Narrator:  Tonight on Grey’s Anatomy, the doctors must work in (insert disaster that has a low statistical probability of actually occurring AND hasn’t already been featured in a previous season finale).

Doctor #1: I can’t work in (insert conditions from this season’s heavily anticipated disaster, even though, given the track record of the show, the doctors should be well-equipped to work in just about any scenario known to man, including volcanic eruptions).

Doctor #2: WHY ISN’T THIS PATIENT BREATHING?*

*We all know the patient will breathe by the end of the episode.

I promised I’d be back. And I even updated my other blog. 

The short story is that I missed blogging. The longer story is that I started feeling unsure of what to write about.  Apollo is always a good source of writing fodder, but I fear turning into the blogger I dread – the blogger who can’t stop blogging about her cute baby/dog/cat when no one else cares.

But I feel ready to write again, and to share stories.  I like being somewhat private so I’ll avoid blogging about the more boring details of my personal life, but I feel keen to share misadventures, music, fashion, and essentially awesome beauty items.  I’ve started subscribing to Ipsy Glam Bags and will be getting my first bag tomorrow (hopefully), so I’ll be doing a review here soon!

To give you a brief update of what I’ve been up to in the past month or so:

• Workworkworkworkworkworkwork

• Puppy training classes.  After Apollo chewed half a bow off one of my adorable new flats I bought from Target, it was GAME OVER.  He’s doing really well with the classes and I note a huge improvement. He’s graduating on Wednesday (squeeee), so I’m sure I’ll post a picture of the cuteness.

• I went to my first bachelorette party two weeks ago. I missed the memo that you’resupposed to bring lingerie as your gift (dur, self).  My dad offered to drop me off but I declined because I figured it would be awkward to be driven to your first bachelorette party by any male member of your family. He let me borrow his truck, which led to much nervousness as I drove it.  I ended up having a lot of fun (and there were no strippers, thankfully.  It was a classy affair.)

• I had to rush Apollo to the vet two weeks ago after some god-awful screaming. He had strained his paw, I think from jumping off the couch (I wasn’t in the room when it happened, but had just heard the horrible screaming).  I never want to hear that screaming again, it was awful.  I think at one point we were both screaming because I was like, “NO NO NO NO!” in despair.  Poor puppy. He’s fine, though. He was back to jumping on the couch immediately after we returned home from the vet (sigh…)

• On Friday, a two-hour car drive turned into four and a half thanks to a nasty storm that passed through.  That was the worst driving experience I’ve had yet.  At least when I got stuck in a tropical storm three years ago, the experience was over in fifteen minutes.  There was a lot of water on the road and I pulled over several times to let the storm pass, since apparently I was traveling with it. I ultimately decided to keep going after my de facto weatherman told me that the storms had passed over the route I was taking and wouldn’t be severe anymore. I was never so happy to get out of that car.  “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions” came on the radio when I reached my destination – I took it as a note of TRIUMPH.

I leave you with a song I’ve been obsessed with. Something tells me that I should consider this song a guilty pleasure, but I don’t CARE because it’s catchy as FUCK and I LOVE IT.

I’m sorry I’ve neglected you, little blog.  I will be back soon, I promise, with more tales of misadventures and music I’ve been obsessed with.

Even though the fire happened about a month ago, Boyfriend’s apartment still smells like someone had an indoor barbecue in it.

This evening, I had just finished taking Apollo for a walk.  I was doing chores when I smelled something…familiar.  I looked at the dog.  “Apollo,” I said seriously.  “Is there a fire?” I inspected the apartment and to my alarm, I could smell smoke. I grabbed my purse and cajoled Apollo into my arms with a doggy treat (he’s going to puppy classes next week, incidentally).

I walked around the apartment building and didn’t see any fire.  Hesitant to call the fire department unless I could visually spot the fire, but not wanting to lose any of my belongings, I went back upstairs.  I knocked on my neighbor’s door.  We met this year; he has two beagles that Apollo is very fond of.

“Um, do you smell smoke in your apartment?” I asked. “Oh yeah, that was me,” he laughed.  Guess what happened?  He left his pan on the stove and walked to the leasing office.

DAMN IT.

I really want to make a public service announcement on billboards everywhere – “DON’T LEAVE YOUR FUCKING STOVE ON IF YOU’RE GOING TO STEP OUT OF YOUR APARTMENT OR HOME.  GOD.”

And now this place smells like smoke. But not the barbecue smell that Boyfriend’s apartment has, just smoke. Lovely.

It’s not like I am a huge music snob or anything.  I mean, I happen to idolize one of the most mainstream musicians on the planet and I’ve already confessed my (sometimes reluctant) love of Lady Gaga.

However, I owe Justin Timberlake an apology because my sixteen-year-old self detested him, N*Sync, and all of his annoying fangirls.  DETESTED.

I was never one of the popular kids (I swear that this post isn’t going to be “Repressed Middle-School Memories/Jenny Therapy Session.”)  And since I was never readily accepted by my peers, I developed a taste for going against the crowd to justify my alienation.  All the eighth grade girls said their favorite movie was Titanic?  I was obsessed with Gone With the Wind.  OBSESSED.  I read the book, cut out pictures of Vivien Leigh from magazines to put on my wall, and analyzed the movie in my diary.  (I was thirteen; cut me some slack). 

All the kids in my class watched Road Rules?  My favorite TV show was a British comedy that aired on PBS called Keeping Up Appearances.  All the girls were obsessing over Leonardo DiCaprio and Keanu Reeves?  My celebrity crushes were Jim Carrey and Kevin Spacey (I can’t explain that one at all). 

But keep in mind, my hipster tastes had its boundaries, even as a teen.  I was a huge fan of Backstreet Boys and my first album was Hanson, so that effectively loses any nerdy credibility I might have gained in the previous paragraph.

Even though Backstreet Boys were wildly popular when I was in high school, I felt like everyone around me liked N*Sync, and especially Justin Timberlake, more.  This meant that I had to hate him. I just had to. I found him and his stupid curly peroxide blond hair and high-pitched voice and that god-awful song “This I Promise You” (which they also recorded in SPANISH which meant I had to suffer through both versions TWICE ON THE RADIO) incredibly annoying. 

My disgust of Justin Timberlake carried on well into my late teens.  I missed the whole Superbowl “Wardrobe Malfunction” in 2004 because I was so disgusted that he was the “special guest” that I turned away from the TV.

So, what happened? Saturday Night Live, for one, showed me that he actually has a sense of humor and is a talented comedic actor.  Then there was the fact that I started playing “Cry Me a River” on repeat.  And I kept begrudgingly enjoying his acting and singing endeavors until finally, as I watched his latest SNL episode with my cousins last weekend, I felt comfortable enough to admit to myself that I’m a fan. 

YOU WIN, UNIVERSE.
YOU WIN.

To my sixteen-year-old self, I’m sorry. But not really.  We don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things anymore, so you’ll just have to get over it.

In this particular episode, Fry had found the fossilized remains of his dog and had hoped to clone him (if you’re like me and had never watched the show, Fry was cryogenically frozen in 1999 and thawed one thousand years in the future). Right before the cloning process was complete, Fry realized that his dog died at age 15, more than twelve years after Fry had last seen him.  Assuming that his dog had lived a long, happy life without Fry, he decided not to clone his dog.

Boyfriend, who had seen this episode before, warned me that the ending would make me want to “hug Apollo.”  “Aww,” I said after Fry’s surprisingly poignant monologue.

“That’s not the sad part,” Boyfriend said.

The episode ended with a flashback to 1999, showing Fry’s dog camping outside of a pizza parlor, the last place he’d seen Fry.  With the song “I Will Wait For You” playing in the background, the viewers were able to see that the dog never forgot about Fry – he waited in that same spot for the rest of his life, futilely waiting for Fry’s return, until dying from old age on the sidewalk.  Watch it for yourself here, but be warned – this clip is full of SADNESS.

I felt betrayed that I would be so emotionally blindsided by an episode of Futurama.  I tried very hard not to cry.  When I was ten, I was able to stop myself from crying at the end of Forrest Gump by thinking, “These are actors and this is just a movie.  There is no one in that grave.  Tom Hanks is just talking to himself.”  I tried that tactic now by thinking, “THIS IS A CARTOON, DO NOT CRY WOMAN, DO NOT CRY.”

This tactic failed miserably.

Mandy will be here!

Mandy will be here!

She and her brother, Tony (who I am also very excited to see) will be visiting me in Texas!  I can’t believe they will be here in less than two weeks!

The last time we all hung out, we were in the general admission section of the Wells Fargo Center in Philly, watching Dave Grohl scream his lungs out…what adventures will be in store for us this time?

This weekend, I opened Boyfriend’s front door so I could go outside and get better reception.  It was only when I came back inside and saw his look of shock, accompanied with his tight grip on Apollo’s collar, that I realized that I’d nearly lost our puppy. AGAIN.

So several weeks ago, we were walking Apollo in a park.  All was well. It was a beautiful day, our pup was prancing in the grass, and there were several other puppies frolicking.  They were running around the park without their leashes, unlike Apollo.  We talked to the dogs’ owners, letting our dog play with theirs.  “I can’t take him off his leash,” I explained to the owners.  “He would just take off if I did.” 

As the pups were playing, I noticed Apollo was getting extra squirmy when the larger puppy approached him.  Apollo’s collar was getting really loose. I remarked to Boyfriend that Apollo’s collar looked loose, but I didn’t fix it.  This was a mistake.

Then, before we could process what was happening, Apollo squirmed out of his collar and immediately took off.

I think I blogged before how my family’s dachshund, Harry, had taken off on us when he was a puppy, and how Dad and I hauled ass to catch him.  We couldn’t catch him, and we were decent runners.  But we were on a long, empty beach, so Harry wasn’t in too much danger.

But now we were in a park, right next to a street.  Further down the street was an access road.  I know that dog trainers say the last thing you want to do when your dog gets loose is chase him, because the dog thinks it’s a game.  But how can you override your instincts? I knew that if Apollo ran into the access road, it was over.  And he was showing no signs of slowing down.

I ran after him, allowing myself to be slightly amused when I heard a little boy saying, “Wow, she’s running FAST.”  But it wasn’t good enough. Neither Boyfriend nor I could catch him. My heart sank when Apollo ran into the street. I started mentally preparing myself for the possibility that I would see Apollo get hit by a car.

I looked both ways – miraculously, no cars were approaching.  Apollo ran in the parking lot and ran back out into the street. I was so scared by this point, because I was afraid he’d start running towards the access road.  Then I would be unable to save him.

Thankfully, one of the puppy’s owners started to help us and the three of us cornered Apollo in the middle of the mercifully empty street. Apollo looked confused as Boyfriend scooped him up and held him tightly to his chest.

I adore my dog, but I won’t miss his puppy tours of terror. Not one bit.

Last night, I was lying in bed when I woke up and looked at my ceiling.  To my horror, I watched a large roach crawl across the illuminated part of my ceiling and disappear into darkness.

I lay in bed for several moments after that, unable to fall back asleep. Why did I have a roach?  I pride myself on keeping a home where roaches are not welcome. I had just vacuumed and mopped the day before, and before going to sleep, I’d sprayed down my kitchen counters with Windex, as usual.  WHY WAS THERE A ROACH IN MY ROOM? WHY?

Unable to fall back asleep, I woke up and checked the time. 2:30.  I turned on the lights, but in the most cowardly way possible – I started with the kitchen and then the bathroom, finally turning on my bedroom lights.  I gazed around my room with my eyes narrowed, waiting to see any glimpse of a roach scurrying away, or, even worse, flying (gulp). 

I didn’t see anything, except for Apollo’s confused face.

After looking around my room for several more minutes, I decided that either there had never been a roach and I had been dreaming, or it had disappeared before I turned on my bedroom lights.  I looked at the ceiling again as I slowly fell back asleep.  It was so dark and there was just a thin strip of light splayed across it – surely it couldn’t have been big enough to see a roach. I must have been dreaming.  Comforted with this thought, I fell asleep.

When I woke again a little while later and looked at my ceiling, it was more illuminated.  If there had been a roach, it would have been easy to see it run across the ceiling.

So I have no idea whether or not I actually saw a roach or I was just dreaming.  Do roaches run across ceilings?  Is that physically possible?  I do know one thing – ROACHES ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.

Apollo is interested in dub step for like ten seconds…then gets bored.