I just received word from Mike and Jersey Jen From Michigan.  They are joining LW (Liberty Wright – she’s single boys!) in a few weeks on a visit to Spokane.  I think that’s great.  Not that I don’t like hanging out with LW – she’s the easiest person to be around – but it’s always good times when the 5 of us get around each other.  Someone always becomes the butt of a joke.  Usually me.  I responded to her email that we (The gUrt & I, not The Wife because she’s hard at work) are so excited to see them.   I may have made mention that The gUrt “pooped his pants” with excitement.  Because the original email was to all 5 of us, and because I “responded to all”, The Wife quickly sent an email expressing her excitement and that we would “clean up the house.”  Now, to quote The Big Guy, “I was born at night, but not last night”. I’m well aware that The Wife’s response is directly related to her complete disappointment in my choice of excitement expression. Go Figure.

The funny thing about it is that:

A. The gUrt doesn’t wear pants and…

B. The gUrt hasn’t pooped in the house since the second night after he moved in.

When we first brought him home, I was walking downstairs after a 2 second run upstairs, only to find him in the “Catcher’s” position doing his business.  I have to say with all my voice strength, I let him know I was extremely dissatisfied with his activity at hand and quickly ushered him to the back yard.  He must have understood that we poop outside because from that day on, he poops outside.  Good Boy Hogan.  Peeing was a different story.  He once peed on D-Train’s foot. Good Boy Hogan.  I’m rambling.

I know I promised some fun Canadian adventures – they’re coming.  I thought I’d give everyone a vacation from my vacationing and provide a different topic for once.  Thanks to Devin for his last blog – I received some positive feedback on it.

Speaking of D-Train – also known as Danny-D to some or Dr. Nugget by others – I was recently catching up on his website, CravingBagels.com, and happened to stumble upon an excerpt he wrote about Miss King, his “lady friend” as he calls her.  They’re married.  Anyway, this excerpt is about how she is the most finicky eater he knows.  He mentions that she has different characteristics that make her finicky.  These are the one’s that stuck out to me:

• She likes her hamburgers plain.  Except at Effie Burger in Lewiston, ID, home of the largest gut bomb burger in the entire world.  You have to understand that for someone to not like anything on their burger, especially when it is a basic burger, and then to want EVERYTHING on her Effie Burger, it is pretty contradictory.  That’s like saying I don’t like dogs with hair, but then your favorite dog is an Old English Sheep Dog.
• There are certain foods she’ll only eat if D-Train cooks them.  If he cooks it too often, it’s ruined and she’ll never eat it again.
• She can taste “spiciness” in everything – even things with no spice in it.  For instance, she can taste spices in bottled water.
• She hate’s meat on the bone.

There’s too many to mention, but I thought, how hard to date?  It’s a wonder they made it solely on the basis that dating had to have been a struggle.  As I was reading this in the beginning, I kept thinking, what a freakshow. But, as I started finishing the story, I began to realize that I am also a very picky eater.  Just the other night, The Wife and I met her friend Sasha and her “not her boyfriend” boyfriend at Cafe Marron.  Cafe Marron is the cool little restaurant in Browne’s Addition in Spokane, a quaint, hip neighborhood.  This restaurant is really cool – it’s all reclaimed wood from barns and other buildings.  The windows are garage doors that are opened in the summer.  The chairs are school chairs.  The food is really good.  The first time we went there, they had this awesome Au Gratin Mac N’ Cheese.  It was TDF (To Die For – I had to make it an acronym because Ronnie Drama hated that phrase).  That was back in February or March during an International Date Night.  The next time, we went there with The SchreTters and low and behold – no Au Gratin Mac N’ Cheese.  I was tre’ disappointed.  So, I ordered this new dish – some sort of ToFu Stir Fry – again, slam dunk and TDF.  So, this last weekend, we met Sasha and her “not her boyfriend” boyfriend there and wouldn’t you believe it.  Not only was the Au Gratin Mac N’ Cheese not on the menu, but neither was the ToFu Stir Fry.  I was again let down.  This time, I spent the better part of 30 mintues mulling over the menu before reluctantly deciding on the hamburger.  I love hamburgers – my favorite food, but I’d had my World Famous Sliders, Canadian McDonald’s, Wendy’s and another burger within about 5 days.  It was just too much and there was nothing else appetizing.  You see, its rare that I pick up a menu that has multiple items I’d want.  Most of the time when we go to a place for the first time, I’m nervous they won’t have something I like.  I almost always find something and then every time we return, I order the same thing.

Brian - Pronghorn Antelope

I totally agree with her on the Meat on a bone thing.  I have a real hard time with it.  I think it’s because I have trouble eating things that I’ve seen moving.  At least when you buy a steak or hamburger meat, it’s processed to the point where it isn’t really recognizable.  I guess for me, the bone is a grim reminder to me of what I’m eating.  A leg, a rib, something like that.  At least when I eat a ribeye, I have no idea where on the cow it came from.  But I have trouble with it.  I’ll go fishing and then I have to leave the room when it’s being prepared so I won’t associate dinner with what I just caught.  Last year, I went hunting in Wyoming with The Big Guy, SoupUncle and his nephew.  I shot a Pronghorn Antelope and had it butchered and brought home the meat.  I also had the head mounted for the Office.  Why not, right?  I even named my Antelope.  Brian.  The problem with naming him Brian is that I already have issues with animal to food association.  Here I am, struggling to eat something I killed, and then I keep thinking of his name.  This makes it worse.  When I finally do get the mounted head, I’ll probably never be able to eat in the Office again.

This food issue has been tough since I was a kid.  I hate when my food touches.  I hate soggy bread.  You name it, I’m freakish about it.  I don’t think I would have done well with the Donner Party.  Well maybe, but only if the following occurred:

1. I visited the Donner Party – not traveled with them.  I couldn’t have any previous knowledge of people within the Donner Party who now account for empty seats at the table.
2. Everything would have to be cooked fresh and clean – I’m a germaphobe to the core.
3. Everything would have to be processed – if it looks like Barry, then I’m going to feel like I’m eating Barry.  If it’s processed like Bologna or String Cheese, then I’d be more likely to eat it with no remorse.
4. If everything could be packaged, that would be great.  Barry with Triscuits and Tillamook Cheese would be nice.  It would be even better if they could package Barry as a Lunchable.

New Barry ABBA Flavor

To read D-Train‘s Article, visit http://cravingbagels.com/?page_id=1498 – Good laughs for sure.  Don’t read too much or you’ll blow about 2 hours to about 6 days of non-stop reading and laughter.  Big Ups to “The Greatest Blogger of All Time!”

This past weekend, I went to the Spokane Gun Show with The Wife’s uncle.  He’s a funny guy – we both broke our backs the same week, so we’re on the same wavelength.  He went to the doctor, though.  His diagnosis: “Condition consistent with a typical 50 year old male.”  That’s a bummer.  I think he wanted to hear something more like, “Patient broke back lifting a 1000 pound dock.”, not something about being 50.  Sorry man.  Anyway, we were at the Gun Show and I came across this really cool booth that had women’s hunting clothes.  No, not the booth with the women’s concealed carry lingerie (though that was cool too), it was straight up hunting clothes.  So I was looking through the rack and I spied a really cool army type jacket.  I picked it up and it was surprisingly hip.  It was clearly cut for a woman with the curves into the hips.  I thought it would look pretty cool on The Wife, so I bought it.  Now, the brand was called She Safari and the guy that sold it to me told me this story about ow the owner was a friend of his and he started it because he had all women in the house – wife and all daughters.  I guess its your typical guy that just wanted a son and didn’t get one, so he decided to turn his daughters and wife into something like a son, but still make it cool.  I’m rambling.

So this She Safari Army Jacket was really cool.  I brought it home to The Wife and she sort of made fun of me, at first, then she looked closer at it and I could see she actually thought it was cool.  She wore it this weekend and it in fact looked AWESOME!  I joked with her that it was her Che Guevara outfit.  I mentioned that as we were walking into the Rocket Bakery, downtown, and then proceeded to make the “double handed gunshots in the air, then spin the guns into holsters” mime.  I love that action, although it was probably a little scary for the people in the bakery because they’re all pretty much hippies.  I then called her Che all day long.

When we were living in Las Vegas, our favorite restaurant was the Balboa Pizza Company at The District at Green Valley Ranch.  It’s the best pizza and we always ordered the Barbecue Chicken Pizza.  It’s really tasty and it comes on a wood plank and is fashioned in a rectangle instead of a circle.  Another plus.  I really miss it since we’ve moved, but we have found a replacement here in Spokane.  There’s this totally hip place on the South Hill called Benniditos.  I can’t ever remember the real name, so I call it Bertinellis.  Everyone looks at me like I’m dumb, but I think it’s funny.  The Wife say’s it’s not.  Anyway, Benniditos is incredibly good.  It comes out on a metal pan and is circular.  They also are lacking the Barbecue Chicken Pizza.  But, what they lack in Rectangle BBQ, they make up for in DELICIOUS pie!  They also have these cool little deals called Beer Buddies.  We order them every time we go, but the last time we went, I saw them written on some girl’s chest, so I thought, we’d better get them.

The problem with Benniditos is that we’re pretty sure they put something in the pizza that makes you have weird dreams.  If you don’t believe me, let me give you some examples:

1. Case 1 – Read “Hogan’s Proposals Are Missing!” – this story occurred the very first night we ate Benniditos.  The Wife was seriously affected by the food.
2. Case 2 – The Wife has had many more dreams including one where she was late to work out with her mother who lives 3 house away and her friend from college who lives in Denver.  Our Friend in Denver was then really mad at her – someone whom I’ve never seem mad at anyone.
3. Case 3 – I’ve had several dreams as well that include me being an FBI Agent.
4. Case 4 – Liberty Wright, our friend from Las Vegas (Single Boys!) also had strange dreams on the plane back to Las Vegas from Spokane, just after eating at Benniditos.

As you can see, there is something wrong here.  If you still don’t believe me, let me tell you about my last post-Benniditos dream.  As you know, our house is a comfortable trio – The Wife, The gUrt, and myself.  Now, we’ve been having some adolescent issues with The gUrt.  He’s really crazy lately and now that he’s 50 pounds, he’s really getting difficult to control in certain situations.  One of those situations is he likes to run up to the neighbors.  They don’t seem to like it.  I think they’re a little afraid of him because he barks at them and acts like he wants to eat them.  Actually, he probably wouldn’t do that, but he’d eat their cellphone if he got it (Sorry to The Wife’s aunt!).

With all that said, the dream I had was crazy.  We decided to get another dog in my dream.  This dog was none other than Clifford the Big Red Dog.  I recently found out that Clifford is an oversized Vizsla and since Hogan is a Vizsla, I guess in my dream, Clifford seemed like a natural second dog.  The thing that concerns me about this dream was that everything was real, just like most dreams.  Clifford was really hard to control and Hogan was crazy.  We couldn’t get Clifford in the house because he was too big and we couldn’t even get him into the garage.  To top it off, Clifford and Hogan were running down the street and terrorizing the neighborhood.  Since Clifford was so big, he was causing the ground to shake and the street was cracking under his paws.  And he was so excited and crazy that he was knocking over trees and all the neighbors were running around, cussing me out.  One neighbor said, “These Frerking renters and their red dogs! I can’t wait for them to move!”

I mentioned a minute ago I was concerned.  What concerns me, you ask?  Well, I am concerned that not only was I dreaming about a fictional big red dog, but it happened to be that in my dream, as much as everything was as real as it is when I’m awake, this big red dog was indeed a cartoon.  That’s right folks, Clifford the Big Red Cartoon Dog running down my real street.

Clifford's New Family (The wife is played by Eva Mendes)

I spent the better part of last week in Denver.  Now, if you know your timelines, then you are correct if you thought to yourself, “Wasn’t there a big snowstorm in Denver last week?“  If you haven’t read my “You’re Welcome, Inland Northwest” story, I recommend it.  You’ll understand my next comment.  That’s right folks, I am officially traveling with the snowblower.  It dumps snow for 5 weeks, I buy a snowblower and then it doesn’t snow a bit.  Then, I travel to Denver, who hasn’t received snow all winter, and it dumps 18 inches.  No snowblower means I had to shovel out Bab’s Diesel VW Passat on Friday morning.  I flew back on Saturday night and have been in pain again for the last 5 days.  Frerking shoveling (big ups to The Greatest Vet of All Time, Dr. Thad Frerking).  I think I slipped a disk.

I had an interesting situation occur while I was traveling back home.  I was on the plane on Saturday night, just after my layover at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas.  I had just boarded as I am always top 25 on Southwest Airlines (A-List BABY!) so I get priority seating and I was doing my usual ritual.  I typically choose the aisle seat in one of the first few rows of the plane so I can get off quickly when we land.  Being that I am probably the most impatient and most claustrophobic person on the plane, it’s best if I am off ASAP.  If not, I’m liable to hurt someone, or say something totally inappropriate.  The other part of my ritual is that I try not to make any eye contact with the people walking past me.  Now, don’t think I’m not scoping out the people whilst they’re walking by.  Oh yes, I’m profiling baby.  I’m hand picking the person that is going to be lucky enough to sit next to me the whole flight and typically once I choose that person, I’ll make eye contact.  Then, usually, they’ll look at me like I’m oozing gross and walk right past me.

On this particular flight, I happen to see a pretty good looking woman walk through the door.  Now, she was definitely striking, but I could tell she was about 2 inches from her cougar years.  Still, for a pre-coog, she was way hot.  So as she walks through the door, I thought to myself, the hot chicks never sit next to me.  I always end up with some guido in a track suit (Credit goes to Jersey Jen, From Michigan), yelling at his wife, spilling over into my seat, forcing me to lean into the aisle.  I’m always having back pain after flights – maybe because it’s the fact that guido is forcing me to sit sideways on the plane.  Maybe…or maybe it’s because I’m so far in the aisle that I end up getting smashed in the back by everyone and their mother as they walk up and down the aisle to the restroom.  They should remove those.  I’m rambling.

So, this pre-coog.  She walks right up to my aisle and says, “Is that seat taken?”  I was out of my seat before she could finish her sentence and grabbed her suitcase and started stuffing it into the overhead.  She said, “What a nice guy!  Thanks”.  Then I sat down, said my ‘Cool Guy’ (as The Wife calls it) “You Bet”, and proceeded to start reading my book.  Yeah boys, I turned ignore on full blast!  As I was reading I looked down because I noticed she was opening her book, being the totally nosy person that I am.  As I was looking at her book, I noticed out of the lower left corner of my eye that her left hand was loosely holding the book – and then I heard the sound of gears turning and her thumb mechanically clamped down on the book.

You guessed it, she had a prosthetic hand.  So, as your typical guy would do, I started panicking that my chivalrous act of grabbing her luggage may have been misconstrued as a leap to help the poor girl with the prosthetic arm.  Because it’s all about me, I stressed about it for about 2 minutes (which is pretty long for me to stress about offending someone) and then delved into my book.  About halfway through the flight, I overheard the woman in the window seat asking her about her arm.  I just had to force my way into the conversation.  There was no way I wasn’t going to stay out of this one.  I have always wondered how those prosthetic work.  As she was explaining the mechanics behind it, I saw an opportunity to explain that my chivalrous act was in reality a chivalrous act and not some sort of pity thing for the girl with the prosthetic arm.  She said she thought I was just being a gentleman.

At one point, the conversation turned to me.  We started talking about the book I was reading and I explained that it was actually the Bible and that I was reading it because I hadn’t ever read it cover to cover before.  I explained that The Wife and I are doing this scheduled Bible In A Year reading where there are a certain number of pages you read every day.  I also explained that I was reading it on the flight because I was about 3 weeks behind on my reading and that I wanted to capitalize on the long flight to catch up.  I’m only 2 weeks behind now, by the way.

One thing led to another and we found ourselves in a discussion about theology and I began to explain that religion is a good foundation in life, but it is important to be active in life and make things happen to yourself.  I explained that I didn’t think that it was good to sit around and wait for things to happen to you.  Then I went on to explain that bad things happen to everyone and that it was a fact of life.  I tend to like to use a lot of words to drive my points home (surprise), so I went forth with what I thought was a pretty groundbreaking statement, since we were coming from Vegas:

“Sometimes, you just have to deal with the hand you’re dealt.”

I’m an absolute Geniou…idiot.  There was a long pause. I thought she was going to open the emergency exit and toss me out.  Then she said, “Or in my case, the hand you WEREN’T dealt!”  Then she laughed really hard.  Now we’re friends on FaceBook.

My friend Mike doesn’t think I really work.  When we first met, I jokingly answered his “what do you do for a living” with my typical cynical response to the question, “I’m a SAHDiNK” – that’s pronounced SAH – DINK.  Then the next typical question is, “What?”.  Then I explain the acronym is for Stay At Home Dad, No Kids.  I came up with that saying to make fun of the acronym DINK.  Babs (My mom) called me that one day to make fun of me and The Wife.  So my response was, “What if I quit my job?  Then I’d be a SAHDiNK!”  She gave me the evil eye and I quickly dropped it.  Babs is a single liberal woman.  You don’t want to make any comments that suggest you’re being rude to a lady.  “You treat a lady with RESPECT!” Maybe that’s why she made me take Cotillion when I was a young chap? I’m rambling.

Anyway, so the first time he and I met, we had this conversation.  He thought my response was funny.  I think.  I can’t really tell sometimes with Mike because he has this blank start response and you don’t know if he’s going to burst out laughing or put you in a choke-hold.  So fast forward to a few months later.  We’re at a nice Las Vegas restaurant, Carluccios Tivoli Gardens (I highly recommend – right next to the Liberace Museum), sitting in the atrium, eating the bread that was just delivered, when Mike looks straight at me and says, “What do you think of Drew Carey replacing Bob Barker on the Price Is Right?” He doesn’t even crack a smile.  He just said straight to me like he’d been pondering his feelings on this whole CBS decision to replace Bob Barker with Drew Carey.  I thought to myself, “How should I Frerking (big ups to The Greatest Vet of All Time, Dr. Thad Frerking) know?”  I mean, really, when did I become an expert on the Price Is Right? Then, in his Mike way, he looks straight at me again and with a delivery only Mike can pull off, he says, “That’s what you do all day, right?  Just watch TV?”  Defeated as can be, I watched as The Wife and Jen laughed their butts off at my expense.

I work.  I know no one thinks I do.  Donnie Boom Boom (my Dad) definitely doesn’t think I work. He told my sister that.  But I do work!  In fact, just yesterday, I had a local Spokane company ask me to talk to them about the Web Business.  I put on my best Seven Jeans, my Express blue and white striped shirt and my Wood Grain Aldo shoes with matching belt  – Yes Boys – You MUST match your belt with your shoes – we’ll have a fashion discussion later.  And the Pièce de résistance – my brand new Ted Baker Chesterfield Coat.  See, a long time ago, a colleague of mine looked at my bad outfit at work one day and said, “Ash, don’t dress for the job you have, dress for the job you want to have.  And, I’m not necessarily talking about your clothes.”   It was obviously about selling your self.  So, I learned that if you want to impress someone in business, you have to own the meeting.

Now, that mentality can get you into trouble, but it works a majority of the time.  Especially in my industry where it is a lot of introverted people who don’t interact well in meeting situations.  So I bring to the table the opposite.  I own the meeting.  So, I’m meeting with these two guys yesterday and I have this thought as one of them is speaking.

I wonder…Here I am, a business owner- it says CEO on my business card.  I’m an expert in my industry.  THE GUY that they want to be talking to.  They must think I’m a powerhouse.  A bad a$$ business man – all knowing.  They must think “I’ll bet he eats people for breakfast all day long.”

So, later last night, I’m driving with The Wife and I confess this thought to her.  She laughed at me, put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Oh Ash, you are a funny man!”  I think she was mocking me.  So then I told her that I had a thought after that thought.

What they don’t know is that I actually eat Lucky Charms for breakfast.  Then I usually change out of my PJ’s at about 11:30, make the bed and then shower.