This Afternoon In Drama

This Is A French Bulldog's World

I'm really stupid about my dog in a way that I'm not stupid about anything else.  For years I was the nanny of the cutest, most cherubic baby, and though I found her heartbreakingly adorable, our conversations were still like: 

Baby: I love you.

Me [in monotone]: I love you too.  Grab that shovel and let's hit the park.

I'm pretty sure that the dog is the first living thing I've ever used a baby-voice on.  I just look at her, and I can't take it.  I can't take how cute she looks.  I can't take how cute she acts.  As an entity, she completely slays me.  Brent and I have had conversations about how if the two of them were both in danger and only one could be saved...and then we go quiet, because there's an understanding.  And speaking of Brent, it's my belief that he is equally stupid about this dog, and so over time our individual stupidnesses have just reinforced each other until they've reaching dizzying levels, where sometimes we're sitting on the couch and he's jokingly tuning Christmas's nipples and using an old-timey radio voice to yell, "Tune in, Tokyo!  Tune in!" and I'm right next to him, pretending to place a crown of rawhide on her head and I'm simultaneously saying, "Duh-duh-duh-duh!  You have won the cute prize, miss!" in a pageant announcer voice, and then we realize the dog is looking up at us with an uncannily human expression, like, "What the fuck is wrong with you two?"  Well, it's during these moments that we have to stop and wonder what's happened to us.

We have this serious- probably daily- habit of suddenly breaking into song about the dog, and there are so many songs and so many variations of lyrics that I wouldn't successfully be able to compile them if I tried.  But as of late, some popular tunes around the house have been:

1.  "Hot Bellied"- (sung to "Hot Blooded" by Foreigner)  My dad bought us (us being Brent and me) an electric blanket for the holidays a year ago, but we were too lazy to take it out of the box until we got worried this winter that Christmas was cold at night without the fireplace going.  From the moment we plugged it in, our gift became her blanket.  She loves the thing.  If, when she gets into bed at night, the blanket isn't pre-warmed, she will pick up her paw and tap at it furiously, like, "Can we turn this thing on?"  Then she stretches out flat across it for maximum undercarriage warming, and sometimes I will sing to her:

"Hot bellied!  Check it and see!

Need to get this electric blanket up to a hundred and three

Come on electric blanket, you can do more than that

I'm hot bellied, I'm hot bellied!"

2.  "Dirty Vagina"- (sung to "Dirty Diana" by Michael Jackson)  When Christmas comes home from the dog park, often she will have a dirty vagina area from rolling around in the dirt or just dragging herself, as she likes to do.  You know.  So we like to cradle her like a baby in our arms and sing, "Diiiirteeee VahJIIIINA!"  That's as far as we get because we don't actually know the rest of the song well enough to substitute doggy lyrics.  But the dirty vagina part is fun enough on its own.

3.  "Wicked Games"- (sung to "Wicked Games" by Chris Isaak)  (We haven't renamed the title on this one because it doesn't really manifest in the chorus.)  This adaptation came about after the recent rainy season, when Christmas would cower at having to go outdoors because she likes to take a good five minutes to find her ideal number two spot, and the water dropping on her head got in the way of that process.  A very troubled look would cross her face when we'd say, "Potty?" and then she'd go and sadly stare out the window at the falling rain.  So we had started to sing:

"What a wicked thing to do

To make me have to go outside and poo

What a wicked thing to say

That I have to potty in the rain!

Ohhhhhh IIIIIII, don't want to goooo in the rain..."

And it went on from there.

4.  "Oh What A Pup"- (sung to "December 1963: Oh What A Night" by The Four Seasons)  This one gets sung a lot because we'll just fill in lyrics about whatever's going on right that second.  Like, "Oh what a pup!  Look at your little paws, paws, paws/Yeah, you got to rub those eyes/You're so ti-i-ired."  Okay, so I know this isn't exactly a great rhythmic match to the original lyrics and doesn't rhyme, but it's more about the exuberance with which you sing it.  You've got to go into the falsetto.  Recently Brent and I were in Ralph's and "Oh What A Night" started playing on the sound system and we started singing "Oh What A Pup" really high (in a really high voice, I mean- not really high on drugs) until we had a shared moment of realization, an "Oh my god."

5.  "Pup On The Run"- (sung to "Band On The Run" by Paul McCartney)  Christmas really hates the vacuum cleaner (and us cleaning in general- it provokes anxiety) and so whenever we turn it on to suck up her shed hair, which is plentiful, she goes sprinting across the apartment in fear for her life.  So Brent has taken to singing:

"Pup on the run,

Pup on the run!

When the vacuum turned on, she was already gone

Pup on the run..."

6.  "Pup In The Butt"- (rapped to "Pumps And A Bump" by MC Hammer)  Sometimes if I'm reading in bed on my stomach, Christmas will like to climb up the backs of my legs and settle into the space right below my butt, resting her chin on it (see photo illustration below).  So that's the correct time that you want to go ahead and rap:

"Pup on the butt,

Pup on the butt,

Get me the pup who likes to sleep on the butt!"

 

 

On Da Dings Of Duhve

And here's my last guest Bachelor stint for for Blush.com (remember how that was the name of the magazine on Just Shoot Me?   I wish I'd left the original gap between my two front teeth like Laura San Giacomo.  My childhood dentist should have realized this mania for porcelain bonding was just a phase!) , which you can read below or at their site.

Plucking Off The Wings Of Love: The Bachelor Finale

 As these things tend to do, the episode kicks off with a recap.  Over waterfall footage, Jake hits his love life talking points like we’re sitting in on his first emoting workshop at the Steven Seagal Acting Studio.  You don't need to see him to know that he's squinting.

We join him as he's walking along the bay in a deep v-neck, tanning his cleavage.  He agonizes that he’s "right on the edge of finding my wife," which sounds kind of suicidal- as it should, considering he’s whittled himself down to the choice between a human cotton ball and a girl who will eventually drain their savings for a space-age nipple lift.

When Jake enters a tropical condo to consult with his family, he beams them a ginormous smile as if he's walking into a room of people he doesn't know.  This is the same smile I reserve for really old men I’m not sure I’ve already met because sometimes they can look alike, you know?  Jake announces that he "needs a second set of eyes," but I believe in his heart he already knows that Vienna’s breasts are larger.

It’s time to bring in Tenley.  As she embraces Jake’s parents, she coos, "Oh my goodness!" like she’s visiting a hospital ward of children who have lost their arms and she doesn’t want to make them feel bad about their shoulder-stub hugs.  As she talks with the family, there’s the distinct sense she’s conducting a parent-teacher meeting and Jake’s the best boy in her class.  She swears to his parents that she’s not in love with “the idea of Jake,” and I totally believe her, because there is no idea of Jake.  When was the last time you had an “idea” of Wonder bread that went beyond its nature as bread?

When Jake’s mom, Sallie, pulls Tenley out for a heart-to-heart, this is where we first learn that Sallie is obsessed with female familial bonding.  Far less concerned with whether the couple will have a life than runs any deeper than a giggle, all Sallie really cares about is that Tenley gets along with the sister-wives.  I mean, the daughters-in-law.  It gets very culty before Jake takes Tenley by the hand and gets her to jump clothed in the pool with him.  Well, no, actually, it stays culty.  Tenley laughs like her re-virginity depends on it.  Jake’s brothers get into the pool and bear hug her creepily.  The sisters-in-law stay dry, observing from the concrete and nodding into the sun, Yes, she will hang out the laundry with us; it is so.

Vienna’s turn!  Mom hopes Vienna is “special.”  Oh, she is, Mom, she is.  Check out the set of her eyes.

Because this family lives like Lindsay Lohan's Mean Girls is their personal Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they exchange looks like Vienna’s aborted their collective baby when she starts talking about how she didn’t get along with the other contestants who were trying out Jake’s tongue.  Next comes the part where Vienna finally wins me over.  She defends herself by saying the other women didn’t like her because she’s honest.  Jake’s sister-in-law, wanting to test this, asks, “Do you think I look fat in this outfit?”  Vienna twists her hand to indicate, “Welllllllll” and laughing, says “Kind of.”  It’s great.  But in the end, Vienna falls back on years of intensive Daddy’s Girl training and bursts into manipulative tears, somehow getting Jake’s family to issue a mass apology to her and extend her curfew an hour.

The last two dates before the final rose ceremony are excruciatingly boring, so all you need to know is that:

1. Vienna and Jake rub foul-smelling mud on each other at the sulphur springs, then she gifts him her father-daughter promise ring.  Her dad awakes sweating in the middle of the night, mystically alerted to some yet unknown and quivering horror.

2. Tenley and Jake go snorkeling and sailing on a boat, where Jake cracks and essentially admits to Tenley that he doesn’t want to hit the Laura Ashley sheets with her.  It’s so over.

At this juncture, my dog starts snoring loudly next to me on the couch.  Tenley, trying to save her sinking ship, also has a gift for Jake, and eyeballing it, I wake my dog to tell her, “I’m going to guess that’s a scrapbook even before he opens it.”  But it turns out to be a scrap shadowbox.  My apologies, Tenley.

 Jake (I seriously just forgot his name while I was searching for the beginning of that sentence) wakes up the next morning and thinks about who he wants to "occupy his fuselage."  Okay, so that’s my own quote, but if this show had run another week, that’s where the producers’ desperation for plane metaphors would have taken them.  When Jake admits to the jeweler that he hasn't chosen the girl yet, ABC tries to bring in the flamenco guitars like this is romantic.  But this is not romantic unless you’ve always dreamed of standing at the altar and your groom is there next to you, debating whether he wants to marry the harp player instead.  Jake complains that "the rings almost made it more confusing," and I become terrified for anyone who gets booked on one of his flights.  Not a mental-multitasker, this dude.  If you see him chewing a piece of gum when you board, you might just want to mosey back down the platform.

 The time is here to claim a bride.  Jake’s completely twitching as Tenley’s helicopter lands.  She's in a nude dress, hoping to remind him that she, too, gets nude.  When he breaks up with her, he admits that their interactions feel forced, and this is maybe the first time that I identify with him.  He doesn’t want to be Prince Eric for Halloween.  Tenley’s like, “…but I already sewed my tail!”

 And that means...it's Vienna! (Cue techno, lower beer bong.)  Jake gives her the patented Katie Holmes "amazing" compliment, and he’s totally messing with her head for a while.  He even gives her back the promise (coughincestcough) ring, and at home her dad is punching into the air, getting ready to marry her all over again.  But then Jake takes some pauses- having learned this dramatic technique at Seagal’s studio- and proposes.  Vienna’s wearing huge gold earrings, but she's clearly a mixed metals girl because she has no problem taking the platinum ring.

On “After The Rose,” we learn that even though Tenley’s had a bad end to the second relationship she’s ever tried in her life, she’s still sticking with the gurgling baby voice, hitting all the phlegmy “ch” sounds that I couldn’t manage at my bat mitzvah.  Tables have turned and now Jake's treating her like she's the slow kindergartner.  She just can’t seem to process that someone not being attracted to you isn’t a good thing, no matter which way you look at it.  When she points out all the affection Jake showed her, my boyfriend laments that people who go on this show still don’t understand how it works.  They never, ever will.  So sad.

And how are Jake and Vienna doing?  Well, he’s totally in love with his “baby!”  Things are really boring when people are happy, and this segment of the hour is no exception.  Spacing out, my boyfriend and I get into a discussion about whether the divot on the right side of Jake's mouth is a dimple, cleft, or mole.  Jake stops smiling for a second, and I’m able to rule out mole.  Vienna's hot pink dress has a bib-curtain, like it’s a literal garment interpretation of dinner theater.  And her eyes look like they've wandered a little further inward.  I’m not trying to be a dick; I just learned a lot about strabismus when Star Magazine did their coverage of Dannielynn Birkhead’s condition.  Chris Harrison is wearing a baby blue tie that's dangerously close to his baby blue shirt.  It’s a weird choice if you're not going to commit to the baby blue jacket too.  The guy who sings “Wings of Love” (iTunes sales sparkling in his straight-ahead eyes) performs, and Vienna and Jake dance, not nearly as ashamed as they should be.  Drawing from his stage-passion exercise at the Seagal Studio, Jake takes Vienna’s head in both hands and is still not able to look like he’s authentically kissing her.

Oh, and Ali's the next Bachelorette, but you already knew that in the pit of your soul.  With her appearance, I’ve now had to sit through three one-shouldered dresses in a single night.  Someone please find her the other sleeve by the time her season airs, yes?