Puppygate 2005

Well, puppygate is finally over; good guys-1, evil adoption lady-0. After two months of paperwork, phone calls, and dog interviews, Jenny and I have our dog, and man, is she going to be spoiled. After a long haul of her being shifted from home to home, she's finally in a place where she can spend her days living the good dog's life.

We have never seen a dog like her. She is so good its spooky. Being only 1 1/2 years old, she is calm, listens to commands, and never had an accident in the house.

The dog moved right and and already thinks she owns this house. Where ever we are, she has to be, this includes at the table, on the couch, or even right in the bed. At night, once Jenny and I are nice and comfortable in bed, the dog jumps on up and inches her way up so her head is positioned on our pillows, right between our heads. Nice huh? Instead of saying goodnight to Jenny, I get a dog face looking right at me.

But beyond her little quirks, we think she's a keeper. Both Jenny and I love her. She even gets along great with Jake the cat. We can already see that they are gonna be friends.

So, last night as a treat, we decided to go for ice cream and take the dog with us. Just for fun, we ended up getting the dog a baby cone to try out. Man, I think she found her new favorite food. Once the first lick was made, she braced her legs, and positioned herself for some serious ice cream time. Liking the cone clean, she became an ice cream dog.

So our life with two animals begins. Jenny and I are starting ourselves the ideal suburbanite family here. Me and her, dog and cat, and in the future, maybe some little ones...but not for a while, haha.

Sit Ubu sit, good dog.

I am a Bad Blogger...

Fine, I admit it, I seriouly suck at updating this. It has been amost a month since my last post. I'm a lazy ass, so what. I've had lots of trials and tribulations in the past month that have kept me as busy as a sweatshop worker.

So, since this last post, I got called back to Oak Park Schools, but originally not the high school. I was called back to the desolate wilderness that is the Oak Park Academy, the alternative school for kids who can't "handle it" in the regular school. This was a trip, let me tell you...

I first expected to see tumbleweed fly past me in the hallways, as I first walked into the school. The "sheriff" of this one delinquent town was an old doctor guy who should of retired years ago. He greeted me, slapped a deputy sherrif badge on me and sent me on my way. As I walked though the hallway, I met the only other teacher in this school who warned me of stories of students who poured urine into the radiators and threw text books out of the windows. I truly was worried that the prisoners would be running this place.

On my last day of "professional development" at the academy, I was sent over to the high school for one last hoopla of school crap. I walked into the school, went into the office, and was greeted by an angel of school administration, the high school principal. At that point, I was parolled from the academy, and regained my position back at the high school. An entire gaggle of monkey were lifted off my back, and I breathed a sense of relief as I knew that my next year would be ok.

So, after a summer of job searching, sweating over how to pay a mortgage, and dreading having to work post-season at the good 'ol metro beach, I am free.

Free at last, thank God, I'm free at last!

Sig Heil Best Buy...

Alright, so I admit it. I've been a lazy ass this week with the blog; but to my defense, or at least to come up with an excuse, I've been working more hours then a small child making soccer balls in a hut in South America.

I have been a working fool. Sixteen hours in my metropark palace on sunday, getting home at 12:15, and going back there at 7:45am was not fun. I should of just slept under the desk in our office, at least I would of saved gas. Well, at least it was busy so my hours flew by.

Other than dealing with drunk boaters, and escorting gaggles of lazy people with barbeques and coolers around, I was the personal chauffer for a genuine movie crew, shooting a new blockbuster film...at least in India. Not hailing from the great movie laced city of Hollywood, these yahoos hailed from Bollywood, the Indian equvilent of our great Californian movie empire; except most of these movies are weird "romantic-comedy" musicals in which the actors dance and twirl around singing indian songs. I swear to god, after how much I had to do for them, I am demanding to be noted as a "key grip" or "gaffer" or something in the credits. I'm gonna be HUGE in India, I can feel it.

Next, and completely off the subject of dancing Indians, Best Buy is run by a bunch of Nazi assholes. So, back around father's day, I bought my dad some fancy-shmancy remote control that can control the tv, dvd, cable box, and even do my laundry or something, but after reading about it online, I decided to get him a different remote and return this one to Best Buy at a later date.

So after a little laziness and some final gumption, I braced to return the remote today to a) Hopefully get my money back, or at least 2) Get some in-store credit. Those rat bastards at best buy wouldn't even consider taking it back because it had been more than "30 days". They wouldn't take it back, even with the recipt. So I asked them, what if it was a gift and I didn't have the recipt...basically they said, in a round-a-bout way, tough shit, they aren't gonna take it back. What kind of fucking return policy is that? I could understand if I opened the package, or didn't have the recipt, but seriously folks...fuck them. This is bullshit. Now I'm stuck with a remote that I don't need and am $90 in the hole. We'll see when I give them anymore business.

Well, hopefully, now that my sweatshop hours have slowed down, and finally I'm becoming somewhat settled in my new house, I'll update this a little more often. Until next time...later.

My Moving Hell...

Lately, my creative juices have been on hold while I moved out of my pit of an apartment and into my new digs. I now realize that I NEVER want to move again. Holy crap, has this sucked; and this is only half of what has to be moved! Jenny's vast cornucopia of random objects still needs to be packed and hauled over here. This is going to blow harder than Tropical Storm Edna. I never realized how much shit I owned until now. I think I need to start just throwing things away.

Box, after basket, after bag each needs to find a home in our new abode; and not just any place, but somewhere that will fall into Jenny's master plans! Haha, just kidding.

Yesterday, a bribe of coney island convinced my cousin Butch, Jenny, and another guy I know named Erine to come to my apartment and move things, pack mule style, from the rooms of the apartment, down the stairs of death, and finally into two pick-ups, to be moved 5 miles, all the while sweating like pigs. Thank god for bribes.

Thankfully, Erine has some experience at this whole moving thing, working for a moving company and all, because the damn couch that took my brother and I hours to fit into our living room, was easily removed in a matter of minutes. I belive this proves to me that the Smitka family does not have great ability in thinking spacially.

So, after moving all the big crap, I stupidly sent my bribed help home and return to the house thinking that I only have a little bit left to go. I should never of opened my mouth. Hours later, Jenny and I are slaving to clean and pack the remains of my former residence, working into the wee hours of the evening. After calling it quits for the night, we decide to come back the next day for day two of the Ferndale Clean-A-Thon.

After work, and even two more hours later of cleaning, I wipe down the last countertop, and say my good-byes to the creepy ladies downstairs. Good bye Ferndale, good bye walking up the stairs of death, good bye living in filth, I will miss you all (or maybe not).

Anyway, after two days of moving hell, and many upcoming days of putting all this shit away, I'm finally here; away from the botomless pit that was my Ferndale flat, and into my deee-lux casa in Royal Oak. Home-ownership, here I come...

It's over...

Well, pollackapalooza 2005 is finally done and over with and I'm tired as hell. Many pierogies were eaten, many beers were drunk, and many Polish people were offended at our outlandish outbursts and fake, broken, accents. Overall, I would say it was a success. Until next year... Dziękują!!

Woof...

I think we're nuts.

Jenny and I just bought a house. I'm currently looking for a new job. Bills are starting to add up, and work needs to be done 24-7 to the house, just to get it ready for us to move in. And in all this, we decide we want a dog. What the hell...

Again, our brains must be on vacation in some distant land right now, because in all of what is going on, logic tells me that this is not the time nor the place to be considering taking on this great responsibility. I shouldn't even be considering getting a goldfish, let alone a dog.

But still I want one.

Like a little kid screaming and kicking in the middle of the grocery store, all the while demanding candy; I want a dog.

A few days ago, we found out that our new neighbor is fostering a 1 1/2 yr old Golden Retriever sponsored by a rescue agency. This dog, we believe, is canine perfection. Old enough to be out of the terrible puppy stages, but still young enough to be exciting and playful. Again, let me repeat...I want this dog.

Who knows what our chances are, but we are willing to try to jump through each firey hoop to try to adopt this dog (which incedently is named "Sweetie Pie", and will proply have a name change upon adoption). First, we had to call the rescue organization, who never answers the phone. We were instructed to leave our name, address and other bits of info, in order to even recieve an adoption appilcation. This would be followed by paying omage to the organization by sending $5 along with our application back to the group.

Upon approval of our application, and verification that our $5 is legal US money, a phone screening is conducted. Finally, if the phone screen goes well and the last iron gate is lifted, you must meet with 3 dogs to gain a personality profile. Seriously, I don't think it's this hard to adopt a human.

So far, the initial phone call is as far as we have got. Who knows if they heard our message, or even if they will mail our an application. All I can do now is just hope that some other person doesn't sweep in and take this dog away from under our feet.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see...bark, bark.

A Series of Pointless Events...

Well, I guess today was strung together by a series of pointless, time-consuming, brain-numbing activites, that could of as easily been done by a trained monkey instead of me. Let's start with good 'ol work...

The weekdays have become so slow at the beach that I have found myself staring blankly at the wall in our office, just to burn time. As time crawled by, spanning my 8-hour shift of worthlessness, I accomplished only a few select tasks, finishing my given job responsibilities in a mere 15 minutes. The other 7 hours and 45 minutes were spent reading the paper, finishing my book and wondering what to order for lunch. On days like this, I actually pray for it to be somewhat busy, letting that time clock crawl just a little bit faster.

Finally as 3:45 rolled around, the door to my cage was lifted and I, once again, was allowed to roam free. Rollin' down 16-mile in my 6.0, I drove to the T-shirt printer to pick up the legendary Pollackapalooza 3 shirts for this Thursday. The owner, who apparently has many employees from Hamtramck was perplexed about our shirts, forcing me to explain the legend that is Pollackapalooza.

Later this evening, I had to remind myself of the reality that again, I need to get my ass out of my apartment by Sunday; so in response to some newly found motivation, I began to pack my worldly belongings into many, many laundry baskets, ready to move out in a moments notice. For once, progress in the great move-out is being made.

But at the end of today, after pointlessness at work, running around, and packing my room, it was nice to come home to Jenny; just to watch tv, snuggle up, eat cookies, or to just drive her cat Jake nuts with a laser pointer. It will be nice when finally I can do this every night, not having to run around to get to this point. Hunny, I love you.

I'm Sweating Just Standing Here...

As beads of salty water burst forth from the pores in my skin and run down my forehead into my mouth, I wonder why the fuck anyone is out in this weather, let alone, why I am out in it. For the past few days here in good 'ol metro Detroit, it has been fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk hot. And on top of the heat, we have had a crapload of humidity too; hell, I think I'll do a few laps using the backstroke through the air tonight.

This is the weather I like to call "Asshole weather" because the only people who should be out in this sweltering, sweat-while-you-stand-in-place heat are assholes.

Well, today, and possibly even yesterday, consider Jenny and I assholes. The end of the month is quickly coming, and with that is the the deadline to move my ass out of my apartment. Although I figure it would be easier and more satisfying to just light a match to the whole apartment and let it burn to the ground, saving myself the hassle of moving my things, I need to prep my house, while at the same time getting all of my stuff, accumulated pack-rat style, in my apartment either thrown away, or packed up and moved out. I am going to hate this.

Our new house, currently has no A/C, and therefore traps heat like a greenhouse. So, because I need to get my ass out, and into the new place by the 31st, and because there is soooo much to do to the new digs to get it ready, we have been working and sweating our asses off to get our house just right. Ripping out carpet, tack strips (which incidentally could be used as some sort of middle eastern torture device), installing ceiling fans, getting the floors re-finished, and taking out loads and loads of trash; just to name a few things.

Someday, this house will be ready. After days upon days of work, sweat and cash flying out of my wallet towards "home improvements", it will be worth it. I will be our own personal Taj Mahal, our perfect little house. I guess I'm becoming handy the hard way, figuring out things for myself, using knowledge my Dad passed down to me. I'm no Bob Vila, but I'm on my way.

I Am Lost in My Own Thoughts...

Alright, I guess I'm not feeling too inspired tonight. Other than Jenny and I becoming human sweatballs moving 15 tons of trash out the curb of our new home in 100 degree heat, I really can't think of anything else to write about. Maybe I'm just tired, or maybe the heat has sucked my brain from my skull, who knows. Let's hope my blog muse inspires me tomorrow. Later alligators.

Tonight, I Ate Boogers...

I do not wish to meet the man who decided it was a good idea to eat any kind of seafood that comes in a shell. Oysters, mussles, clams, whatever; each one apparently contains some sort of edible snot that many people claim to "love".

Like a kindergardner deciding for the first time that its ok to eat paste or something, this is just not right. Tonight, Jenny and I went out to dinner to a Belgian restaurant with another couple, who decided that mussles would be a great start to the meal. Well, being the evil kineval sort of dare-devil that I am, I agreed to try one of these seafood marinated boogers.

Accompanied by my cornucopia of micro-brewed beer samples, I recieved my inaugural mussle which I pried from it's shell with my fork. Shades of brown, black and green covered in a haze of slime shimmered before me. Just looking at this slimeball on my fork made me truly wonder why I was agreeing to pop this mucus morsel into my mouth. 1,2,3...in it goes. Apparently, mussles are cooked, but by the texture inside my mouth, I really couldn't tell if I just ate a mussle or just cleared my sinus cavities.

But in the end, I guess it wasn't that bad; just a little chewy little seafood blob; people out there eat worse stuff. I applaud you raw oyster people, you truly are braver than I'll ever be in my culinary delights. Bravo, bravo.

My Ankle is the Size of a Softball...

In my head, it was great. I can picture it now...I stepped up to the plate, the ball was pitched, and my first swing made solid contact with the ball, letting me run for a double. The next batter steps up to the box, hits it a low ball right to left field. As it begins to decend, I start to run towards third, trying to beat the ball now being thrown to the third baseman. I go to touch the base...and it slides out from under me, skidding across the loose gravel of the diamond, causing me to roll my ankle; at least I was safe. Like I said, it was great. Going down in a blaze of glory, causing me to nurse my now sprained ankle with motrin and beer all night.

Yesterday, I met up with a bunch of work friends for a friendly game of softball out at Metro Beach. Sure its been decades since I last played, but hell, I thought it would be fun to give it a shot. No one else there had mad softball skills either, so why not I join the ranks of the unathletic too?

After my run-in with fate, telling me I'm waaaay out of practice, a little ice, motrin and a few beers eased my pain and created that soft numbness throughout my body; that same numbness that myself as well as thousands of other college students feel which allows them to walk to house parties, seemingly ok, with no coat and flip-flops in the middle of december.

Somewhere in this madness of self medication, myself and a few others from the game traveled to a local townie bar to drown our sorrows of our 30-12 loss. Yes, let me repeat that again, 30-12. Our asses were not just kicked, but wrestled to the ground and then set on fire. I guess a few beers destracts from your ability to field a ball.

Within this smokey land of nascar, alcohol and angry local drunks, we got the bright idea to karaoke. After a few rounds and a few songs including Kenny Rodgers, "The Gambler", Bob Seager's "Turn the Page", and other horribly sung masterpieces, the local drunks at the bar began to become surly at us young'ns and our clue to exit stage left was soon at hand.

So today I sit watching my ankle swell to the size of a softball, making me truly think that I was never really cut out for this softball thing. Instead, I think I'll stick to my tone-deaf karaoke. American Idol, here I come.

So Tired Right Now...

Alright, just back from the bar after a night of singing beer-induced karaoke. Too tired to post anything substantial now, gotta work at 7:45am tomorrow...lets try this after 4pm. Night folks.

Mountains of Trash as Far as My Eyes Can See...

Alright, today, lets say, was an experience. Let me run down my list of things I needed to do today...

• Go to parent's house to help my dad.
• Make and drink a cup of coffee.
  
• Recruit my unwilling brother for physical labor.
• Use brother and his much needed truck to haul scraps of wood and drywall (which the great city of Royal Oak refuses to pick up on trash day) to a disposal place.
• Wait around at new house for gas company and city of Royal Oak to do work on my house.
  
• Clean up and fix random crap around new house.

Dad was fine. Coffee, done. Brother was actually very helpful. But nothing could of prepared my brother and I for the sight we were about to see...

After loading many tetanus-inducing, water-damaged, mildewey boards with rusty nails in them into my brother's truck, we drove a few miles, like a modern-day Sanford and Son, to the disposal center. Mind you, all we were told beforehand is that our truck was to be weighed in and weighed out after we unloaded.

Like a car crash, causing you to rubberneck back in disgust and in awe, I can admit as of today, that I have officially seen a garbage truck puking back up all the nasty stuff it ingests each day. As we unloaded our tiny Dodge Dakota of the measly remains of my former water-logged basement, garbage truck after garbage truck pulls up next to us, unloading thier vile baggage from a day of refuse collection. Soon, after two or three trucks, mountains of stinking trash sit before us, waiting to be offered to the garbage gods, soon to be filling majestic and senic venues like Freedom Hill. It was almost like some deranged Willy Wonka's factory, except instead of candy, there were just candy wrappers and dirty diapers. I half expected some rats to jump out of the piles of trash and sing an Oompa-Loompa song about recycling.

After two trips to the dump and $66 in "dumping fees" later, we left this strange garbage factory, and returned to normal land, where hopefully if I put my garbage out to my curb on Sunday night, it disappears magically by Monday morning. Thank you garbage Oompa-Loompas.

You Can Do It, We Can Help...

Alright ladies and gentelmen, I guess I lied on my last post. I am not only a Meijer junkie, but alas, I think that I should also set up camp at the Home Depot. Seriously, now that I have a house, I realize how much crap there is to do and how much stuff I need, to do that crap. Home Depot to the rescue.

This place is like a Toys-R-Us for grown men. I bought myself a tool box today for all my tools that one day I will own. It's like a little kid getting a toy box to put all his hot wheels and he-man action figures in. It's great. One day I will get to fill that box with things like a "battle action recipricating saw" or a "super, quick change wrench set". Maybe I'll keep my old he-man action figures in there just for old times sake...who knows.

I find myself just wandering around this massive toy store just thinking to myself "man, it would be so cool to have one of those", even though I have no idea how to use half the damn things in the store, or even if I did, find a use for it. Like this "Cold Heat" thing for soldering things. It's so cool; one second its hot, one second its cold! The commercial shows you, "Go ahead put your finger on this metal tip that just welded this belt buckle back together, it was just hot enough to melt freaking metal, but look! Ooooh its cool now, amazing!"

Well, I guess there will be no spinning of the dreidel today. No word from Akiva yet, hopefully tomorrow. I guess if I don't hear from them, it just means my hopes and dreams of railroad hoboing is just one step closer. I'll start making my hobo 'kerchief on a stick tonight; and Jenny, I hope you like eating baked beans out of a can. Mmmmm, hobo gourmet!

Damn...

Alright, post number 2. What shall we talk about? First off, call me the freaking bugbuster...I am one lean, mean, bug killing machine. My new house was infested with a hive of both hornets and yellow jackets. That kind of infestation isn't gonna stay. Raid kills 'em dead. Bugs zero, me, one.

Next, I think Jenny and I have officialy become Meijer junkies. I swear, we have been visiting these "thifty acres" at least two to three times a week. It's getting stupid. Our patio set, meijer. The flower things for jenny's shower, meijer. Garden shit for our house, meijer. Groceries, meijer. This place has consumed us. Damn you Meijer and your low, low prices.

Anyway, I await the verdict of my Jewish school fate tomorrow. Who knows what's gonna happen with that, maybe I'll love it and start spinning the driedel. Who knows, lets not count this chicken before it's hatched. A job is got to come along sooner or later...need to pay for this new mortgage.

Either way, job or no job, I can still fall back on my plans to become a railroad hobo...hell, see the country, travel the rails, fight a rival hobo gang...adventure awaits...

It's Worth a Shot...

Alright folks, I've seen a few of these blog-type things and I thought to myself, why not try this out. Hell, I have enough stupid crap running around my noggin everyday, why not write it down for others to see. I have no clue what I'm gonna write here, or whether I'm actually gonna keep up with this thing, but at least it will keep me entertained for the time being. Well, here goes nothing...