Cause waking up is hard to do.

I woke up this morning at the crack of 8:30 because my dog is a passive aggressive  ninja.

Normally, I'm up pretty early in the morning, poking my son with a stick and trying to protect vital body parts from his flailing hands and feet, to wake him up for school. Why he can't wake up by himself remains a mystery. It is, however, some kind of tradition in our house that even the dogs and the cat can get behind: I am the house alarm clock.

[My Attorney] will crash into our bedroom like a one-woman-band, with an open laptop, a blackberry, her iPhone, her iPad, a book, a notebook, post-it notes, pens and highlighters, and a metric ton of diet coke. Even though I was lying there in the dark, snoring, she will click on the light, drop her cargo, and open the nuclear bomb loud diet coke can while talking to me as if we've been awake and in a conversation for the last 20 minutes.

[My Attorney]: "Don't forget, I have to get up early tomorrow."

Me: "Brm vrl grlgqk mammpr"

[My Attorney]: "6:30 I guess?"

Me: "Vlm gragg poopy knob creature"

[My Attorney]: "6:35 then, bu be sure I get up."

At 6:35 am the next day my phone's alarm explodes into the theme from Hawaii 5-0 and vibrates itself through the mattress and the floor and the kitchen into the basement. I lean over and gently shake [My Attorney's] shoulder.

[My Attorney]: "No the 9-36 has to be filed in the state's office."

Me: "It's 6:35, dear, you told me to—"

[My Attorney]: "Because we have a deposition with an expert in Ohio."

Me: "Honey, you're talking in your—"

[My Attorney]: (Furious hand waving in a curt manner clearly employing the universal sign for 'shut up drooly, I'm on the phone!')

Waking the girl requires a hazmat suit and a stun stick. I won't even go into it.

This morning I had planned to sleep in. No alarms were set. The kids and [My Attorney] were up until 2am—garunteed to sleep till noon. I was ready to loll.

At 7am, I startled awake by a wet nose in my armpit. I grab a crowbar from the nightstand and pry open my eyes.

My dog, Whiskey, is staring at me.

Whiskey: "Oh, are you up?"

Me: "What the %$#@ &^%$?!, Whiskey?!"

Whiskey: "Nothing. Nothing. But seriously, since you're up, I could use your thumbmanship in opening that back door and letting me out."

Me: "%$#@!#$%"

Whiskey: "That's cool, I totally understand. I can pee in your shoes again."

Ty walks into the room and shoves his nose into my crotch.

Ty: "Hey man."

Me: "Jesus, Ty!"

Ty: "I tried to tell him not to wake you up. But since you are up, you think you might let me out also?"

Me: "&^%$$#@!"

Ty: "Can I smell your butt?"

We're All Peons Until we Pee On Something We All Pee On

Just a quick note to dog owners out there. Really, a plea. A cry for help.

These qudrepeds I suffer, they are developing a habit I cannot explain. Though they spend a considerable portion of each day barking in the backyard out by the fence where my poor neighbor is just trying to plant some flowers with their snarling biters inches from his face, even though they are coddled and cared for as if they were my own children (maybe better), they still take it upon themselves to make water on my stuff.

It's as if it is a competition for canine promotional items. Like they are going to get a prize, like a customized notepad, for whomever sprinkles my trinkets last and longest.

Last week they peed on a bankers box full of old bills and files. We had to go through the whole thing and salvage what we could (including one of my personalized notepads, drawings and all).

So [My Attorney] decided to buy a carpet cleaner, an upright totally tight version of those retarded red plastic Daleks they rent in the grocery store. She's wanted one forever, thumbing through catalogs, looking them up online, and standing in awe at Bed Bath & Beyond at the rack of highly customized carpet cleaners and steambots that will suck your carpet clean of urine.

She used it while I was at fishcamp and actually called me, she was so excited. "It's so awesome!"

Today [My attorney] jetted off to work and the kids trudged off to school and I walked upstairs to this desk right here where I sit, surrounded by all my paper clips and office supply promotional items and banged my head repeatedly on the wall because the dogs, the stupid, disgusting, hateful, regrettable canines have peed on our carpet cleaner.

13 Things on Thursday my Kids Will Never Think About in Their Future

1. Atlases.


2. Faxes.


3. Pay Phones.


4. Film.


5. Walkie Talkies.


6. Libraries.


7. Newspapers.


8. Mail.


9. Catalogues.


10. Being lost.


11. Cheap gas.


12. Hippies.


13. Osama Bin Laden.

Jasminedirectory.com's business listing let you command the web

Do not look for clutter or confusion on Jasmine Business Web Directory. There simply is not any to be seen. Jasminedirectory.com business listing is bright looking and concise, and is almost completely without those buttons that populate so many other web pages and sites. Nor is the home page clogged with those large photographs, which seem to have become ubiquitous on web pages these days.

Jasmine's links are listed plainly, and its info paragraphs are short and to the point. All of the site's features are pointed out in an organized manner which prevents busy people from wasting precious time. The web designer is skilled in the art of whittling and has pared the home page down to the degree where all users can locate exactly what they are looking for, in the shortest possible amount of time. Jasminedirectory.com is W3 css and HTML valid, generates automatic thumbnails for illustrated posts, and offers 5 deep URLs.



From Arts to Health to Family to Recreation to Shopping and E-commerce, the site's categories are laid out clearly in a two column list at the center right, along with the number of entries in each category. Surrounding the categories are 100% SEO friendly brief paragraphs of information pertaining to what other areas of interest business people can expect to find.

The site's motto is "Don't surf the web. Command it." Having your business listed in a site like Jasminedirectory.com shows that you are in command, and like the site itself, you have zero interest in wasting time or money. Submitting a business or a website to a web directory, to be reviewed by editors and experts, is an emerging aspect of the online world. When deciding to go that route, why bother wasting time looking elsewhere? Jasminedirectory.com business web directory is already "state of the art".

My Dogs Can Spell.

We have a fence. So walking our dogs is as easy as opening our back door.

Based on the way we all avoid it, however, you'd think the door was two feet thick and made out of pure Unobtainium.

Nobody wants to get up out of their wallow and haul their magnificent corpus thirty one arduous feet to the back door and, using our last remaining ounce of strength, push it open so the dogs can race out the doggy door and pee on my grill.

Here's how it goes down: we'll all be sunk down into our easy-couch, eyes over the tops of our knees so we won't miss a minute of "Hoarders," and the dogs will actually lean against the front door and stare at me with their doggy eyebrows arched and their skinny little legs enpretzellated, whining through their ears. One of us will notice and quickly rebury our head into our iPad/laptop/game console/tacos and pretend we didn't see them. Then someone else will raise their head and shrug and ahem and relent and say the dogs need to go out and world war nine ensues.

By World War Nine, I mean an It's Your Turn fusillade of titanic proportions. No one wants to do it. No one will do it. Eventually, the dogs will give up and pee in my shoes.

For awhile, the dogs would keep staring at us until we got up and said out. Then they'd explode and hit the back door.

Apparently, dogs are trainable. They quickly associated out utterance of out with peeing and as soon as we'd say it, they'd bolt. So we got wise and started spelling it.

They had it down in a week. Then I started spelling slower and the poor little bastids would hang on every letter.

I am writer. Me spell gud. Look:

http://www.chicagoparent.com/magazines/chicago-parent/2011-april/garlington-keep-your-pause-away-from-me

13 Things you don't want to hear while teaching your kid how to drive.

1. I learned this in BurnOut 4 . . .


2. I learned this in Grand Theft Auto . . .


3. I saw this in the Fast ad the Furious . . .


4. I learned this from mom . . .


5. What does this do?


6. &^%$#@!


7. I filled up with Diesel cause it's good for the environment.


8. I learned this from Wile E. Coyote . . .


9. How soon can I drift?


10. How many points for a dentist?


11. God, I'm so sleepy . . .


12. I could fit like seven girls in this car.


13. I could fit like seven boys in this car.