Call our offices of Pug & Pug LLC, at 1-800-PUG. We'll be waiting!" We'll even have a little V-Dub Beetle painted in brown with a speaker fixed on top that utters loud doggy barks every 10 minutes. It'll be awesome.

Ogley-Eyes

I went to the gym this week. Like the week before. And the week before. I've discovered, much to my delight, that the upstairs portion of the gym is almost always empty, and I can run from machine to machine in manic delight at the sheer available-ness of it all. So this week I was upstairs, pouring salty beads of sweat, and doing my best guppy fish impression while drinking from my water bottle.

And in comes someone to ruin my lovely I'm-all-by-myself Zen mode. The fella plops down on the floor and starts doing those crazy pushups you perform with 2 fingers or something. I'd never try that - they'd snap off in protest. So I'm chillin', doing my StairMaster, glancing at the clock every 2 seconds to see if I've progressed beyond my current 3 minutes of a rather lame-ass sissy workout.

And reading, of course. Every so often, I raid the Bargain section of the local Borders or Barnes and Nobles, looking for something that looks completely unintelligent and has someone being killed or stabbed or stalked or farted on. Hey, I can only concentrate so much while bicycling vigorously and swatting my tendrils of nosy hair back in place. I need brain-dead material to entertain me. Otherwise I will grow to hate the gym, and I will balloon up into an ungainly and rather unattractive 300 pounds.

So I'm reading, and stepping, and swatting hair, and drinking water. And sneaking little glances at my workout "buddy", rather jealous that he's lifting 100 pound weights in each hand like they're sticks of butter. And then I notice something that boggles my mind to this minute: my buddy is glancing at me, smiling that "you're kinda cute, do you think I'm cute too" smile, and winking every so often. I'm absolutely flabbergasted.

Now, perhaps I should explain. I understand, and have been told by some people, that I'm somewhat attractive. And this usually happens when I'm wearing the most expensive dress I own, the tallest shoes in my closet, and a bit of makeup. I've looked at myself in the morning after getting out of bed, and let me tell you, the sight is not pretty. Now, I'm one of those people that will get dressed up for everything - I'll wear a dress to go shopping for groceries. But the one thing I absolutely refuse to dress up for is the gym. In fact, I have subconsciously made it my utmost priority to look my absolute worst when I go the gym. Probably because my gym clothes look like they were made in the 70s, and I'm sweating like a pig.

So, back to the story, I'm puzzled that this fella is making ogley-eyes at me. Me, the girl in the old sweatpants and faded ugly t-shirt. The girl who's hair is pinned up, but looks strikingly similar to a volcano that's about to erupt. The girl who's face is as red as a tomato - no, make that an eggplant. Yes, I was purple from exhaustion. The man must be going delusional from all those 2-finger pushups. Or those He-Man weights. Or maybe he's crazy. Scenes from Psycho and the music from Jaws pop into my head and I grab my little towel, draping it over my shoulder like a mini-shield, and make a dash for the stairs. Once safely in my car, I realized perhaps he just has a fetish for eggplants in ugly sweats. That's probably it.

And since I wrote nothing about the pug in this entry, I shall let you all know: he's safe, he's snoring, and he's still the spawn of Satan.

Yoga!

Lately I've been thinking that maybe I should stop being a overweight slob and actually go out and do some exercise. As well as cut back on the gallons of ice cream consumed daily.

It's been going pretty good, and this week I decided to pick up a book about yoga. I've always been interested in limbering up (hell, I'd be happy just being able to do the splits), and I've heard yoga is great for that - so yoga book bought at Borders, brought home, quickly scanned while steaming broccoli, and forgotten until a more convenient time.

Today I got back from the gym sweaty and feeling like my tummy was carrying around one of those giant water cooler jugs (probably due to my over-enthusiastic consumption of water at the gym). I call out to my pug, with the usual greeting of, "Good evening, my child" (in a sinister Dracula-ish voice. I don't know why.) He jumps all over, snorts, farts and looks at his behind as if to say, "Huh? Wasn't me. Swear." and does all those other lovely pug things. I spot the yoga book lying forlornly on the kitchen counter, and decide to try it out.

So I pick the book up, read a little, lay down on the floor, and start my yoga routine. Ahh, the corpse position. Close my eyes...breathe in....and out....and in...and OUCH! I open my eyes. DevilSpawn is sitting on my chest, his little tail wagging like a torpedo, panting very very close to my face. Granted, I'm sweaty and smelly and all, but I still don't like being slobbered by a dog that eats chicken every day (hey, I'm a vegetarian. I cry for each chicken killed unnecessarily. But I get blackmailed into buying chicken every week for the pug. He's an evil mastermind, I'm telling you.) So I pick up the pug, put him far away, and return to my yoga maneuverings. Now, I'm sure if I had a Golden Retriever, or a Doberman, or a Keeshond, or even a Chihuahua, the dog would eventually tire of my antics and leave me be. However, that is NOT the case with a pug. My personal theory is that pug brains are so small, that they can only receive and remember a certain amount of information - therefore, what was newly discovered and memorized 2 seconds ago, has been erased by now. Which equals a very curious pug that never shuts up or leaves you alone. Let me tell you, that session was short. VERY, VERY short. Every time I moved a limb or finger, the pug would be there to put it in his mouth or slobber on it. And if I wanted to lie really still and concentrate, he'd make sure that I become an obstacle course, where he'd jump from my left side to my right side, usually falling on my chest in the process. Just lovely. I have a feeling he got more exercise done than I did.

And that was the end of my first try at yoga. I think I'll have to close the door next time.