Overheard on the Street - Self Medicating

Guy: I've been taking so much medicine ... I've been prescribing it to myself.  It's enough to rise someone from a heart attack.

Girl: How you know how to prescribe stuff?

Guy: I looked it up in my pre-med book.

Girl: What you been prescribing?

Guy: Tylenol.

Girl: Wow.  I been on Claritin and Robitussin all week long.

Guy: What!  You kidding me?  You could die of an overdose!

Girl: Really?  Oh no!

Me (under my breath): You're just jealous that she may rise someone from a heart attack.

Three Dog Night

Meet Floyd.   Floyd is my wonderful English Bulldog who I've had since my early 30s.  Floyd is a lovable big boo boo of a dog who is a great cuddler and loves watching TV with me ... specifically old HOUSE re-runs and anything that has Alyssa Milano in it.  This includes Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone where she does the voice of 26.  Now, you may wonder how Floyd knows that an animated dinosaur and Alyssa Milano have the same voice.  Yes, you may wonder.  I'll tell you ... Floyd is one smart dog.

So smart that he can add items and bark out the answer.  Like, if you have two tuna cans on the table and go to the cabinet and grab two cans of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup because you're going to make Tuna Noodle Casserole that night, and you say "Floyd!  How many cans of stuff does it take to make Tuna Noodle Casserole?" Floyd will bark four times.  Two for the Tuna and Two for the Soup.  See?  Smart.

This is Molly.  Quibbit brought Molly into the family, she was his dog for many years.  Molly is just a luvviebump ... she can't see too well so she's always bumping into things and it's really kinda cute.  When I come home from work sometimes the door whaps her right in the head, so I've learned to open the door slowly.  Molly's also a little lazy. 

 Take that same door ... say she's standing in front of it and just thinking one of her little bull dog thoughts.  If I'm coming home, I open the door slowly and then suddenly find that I'm pushing her along ... because she won't really get out of the way.  Because she's busy thinking some cute bulldog thought and I've interrupted her.

Molly's not so good with math ... not even tuna noodle casserole math.  Say Floyd is over there barking 4 times to show he knows 2 plus 2.  Molly will join right in, but then just not stop.  She will bark and bark and bark and even when you say "Molly!  That's enough of that!" she will keep barking.  She will usually stop if I put an old tennis ball in her mouth.  When I don't have one handy I give her a jelly doughnut.

Finally, this is Butters!.  Quibbit and I just got Butters! the other day.  She is our first dog together.  Contrary to what you might be thinking, she is not named after Butters from Southpark.  Her name is also not a derogatory remark short for Butterface.  For, as you can see, her face is adorable.  Rather, her name is a reference to Fazekas / Butters - the people responsible for the TV show Reaper.  Similarly her name is not pronounced "Butters" but rather "Butters!" with the "TT"s being soften to almost "DD"s and the whole name being forced out of your mouth in one big shout of joy.  BUTTERS!  Some find it as difficult to pronounce the exclamation at the end of her name as everyone but the Germans find it to pronounce umlauts.

Now, you may wonder how a bizzy gal such as myself can take care of three adorable dogs.  You may also wonder how I was able to squoosh them into my tiny 500 square foot palace.  

Simple.

They're pretend dogs.  Duh!  I don't have any dogs!   Gosh, if actual people are spending actual money on these dolls that look like real babies, the least you can let me do is tell a few stories about my fake dogs, huh?  

Your Cheatin' Heart

There's no easy way to say this, non-registered Luvviepuffaroo Followers (all 2 of you) ... I've been cheating on you. And I will continue to ... but I'm hoping you can allow me to blog here whenever I'm in (cyber)town while I still blog regularly with my new Heart's Desire. Think of it more like Big Love than a Hank Williams song. We can all be together, right? No one needs to get jealous and dig their keys into the side of my pretty little souped up four wheel drive or carve their names into my leather seats? Right?

Seriously though, in case you were wondering why there was a 4 month gap ... I will say nothing about it. Except that I have a secret identity now and I've become a weekly contributor to a great website ... writing about what I love ... and what I know best. Between the writing, the researching, the interviewing, the planning for new columns, well ... I just didn't have the time to keep up with this blog that has an average readership of FOUR ... while the other site has a readership of FIFTEEN THOUSAND per month ... and those readers know me by my real name (In fact, if you Google my real name now, I've got presence!). So rather than toil in anonymity here, I found the pull too strong -- I needed to own my little corner of the (cyber) world where people tune in to actually READ my words as opposed to here, where people linger for 5 seconds before hitting "next blog". I see you there, itchy-fingers! What do you think is so much better down the line? Some girl in Sweden posting pictures of her lunch taken with her Hello Kitty camera phone? Well, please, don't let my musings about anything stop you. Click away!

HOWEVER, having said that, I do enjoy the Luvviepuffaroo-ness of this black and green site and Ah jess cain't quit-cha.

So, I'll do a little recap of all the posts I WOULD have written, had I been writing and not ... you know ... off CHEATING on my OWN BLOG with ANOTHER BLOG:

The Randomness of Time
2008 kicked me in the pants, no doubt. While it was one of the most fulfilling years ever (see archive) it was also one of the most devastating years ever (see archive). When 2009 arrived I was SOOOOOOOOOO ready for 2008 to be over. And yet ... does a moving digit at the end of 3 static digits mean ANYTHING? Not to be existential yet again ... but why does ANYTHING mean ANYTHING? Still ... I was sure glad to ring in the New Year, down on the promenade like every year, kissing Quibbit, and making that sound Xena, Warrior Princess used to make.


Worst. Translation. EVER ... (click here)
I'm sorry, Germany, but even little Estonia has you beat. In second place would be Sweden who's non-sequiter title is more funny than anything else. And props to France for throwing away the whole "murder" theme and going with some random title that is usually saved for dancers or decorations on mosque walls.

Random Celeb Sightings to add to The List (for list click here)
While sitting in the sixth row of American Buffalo (which starred John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer and Haley Joel Osment and which opened and closed within a month) I saw Maury Povich and his wife, Connie Chung. I desperately wanted to tap him on the shoulder and say "You ARE the father ..." but then I actually didn't want to seem like I watch his show. So I just stared at him and THOUGHT the sentence at him very loudly.

While having some pre-holiday party drinks at Viceroy I spotted Baryshnikov a few tables away, wearing a jaunty beret. How very French-by-way-of-American-by-way-of-Russian of him. He looked so continental!

Frowny Martha Stewart who couldn't be less interested in performing the task came to my office and judged a cooking competition. When she was asked to give a quick note on how the two finalists' dishes compared she said "Well, one was edible and one clearly wasn't". Ouch. This was for Charity, Divine Ms. M. Guess you left your charm at home that day.

You know how some celebrities look better in person than they do on the screen and some look worse? Steve Buscemi is someone who definitely looked better. I bumped into him (literally ... face to face, tummy to tummy) in my office cafeteria and my first thought was "Wow, that guy could pass for Steve Buscemi's good looking twin brother". He must like that he looks good in person.

No to repeat myself but ...
You know how some celebrities look better in person than they do on the screen and some look worse? Jude Law looks worse. He came to my office with Jeremy Gilley to promote his Peace One Day campaign and my oh my ... he just didn't do it for me. And this is a man I drooled over in one of my top 10 favorite movies The Talented Mr. Ripley! (Then again ... we've all aged a great deal since then, eh ...?)

On the other hand ...
I saw Nigel Barker in Chelsea Market one Saturday afternoon with his little daughter and literally was speechless for around 1/2 an hour afterward. He was so amazingly gorgeous that he literally parted a crowd of people who stopped in their tracks to gawk at him. I see him on ANTM all the time and while he's relatively attractive when he's on that judging panel, in person he's literally STUNNING.

A few weeks later Jonathan Ames came to my office (Yes, it's true ... they all come here. Don't ask why ... but if you knew where I worked you'd understand why) to discuss and promote his graphic novel, "The Alcoholic". I love Jonathan Ames ...everything about him. I love his books, I love to hear him speak (I'd seen him once before at a writing seminar where he was the closing speaker) and he just really really has me at Hello. He read aloud from the book and it was so LOL funny that I immediately went out and bought a copy. The scenario that involves Monica Lewinsky (who I saw once at the performance of Sweeney Todd) was hysterical.

I was lucky enough to score 2rd row seats for "The Third Story" and got to see the amazing Charles Busch and Kathleen Turner do their thang. I've been a longtime fan of both.

Just the other morning I was heading toward the train and came upon Ana Gasteyer pushing her young son in a stroller right outside my local CVS.

And finally, I can't be 100% sure but I'm 99% sure that I caught a glimpse of recent ANTM winner McKey on the subway. She was waaaay too tall and beautiful to be NOT her.

So, that's my fill-in for now. I'll pop back in every so often to reassure you that I still love you but when you've got a weekly column that often gets quoted (!), it's kinda hard to keep doing these headstands here in this empty room. Still, you were my first, so I'll always love you best.

Hugs, Luvviepuffaroo

Dr. .... Who?

I like to think I'm pretty up on things when it comes to pop-culture. Armed just with a subscription to Entertainment Weekly and a healthy curiosity about all things Hollywood I've been able to fake my way through DOZENS of conversations through the years.

I once had an 8 year old's mother (who brought her child to work on "Bring Your Child to Work Day" and then promptly parked her at my desk for the next 8 hours and asked me watch her) who was convinced that I knew all the Pokemon by heart. I did not.

I knew how to say Pikachu using one of the variants that Pikachu uses some times "Pika-pika ... CHOOOOOO" and I just happen to remember (in detail) one episode I saw when I was home sick. Armed with the names of merely three Pokemon I was able to converse with this child all afternoon. Because, really, all a child wants is to babble about their favorite thing in the hopes that you know all about it too.

So I nodded enthusiastically and when asked "Who's your favorite Pokemon?" I simply replied "Beside Pikachu? Well ... that's hard, but I'd have to say ... Charmander ... or maybe Jigglypuff." She nodded seriously and said "Yeah, they're good ... but I like ... " and then she named some little critter with a crazy name and I said "Oh! I forgot all about that one!" and so a friendship was born.

I do the same thing with other shows too. I've never seen one episode of The Office (not that I'm avoiding it ... I think I must be busy that night or something ...) but I know stats about it that I could report on for days. I know story lines, actors ... the name of the company they work for ... all because I pay attention to all the pop culture channels that criss-cross this great state of ours. So mired in pop culture am I that my dream is to be not Faulkner or Beckett but Cody. Diablo Cody. EW column, Oscar and all. (Well, not ALL ... I'm a bit over the hill to pull off the stripping thing ...)

So imagine my surprise when Quibbit starts netflixing Doctor Who and I reply ... Doctor Who? Imagine how even more startled I was to find out that EVERYONE I mention this to says "Oh!!! I LOVE Doctor Who!" ??? WHO?

Imagine my even bigger surprise when I Google "Dr. Who" and came upon a treasure trove of information that would rival the sites devoted to LOST, Babylon 5, Star Trek AND Star Wars ... COMBINED! I felt like Truman ... from The Truman Show ... the Doctor-Who-less world I'd lived in for the past (mumble) years was a FAKE UNIVERSE because Doctor Who is some sort of God that I am only finding out about now. It's like not knowing Mr. Rogers. Actually, it's worse. Because apparently Doctor Who is very, very, very cool (and Mr. Rogers is only very, very, very cool when you're still counting your age in months.) Cool enough to warrant his very own "The Weakest Link" episode!

So now I've spent the last few weeks watching (or rather, falling asleep to) the early Doctor Who episodes while Quibbit watches, enthralled. I've stayed awake just long enough to eye roll my way through the bad over-acting in the pilot episode, the horrible "special" effects, and the long, long, long, long exposition scenes. People tell me the show gets better ... I'm sure it does. Nothing that sustainable can be that bad. And because Quibbit is such a devoted fan I'm sure I'll see that arc happen right before my sleepy eyes, since he's put every Doctor Who available to man in his netflix queue. He even, for my benefit, broke chronology and got "The Five Doctors" so I could get a sense of the marvelous, amazing Doctors to come. Well, I did manage to stay awake for that one ... sorta. And I do see how it could be charmingly kitschy, hysterically campy and just good ole fashioned fun. But it turns out that my favorite part of this whole phenomenon came from the bonus materials.

For some reason, while I'm not yet aware of all the inside jokes, I could watch this first clip over and over again. It simply gets funnier and funnier every time I watch it ...




... and this clip has become my favorite simply because at least they're aware of how campy the whole thing is. And therefore NOW I LOVE THEM.



Meet you in the TARDIS ... Doc-TOR!

An Open Letter to Cirque du Soleil: I'll Start Coming To Your Shows When You Stop Naming Them After Your Pets - OR - Kooza? Seriously?

I can not, as a proud adult woman, BEAR to pick up the phone and say to ANYONE "Hello, may I purchase 2 tickets to Kooza, please?" It's just so ... undignified.

But say Quibbit got them for me, because he has no trouble saying any word in any language, be it real, made up, or an amalgam of the two (which Cirque would have us believe is how they get all their names of their shows). But then one night Ant calls and asks me if I've got any plans this week.

Luvvie: We're seeing that new Cirque du Soleil show.
Ant: Oh, which one?
Luvvie: The new one.

Ant: What's the name of this one?

Luvvie: No idea. Quibbit bought the tickets.

Well, that I can fake. But then what happens AFTER?

Inquiring Friend: I want to buy tickets to Cirque due Soleil. Have you ever see one of their shows?

Luvvie: Yup.

Friend: Which one?

Luvvie: I can't remember.

Friend: Was it Wintuk?

Luvvie (cringing): Nope.
Friend: Saltimbanco?
Luvvie (cringing): Nope.
Friend: Zed? Zaia? KÀ? Zumanity? La Nouba? Quidam?
Luvvie: NO! Stop naming them all!
Friend: Which one was it? Why won't you tell me?

Luvvie: (in tears) BECAUSE I CAN'T!!! (flees room, jumps into convertible Mustang, drives madly along the Pacific Coast Highway accompanied by the swells of violins until car runs off cliff a la Thelma and Louise.)

Sounds stupid? NOT AS STUPID AS "KOOZA". So please, Cirque, start naming your shows "Twenty" or "Fred" or "Toasted Almonds and Mint". I'd even see "Gazillion Bubble Show ... with Acrobats". But I just can't go to something that sounds like a thing I sneezed out.