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Moms came down for a visit this weekend and brought her new dog Bob with her. Bob is a three year old rescue and he’s part beagle and part something with short legs. He’s 20lbs. of heart wrench that walked into our house and decided he was in charge.

And Cutter and Tug agreed.

After he’d made the grand tour and sniffed everything and taken a poop in the middle of the living room, Bob jumped up on the couch, made himself nice and comfy on the pillows, and growled at Cutter and Tug if they dared join him.

And since they are pussies they immediately backed down and spent the entire weekend cowering between my legs, hiding from the terrible Bob. Honestly, they are SUCH pussies.

To make matters worse, or better, depending on your point of view, Miss Carol fell hard for Bob. He was soooo cuuuute she just couldn’t stop picking him up and hugging him and every time she did the boys would look up at me with their WTF? eyes. And I’d be like- sorry dudes. It got so bad that by the time Moms was leaving, Miss Carol carried Bob across the lawn and put him on his blankie on the back seat of Moms car.

Then, while we were standing arm in arm waving goodbye she turned to me and said that she wouldn’t mind having a little dog like Bob around our house because he was soooo cuuuute and because she swore he’d had a little tear in his eye when she’d laid him down.

Jesus fuck.

So I hugged her and told her she’d probably been squeezing him too tight.

Twice a day, everyday, when I walk the boys, it’s not enough that they have to pee on every scent, on every plant, bush, rock, and mailbox, on every garbage can, and on every little kid standing still that we happen to come across on the same one mile loop we ALWAYS walk.

No way.

That ain’t near enough. They gotta top the yellow stream with the pee pee dance-its like it’s their end-zone celebration- their slamming the ball down and dancing off, hip-hoppin’ sideways to the roaring crowds.

This is how it goes-

They snuffle up something worth peeing on which is anything and everything and then they lift opposing legs and pee on each other and then, while they’re reveling in the warm gift they’ve given each other, they happily root?, or rut?

They both become furry little rototillers, churning up the grass and sand and dirt and hurling it back behind them in huge clumps.

It’d be cute if they did it once every now and again.

But they have to do it EVERY time they pee- which is like every ten feet?

I don’t get it- is it because they still have their dangly bits?

Ya know how some days you’re just off the charts chatty?

Shit’s clickin’ and you’re feelin’ like every little word droppin’ off your lips is some kinda pearl of wisdom that everyone needs and wants to hear and muse over?

The kinda shit that you think people would just want to roll over and over in their minds and hands and appreciate and rub smooth like pebbles or snowballs, making them better?

Yeah. So you continue on, giddily full of yourself, secure in the knowledge that others find you as entertaining as you do.

But then reality kicks in and you get a forearm bolt check to the chin and a follow up knee to the twins when Miss Carol says- you know what?

Why don’t you just shut the fuck up?

And you do.

‘Cause you’re good at that too, ’cause it’s something you learned when you were little.

I’ve always loved Stephen King.

Even when he was Richard Bachman.

In the late 60’s and early 70’s King wrote under both names, publishing magazine horror stories as Stephen King and writing novels as Richard Bachman that sold to no one.

Then, later,  as his star streaked meteorically skyward and publishers were clamoring to publish anything and everything he wrote and since there was only so much Stephen King to go around- the Richard Bachman novels slowly started leaking out.

Like Running Man.

Like The Long Walk.

Like Rage.

Like Thinner.

Blaze is the last of them and actually pretty damn good. Stephen King always tells a really good story and has that knack for making you care for his characters whether you like them or not and Blaze is no exception.

In Blaze, King’s homage to Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Blaze and George are cast as shitheel, low-rent losers who hatch a plan to kidnap the kid of a rich family. Unfortunately George is dead and Blaze is fumblingly going ahead with the plan alone, even though he’s bull-simple. (George’s words, not mine)

It’s classic Stephen King, albeit younger and rawer and less polished.

If you have a chance, pick it up- you can read it in an afternoon and won’t feel like you’ve wasted your time.

Honest.

Yeah, so this weekend was our annual Big Chill- our fishing fueled, alcohol drenched, memory erasing, bikini-clad romp back into adolescence.

Woof.

I LOVE Beaufort

Every year about this time we all converge (we all being a group of decades old friends) on a little cottage in Beaufort NC and hang out and wish we’re younger than we are.

And mostly we succeed. Mostly ’cause we try hard.

Each morning the women make sandwiches while the men drink bloody marys and stare at the Weather Channel wondering what it’s gonna be like offshore.

Then we load everything and everybody up and head out. We drop the women off on an island so they can hunt shells and gossip and suntan and we head out to do manly fishing things.

And it’s cool and it’s fun and it’s one of the best weekends of the year.

But ya know what? Getting back home and having Cutter and Tug proudly jerk and yank me kicking and screaming and cursing around the block makes me realize how much I love home.

Home Sweet Home baby.

On the perfect day of the year I finished the most perfect book I’ve read in a long while.

The History of Love is amazing.

But when I was trying to tell Miss Carol about it and why it was so excellent, I couldn’t think of why it was so perfect.

Did it have bombs and action and car wrecks? Miss Carol asked.

Nope, none of that. I said.

Were there a buncha love scenes that gave you a woodie? Miss Carol purred.

Nooooo, none of those either, I said, blushing.

Then what was it that made soooo great? Miss Carol shrieked, angrily flipping up her hands.

I don’t know. I said.

And that’s when Miss Carol looked at me the way she does when she can’t figure me out or like we’d just met or something, and said- Hmmm, like maybe I was lying or had done something wrong.

But it’s true and I can’t figure it out- it’s just one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It’s not gonna change the world, it’s not the sorta book that would be a box office hard charger- were anyone ever to make a movie out of it- It’s just good.

It’s good like your first kiss. It’s good like hugging a puppy.

It’s a ten- I loved it.

A coupla months ago, at the beginning of the summer, when I was already tired of tourons, I said to Miss Carol-

We should build a little house on our property in North Carolina. I said

Then we can rent our house to the tourons for the summer. I said.

And come back after they’re gone. I said.

It only makes sense, right?. I said.

And Miss Carol put her drink down and looked at me over her sunglasses and said. NO.

So I was cool with it and didn’t think too much more about it. It wasn’t that big a deal. We have a little land on an island in North Carolina and a little land on a beach on the Outer Banks, so we COULD build a little house on an island and continue to work our jobs and then maybe build an even smaller surf shack on the beach in a year or two and not have to deal with the touron hordes.

But Miss Carol said NO and I was like, whatever.

Then, just a coupla weeks ago, we were sitting on the beach and I was sipping a beer, babe watching while pretending to search the horizon for boats and Miss Carol said-

She said- We should build a little house on our property in North Carolina.

She said- Then we can rent our house during the summer.

She said- And come back after the tourons are gone.

She said- It only makes sense, right?

I’m just glad I was wearing shades so she couldn’t see my eyes. I picked my jaw up from my lap and snapped it back into place and just like that- that’s what we’re gonna do.

So I started the permit work with the county and got a commitment from the power company to have temporary service for construction installed by mid-October.

I’d like to have the house dried in before December so I can spend the really cold nasty months finishing the interior.

I’ll be posting about all of this because I want to build this little house on stilts for under 60K. I’m being told I’m crazy. We’ll see.

But that’s not all.

Further ch-ch-ch-changes include changes to oceandoggy.com and other stuff. I’ve bitched and moaned about all of this before but I’m getting blogged down and need to freshen and change things.

I’m not quite sure how or what form it will take but the changes they are  a’comin.

Change is GOOD, right?

Help.

Somehow, some kinda way, I’ve slipped and tripped and fallen into The Land of The Sucky Books.

I’m not quite sure how it happened but it seems I’m stuck.

I LOVE books by new authors, living as I do vicariously through them and dreaming and hoping that maybe one day I’ll be one of them. So anytime I see a newbie, especially a newbie with a good write up I’m all like quivering and wanting-thinking it’s gonna be the best thing EVER, ’cause I’m so sure all their pent up creativity is gonna flow lava hot down the pages.

But then something like Rock Paper Tiger happens and rains on my parade.

Don’t get me wrong- it reads fast and it flows. But that’s the problem. Reading Rock Paper Tiger is kinda like watching a river rush by. There’s no beginning and no ending and it just kinda rolls on by and you cock your head and look at the horizon and go, WTF?

The story is about Ellie who’s come back from the war in Afghanistan and moved to China with her new husband. In the war she saw some things and in China she finds herself maybe targeted by a mysterious group maybe because of what? Dunno.

Are they the China government? Are they CIA? Who knows???

So she’s chased all over China and finally she’s caught and tortured by being made to sit in a chair for several hours.

And then she’s released.

And has a great life.

Rock Paper Tiger is one of those books you wanna read when you run out of Danielle Steele.

It’s like eating air.

I was all happy and excited and wanting to post all my happiness and excitement and pictures of babes in bikinis and then I read the paper and I got pissed all over again.

I gotta stop reading the paper.

Paris Hilton was arrested with cocaine in a purse she said wasn’t hers and then copped a plea to avoid a felony conviction. She admitted the coke was hers and got a year’s probation, a $2000 fine and 200 hours public service.

If I’d been arrested with the cocaine I’d still be in jail awaiting trial.

If I was black I’d have already been convicted and sentenced. And neither the white me nor the black me would’a walked. We’d be looking at years of fun in prison.

Don’t get me wrong- I think ALL drugs should be legalized and taxed. We didn’t learn from Prohibition and we’re not learning now.

But I get really tired about the rich getting off. REAL tired.

And then, there’s him. And don’t you point your finger at me motherfucker.

Meet Ken Kratz.

While busily prosecuting a guy in a sexual abuse case (he’s the DA in Wisconsin) he was busily texting the victim (that’s her on the left), sexually harassing her and hoping to maybe hook up with the damaged and beat up goods. Bruises equal sluttiness, right?

What a fucking asshole. He’s saying he won’t resign but maybe he’ll seek therapy and wants privacy and his family to support him.

I’m thinkin’ maybe can we put him in Paris Hilton’s speeding Mercedes at the end of a long night of clubbing and cocaine abuse and maybe run both of ’em off a cliff?

A girl can hope.

Turds.

Update– maybe there is a god. Paris Hilton is being denied entry to Japan because of her drug bust and two more women have come forward saying that Mr. Ken sexted them, trying to hook up, while their trials were going on.

Unless she truly fucks up, Paris will probably continue her gifted life and maybe, just maybe, people like her, because of their prosperously prosecutorial protections, will lead the way to drug legalization. It could happen.

But Mr. Ken’s a whole nother thing.

I can only hope he ends up in a dingy little garage, naked and weeping and reeking of moonshine and paint thinner, shaking and wondering what went wrong, with a pistol in his mouth, his finger on the trigger.

Dreams blossom.

Yesterday was a long dog day.

First off, in the morning, we were walking Cutter and Tug on the beach, letting them run, when this touron woman had a problem with our dogs running free on the same beach as her lovely little chillun’ and grandchillun’. She was screeching and shooing and scurrying and waving her arms about like they were rabid and plague ridden instead of just wet and sandy.

Seems her tiny adorables shouldn’t have to share the beach with dogs. Who knew?

I almost always instantly feel bad about tourons and their inherent goofiness, but when I checked my watch and saw it’s September- it was like, umm, isn’t it time for ya’ll to go the fuck home?

But anyway, in the afternoon, not wanting to endure anymore touron crap, I walked the boys on the street, on their leashes, obeying all the rules and all the other shit the tourons force on us during the season (which, by the way- isn’t it September?), when this OTHER touron woman cruises by in complete Pittsburgh Steeler regalia like she can’t wait to play in the game, shortening up her stupid dog’s leash to keep her/him/it right next to her and murmuring something like “heel” to the poor dog and kneeing it in the head as it tried to meet Cutter and Tug, who’re flailing about like retards, straining like fish caught, at the ends of their leashes, eagerly lurching to meet their newest, bestest friend.

And it was then- watching this prissy little touron and her prissy little dog getting kneed in the face while they walked by-  while Cutter and Tug were yanking and jerking and twin tractor-pulling that I suddenly felt a surge of pride and love for Cutter and Tug.

Yeah, they’re a handful and yeah, they can be a pain in the ass, and yeah they are retarded beyond belief, but ya know what?

They’re keepers.