Bad to the Bone

I spent a lot of time in the car over the holidays this year. It's a 6 hour trip back to Illinois, and then I drove to and from Florida (36 hours total roundtrip). I don't want to recreate the disaster that was my vacation - involving a speeding ticket, expired license plates, a severe back-ache requiring one of those donut pillows, and a lost wallet (IDs, credit cards, cash). Instead, I want to talk about Sophie's Christmas.

The first night back in Illinois I went to my dad's house. He, in his anal retentive way, had his presents wrapped and under the tree since the week of Thanksgiving. I, in my increasing desire to skip Christmas as a holiday altogether, was hauling my presents into Dad's to use his wrapping paper to wrap last-minute. Anyway. One of the items under the tree was a present for Sophie. My father had bought her a bone that was a single braided loop that weighed, I am not kidding you, probably ten pounds. I think he buys her things for his own amusement, enjoying seeing a decent-size 75lb dog playing with toys clearly meant for a dog of a grizzly-size stature. This includes a rope that is as think as my fist, knotted, and as long as she is, which she whips around and can probably with the right aim, smash through large rocks. Anyway, this bone was sitting under the tree when we came in. Sophie, with her doggie-to-bone sonar capabilities immediately ran over to the tree to sniff it out. She then spent the better part of an hour approaching the tree and snuffling, batting her paws at the bone in an attempt to drag it away from the tree, whining when she couldn't, hopping backwards scared at such a monstrosity, and then reapproaching the tree.

This was hilarious. However, my dad felt bad and so he broke the bone into two manageable 5lb pieces. She still couldn't open her jaws wide enough to carry the bone around. She could however attempt to nibble at the edges and lick it. Sophie can take a normal-size bone down in about two hours. This one lasted the week and a half I was in Illinois/Florida.

Sophie's second present came from my aunt, who lives in DC. These two were her ONLY presents, I must say. So, shame on the rest of my family for not buying her Christmas presents. Animals deserve presents too. My mom should feel especially bad. The next time Sophie sees my mom, she is going to give her such a chomp. Anyway, my aunt had mailed a package for Sophie that didn't end up getting to Illinois until I got back from Florida. When I opened it, I almost peed my pants. This is the BEST PRESENT EVER.

My aunt has a little girl, Adeleine, who is adorable and has this beautiful, wispy, blond hair. Sometime after Addy was born, my aunt started making these barrettes for Addy and then continued to make them until she had accumulated enough to warrant an attempt to sell them to other mothers with daughters of wispy hair. Her little venture is called "Sister Fancy Hair," which is totally awesome. Anyway. The last time I was visiting her in DC I was telling her how she should expand into dog collars because people tend to be sort of as obsessed with decorating their pets as they are with decorating their children. Above is the collar my aunt made for Sophie. You will notice that it is pink to reflect Sophie's cuteness but that it has a skull and crossbones to reflect Sophie's bad-assness. It also came with an edible card for Sophie, which she picks up and sort of carries around because she can't really figure out how to eat it. Still. Seriously. BEST. PRESENT. EVER.

Thanks, Sis, for making Christmas so awesome. It was a great thing to open after 18 hours in the car (with my mother, no less), sitting on a donut pillow for five days, and losing my wallet. Doodoos agrees.

David Lynch Is a Fraud

I remember watching Mulholland Drive right after college. Probably eight years ago. I was fascinated with it. One of those movies that you rent (when you still rented movies) and immediately rewound and watched again. I thought there was something to be sought, some puzzle I had to use my brain and/or art appreciation skills to figure out. Something meaningful was being said with this movie. There was Pandora's box, and it opened this alternate universe where the blond actress was what she actually wanted to be? I became interested in David Lynch at this point. I watched Lost Highway, Blue Velvet. I remember my interest being sustained. This guy really has something to say. What is it? Does anyone know?

Anyway.

Netflix brought me Twin Peaks. I started getting pissed. Like. Seriously. I didn't even finish the series I got so annoyed. Who killed Laura Palmer? I didn't care.

I had entered some movies into my Netflix queue. I don't remember what sort of random thing I was reading. I have two queues on Netflix, one for regular movies and one for horror movies. I love scary movies. I think I was trying to populate my queue, and David Lynch sneaked in on some sort of list I saw about the best mind-blow movies. This is where Eraserhead came in, and now that I am going through that list, ALL of David Lynch's movies entered. I watched Eraserhead. I got pissed. I realized that David Lynch is like that annoying person that you don't care about that tries to tell you about a dream he/she had, which you double don't care about. Imagine. You are at Denny's. It is 2am. Your waitress comes for your Moons over My Hammy order, and instead of getting back to the kitchen to deliver said order, she stands there for 10 minutes telling you some dream about her dead aunt being obsessed with sugar and getting carried away in some tornado. All of David Lynch's movies are about him getting us to watch (and PAY to watch in some cases) an annoying, stupid acid trip he had. None of his movies make sense, and from my internet searches, HE can't even make sense of them.

I am pissed. I am annoyed that I was duped into watching this nonsensical BS with the hopes that it had some sort of philosophical meaning. David Lynch is a fraud. Anyone who tries to wax philosophical about his idiot movies or about Twin Peaks is a fraud. Deal with it. My recommendation? Don't waste your time. Also, don't tell people about your dreams. No one cares.