What It Is: 11/30/09

What I’m reading: I took last week off so’s I could keep our new dog, Otis B. Driftwood, from getting into trouble. To that end, I spent a lot of time on the loveseat, trying to give affection to both doggies (I didn’t want Rufus to feel like he’s being ignored/replaced). So I had some reading time on my hands.

I read Stephen King’s On Writing this week. One of my author-acquaintances asked me, “Why would you read a book about writing by an author whose writing you’ve never read?” I’d heard the memoir section was good and, even if I have no other experience with his prose, I was curious as to what he’d offer about the practice of writing. So it was illuminating, although I don’t know when I’ll get around to reading his fiction.

I continued to slog through Bill Simmons’ Book of Basketball, which has some good points but is poorly written in a way that the author would likely contend is its strength. He’d be wrong about that; huge swathes of it are just extended columns with overwritten jokes. He once described writing the book out of sequence and eventually figuring out the overall structure for it. After 250 pages, I can see the incoherence but not to emergent order.

And I read Jeff Lemire’s Essex County trilogy. This is a collection of comics by Lemire about a small farm-town in western Ontario, and several families whose lives have intertwined over generations. While his artwork is expressionist, the stories themselves aren’t filled with any formal trickery, outside of extensive use of flashback in the second book (about a guy with Alzheimer’s, so hey). I enjoyed the collection overall. It’s no George Sprott, which continues to subtly blow my mind, but I thought it was a good, solid collection by a young cartoonist.

And I started Walter Kirn’s Up in the Air, after reading the sample chapter on my Kindle. I know I don’t really travel too much for work, but an awful lot of the narrator’s Airworld observations resonated with me. Apparently, the movie is All That. I’m kinda jarred by how so many of the airport scenes are pre-9/11.

What I’m listening to: Not a lot. I didn’t drive much this week, and the dogs & I mainly hung out in the living room, away from my iTunes liberry.

What I’m watching: Chandni Chowk to China, a Bollywood movie about a poor potato-slicer who gets mistaken as the reincarnation of an ancient Chinese warrior and has to go save a small village. I was aghast when our Netflix DVD showed up and the movie turned out to be 2 hours and 30 minutes long (!). But it’s actually pretty darn entertaining (we split it up into two viewings), even if the Indian lead looked like John Turturro’s handsomer brother. We also watched The Third Man, which I’d never seen before. Loved it, and returned the next day to Ron Rosenbaum’s essay on Kim Philby.

And there was Unforgiven, some NFL, and Role Models again, because I’m a mark for Paul Rudd and The State guys.

What I’m drinking: Desert Juniper gin and Q-Tonic.

What Rufus & Otis are up to: Ru is just taking things as they come. He and Otis are getting along fine in the house. Otis, however, is still pretty hyper when we go for walks. He doesn’t bark, but he pulls pretty powerfully when he gets his prey-drive on.

Where I’m going: Nowhere. (Well, maybe a dinner or two in NYC next weekend.)

What I’m happy about: Having a nice Thanksgiving meal at the home of my neighbors across the street.

What I’m sad about: Being too on-the-verge-of-sick to make it to my 20-year reunion in Philadelphia over the weekend. And discovering that our water heater was leaking and needs replacing, an hour before I was supposed to get together with old friends in NYC on Sunday.

What I’m worried about: Not a lot. I mean, I’m a little burned out on my low-level anxiety of trying to train Otis to walk without going after everything he perceives as prey (squirrels, chipmunks, other dogs, deer, crows, etc.). I guess the draining aspect of this is that I have to exert power in a way that I can’t just “explain” to the dog. It’s tough on me, Having to be the Big Boss and pull him along when he starts going into his statue mode. So I guess there’s a worrisome aspect to that: my discomfort at the exercise of force. Boy, this has been one long What It Is post, huh?

What I’m pondering: The eschatological significance of my father’s decision to shave his beard, which he’s been sporting since before I was born.

Gayhounds

My pal Tina’s husband coined the term “gayhounds” for Rufus and Otis after seeing their High Five photoset yesterday.

I have no idea what he’s going to say after seeing this evening’s naptime tableau:

You need to click through to the photoset. Trust me.

I know I’m like a guy showing his baby pictures, but the upside is, um, well, that I’ll never actually have baby pictures to show you . . .

What It Is: 11/23/09

What I’m reading: Finished up When The Shooting Stops … The Cutting Begins: A Film Editor’s Story. The penultimate chapter — detailing how Annie Hall was salvaged — was phenomenal. Not sure what my main book will be after that.

What I’m listening to: The Cars’ Greatest Hits, Coconut Records’ Nighttiming, and Rush’s greatest hits collection, Spirit of Radio and Signals. Man, Rush was awesome. Just call me The Analog Kid.

What I’m watching: A little NFL, a little NBA, the last couple of Rachel Zoe Projects (cleaning out the DVR), some Mythbusters (go, exploding water heater redux!) and Anchorman (decompressing on Sunday night).

What I’m drinking: Hendrick’s & Q-Tonic.

What Rufus is up to: Gaining a “little” brother, Otis B. Driftwood!

Where I’m going: Down to Philadelphia next Friday for my other 20th high school reunion.

What I’m happy about: That In The Loop comes out on DVD the day after my birthday in January! Pre-order: accomplished!

What I’m sad about: Letting work, travel, new dog, etc. derail my National Novel Writing Month project. Grr.

What I’m worried about: All the acclimating that Otis has to do; he seems much more prey-driven than Rufus was when we got him in March 2008. He also wants to jump over the baby-gate that cordons off our kitchen, which is a real problem.

What I’m pondering: Why you never call.

Ethnic Harmony

I knew bringing a new greyhound into our home would be initially stressful and nerve-wracking for me. This one’s a lot more prey-sensitive when we’re outdoors, and he’s in the early exploratory phase of his new home. I know it’s only been about 24 hours since we got him here, but I’m just way too high-strung for this sorta thing. I’m in nervous-nauseous mode, even though Otis B. Driftwood Roth is actually getting along pretty well with his new family.

How well?

Click through it for the rest of the (small,) cute photoset. I’m gonna go take some Xanax or something.

(Really, it’s mainly our walks that are the big strain for me. I’m in such a rhythm with Rufus that having to train Otis is totally throwing me off. A big part of it is that, while I’m trying to train him to follow my lead and not to chase after things, I’m also training him to know his new name. So if you’re in my neighborhood and you see me looking a little frazzled during a walk with my two boys, cut me some slack.)

I suppose “Captain Spaulding” is next

We decided a few weeks ago that Rufus T. Firefly would be a happier dog if he had a little sister to keep him company. He wasn’t getting weird, exactly, but we felt that he’d be better around other dogs if he had a fellow grey around during the day, and didn’t just have to be the foil to my repartee.

So we went down to the Greyhound Friends NJ annual craft fair to check out some of the “adoptables” they brought along. We had our eye on a particular girl we saw on their website, but she turned out to be a little ball of rage and fury.

We checked out a number of other available greys, and found that Rufus got along really well with one of the males, Conner’s AR. “Connie” was very affectionate, easy-going and, okay, maybe a little prey-driven, but that can be worked on.

The more we talked with people down there — GFNJ people, foster “parents”, other grey-owners at the fair — the more convinced we became that getting another male wouldn’t be a bad idea. I was somewhat concerned about space issues, since Connie is actually a little taller than Rufus, but one of our long-time GFNJ contacts said, “When you get down to it, they all take up the same space.”

So, despite our aim of getting an smallish female grey, we ended up adopting a big ol’ male. One of the GFNJ people — the same one who tied a leash to my wrist when we were taking another grey for a walk — told me that we’d need to muzzle both dogs for the ride home. We complied. Ten minutes into the hour-long drive, I looked back to see that they were both zonked out, lying on their sides, one’s paw draped over the other’s tail. They were clearly a menace to life and limb.

I’ve got next week off, so I’ll be able to help our new boy get acclimated to his new home. He did a little better with the stairs than Rufus did in his first few days, but this guy’s got a whole new world to get used to. Fortunately, he’s got a pretty awesome big brother who’s already teaching him proper sprawling-position.

The one thing is, we had no idea what to call him. See, we were planning on a female, and all the Duck Soup names that I came up with were more girl-suited: Pinky, Chicolini, Mrs. Tisdale, Maggie (after Margaret Dumont). (I also wanted to go with Chaka Cohen, but that would’ve been too weird.) Once we got home, we started looking through the Groucho Marx IMDB page, to find other character names that would compliment Rufus T. Firefly.

So now, I introduce you to our new fur-son, Otis B. Driftwood Roth:

otis.jpg

(Here are more pix by my beloved wife.)

Oh, and here’s the male (and previously male) contingent of our happy family, in the Adoption Room at the fair: