The parents, the intern and the picnic

The parents
The parents were here last week, thus the lack of posting. What? Oh, yes, lack of posting can't be blamed on the parents. They came to town with their beagle and left her with us for four whole days. My brother and his wife eloped on Groundhog Day (thank you, brother, for sparing me the pain of a wedding) and decided to throw a par-tay for everyone in their world. So the parents come, stayed with us for a few days, left their dog with us for a few days and came back to get said dog. If you're playing along at home, yes, we had four fucking beagles in our house at one time. I did not sleep. Not kidding.


(And, no, I hadn't planted my summer annuals yet, I'm a little busy. Back off.)

But these parents of mine. Oy. They are in their 60s, which to me is not that old. But they are of the generation that must sit in the living room whilst drinking iced tea and enjoying pleasant conversation. I'm so over pleasant conversation. Especially when sober. It's got to be a known torture method watched by Amnesty International. Since the parents are die-hard Bush/Cheney conservatives (hey look, it's two of the 22% who still like them) and non-drinkers (worse in my opine), our topics are limited to: family, childhood, weather, lawn maintenance and snack foods.

It's like Madlibs, really. Play along:

When I was 12 (or 8 or 5) and we went to:
a) the Grand Canyon, b) the motorhome trip, c) Disneyland, and
i) I met this crazy Arab kid who wanted to kiss me, ii) I got sick from licorice ice cream, iii) our beagle Holly Hooters, and
1) it was really hot that day, 2) the rain wouldn't let up so we played poker, 3) the snow was this high

You could insert "parents," "brothers," "dogs," or "guy we met in Canada" for all those options and the game would still work.
Ohhh, it's so much fun. If you were drunk. Which I wasn't. Not even close.

The Intern
I'm all official and shit 'cus I hired an intern. She's super cute. She's doing all sorts of intern-y stuff that I don't want to do. Right now she's developing a mission statement. I personally can't stand mission statements, but it floats her boat so what do I care? She's also doing a competitive analysis of all them competitors out there. Meanwhile, I sit back and catch up on some lost drinky time.

We meet once a week and then I'm taking her to all sorts of "business" functions. Networking things, leads groups, bars, taverns, shanties, etc. It's like having a mini-me but with way more energy. We talk about Facebook and lipgloss and compare our cute cell phones. It's awesome.

The picnic
It's June so it must be time for the annual beagle pic-i-nic. Rocky, aka Champ, looking to avenge his abysmal 4th place finish in the 2006 Musical Plates trained all year for just 5 minutes in the ring. His hard work for Scooby Snacks payed off this year. That's right, Rocky kicked all those woosy beagle asses and is the current reigning gold medalist in Musical Plates! As a dog parent, I couldn't be more proud. Working on pics. Damn fancy cameras. But I'm really proud.

We tried to whore out Lexi but a picnic is hard on beagles. She wanted to catch up on her required 18 hours of nap time. And so she did. In the shade. All alone. Off leash. For an hour. Paddi discovered the agility course and loved it. She'd do anything for a liver treat (and I mean anything, check out her myspace page if you don't believe me) so we used them to train her. She got the ramp in about two attempts, then we couldn't get her to stop.

The best thing about the beagle picnic is the post-picnic napping. Olympic style naps were had by all. With hooch.