princess in the time before piglet

once upon a time, in a kingdom nestled deep into suburbia, lived a princess of extraordinary beauty. with doe-like eyes and silky golden hair, the princess was worshipped and adored by all who met her.

only her parents were witness to her some of her more private habits the princess had -- like anxiety attacks and insatiable beaver-like need to consume any rough edges of furniture made of wood.

but the princess inspired the queen to do more for the others in the kingdom. the queen had decided to take the princess with her on visits to meet with prospective puppy parents in the village. to see how worthy they may be of having an adorable princess-like addition to their family.

so the queen and princess,escorted by the king, travelled to a home in a neighboring village. the princess was quite excited by the prospect, as was the king, although he deliberately attempted to tone down his excitement of their journey. the queen, who had been on similar journeys alone was the only one not bouncing with excitement as she knew the severity of this visit.

those villagers who called upon the queen were desperate. they had lost their own princess a few months back to a horrible disease and greatly missed the care and comfort of having a princess in their midst iin which to serve and cater to. their hopes of welcoming such a lass lay in the decision of the queen. and as we all know, the queen makes her decision based on the will of the princess.

so the villagers threw open their doors at once the queen's aging chariot drew near. with much fanfare, the villagers drew down to worship at the princess's feet, as people are wont to do in her presence. the princess smiled upon their welcome reception as the queen silently took note.

the king followed the villagers as they welcomed the princess on a tour of their not-so-humble abode. the queen slowly trapsed behind to look for split fences, gates that don't lock and anything that might not be fitting of a princess's home. but she found nothing that offended her.

inside, the villagers spoke of their love in which they hoped to share with a princess of their own. long walks, luxurious foods, spa-like trips in which to cleanse both body and soul of a princess. these villagers obviously knew the love of another, as the princess shook with joy as the villager seemed to know her favorite spot! (a good scritch behind the ears, if you must know.) my princess did a happy circle through my legs in which to share, unmistakeningly that these villagers had her approval.

after duly noting, the princess's approval, the queen and king found themselves drawn into conversation with the villagers as the test seemingly drew to a close. in those moments, the villagers and the king and queen, were reminded exactly who was in charge.

after sniffing her away around the villagers lovely white-carpetted home, the princess eyed up her spot. behind the coffee table and almost out of sight, the little princess began her dance.

spin once in a wide round circle.

spin twice for good measure, twisting round tighter this time.

spin the golden circle, even tighter this time, as her little white rabbit fluffy butt perches high over her intended target --

and drop two perfect, princess-like turds upon the carpet.

salty salad tears

crying at weddings is usually reserved for a select few -- the mothers of the bride and groom, bridesmaids, grandmothers, the little old ladies who wander in off the street to see a bit of romantic love in action. these tears are most often to occur during the actual ceremony or during a speech.

who you will usually NOT find crying at a wedding is an usher or other male friends of the groom. and you really wouldn't expect it to happen over the second course at dinner.

but at the most recent wedding i attended and served in, that's exactly what happened. i'm not sure what served as the catalyst as his salad was being served to him. it could have been the red wine, it could have been the song ("over the rainbow" by israel something-hawaiian-that-i-never-remember) or my incessant bleating on about how cool the bride's dad is and how i wished he was my own. it could have been an aggregate of all of these things as much as it could have been nothing at all.

my husband broke down over his salad.

it's been only a few months since his dad had passed away. i thought he was handling the loss fairly well, adjusting to how his life and those of his mother and siblings had changed. he seemed to be "normalizing" from the events of this spring.

he maintained his composure until he could no longer do so. tears welling up so far as to finally allow the dam to break at his best friend's wedding, over salad, in a crowded room full of people. this burst of emotion scared me. i have only witnessed this type of instant-meltdown once before -- when his mother did the same thing to me. from out of the blue, a gut-wrenching sob shakes from them. i do the only thing i know how to do -- get him up and out of there. before his mother who was in attendance catches on as to what is happening... before i have TWO instant-meltdowns happening at once.

into the long hallway that connects the banquet room and the hotel we walked. glass doors along both sides make this a fishbowl of human emotion. a kind waitress walks up behind me and hands off a box of tissues and a bottle of water. a simple gesture.

i should have recognized some of the signs. at the rehearsal dinner when he spoke from the heart about his status as honorary step-child of the groom's family. his many fond memories of growing up together with the groom, of friendship and love.

all of this speaking to those who understand his unspoken language of his fractured relationship with his own father. how much of his formative years were spent under the shadow of his younger brother's accomplishments.

all of which didn't matter now. nothing could underscore how much he missed his father. how in this room, filled with happiness and family and love -- a concept not linked often enough in reality -- he felt his loss most severely.

call me

when i got married 5 years ago, it was very important to my husband that i take his last name. me, being the feminazi that i am, didn't want to just take his name -- so i decided to hyphenate.

the problem was my maiden name was very ethnic, easy to spell but definitely left no imagination as to my parental ancestry. my husband's name was even more ethnic, a bijillion letters in odd combinations that often leaves strangers garbling over the pronunciation.

so my decision to hyphenate his and my last names, well, it was the united-nations-on-a-business card. the little sign at my office door? barely fit in all the letters. at last count, it had somewhere in the realm of 25 letters to fit. professionally and personally, after about a year and a half, i switched to take only his name. it really meant a lot to him and honestly, as long as people don't call me a nasty cnut, i don't quite care what they call me.

besides, after hearing just about every botched attempt to pronounce my married last name, it's quite fun in a warped twisted way to watch people's panicked expressions as the "omigod, how do i pronounce this without choking?" look appears on his or her face. yes, i let them struggle a bit before rescuing them. any time i need to do a public speaking gig, i just laugh because that moment is coming my way.

my point in all this -- do what you want and if neither last name is normal, change 'em both to smith or something equally boring.

goodsearch

if you're anything like me, you probably go to google a few, okay, many times through out the day. mainly, it's because you're too lazy to bookmark sites (like me) or you're doing new searches.

now your lazy ass will do something good for a change.

goodsearch.com is a new search engine that will donate $0.01 per search towards the charity you register with. that means any time you want to look for a new and exciting site on the internet, your charity gets cash.

so go to .com and in the bottom box that asks what you are supporting, type in majesty rottweiler rescue and hit verify. it will then show up in the box as majesty rottweiler rescue (darlington, md). from there, my search engine lovers, each search will donate money to help rotties in need.

sadie thanks you for it.

5 things

5 things to be thankful for (despite crappy news from the doctor today)....

i am feeling okay today. my leg is definitely much better but the pharmaceutical industry is killing me. the blood thinners i am on aren't stabilized yet, so if i am not swallowing a bunch of pills, then i am injecting the crap into me. my future career as an iv drug user is that much closer now that my fear of needles is gone! and thankfully, all of my bruises are located in only places that only my husband and the plastic surgeon who will one day do my tummy tuck will see.

i work indoors, in a blissful, air-conditioned office 'cause the heat in philly is disgusting. on my walk to the train today, i opened my mouth to say something to the person i was walking with and i swear i swallowed a big rush of foul, humid air when i did. i gotta tell ya, i nearly gagged, it was so gross.

i am thankful i didn't hit send on the email that i was directing to the wrong person. i thought a brother of one of the goddess girls was emailing me in response to a note i had left for him while he's on this super road trip. turns out the email from "jb" was actually from my other friend with the same initials. not that anything bad was being discussed, but "jim" -- who was just saying hello -- would have thought i was completely nuts.

i am thankful for friends who threaten my body with the wrath of O.B.P. if it doesn't quit being a freak and play nicely with the drugs i am ingesting.

i am thankful for a wonderful puppies who decided that mamma needs some extra love and take turns giving me lots of doggy kisses when i got home. of course, it could also be the fact that they were trying to hide the fact that one of them ate another fcuking doggie bed while in the crate today.

in a nice close to this post, i believe that would be the 5th bed they have shredded into cabbage-like consistency.

the mysteries of the universe revealed

in my desperate need for a mindfcuk today, i came across this site for myers-briggs assessment. my results...

intj
You are:
introverted +33      moderately expressed introvert
intuitive+12            slightly expressed intuitive personality
thinking +25          moderately expressed thinking personality
judging +78           very expressed judging personality


my rating didn't shock me so much as how dead-on the analysis was of me.

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.

INTJs are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest. What prevents them from becoming chronically bogged down in this pursuit of perfection is the pragmatism so characteristic of the type: INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake.

now my struggle to understand how my left-brain and right-brain passions can coexist in one body makes sense. my independent-streak evident as a small child when i would wear a purple corduroy jumper over teal corduroy pants and a turtleneck because - in my mind - they looked good together (and this was BEFORE the 80s adopted my color scheme. my abiility to piss people off because i "push the envelope" too far and ask too many questions. need to know the hows and whys.

INTJs are known as the "Systems Builders" of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause to an INFJ; both perfectionism and disregard for authority may come into play, as INTJs can be unsparing of both themselves and the others on the project. Anyone considered to be "slacking," including superiors, will lose their respect -- and will generally be made aware of this; INTJs have also been known to take it upon themselves to implement critical decisions without consulting their supervisors or co-workers.

once again, anyone who knows when i have my head wrapped around an idea, get the fcuk out of my way. 100% that last paragraph is me. i get myself into trouble because people rely on me to be the problem-solver, organizer and still get things done on deadline. at times i sit there and think, why am i doing this? if i do a good job, they are just going to ask me to do it again -- like a show-pony called in to work a miracle on a project. why do i do it? because dammit, i like to wear my gold-star sticker on my forehead the day i complete the task. for all of my confidence, i need the validation that i am good enough, smart enough and people like me. (thank you stewart smalley)

Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. :-) This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete', paralleling that of many Fs -- only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.

me and small talk -- not fun. i just don't get the hang of it. before you think i'm stuck under a rock, i can talk to people if i am familiar with them or if it takes place in a small group or one-on-one situation when i can feel out the person. i am worried that i will have a "blond moment" with someone who doesn't know that i am not naturally an idiot. i am worried that my passion for certain topics will offend b/c it's not proper to talk about religion (against) or politics (as liberal as i wanna be). feminism, animal rights, gay rights? nope. nope. and nope.

if i know you and you know me? shit, we can talk for hours. until that point, i am guarded in my emotions and conversation, and unfortunately people pick up on it.

Probably the strongest INTJ assets in the interpersonal area are their intuitive abilities and their willingness to "work at" a relationship. Although as Ts they do not always have the kind of natural empathy that many Fs do, the Intuitive function can often act as a good substitute by synthesizing the probable meanings behind such things as tone of voice, turn of phrase, and facial expression. This ability can then be honed and directed by consistent, repeated efforts to understand and support those they care about, and those relationships which ultimately do become established with an INTJ tend to be characterized by their robustness, stability, and good communications.

the great empathisizer i AM NOT. my friends, all social animals and into touchy-feely emotions, called me out on not being more sympathetic to their needs. ask more questions about them and their goings on. i guess i was marsha to their jan in a "marsha, marsha, marsha" type of way.

i have a hard time asking questions, not because i am uncaring, but because i am clueless. if you don't share it, i may not pick up on your need for me to probe for your hidden needs (sounds dirty, no?). my supposed intuitiveness i think only works for dangerous people to stay away from -- a well-honed gut instinct. but in matters of good it falls silent.

i also want to things and people to make sense. do what you say you will. don't make excuses. take responsibility for your actions. if i were queen of the universe, these would be my laws. and no matter how much i love you, i am not the person to turn to when you need a should to cry on. tears ick me out. i feel helpless and can't understand why you wouldn't rather cry by yourself somewhere to let out the emotion instead of sharing it with me?

i guess that's when the very expressed judgemental side of me comes out.