He’s been home since Saturday night and after we picked my friend Laura up from the airport and dropped her at the Ballpark on Sunday afternoon, the rest of the weekend was one sportastic letdown after another. Well, a letdown for him. I was curled up under a down comforter, snoozing. When the Cowboys broke his heart (again), the Dork Lord suggested we order out for a pizza and hang out on the couch for the evening. Oh, you mean like I’ve been doing for the LAST TEN DAYS? I gave him the People’s Eyebrow and suggested that maybe instead, we could go out for a grown up dinner that we ate off real plates while in the seated position on real dining chairs.

I had a martini and the filet and it was heaven.

We even saw a really for real movie at really for real theater this week! It’s almost as though that whole rancid turkey bacon vomit incident never even happened. Okay, no. That’s not true at all. I’m gonna carry that with me until I die.

Since he’s not a blog reader, I can tell you that I’m headed home via Creme de la Cookie for the most buttery, most amazing chocolate chip cookies ever to give a grown man a sugar headache. I mean, next to his mom’s recipe. I got him a baker’s dozen last year and from the second they were gone, he’s been talking about them with a faraway look in his eye, like they’re the confectionery version of the one who got away. Time to put 364 days of longing to rest. And, sports event or no, when he gets home tonight and sees that telltale striped box, he’ll know whose birthday it is.

After months – or are we into years now? – of walking funny because of neurological impairments (he rolls over his paws and has absolutely no idea he’s doing it), the sweet gimpy thing has worn down his middle toenails to the point of hemorrhaging, a la Monday night’s trauma fest. The vet warned us that this would become chronic if we didn’t get him some new shoes. Dudes. If I’d have known how that worked, I’d have developed a limp much sooner. SEE HOW I WALK FUNNY? TAKE ME TO DSW.

I do have to give him credit, though, that clumsy dog. On Thursday, after my second trip to the doc ( where I learned I had strep. In my nose. Because of course I did), I woke up from a nap and started gearing myself up for a trip back to the vet to have his bandage removed. I’d tried myself earlier that morning and my efforts were met with a yelp and a headbutt. Knocked me right on my ass. I think any other dog would have nipped at me, but this dog is not like real dogs. He’s sort of mushy on the inside. Anyway, as I prepped his dinner, I noticed that wonder of wonders, his bandage was conspicuously absent. I found it later caught on the edge of his dog bed and thought, “That had to hurt” and though I can’t really speak for him, I’m guessing that being spared the trauma of the vet trip was worth the sting.

I wanted to scream but I was just too tired.

I thought the highlight came Monday night when I had to drive to my mom’s house, and after taking one look at the dog and just how much blood there was, rush him right off to the vet, knowing full well he’d be coming home with ME and I would not be getting on my flight the next evening. Three hours later, we – the dog and I – are sitting in the back seat of my blood stained Jetta and one of us is cracked out on morphine, tongue hanging out of his mouth, drooling and the other is a snotty, sobbing mess because she’s just realized she can’t get a semi-conscious, sixty pound dog up three flights of stairs by herself. So I sat there and stared at the dried blood on my feet and cried until the Boy’s friend Ryan showed up to help me lug that furry dead weight upstairs.

I don’t think I want kids anymore. Isn’t that terrible? It’s true, though. I don’t want to be in charge of anybody or anything anymore and I don’t want to be the one stuck at home cleaning up vomit because that’s just how things worked out.

Update/Clarification: Okay, friends, the Boy was ALREADY ON VACATION when this all went down. I had to stay behind for a couple days to work Monday (see the bit about joining the family, etc). He didn’t leave me behind to take care of his dog, for heaven’s sake. And naturally, he offered to come home, but what sense did that make? Like I said, it’s just how things worked out. As you were. Only… maybe a leeetle less harsh, mmmkay?

Wha? I thought someone had made a mistake. 

See, on the one hand, you’ve got Jillian Have-Some-Respect-for-Yourself Michaels, who makes a career out of convincing people they deserve better than the life they’re leading. More power, more respect, more love for themselves. Then you have Go Daddy, a company which has an entire advertising history based on objectifying women. Actually, it goes beyond objectification. I’m not sure I have a word for it. For instance, taking someone like Danica Patrick (lovely and accomplished) and creating a commercial in which some douchebag at a keyboard is able to get her to repeatedly strip down and shower just by logging in to the site. Magical webcam, mystery internet powers! The ability to spy on and manipulate unaware, naked ladies is just what I’m looking for in a web hosting company.

I thought, gross. Just gross.

Then this morning, I see in my Twitter feed that Jillian has been asked to appear on the cover of Playboy.

“Obviously I decided to respectfully pass on the offer, ” she wrote. “What is the world coming to?”

Indeed, Jillian. What is it coming to when a Playboy cover pays less than an internet company spot? Or are we pretending this is about morals and standards instead of cash? I dunno, but I think I’d feel a whole, whole lot less grossed out, disappointed, etc. by a suggestive Playboy cover on which TVs Toughest Trainer exposes some hard-earned, rockin’ abs than another Superbowl ad in which a hard working woman plays the patsy to a pasty-faced dude with an off-camera tube sock. To me, there’s a stark difference between the two and it’s got nothing to do with nudity. It’s about the attitude and the message behind it. A Playboy cover, depending on the shot, can say a hundred different things. But the Go Daddy message is the same over and over – they take sexy, powerful women, strip them of their power and promote them as hapless flesh toys – a pair of boobs just waiting to be exploited and used. And those sexy, powerful women who go along with it for a check? Should be embarrassed. I’d rather see Jillian naked than see her exposed as a Go Daddy Girl.

UPDATE