Shaving The Dog

My blog posts generally revolve around some of the things that my wife has said. Mostly those end up being the stupid things she says, because the smart things aren't nearly as funny. This time the stupid thing she said was, "Let's shave the dog." I followed this up with with the equally stupid statement of, "Ok."

Fur, for those of you who don't know, is used for keeping animals warm. That's not typically a problem in Texas, so it was a very simple thing for me to just say ok. After all, if my wife thinks that the dog is an overgrown poof of hair, he probably is. I tend to trust her in the aesthetics department. Yet it seems that I had forgotten a very important fact. Winter is coming. 

Anyway, my simple stupid statement of "Ok" turned into two days of me holding down the dog while she went at it with clippers and scissors until my dog was essentially naked. If you've never seen a naked poodle, it isn't exactly....cuddly. I was crushed. Sure the dog hadn't been exactly good looking, but now.....

Anyway, it turned out to be alright for awhile. His new looks grew on me. A bit. And since his dirty fur was out of the way he became significantly softer, and better smelling. Things were looking good. And then the temperatures plummeted. Like to the 60's. It was terrible! My dog was in a constant state of shivering, and I took to making sure he had a blanket available to curl up under whenever possible. It was a sad state of affairs. 

I had told myself from the time I was young that I would never dress my dog up in any sort of clothing. Not for any purpose. And over the years I had scoffed at so many people who would put these minuscule sweaters on their pets, as if they actually did something other than make their dog look ridiculous. At this point in my life I owe each and every one of them an abject apology.

My dog just looked so sad, and, and......shivery. So when we saw that dog sweater hanging there in the store I paused. My wife looked at me and asked, "Do you want that for Asher?"

Hanging my head, I reflected on the sad path that had brought me face to face with this decision. Dejectedly I weighed my options. Either I could let my dog suffer the cold winds that the Texan winter had brought upon us, or I could let him forever be branded one of those sad animals that wear clothing.

My wife was still  looking at me. "Well?"

The Nobel Peace Penny

I don't think that I will ever win a Nobel Prize.

Really, I don't think I will ever get close. People who win these prizes tend to do something spectacular when they are young, and get recognized for it around 80 years later. I, on the other hand, play computer games. Badly.

My wife, though, is brilliant. Most of the time. Despite what I've been writing here.

And so we found ourselves looking up the different categories for the Nobel Prize, you know. Just because. The first place we looked was Wikipedia where we were greeted with this picture.

This is not a penny.

My wife, who as I have just mentioned as being more probable to win the prize than myself, asked me why there was a picture of a penny on the page. 

It was all I could do to keep myself from laughing at my future laureate.

The Nobel Prize, for those who care, is 66 millimeters (2.6 inches) across and weighs on average 175 grams. As of today that would make the metal from the medal worth around $7900 USD, which is a pretty penny indeed. However, that isn't all. The prize also includes a cash bonus which brings the prize to 1.2 million dollars, to spend as you wish!

I can't wait til my wife wins.

Cambodia

Taboo, the game, is sorta my wife's thing. I mean, she's about to get a masters in Linguistics, so playing with words, and knowing how to describe them, that's like her realm. There are other things that are not her realm. Like geography.

So there we were playing Taboo with some friends, and it was my wife's turn. She picked up a card, and we flipped the timer.

"Umm, it's a country. It's in South America."

I've studied Spanish for around 10 years, so I know a thing or two. I've travelled to South America, not just once, but multiple times. I had this. Or so I thought.

I quickly rattled off a list of the countries in South America and looked up, grinning like a fool at my wife.

"No, none of those..... A different one."

Following that statement was 30 seconds of frustration as she continued to insist that I must have forgotten a country. I didn't. The timer ran out, and with it our hopes for any points that round. Sitting back with a sigh, I asked her what country it was.

Cambodia, for those of you who were wondering, is not in fact in South America. It is in South Asia. On the other side of the world.