The Toasted Tomato

“One, two, three, four five,

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,

Eleven, Twe-e-e-e-e-e-e-elve!”

Sound familiar? Immediately stuck in your head even?

Then you, like me, spent an entire childhood watching Sesame Street in the early 80s, the best kids’ show just about ever.

Every morning before my afternoon kindergarten started and after my bowl of Cream of Wheat (with butter and brown sugar, of course), I would head straight to the basement in time to catch the theme song of the Street. Remember it? Who can forget? “Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away, on my way to where the air is sweet.”

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If my husband and I had to identify with one of the couples in the movie Best in Show, we would be Hamilton and Meg Swan, the uptight duo (she has adult braces, he favors turtlenecks) whose own neuroses screw up their pooch.

If we are one of the couples in the movie National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, we are most definitely Todd and Margo Chester, the equally uptight twosome who are constantly being imposed upon by the unruliness of their neighbors.

So, when it came to dog ownership, no one accused us of being too laid back about it.

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Anyone know what a play bow is?

What about a prey bow?

Or a whale eye?

I can now say I’m in possession of these answers, thanks to Caroline Short and Puppy School 101. Our puppy Fitzi started five weeks ago and, I’ll tell you, it’s been fascinating.

This, of course, because he’s the meanest student in the class.

Whoops!

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I was listening to NPR last week when I heard some important news that may not have hit the front page of The Sentinel.

The thimble, the wheelbarrow and the trusty boot have gotten the axe.

A T-Rex, a rubber ducky and a penguin are taking their place.

For now, the Scottie dog, the top hat, the cat, the car and the battleship are safe.

For most of you, it’s enough to speak in nouns, but for the rest not as up to date, No, I’m not speaking in spy code names. I’m talking about Monopoly, one of the best board games on the planet.

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It’s in this kind of weather at this time of year that, if you could choose, you wouldn’t get out of bed. Or, at least, if you did get out of bed, you wouldn’t move much farther than the couch.

To be clear, it’s not that the weather is particularly trying. I mean, we’re not in the Arctic like king penguins huddled together en masse incubating eggs in this special pouch by our feet. It’s not like that.

But there is this degree of hardship that comes with a cold snap in the mid- to late-portion of March.

Do we label it ennui? Seems like that would be reserved for the doldrums of August. Is it malaise though? Possibly. It’s definitely some kind of philosophical French word that conveys a degree of world weariness.

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Oh god, I am so sorry about this. I have spent the last 30 minutes trying to come up with a different column topic than what you are about to read and nada, folks, nada. I’ll try to pick up a new hobby in the next few weeks so you can read about needlepoint or leather working or something equally fascinating. Maybe I’ll attend one of those painting classes where a group of women each paint a peacock or a boat in a sunset. We’ll at least have a good time laughing about how my peacock looks like a billy goat. But in the meantime — aside from the obvious question of, “What exactly is a billy goat?” — I just have to write about my dog.

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This week, let’s give it up for Kentucky men, shall we? What a great bunch they are, don’t you think? Talk about knowing how to treat someone like a lady.

Take just a few minutes ago. A warning light turned on in my car indicating that I needed 1 psi of air in my passenger rear tire. Obviously, the first question this prompted was: What’s a psi? Second: How was I going to get 1 psi of air into my tire? And most importantly: How was I going to get 1 psi of air into my tire without screwing anything up?

I’ve seen those air hoses at the gas station hanging in a weary tangle on the wall. I’ve seen that my tire has a nozzle on it that should theoretically accommodate such a hose. However, the process of getting the air from the hose into the nozzle and thus into the tire, well, that just seemed overwhelming.

So of course I went to O’Reilly’s Auto Parts (now we have to sing: “O-O-O-O’Reilly’s! Autoparts”) because that’s where I go whenever anything is wrong and that’s the auto parts store I choose exclusively because of its catchy jingle. I breathlessly explained my problem and was patiently directed to Walmart, where they (who knew?) have a lube and tire place around back.

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So there we were at the vet. It was 9 a.m. on a Tuesday and Fitzi, our brand new Boston terrier puppy, needed booster shots.

This wasn’t our first rodeo. The first time we’d gone, Fitzi was plunked on the scale to be weighed. Had his mouth pried open to be inspected. Had his testicles prodded fairly rigorously. Finally, when the tech shoved a thermometer up his bum to get his temperature, Fitzi just looked at me and said, “Are you serious with this?”

The vet hadn’t been the bearer of great news either. First off, Fitzi had worms. Second, he had fleas. Third, one of his testicles hadn’t descended. Fourth, his heart sounded “pretty good.”

Anyway, this go-around, Fitzi was going to get stuck with needles in addition to the rest so I was feeling pretty sorry for him even before we arrived. Was he going to be sore? Would it make him nauseated? Would he have a reaction?

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The smoothie. Oh me, oh my, what a complicated little drink. At first glance, it could be synonymous with a treat, an indulgence. Not quite a milkshake, you say to yourself, but pretty close. But then you start mulling things over. There’s not going to be chocolate or vanilla in there. And the smoothies of today are not the creamsicle-like concoctions of the 1990s.

It’s at this point that the smoothie starts to be connoted with slight apprehension, maybe even dread. Because if we really think it through, we know exactly what’s going to be inside the glass in the year 2017: a whole bunch of healthy stuff that doesn’t belong in what we would normally consider a drink.

I was intimately introduced with both these concepts of indulgence and reluctance last week when I started my first cleanse. It was Monday morning and I was standing beside my blender hovering a kale leaf over the top of it wondering how in the heck it had come to this.

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If someone sounded like they were performing verbal cartwheels in our subdivision at 4 a.m. last night, that was me. Dressed in a 20-year-old fleece and my cooking clogs, it wasn’t a pretty sight. But our new baby boy puppy Fitzgerald pooped and peed outside and I was willing to throw him a party.

In fact, I’m learning I’m willing to do just about anything for this dog. Right now, he is conked out on his bed, his chin settled on the fuzzy corner, and is moan-barking slightly in his dream. It is taking everything I am just to sit here and continue typing instead of going closer to stare at him. Everything he does, in my opinion, is so ridiculously cute that I don’t want to miss a second.

Last night, our routine game of Yahtzee was frequently halted because the three of us simply wanted to watch the dog. I mean, I didn’t even want to tally my points and I won the second game. But Fitzi was going ballistic with his Kong pacifier and then with his sock monkey squeaker toy and then decided to nose dive into every corner of his bed. By the end, he was so riled up he was on his back writhing and barking at himself.

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