Of Dog Days and Rain Lilies

Every day, usually between the hours of 3 and 6 pm, my husband and I take our dogs for a walk. But if the clock strikes 4 and we still haven't made a move to go, the dogs will begin a campaign of auditory torture to tell me it's that time.

Roscoe is our 10-year-old, 85-lb lab/border collie mix that spends most of his time sleeping somewhere within 5 square feet of wherever I am. However, at the same time each day, he will suddenly awaken, become aware of the position of the sun and instinctively realize that we will soon be taking a W-A-L-K, so-named because uttering the full word in our house often results in that particularly destructive kind of doggie hysteria. At that time, he will execute an extremely exaggerated yawn, exposing the cavernous pink interior of his maw while uttering a loud, drawn-out noise that begins at the bottom of his register and travels nearly three octaves up to an exceedingly high pitch. He will then slowly stand up and, after stretching his legs for a moment, will stick his rear in the air, dip his chest to the floor and emit a long, low, bass-filled, wine-glass-rattling groan. He completes this daily ritual with a tremendous shake of his head that slaps his metal dog tags against the metal on his collar, creating a sound intended to wake the dead or any infant within a two block radius. 

Roscoe, King of the Couch

Daisy, our 3-year-old pure-bred border collie, is slightly more subtle. She approaches and stands a short distance away, staring intensely with a slow but constant wag of her tail. When you look at her, she will quite consciously lift up her lips and plaster her best impression of a human smile on her face. If, after a time, you have still not made your way toward the leashes, she will aim her cold, wet nose at any small bit of exposed flesh on your body and proceed to butt that flesh every 3.4 seconds until you acquiesce.

Daisy the Super Puppy, in the early days

First, let me just say that I have no earthly idea how we ended up with not one, but two dogs named for Dukes of Hazzard characters. Believe me, it was not intentional. Roscoe was already named when we got him and we just thought "Daisy" was a pretty name. That aside, they do on occasion cut me some slack when I'm in the middle of a big project or a tight deadline, but for the most part, this ritual occurs on a daily basis.

Today, as we traversed our usual route through the neighborhood, I noticed a new addition to the landscape. Wildflowers had sprung up in nearly every yard. "Rain lilies," my husband said. "They come out after a storm."

Perhaps you're aware that this has been a very tough summer in Texas. We experienced the hottest summer in recorded history with more than 50 days over 100 degrees. The thermometer reached 110 several days in a row, which may not be unusual in Phoenix, but here it's quite the exception. And now, nearly every lawn bears the dry, yellow St Augustine that proves yet another owner was unwilling or unable to shoulder a $450 monthly water bill just to keep it green.

Fortunately, the serious heat ended a couple weeks ago and a few days ago, we had an amazing storm. According to weather reports, it dumped rain on downtown Dallas at a rate of nearly 6 inches an hour. Like they say, when it rains, it pours.

As we walked the dogs this afternoon, it occurred to me that this little stretch of weather mirrored our economic climate this year.  The freelance business has been feast or famine, drought or flood the whole summer long. One new member of the Giant Noodle network said it best. "It seems like I'm only getting booked maybe one week a month, but that week, I'm double-booked." 

So today, I'm taking a minute to stop and admire the rain lilies. I'm giving thanks for all of the new people I've met and the new members we have due to the unpredictability of our current extremes. We now count almost 60 freelancers in the network, which I suspect is due to the fact that this summer, it's taken twice as much effort to get half as many projects, and then all of those projects come at once. Although I'm sure some jackass from AgencySpy would comment that he's been booked solid since April at $2k a day, I predict that when we look back at it, many of us will remember this summer as a series of long droughts punctuated by random flash flooding. 

But right now, all I can see are the rain lilies rising from the battered earth, survivors still holding their heads high just to spite the storm.  It makes me proud. And I am incredibly proud to be among them.

Now you'll have to excuse me.  The dogs tell me it's time for frisbee.

Rain lilies in the yard

Do AgencySpy comments truly reflect the ad industry?

The other day, I was reading an AgencySpy article about the recent Fiat-Impatto saga. And when I finished the piece, I noticed that there were 120+ comments on the story, so I clicked on the link and spent quite some time reading the comments I found there.

All I can say is wow. Seriously. Wow.

Now I am not naive. I understand that under the cover of an anonymous user name, many people will say things that they'd normally never say.  And I am not terribly surprised that our industry is filled with bitter people spewing vitriolic and potentially damaging opinions whenever they get the chance. But I must say that I am stunned and horrified at what appears to be a pervasive issue in our industry.

Apparently, among all of the "industry luminaries" who comment on AgencySpy, not one knows how to freakin' spell.

I swear to you, it looked like something out of the Appalachian edition of Craigslist.

It's bad enough that we're raising an entire generation of people who read nothing but texts.  According to a recent Newsweek article, Americans between the ages of 13 and 17 send and receive an average of 3,339 texts every month.  Teenage girls average over 4,000.

What's more, 50.5% of those between the ages of 18 and 24 do not read books unless they are required for school or work. 50%!!

WTF?

It appears that our children are now so fat and lazy, they can't even exercise their imaginations.

God help us all.

My Life as a Total Tweaker

In the past, when people asked me what I do, I used to say I was a writer.  But then I realized that this would invariably be followed with the question "Oh yeah?  What do you write?" and the look of disappointment I often received upon responding "advertising" as opposed to "mystery novels" or "vampire erotica" was entirely too much to bear.

After a while, I learned to say "copywriter" right away so as not to give the listener high expectations that would immediately result in disillusionment. But if you've spent any amount of time with me, the truth becomes evident fairly quickly.

I am a master at being fascinating for about 30 seconds.  On a good day maybe 60, but frankly, it's all downhill from there.

My husband who, God love him, doesn't seem to mind this, swears it's because I am a constant re-writer.  And it's true. I will tweak a sentence for 8 straight hours and obsess over a single paragraph for one week solid.

I'm the person that replays my party conversation in my head to determine where my responses could have been wittier, better inflected or more appropriately timed.  I frequently read out loud whatever I write to make certain it fluidly trips off the tongue. And I have a deep burning hatred for anyone who ever wrote for The West Wing and made it seem like great dialogue drops from smart people's mouths as effortlessly as bird shit falls from the sky.  

Needless to say, this blog presents its challenges. I could spend all day editing and re-editing a single post in some misguided attempt to become the estrogenic Hemingway of the f-ing blogosphere.  So I've decided to put a time limit on myself. One full hour to write for the blog each day.  No more, no less.

Crap.  Time's up.

Welcome to my Love Canal

The minute I clicked "publish" on this post, I realized my mistake. I could practically hear the boners springing up all across the internet among the thirty-and-under set. So if you've arrived here expecting a virtual tour of my nether regions, you'll be sorely disappointed. And I respectfully suggest that you'll find something far more to your liking at, say, the Maxim website or perhaps skanks.com. :-)

The Love Canal to which I'm referring is the infamous 1970's housing development in Niagara Falls, NY that was constructed on top of a toxic dump site. And I only mention it today because, thanks to one of my oh-so-brilliant suggestions, the Birdhouse Tree House resembles it far more than I care to admit.

Now if I may, allow me to create for you a mental picture of the setting in which this blog takes place. My husband and I live in Dallas in a remarkably McMansion-free neighborhood near White Rock Lake, about 5 miles east of downtown but worlds away from the tv show, whether it be the prime time "Dallas" circa 1978  or the new "Most Eligible Dallas" with its self-involved $30K-a-year "millionaires" who possess no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Our quaint Hill Country-inspired house sits on a treed, half-acre lot bordered on one side by what was once a gorgeous limestone creek.  Long before we ever bought the place, the city decided that, thanks to its propensity for flash flooding, this creek would be much better if it were made of concrete, so the tree house now overlooks a feature we lovingly refer to as "the culvert" because the term "ditch" isn't nearly as picturesque.

Thanks to a shallow stream of water that meanders through the culvert during all but the worst of droughts, a variety of creatures frequent its precise, 45-degree banks. On any given day, you'll find finches, dove, ducks, hawks and other various species dropping by to grab a bath and a bite. In the evening, this channel acts as a thoroughfare for wandering toads, tomcats, possum, raccoons and the occasional runaway criminal suspect.

At one point, we even had a feral pig roaming the neighborhood, which I spied exiting the creek one night on my way home from a business happy hour and was afraid to mention to my husband lest I be forced to concede that I was much drunker than I'd originally thought. Fortunately, he saw the beast with his own eyes the next day, so I didn't have to swear off the joy juice. And I'm happy to report that today, I remain the same jocular ball of hilarity I've always been after 5 pm. 

Hah. I said "jocular ball." For all you porn seekers who stuck it out this far, as it were.

Hovering as it does above the edge of the culvert, the Birdhouse Tree House has inspired much interest from the local fauna. In addition to the kamikaze cardinal I mentioned in my last post, this past spring, after the deepest snowfall in Dallas' recorded history, I discovered raccoon prints all along the foot-wide ledge that surrounds the base of the structure. Apparently this accidental tourist wasn't too impressed with the view until he leapt up to the windowsills, whereupon he became so thrilled that he peed himself. Twice.

And one night, when the wind blew the door open, a particularly fearless squirrel entered my private domain and embarked on a torrid romance with my prettiest fingertip towel. Sadly, the relationship didn't last.  But according to People Magazine, the two remain friends.

As I'm sure you can tell by now, the Birdhouse Tree House is a relatively idyllic place.  In fact, it might be damned near perfect if it weren't for the multitude of creepy-crawly things that seem to operate under the notion that they own the frickin’ place.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. After all, there is a real live tree running through the middle of the thing. And considering that the space is air conditioned and regularly unpopulated at night, I can understand how the bugs might have mistakenly believed that God had finally answered their prayers and brought them the awesome vacation villa they've been asking for all along.

But the fact is, Texas tree roaches are the size of small dogs with carapaces thick enough to deflect the hollow point bullets that the local drug dealers prefer. And I have no doubt that, should one happen upon me after I'd been inadvertently lulled to sleep by the heat, it would be feasting on my eyeballs before I could utter the words "Silence of the Lambs."

So you can hardly blame me when, during a routine visit from the home exterminator, I innocently suggested that he treat the Birdhouse Tree House as well, having no idea that in doing so I was releasing the modern day equivalent of mustard gas. 

This morning when I opened the door, I stepped into a scene that can only be described as Tree Roach Gettysburg.

Now I’m not sure what that chemical was, but apparently it doesn't just kill the roaches but also blows their legs off for good measure. Which makes it far more difficult for the poor sap—and by that, I mean me—who has to sweep up afterward. I would not be terribly surprised if, in the very near future, I grow a third arm or an additional head.  And I half suspect that by tomorrow morning, a HAZMAT team will be traipsing through my house and tsk-tsking me through their Darth Vader ventilators.

I'm not sure what kind of paperwork I'll have to do to qualify as a Superfund site, but I’ll be looking into it because I smell grant money. Until then, if you represent the EPA, Greenpeace or Texans to Save the Tree Roaches, please contact my attorney directly.

What I've learned from the cardinal at my window

I have a cardinal that comes to my tree house window every day. When the sun hits the glass just right, she can see her reflection and according to the experts, she mistakes it for another bird. And so, she attacks.

But I have my doubts. I've never put too much faith in so-called experts. And I happen to have an alternate theory for what that cardinal is doing.  See, I think she knows it's her own reflection. But I believe she's beating herself up.

Now maybe I'm projecting. I admit it's entirely possible given my recent fish blunder.  But it got me thinking that maybe this bird knows something I don't.  So I decided to give the "cardinal technique" a shot.

I stood in front of the full-length mirror that hangs behind the tree house door. And like the cardinal, I attacked my reflection. I said every bad thing I'd thought about myself recently. I got personal. I got creative. I pulled out every character flaw and personal failure and self-doubt I'd ever had and I hurled them at myself, one by one. I was merciless. I was loud. I was surprisingly long-winded.

And as I did it, something interesting happened. The words lost their power. Just  the act of uttering them made it completely obvious how ridiculous they really are.

One day about 20 years ago, I had a long conversation with a voodoo man. It took place in the hot tub at my apartment complex, which I realize kind of ruins the whole "other worldly" feel of the story. Then again, real life always does. But I digress.

He was a practitioner of Santeria, which is a mixture of voodoo and Catholicism that originated in West Africa and the Caribbean.  And he told me a number of things that had a great impact on me and that I try to put into practice to this day.  The most important of which was "When you pray, pray out loud.  Because speaking it brings it into being."

But in this case, I think it's the exact opposite. Leave these dark thoughts unspoken and they stay inside your head, eating at you like a parasitic worm.  But bring them out into the open and they wither and die. They simply can't withstand the light of day.

So go ahead. Beat yourself up every once in a while. It's amazingly cathartic. Say to your own face the things that no one else would ever dare to. Then fly away and leave them behind.

Death arrives in yoga pants

We had a tragedy at our house yesterday.  I'm still torn up about it.  I made a stupid mistake—a thoughtless, absent-minded mistake—and the consequences were catastrophic. You see, yesterday I killed our fish.

I can't believe it happened.  I wish I could take it back.  I'm angry and sick and heartbroken about it and after it happened, I spent the rest of the day curled up in bed.

Now just to be clear, we're not talking about a couple of betas in bowls on a shelf.  These were pond fish, nearly forty of them, some more than five years old and as large as my hand.  Many had names—Buddy and Spot and Spot Jr and Brunhilde.  And this spring, our third generation had hatched.

The small fries appeared sometime in March, fourteen tiny gray specks that could only be discerned as movement from the corner of my eye.  With generous feeding, they grew into a gang of raucous juveniles that raced wildly between the water plants and threw themselves headlong into the strong current that appeared whenever I added water to the pond.

The early bloomers began to change color in June, turning light gold while the others maintained their protective gray hue.  It's a gradual change that begins at the belly and ends with one last swath of gray along the spine. I imagined that these were the ones that goldfish parents hoped their daughters never brought home. They were like punks at a Ramones concert, all mohawk and smeared eyeliner.

In July, the tadpoles showed up. Hundreds of them appeared overnight, hugging the perimeter of the pond like obsessive compulsive wallflowers.  I've read that the fish don't eat them because they don't taste good, so I guess everyone just tried to get along until the tadpoles grew up and moved out. 

There was a whole world inside that pond, full of wonder and beauty. And I'm crushed that I destroyed it simply by forgetting to turn the water off.  It feels like I've been watching the Nemo movie for five years, only to have all the characters die in the end.

I'm trying to forgive myself. But I think it may take a while.