Zugenia's Procrastination Salon

One of my mom's favorite Valentine's Day stories is about the year (second grade?) she stayed up all night helping me hand-write a pile of Holly Hobby valentines, one to each kid in my class, only to find the next day that I'd forgotten them at home and didn't really care much about it. "I forgot them," I said at the end of the day.

Well, this year I have not forgotten; I give to you a whole bunch of free vintage V-Day cards courtesy of Vintage Holiday Crafts.

In other news, I have decided that Valentine's Day is also Daisy Mae's birthday. Because she is the sweetest sweetheart that ever hearted.

You can see more puppy pics from the past year here.

Today is the first day of the fall semester and I am in denial.

I haven't completed several of the things I needed to complete before the summer was over, including getting my tan on. Guess it will have to wait for next year.

Daisy Mae has started obedience school and D and I have started a diet-and-exercise regime to try to look less slobby for our impending nuptuals. The next six weeks promise to be ... interesting.

But the biggest news around here is that we think we figured out what Daisy Mae is, and it's really, really cool.

Stay tuned for updates on obedience, wedding dresses, my summer reading list, and everything else BUT my bachelorette extravaganza. (What happens in P-town stays in P-town.)

This past weekend, D and I traveled to my hometown of Rochester, NY for my grandparents' joint 90th birthday party. It was a blow-out family reunion organized around an incredible Chinese banquet, with more cousins and aunties and uncles than I've ever seen all in one place before. I met clans from California and Beijing for the first time. I ate abalone for the first time. (Abalone used to be over the "too Chinese" food line for me, so this was a form of cultural progress. I still wouldn't try the jellyfish, which D tells me was delicious.) I saw my baby sister Emma, who flew in from London, for the first time in ages. She met D for the first time. Saturday, Emma and D and I stole some time at the end of the night to bond at the hotel bar (big thanks to Mom and Dad, who footed the extraordinary bill, at Dad's insistence, by the way, Mom) and the next thing I know, we're the only ones up to entertain my mom's mysterious cousin Robert, whose flight was delayed for eight hours, so that he arrived post-banquet, as most people were drifting toward bed, only to have to head back to the airport first thing in the morning. It was a mind-scrambling weekend, equal parts fun and drama, but it's left me feeling that I only barely saw my close family before being snatched away by my life again.

While in Rochester, when I wasn't reunioning, I couldn't sleep enough. Now I'm back in Arkansas, facing a last week of teaching and a pile of overdue projects, and my insomnia is back. For several weeks, I haven't been able to sleep through a single night. I thought maybe a long weekend would jag my brain back into working order, but at 4:50 this morning I was wide awake with deadlines and Sufjan Stevens's rendition of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" coursing through my head.

Daisy Mae spent the weekend boarded at the kennel for the first time. D and I missed her like the crazy puppy-parents that we are. She just came trotting into my office from the yard reeking of shit and I can't tell if she's been eating it or rolling in it. I am so not ready to face today.

Daisy Mae went through a puppy rite of passage yesterday, and the poor baby is still feeling a little weak and groggy. She's snoring with her head in my lap right now, occasionally twitching like she's chasing some wily creature through the dream-woods.

I'm dying for a cup of coffee, but there's no way I'm disturbing a sleeping puppy. Now is when a butler would be particularly useful.

A list of Things I've Said This Week That I Probably Never Would Have Said Ever If I Hadn't Gotten A Puppy:

1. "'Cat food' means 'food for cats.' Are you a cat?"

2. "What part of 'I'm on the toilet' do you not understand?"

3. "That better not be poop in your mouth."

4. "That is poop in your mouth, isn't it?"

5. "Why don't you go chew on a duck or something?"

6. "Please get your nose out of kitty's butt while she's eating."

7. "Are you really that attached to my fiance's underpants?"


And now, a shorter list of Things I've Said To Puppy Today That It's Possible I've Said Before, Not To Puppy:

1. "Give me back my panties, NOW."

2. "Just because you're cute doesn't mean you get to come in bed."

3. "You are such a dog."

Apparently, how annoying Daisy Mae can be is directly proportional to how tired I feel when I start the day with her. This morning she started whining around 5:30 am, which is simply too early by any standard of sanity, so I let her out and then put both of us back to bed. By 6:30 I couldn't sleep anymore, so I got her up and fed her and took her out for a walk while she was still sleepier than I was. And she's been a total angel all day—which is, admittedly, only a few hours old as of this note. But, seriously, it is amazing what an extra hour of sleep and a caaaaaaaaalm morning can do for a girl.

Maybe she knew I was talkin' smack on the internets.

P.S. Thanks to florafloraflora for the advice in the BC forum—I think part of today's success was certainly my being rested enough not to get into shouting matches with puppy.

Today, I actually thought to myself, "You know, you could just step on her. She's just a puppy." Daisy Mae is growing exponentially, and she's much healthier than when we found her at the shelter, and, consequently, a raging spitfire of puppy energy anytime she is not eating or sleeping. At her hyper peaks, she nips to get attention and thinks "NO" is part of a delightful game. We've tried every recommended technique we've found for teaching a pup not to bite—holding her lower jaw, stimulating her gag reflex, coating ourselves in bitter concoctions, shaking a can of pennies. The can of pennies is the only thing that seemed to get her attention, by which I mean she stopped going for my hands and feet long enough to try to bite the can of pennies. I'm sure she's just getting used to the new surges of energy coursing through her, and trying out her new strength, but Jesus Christ.

Of course, I did take advantage of a drowsy moment today to roll her over and sing a song called, "I've Got Your Arms, Your Widdle Puppy Arms," so, you know, we're all insane and torturing each other in creative ways.

Give D a Flip, a MacBook, and a puppy, and voila! an auteur is born.


Also available on i am daisy mae.

Last night D says, "We're going to have to not become insufferable puppy parents."

Apparently I was not listening because today I did this.

And I will keep doing it.

As if things weren't exciting enough around here these days, D and I have gone and got ourselves a puppy. We found Daisy Mae (rap name: Day-Z) at the Rogers Animal Shelter on Wednesday, brought her home on Thursday ... and, 24 hours later, she's already a movie star: