Baxter is the Cutest Puppy in the World: A Study in 13 iPhone Photos

Baxter

          Baxter does an amazingly large number of cute things for such a small puppy. His cute antics include (but are not limited to):

• Lying with his back legs out
• Snoring huge snores
• Burping huge burps and then looking at you as if to say "....What was that?"

• Sleeping in ridiculous positions, for instance twisting half his body around, stretching all the way out, bending his body at a 90 degree angle, or curling up ridiculously tiny on top of himself in a tucked away corner
• Flinging himself like a flying squirrel into our pool, spread eagle in the air, and belly-flopping with a splash
• Skidding and slipping when he makes sharp turns running on the stone floor. Boyfriend has taken to tripping Baxter on purpose as often as possible because it's so freakin' cute.

• Jumping in the toy basket, jumping out of the toy basket, then jumping in the toy basket again and rolling around in all his toys. Then jumping out. 

• Rolling around and wiggling like a maniac crazy dog when he's in your arms because he's so excited to see everyone and everything that's going on around him. 

Burrowing-Baxter is kind of like the yeti. Photographic proof is inconclusive and more reliable footage is yet to be found.

• Burrowing under large piles of pillows until only his butt or one of his ears is sticking out from under the pile. If you're sitting on the couch, he'll often burrow under the pillows next to you, squirm in between your back and the back of the couch, and magically pop up on your other side.

• Invading the personal space of our other dog. Other Dog will be sleeping and Baxter will sometimes literally go lie on top of his face. He looooves to be close to Other Dog. Other Dog likes him well enough but looks at me mournfully and sighs when Baxter starts crowding him.

Other Dog says "Whyyyyyyyyyyyy"

The Things You Miss When You're in France

          When I first got back to the US at the end of April, I was excited, happy, and ready to be home. I had a really cute puppy on the way, friends, boyfriend, and family to see, Vegas plans to plan, an iPhone which I very much missed using, and the entire genre of Mexican food to be reacquainted with. As a matter of fact, when I had a layover in Washington DC, I ran to the nearest mediocre Tex Mex place that I could find for anything with beans and cheese and wrapped in a tortilla as soon as my passport was stamped.

A tender moment between my burrito and me.

          "Oh, you bad, bad boy," I told the burrito as I devoured it  ferociously. My dad, who had accompanied me on my voyage, clearly regretted his decision as he cleared his throat a lot and uncomfortably avoided looking at his crazy daughter, who was enthusiastically spilling salsa all over herself in the terminal with a slightly frenzied expression on her face, letting out blissful exclamations like "Oh, the guacamole... Sweet, sweet guacamole..."

             Being surrounded by English was warm, comforting, and so blessedly simple. No more having to figure out how to say what I wanted to say, or wondering if I should use the formal or the informal, the masculine or the feminine; I could just talk. I was also once again surrounded by fat, poorly dressed, loud people and felt slim and stylish in comparison, even in my baggy, airplane-riding ensemble. After so much being "shhhhhhh"-ed on buses for talking too loudly, being stared at for wearing shorts when it was hot (what do the French have against that, anyway?), I was finally in my element. With access to In-n-Out as a bonus.

               Within the first two minutes of touching down on the soil of my homeland, I swear to god, I saw an obese, mustached cop eating a donut, being propelled by one of the moving sidewalks. "Ah, America," I thought to myself. I'd have said it out loud, but my mouth was stuffed full of pico de gallo.

ABORT, ABORT

Boyfriend: "I just saw a headline that says 'Vaginal Steam Bath Finds a Place Among Southern California Spa Options."

Me: "Hmmmm. What does that mean?"

Boyfriend: "I don't know. I'm going to click on it."

Twenty seconds of suspense later:

Boyfriend: "The first word was 'pungent.' So I stopped reading."

- - - 

Number two on the Weird Article Title ranking goes to: "Fearsome Lawn Ornament Shot Dead by Cops." No joke. 

My Favorite Billboards Approaching Las Vegas, Nevada

In Vegas, waiting in the taxi line to leave our hotel. Our feet already hurt. Bad sign.

          To break up the monotony of the four hour drive from LA to Las Vegas, and to provide a point of interest in the vast nothingness of the Nevada desert, there are tons of billboards on the way. Here are a few of the highlights:

• "What happens in Vegas doesn't always stay in Vegas. Free STD check, 2 miles."

• "GOD DOESN'T EXIST. www.atheism.com"

• "BUY GUNS HERE. Shoot a machine gun for free!"

• "EXTREME MIDGET WRESTLING" [Picture of midget in crazy costume. Underneath midget are the words "ACTUAL SIZE"]

           Unfortunately, we didn't partake of any guns, STD checks, atheism, or extreme midget wrestling tickets, despite how tempting that last one turned out to be. What we did get were some pretty rockin' 50 cent fake mustaches from Del Taco when we stopped to use the bathroom:

We planned to wear them down to the pool at some point to take sexy mustache pictures in our bathing suits, but we kept forgetting. This will have to do.

The Nerd Within

          My parents have sort of become cool. They have lots of friends on Facebook now, and they actually check their feed at least once a day. I'm so proud to watch them blossom into iPad users and texters, who even occasionally season their messages with emoticons. It's enough to make me tear up. Yet there is one way in which they fail to be cool, and this failure burns at my heart with the ferocity of a thousand flaming suns.

To be entirely fair, this may be considered a dramatization.

          But what is their mortal sin, you ask? They have not read the Harry Potter books, nor do they care. At all. And they meet my enthusiasm for Harry Potter land with eyebrow-raised skepticism, despite my eloquent defenses of it. ("BUT THERE'S A HYPOGRIFF ROLLERCOASTER. YOU CAN HAVE A WAND CHOOSE YOU. THERE. IS. BUTTERBEER!") Granted, I'm not the biggest Harry Potter geek in the world. Despite the fact that I've picked what my house would be (Ravenclaw!), I think that the first few movies sucked, and I've never once dressed up as a character when I went to see them. There are bigger fans than me out there in the world. But at the same time, something about Harry Potter makes me all nerdy inside. 

          My boyfriend knew this about me, and to his eternal credit, he bought me an overpriced wand from Borders, which he immediately regretted as soon as I Wikipedia-ed the list of all the spells and what they did, and went around all day pointing at things with it and shouting the spells at the top of my lungs. 

           "Accio remote!" I would shout from the bed, and Boyfriend would sigh, roll his eyes, and irately get up, grab the remote, and bring it to me while I teehee-ed in glee. 

          

            "You know, I think you're abusing the privilege," he grumbled after I accio-ed several books, tea and his cat. 

             "SILENCIO," I shouted, wide-eyed, pointing the wand at his face. Annoyed to the breaking point, he struggled with me for the wand while I shouted "EXPECTO PATRONUM, EXPECTO PATRONUM," for all the good it did me, before he got it and flung it across the room before we went to bed.

               "Nox," I whispered sulkily while he turned off the light.

              "What did you say?" he asked, ready to get up and break his gift to me in two, like a big jerk Indian-giving jerk face. Jerk. 

               "Night," I shrugged innocently and went to sleep. 

                In the morning, the wand had disappeared, and was never heard from again. 

Las Vegas, or How I Fail At Life

          How does one react when they are a 23 year old girl who has just spent a little under a year stuffing her face with eclairs and cheese, only to cram herself into a bathing suit a mere two weeks after her return, and march outside where everyone can see the flub she has tried to tame by doing sit-ups (twice) since she got back?

           Short answer: badly. The medium length answer is to shout "No, from the chest up! Take the photo from the CHEST. UP."

           The longer answer involves pictures. 

This is what I looked like at the pool in Vegas: 

Note the strategic use of the water line.

This is what I felt like at the pool in Vegas:

The only thing I can say is, at least I'm tanner than a hippopotamus. 

How My Family Spent the Rapture

          I've spent the last few days, including the day of the supposed Rapture, in Sin City, aka Las Vegas. In hindsight, this was a bit of a gamble.

          My fourteen year old brother (the same brother who asked for a Japanese katana sword for Christmas) decided to observe the Rapture in a different style, since he's... let's say "prepared." By that, I mean he's prone to imagining bunker blue prints and what he would do if he were in any given location when the zombie apocalypse were to occur. He reads all the zombie survival guides, keeps canned food in his room, and practices tourniquets. When anyone makes fun of him for doing this, he tells them that they can bleed to death outside of his bunker. Last time I took him to Target and told him to meet me in 20 minutes at the entrance, he showed up holding a giant shovel and a Costco-sized can of whey which he had just purchased. 

          "Um, what do you need that shovel for?" I asked after hiding my most attractive surprise-snort. 

          Completely straight-faced, with the seriousness of a war veteran, he looked me in the eye and simply said, "Digging."

          Yeah, okay. 

     

(To be honest, these two pictures are just to show off how cute my puppy is again.)

          So my parents tell me that while I was flinging myself down water slides and experiencing the joys of being carded again after a year of living in France, my little brother donned his camo suit, grabbed his pellet gun, his army-regulation back pack of supplies, strapped on his gas mask, and stoically headed out to our backyard playground to make base camp, right after unstrapping his gas mask to kiss the dogs goodbye, telling my dad that he hadn't done his homework yet "just in case" and then strapping it in place again. He stayed out there from 2:45 - 3:05 (the Rapture supposedly occurring at 3pm in California), while my parents stared at him through the window, their brows furrowed in concern (or at least indignation that they only got a peace sign thrown up as the dramatic goodbye from their second born). Then, at 3:06, he nonchalantly climbed down from the play structure tower, unencumbered himself of his survival tools, and went to play Black Ops on his X-Box, never mentioning anything about it again. 

          Too bad he had to do his homework, after all. 

Le Hiatus Officially Terminated

          Sorry I may have unintentionally lead readers to believe that I never made it back to the USA alive. I would say that there's no excuse to post so little, but in fact I have tons of excuses: there was my little brother's birthday, my mom's birthday (read: free champagne), my birthday, and a new addition to the family, a puppy who looks so adorably like a stuffed animal that it is surreal:

World, meet Baxter:

The English teddybear goldendoodle with soulful puppy eyes, and a ferocious determination to eat all my pajama pants.

          Overlooking general laziness (simply because it makes me look bad) I also had a period of intense illness, starting with when I boarded the plane and ending a week and a half later, after several boxes of tissues, one heavy-duty antibiotics prescription, and roughly a million instances of my boyfriend trying to cuddle me while I flung him away to have a spastic coughing fit during the best part of a movie we were watching. 

          "I'm um. So glad you're back. So we can be together again," Boyfriend offered weakly while watching me cough up phlegm, retch, and wheeze through my enfeebled nasal pathways. I nodded, sweated profusely, and then fell asleep with my mouth open. He really liked that. 

          I fear all my sexiness may have remained in France. 

I feel the need to end on a health-related comic:

Saying a Conflicted "Au Revoir" to France

         Saying goodbye to France has proved difficile. The country that seemed so intimidating and overwhelming when I first moved here seven months ago, the city full of seemingly impossible tasks like getting a French bank account and phone, has grown to become my second home, full of amazing restaurants and fun friends. Saying goodbye to my students was equally difficult, especially when they did cute things like bake me cake or make me cards which read "C'etait cool avec vous. Merci. Bye," in sincere and heart-felt franglais (If anglais = English, and francais = French, franglais = Spanglish, but for French. And that is as close as you will ever see me come to doing math).

View from the club-boat. Much less glamorous if you only knew that it was taken from the window in the women's restroom. But still.

         My teachers invited me to delicious lunches with eight courses, two of which were cheese. My friends and I celebrated in epic style by partying in péniches, or clubs on boats. (Dance moves were busted. Phones were lost. Good times were had by all.)  We indulged first in drunk-food-kebab the night of, and hang-over-kebab the day after.  There were picnics with Nutella-covered strawberries and chips with as-close-as-we-can-come-to-guacemole, since France has tragically never heard of cilantro. There are the two GIANT suitcases that weigh more than me, fully packed to the brim with scarves, coats, and 13 pairs of shoes, 9 of which I purchased while I was here because I just. Couldn't. Resist. There is my bare and naked looking apartment, stripped of photos, posters, and knick-knacks. 

         There is the sadness of leaving and the excitement of coming home, and the same strange melange of emotions I experienced upon leaving college. There is Mexican food soon to be had, but crepes soon to miss. There are old friends I'll now be able to see, and new friends I'll now have to Skype. I'm leaving someplace incredible to go to somewhere just as familiar and good.

         I just can't decide how I feel. 

Bisous, Lyon! I shall miss you.

          [Editor's Note: Don't worry! This blog will not cease to exist. In fact, so much happened that I never had time to write about, that it will be years before I run out of France-related things to post on here...]

Vraiment?

        So, I was being a literature major the other night, doing literature major-y things like looking up poems online, and adding the suffix "-y" to words to make them suit my needs. I felt in need of a little Walt Whitman, and there, on the page, the French internet decided that along with my classy poetry, what I really needed was some big, French ass:

Really, France? Really?

What is the ideal booty? I don't know France. I'm gonna read sonnets for a while, so you tell me.

Mexican cat is confused. It's probably culture clash.

The Class of 2010 Can Relate, I'm Sure

Treadmill: 1, Melissa: 0

LOL-Cat knows what I'm talking about.

      Last night, feeling fat from a (perhaps overly) decadent dinner of baguette, fois gras, brie, and white wine, I decided to go on a run. I suppose it was my experiment to see how many different ways my body could hate me. The answer? Many. 

          What's bad is going on your first run in two months and feeling pathetic, dehydrated, out of shape, and horrendously sweaty. Maybe, for some reason, your mouth starts to taste like white wine. What's worse is when you realize that the stupid European treadmill is set to kilometers per hour, not miles per hour; so you're actually running even slower than you thought, and still gasping for air like a dying fish. 

          "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!" I felt my body grumbling two minutes into the first mile. Just after the 20 minute mark, I'd say it had escalated into a steady, enraged, scream. 

           "Shut up, body!" I thought back. "We are going to be thin and beautiful, with abs of steel! So, suck it!"

           Venomously embittered, my body decided to play its trump card, and I got a huuuuuuge cramp, not just anywhere, but on both sides of my butt. (If people on the floor below me heard the sound of a dying chimpanzee, rest assured, it was only me, trying to work out in some misguided attempt at la sante.) 

          Not only do my abs look just about the same and as un-steely as ever, but I now have a strong Pavlovian-styled aversion to muscat, which may take a while to go away. I hobbled back to my apartment limping with both legs, and decided that next time, I'm just going to stick to the couch.

One of the last times I was in really great shape, for my birthday. I brought the picture to France as motivational material, but lately it has just been something I stare at mournfully while I shove pain au chocolat in my mouth. :-\

Le Printemps

          And for once, I'm not talking about shopping.

Be on the lookout for Ville Fleurie signs as you travel, because they represent how beautiful the public flower arrangements are in the town. The highest mark is four out of four flowers, and this town, Cassis, scored 3/4. 

          Spring has sprung, thank God, and I can happily see proof all around me. There are daffodils next to my bus stop, they're replanting the rose gardens in the Parc de la Tete d'Or, and leaves and blossoms are sprouting on the trees lining the avenues and the rivers. As someone who has never spent more than a month and a half outside California, I'm filled with the reassuring sense that things are becoming normal again.

The lake behind my favorite château of the Loire Valley, Château Azay le Rideau.

          Fall in France will always remind me of scarves, beautiful walks to school, and exploring the Loire Valley as it turned red, orange, and fold. Winter was a frightening time for me, and will always remind me of being bewildered and shivering, lost in dismal alien territory, clutching my numb fists in my pockets and pacing as I waited for the bus so that I wouldn't freeze in place. 

          But with spring, the tourist attractions are now open both earlier and later. The shops are filled with coral, white, and khaki clothes that I'm stocking up on as if they'll soon be currency. (Ok, so maybe I'm talking about shopping a little.) Everyone can eat outside at the cafes, which makes my neighborhood seem much more alive. If I so choose, I can go to work in my new, light-weight white trench coat, flats, and only one pair of pants, and I won't freeze to death! Life is good.

Flowers in Cannes

My April Fool's Day in France

The chocolate fish that you can find in stores everywhere around April 1st

Real French Fact #12: The French call April Fool's Day Poisson d'Avril, or April Fish. That is because they're a little limited on the sorts of pranks they pull, and by "limited" I mean exactly one joke-- putting paper fish on people's backs. (One fellow English Assistant who didn't know about this tradition came home with her back covered in little fish that said "I love you," among other things.) Oh, the French. They certainly know how to run one single joke into the ground over, and over, and over. 

          Despite being seemingly unrelated, I assure you it is a relevant fact that I think babies are wonderful. I love watching them, playing with them, and "Awwww!"-ing over how ridiculously small their shoes are. But I'm literally the only person my age I know who enjoys their miniature presence. All of my friends are disgusted by them. In their eyes, the fact that I would be anything but indifferent to their adorable pudge makes me the Crazy Baby Lady. I think that this is a little unfair. I'm 22 and thus far have never had a baby-- this should be a factor in my favor. As should the fact that I plan on waiting a good, long time before ever popping one out, so to speak. Just because I enjoy babies doesn't make me crazy, but I'm always aware of how my friends perceive my adoration, so I try to hide it, to be normal. Or at least not relentlessly mocked. 

          This was especially difficult on April Fool's Day at a restaurant in Vieux Lyon with my boyfriend, the most important person to hide my babymania from. I was facing a baby at another table, and my boyfriend was across our table from me, back to it, oblivious to its existence. Silently, I absorbed the baby's saggy little jeans, his teeny sneakers, and his cute mini, button-up dress shirt. My eyes flickered towards him once and a while, as I also concentrated on listening to my boyfriend. I will not stare at the baby, I will not stare at the baby, I will not stare at the baby.

         "France has been really fun," Boyfriend was saying, and I nodded, acutely aware that Baby was wiggling off his chair with a ferocious determination and tottering around. "I really liked the museum too," continued Boyfriend. The baby fell on his butt, blinked in shock, and stood up again. I pressed my lips together to hold in the exclamations of cuteness. I WILL NOT STARE AT THE BABY.

          "Oh, I thought the Roman ruins were the best," I added, no doubt sounding slightly strangled. The baby had it's foot in it's mouth. He stared at me with his giant eyes.

          "Yeah!" said Boyfriend. "It was-- Mel?" He raised an eyebrow. I must have been red in the face trying not to implode, or to wave and make a silly face, the way Crazy Baby Lady would.

          "Yeeeeees?" I squeaked, tearing my eyes away. Boyfriend turned around, saw the baby, and instantly understood, shooting m the exact look I had been trying to avoid, a look that said: "Your womb is like a baby-hungry monster, isn't it?"

          "IT IS NOT," I was about to glare with my eyes, when all of a sudden the baby turned around. 

          "AWWWWWWOMG IT HAS A LITTLE FISH STUCK TO HIS BACK! THAT IS SO CUTE! OMG! OMG!" I froze, and into my brain popped the idea that had to dispel Crazy Baby Lady rumors.  So I added, "... Um. But. I don't want children or anything." He stared at me, skeptical and confused. Frantically I continued, digging myself deeper and deeper into the Psychotic Girlfriend Hole: "You know. Yet." 

          Shit. 

          "...Eventually. But not now, at all. Just at a normal... time... uh." Boyfriend watched me silently for a moment while I attempted to physically suck the words back into my mouth.

          "You realize that means someone pranked a baby, right?" Boyfriend said.

          "Yes, isn't it CUTE? It's a tiny fish! Cause he's tiny! Get it? Get it?! ...I'm not crazy!"

          You ever notice how saying "I'm not crazy!" never sounds credible, ever? Yeah. I think I lost this round.

On the bright side, I can now share with you this cute baby in a beret that we passed in Nice. On the down side, I'm now a super creepy person who takes pictures of babies in the street. :-\

List of Goals

Disclaimer: This picture is actually more a depiction of my emotional state, which is "fatty fat-fat" coupled with "remorse."

• Work out A LOT so as not to return to the U.S. in one month as a jiggly mound of flab. (If the phrase "jiggly mount of flab" just made you shudder a little bit, it should.)
• Try every flavor of macaroon and eclair that France has to offer before I leave.
• Attempt to reconcile Goal #1 and Goal #2.
• Start posting daily or at least every other day again. 

       Fortunately for you, Goal #4 is the most likely of the list, shortly followed by #2. Unfortunately, the combination of Boyfriend, work, trips to the Riviera and tons of tourism around the city to show Boyfriend the sights have left me with an incredibly happy and fulfilling life, without much time to be on the internet, or use the computer for much else besides marathons of Fringe. And yes, I just named-dropped "trips to the Riviera" like an asshole. 

          Perhaps you can forgive me for that and my recent absence if I shower you with cute animal videos?

          Is.... it.... working?

Things That Are Making Me Happy Right Now:

1. My mom has responded to my request for pity a few pages back and has sent me a care package full of kettle corn, chocolate, and most importantly, GIRL SCOUT COOKIES. Hell yes.
2. Spending an hour of my Saint Patrick's Day en France in a metro station, drinking 3 euro champagne with my friends to Jagged Edge's "Where the Party At" playing from someone's lap top, while waiting for others to meet us and ignoring the curious glances of strangers.
3. Watching my boyfriend get increasingly invested in the show Fringe as we get farther along in the series. I should be outside, showing him the sights of Lyon. Instead, we spend hours on the couch streaming episodes online, yelling for Olivia to run faster so she doesn't get hit by the train. 
4. Oscar Wilde, who gave us such gems as "I can resist everything but temptation." I love mass, group-effort art, and his grave at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris reminds me a little bit of projects like postsecret.com. 

          The grave is not only covered in flowers, kisses and lipstick, but more interestingly, also expressions in both English and French that are by the author. 

"All art is essentially inessential."

          Even more touching than the quotes are the letters to Wilde, where people thank him, saying that his books have changed their life. They're either scrawled on the grave itself, or placed at the foot of the grave with stones on top to keep them in place.

On the lower left side: "Life imitates art more than art imitates life."

          If you've seen the film "Paris, Je T'aime," you might remember the part where a couple is in Pere Lachaise and the woman describes Oscar Wilde's last words, which are perhaps the funniest of all time. Dying in a low-end hotel in Paris, just before he drew his last breath, he said "Either this wallpaper goes, or I do." Gotta love this man.

Forgive My Tangent; I'm Frequently Distracted by Insanity

           I realize that this is not technically French, or on topic in any way, but I couldn't help but notice that lately, Charlie Sheen has become what doctors refer to as "bat-shit crazy." That is the technical term. He's been fired from his TV show, which only leaves him more time to participate in train-wreck interviews, and hang out with his beloved hookers and his other best friend, the mountain of cocaine that no doubt resides in his living room, next to the sofa. But somewhere in between his efforts to kill his career and his ex-wife, he has found the time to give us some pretty amazing sound bytes. Here are some of my personal favorites:

• “I am on a drug – it’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available because if you try it, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.”
• “I’m different. I have a different constitution, I have a different brain, I have a different heart. I got tiger blood, man.”

Charlie Sheen.

• “I’m tired of pretending I’m not a total bitchin’ rock star from Mars.”
• “We work for the pope, we murder people. We’re Vatican assassins. How complicated can it be? What they’re not ready for is guys like you and I and Nails and all the other gnarly gnarlingtons in my life, that we are high priests, Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom. Print that, people.”

Jay Alexander of America's Next Top Model does not approve, slowly edges away.