How to Camp When You are the Actual Worst at Camping

Step One:

Whine about how tired of hot dogs and hamburgers you are. So played out, right?

Step Two:

Mix up Hendricks with Ginger Beer & Lemon, cuz of course. I don't care what Jim the camp host said about how it's "not allowed." (I'd be careful, but Jim did not seem like a tweeter, blogger, or facebooker. Or...like he has heard of a computer.)

Step Three:

Do everything you can to avoid being involved in heavy lifting or splinters or burns or anything really at all that is helpful. 

Step Four: 

Learn the hard way that making lettuce wraps as a kabob side and being a priss about your diet is not a thing that goes with camping. #tediousmincing

Step Five: 

Pee right there. Bathroom too far away, and you have to pass Jim. Who, let's face it, you have already decided against for no reason.

Step Six:

Be shocked that fire happened, become overwhelmed by the fact that you have no Taylor thermometer to measure the temperature of chicken, and that your fingers get hot when you try to turn them. Especially because when your boyfriend tries to do it and says how hot it is, you get all eye-rolley and say, "God, LET ME DO IT." Then realize you are wrong, and that actually he was handling the whole thing rather unwimpily. This reminds you of the time when you talked bossily about how you didn't NEED a piggy back ride at 3am after the bars, and then immediately sprained your ankle, and had to pretend like you didn't to all of your friends. This is unrelated to camping, and you realize you should stop thinking about that one time in college, and tend to the pieces of chicken that are becoming black rocks.

Step Seven: 

Crack self up with a number of skewer jokes, including Edward Skewerhands, Skewerine (which didn't really work as a play on Wolverine, but shut up, because gin), and singing "I am the Walrus," and actually kind of jamming the sticks a little too far and too painfully into your top lip.

Step Eight:

 Allow friend to take credit for kabobs. 

Step Nine:

Gin.

Step Ten:

Insist on trying to break very strong stick by self. Fail. Be pathetic.

Step Eleven:

Be particularly lame in this new, chokey, coughy way due to smoke. Feel blind and like you won't live.

As you might guess, this is kind of where the night's documentation ended. So actually this is not how to camp, this is how to be a big dumb priss. I mean I literally got a splinter dicing veggies for lettuce wraps. That's the stupidest injury possible for camping.

Step Twelve:

Have it in you to blast this song, but suspiciously NOT to help with packing up. Because gin.

Why Oh Why Can't I Blog?

I talk ALL the time. I actually kind of don't shut up. I talk so much that even after sharing every thought in my  mind and telling every single story from my past, I find time to actually repeat myself. What's that all about? I don't know. But THEN, I don't remember to blog. Then in these year long hiatuses, not only do I probably bore the bejeezus out of everyone I know in real life, but I end up forgetting how to work Blogger and my website and like everything. Kind of the only thing I know how to do is post too much stuff on Instagram. All of it. Whatever.

IT ALL ENDS NOW. Now I am a person who blogs. Not...like, not a BLOGGER, exactly, but...I blog now. So get used it. Or don't. I don't know how to see if anyone even reads this.

Am...am I blogging?

Pay for 5 drinks, Pay for 2 Pita Pockets, but GOD FORBID I Pay Attention

It is....really irritating how bad I am at not getting distracted. 

Like. I don't procrastinate. I do everything right away. But while I'm doing it, everything else feels reallllly important too. Here are a couple of the things that distracted me while I wrote today. 

The Nap Man. 

This guy was asleep on a couch, mouth open and often muttering while loosly holding a camera that must be worth at least $1200. I took pictures of his slow descent from upright man to full-on horizontal man, but I feel like maybe we aren't supposed to post pictures of strangers like that. Bummer. Cuz lemme tell you guys, it is a beauty of a progression. 

Outback Steakhouse.

An e-mail from Outback with the subject line, 'Unlimit Your Shrimp!' I can't tell you now why exactly this was so transfixing or weird to me. But at the time, I was like, "What the hell could that mean? Who okayed that as the promo email subject line?" And then I thought maybe they were going to send it out without a subject line, but then the computer was all paranoid like they always are and was like, "You didn't enter a subject.Are you SURE you want to send without one?" And the Outback promo guy just panicked hard and went, UNLIMIT YOUR SHRIMP I DON'T KNOW!

Chef on a Bicycle. 

He was in the streets. On a bike. Like some sort of 1920s photograph. In reality he was just a guy on his way to work, saving the environment from fumes. But to me, this was magical. 

People Drinking Chardonnay AND Root Beer Floats

That's all. I have nothing more to say. That's just fucked up.

Disgustingness. 

Learned that's a word.

The Banjo in the Kitchen. 

Someone just...started playing a banjo in the kitchen. And he had a mustache. It sounds sarcastic. I mean was the world TESTING my distractability? I hope you're happy now, universe. Now that you know I am easily

Hot Barista Man.

Again. That's all. He was just beautiful. 

It is so hard for me to get anything finished. You should be shocked this blog post got made. I'm going to go to sleep now. All this focused energy nearly killed me. 

"I mean...They can't really charge you for anything if your dog eats a cat."

Sentences that happen in casual conversation with best friends. 

It's not like my dog is all that...um...murderous or whatever. It's just that he likes to playyyyy, and when animals can't withstand his 80lbs and powerful punches to the face, they tend to get hurt. Nothing bad has happened yet, but man...every time he encounters a small dog, they just snarl at him immediately. It's like they just see his bouncy little ears, all-muscle body, and that goofy look on his face and just know what's coming. 

So this new thing I do, is I take him to the tennis court at night and let him run around. I would obviously play fetch with him...but he thinks the rules of fetch are: I throw the ball, you run after it, step over it, and smell something gross on the ground. Then he thinks I'm supposed to get it and throw it some more so that he can eventually lose all interest entirely. It's rude. 

NO PROBLEM OAKLEY, I LOVE TO SIT OUT ON HUMID NIGHTS TO BE EATEN ALIVE BY MOSQUITOS AND IGNORED ENTIRELY BY MY RESCUE DOG. I mean, like, does he not get that I rescued his furry little blonde behind?

What a jerk. 

Anyway. Last night at the tennis court, after he so classily pooped right on the doubles line, a cat darted through the night and towards Oakley. So for this one horrible moment, I became convinced that something awful was about to happen. 

And that brought up the question: what exactly am I supposed to do if my dog actually eats a cat tonight?

Do I just...amble on home? Do I throw it...do I throw it away? Can I get arrested? Will Oakley go to Paw Prison?

Don't worry, I didn't have to find out. The cat wisely got the eff out of that situation. 

Then we went home.

PSA Against Drinking (Badly)

#attractive

I had a bad Wal-Mart experience/ I had a Wal-Mart experience.

Vive la Jerk! Vive la Jerk!

My dog hates the bath. I'm not sure why, since he's never had any traumas, and since when he goes out on boats, he seriously considers jumping into lakes. But today I realized the reason for his incessant scratching was that he had some fleas on him. They were hidden in his fur, and I hadn't been able to see them until I bought a brush for him. So I went out to the petstore, bought a hundred bucks worth of stuff for his increasingly bald, itchy, behind, and came back to bathe him. He was an eighty-five pound porcupine, except each prickler was a super strong limb. We spend forty-five minutes battling each other, until finally he gives up and lets me put him in. This is not without the use of a homemade (not by me) puppy cupcake--a pupcake if you will--and "super-strong"suction cup straps to keep him in place. Then it became a waiting game for him to decide when next to try to escape, breaking free of his nylon and suction shackles. 

This is after the forty-five minutes, before I got him in. It seemed to be a sincere possiblity I was going to have to hire someone or get married or something in order to get fleas off of him.

I finally got his jerk-ass in the bathtub. Please note doggie bathtime bondage straps. This picture was taken during a very smug moment where he was relaxing on my knees. I'd grow to regret not just hurrying up and getting him rinsed, since he then became not only a horrifically strong creature, but a slippery one. And once the dog is covered in flea-killing poison, you can't very well give up.

Eventually my bathroom looked like this.

I looked like this.









And this jerk looked all smug and de-flead like this.

Little did I know that a simple bathttime would turn into a revolutionary war, in which I am the oppressor, and Oakley is fighting for all he believes in. I am scratched to ribbons, and he is now flea free. You're welcome you stupid rescue. #shouldanamedhimdjango