Comedy on bikes tour

Today could quite possibly have been the funniest day on bikes in a long time. None of the names have been changed.

Nick Viselli shows up and he's ready to ride, but hasn't ridden in a month. (This means nothing. This means his body has had one month to turn into more of a butt kicking machine.) The cable on his front fork is attached with a plastic trash bag he found out in the desert on the last bike ride. He has only three gears because his bike isn't shifting properly. There's something wrong with his break and it is rubbing. All this means that you may be able to keep Nick Viselli in your sites.

Alas, we stop for water at the very end of the ride. I am tired. I am exhausted. I am more tired than I have been in a long time and just want someone to go get a damn truck and pick me up. Nevertheless, I see that Nick has this red cap sticking out of his reverse fanny pack. "Nick, is that a ketchup bottle you got there?" I ask. And in the most matter of fact voice, he replies,

"No, it's a bottle from the gel for my ultrasound. When I use up all the gel, I just reuse the bottle and put different stuff in it. This one's got a tea bag." And he swishes the bottle.

At this point, I don't know what to think. I look at Pete, then I look at Bill and I say, "Is this a true story? Is he telling the truth?" Bill turns to Nick and says, "Nick. Nobody does that." But Nick has more explanations.

"No, I use the ultrasound on my ankle and my knee and so when I'm done I just put the gel bottles in the dishwasher and they come out clean." Then he unzipps a pocket and pulls out another ultrasound gel bottle. "Like this one has pomegranate juice in it."

At this point I can't take it any more and am hunched over my handle bars crying because I'm laughing so hard. Not only is he using the bottles for water bottles, but he has an ultrasound machine. I said, "This is the best story ever." Pete disagreed because he thought Nick's plan to retire and farm pine nuts was the best story ever. Meanwhile Nick is still talking about his ultrasound, but leads into how some people wanted to go out on their pine nut farm and he said "Sure, we're not going to get up there this month." Cut to we're back at the car and I'm still laughing and I say to Joy, Nick's wife, "He's killing me with his water bottles." She says, "Oh yeah, it's a straight shot, but you have to be careful you don't squirt yourself too hard." Before we leave, I mention again how Nick is killing me with his water bottles and he mentions he's being recruited for all different kinds of rugby teams and is going to be playing rugby in Vegas in a couple of weeks. I said, "Are you gonna take your water bottles?" "Oh yeah, I've got all kinds of different concoctions for each one." Then, he and Joy mentioned that they have not only one ultrasound machine, but TWO. One in Apple Valley and one in Reno. Of course they do. Fucking Nick Viselli. I would not be surprised if one day was like, "Oh yeah, we've got Zebras. We've had them since we built the one room log cabin by hand. We use them for aqua therapy."

But at breakfast as Pete and I were trying to explain Facebook to Clarence (age 72-75ish, former teacher) he says, "And like every typical young teacher sleeping with his students, you don't want to have those pictures out there."

Pete said when Clarance was teaching it was a different time.

Nick Viselli's Water Bottle:

Patience

I'm trying to be patient about the ducks' sex. I know that in a couple of months it will be clear because I will have a) nothing b) eggs c) ducks. Nevertheless, I want to know NOW, so I am constantly trying to figure out what the ducks are. Today I think I noticed that EDub's back belly hangs down lower that PDub's. Or maybe because he's white it just makes him look fatter? Not sure, but EDub's belly seems to nearly touch the ground and PDub's does not.

Randi inspects and monitors the bathtub.

In other news, Randi is particularly sensitive to sounds. The other morning I was listening to NPR and they played a clip of Meryl Streep as Julia Child. Randi jumped off the bed and ran into the computer room and tried to jump at the computer à la Dying Dinosaur Earl. She also has been particularly interested in The Real Housewives and strangely enough Clean House.

Last week when my mom and dad were over my mom said, "Beth, what's wrong with Earl? Why does he look like that? Is he sleeping with his eyes open?" I said, no, he just smokes a lot of pot. I know it's hard to imagine a dog that smokes pot, but last week he went out and when he came back in he smelled like smoke. For the record, I'm not giving the dog pot.

Lap Dogs

Just a typical evening playing musical lap dogs.

First Earl decides he wants to sit on my dad's lap.

Then Clark gets jealous.

Then Randi.

Country

I have a crush on Keith Urban. Or really, I have a crush on how Keith Urban wears short sleeved shirts that fall just right and show off his arms, because depending on how he does his hair I sometimes don't have a crush on him. This is all part of what Jenny, the librarian (and incidentally the wife of Stephen-he who knows everything from Shakespeare to the mating habits of everything) deemed my "gone over the edge" because I am now pretty much exclusively listening to country music. My radio is turned to country in the car and at school when I am not teaching. (That's how Jenny discovered I was listening to country, when she called and I was blasting the Toby Keith station on Pandora in the background. While in class, of course, I listen to French music. I would never listen to anything but French during French class-much to the chagrin of all of my students who have on occasion begged to listen to something else. Mostly I play Emmanuel Moire and Christophe Maé because they are my future French husbands, should I not marry Damien for passports of course.) Pretty much I think I have gone country. I would like to think that this came about because I now have a sort of farm and a big ass truck (though foreign, decidedly less country), and have to make regular trips to the feed store, but the truth is I've been listening to country for a while now. And I like it. I have not bought any Wrangler's yet, nor a Stetson or cowboy boots, nor do I have any plans to do so, but I have been listening to Keith Urban, Sugarland, Toby Keith et al non-stop and am anxiously awaiting the drop of Lady Antebellum's new album on Tuesday. Yesterday I even watched CMT On Demand, admittedly because NCIS and NCIS LA were reruns On Demand, but still, I watched it. Additionally, I am becoming increasingly consumed with finding someone with an RV who is going to the Stagecoach festival and who will let me go along because Keith Urban's going to be there-hopefully in a short sleeved shirt.

Aside-while writing this Earl just jumped up and ate some butter off of the counter. My fault entirely for leaving the butter out.

Flight

PDub takes flight. Twice.

It's quick, but you can see PDub trying to eat waves.

And Earl.

Wannabees

I got a new camera- a Nikon Coolpix s220. Mostly because my other camera was really the school's camera and the shutter had to be opened manually by sticking your finger on the shutter and moving it apart. Also, I thought it would be a nice way to celebrate Randi's two year anniversary of being unadopted which was last weekend and I forgot. So far I'm pretty happy with the camera, which is about as large as a credit card.

The family of small birds some of which were getting pretty frisky right before I took this. EDub and PDub have adopted them and share all of their food with them. And these guys have built a rather impressive nest in the tree.

EDub and PDub.

Randi watches the Real Housewives of Orange County.

One of a family of pigeons that has taken up at the Saratoga Animal Shelter because of the variety of food available (East Saratoga Animal Shelter serves up the chicken scratch and the West Old Roy Dog food.)

Sarah on her bed.

Inclement Weather Day!!

School's canceled tomorrow!! Is it snowing? No...just raining. A lot. Though cold it doesn't look like it's going to snow because as I told 5th period, you guys refuse to talk about the weather en français, despite the fact we just finished the weather chapter. I'm convinced some more exclamations of "Il pleut!" would have resulted in snow tonight, but since school is canceled anyways, snow is really a mute point.

Due to the un-snow the Saratoga Animal Shelter is now located just north of Lake Saratoga...which got me thinking. Maybe EDub and PDub aren't mad per se. Maybe their recent displays of affection have really been them expressing how excited they are that their whole backyard has been turned into a playground.

Unfortunately Lake Saratoga has reduced the puppies playground area and inclement weather has forced Randi and Earl to attempt their evening wrestling match in the house. This is allowed until they make me so mad that I throw them out. Everyone is in the house, but Sarah, who refuses on the grounds of being pissy. Even when I walk out to try to get her and I'm done with that since it's so freaking cold.

Tomorrow I am going to not get up at 4:30 and go to the gym. Then, I'm going to clean my house, sew and work on my train powerpoints including the infamous Ami et Julia vont à la gare documenting Ami and Julia quand elles sont allées à la gare and I took pictures to make a powerpoint which was then subsequently lost along with everything else I'd ever done in 11 years of teaching when my external hard drive crashed two months ago. I have not and will not cry. Crying does not replace lost powerpoints.

Teenagers

I've decided EDub and PDub must be teenagers. I thought that they would love that the rain has turned their entire backyard into a pond. Not so much. Notice how well you can hear my mute ducks sounding off- even with the pouring rain in the background. Notice their aggressive approach. I put dry food on the patio for them in case they wanted that, which seemed silly since they always take their food and put it in water. I reminded them that they could hop up and sit on the patio if they didn't want to be in the rain. Obviously they were having none o that. Currently, they are swimming, in the pouring rain, so why are they so mad? Furthermore, my house smells like wet dog, but I did successfully start a fire in the fireplace in under 45 minutes with what could best be described as soggy wood. Because someone never bought a tarp to cover up the wood pile.) I'd blame Randi, but she doesn't have access to the car or my ATM. Plus she's way too busy trying to lick the wood stove.

Weekend Update

This is what the ducks looked like this morning when I woke up. I do believe the leak in the pool is what is causing their mute anger. I've done all I could. I bought special plastic glue to glue it back together, but as is evident, it has not held and so nearly every day the ducks wake up to a half empty pool. I guess this is probably like an air mattress that leaves you sleeping on the floor by the end of the night. No wonder they're pissed.



And then Randi and Earl who are obviously neglected and unappreciated while I deal with the angry ducks.
In other news, my dresser broke Friday (the whole face came off of the drawer and so now I have one drawer that barely opens and one drawer where I have to stick my hand in and pull out my socks) and I need a new one. This caused a crisis this morning because I did not win the lottery last week as planned and so my choices are limited. I tried to get counsel from the ducks, but I am not so far gone that I don't realize that all of these animals don't actually talk back to me. But I wish they did because they could help make decisions. Off I went in search of a dresser/bedroom furniture in which I had these conversations:

Saleslady: What are you looking for?
Me: White bedroom furniture.
Saleslady: Oh, white? Are you sure, we only have that in children's furniture.

Salesguy: What are you looking for?
Me: Bedroom furniture.
Salesguy: Anything specific?
Me: Yes, it has to be white.
Salesguy: ??
Me: Or metal
Salesguy: Why does it have to be white?
Me: Because it won't match my room if it is not.
Salesguy: What color is your room?
Me: Purple.
Salesguy: Like lavendar? Um, does it have to be a queen size? Because we have white furniture in children's.
Me: Yes, queen. (I currently have a full, but I might as well update.)
Salesguy: Do you share the bed with someone?
Me: (Thinking what is it your business if I share it!!) Yes.
Salesguy: With a child or an adult?
Me: (thinking, three dogs, but none of your damn business) Another adult. (and thinking-only when I'm lucky.)

Then the salesguy showed me the children's furniture and how great it was. It had knobs with butterflies on them "but you can go to Home Depot and change them out."

I've not found a dresser/bedroom furniture. And this has thrown me into a mini-crisis that the ducks and Pack can not resolve. Get all new furniture? Get just a white dresser? Two white dressers? Get a wardrobe? Go to the thrift store? Go to Ikea? Get rid of the broken bed? (Yes, the bed is broken. The sexy story would be that the post broke during a brief interlude whilst another adult was sharing my bed, but the boring truth is it was broken when I inherited it from my grandma. For the record, I don't think my grandma broke it either.)

Also, sometimes I think Earl thinks that we should spend more time fantasizing about being on Yard Crashers or House Crashers rather than the Real Housewives.

On the rampage

If you listen carefully, you can hear my ducks talking. I think they're complaining about how their pool keeps draining because it has a hole in it. I tried to explain that as soon as kid pools get put out I will purchase them a new one.

Angry Ducks

According to me, everyone here at the Saratoga Animal Shelter was well fed and watered when I left this morning. Either I am smoking crack cocaine or these guys had a "lot" party and invited everyone in the neighborhood who ate and drank everything. When I got home the ducks had no food and barely any water in their pool and it had RAINED. When I put the food in their food bowl EDub had a few choice words for me. He said " !", then craned his neck and yelled, " ", did some rather aggressive head bobbing and finished with a " ." I've never seen ducks pissed off before, but they were. I filled up their pool and food and they've been floating and playing ever since. Additionally, the pack had no food and barely any water, but they were less angry about the whole situation. I would like to think that the ducks and dogs were really psychic and were really just predicting how upset that we would all be when we watched some Lady Antebellum videos right now. They sucked. I could make a better video.

Not making out

Stephen said the ducks were probably not making out. He suggested maybe they were fighting, but other than that had no real insights into the ducks' behavior and only managed to give away some of what happens in season three of Mad Men.

I know what fighting looks like and I know what making out looks like and it looked like making out.

Back to work

I think I watched the ducks make out. Thank goodness I'm going back to work so Stephen (i.e. he who knows everything from Shakespeare and Nutcracker Barbie to the mating habits of ducks) can tell me what that might mean about their sex.

Bravo TV

Sometimes Earl and I like to imagine ourselves in a Bravo reality TV show. A real one because a reality show of my actual life could only be watched by insomniacs or those high on hallucinogenics. Why Earl? Simple. Sarah could not possibly waste a moment imagining a life wherein there might be real men when this obviously is not going to happen. Clark is so damn needy clingy, he couldn't imagine a scenario that would take more of my attention away from him. (Really, if Clark were a guy, I'd have kicked him to the curb years ago for needy clingy-ness.) Randi has not the attention span and so that leaves Earl and since he smokes a large amount of pot, I figure he must have a good imagination.

Reality Show #1: The Realhouswives-
New York-impossible, the Pack could not possibly live in an apartment, even if we went weekly to our enormous house in the Hamptons.

New Jersey- a possibility, but I've never seen any fences at those houses. It could be a whole episode where I whine to my rich husband about how I need a fence for my pack of dogs, so they don't run away. No, better would be the episode in which we move the pack of dogs and EDub and PDub across the country.

Atlanta- I really, really want to be a real housewife of Atlanta. I don't think that there are fences at their houses, but I think I would score major bonus points for speaking French. Actually, I think in any city I would score major bonus points for speaking French- for some reason people are always impressed with this. (The conversation usually goes "You teach French? So do you, like, speak it?" To which I always want to reply "No, I just play a tape." ) I particularly like the Atlanta housewives because they are not so smart and just ghetto.

Orange County- Even in our fantasies, Earl and I are practical and this is our favorite housewife fantasy because we can imagine ourselves in a huge ranch with room for EDub and PDub as well as some chickens. I could still visit my mom and dad and I could have a cool (part time) job at a high school and come back to Apple Valley every month for book club.

In all of the housewife scenarios, we have a doggie door and I have a huge ass sewing room with a long-arm quilting machine, a lap pool and Wüstof knives (for cooking, not sewing, but since I'm so rich I could use them for sewing also.) Also all the shallow housewives are jealous because I craft and they come over regularly so I can show them how to make something by hand. Occasionally I make them go with me fabric shopping and they complain that I'm so crazy. I tell my husband I don't want any jewelry, but a bike and this is a whole episode because all the other housewives are scandalized-who does that? Sometimes I talk in French and my accent is perfect and they have to put subtitles at the bottom.

Reality Show Deux: The Millionaire Matchmaker-

This is where Patty just starts yelling at me: YOU HAVE FOUR DOGS AND TWO DUCKS! NO MAN WANTS A GIRL WITH FOUR DOGS AND TWO DUCKS. OR WHO RIDES BIKES. NO ONE CARES YOU CAN RIDE A BIKE. LUCKILY YOU SPEAK FRENCH. THAT CAN BE SEXY. SPEAK SOME FRENCH ON YOUR FIRST DATE. SOMEONE MIGHT LIKE THAT.

Reasons me and the Pack will never be a Real Housewife of any city or on the Millionaire Matchmaker:

1. I do not meet the weight requirement.
2. I do not meet the silicone requirement.
3. I have four dogs and two ducks and live in Apple Valley.

Obviously I am on vacation

On my days off I like to get up and spend some quality time with my coffee and the Internet. Randi and Earl and Clark usually play behind me until I throw them out.

This is rather subdued, but listen for Clark's call for help when the garbage man arrives:

I also made a voice recording of Earl's dying dinosaur impression. The first time you here this you might be a bit scared that there's something wrong with Earl. There's not. He's done this since he first got here. It's how he plays. When I played back the sound Randi was quite curious. Apparently, out of context it is cause for alarm. Then I played the video of Curious Randi- she about went insane and jumped up towards the computer obviously ready to attack dying dinosaur Earl and Curious Randi. Then I had to throw her out, which is when she jumped off and landed on top of Sarah who was not too pleased with that shenanigan. (I can't figure out how to post just the audio, so I have to post Randi listening to the audio.)

I Was Organizing Photos....

 The first picture documenting Earl being under the influence (c. 2007):

Before the walk:

After the walk:

The Snickerdoodle kidnap and ransom photo (or me and Amber had to take the Snickerdoodle to get her belly pushed to find out if she had a bladder infection.)  (c. 2006)

Pre-puppies- when Clark loved his toys because they all still had heads.  And arms.  And stuffing.  (c. 2004 après-France)

Earl gives Randi a kiss. (c. 2007)