Hot Fun in the Summertime

Last weekend, it was 99 degrees, one degree shy of the record here in Denver. Imagine how hot that feels to my Boyz in their permanent fur coats?  So I hired a contractor and had a $50,000 pool installed in the backyard.

Or maybe I went to K-Mart and spent $14.99 for this plastic number:

It may look familiar to you. Because this is the fourth one The Zadge has purchased in two years. The other three lasted less than 24 hours before Marley Harry ate the damn things.

Here's The Shone running and jumping into the pool:

Now does this look like a dog who is letting cancer get the better of him?!

Of course, once he gets all nice and wet, The Shone insists on doing his now famous Shone Roll in the newly-laid and expensive sod dirt:


But what a happy Shone!


Harry digs the pool too:


I dare say that our little scoundrel actually may be growing up because it's been 48 hours and he has shown no sign of trying to eat the pool like he did the other three!! In fact, he sort of acts like a normal dog in a pool:

He dives in with his frisbee.


He dives in with his Kong.


He chillaxes.


Uh, he tries to dig a hole to China through the plastic?


Ok, so maybe he's not so normal after all!!

On how The Zadge dumped Keith Urban for a real Stud

The Zadge had a very hot date Saturday night.

With her new boyfriend:

The Zadge and PugMama headed up to the Greeley Stampede, an annual two week-long pro rodeo in Greeley, Colorado.  In the evenings, the Stampede has pretty big musical acts perform.

Like my boo, Keith Urban. 

Now the Greeley Stampede is coun-tree folks, with a capital C!  There were handsome cowboys that showed us where to park:

Can you hear The Zadge saying, "Giddyup!"?

There were covered wagons:

Oops! Who took the cover?

There was also a slice of Americana:


And gourmet food:


Then there was my boo:


He had all the Cowgirls in the joint shaking their thang:


The Zadge and PugMama were having a good ole' Western time:


Then suddenly, Keith ran out into the crowd, looking for his boo, The Zadge:


But The Zadge had met a bigger, stronger male, and Yee-Haw, was he taking her for a ride!!!



Sorry Keith, my new boo "Star" has bigger horns than you!

Cool as a Cucumber!

The Zadge is one hot chick - because it reached 99 degrees here in Denver today!

Given that Old Vicky was built in 1896 - before the invention of central air conditioning - The Zadge was definitely not chillin' today.  The thought of turning on the professional stove that can warm the house in a nanosecond to make dinner was not very appealing.

So The Zadge tried out a recipe that Moomskers sent her a few weeks ago - it's the perfect cool summer salad.  I took the liberty of adding fresh mozzarella to the recipe and I must say it was a good choice!

Try it and I guarantee you too will be cool as a cucumber!

Tomato, Avocado, Cucumber and Chickpea Salad

Ingredients:

• • Zest and freshly squeezed juice from 1 large lemon (about 2 teaspoons zest and 1/4 cup juice)
• • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (I'd recommend using a bit more EVOO - the lemon is strong!)
• • 1 teaspoon ground cumin, or to taste
• • 1/2 teaspoon salt
• • 1/4 teaspoon sugar (I didn't use this and it tasted fine.)
• • Freshly ground black pepper
• • 1 cup cooked chickpeas (if using canned chickpeas, rinse and drain them) (Uh hello? Canned! It's 100 degrees - no cooking allowed!)
• • 8 ounces small seedless (English) cucumbers, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (2 cups) (oh for the love of god, American cukes are fine.)
• • 8 ounces tomato, peeled and seeded if desired (who has the energy?), cut into 1/2-inch dice (1 cup)
• • 3 or 4 scallions or spring onions, white and light-green parts, finely chopped (1/3 cup)
• • 1/3 cup loosely packed, finely chopped flat-leaf parsley (about 12 stems)
• • Flesh of 1 ripe avocado (9 to 10 ounces), cut into 1/2-inch dice (their use of the word "flesh" sort of creeps me out)
 
Then add lots of dices of fresh creamy mozzarella!

Directions:

Whisk together the lemon zest and juice, oil, cumin, salt, sugar and pepper in a large bowl.  Add the remaining ingredients, mix well and enjoy!

How a pack of cougars and a Canadian fox combine to put Our Girl in a Convent

Last night, in an effort to make the Year of the Boyfriend more of a reality, our middle-aged dating heroine attended an outdoor freakshow party at a local restaurant owned by the most famous quarterback in Denver Broncos' history.  It's a weekly event in the summer, featuring live bands and known to attract lots of "middle-aged singles."

Unfortunately, the crowd was not quite as winning as Mr. Elway.  In fact, the crowd was so scary, that The Zadge left the party in less than 75 minutes, figuring that cleaning up the two piles of dog poop and seven piles of dog vomit she found all over the house was a better alternative than staying at the freakshow.  (Don't worry - it's just Harry and his usual I-ate-something-I-shouldn't-have shenanigans.)

Of the hundreds of people there, apparently the only normal, natural ones were those that The Zadge went with, Babe the Builder and her friend:


Every other woman was dressed like she did not read the "How to Age Gracefully" handout, being instead too absorbed in the "How much Silicone and Collagen can one body Handle?" handout.  Hoards and hoards of women in their 50's and 60's dressed like they were 22-year old skanks going to a club in Miami on a Saturday night.   Not a good look on said 22-year old skank.  Horrific on a woman old enough to be her grandmother.  These were worn by a 65-year old woman in a miniskirt:


There was one pink nut that The Zadge loved -  in her early 60's, wearing skintight black leggings, highlighted by pink vinyl 5 inch stilettos, pink shirt, pink nails, pink bag and screaming pink lipstick.  The Zadge tried to get Babe the Builder to take a picture of the senior Pinky Tuscadero by pretending to take a photo of The Zadge but the camera couldn't even process all the pink:

So The Zadge flees the middle-aged meat market.  As she walks despondently to her car, thinking that is all there is to middle-aged single life, her phone buzzes.  She looks down.

It's a text message from The Canadian.  Yes, the very same guy I blogged about just a few days ago who had dropped off the face of the earth.

I read the text message.  I shake my head to clear the cougar-cobwebs from the party and read it again.  I still don't really understand it.  It seems to suggest that he is starting his vacation this Friday and is coming to visit. 

Say whah???  Now, the text message wasn't totally clear - more along the lines of "my vacation starts Friday, things have been nuts [uh, read: sorry I haven't called], and there's lots to see and do!"

The Zadge decides that he is floating a test balloon to see if The Zadge would still be amenable to a visit despite the radio silence of a month.  The Zadge decides to float back an equally non-committal text.

Because here's the thing: previously, Cute Young Cananadian said he was coming in mid-June and my friends, it is now NOT MID-JUNE, it is the END OF JUNE BEGINNING OF JULY! So now, The Zadge has plans.  She is meeting up with her soon-to-be-boyfriend Keith Urban on Saturday night.  (Ok, so perhaps that's a zadge.  She's really just going to his concert.)  And after that, she has a JOB that she has to go to during the week.  And after that she is heading to Santa Fe for a week long photography workshop.

So giving The Zadge two days notice of an impending international visit doesn't really fly with her.

Now she is waiting for his reply.  But not really.  Because she is already shopping convents to enter after she returns from Santa Fe and gives up dating for all perpetuity.

This is your cat on drugs.

Somebody whispered in my ear recently that she wasn't getting enough airtime.  That the crazy younger canine and the sweet, old canine were stealing her thunder.  That she felt out of touch with her blogging fans.

So The Zadge thought she'd try to make Tulip feel better by giving her a little treat.  This is the catmint (the Sista would insist that I call it by its proper name, Nepeta) that The Zadge planted a few weeks ago in her garden:

Now Tulip, being both an indoor cat and a goody two shoes, has never experimented with catmint, the crack cocaine of the feline world.  So The Zadge cut off a few stalks and brought it up to Tulip's room (yes, she has her own room).  At first, Tulip wasn't quite sure what to do with it:


But that didn't last long:


The rolling, the licking, the ecstasy went on and on and on:


Hours later, Tulip was high as a kite and looked like the cat crack-head that she has become:

Warning: Do not try this at home with your cats!

The Longest Day of the Year of the Boyfriend

2010 was supposed to be The Zadge's Year of the Boyfriend.  Well, my peeps, here we are, smack in the middle of the year, and there ain't no boyfriend no where to be seen here in the Rocky Mountains.

Well, there is Liam Neeson, but he's still grieving the death of Natasha, so we'll give him until 2011.

There was that little frolic and detour in Mexico with the Cute Young Canadian.  Who had been sending The Zadge romantic e-mails and song clips, promising a visit in mid-June.

Mid-June, people.  Wouldn't we all agree that June 21 qualifies as mid-June?  But CYC has not contacted The Zadge since he sent her birthday wishes a month ago.  Now, perhaps the Canadians use a different calender system to calculate mid-June?  I think not.  Alas, The Zadge's cougar conquest seems destined to remain a distant vacation memory.

That's one of the reasons our desperate intrepid heroine signed up for Match.com last week.  Just one week in and The Zadge is thinking about checking herself into a convent. 

Her hopes were temporarily high when she received two e-mails in one day from cute, seemingly normal guys.  One was the swim coach at one of the universities in Denver - 6'4", cute, had a Masters, wrote a very flattering e-mail to The Zadge.  The Zadge responded, and while she waited for his reply, she started to think that the whole swim coach thing sounded familiar.  A search through her old e-mails uncovered an almost identical e-mail from the Swim Coach two years ago, the last time The Zadge was on Match!  And just like two years ago, Swim Coach has never responded to The Zadge's reply e-mail. 

Flakes, flakes, flakes - that is all that Match.com appears to be filled with.

Or men who e-mail you, like the second cute guy last week, and you exchange witty e-mail banter, and just as you are about to finalize the details of your date, he discloses that Match.com just sent him a warning e-mail that he can't be on the singles dating site anymore because he is actually MARRIED.  Which he then goes on to confess is, in fact, true, but that his divorce will be finalized in just a few short four months!  And then he goes on for a few more lines about all the emotional and financial strife about his divorce.

To which The Zadge politely replies, "Get the fuck away from me you lying sack of emotional baggage shit."

The Zadge's future on Match.com does not look bright.

So what's a girl to do here in the Year of the Boyfriend?  She did borrow a book from a friend called "How to Find a Husband after 35, using the Harvard MBA method."  She had hope because remember that study that came out that said a woman over 35 was more likely to be in a terrorist attack then find a husband?  Well, The Zadge in fact has been in two of our nation's most prominent terrorist attacks, so she thought her odds were pretty good on finding a husband after 35!

Then she read the first chapter that listed all of the things you MUST do in order to get married as a Golden Girl, which included things like devote 20 freakin' percent of your income to the pursuit, notify every single living, breathing person you know on the planet that you are single and need a husband, and -- here's the kicker -- never, ever cut your hair short.  Men, it appears, just won't marry a woman with short hair.

This is where The Zadge stopped reading, because, have you seen The Zadge's haircut?

The Zadge is now at a bit of a loss on what to do next for The Year of the Boyfriend.  She did receive in the mail today complimentary calling cards from the nice women who just started up GreenLightCard.com, where you hand out a card to someone you see that you think you would like to meet and they log onto the site to get your contact info.

Of course, that would require The Zadge to actually see someone who sparks her interest.  Which doesn't seem to be happening much these days.

But then again, she is going to see Keith Urban on Saturday night.  So maybe she'll be able to get close enough to the stage to give Keith the "green light!" 

Saturday Sayin's

(which, by the way, was one of The Zadge's nicknames in her youth!)

Shone in a Cone

Loser Man Day

I don't know if you noticed, but today was LOSER MAN Day!!  Shall we recap?

Numero Uno Loser Man of the Day: 
From the People's Republic of Texas (Sorry Dawn!), meet Congressman Joe Barton.

This Loser thought it was a good idea during the Congressional Hearings on the hellish BP Oil Spill this morning to freakin' APOLOGIZE to the CEO of BP for Obama's insistence yesterday that BP set up a $20 million escrow fund to compensate the thousands of victims of BP's gross negligence.

A-POL-O-GIZED.  To the CEO who said, not 3 weeks ago, that he was working so hard that he "wants his life back" when questioned about whether BP was doing enough to stop the leak.

People, our taxes pay this bonehead loser's salary!

Loser Man of the Day #2:

Jeremy London, former TV star of shows like "Party of Five" (a show The Zadge used to love) and "7th Heaven" (one she did not).  Poor Jeremy called the police in California last week at 2:35 in the morning, reporting that he had been kidnapped at gunpoint, his car had been stolen and ... are you ready for it.... his kidnappers forced him to do drugs!

Friends, The Zadge has seen the "E!" in-depth story about Jeremy's life and that is why she knows that Jeremy is a hard core drug addict, who lost his career, his money, his wife and child, and, apparently, his jawline, due to his drug addiction.  He was last in rehab not 7 months ago.  And is in the middle of a bitter custody dispute.  So, really Jeremy, you expect us to believe that some random baddies just picked you, the recovering addict, out of all of the people in California to kidnap and force to smoke THEIR drugs?!  Seriously?  Because drug users are sooo eager to give away their drugs to strangers.

Loser Dude of the Day #3: Now you probably haven't yet heard about Loser Dude #3 because he showed up in The Zadge's inbox today.  "Dewayne" e-mailed me on Match.com today.  It was a one line e-mail that said (and I have corrected the spelling and grammatical errors for your reading pleasure), "Your dogs are cute. How old are they?  I have a one year old lab."  I clicked on his profile.  This isn't a picture of him, but this is what his mustache looked like in his profile picture:

Upon further reading of his profile, I learned a) he was illiterate and b) he loaded trucks in a warehouse.  That, combined with the 'stash, led me to hit the "No Thanks" button that Match.com kindly provides with each e-mail you receive.

But Dewayne wouldn't go away.  No, no, he had to send me an e-mail that read, "I wasn't interested in you, I was asking about your dogs."

Well, The Zadge just couldn't resist.  She replied to El Mustacho, "Well then you should be on a dog site, because this is a dating site.  I was just trying to be polite by using the response provided by Match."

You know what's coming, right?  Loser Dewayne replied.  He said, "You should get over yourself becaus [sic] not everyone is interested in you."  Welcome to my dating life friends.

Loser Man of the Day #4: Well, actually, it's plural "men."  And I'm hoping it's the Lakers.  Because The Zadge really doesn't like Kobe Bryant and really wants the Irish to win, but she is not hopeful....

....but, to end this loser post on a positive note, there is one big Winning Man of The Day:

The Shone!!!  The vet called today and told us that the latest xrays show that he does NOT have the dreaded bone cancer in his ribs that they suspected!  He is still going to have to undergo radiation for the cancer they couldn't remove from his paw, but that has a much better prognosis (other than for The Zadge's bank account) than the bone cancer.

Yea Shone!!!

The Zadge's Faux Tupperware Party

Remember growing up, when your mother would go to Tupperware parties?  All the neighborhood housewives would get together at some mom's house, pretend they were going to buy freezer containers for their meatloaf, when really, they just needed an excuse to get out of the house and away from the kids, and tie one on with the other desperate housewives?

Flash forward 40 years.  The Zadge hosted a Tupperware party at Old Vicky tonight.  And the girls came to tie one on!

A necklace, that is.  Or a cute pair of sparkly earrings.  Or  a trio of bangles for our wrists.  See, The Zadge hosted a Stella & Dot jewelry party.  Stella & Dot is this adorable and affordable jewelry line sold only at private parties.  Like your mother's tupperware but so much more wearable!

Ok, so there were no housewives at The Zadge's tupperware party. And there was no one looking to buy a seal-tight container for their weekly meatloaf.

Instead, we had some career gals quaffing wine, plus some "petite quiche" and  "smoked pork sausage wrapped in croissant" (uh, pigs in a blanket), more wine, other pastry-encrusted things you can buy at Target and pop in the oven for 15 minutes to look like a gourmand, and then some strawberries dipped in dark and white chocolate.



The Zadge had all these great visions of photographing this party, highlighting the great women and all the pretty baubles.

But by now, you know what happens to The Zadge when she hosts a party and starts drinking her own Kool-aid --  she completely forgets to pick up that camera that she carries everywhere!

So you'll just have to take her word for it, that The Zadge's Stella and Dot party was fun, fun, fun.  Just ask soon-to-be-three-year-old-Baby-Hazz, who came to the party and was assigned the very serious job of finding where Tulip was hiding....


...and who was also in charge of making sure The Shone and Harry behaved themselves:


and if you check out the tupperware jewelry and decide you must have it, let me know! I'll hook you up with the Best Tupperware Dealer in town!

Random Monday Musings

1.  Why don't British singers have a British accent when they sing?

2.  The Zadge can't wait until Sarah Palin is merely a little known answer to a trivia question.

3.  No matter how hard she tries, which is not at all, The Zadge just does not understand the Twilight phenomenon.

4.  Or how anyone can stomach "The Bachelor."

5.  Gary Coleman found a spouse.  The Zadge has not been able to.  Discuss.

6.  Why can't the land just be divided equally between Palestine and Israel?

7.  The Zadge just knows the Celtics will beat the Lakers.

8.  The Zadge has a big crush on The Coach from "Friday Night Lights."  Not that she'd kick Riggins out of the sack.

9.  Not that The Coach or Riggins is knocking down her door.  Which may be one contributing reason why she signed up for Match.com last night.  As this was her first responder, she is already regretting it:

Saturday Sayin's

The Fin and the Chickens

Pardon the unabashed boasting, but for the love of god, how freakin' cute is The Zadge's nephew?

Happy Flowers for a Happy Birthday

The Hazz and her hubby threw themselves a joint 40th birthday party Saturday night:


The Zadge did the flowers for the party:


She wanted them to be bright and happy, just like the Birthday Girl:






The party was a good time, and everyone was happy, just like the flowers! Happy Birthday Hazz and Hazz Hubby!

The Night the Lights went out in Denver

The Zadge was singing the Vicki Lawrence blues last night.  Remember that cheesy song she sang in the '70's, "The Night the Lights went out in Georgia?"

Ok, to those few readers of this blog who were not alive in the 70's, just cut me some slack please.

Well, the lights went out in Denver last night.  All night long.

This is what The Zadge saw at 6:30 p.m. last night when she was walking Harry back from his playdate at the park:

At first, she thought, "My god, the Gulf oil spill has really spread!"  Then she learned that an electric substation just a few blocks from her house had just exploded!

As did her very exciting plans for the evening, which were dependent on electricity that does not get sent to Old Vicky when your local electric company is burning to the ground.  So no TV, no internet, no blogging, no phone, no lights, and no air conditioning on the hottest day of the year!

What's a Zadge to do?  Well, first things first, you can't let the important things in the refrigerator go bad, right?  Like the ice cubes, the limes and the Ketel One in the freezer.

Cool drink in hand, The Zadge thinks, "This isn't so bad.  I'll read out on the deck."  She calmly reads a novel on the back deck with her Boyz at her feet in the hour of remaining daylight.

The sun sets.  It's still hot as shit.  There is still no electricity anywhere to be seen in The Zadge's neighborhood.  She saves some more ice cubes and vodka from perish.

Hmmm, now what, I think to myself as I light candles all over the house.  Being The Zadge that I am, I start to imagine the streets teeming with crazed criminals looking to break into and pillage all the poor dark houses in my 'hood, including my own.  I start planning my defensive attack back at the crazed criminals.  I then talk myself off the scary crime-victim ledge.

It's too hot in the house, so I go back outside to the deck.  I pretend I'm Half Pint on the Prairie and try to read more by candlelight.  Apparently, Half Pint didn't have 46-year old eyes.  I give up the reading effort and decide to just sit on the deck with my drink and enjoy the quiet.

I can barely hear myself swallow over the unending sirens and dog barking coming from every corner of the neighborhood.  Oh, and toss in my next door neighbor's security alarm, which is beeping every 30 seconds ad nauseam because he wasn't home to shut it off. 

I decide to go inside and spend some quality time with Jackson and Harry, who unlike every other dog in the 'hood, are completely nonplussed by the drama unfolding around them.  But cuddling with The Shone, I start to cry thinking about his cancer situation and my eyes start to swell shut.
 
Out of options, I decide to just call it an early night.  Except that The Zadge's bedroom is still 94 degrees.  So The Zadge decides to sleep on the couch downstairs, where it is only 84 degrees.  Plus, she'd be better prepared to respond to the marauding crazed criminals who inevitably were going to  break in.

At 12:38 a.m., The Zadge is awoken by the sound of a screaming TV.   It is her own, in the kitchen.  And all the lights are blaring.  Apparently, the electricity is back.  The Zadge gets up, turns everything off and stumbles back to the couch.

Approximately an hour after I fall back to sleep, the phone rings.  Who the hell is calling The Zadge at 2 a.m.???  We know it isn't a booty call.  That would be her friendly power company, and their friendly Automaton, calling to notify me that my freakin' power was out, but they wanted me to know they were working on it!

Baby Jesus of Bethlehem Xcel Energy, WTF!!

First, your electric substation malfunctions and explodes.  Thereby cutting off all electricity to my house.  For hours and hours.  Causing me to go into Blogger Withdrawal.  Forcing me to sleep on a couch sweating my ass off.  Then you restore the power in the middle of the night waking my ass up out of a sweaty sleep.  THEN you decide to wake me up AGAIN in the middle of the night to apprise me of a situation that has been apparent for 9 hours and already rectified!!

Vicki Lawrence-Half-Pint-Zadge hopes that you all had a much more peaceful Monday night than she did!

Saturday Sayin's

Zadge Tennis

You know that The Zadge recently picked up the game of tennis, having not played in decades.  You've heard about her hot and steamy romance with Mr. Ball Machine.

When The Zadge is in a relationship, she is very loyal. She's a Taurus after all.  So she hasn't strayed from Mr. Ball Machine in the two months they've been together.

Then along comes Babe the Builder.

You see, Babe the Builder is the one who got The Zadge into this whole tennis-romance-drama-thing.  The Zadge hadn't thought about her teenage tennis years until Babe the Builder, in the midst of Old Vicky's kitchen renovation, said -- all innocently and whatnot -- Hey, do you play tennis?

The rest, my friends, is history.  The Zadge started dating Mr. Ball Machine and loves their steady, predictable relationship.

Then Babe the Builder suggested that she and The Zadge "hit around."  You wouldn't think that The Zadge, the loyal Taurean that she is, would be so easily swayed.  But she was.  She agreed to "hit around" with Babe the Builder Friday after work.

So this is how it goes when The Zadge decides to step out on her main man:

One, you get your ass kicked by the very woman who lured you into this madness:

Ok, so that's not really an action shot of our tennis game.  It's really Babe the Builder being an incredibly good sport on the front lawn of Old Vicky trying to please The Zadge as she barks, "Act like you are playing tennis because I forgot to bring my camera to our game where you kicked my ass and it was, like, 93 degrees and I was sweating like a fat man, and I'm 46 and I've really got to stop saying 'like' all the time. Rock on Justin Bieber."

Two, despite being drenched in sweat and sporting a very wilted Baby Goose, you head down the block to your local watering hole and order up some happy hour specials. Combine dehydration with one pint of beer and you get beautiful fine art photos like this:


Three, you head back to the The Kitchen That Babe Built:


where, four, you continue "The Zadge Tennis Circuit" with an icy vodka tonic:


...and then you brush your teeth and meet up with Mr. Ball Machine tomorrow morning, and he is none the wiser!

Love-all!