Blahg

If you’ve been wondering, the recent drought of content has been due to my growing boredom with this here blog.  That, and I’ve been contemplating my life.  Contemplating takes a long time, and boredom is demotivating.  I anticipate a lack of postings next month as well, since I’ve joined NaNoWriMo.  That’s right folks.  Miss Lazy is endeavoring to write a 50,000-word novel in thirty days.  Lazy no more.  I may even have to get a whole new blog… blahg.   Maybe, if you’re lucky, I will keep you updated on my preposterous progress next month.  I may even drop hints about my plot (which is still a surprise to me).  And so, it is with much indifference that I say adieu until next time.  And, yes, that includes my “regular” features.

Word of the Week: Teetotaler

• teetotaler: (noun)  someone who abstains from drinking alcohol

The Adorable Mr. Independent

beach with towel, originally uploaded by Miss Lazy Pants.

Due to “popular” demand, here is an updated picture of the little man.

*For those of you who are true followers, this is also the second picture on the entire blog. Now that I have made a strategic business alliance with Flickr, hopefully there will be more to come.

Mr. Independent

There comes a time in every puppy mommy’s life when her baby loses his last tooth, no longer thinks he needs to stay cooped up in the bathroom all day and becomes catlike.  No matter how hard we try to keep those puppies babies, their youth somehow slips out of our grasp as they take on the crass behavior of their adult counterparts. 

It began one day in July.  He realized that he could bark, not just to get his needs across or out of fear of the unknown, but for fun and to show his presence to the world.  He no longer barks at the sprinklers out of frightened curiosity but out of a need to show them he’s boss.  He needs to “tell” those threatening people who live next door that this is no apartment to be trifled with.  He needs to make up for his girlish good looks with a good long growl.

Then, later in July or early August, as I fought against him to get his teeth properly brushed, his one last baby tooth shot from his mouth and across the room.  This was it.  His last puppy identifier… gone.  I then faced a life-altering dilemma.  I could either keep this 5-mm long tooth as a memento from his puppyhood or discard it.  Scenes of the future flashed before my eyes.  I saw my unborn children’s teeth falling out, me acting like a deranged tooth fairy, keeping every tooth as a memento.  I then saw the drawer where I kept all of these teeth, because if I kept my puppy’s tooth, I would surely need to keep every lost tooth that would follow.  Immediately, I threw his tooth in the toilet.  No way could I let that happen.  No way could I obligate my future self to such a gross tradition.

Weeks later, I came home from work on my lunch break, as usual.  No sooner had I opened the door, but a bounding happier version of my puppy came rushing forth to greet me, tongue hanging out, jumping in excitement.  I had certainly put him in his “area” before I went to work.  I do that every day, because our puppy-proofing has never really been finished.  His area consisted of the downstairs half-bathroom with a baby gate held up to the wall with a ladder.  When I saw him on the loose, I inspected his area to see how he managed to get out.  The gate was still up, his food and water still inside.  Well… I thought, he must have jumped out.  I called my husband at work to discuss the various possibilities of his escape and decided I had to put him back in there and spy on him from the front window to see how he did it.  So, outside, peering through the blinds, I saw him clumsily climb over the gate and rush up to the front door in no less than five minutes.  I knew then that we could no longer contain him.  He had earned his freedom.  He had gone from timid puppy to jovial Mr. Independent.

Soon after becoming Mr. Independent, he learned how to climb onto the front windowsill.  It is there that he now sits perched like a cat.  It is there that he now barks his goodbyes to us as we leave in the morning, barks his warnings to others as they walk by and sits as a beacon to our landlord that we have a dog we haven’t told them about.

Word of the Week: Intemperate

• intemperate: (adj.)  prone to unrestrained consumption of alcohol

Super Ideas for the Next Post

I have hitten a stump.  Not with my toe.  With my inertia.  I have come up with several awesome post ideas in the past couple of weeks, yet none of them have materialized.  Big surprise.  I am going to list the titles here and you, my ever-devoted readers, should vote for which one you want to read next in the comments.

• Mr. Independent
• What Is Uranus?
• Ambition Line
• Pizza Anxiety

Ok.  I think that is all for now.  Don’t you see the potential waste-of-time reading that you could be doing?  Remember to vote.

Word of the Week: Tony

• tony: (adj.)  stylish

Crazy Pants Day

As I gazed forlornly into my closet the other day, bored as usual, I saw my bright pink pants that haven’t been worn in years.  Why did I ever buy those?  Why do I still have them?  The answer to the first question is that I was under the influence of my ever-a-dreamer mother who likes to indulge my Uranus side.  I had also recently moved back from Hawaii and missed all of the bright colors.  The answer to the second is that they represent the reward from my first weight-loss attempt in 2005.  Smallpants.  Brightpants. 

Well, staring at them with sadness in my heart, I decided that I should figure out a way to wear them without feeling like an idiot.  The next day, I told everyone in my department to wear something crazy or unusual to work tomorrow (Friday… today).  With almost everyone remembering, I have decided to declare today as Crazy Pants Day.

Here is a sampling of the outfits (not all pants):

• Me:  The bright pink & orange pants with a perfectly matching bright orange and pink top.  I look like a cross between a popsicle and a disco freak.
• CW1:  A pink skirt with cherries on it.  Très cute.
• CW2:  A Jack Bauer CTU shirt.  Très badass.
• CW3:  An awesome, from-the-’60s flower dress that is the best contender against my outfit for the Crazy Award.

So far, no one outside of our department has asked about our unusual clothing choices, which I find strange, because we’re normally a jeans-wearing, bland bunch.

So, what are you wearing on Crazy Pants Day?

*Update:  I am finding it very hard to take anyone seriously today… including myself!

Word of the Week: Peignoir

• peignoir: (noun)  women’s dressing gown or swimsuit cover-up

The Roku Beast

It all started out less than a week ago.  I had a bad day and felt like buying something.  Of course, I know better than to just buy stuff to make myself feel all good inside.  Nonetheless, I started seriously looking into getting a Roku to watch our Netflix instant watch content on our TV.  My laptop has been kaputz for longer than I can remember, so I could never really watch anything on there.  And lately my husband’s laptop has been on the verge of committing suicide, so watching anything on that is rather painful.  So it was that I began throwing subliminal hints in my husband’s direction, hoping that he would gladly jump on the Roku bandwagon.

I would mention the benefits of getting a Roku here or there, thinking it would sink in and maybe he’d even suggest getting one.  I would type, “can i get a roku” ever-so sneakily into our regular chatting sessions.  You know, between real pieces of conversation.  These hints went unacknowledged for so long that I finally forced the idea on him.  I was getting a Roku no matter what.  Then one fortunate Thursday afternoon last week, he said, “sure, get a roku.”  Just like that I had it ordered.

Never before had I experienced this vitriolic a reaction to purchasing something that I had permission to buy.  All of a sudden heaven unleashed THE ROKU BEAST.  It was a barrage of negative statements coupled with an all-too-sudden quarter-life crisis that created an outpouring of disdain for the thing that had me reeling in a corner unsure of what to say or even think.  The act of purchasing the Roku had sent my husband hurtling into a crisis of identity that had him questioning the very fabric of society and popular forms of entertainment. 

It was all I could do not to laugh.

Or roll my eyes.

I waited.  Patiently even.  I thought, just let him try it out.  He’ll come around.  He’ll soon love this beast of a thing.

When he hooked it up and browsed through my craftily created queue, packed full of husband-approved content, he soon found a variety of things he wanted to watch.  That night we watched a documentary that I’d probably had on our instant queue for months, maybe even a year, but hadn’t watched because it was just such a pain in the ass.  Now, at our very fingertips was the power to watch all of the content we’d been paying a monthly fee for but haven’t yet taken advantage of.  It was fantastic.  He even said that it was better than TV.

Score!  So I thought.

The next day, I asked how he liked the Roku (beast).  His response was merely “Bleh.”  Really?  Hmmm…..  More plotting to come.

After a successful weekend of satisfactory Roku use, his verdict is still the same.  He will not let himself admit that he likes it, but the ever-apparent smile he lets escape the corners of mouth gives away his true feelings about… THE ROKU BEAST.