Except I'm pretty sure Oprah hates cats

Well, I solved my dog problem. We took him along when we went to visit my in-laws in New Hampshire last month and we left him there. Ta-da! No more dog and no blood on my hands. And believe me, it was coming to that. He had taken to peeing on my side of the bed at least once a week. I think it was some sort of territory/claiming me as "bitch" battle between him and one of the cats. There was no keeping him out of the bedroom. I tried locking the door and he just bloodied himself opening it. I tried locking him in the garage and he bloodied himself trying to open that door, too. We were coming home to a crime scene any time we left the house. It was really an untenable situation.

Everybody seems pretty happy about the new arrangement. Marlo has accepted as fact our story that Grammie and Grandpa were very lonely and Rocco stayed to keep them company. Grammie and Grandpa will benefit from having a dog around, and Rocco should be very happy being the sole focus of attention. Win-win-win situation, if you ask me. Of course, no sooner had we solved the dog problem than we developed a cat pee problem, so our house is not free from pet disaster. But free from dog problems, which quite frankly is good enough for me. I'm slowly beginning to accept the fact that I don't especially like dogs and am going to end up a crazy cat lady. One step closer to my true self.

Oprah would be so proud.

Someday, it won't be funny anymore

Have you seen Oprah's Life Class yet? Oprah knows her way around a defamation lawsuit, so I'm not saying that Oprah's trying to start a cult. But. I think Oprah may be trying to start a cult. I just want you to promise you will send the deprogrammer to kidnap me if I start talking too much crazy Oprah talk.

Speaking of crazy Oprah talk, Facebook has been all about the inspirational messages lately, right? It seems like everyone has one for me. My favorite thing anyone has said all week was when one of my friends said, "it's like when my mom first got email." I should have just stolen that and said that it was mine but apparently Oprah has me gone soft.

Anyway, I guess I should be less cynical and just appreciate the positive energy or something. I should definitely be less cynical. Yesterday  I was out strolling with the baby when I saw a poster for a lost Yorkie. I thought to myself that there was no way that Yorkie was picked up by a little girl and taken home - unless that little girl also went by the alias of "Uncle Sam" and had an eight foot wingspan, or maybe "Rocky" and wore a cute little burglar mask. Wouldn't you know that a quarter mile later, I came across a sign for a found Yorkie. And, yes, I did my good deed and called to make sure they knew about one another, thank you very much.

I'll name drop the hell out of this one

Did I tell you about how I got an email telling me to click here to win a chance to meet Oprah, so I did? That doesn't even sound like me, but it's true. I guess now I'm the sort of person who tries to win a trip to meet Oprah.

It's not exactly like I'm trying to win, though. I mean, it's pretty hard to call it trying when all that was involved was volunteering my email address, for what is sure to be sale to the next 14 highest bidders who want to sell me maxi pads and dish soap or whatever.

Really, my thought process was basically something along the lines of this: if Oprah wants to buy me a plane ticket and put me up in a hotel, feed me three meals a day and shake my hand, who am I to say no to that? It would be sort of like turning down a free trip to meet Santa or Elvis or something. Why not do it, just to have an anecdote for one of those awkward moments when you're asked to share something interesting about yourself, and your mind goes completely blank?

Of course there was this one time in high school when I turned down meeting William Shatner, but I still think that was the right call on that one. Have you seen Shatner's Raw Nerve? It's like the most awkward horrible train wreck you could ever imagine. I kind of love it.

Remind me to learn how to make cheese

I just ate an entirely unreasonably sized portion of spaghetti and meat sauce with cheese on top. It is justified, I reckon,  because Marlo is now in constant motion (physics!) and still dependent on me for 90% of her calories. I can't keep my pants up anymore.

All false humility aside,  my binge reminded me of a few points I want to make on that whole vegan thing I brought up the other day. Number one: I have nothing against veganism. Something against some vegans, yes, the condescending PETA-joiner kind, but that's beside the point. I think if you want to subsist on plants and plants alone, good for you. I couldn't do it. Nor do I want to.

I could probably be a vegetarian. I think that if I were forced with the choice to either go veg or raise and, um, harvest? my own meat, I would be unable to do it. I'm creeped out by eating plants I grow myself. (Fun fact: I'm kind of scared of plants. They creep me out that they are alive and breathing and whatever but completely silent. The way that they will move toward you and those vines that will grab you if you're not careful - yikes! But anyway.) Yes, I'm kind of sicked out by eating my own plants, so you can imagine how I would feel about eating livestock. That I actually saw, you know, alive.

But eggs, cheese? Not a problem for me. In fact I could never give up cheese, it is far to dear to me. So if everything goes to shit and we have to start raising all our own food, you can bet on me to be your friendly neighborhood cheese maker. I will probably barter you some for a steak, you heartless murderer.

Number two point: I get that the Veganist lady was trying to ease that family into it, what with the seven hundred dollars worth of fake meat. But I still think that is stupid. It is not going to solve any of our increasingly urgent problems to get America to "ease into" a diet that would be good for the planet via a diet based mainly on soybeans and corn. Oh wait. Ha ha. Based directly on soybeans and corn. I mean, I guess it cuts out the middle man of the cow, but we'll still die a slow painful death as the synthetic fertilizers deplete all the oxygen in our water systems and Earth turns in to Mars.

Have a nice day!

Suddenly, an intense craving for cheeseburgers

Funny that a theme in my little blogiverse this week seems to be the insufferability of preachy lifestyle people, because I just saw a particularly insufferable lady on Oprah. And it wasn't even Oprah! The preachy lady, aka The Veganist, cannot tell an animal his right to a dignified life is less important than her appetite.

Of course, the underlying message in this statement I have just paraphrased for you is that you are an asshole because you think your love of bacon is more important than Miss Piggy's right to frolic.

It was fun to see Michael Pollan sit next to this lady and try not to roll his eyes. I mean, seriously.  I struggle with the ethics of consuming meat and other animal products. We buy everything all organic and free-range and whatnot - although I have not yet bought one of those ridiculous $20 heritage chickens. The Veganist's argument is that not all Americans can afford to buy food responsibly like I can - so therefore they should go vegan.

Cut to the Veganist loading a Harpo staffer's Whole Foods cart full of probably $700 worth of Tofurkey products. Shouldn't someone who calls herself the Veganist have a better plan than highly processed meat substitutes? Is it really better for the environment to produce and consume fake meat? Is it really more cost effective? Am I just being insufferably obtuse and defensive of my elitist meat eating lifestyle?