like many neighborhoods, ours is tied into a community website. i don't follow it myself, but bella keeps an eye on it in case people ask about house or dog sitting jobs. the other day she sent me this a post someone in the neighborhood made.


gotta say, if more of the neighborhood updates were this entertaining i might actually look in from time to time. and i think it would have been a little better and smarter if he had done the legwork first of finding out who this person was, exacted his revenge, and then made this post. this fellow doesn't seem like he'd be shy about sharing the name of the thoughtless ass-hat. my fear here is that he's giving the person a heads up that he'll be watching now and may have spoiled his chance of catching him/her (and i do hope he catches him/her). although, there's a decent chance the person is like me and doesn't read the site so there's a bit of hope.

another thing. how new are all of these approaches to pet-care and did something specifically usher them in? i mean, when exactly did people start picking up after their dogs. and crating dogs, when the heck did that start? i don't remember any of this when i was a kid. dogs slept all over the house and shit all over town. let's be clear, now that i own a home, i'm glad grown people tend to their creatures almost like they were children. but i do feel bad that dogs can't sleep at the foot of the owner's beds warming their feet on cold nights. i have warm memories of our family-dogs snuggling into me for warmth and comfort on those cold colorado nights. and when i hear people defend the crate-business, it sounds mildly akin to the explanations made for giving young kids phones/ipads--they make it sound like it is for the dog's/kid's benefit but in the end they, the owner/parent, seem to be the main beneficiary. i mean dog houses have been around super-forever, and dogs used them, i get that. the difference between a dog house and a crate is one doesn't have a jail door on the front.

and before you have any chastising thoughts and say well, of course, people have always picked up after their dogs and crated their dogs. to that, i would first say that, well, that is most definitely not the case that people have ALWAYS been doing those things and that the uber-practice had to start sometime and i think that time has been since i was a kid. and secondly, i saw a new/next level of first-world pet-care at target the other day. and that discovery may have marked the precise moment i became a sour old man. at the end of an aisle stood a large, glass-paned, interior-lit fridge that held PET-food. prominently, or rather loudly, displayed as it was, it looked like it contained the cure to pimples, old-age and herpes all in one convenient spot. but it did not hold the cures to all human ills. it held chilled food for peoples' animals. the furrows in my brow surely grew deeper at that moment as i stared at those privelege-lined shelves. i don't remember exactly what i muttered under my breath, but i promise you it was not fit to share.

all of this said, there has been many i time when i had pets, i'd pour another scoop from a giant bag of food into my pet's bowl and thought, sucks to be you bud, as i would hate if i had to eat the same thing everyday. the saving grace--i knew my pet, like many american pets, would have his dish peppered with table scraps later in the evening which he would quakingly engulf at the end of each day and digest while curled up against my back or on my feet as we warmed each other literally and emotionally through the night.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. outfoxed

i woke up at my usual 6:30. this was a saturday. i went to the kitchen to get my morning drinks. as i walked into the kitchen, anthony entered at the same time from a second doorway. i knew he had slept downstairs in the living room and assumed he was still balled up on the couch. surprised, i asked him why he was up. he said he couldn't sleep. i tousled his hair, told him it was too early to be u...

ok. so more than one person has asked why and how a doctor would ever come to tell a patient that she has the vagina of an eighty year old (to a patient that is far from eighty). that story happened over here in case you missed it. as with all such stories, there is a plausible explanation.

marty had just had her first child--miss bella. a few months after bella was born marty and i had the following exchange in bed.

MARTY
you know troy, i'm not really sure how long it will be before i'm in game-shape again.

TROY
uh. what do you mean?

MARTY
you know in that husband and wife kinda way. things just don't feel right. something is off.

TROY
hey i was in that room. i saw what happened. if your parts ever worked again the way they are supposed to, i'd be amazed. so please take all the time you need.

i also recall from that conversation talking about the long stretch of time in my teen years i had convinced myself no one would ever have sex with me. so first off, i was just thankful someone did have sex with me. and secondly, because of those years of desperation i developed a camel-like ability to store up sexual experiences that allow me to survive super-long droughts of action. further, i put intercourse-post-childbirth in the same category as i put the piano. if someone simply described the act of playing a piano to me i would say it was not humanly possible. for a person to:

1. do two different things with their hands
2. read two different lines of music with their eyes
3. WHILE manipulating a foot pedal with some form of control

if someone suggested trying to do that to me, i would recommend they give their time to something that is actually humanly possible. this is how i felt about post-childbirth-intercourse. because if the equivalant happened to me, that is, if i had to pass even something the size of, say a grape, i'd be done, like forever. given this, after seeing bella be born, i assumed i had had sex for the last time ever.

my two additional children represent the exciting sign that i was wrong and i got to have sex again (hows about an internet-wide woot-woot!!!). that a female's reproductive organs can return to their (mostly) original state after birthing a child stands as one of this world's great marvels to me. i mean that they are ever, ever functional again to any degree stands as one of our universes greatest triumphs (yes, sure the whole making a human thing is cool, but ...). and if someone described to me what takes place and said it would work again, i would argue they had obviously lost their mind and i don't debate people with such childish premises.

but they were meant to work again and marty was experiencing some temporary issues, something related to breastfeeding and estrogen and too much of one and not enough of another, that simply needed to be addressed. and marty, being the trooper and seal-grade badass, just thought it was another parenting related hill to be bested. but it was not, it was something her doctor needed to be made aware of and modern medicine once again came charging around the bend and put down her body's uprising.

and it worked again.

and it looked just fine again too.

and i'm still not showing anyone my penis.

you be doing too much. that is what a middle-school peer once told bella. it has become a house-staple that jokingly gets thrown out anytime anyone seems to be going above and beyond. you be doing too much. they be doing too much. a confusing part of its use is one can say it in a complimentary or derogatory fashion. when you hear it, you must listen for both the tone and context in each situation...