What Stevie Wonder and Stephen Colbert have in Common

I got scooped by Stephen Colbert.

Pondering my recent blog post regarding terrorists poisoning our food so that we would lose our memory, I thought I should try to come up with at least one other alternative explanation.

In the meantime, our bulldog was channelling Stevie Wonder

which made me wonder (no pun intended) if the famous singer was still alive.  I honestly can’t keep track of the lives of celebrities, much less their deaths, so I decided to Google it.  And then it hit me – our brains are shrinking because of Google.  (BTW, in case you are worried and haven’t left this post already to satisfy your own curiosity, Stevie Wonder is apparently still alive, according to Wikipedia.)

“Of course!” I thought, “Our brains have stopped retaining information because they know that all we need to do is hit a few keystrokes, and there it is.”  This led me to wonder (there’s that word again!) if, in the near future, our brains will have search boxes inside – a perfectly Darwinian result of our technological evolution.

All prepared to blog about this great discovery and what I thought to be a quite astute prediction, I settled down to watch an episode of The Colbert Report on The Comedy Channel (the only place I like to get my news), and there was Stephen doing “The Word”.  It was “Head in the Cloud” (more than one word, but so what?).  And he proceeded to cite research that supported my hypothesis of memory loss due to Google.  Furthermore, he surmised that all of our memory, including personal, will eventually be stored in that virtual cloud that we hear so much about.  He then showed how beneficial this would be to all of us – as long as we have wi-fi access, that is.  I highly recommend you watch it.  It’s quite realistically horrifying when you think about it.

So, within the span of a few moments, I was able to connect my bulldog, Stevie Wonder, Stephen Colbert, and Darwin. Memory, Schmemory.  Who needs it?  Like a Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, I can pretty much find a connection between anything and anyone (as long as I have wi-fi or 3G). And, here’s the kicker:  I Googled “Stevie Wonder and Stephen Colbert” so I could try to find a nice little way to tie this whole post together.

They have the same birthday.

An Act of Congress Brought to You by Wonderbutt

So, the other day, when “Stevie”, whom my husband lovingly refers to as “Wonderbutt”, decided to do a major renovation to three of our rooms, I reacted as most people would upon finding that your bulldog has ransacked your house- I attempted to clean it up as fast as I could before my husband came home.

No time to grieve the sopping wet stuffed animals stolen from my daughter’s bed.  No weeping over the flipflop with chew marks all over it.  I set about erasing as much evidence as I could before my husband got home from work – 15 minutes after the initial discovery of the crime.  I was trying to set things straight because, when Wonderbutt did his last redesign that involved ingesting 1/4 of our carpet padding, my husband said, “Maybe we should replace the dog instead of the floor.”

I think he was mostly joking, but I really didn’t want to find out.

Amazingly, my husband arrived home to a partially cleaned up mess, but did not seem too perturbed about it.  At all.  I was slightly surprised.

My daughter, however, was quite upset by this turn of events.  She came running to me with tears in her eyes.

“Daddy won’t get mad at Wonderbutt!”

“Okay…”

“He says it doesn’t make any sense to yell at him now because he won’t know what he did wrong!”

“Thats kind of true.”

“But he made a mess!”

“I know, but he’s a dog, and you have to yell at them when they are in the act so they know what you’re so upset about.”

She gave me a look that pretty clearly stated her lack of confidence in my dog whispering skills, and left the room in a huff.

Her exit left me to reflect on:

1. My relief that my husband was not ready to execute Wonderbutt on the spot for his transgressions,
2. My amazement at how far my husband and I had come in the dog-training department since the puppyhood of our Golden, 10 years ago – yet how completely oblivious our bulldog is to our amazingly stellar skills, and
3. The metaphorical potential of comparing anger at a dog to anger at our politicians for the delightful mess they have made of our national debt crisis.

Yes, I was watching Jon Stewart at the moment.  But, take a look at the preceding dialogue, and substitute Congress in for Wonderbutt and his related pronouns.

It kind of works, doesn’t it?

I’m Just Not That Into Me

Yesterday I posted about the plethora of awards that have appeared on my metaphorical doorstep in the last week, and promised to reveal a final one today.  It is the “7×7” Award, which was granted to me by the fine lady at Hobbling Around.  So far, she is the only one who has bestowed this great honor upon me, so I must be doing something wrong – a fact that became all too clear as I settled down to do some of the research the “7×7” Award entails.

You see, the “7×7” Award has the caveat that you give links to 7 of your own posts.  And, as I was reading some of my older posts, I realized I ain’t as funny as I think I am.  Which is quite disappointing.  I crack myself up while I’m typing every day.  But I was wincing more than cracking as I read over some of my work.  Quite frankly, I don’t know how you People put up with me – especially on the days when I don’t post Wonderbutt pictures.

Most Popular AND Most Surprisingly Successful – Pretty much any post that gets more than 2 comments surprises me with its success.  By some fluke, this one has gotten over 1,000 views so far.  https://whatimeant2say.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/would-you-be-interested-in-renting-a-bull-dozer/

Most Underrated – I am putting this one primarily because the number of Wonderbutt fans has grown astronomically, and this early post includes a video of him channelling Stevie Wonder. https://whatimeant2say.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/what-stevie-wonder-and-stephen-colbert-have-in-common/

Most Controversial – None of my posts have lit a fire under anyone’s bottom, as far as I know, but this is one of the ones I was afraid to publish because of the number of Facebook acolytes out there.  https://whatimeant2say.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/dont-hate-me-because-i-dont-like-you/

Most Beautiful – The writing isn’t beautiful, but the sentiment is somewhat attractive (a tribute to my sister, Crash).  https://whatimeant2say.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/can-you-teach-a-cat-to-roller-skate/

Most Helpful – This is sage advice for anyone trying to lose weight.  https://whatimeant2say.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/the-wonderbutt-weight-loss-program/

Most Prideworthy – I am proud of this one because it’s when I finally confirmed that I am a horrible mother.  I’m not proud of being horrible – just that I am aware of it.   https://whatimeant2say.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/are-you-sure-it-doesnt-say-skunk/

And here are the 7 blogs that I highly recommend:

Mightier Than the Pen

I’m on the Bandwagon

Something New Please

Blue Speckled Pup

Reasonably Ludicrous

An Exercise in Narcissism

Life with Olive

I think all of you are wonderful – particularly now that I’ve been re-reading my own blather.

Why Dogs Eat Homework

Wonderbutt Knocks Himself Out

If I could hijack a time-machine, I would take my butt back twenty years and slap a twenty-two year old teacher in the face.

That teacher would be me.

I realized today what a smarmy, know-it-all I was back then.  Actually, I knew that before but I never really felt the need to beat myself up over it.

My daughter’s homework precipitated this overwhelming urge.

After twenty years of teaching, I have developed some pretty strong feelings about homework.  I used to think it was a great skill builder and a necessary character builder.  Now, to put it simply, I think that 90% of the time it is a big ole time waster.

Dimples brought home “home”work for the first time today since school started last week.  She usually finishes it before I pick her up.  But this time it required Family Participation.

She pulled out this mathematical bonding activity, and I started to read the instructions.  Apparently this is supposed to be a game designed to practice multiplication.  Dimples knows her times tables back and forth.  Perhaps the teacher thinks that I am the one who needs to brush up on my multiplication skills.

As I am trying to make sense of the instructions, Wonderbutt is doing his Stevie Wonder routine on the floor next to me.  It is a little distracting.  Thinking about all of the things I would rather be doing instead of 4th grade math homework is also distracting.

This game requires colored cubes which we don’t have. But the teacher has kindly written next to the materials needed that we can make our own by coloring paper and cutting them out.

“Got it!” the perpetually cheerful Dimples declares as I scowl at the increasing complexity of this “fun game.”  She grabs some paper from the kitchen, quickly snips out a bunch of squares, and writes a D on half of them. Good enough.

Next thing needed are number cubes (school talk for dice).  Or we “can make a spinner using a paperclip”.  Surely we have some friggin’ dice around here that Wonderbutt hasn’t consumed.

At that moment, Wonderbutt falls over, nearly conking his head on the table leg.

“Yahtzee!” Dimples yells, and runs to find the miraculously intact box full of number cubes and half-completed score sheets.

I look at Wonderbutt, half-dazed on the floor, and seriously contemplate feeding him the homework. Now I know how dogs got such a bad rap.

Once the number cubes are obtained, the game goes quickly.  Through no fault of my own, I win.  The bottom of the page suggests we may want to play again.  I reluctantly suggest this to Dimples.  She shakes her head.  I sign the page with a flourish and she returns it to her backpack.

I eye the Yahtzee game, mentally ticking off it’s educational virtues – addition, multiplication, gambling…  Plus, there is no assembly required.

Too bad we spent so much time bonding over Dimples’ homework that we don’t have time to play it.

Advice on Interior Design

My interior decorator and I are not exactly having a meeting of the minds.  I’m definitely beginning to have second thoughts about his qualifications.  And his personality is a little difficult to swallow.  He’s moody and pushy, and somewhat unpredictable.

It’s not that I don’t like his ideas.  Sure, I’ve been wanting to make some changes for awhile.  And, he’s absolutely right that we need to get rid of the couches in the living room, and replace them with something less freshman-year-of-college.  It’s just his timeline does not quite mesh with mine.  And he keeps changing things without consulting me first.  He seems to think we have a bottomless decorating budget.

You might be thinking that we are made of money, too, since we have an interior decorator.  But you would probably change your mind if I mentioned that it is our bulldog who is doing the redecorating.

He shredded the bottom of our sofa, which we were planning to replace anyway.  He tore apart our carpet and ate the padding, but we also had plans to get rid of that.  Not anytime soon, but it was on the list.  Now, though, he’s starting to go off the reservation by destroying things we had no intention of replacing.  He decided to give the bottom of our ottoman the “distressed look”.  That was the one piece of furniture that my husband and I had taken months to find and agree upon.  I do not appreciate what our canine designer considers to be forward thinking.

His very silent partner, the mature golden retriever, does not seem to approve of his impulsive renovations, but she hasn’t done a whole lot to stop them.  All she does is greet us at the door, tail nervously wagging, obviously trying to distance herself from the most recent abstract redesign.  She is a traditionalist at heart.

Stevie’s* latest work resulted in lovely spots of black and green marker on the one section of carpet that we hadn’t planned to replace (ironically in the room I always insist on calling our “studio”, but to the other members of the household it is “our office”).  In case we had any doubts about the identity of the artist of this new canvas, Stevie thoughtfully dyed his own paws green during the creative process.

Apparently, we watched Nate Berkus too many times this summer, causing the poor dog to go into an accessorizing frenzy.  It was not enough to have one potted plant in the bedroom.  We needed green leaves and dirt strewn all over the floor to bring more nature into that part of the house.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you have the misfortune to visit our home anytime soon, please don’t judge our lack of flooring, furniture, or window coverings.  Let it be a lesson to you.  Do not let your dog watch T.V.

*Some names have been changed in order to protect the guilty.

Oh, the Inanity!

I hate this. I had every intention of typing a typically inane blog full of sarcastic comments, and all that wants to come out on my keyboard are silly sentiments about courage and civil rights.

I just watched the movie, The Help, and now I’m watching Stephen Colbert (need to stop doing that while I’m actually trying to write) and he’s interviewing Gloria Steinem. I feel very small.

This internal conflict is putting me in a funk as I consider my non-heroic life, so I have switched to David Letterman, on which he is showing stupid human tricks, which makes me think about stupid pet tricks, leading me to wonder if my bulldog’s Stevie Wonder routine would qualify.

Before I could embark on this hopeful digression, though, my Help/Steinem inspired conscience kicks out the question of the political correctness of comparing my bulldog’s odd behavior to a blind, African-American singer.

I like to think I’m not racist or biased against people with special abilities, but what if I’m one of those people who has absolutely no self-awareness?

So I am watching my bulldog like a hawk, hoping that he will do something less fraught with controversy that I can post to prove that I am a very tolerant person. Being a bulldog, he is stubbornly refusing to perform a Lady Gaga routine, choosing instead to snore on the couch.

The golden retriever is no help either. She is much too mature to perform any stupid pet tricks, and barely tolerates the ones that the bulldog displays.

Apparently I am going about this whole blogging thing wrong, trying to watch T.V. as I write, and attempting to compose something meaningless right on the heels of watching something with meaning. I need to watch a Seinfeld episode and start over again.

A Tale of Two Butts and a Bath

For those of you who don’t know me very well, I have two Butts. And, apparently, they are quite itchy. This can be slightly irritating with one Butt, but with two it’s downright aggravating – and expensive.

I should probably mention, for those of you who don’t know me too well, that the Butts happen to be dogs – Mrs. Pain in the Butt (golden retriever, 12 years) and Wonderbutt (bulldog, 2 years).

Mrs. Pain in the Butt got her nickname because she has grown increasingly neurotic over the years, and being partly deaf does not seem to have improved her mental health.

Wonderbutt got his nickname for many reasons. You can read one here. And if you are questioning whether he truly deserves this name, another reason is because we often say, “I wonder… but I’m not even going to ask why he ate that completely inedible and somewhat pointy object that somehow managed not to rip his intestines to shreds.”

So, anyway, the two Butts both have skin problems. Mrs. P.I.B., I’m convinced, has Munchausen Syndrome, and has completely devised her own self-induced mysterious disease that is causing her skin to flake, lesions to form, and fur to billow about the living room. Despite her ragged appearance, I haven’t seen her scratch herself once in the last month, but the vet is convinced that she has allergies and Dramatic Treatment is Called For.

Then we have Wonderbutt, who approaches every person butt-side first because his rotundness and short legs preclude him from taking care of his own skin irritation in the region of his derriere. He is losing hair on both sides, which caused Great Concern last year, but apparently is only some weird form of Seasonal Affective Disorder that makes his depressed follicles shove out any hair that won’t let them “have their space.” I know exactly how they feel.

That’s right. I empathize with hair follicles.

Because of these problems, we decided to give both Butts a bath this weekend with some soap that cost more than my last 5 visits to the hair salon put together.

The smart person who designed this million dollar soap recommended that the dog stand for 20 minutes with the soap on its skin. When my husband, Cap’n Firepants, relayed this information, I had visions of lathered up Butts racing around our house, so I wisely opted to set up an outdoor bathing area. I implemented a complicated system of leashes, collars, a garden hose, and a swing set to create a makeshift grooming salon.

The two Butts from left to right – Wonderbutt and Mrs. Pain in the Butt

Even if you know me very well, you may not know that Wonderbutt has a thing about the backyard, where he is never allowed unsupervised because we are afraid he will poison himself or choke on a tumbleweed of ball moss. Other than consuming everything in sight, when Wonderbutt is in the backyard, his favorite thing to do is to charge. He races around with absolutely no regard for big or small obstacles; once he ran full-speed into a tree. Last week, he managed to knock both my husband and me down in the span of 10 minutes. I guffawed triumphantly at the toppling of Cap’n Firepants until Wonderbutt head-butted me in the back of my knees on my way inside.

Anyway, so I got Mrs. P.I.B. hooked up, and then it was Wonderbutt’s turn. He was being sassy, and kept trying to eat his collar, or flatten his head and neck to the ground so I couldn’t fasten the darn thing. Finally, I got him attached.

I stood up, and Wonderbutt looked at me with a familiar devious glint in his eye. Then he charged me at 100 miles an hour.

The leash caught him up a millisecond before he reached me, causing him to tumble over backwards with a surprised look on his face.

Wonderbutt wonders wtf just happened…

I am proud of myself that I was still able to get this picture despite the fact that I was laughing my butt off at my Butt.

Don’t worry; he recovered quickly, and proceeded to completely wrap himself around Mrs. P.I.B.’s legs and knock her off her feet like a calf in the rodeo.  He’s like some kind of wonky Weeble with an overbite who happens to emit noxious fumes.

God, I love my Butts.