We're gonna walk around the block tonight

Nighttime Dogwalk Obstacle Course.

Start with elderly & somewhat senile poodle who can see a bit by day but almost nothing by night, is also deaf, has been having some digestive issues in the last day or two, & is on hunger strike because engineer has bopped off to Maryland for the weekend & she is miffed at being stuck with just me.  Add human with ADD & night blindness (post-LASIK a few years back). 

Make it stop

I think the use of "pop," as in "pop of color," started last year or the year before.  And it should have stopped then, too.

Instead, it's escaped from the lifestyle sections & fashion magazines.

If I want a pop of anything in my outfit, I'll wear bubble wrap.

Piracy on the palatine raphe

Down by the laundry room are various bookcases (mostly discards from when people moved or replaced furniture; one of them was mine, actually, but didn't fit into the apartment when we settled in), & there the building has an informal book exchange.  Friday morning the engineer brought up a paperback that he thought I'd like -- it was a mystery, which I sometimes do read, featuring dogs, always a plus, & when trying to fall asleep, I will read almost anything. 

I should have stopped after the author credited a romance writers' group for their support.  But then I would not have read about someone who kissed the main character & then continued to "plunder her mouth."  What the hell was he doing, stealing her fillings? 

 After three legal marriages & a good many informal liaisons, I am baffled.  What am I doing wrong that no one has plundered my mouth?  And how would anyone accomplish that?  Would I be as pleased about it as this heroine?  Had she hidden her jewelry in there, or her wallet?

From a quick skim of the rest, I gathered that the prose style & plot throughout ranged from breathless to downright bizarre (dogs also spoke to the heroine telepathically, & something about her own dog's lines made me picture Karl Malden), but I think -- I hope -- that no one actually made it into bed.  Because I really don't want to know what a man who plunders your mouth does to the rest of you.

Mitigation

Chinese antique carving, books & Teuscher?  (Granted, the first two are for the household, & the Teuscher would be too if I had not hidden it, but still.)

Oh, all right then.

Key lesson:

Apologies?  Promises to make it up?  Self-serving whining?  Boring & a tad insulting.

Actual effort? Works every time.  (Say it with books.  Even one book.  But chocs & Chinese antiques -- gild that lily, do.)

Commercialization & clarification

February 15, & the annual "it's so commercial -- I didn't do anything, you don't mind, do you?" festival has ended.

Certainly the holiday is overly commercialized, & doubtless just another way for florists, stationers, & chocolate-makers to increase their bank balances.  But the best time to propose skipping that routine is after someone has spent two or three hours, on a busted foot, no sleep, & no coffee, stumbling around various neighborhood joints to find cards for you, your parents, & her own parent that are (a) affectionate but not revoltingly soppy, (b) suited to the recipient, & (c) in English (in this neighborhood, the third is by far the toughest).  Even better, suggest it a few weeks after also providing that someone with a high-priced shopping list of suggested presents, including, but not limited to, Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls V, the only appeal of which is that it might possibly decrease the amount of time you spend slouched in your chair playing World of Warcraft, although it should still serve nicely as an excuse for you to avoid any boring, necessary jobs that you've agreed to take on at home.

Suspicions confirmed

I work at night, in midtown Manhattan.  Consequently, engineer -- who works days in New Jersey & commutes by car, thus having more shopping options -- agreed to buy flashlights, batteries, & if possible a battery-operated lantern yesterday, since a massive hurricane is en route.  A nice manly sort of errand, I thought, & one I couldn't run, my office building having plenty of law firms but no hardware stores at all, let alone any open all night.

Why should I be surprised to find out that engineer failed to do so?  "I went to Home Depot.  They were sold out." Well, what about the hardware store?  The Army-Navy store?  "Oh.  No."  You went to one store?  "Yes.  And they were sold out."  So you didn't go anywhere else to get emergency lighting?  And then the wail, "But I triiiiiied ... ."

I recall hearing in some past life -- pre-engineer, anyhow, or I'd never have believed it -- that men by nature persist, they problem-solve, they act.  This proves what I've suspected for ages:  World of Warcrap & similar video fantasies make testicles atrophy.  (Yes, of course he had time & energy enough last night for a few hours of gaming.)

While I suppose I shall have to grow a pair (no wonder I had a horrid nightmare in which I looked down to find that I'd developed chest hair) & go in search of flashlights during the day (after working the equivalent of six days in four, with about 12 or 13 hours sleep total since Monday, I did have other plans), this household owns exactly one working flashlight, mine: the small LED miner's light that I use to read at night, or when the compact fluorescent crudbulbs don't provide enough light.  I laid in a stock of batteries for it a couple of months back, too.

So if the New Masculinity (the sort that causes engineers to believe women should get all moist & grateful because, you know, they triiiiiied) means mission not accomplished ... surely the New Femininity means I don't have to share.  How very tempting.

Festina lente

The poodle is sixteen.  She is fading out too fast now; every day something more disappears: hearing, strength, eyesight, awareness, & even her fur on her sides & lower back (due to Cushing's, which an idiot vet assured me two years ago that she didn't have -- surprise, another vet this year finally recognized it as an atypical type that the standard blood test didn't catch, & wasn't it too bad they hadn't treated it back then when she was stronger: yes, now tell your partner in the practice, not me).  She gets an array of pills every day, like any other old lady; & like any other old lady, half of them deal with the side effects of the others, & none of them can be stopped, & still they are not enough.