nakedjen

Why Reading Dooce Before Bed Might Not Be Such A Good Idea

Last night I dreamed that I was Leta's nanny.  That I was hired by Heather and Jon to take care of her and to also take care of Chuck.  I will tell you all right now that I do not know Heather other than through her blog.  I have been a faithful reader for what feels like forever.  Before I even understood what a blog was, I was reading her. 

Before going to bed last night, I checked in.  I read about Heather asking her Granny if she took the sacrament with those same lips that she was sipping her tea.  My own sister, NeverNakedBeth is a Mormon who lives in Utah so there are often things in Heather's blog that really do just make me LAUGH OUT LOUD and I wish that I had thought of to say to my own sister. 

But back to my dream.  In it, Heather had hired me to be Leta's nanny because she had read my blog (which I find highly improbable) and realized I was great with dogs, was a professional nanny, I knew how to say Fuck in more than three languages and I could possibly solve her poop issues.  She confided in a very loud stage whisper to me after I moved in to their house that really I was there to solve all the Armstrong Poop Issues, but that my help with Leta would be greatly appreciated as well.

My first task was to give Leta a bath.  And I gave Leta all these bath toys that made very loud farting noises when she squeezed them under water.  There was a dolphin and a duck and a pony.  And Leta really wanted them to squirt water, but instead they made fart noises.  So there I was playing with her in the bathtub, when Heather and Jon and Chuck all came tumbling into the bathroom because they had heard all the farting noises and just HAD TO KNOW what was going on.  Heather was wearing Wonder Woman underwear and Jon had on Spongebob Squarepants boxers.  Chuck was wearing cow ears!

And then, because this is my dream I suppose and I am NakedJen, everyone got naked and got into the bathtub together.  And the bathtub kept growing in size to accommodate each additional person.  Including Chuck.  He got in, too.  We all then each had a toy and started playing Joy to the World in fart sounds. 

Meanwhile, the water was still running and eventually spilled over the side of the enormous tub and through the living room and down the stairs into the basement where it ruined all the computer equipment.  I was beside myself thinking Heather was going to have a melt-down or something with all that water everywhere and her inability to now blog, but instead she was completely non-chalant and said, "Oh we'll just get another house with better stuff.  We really needed to wash all of that away, anyway.  But you still haven't solved our POOP problem so you're not going anywhere until you do!" 

So I was standing there in her basement, water up to my knees, trying to explain to her that she needed to take Rainbow Light Everyday Fiber pills and perhaps try some acupuncture and Heather's nodding her head away when my own dogs started whining and woke me up.

And I realized it really was all just a Dooce dream.  I really shouldn't read blogs before bed.  I'm far too impressionable.

For All You Regulars, This Is Your Naked Holiday (sort of)

Dear Internet,

This morning I poured my broken heart and soul out to you and you responded very kindly.  I appreciate the fact that I can be as emotional and raw as I need to be here with all of you and that I will receive such warm love and kindness in return.

Not everywhere in the world is so kind.

I want to remind you, though, that when I write those posts that they are from my point of view.  That DearSweetDave most certainly has his own interpretation and point of view about the state of our marriage and because he's a different person than I am, he chooses not to share it all with the Internet.  That's fine.  I respect that.  Just as he respects that anything he says may eventually appear here and could, very well, be misinterpreted because it is delivered through my own emotional filter and not directly from him.

I love that all of you are so very supportive of me.  I know, without question, that it is the very words that all of you are so kind to share with me both in the comments and in email that help me to keep my feet on this earth and to stop my head from spinning and to figure things out. 

So again, thank you.  I know that many of you who have read Nakedjen for a very long time have formed your own opinions about me and about DearSweetDave and about our marriage.  Your perspectives and your willingness to share them with me are treasures.  Truly.  Because while you're still only receiving one side of the story, the story you are receiving is the way I certainly see it.  So the advice given is certainly welcomed and often cherished.

Again, thank you.

I can't resist sharing this photo with all of you.  We are in a space of confusion, but we are both very determined to work through to a place a clarity.  What that place of clarity looks like for both of us is still rather uncertain.  But that doesn't mean we're not going there.  I love him.  He loves me.  We both want each other to be happy.  The equation should be simple.  But there's some x factor in there that still remains completely unknown.  I'm hopeful we will find the solution.  But only time will tell.

My two most handsome men.  I do love him.  Absolutely.

Not So Happy Holidays

fuck. fuckfuckfuck.

what do you say, or even do, when the man you love most tells you that your inner child and his inner child just do not play well together and he doesn't think this marriage will work?

i haven't slept all night.

i'm so sad. i ache. and i'm really getting to the point where i'm tired of trying. which is so unlike me. and i told dave last night that i feel like he has been systematically trying to destroy this marriage.

i also told him i feel like our marriage has been one huge lie. and that i feel like he lied to me. marriage was a huge scary thing for me. i even told him as much in our vows. that he was the one person on this planet who i felt i could trust with my heart. he was my forever times infinity.  i have loved him with every single fiber of my being.  every single one. 

he told me last night that he's afraid of losing me. but that i will never be able to give him as much affection as he craves. i asked him if he thought anyone would be able to. and he said in other relationships he's gotten more. and when i reminded him that he's never been in other relationships as long as this one there wasn't a clear response.

fuck.

i'm nauseous. i can't stop my head from spinning in a thousand directions. so many unknowns and what if's.  too many.  it's making me crazy.

i love him. absolutely. so much so that i certainly do not want him to be so unhappy.

i have no idea what will happen. none. my heart and soul just hurt.

Big Dogs Striking Terror in Small Children

Do they look bigger to all of you?  Honestly, they don't seem that "big" to me.  But Buddha did weigh in at a whopping 65 pounds yesterday.  I know that's larger than some small children.

Have no idea what Stella weighs, but her propensity for small children is starting to make me cringe.  She just LOVES little boys.  And she has very good radar for them.  She can spot them from hundreds of yards away and before I even realize it she's off like a bullet to give them a quick lick on the ear.

Of course most of the little boys and their very over-protective mothers do not see her kisses as kisses, but more as a rabid dog set on terrorizing them.  Ready to rip them to shreds.  It breaks my heart and I'm beside myself trying to figure out exactly HOW to stop this very unwelcome behavior. 

I have had a few very brave small boys who have stood there and pushed her down and told her NO! very firmly at which point she sits and waits to be petted.  But this is never her FIRST instinct and I so wish that it was.  I'm terrified that I'm going to have a lawsuit on my hands from a mother that is just as afraid of dogs as her small child.  I wish she could be like Buddha who greets every small child by sitting and wagging his tail and waiting patiently for them to notice him.  But Stella is so not Buddha.  Her whole raison d'etre in life is "HERE I AM!  LOOK AT ME!  ME!ME!ME!"  She is very much her mother's dog.  Very much.

Ugh.

The boots are a wonderful idea.  And we do have them.  I may give them a try.  Since Buddha is Clyde, he may even remember wearing them in his previous life.  Or not.  But I will say he certainly remembers his foot being bandaged.  Buddha even knows to WAIT until the plastic bag is firmly in place before venturing outside.  And he also knows NOT to try to remove the bandage.  At all. 

Good puppy.

I'm still not convinced they're big dogs.  But I am convinced that they're the very best dogs for me.  Really.  Even if they're striking terror in small children everywhere they go.

Uh Oh!

Buddha had a bit of a mishap at the dog park.  A mishap that required 3 staples to be placed in the pad of his paw.  Nasty glass bottle. 

He's a champ, though, and hasn't complained.  He also is minding his manners and is NOT trying to rip the lovely bandage from his foot.

His sister Stella thinks she'd like to do that for him, so she is constantly being admonished to please "LEAVE IT!"

Buddha can not go back to the dog park, or for long walks, for the next 10 days.  We have to keep his bandage perfectly dry.  Did I mention that it's the RAINY SEASON right now in Santa Cruz?  Oh yes.  It is.  Buckets of rain falling from the heavens.

I am thankful for many things this holiday season, but today I am thankful for two things:

1. Pet insurance.
2. It's not Stella.

It is still going to be a very long ten days.

But Will She Swallow?

there are those of you that will point and laugh out loud, very loudly in fact, when you hear that i, nakedjen, went to urgent care and accepted that i am powerless over this crap in my lungs and then humbly took the prescription for the antibiotics and robitussin with codeine and then went to longs and actually got it filled.

yes, you read that correctly. i, nakedjen, am in possession of antibiotics. now it's a matter of actually SWALLOWING the antibiotics. do you think that's going to happen? i suppose time will tell. even dr. hamishito who saw me at urgent care said that he's not a fan of antibiotics and would probably have also waited until NOW to come in and say...DO SOMETHING. the diagnosis, by the way, is a veryveryvery bad case of bronchitis. which i haven't had since i was, oh let's say, twelve or something. i used to have bronchitis ALL THE TIME. but i haven't had it in years. but my cough is completely uncontrollable and keeps me up ALL NIGHT LONG, so something has to be done. and all the echninecea and golden seal and garlic and wellness formula has not touched it. at all. i will say, though, that last night when i got home and could start drinking my own immunitea i really did start to feel better and cough much less. of course, it is probably completely psychosomatic. i believe those teas work. so they work. end of story. however, i've been drinking that tea since thanksgiving and if it was really going to MAKE ME BETTER, i'd be BETTER. not just feeling a bit better.

so i have the antibiotics. sitting in there on the kitchen counter. now it's just a matter of truly sucking it up and actually swallowing them.

that's something i don't know if i really can do. 

i am a freak.  absolutely.

Ketchup

am on my way to urgent care. los angeles was not kind to me or my lungs or my health. i had a great time, however. just spent most of it coughing up chunks of lung. the dogs did very well, all things considered. stella ate dave's ear plugs and my cell phone charger. buddha ate the heel of one of julia's flip flops. but honestly, it could have been a lot more troublesome. stella somehow managed to rip the zipper on our port-a-crate. setting herself and buddha free to destroy. pinky, smart woman that she is, still managed to crate them by putting the crate opening against a wall where they couldn't squeeze out.

i got very little sleep because the dogs were so off their usual routines. they insisted on going to the bathroom at 3:00 a.m. every night/morning. and as pinky lives on a busy street without a fenced yard, this meant me getting up, getting semi-dressed, and taking each dog out one at a time. oh what fun that was!

they also insisted on getting up at 6:00 every morning no matter WHAT TIME we had all retired the evening before. so there i was, at 6:00, with two dogs dragging me down the street to the "stoner" park. where we would play for an hour and then i would throw them into the van and drive them to the very upscale brentwood dog park. oh how they loved that park. and honestly, santa cruz could do a lot to take notes from that park. it was lovely. and perfect for the dogs. and i found out it is owned by the "dog owners" and they manage it. well, what a brilliant idea! i'm going to throw this idea out to the folks at my own dog park. we have two years to identify a workable space and purchase it. of course, land in santa cruz is an absolute PREMIUM, but i am quite good at convincing folks to part with things for good causes. and perhaps if we made ourselves some sort of dog non-profit or something so the owner of the land could get some sort of tax benefit...or maybe find a dog owner with a big chunk of land...thinking out loud here. anyway, this dog park was lovely. 5 acres. completely fenced. large dog area. small dog area. watering stations. clean up stations. some parts grass. some parts wood chips. loads of toys. lots of benches. and did i mention the cell phones? that was the oddest part about it to me. every single person there was talking on their cell phone. they all were in their own little bubbles. no one interacted with their dogs or each other at all. that part made me really sad. because when i go to the dog park every day twice a day it's as much for my OWN socialization as it is for my dogs. i like to chat. i like to make friends. i like to find out what's going on in other people's lives. but in brentwood they were all just so cold and in their own worlds. and there were movie stars there with their dogs. of course, i can't tell you who. not because i'm being "sly", but because i have no idea. i just recognized them. instantly. knew i knew them from some where. finally had my ah ha moment and said, "oh right, i'm in LA. movie star". one of them had a small pug that was quite enamoured with stella. and she actually stopped talking on her telephone long enough to actually chat with me for a few minutes. because i was "obvoiusly new" and my dogs were "beautiful". har. then she went back to talking to her agent and scheduling her pilates appointments. honestly, it was wild. you could get a whole lesson on the ins and outs of LA just by eavesdropping on all the cell phone conversations. oh and there was one dog walker there with 23 dogs. all at once. it was a beautiful thing to watch actually. he had such lovely control over all the dogs. you could tell that he worked with each one individually as well and that they all just adored him. but these dogs, from minature dauchsand to mastiff would all listen to him and do whatever he said. he could even get them to gather around him in a circle like nursery school playtime. it was really amazing.

stella and buddha loved that dog park. they really did. and even though i was ignored, the dogs all loved them. and they played and played and played. it was quite fun for them.

i'd usually get home from there around 10:00 a.m. or so and dave and pinky would just be waking up. and then we'd go and do fun things. dave and i spent a large part of thursday, his birthday, at burke williams spa being totally pampered. it was really nice. we spent a lot of time on friday shopping. and saturday night we went and saw minky and zach in their play, bunbury. we hung out with them afterwards for a while. love them both. had the best time. met zach's friend from dc who just finished shooting a movie with sarah jessica parker. he was the NICEST guy. goodness. i told zach the next day at brunch how much i liked his energy. it was just so genuine. very much like zach's! the play was good. i had some small issues with it, but when do i not? but really, as i said to dave, i didn't write it and the playwright who did write it did a terrific job of being both original and imaginative and that was really refreshing!

really, it was a weekend spent basking in the love of good friends. and eating really good food. and having dave all to myself. which i really loved. it was so nice to have that many days all together where we had no real plans and could just do whatever it was we wanted to do. and the fact that the dogs managed and really did behave was just a bonus.

we did get majorly lost on saturday night coming home from the theatre. goodness. somehow we ended up in little tokyo. and had no idea how the fuck to get back to pinky's. we called her, but she was charging her phone so it didn't even ring. and well, we just had to fend for ourselves. we finally found our way to wilshire and then just took it all the way home. which meant that we drove the magic bus right through beverly hills and that made me laugh. the day before we had skirted beverly hills when we went to melrose (where we were shopping with hillary duff at fred segal and then saw that guy who plays karen walker's boyfriend at johnny rockets...both those star sightings made us giggle) and i had joked to dave that we should drive the van right down rodeo drive and wave to people like we were in a parade. in fact, since it was naked friday, i told him we should do it naked. but of course we didn't do it. bah. i also declined pinky's offer to take a naked picture of me at the grove on saturday. which, in retrospect, i probably should have done. i have no recent naked pictures and my blog naked fridays have been sorely neglected. i need to do one. soon!

so now i have to get our holiday card finished. i didn't get that done before we left. am going to get that finished tonight. dave is spending tonight doing more birthday stuff with his family. i have been excused because of my cough. dave's dad and his wife, sally, are always certain they are going to get sick so if i'm sick i'm not going. which actually is okay with me. his two sisters will also be there and we all know that all of that can sometimes completely overwhelm me and make me a little bit nuts.

so i'll stay here. and do holiday cards. but first, i have to go to urgent care. because i can't stop coughing. and really, it's been since thanksgiving. i think this is enough already, don't you?

p.s.  'mouse, i'd love to sing that magic bus entry to the tune of alice's restaurant.  it would be lovely.  what a grand idea.  i just need to find one of my guitar friends to help me make that happen.

Life, Death, and Prescription Drug Benefits

har!

now i have seen everything. i would be such the envy of everyone in the dog park. it's not enough that i have the cutest puppies with the shiniest coats. but imagine if i could freeze their poop? goodness. they'd all be so jealous.

back from my very long morning dog walk. immediately checking in on d status. d is giving birth.  in new jersey.  at this very moment.  i am in anxious anticipation of the arrival of this beautiful baby boy.  am also on tookie williams watch.  hoping our governator does the right thing.  well, what i consider the right thing.  your opinion may be otherwise.  and well, that's okay.  but if you've read nakedjen for any amount of time, i believe you know where i stand on this whole death penalty business.  moved my laptop downstairs today so i could do a gazillion other things but have nearby access. the dogs will be thrilled. it means i'll also be hanging with them much more closely. they are not allowed upstairs because the staircase is a bit problematic. it's really an "attic" staircase and just not safe for puppy paws. i don't think, quite frankly, they'll ever be able to navigate it safely. especially since there are TWO of them and they have to do everything side by side together at once in tandem and stereo. which would be disastrous on these stairs. absolutely. plus the entire bottom of the stairs is glass windows. on three sides. my fear is puppies crashing through windows, shards of glass flying, trips to emergency for stitches just in time. so sadly, they'll just never go upstairs. but that is where my office is. thus i spend a good deal of time up there and they lie on their bed under the stairs waiting patiently for me to come back down. just like clyde used to do. i feel terrible about that. but not today. today i'm in the kitchen. and they're at my feet. happy puppies. happy nakedjen.

who needs to go and get all these documents sorted. geesh. social security/medicare has made the whole new prescription drug benefit SO DAMN CONFUSING that i feel like i need to hang a shingle outside that says i will help all the elderly and disabled in santa cruz to get it all sorted out. if i'm having trouble figuring out exactly which plan is really going to be the best for me, i can only imagine what those seniors are going through. it's really a problem with language. and every independent company is using all this marketing gobbledygook to make you think THEY are going to be your cheapest and best option. but the fine print proves otherwise. and it's a true pain in the ass to actually even FIND the fine print much less decipher it.

george w bush and his "this will be better for everyone" bullshit can kiss my ass. i will admit that i have no fucking idea about the actual financials of all of this and exactly how much the previous drug benefit was costing medicare and social security, but now??? it's going to cost me over $1200 a year. which basically is what my two prescriptions cost anyway. retail. so i ask you, where the fuck is the savings and benefit in that? last year my prescriptions cost me $220 total. for the year. mr. bush, i'd like to know how paying $1,000 more next year is a huge savings for me? you do math just like you look for weapons of mass destruction. with your eyes and mind very closed!

and i really feel lucky and blessed, actually, because i can afford this increase. i am still young. i am still relatively healthy. i have a lovely dearsweetdave who makes a good living wage and can help me pay for these medications. there are senior citizens among us who do not have extra income. who are living on their very limited resources. and now their prescription drug charges are increasing exponentially. it's all complete bull shit. and yet another case of americans being sold snake oil and swallowing it without even a whimper.  gah.

meanwhile, i need to still go figure out what the "best" option is for me.  sometimes i wonder if the best option is really just saying no thank you to any option at all. 

oh joy!  oh rapture!

LiveMeeting Apprentice

It is no secret that we don't have television at ChezNaked.  DearSweetDave and I, in a moment of clarity two years ago, decided that we would be much more productive if our house was not home to over 100 channels of broadcasting enjoyment.  So as soon as Sarah Jessica Parker and her Sex and the City counterparts gave us our final lesson on just how to be fabulous, we pulled the cable plug. 

Our house is situated in such a way that getting even regular broadcast television is no easy challenge.  However, we can, if we're lucky get exactly two stations.  Fox and NBC.  But the weather has to cooperate, the moon and stars must be aligned and the certainly the wind must be blowing at exactly the right velocity and in exactly the right direction.  Otherwise, all you get is a screen filled with gray snow.  And I really like my snow crisp and white and crunching under my feet.

As you regular readers of NakedJen know, I am very optimistic person.  So optimistic, in fact, that I believe that world peace will happen, that George W. Bush will one day be out of office, that Lockheed Martin really will tell us the truth about what they're doing in Bonny Doon and that if I set my VCR to record the NBC broadcast of The Apprentice it will actually, in fact, record it. 

Last night I watched a veryveryvery snowy recording of last week's Apprentice episode.  So snowy that I was quite certain that The Donald had drifts of the white stuff sitting on both shoulders and that winter had come early to Manhattan.  I was really interested in watching this particular episode because it featured none other than Microsoft LiveMeeting.

Now, if you've been reading NakedJen for longer than two years, you might remember that I once worked for a little evil empire located here in Santa Cruz.  And that my job at this little evil empire involved being the product and marketing manager for an enterprise desktop videoconferencing solution that was EXACTLY like LiveMeeting.  In fact, we did it before the folks at Microsoft did it.  Way before. 

You also, if you're a long-time reader, may remember that I, NakedJen, actually considered applying to be a contestant on The Apprentice.  This was when I was still mightily entrenched in the corporate world of evil empires and my thinking was that I could certainly work for The Donald and perhaps teach him a thing or two.  Har!  Obviously not all synapses in my poor little brain were firing!  And I quickly realized that on the day I showed up to actually audition for The Apprentice and decided that I had much better things to do with my life than work for The Donald.  Like I would actually win!  Double Har!  But we all know that I am, in fact, NakedJen and believe that I can do absolutely anything, especially if I am determined, and that if I think I am going to win a job with Donald Trump than I am going to win a job with Donald Trump.  Because, as I said, I am NakedJen and I get what I want.  Triple Har there, just for good measure.

So anyway, last night I watched this very snowy wintry episode of The Apprentice.  It was down to the FINAL FOUR and the two teams of two were tasked with creating a sixty-second commercial for Microsoft LiveMeeting.  My first BIG SURPRISE was who was actually on Microsoft's team of judges.  It was none other than Dustin Grosse.  He who actually interviewed with my small evil empire when I was working there.  I know him!  Smallsmallsmall Silicon Valley world.  I watched as the teams came up with their two separate commercials and I'm screaming at the television and them about how they're missing the key selling points and why are you leaving that point out and on and on and on.  I literally felt my blood pressure start to rise and I got all hyper-active and I realized, rather quickly, that I am SO DAMN THANKFUL that the Universe stepped in and got me out of that corporate madness when it did. 

What was even more interesting to me was the final product from each team and how NICE the Microsoft folks were about what was produced.  I know, very well, that Microsoft agreed to do this whole Apprentice tie-in so that they could get exposure for their LiveMeeting offering.  And I know that the general thought in this world is that there is NO BAD PUBLICITY.  But honey, let me tell you, as a woman who understands that particular technology better than most and who used to market it to the masses, Microsoft got absolutely NO FAVORS from the second 60 second commercial that was created.  NONE.  It only served to further confuse the market about what exactly LiveMeeting does and why anyone would ever think that it would be a value-add solution for their employees or their enterprise business. 

Now granted the average Apprentice viewer is NOT the decision maker at the Fortune 500 office.  Probably not by a long shot.  So most folks who watched that particular episode of The Apprentice will now just know that LiveMeeting exists even if they have no fucking clue what it does or why they'd even want to use it.  So yes, it was exposure.  Free exposure at that.  And Microsoft is continuing the exposure by offering a LIVE CHAT on the software with The Donald this week and another LIVE CHAT with the winner of the Apprentice next week.  Good for them.  That is huge.  What it will do is get the software on loads of desktops across the country.  And that's exactly what you want to do with that product.  Get it on people's desktops and get them to experience it in a FUN way so that they can see the "potential".  When I was at the evil-empire I was always looking for ways to do this, as well.  It would just be interesting to see how many of those attendees evereverever use the software again.  And I can't believe I just wrote that sentence.  Why the fuck do I even care??

I don't, really.  Just in a "I used to do this and can talk about it ad nauseum" kind of curiosity kind of way.  I know if I had actually been on the show (Quadruple Har!) that they NEVER would have had the LiveMeeting as a task.  At least not one that I was going to participate in.  Because surely Mark Burnett and his team must consider the resumes of the folks on the show when creating the tasks.  It would be totally unfair to have that be a task for me.  Or maybe not.  Perhaps The Donald would have stood there and pontificated that NakedJen used to be the Product Manager for a product just like this so he's expecting a stellar performance from her or she will be fired.  Or something like that.

Can I say it again?  I'm so happy that I WAS FIRED.  Thank you, Universe.  The corporate life was not for me.  No matter how much I tried to fit in, Naked people just don't work in corporate environments.  You need too many clothes!

All Puppies, All the Time!

Things I hear at the dog park every single day.  I'm not joking.  Every single day!

"They're getting really big!!"  "Look at those feet!"  "My god, those ears!" "Do they do this at home?" "They sound so ferocious!"  "How old are they?  Four months??  They're HUGE!!"  "Are you sure they're not killing each other?"  "Are they related?"  "They're so shiny!  What do you feed them?"  "I want one of these.  Can I have one??"  "You're so lucky to have TWO puppies!"

I am blessed to have two puppies.  I am blessed that they're so very well behaved.  I am even more blessed that I live in a lovely place where I can take them to a huge dog park every afternoon where they can romp and play with all the other dogs and make friends and wear themselves completely out.

They have big heads and big feet and they sound like Tazmanian devils whenenver they wrestle, but yes, I am a veryveryvery lucky Nakedjen that gets to have TWO gargantuan puppies.

Now, let's talk about something else.

Where did you have dinner last night??  And just what are we going to do about saving the dog park? 

Do you think it's going to rain??