 People started coming up to me and asking me how I get my dog's fur so shiny.I tell them Turtle Wax. |
We usually listen to the "Classic Rock" station at the house. The reason for this is that it is the only station that we can agree to listen to, as my dogs all have different music tastes. Macky Rae prefers Hard Rock, especially Heavy Metal. Sarah likes some pop, but enjoys Country and Western and Folk Music. Freedom prefers listening to Jazz and Blues - and NPR.
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| "Alex, I'd like squeaky toys for $500" |
We all like "Classic Rock" so that's what we usually listen to at the house.
Except in the morning, when we listen to one of the "pop" station. We aren't so much interested in the top 40, per se, as we are the trivia contest the morning guys have.
We like trivia, especially Freedom who is very good at trivia. Two of his favorite shows are Jeopardy and Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
So how it works is that you listen to the morning show, and sometime between 8:00 and 10:00, when they announce the trivia contest, and if you are the seventh caller, they will ask you a trivia question. And if you give them the correct answer, you win the daily prize, as well as having your name announced on the air and getting entered in the drawing for the grand prize.
In all honesty, the daily prizes aren't really all that great. They are usually donated by the sponsors, stuff like a free carpet steamer rental.
But we are not really trying for the daily prize. What we want to do is win a daily prize so we can be registered for the grand prize drawing. Grand prize is a trip to Disneyland. We want to go to Disneyland - The Happiest Place On Earth.Especially Macky Rae. Being 3 1/2 he really wants to Disneyland. Most kids his age do, regardless of whether they are human or canine
He wants to meet Pluto.
So one morning, we were listening to the morning show, waiting for the announcement which occurred at 8:53, and it could not have come at a worse time.
I was "indisposed" at the time.Sarah (my female) panicked when they announced that it was time to call and I wasn't near the phone, and kept yelling "Dad! Get out here or we'll miss our chance." Freedom (my oldest) remained calm, and jumped up on the coffee table, retrieved my cell phone and brought it to me as I exited the facilities.
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| Happy Dance |
Thank to the dogs, I have the station's phone number on speed dial.The phone rang. And rang. And rang.
Usually, we miss it being the seventh caller. Today, however, was our day - finally. We were caller number seven.
The dogs were excited.
Macky Rae did his happy dance.
So I was asked the usual questions, like my name, etc. Then we came down to the big moment, the moment or truth:
The Daily Trivia Question.
Usually, the trivia questions are not very hard. In fact sometimes, they are down-right easy.
Last week, one of the questions was "Who is buried in Grant's Tomb."
And the caller didn't know the answer!
So the guy on the phone asked me if I was ready for the question, and I said "sure."
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| This shirt is available at CafePress.com |
"What" he asked "is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
"What" I replied "the f--- kind of question is that?"
OK, I didn't say that, but I thought it. What I said was "Huh?"
The radio guy asked the question, again.
"Dad" Freedom whispered. "Ask him if he means European or African."
"Huh?" I responded.
"Just ask" Freedom insisted. So I asked.
The guy said European.Then Freedom told me to ask "metric" or "english?" So I did.
The guy said "english."Freedom then told me the answer was 24 miles per hour. I repeated that to the guy on the radio.
And it was right.
I told you Freedom was good at trivia.
They guy then congratulated me on answering the daily question, and after taking down my name and address (for the grand prize drawing) told me I could pick up my daily prize at the station's main office any time between 9am and 5pm (Monday thru Friday), which I did that afternoon.
So, what did I win?
The prize was a free car wash at the Wishy Washy Car Wash (on Walla Walla Street), which would have been a great prize, except I didn't own a car.
So I got to thinking:
My dogs hate bath, and I covered this in an earlier blog entry (My Dogs on Bathing, Eating, and Religion). Perhaps instead of washing my (non-existent) car, maybe I could use the facility to wash my dogs.
My dogs hate bath, and I covered this in an earlier blog entry (My Dogs on Bathing, Eating, and Religion). Perhaps instead of washing my (non-existent) car, maybe I could use the facility to wash my dogs.
Why waste the prize, right?
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That got there attention.
My dog's like Pizza. But who doesn't?
I can usually get my dogs to go along with anything I come up with, as long as I include Pizza. They are quite fond of Lorenzo's Supreme Meat Lover's Deluxe...
Fifteen different animal products!
Actually only fourteen. The dogs don't like anchovies. But who does?
...with an order of Cheezy Bread and two liters of Mountain Dew.
The Dew is for me.
The word pizza originates from the Latin verb pìnsere ("to press") and from the Greek pitta (derived from ancient Greek pēktos, πηκτός, meaning "solid" or "clotted"). The ancient Greeks covered their bread with oils, herbs and cheese. In Byzantine Greek, the word was spelled πίτα, pita, or πίττα, pitta, meaning pie. The word has also spread to Romanian as pită, Turkish as pide, and Bulgarian, Bosnian, Croatian, Macedonian and Serbian as pita, Albanian as pite and Modern Hebrew pittāh.The Romans developed placenta, a sheet of dough topped with cheese and honey and flavored with bay leaves.
Modern pizza originated in Italy as the Neapolitan flatbread.
A popular urban legend holds that the archetypal pizza, Pizza Margherita, was invented in 1889, when the Royal Palace of Capodimonte commissioned the Neapolitan pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito to create a pizza in honor of the visiting Queen Margherita. Of the three different pizzas he created, the Queen strongly preferred a pie swathed in the colors of the Italian flag: red (tomato), green (basil), and white (mozzarella). Supposedly, this kind of pizza was then named after the Queen as Pizza Margherita, though recent research casts doubt on this legend.
Pizza migrated to America with the Italians. After World War II many returning soldiers who were stationed in Italy created a high demand for the pizza they encountered and tasted in Italy. Pizza in this day and age has no limitations. It can be deep-dish pizza, stuffed pizza, pizza pockets, pizza turnovers, rolled pizza, pizza-on-a-stick, all with combinations of sauce and toppings limited only by one's inventiveness.
In 1905, the first pizza establishment in the United States was opened in New York's Little Italy. Due to the wide influence of Italian immigrants in American culture, the U.S. has developed regional forms of pizza, some bearing only a casual resemblance to the Italian original. Chicago has its own style of a deep-dish pizza. Detroit also has its unique twice-baked style, with cheese all the way to the edge of the crust, and New York City's thin crust pizzas are well-known. St. Louis, Missouri uses thin crusts and rectangular slices in its local pizzas, while New Haven-style pizza is a thin crust variety that does not include cheese unless the customer asks for it as an additional topping.
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This was the only other person using the Wishy
Washy Car Wash (on Walla Walla Street) when
we arrived.
Many of you will no doubt be disappointed to learn
that she has no part in this story.
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So we got up the next day, and marched down to the Wishy Washy Car Wash (on Walla Walla Street).
We walked because (as I mentioned) I don't have a car.
It was a short walk to Wishy Washy Car Wash (on Walla Walla Street). It was around 10:00 on a Wednesday, not a very busy time for car washing. There was only one other person there so we mostly had our pick of the wash bays. Macky Rae selected bay #4.
Long time fans of this blog may recall (from Lottery Tickets, Giant Redwoods, and Pirates) that his favorite number is 4.
Macky volunteered to go first.
Actually it wasn't so much as he volunteered as he was nudged by Freedom and Sarah.
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When viewed in an inertial
reference frame, an object
remains at rest unless acted
upon by an external force.
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By "nudged" I mean they shoved him forward when I asked who wanted to be first.
Macky has always been the most adventurous of my dogs.
And the most gullible.
He stood (trustingly) in the middle of the wash bay as I adjusted the sprayer and squeezed the handle. I failed to account for certain basics of physics, particularly Newton's First Law of Motion, and the water pressure shot Macky tumbling thirty feet out of the wash bay. He let out a squeal as the rolled, very similar to R2D2 when he gets grazed by a laser shot.
The facial expression on the other two dogs was priceless. It was the canine version of Buckwheat from the Little Rascals.
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Fans of the Our Gang
will remember who Buckwheat was.
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When he stopped tumbling and was able to regain his feet, he returned (albeit with wobbly legs) to the wash bay, his only comment was "whoa!"
He stood (nervously) in the middle of the wash bay as I re-adjusted the sprayer and squeezed the handle. This time, he was not ejected from the wash bay and I was able to thoroughly wet his fur.
The other two followed (albeit reluctantly) and soon I had three thoroughly dampened canines. We were ready for step two:
Lather
Turning the dial to the "soap" setting, I proceeded to spay the dogs with a stream of warm, soapy water. I failed to consider the machine was preset for an automobile (average 1.5 tons) and not for three Pomeranian (average 5 pounds). I proceeded to make a large pile of soapy foam.
And that when I (temporarily) lost the dogs.
Not really lost, I knew they were in the big pile of foam, somewhere. I probed around in the foam with the end of the sprayer, but didn't detect them.
That's when I noticed three smaller piles of foam sneaking out of the wash bay.
I quickly herded the three smaller piles of foam back into the middle of the wash bay, and proceeded to step three:
Scrub
The brush on the end of the sprayer was a bit larger than what would be required for three small dogs, but they didn't complain - much.
In fact, Macky asked me to scrub him a second time, because he had an itchy
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| They hate baths. |
Rinse
Assuring myself (and the dogs) that the spray was still set on it's lowest pressure setting, I thoroughly rinsed the three smaller piles of foam, transforming them back into dogs, albeit wet dogs.
Step Five:
Wax
At this point, I was not exactly paying attention, and I was as surprised as the pooches when I turned the dial to the next setting, only to have the sprayer emit a mist of car wax.
You were wondering where the Turtle Wax would come into this story.
At first I was alarmed, but then I decided that if the could handle the soap, they could handle the wax.
They were out of Armor All, or I would have used that on them as well.
I wonder if you can Scotch Guard your pets. I'll have to try that during the rainy season. It worked on my coat.Step Six:
Dry
The dogs enjoyed this part, partially because of the warm, relaxing air
and partially because the ordeal was now coming to a conclusion.Step Seven:
Pizza
So washed, lathered, scrubbed, rinse, dried, and waxed, we were ready to walk down to Papa Lorenzo's Ristorante Italiano for the Supreme Meat Lover's Deluxe (Family Sized) and Cheezy Bread and Mountain Dew.
So washed, lathered, scrubbed, rinse, dried, and waxed, we were ready to walk down to Papa Lorenzo's Ristorante Italiano for the Supreme Meat Lover's Deluxe (Family Sized) and Cheezy Bread and Mountain Dew.The "Dew" is for me.
It was a short walk from Wishy Washy Car Wash (on Walla Walla Street) to Papa Lorenzo's Ristorante Italiano. It was now around noon-thirty.
Lunch time!
"Hello, Mr. Lorenzo!" Macky said as soon as we walked inside.
"Buon Giorno!" Lorenzo greeted us in his Italian accent. "Itsa my most favoritest customers."
"We came for lunch" Sarah told him.
"And what would you like for lunch?"
"Pizza!" the three of them said.
"But of course. No one loves my pizza more than you three. I go back and start your Supreme Meat Lover's Deluxe"
"Family Sized" Macky reminded him.
"And no anchovies" Sarah told him.
"We don't like anchovies" Freedom explained.
"Who does?" Lorenzo responded as he went into the kitchen.
We seated ourselves at our favorite table (near the window) and in the back we could hear Mr. Lorenzo singing in Italian.
An interesting fact about Mr. (and Mrs.) Lorenzo: Although they are Italian, they are not from Italy. They were both born in Portland, Oregon.
Mr. Lorenzo received a sizable inheritance from his grandfather, and they decided to use it to open a restaurant. After three years they were on the verge of failure until Larry adopted the Italian accent. Shortly afterwards their business increased nearly 300%.
I leave you to draw your own conclusions about this
Mrs. Lorenzo emerged from the kitchen with and order of Cheezy bread...
And a Mountain Dew for me...and greeted us warmly.
"Ah! Signore Doug" she said. "Is so good to see you again. And look, you bring the bambinos. They look so grazioso. My goodness! How do you get their fur so shiny?"
Turtle Wax!
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