christmas 2012

christmas is definitely a retail holiday for our family. we don't go to church nor do we decorate a christmas tree, but we do hang up little stockings and buy teeny weenie gifts for each other cuz getting gifts is plain FUN don't you think?

i'm trying to start a tradition of making waffles for my fam (meaning my hubs and my sis). this year, it's whole wheat waffles and MERRY CHRISTPY bacon. you need energy before you rip into packages....rawrrr.

then the dogs get their pressies after we eat, spoiled pooches.

charlie's auntie made him a bill cosby inspired sweater and he got a chew toy with a bone hidden inside. he likes to destruct his toys, ass first apparently.

lucy got a whole new outfit from her auntie and chew toys from us. pretty in pink with a touch of mrs. claus. she ripped into her chew toy fast...there's a little rawhide dog bone hidden inside. fyi, that toy is DEAD the last time i checked. her teeth is just plain ruthless. you should see our pathetic sofa, it is a freaking MESS. thanks lucy....grrrrr.....

then of course, there's our biggest bear, bronx aka "donkey" as i fondly call him because of his huge badonks. he got a new kennel liner and chew toys. he is pretty darn handsome don't you think? GQ baby.

they were pretty excited about their toys and got uber tired after running about stealing everything from each other. *sigh*

we also found a reindeer gone AWOL. he must be tired from his flight today...christmas is a tough business.

my hubs got me an early christmas pressie....aka he-couldn't-keep-a-secret-for-the-life-of-him. it's an ipad minnniiiiiiiiii! and he personalized it with a little sweet message engraved on the back. i love it, a useful tool to be productive AND to waste time.

feeling grateful for all the mini and big things in my life. i hope you're having a wonderful christmas too!!

happy berfday charlie brown!!

totally dressed to party with his homemade party hat, minus the fallen bow tie.

my little beagle turned 3 yesterday. in dog years, he can legally drink and find himself a whore, but in my household, he just gets a little doggy berfday cake...a carrot/apple sauce birthday cake with cream cheese/apple sauce frosting to be exact. sounds yum enough right?

it was an easy batter and didn't take much effort, especially with my handy dandy kitchenaid mixer. 1/2 hour later, it was out of the oven and onto a rack to be cooled off while charlie and my other two dogs circled around me like vultures in the kitchen.

once frosted, i decorated the cake with a simple number 3 in carrot slivers for charlie's new age. i would have been more creative with my cake decorations if time permitted, but i had humans to feed as well. since the dogs get homemade cake, the humans got prime rib, cheesy smashed potatoes, garlic spinach, and tomato pine nuts salad with a balsamic vinaigrette for dinner. crazy yummy if i must say so myself. it IS a party after all.

after the humans ate and our bellies bulged unattractively with the grub, it was time to slice into the cake! the anticipation must have slayed my furry buddies...one by one. *wimper* charlie was so excited, he started shmeeing (this noise he makes through his nose. rather annoying actually...thank god he's cute!).

"drop it momma...please?"

he was smacking his beagle lips as i took my pics. give me a sec charlie! sheesh!

but his excitement built into an unbearable surge of energy (and defiance) because he sprung up to snatch the piece of cake out of my hands and gobbled it as quickly as he could, smacking his lips furiously as i watched in surprise. then i remembered it was his berfday after all so all was forgiven...dang dog.

of course lucy and bronx got to share in the cake eating as well and they LOVED it. ok, so i know dogs will eat anything, but i really think they were particularly excited about this cake based on their frenzied behavior after their first bites...it must be good right?! right.

it was good times and i look forward to baking many, many more berfday cakes for my sweet pups. happy birthday charlie brown!

happy howl-o-ween!!

halloween is that special time of the year when my fam (2 and 4-legged) geek out more than necessary. is it to the point of ridiculousness and downright embarrassment? sure, probably. hence i say geek out.

after a long day at work, i came home on friday to a very excited sis. VERY. a lot of the geeky excitement actually originated from her so we got in her car and drove to target to look for doggy costumes cuz our local dog park was hosting their 3rd annual "howl-o-ween" costume contest. omg. like you had to ask if we were going to participate.....

it went from us browsing the aisles, to figuring out a theme, to laughing hysterically at our brilliance when we figured out our plan.

we ran across a white rabbit costume (from alice in wonderland) and also a generic kingly robe. since charlie was going to be the white rabbit, i suggested that lucy go dressed as the queen of hearts. all i had to do was sew a red felt heart on her robe which i did and a smaller red heart on her crown to emphasize our point. hearts + more hearts = the queen of hearts. that's how we roll.

although lucy did look super cute as the white rabbit if i must say so myself but we wanted to stick to the gender roles. besides, the robe was waaaaaay too big for charlie. we tried. we really did as he struggled to get away.

unlike last year when charlie was the only participant, we upped the heat and wanted to make sure that we won SOMETHING this year, so we decided that the WHOLE family had to be a part of the act. since my sis had a blue dress, she was dressed as alice and my fiance and i became the playing cards. brilliant. you know you love it.

when we got to the dog park, it was PACKED. it was quite the celebration indeed because everybody was in a jovial mood and all i heard was laughing. i love that people celebrate with their pets in all manners of silliness.

i did see a not so happy butterfly. perhaps pink wasn't her color.

here's a dog straddled by an angry cowboy.

a cow that jumped over the moooooooooooon. omg, so cute!



and a dog with the largest set of muscles ever. what a great body guard he would make!

a mummified dog. so scary!

marie antoinette with her one eye.

and the smallest giraffe in the world. i was floored when i found out that the costume was all handmade by the owner. i'm telling ya, the heat was on!

but in all seriousness, my dogs were 10,000% cuter! come on now! C-U-T-E! <3

we saw another themed group there, but ha! please don't cry when we dominate you captain america...especially since yours is not a cohesive collection.

cuz we are rockin' it alice in wonderland style!



and we won! THE END.

meet lucy!

having charlie is enough. it really is. he is the best beagle doggie ever with the most velvety ears and the smoothest of smooth coats. let's just say, he gets molested by strangers all the time trying to rub his gorgeous little head...and i don't blame them. he does have the sweetest little face and super expressive eyes. if you saw him, i'm pretty sure you would be compelled to rub is furry head too.

here is my fur bag striking a pose in a sculpture piece at ucla.

but he seemed kind of lonely with us. i don't know, maybe i watch dog whisperer too much and got guilt-washed, but dogs belong in packs and it didn't seem right for him to only have two-legged pack members. besides, we don't always play with him cuz we're tired after a long day at work and it's pathetic when he rams his toys into our legs hoping to provoke some playtime. attention whore? neglected fur baby? sadness? yes. :(

then i found out a coworker's dog had 12 pups and when i told my fiance they were a labrador retriever mix, my fiance was sold. his two favorite types of dogs combined into one! holy smokes! it's like a chanel/tiffany/vca store for me but err...doggy style. i didn't want to say no to my fiance and ultimately, i think charlie would benefit from having a sibling so soon enough, we picked up our new family member and named her "lucy." (i nicknamed her "juicy" though cuz she squirts so much pee. it is ridiculous how much she whizzes....i know, she's a puppy, but goddamn!).

she also requires a lot of baths because she pees everywhere and likes to roll around in it for fun. not to mention that one morning when i found a piece of turd stuck to her side. ugh puppies!!!

but it turned out i couldn't have two dogs because the chinese character for dog, once doubled, means "cry" "wail" "moan" so basically, bad luck. even though my parents don't live with us, they sure can nag persistently from afar so in order to appease my dad, the uber superstitious one of the two, i got a third dog named "spike."

spike is a good dog and does not pee everywhere like lucy does. he even has balls! i like him a lot.

i'm not sure if my dad cares much for this trick, but he's not protesting as much anymore. besides, he can't argue the fact that charlie now has a four-legged friend, even though lucy dominates him and plays so rough! poor charlie!!!!

i'm pretty sure everything will smooth out between the both of them and i hope they grow up to be good, old friends. my day is pretty complete when i have my family and my four-legged buddies around me.

blessing of the char nar

the whole family really loves charlie. he is like the doo doo baby that we've never had. his grandparents love him (you should see the thick slab of boiled chicken breast that they make JUST FOR HIM every sunday when we go for a visit), i love him, my fiance loves him, and my sis REALLY loves him. so it's not a suprise that charlie doo doo gets dragged along to things like the "blessing of the animals" at olvera street this past saturday with his mommy and his auntie in tow. here is the story of charlie and his blessing:

first off, charlie saw and sniffed a lot of different animal butts. he really had a ball there:

cow butts.

big bunny butts.

butts that go neeeeyyyyy and doo doo monstrous green things.

and butts that won't ever win a race, but a children's story book says they do. don't believe it peoples.

while waiting in the EXTREMELY long line to get him blessed, i saw a pack of beagles. i got so excited cuz charlie is a single dog and rarely do we meet a pack of them so i walked him over so he could meet his own...but he ran away like a little baby. he apparently prefers chihuahuas and yorkies...what a racist!

when we finally got to the front of the line where all the blessing took place, the priest took a huge brush (reminds me of the kind you use to clean your toilets....SERIOUSLY), dipped it in this huge tupperware bin, and DOUSED, and i mean DOUSED us with water. he could have probably turned on a hose and we would have been just as wet. we all walked away feeling a bit dazed...wow, just wow. i didn't expect that.

we walked around a bit more before i got my churro fix and saw a lot of other animals that were dressed for this special occasion. i really liked this cage set up which i first thought were stuffed hamsters but if you look up, there's two yellow birds! how cute!

we also saw a punk rock doggy. she looked like she shops at hot topic. cute x 2!

we finally made it out of olvera street and its tight quarters but once in a while, we would have to pick charlie up in fear that he was going to get trampled or that he would eat a loose churro or something. that little dog has awful stomach problems :(

here's his auntie holding him. i told you he gets mucho love! what a spoiled, smelly little dog my little lovely charlie brown :)

it was a good day.

the christmas crush

during the holiday season, i'm in the lucky minority in the sense that i DON'T HAVE to go shopping for gifts. you see, our family is buddhist so our traditions during this season does not involve christmas or christmas trees or singing silent night around the fireplace while drinking eggnog. btw, do you do that? or did hallmark give me a crazy skewed view of the fa la la la world?

HOWEVER, this year, i did brave the malls to purchase a few stocking stuffers because i now have my own home and plan on creating my own traditions. although my loved ones in my home did not get full on presents, i thought it would be nice to stuff something teenie in their stockings (my dog charlie has his own stocking too!) as well as have a little lighted christmas tree in my wee house. ahhh...lights.

so back to shopping....the mall was HORRIFIC. HORRIFIC i tell ya! it was so crowded and although i know we are still in a recession, the sheer number of people i saw walking and shopping was enough to assure me that perhaps the economy is bouncing back after all....perhaps. i felt so relieved to only have to shop for 2 and charlie doesn't count because i got him a chewy bone! everything was done in one shot...BAM!

everywhere i went, there were lines, and crowds, and people bumping into you. although people SHOULD have holiday cheer, that was not always the case. i saw a fair amount of rudeness...i think folks just don't know how to function when there's too many people around them. it probably doesn't help that people are scrambling for last minute gifts which was apparent as i walked about. ack, the pressure of buying a gift isn't so fun...good thing i just had to get stocking stuffers and teenie ones at that.

the line to get out of the parking lot at my local mall was probably the worse line to be in. honking and exhaust :( it reconfirmed the brillance of online shopping!! perhaps next year, i will have the foresight to do that instead of stomping through the malls.

even with this taste of christmas shopping craze, i think i will try to keep the tradition of the christmas stocking. anyways, i hope you all have a most EXCELLENT holiday, be it christmas or hanukkah or kwanzaa or the like. as i bask in my newfound traditions, i hope you're enjoying yours.

i caught a little reindeer on the way home. isn't he cute?! happy holidays!

smooches,

bagnatic