Happy Easter to everyone who cares about Easter. Easter's a rough holiday for me (don't know why), but this weekend is pretty good. I took Ozzie to an Easter egg hunt in Horner Park in Chicago, Illinois USA. There were well over 150 dogs! Each plastic egg contained a...
The Christmas season is over and I often feel sad during the first few days of January, but this year I don't. It's possible that coming down with bronchitis during the long Thanksgiving weekend and then taking weeks to recover from the resulting pneumonia had an...
Here's the payoff for getting a dog that eats everything he can get his snout on: as activity outside our first floor, Chicago apartment gets weirder this weekend, he's there for me. A 45-pound pitbull mix can be a strangely comforting thing, especially on New Year's...
Christmas Eve: Bob worked. I had dinner in Niles at the Omega Restaurant with friends. When I got home, Bob called and said that in the course of his job (in the restaurant industry) he'd been forced into a physical confrontation. Sadly as a result, Bob was in the...
The Evil Christmas Dog says, "Merry Christmas!"
This is merely a public service. I am not talking about the family I just visited last weekend (uh, hi Dad). Family gatherings are often fun and pleasant. This post is just for those few people who have family they'd rather avoid. 1. If you have a job with vacation...
I just learned that the fence that separates Mexico from the U.S. doesn't actually run along the Mexico-U.S. border. According to a post on The Lookout, a news blog, the Rio Grande forms the natural boundary between the two countries, but because of a treaty with...
Okay, it's not my perfect Christmas, since I won't spend it with my husband, but it's the next best thing.Bob's working Christmas Day because his restaurant is open every day of the year. I spent Easter and Thanksgiving volunteering with Little Brothers Friends of the...
[I originally posted this on January 5, 2006. I'm running it again, with slight editing. The title refers to Charlie Brown's plaintive cry as he tries to reconcile his "commercial dog" with the party atmosphere of his play rehearsals and the original nativity story.]...
As a woman who didn't marry until 41 and who doesn't live in a state that contains anyone I'm related to, I have experience spending holidays alone. Sometimes I minded, sometimes I didn't. I became very self-reliant and learned to find things to do whether it was...
It's Mother's Day and my husband will be working in a very busy restaurant all day. I'll be visiting my mother later this month and my friends are all with their mothers, so I'm thinking of taking myself to the creepiest museum in Chicago: The International Museum of...
I am a 44-year-old Mexican American woman who has lots of friends, but most of them have never been married. Also, most of my friends are not mothers. I somehow manage to seek out peers who have not followed the socially prescribed life path. Sunday, May 8th is...
I'm re-posting this photo from last year's Easter post because it's a party cake in the shape of an instrument of horrible torture and death. And could there possibly be more frosting on this thing? What a festive-grim holiday. Happy Easter! Fight the grimness!
I don't like Easter. It seems to me like the sad little cousin of Christmas, destined to live in the shadow of the biggest American holiday. Easter has no compelling and uplifting narrative, like the story of Jesus' birth. Instead it has the story of Jesus' torture...
December is my favorite month. I've been telling people that and I'm stunned by their response. Each person has replied, "Why?" I don't understand this question. We are neck-deep in Christmas decorations, Christmas music, Christmas goodies, Christmas parties and...