Rhymes with Safari

When I was young and rebellious (I was never rebellious), I heard that red cars were more likely to get pulled over.

Don’t believe it, kids.

I owned red cars for 16 years, and I was pulled over exactly once while driving one. I was pulled over twice in my dad’s blue jeep. (Plus, he got a photo-ticket in the mail once because I ran a light in his jeep, but I don’t think color was a factor that time.)

But get this, I have been pulled over twice in the past three months in my new little blue car. That’s right, I got another speeding ticket today.

I was so bewildered, I handed the cop my credit card instead of my driver’s license.

It was on a two-lane county highway and once again, I had no idea I was speeding. (That’s not going to make a very good defense, is it?) This is a highway I have driven many times during the past five years, and usually, I feel like somebody’s grandmother, because cars pass me all the time. So imagine my surprise to learn that there’s a stretch where the speed is reduced from 50 to 35 mph. (What? Like there’s a sign somewhere that tells me this?)

I was traveling 49 mph.

Now, I can’t say that I actually knew the speed limit was 50 mph on most of that highway, but I likely would have maintained that speed the whole rest of the drive, 1 mile under the speed limit. If I hadn’t been pulled over and issued a ticket, so that I had to talk on my cell phone to my Mom, crying, the rest of the way.

Is it me, or is November just not a creative month? I’m finding it next to excruciating to sit down and make up a fictional scene. If that’s redundant, it’s because I’m trying to cough up 50,000 words by the end of the month, and that goes against my journalistic training to use as few words as possible to convey meaning.

Here’s an amusing anecdote, which is so totally going in the book. Isis broke away from me yesterday during an attempted off-leash training session in a high school parking lot. We’ve worked in the parking lot dozens of times, and I always clip her little light line to the collar, so I can step on it if she tries to escape.

So we’re practicing “drop on recall,” in which I back up, call her to me and then tell her to “down” before she gets to me. We do this a few times, with me putting her in a stay and then backing up and calling her to me.

Until she decides not to come to me, but to race around me at freeway speed and head straight for the soccer field. Sometimes on Sundays, when no one’s around, I let her run wild on this field. So naturally, she thought she was allowed to do it on this particular Saturday, even though there was a soccer game in progress.

It was a Spanish-speaking league, and fortunately the players were mostly good sports, as they yelled “Perro! Perro!” at each other (at her?) while she raced between them on the field intercepting the ball and running with it.

It was mortifying. And hilarious. The futbol players couldn’t even get close enough to grab her, for what seemed like an hour, but was probably about 7 minutes. The longest 7 minutes of my life.

The other night, I had one of my standard getting-ready-
to-go-somewhere-but-I-don’t-have-time-or-enough-space-
in-my-bags-to-pack-all-my-shit dreams. It had a couple of unusual twists in it, but the one that doesn’t really make sense to me is that I was looking out the window from a bathroom in the building where I used to work at the University, and there was a graveyard there.

A man and a woman were burying a square casket. I couldn’t tell whether it was an authorized burial or not; it was sort of outside the boundaries of the cemetery, but they weren’t trying to be surreptitious or anything. The casket itself wasn’t the right shape for a person. Perhaps it contained an animal.

Anyone know why this item would be on clearance at Dogs.com?

These bowls are made of 100% Melamine, a strong durable plastic material that stands up to every day wear and tear. Unlike other pet bowls, melamine reduces scratches and nicks that trap harmful bacteria. They’re dishwasher safe, won’t fade and feature non-skid rubber feet and finger cut-outs on both sides.

Introducing www.rhymeswithsafari.com.

Actually, you’re already there.

Doy mi sangre

Remember on Beverly Hills, 90210 when Dylan took Brenda to donate blood on Valentine’s Day? So romantic.

I gave blood today for the first time since high school. For some reason I thought that all the medication I take would make my blood undesirable… how stupid of me. This is a college campus. I probably have a lot fewer drugs in my bloodstream than most of the donors.

Two Minute Maid fruit punch boxes and two Cougar Mountain cookies made it all worthwhile. I’m a little bummed that they didn’t have stickers. I went to the “blood mobile” instead of the room in the student union, just because it seemed more fun, even though it was probably warmer in the student union. When I asked if they had stickers, they told me they would tomorrow, when they were in their “good bus.” What? I went on the wrong day?

Actually I strategically picked Wednesday, because Tuesdays and Thursdays are when more is expected of me in the martial arts class and I can always use the blood donation as an excuse not to be Rob’s grappling dummy tonight.

Ohmygolly, I plum forgot. My Czech “boyfriend” gave blood a lot, and he was always too weak to do anything after. He said he had some extra-superspecial blood that was really in demand. He gave blood on my birthday and used that as an excuse to stand me up. Obviously that wasn’t the real reason. Jerk.

Redundant

I am still so impressed with Dooce.

Read this article.

Click

You know what this blog needs? More pictures.

Unfortunately, I haven’t taken any good ones lately. And not for lack of trying. This is a little disconcerting as my new job contains a photojournalistic component.

Instead, I offer you an image you will find at the top of the results of a Google search of my name.

It was taken in March 2005 at the Albuquerque airport. I am eating an orange. I remember thinking, “Certainly he’s not taking a picture of me, I have a section of orange in my mouth.”

I look nothing like this anymore. My hair is much longer, I have bangs and I snapped those glasses in two about a year ago while trying to clean them with my shirt at LAX.

I miss those glasses. And those boots. Why, Payless, why are there no manmade, comfortable boots in stores this season?