Under The Wagon

(Legal Disclaimer:  The City of Seattle probably doesn’t hate me, my husband, or the next 365 days, I mean, they really don’t even know us that well.) 

December 31st, 11:35 pm, 2007:  Jay’s been in bed for almost an hour.  I informed him before he went to bed that I’d most likely wake him up at a quarter to midnight.  We already sorta rang in the new year at 9 pm EST, since both of us believe that East Coast time is the only real time zone in the country (and also we’re both sleepy, lazy bastards that wanted to go to bed already, like the lame asses that we are).  That said, I heard there were gonna be fireworks at midnight in Seattle, and the roof deck (that we’ve never visited) of our rather costly apartment complex allegedly grants an amazing view of the Space Needle (where many amazing fireworks are alledgedly launched on New Year’s Eve).  I thought Jay and I watching said fireworks would be really romantic and cool.  A nice ending/beginning to one of the best, most exciting years of our lives.

December 31st, 11:48 pm, 2007: I drag Jay’s sleepy ass out of bed.  “Dude, there’s gonna be really amazing fireworks shooting off the Space Needle!  Wake UP!”  Jay grumpily but obligingly puts on his slippers and coat, I toss a pack of smokes (our last, since we’re quitting tomorrow) and a couple of beers (my last, since my doctor said I should “Really quit drinking.  Like, forever”) in my coat pocket.  We head over to the building that has the roof deck, which isn’t the building we actually live in.  On our way, the street is jam-packed with drunk idiots waiting for the countdown and fireworks. I stupidly take this as an “awesome sign that everything’s gonna be super awesome.”

December 31st, 11:52 pm, 2007: I struggle with the keys that allegedly let us into the section of the building that we don’t actually live in with the roof deck.  After way too many anxious minutes, the lock finally gives, and we get onto the elevator with a family with 2 dogs, a 4 year old child, and an assortment of slightly drunk parents and relatives, all talking about how incredible the fireworks are gonna look from the roof.

December 31st, 11:59 pm, 2007:  I offer Jay one of my pocket beers, and a cigarette.  He sleepily, but politely, refuses both.  The roof deck is festively adorned with Christmas lights, inebriated adults, and a couple of roaming dogs that have no idea what the fuck is going on.   People inquire as to what time it is, and if anyone knows the exact countdown.  They don’t, but we all assume that the Space Needle will alert us when the proverbial shit starts going down.

January 1st, 12:00 am, 2008:The Space Needle briefly lights up with fireworks as several people shout out at least three differerent countdowns for the New Year.

 January 1st, 12:00:12 am, 2008:  All fireworks end.

January 1st, 12:05:07 am, 2008:  I apologize to Jay profusely, and we head down a dark stairwell to street level.  Jay is still half asleep as I sheepishly mention I heard there were gonna be at least 10-15 minutes of amazing fireworks, and that like, 20,000 people were supposed to be over at the Space Needle, checking all this awesome shit out.  So it was supposed to be really cool.  And we would have seen it all from our roof deck, like no one else.  If it had actually happened.

 January 1st, 12:07:00 am, 2008:  While walking back to our building, we hear a huge amount of rocket retorts and explosions.  They can’t be seen from where we are, and they abruptly end, right before…

 January 1st, 12:10:00 am, 2008: We get home.  We keep hearing explosions, and see a few lights reflecting off high-rises near us, but we can’t see anything. 

 January 1st, 12:20:00 am, 2008:  We turn on the T.V., and learn that the Space Needle apparently had massive technical difficulties, resulting in all fireworks being delayed by at least 10 minutes or more, ending with the “Official Firework Technicians” having to go through and light every rocket and blast cap by hand. Which by all accounts looked disappointing and retarded.

 Whatever time it is now, January, 2008:  Gahhhhh.  I’m writing crap for a goddamn blog while my husband sleeps soundly, and I despise the entire city of Seattle for ruining what I thought was gonna be this awesome, totally romantic evening, where Jay and I would look deep into each other’s eyes, and talk about what an amazing year it’s been, and how awesome we thought this next year would be, and maybe we’d make out a little bit.  So fuck you, Seattle. 

Fuck you in your stupid ass. 

Tags: Essays, Manifestos, & Unsolicited Opinions, General Musings by Karla Pacheco
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About 3 weeks ago, Jay got the following call at 10:15 am.

Karla: “Hey, I need to come down to your office and get some money from you.”
Jay: “Uh, okay.”
Karla: “Cool. I’ll be there in half an hour or so.”
Jay: “Alright. What’s it for, anyway?”
Karla: “We’re getting a puppy dropped off at noon.”
Jay: “…”
Karla: “See ya in 30!”

During our one year wedding anniversary dinner in September, Jay and I enjoyed celebratory cocktails on a patio overlooking a beautiful Puget Sound sunset. Soft music played, candles were lit, we exchanged sweet nothings and a couple of toasts to how fucking awesome we are (seriously, we rock). As the evening progressed ever so romantically, Jay leaned in and asked the one question that can change a married couple’s life forever:

“So, are you ready for another dog?”

To which I replied, “Fuck no!”

Our Rat Terrier Orwell is a year old now, and has taken to life on the West coast like gangbusters. Seattle is the most dog friendly city I’ve ever seen. Seattle: Take your dog on the bus for free! Take him into stores and restaurants! Enjoy our six million square miles of verdant dog parks! We found it all a little unbelievable, coming from Astoria where you’d get dirty looks for walking a dog down the sidewalk and the only off-leash area was a 10 foot dirt-run encircled with a rusty chain link fence. Just to see if we could, we took Orwell into the “Bed, Bath & Beyond” downtown, tentatively strolling the aisles, waiting for someone to come screaming “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” and perhaps accusing our dog of shitting on the duvet covers or something. Instead, nearly every clerk and cashier oohed and ahhed over the O-man, stopping to pet him and coo over how adorable he was. One rather spacey blond store manager even started dancing with Orwell while we were at the checkout line, which was a bit much, but still (Seattle’s love of dogs is second only to its affection for hemp-wearing, patchouli drenched hippies).

So when Jay mentioned getting a second dog, my first instinct was “don’t need one, don’t want one.” I was spending a couple hours a day with Orwell at Regrade Dog Park - a pleasant acre or so of trees, inviting benches, and a tiny doggy swimming pool just two blocks from our apartment building. Regulars at Regrade frequently complain that it’s too small, and that the other dog parks are much nicer. I tend to respond to these complaints with an expression of slack-jawed befuddlement. Luckily, drooling idiots who don’t appear to understand human language (or hygiene) blend in pretty well there, as it was previously nicknamed “The Crack Park” before the city made it a dog park.

See, Seattle went about its urban gentrification a little differently than most cities. In New York, when poorer, homeless-ridden and (most importantly) “brownish/foreign” neighborhoods became hot-spots for condos and yuppies, all the poor, homeless, and brown people were strongly encouraged to move along, aided by skyrocketing rents and in Manhattan’s case, Rudy Guiliani arresting all of the above. Seattle, with its peace and patchouli loving ways, built the condos around the YMCAs, methadone clinics, and homeless shelters. We live in a very nice, completely safe, fairly upscale neighborhood…and it’s swamped with meth-heads and the homeless. On one hand, they’re all harmless, and you can even set your watch by the guy who screams at the alien Jesus messiah every morning at 11:23. On the other, it’s hard not to think “Guiliani would have these fuckers cleared RIGHT the hell out” when a schizophrenic wearing a urine-stained cape wants to talk to your dog about how the whores are keeping him down. It’s odd to be on the other side of gentrification for the first time in my life.

Anyway, Orwell and I both made plenty of friends at the dog park. I’ve not only met successful entrepreneurs and young professionals, but also batshit insane psych cases who spend their disability checks on dogfood (hopefully only for their dogs). I made a few good friends in the process, plus I finally have somewhat interesting stories to tell Jay over the dinner table. “Well, I mostly did laundry all day, but it did get pretty funny at the park when Hose-Lady tried to spray all the dogs down with water “because they’re unclean,” and then Screaming Bob got into a fight with Super Loud Screaming Bob!”

Most importantly, Orwell was loving it. He’s been the most popular dog at Regrade from day one. In New York, Jay did a great job making sure Orwell was well trained and socialized. Little dude will play with any dog, any time. Dogs that never played at the park before became happy, chasing puppies in the presence of ours. I don’t want to sound conceited, but I assure you I am not abusing hyperbole when I say Orwell is fucking magic, and pretty much the best, most likable dog in the world. With all this, we received multiple invites to other people’s homes for doggy playdates (shut up). I started hosting a weekly “Doggy Party” (SHUT. UP.) at our house, a whole afternoon of tiny dogs running around our apartment having a blast, while I sat out on the patio in the sunshine drinking wine (er, boxes of wine) with totally cool people. Orwell and I were having the time of our lives. We didn’t need another dog, and I didn’t want to house train another puppy (especially as picking up dog crap became my chore after I begged Jay to let me quit my job and become a housewife).

Right before the aforementioned anniversary dinner, Orwell made friends with a 5 month old Rat Terrier pup, a completely adorable miniature Orwell. Jay started getting all googly-eyed, remembering how cute Orwell was as a wee lil’ dude. I started considering getting a second one, but doubts kept creeping in. “What if the new dog isn’t as cool as Orwell? Are we gonna have TWO dogs sleeping with us? Do we get a second Rat Terrier or something completely different? Will Orwell be happier with another dog to play with, or prefer being an “only child?” What if the new dog SUCKS?” and a million other soul-searching queries. I put more thought into getting a second dog than I ever have wondering if Jay and I should breed.

Jay left the question at “Hey, I don’t think we NEED another dog, and I know all the responsibility is pretty much on your shoulders, but if you want one, it’s okay with me.”

However, he was still pretty taken aback to get that call a few days later. Out of purely innocent curiosity, I’d started casually browsing for dogs on the net, and found a 3/4 rat terrier mix that was pretty much custom made for us…and of course Orwell. This dog would eventually be the same size and have the same energy level as Orwell, but he’d look totally different, so I would be slightly less likely to get them confused (when drunk), or compare them to each other (also when drunk) - “Orwell would never do that, inferior second dog!”

But still, I wasn’t even sure if I WANTED another dog. So I looked at more dogs. Looked at every local dog available for adoption on Petfinder.com. Emailed a few breeders with new litters coming up. Thought about it some more. And kept coming back to the picture of this one little black and brown puppy. Twelve hours later I shot the owners an email and had Edison wrestling with Orwell by noon.

Jay was naturally a bit perplexed. “Christ. You certainly move fast once you make your mind up, don’t you?”

Ultimately, my decision to get another dog wasn’t exactly that I wanted a second dog, but that I’d found our second dog. Orwell was a bit of an accident himself. We’d planned on getting a dog eventually, but the moment we saw him we both knew “THIS is our dog.” I had the same lightening strike with Edison. And turns out, rightfully so. The two little guys adore each other. Orwell, in typical big brother fashion, constantly tries to sit on Edison’s head (in my sibling experience, to better facilitate farting on him, but I’m not sure how dogs handle that part). Edison, in typical little brother fashion, likes to yelp and look at me with a “DID YOU SEE WHAT HE JUST DID?” expression when Orwell’s not even touching him.

So we’ve got two awesome dogs, which is great, but unfortunately the addition of the second means we are now officially “Dog People.” Owning two dogs makes it nearly impossible to avoid anthropomorphizing them. “Orwell’s acted out a lot today, I think he might be jealous.” “Edison gets so sad if he doesn’t get to play with the green plastic lizard toy.” For the record, dogs don’t get jealous. Dogs don’t get sad. They’re fucking tiny wolves we bred down to convenient apartment sized animals that we let live with us. If I passed out on the couch for more than 4-5 hours (my usual “afternoon nap with box-wine assist”), I have no doubt I’d wake to find Orwell and Edison feasting on my tender, delicious calf muscles and fighting over who gets first crack at the bone marrow.

But once you get two dogs, they start feeling more like part of your family rather than just your pets. It’s not “the dogs,” it’s “the boys.” We refer to them as brothers even though they have no immediate ancestors in common. From there it’s a short step to dangerous “what should we dress them up as for Halloween?” territory (Batman and Robin, most likely).

I relate to the ladies at the park who talk for hours about the consistency of their dog’s bowel movements, and discuss the best food for delicate puppy tummies. I hear the phrase “puppy tummy” and don’t punch the utterer in their stupid, stupid face. I don’t know the names of people I see everyday, but when I say “Mitzi’s mom,” and “Cooper’s dad” and “Toby and P.J’s dad’s husband,” everyone knows who I’m talking about.

We had Edison neutered today. I wasn’t too concerned when we had Orwell snipped (Jay was a little upset), but this time I’ve been stressing all week about whether or not to make him wear one of those retarded lamp-shade collars, or if “bitter-bitter” lotion will do the trick to prevent him from chewing out his stitches. Picking him up from the vet afterwards, I was a bit of a mess, seeing the little guy all glassy-eyed and whimpering. Even though I’ve already been through this before, and know he’ll be racing around like a demon by tomorrow morning (despite my best efforts to somehow keep two terriers to stay calm, relaxed, and not playing, biting or jumping for the next week).

I’m gonna try the bitter-bitter first, but Toby and P.J.’s dad has a spare lamp-shade thingy I can use if I need it.

I’m officially dog people.

Tags: Essays, Manifestos, & Unsolicited Opinions, General Musings by Karla Pacheco
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I think Jay and I lost approximately 36 hours this past weekend.  Not because we were drunk (we were, of course, it’s the weekend, right?), but because we have a new XBOX 360 and a used copy of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. 

 The game is fucking crack.

I’m an old school adventure gamer.  Monkey Island, Sam & Max, those CSI and Law & Order games…that’s my gaming poison of choice.  I hate playing games that require any manner of hand-eye coordination on my part, however I’ll happily spend hours watching Jay play Marvel Ultimate Alliance, or Crackdown, or anything else that lets him jump over buildings and punch hookers in the face (his two biggest fantasies brought to life!).  I like to assist with helpful suggestions such as “I’m pretty sure that secret key is two screens back, you know, right before the huge abyss with the skull-fucking zombies that took you 45 minutes to time out the jump across.” or “It’s left bumper, right trigger, X and then B! But do it faster!”  When Jay tries to thank me for all my help by tossing the controller at my head with an exasperated “FINE!  Why don’t you try it if it’s so goddamn easy then?” I naturally demur, reminding him that if I can’t point-and-click my way to victory, or if there is the slightest chance my character could die in any way…I just don’t want to play.

 Which is why Elder Scrolls IV is pretty much custom made for a happy Pacheco-Pinkerton household. 

 The first few days we had the XBOX, I actually spent more time on it than Jay did.  He had a huge stack of “research” to play, but I’d discovered the facial customization section of Elder Scrolls, and spent about 12 hours painstakingly crafting every vector to make my character look exactly like me.  Which led to even more scintillating discourse:

 ”Jay, does my nose look right?”

“You know, most people try to…how to put this delicately…make their character look better than themselves.”

“But I want it to look like me.  How big do you think my nose should look?  Do I need to make it bigger?”

“…Fuck.  There’s no way out of this for me, is there?”

Despite realizing I’d just forced my husband into a marital minefield, I compounded the issue and handed him the controller.

 ”Here, YOU do my nose for me.”

 Poor Jay.

Eventually I declared my character close enough (Imperial Bard under the Lady’s sign that TOTALLY looked like me), and Jay stopped sweating and swearing quietly under his breath.  I played for about 20 minutes before calling it a day, as the box of wine I’d been using as “inspiration” was getting dangerously light.  The next weekend Jay created his own character, a custom job “Thief Mage,” because Jay wanted to steal a lot of stuff and do magic (his third and fourth top-rated fantasies).

Jay took about 3 minutes to customize his character’s face, mainly because I convinced him he needed to use the cat thing, since they make really good thieves.  I think he just slapped a beard on it or something.  We assured each other that this did not make us Furries.  We also soon realized we made the perfect Elder Scrolls team.

“Jay!  Press “X” to take all the contents of the crate!”

“That crate only had an onion and some yarn.”

“I KNOW!  You might need that.  You can at least sell it.”

“The onion is only worth one gold, I’m already over-encumbered, and the yarn is useless.”

“You don’t know that.  What if there’s a knitting quest coming up?”

My obsessive adventure gaming experience had me convinced that EVERYTHING you find in a game will be essential at some point.  And my tight-fisted, money grubbing ways convinced me that anything non-essential could be sold for fabulous piles of gold.  Meanwhile, Jay was smartly slashing, stabbing, and spell-crafting his way through assorted trolls, bandits and pirate ghosts, racking up enormous amounts of expensive loot.

The thing about Oblivion, it’s fucking huge.  With Jay working in the video game industry now, we’re both gaining a new understanding of just how much work it takes to craft a game that has a few hours of game-play, much less a completely open-ended world with seemingly limitless quests and possibilities.  I really can’t even begin to comprehend how the hell they made this thing.  You’ve got an entire continent to explore (plus add-on packs), and every time you say “hi” to a beggar on the street, or talk to some Orc in a tavern, you get a new quest you can go on.  You pretty much get six new quests just in the course of completing ONE task.  And we haven’t even started tackling the main story quest.

“Ooh, Jay, you wanna go find those six bottles of rare wine in the old abandoned forts?  That lady at the inn said she’d give us a good reward for them.”

“Um, actually I’d rather go kill that vampire monster that’s been haunting the old abbey, and then ascend to a higher thief level by robbing the castle.”

It’s pretty mind-boggling.  The game lets you be whatever you want, do as much or as little as you want.  Wanna fight?  You’re set.  Wanna live quietly and start a store, or buy a house, or wander the countryside looking for rare mushrooms?  You’re set.  We take turns playing Jay’s character now (I quickly abandoned my painstakingly crafted “Wago the Wanderer”).  Jay does all the hard stuff, and when he takes a bathroom break or needs a smoke, I swoop in and do all the things he finds mind-numbingly boring.

“Hey Jay, I totally upped our personality level by talking to that priest for 20 minutes!”

“That’s great, honey.  I’ma go slaughter some trolls now.”

On Friday night we went to bed early - long day of work for Jay, long day of drinking and playing with the dogs for me (my life is hard).  While laying in bed, I suddenly realized that if we equipped the “Eye of Fear” as a hotkey, we could totally get past the corrupt merchant and legionnaire that were camped out in the old abandoned crypt.  I tried to wake up Jay to let him know, to which he responded “zzyeahthatzgreatmmphzzz.”  But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  So I finally got up, snuck quietly out of the bedroom, and totally whomped said merchant and legionnaire.  Then I decided I’d go back to all the houses and stores that Jay had already been through and clean them out of all the penny-ante crap Jay thought he was too good steal the first time around.  “A box full of pick-axes worth 5 gold that takes up half our inventory?  YES GUY!”  “Quest to wander aimlessly all over the massive countryside to find 10 roots that will make a potion that’s totally useless for our character?  I’m IN!”

 Eight hours later Jay wandered into the living room in search of coffee, and found me staring at the T.V. screen, meticulously harvesting shadow-stain root caps, or some such nonsense.

“I’ve leveled our alchemy stats up to 15!”

“That’s…good?  Don’t you need to, you know…sleep or something?”

“Just as soon as I’ve found six more slaughterfish scales!  I’m pretty sure I can collect them all if I just search the river bed for another three hours!”

After that, everything got a little hazy, and apparently I stumbled blindly in to bed, still muttering about going back the Cheryodil and getting that last box of yarn. 

Anyway, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.  Good game.

Tags: Essays, Manifestos, & Unsolicited Opinions, General Musings by Karla Pacheco
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Is this thing on?

Two years since I posted anything, huh?  Sorry about that.  Nothing much has really happened in all that time.  Other than moving cross country 3 times, getting married to a pretty awesome dude, and quitting my job(s) to be a full-time housewife and part-time writer.   I assure you, I was just as surprised as anybody.  So yeah, you might notice a few less stories about my waking up naked next to random strangers after a rock show than before, but on the other hand…um.  My new stuff might not totally suck?

That said, welcome to the all new (again) Under the Wagon.  I’m still fucking around with Wordpress and the layout, so there will probably be constant changes in the next couple weeks, but ever so slowly you’ll start seeing something that looks like a real website, and that’s hopefully updated on a regular basis.  For reals, this time.  In the meantime, all of the old Under The Wagon stuff is up now, so you can re-visit the glory days of my being a retarded drunken douchebag for your amusement.

Anyway, thanks for hanging in there and coming back to check it out, and a hearty welcome to any first time (presumably accidental) visitors and spambots!

Cheers,

Karla

Tags: General Musings by admin
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