The Leonard Saga

Hey everybody! Look what a good blogger I am lately. Five stars for me!

So for those of you who've been living in a cave without facebook, Sam and I have decided to adopt a dog. It's something we've wanted since forever, but we wanted to make sure we were happy with our living situation, had steady jobs, etc. before taking the plunge. So a week and a half ago, we realized that nearly all of those things were true (Sam is currently unemployed, more on this later, but that's proved to be a plus). So we started poking about on websites, mostly the excellent petfinder.com and came to the following conclusions:

1- despite our mutual love of them, a big dog was just out of the question. Our apartment is just toooooo small!

2- For that same reason, we needed to steer clear of anything in the terrier family, as they notoriously need tons of space and exercise. This eliminated a huge portion of adoptable small dogs.

3- For purely aesthetic reasons, no poodles, pomeranians, lhasa apsos, or pugs. We just ain't that kind a people. Again, eliminating enormous portions of the adoptable dog pool here.

4- We definitely wanted to adopt an older, house-trained, mellow dog. Puppies are great and all, but we just don't have the time to train a dog all that much. 

This put is into very narrow, heavily fished waters, but we were still optimistic because we had one thing going for us that no one else had (well, very few anyway): we really love funny looking dogs. Dogs that are a little quirky, who are obviously mutts, get us every time. And so after about a week of near constant net surfing, we found Leonard. 

It was a love at first sight kind of moment. I believe my exact words were "the ears, baby! the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeears!!!" He was the first dog we filled out a full application for (we made contact about a few others, but didn't fill formal applications) and the only one we really had our hearts set on. We heard back almost immediately with an invitation to go meet him at his "foster mother's" house in brooklyn. 

We were very nervous. We spruced up, looked our best, bought a toy and some treats, and quizzed  each other on why we would make an awesome "forever family" for Len. When we arrived, however, we found that leonard lived with a bunch of girls our age in a, um, fixer-upper of an apartment. Despite a few awkward moments (I might have unintentionally implied that they were all really ugly or lesbians. within five seconds of walking in the door. And they had never heard of Leonard Nemoy or Spock, so our theories about how Leonard was named were shot to pieces, and they thought we were uber dorks. And sam accidently terrified poor Len with a squeaky toy, but was quickly forgiven) it was pretty clear that we would be a good match for him. And we found out that Leonard had been dropped off at the shelter in January, and in all those months we were the only people who had even met him, let alone wanted to adopt him. 

This brings us to more details about our new roomate:

- He's half Australian Cattle Dog, half Blue Heeler. That means in his younger days he was quite the runner, and even now he's most definitely an active Senior.

- He's about nine years old. We're not sure what his life expectancy is at the moment, but that certainly makes him an older dog. We're making a vet appointment for him tomorrow, so we'll know more soon. 

- He has a few small issues that led to him not being adopted for so long: despite his enormous ears, he's quite hard of hearing... so far, this has proven to be more hilarious than anything else. He also likes to be in control of walks, wandering all over, which wouldn't be a big deal in the suburbs, but in the city it could possibly be dangerous. So he wears a special kind of leash that helps him respond to tugs better. It makes me really sad, though, because it looks just like a muzzle, and I don't want people to think he's a meanie! Oh, and because of the hearing thing, his foster mom says he has a fear problem with other dogs. We've taken him on three walks now, and haven't seen any evidence of that, but we trust her.

- He also has some really delightful traits: he's very calm, mellow, but loves the outdoors. He frequently gets itches on his schnoz and rubs it on anything he can reach. He claims areas he likes, like his bed, by wiggling all over it and trying to burrow down into it. cutest. thing. ever. He also can give a guilt trip like no other, looking over his shoulder with those big sad eyes, flopping those big ears down... OMG I LOVE THIS DOG!!

Ok, ok, calming down. It's only been a day so far, but this just feels really right. He's settling in nicely, hardly nervous at all anymore, really relaxed. Sam is giddy as a puppy... right now they're lying on the rug on their tummies, bonding. Sam's been really worried about this unemployment stint that's been looming over him (his job was over once tax season was. I say thank goodness, his boss was a horrible human being and sam has plenty of money saved up). But now he has Leonard to occupy his time while he job hunts, and it's gonna be really good for them both. Although Sam may not be unemployed long, my boss is trying to get him a data entry type job at his hospital. Apparently it pays really well and has benefits! A good thing for a struggling young actor type to have.

So yeah, there will be frequent Leonard updates from now on. They may compete with baby updates (coming soon!) for adorableness. And when adorable things compete, we all win. 

Oh, and here are a bunch of pictures that are currently on Facebook as well, for those of you who can't access them there. HE'S SO CUTE!!!

Love to all!

The Newest, Yorkiest Night ever

What, Amy is updating again already? Can this be true? Yes, astonished internet reader, it IS true! Tell your friends. 

So what's prompting my break with lazy tradition? Oh, nothing much... only CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS! The one thing that everyone I talk to from back home always asks is "have you seen any famous people?" Normally my response is "Yeah, I've seen this (geeky theatre reference) and that (geeky theatre reference). Oh, and (geeky theatre reference) was starring in that one show, how cool is that?!" Normal people's response to my response is usually "Oh... that's cool." 

But not today, my friends. So, back up to Monday night. I'm just hanging out with Sam doing nothing special when my old pal Jenny Patell (btw, I owe you so huge, Jenny) drops a mysterious email in my lap. It is a link to a mysterious website, and nothing else. Not even a hello. So, I click the link, and what do I find? For no discernible reason, the 45 Bleecker Street theatre is hosting a 25 dollar show by.... drumroll.... EDDIE IZZARD!

We're going to take a quick break from my scintillating tale because I realized that many of my readers are of the family and, um, kinda old variety. Sorry y'all. So they may not know the glory of Izzard. Basically Eddie is is a british comedic icon. He's huge. He's a transvestite. It's hard to explain. I have friends (Abby and Leslie, don't deny it) who can have entire conversations in Izzardisms. Let me find an appropriate video clip, hang on.... 

ok, flash back to real time where I just spent a half hour laughing my head off at Eddie Izzard clips. Woops. So I just picked a little one that I really like. Plus it's a little more PG-13 than his other stuff:

So yeah, it was huge that he was playing in New York at all, let alone at a tiny little Greenwich theatre, for such a tiny price. Later we came to find out that this idea was kind of a lark between Izzard and another comedian, Mike Birbiglia, who has a show at that theatre every week. Izzard came to see the show and do a chat with Birbiglia afterwards, and they wondered what would happen if he were to do a show at 10 at night on a wednesday and advertise it solely via Twitter (which must have been how Jenny found it). The answer is massive, massive crowds. But we already had our tickets reserved, heh heh heh!

And who would be hanging out in the crowd just like any other normal type person? Kevin Spacey, boo ya! It was quite funny, Sam and I are standing there and he whispers to me "man, that guy up there is a real kevin spacey doppelganger." to which I reply "it can't be kevin spacey, he has too much hair!" And of course, it really was Kevin Spacey. Doh. He eventually worked his way up right by us at the main doors, and stood right in front of me. I touched his jacket.... on accident. I smelled his cologne (very old spicey. in fact, it probably was just old spice). Then he uses the awesome power of celebrity to get in to the ticket desk ahead of us, which prompted the british guy behind me to say "hey, where does that wanker think he's going?!" to which I replied "Um, it's Kevin Spacey." to which HE replied "Oh bloody hell! woops." And everyone laughed and we all became fast friends. 

And so the show begins. Oh. my. lord. I have never seen anything so monstrously entertaining, so gloriously hilarious, so... so... so... FREAKIN' AWESOME in my entire life. The best moment of the show was Izzard was riffing on people Twittering and getting up to go to the bathroom during his shows, when Kevin Spacey just jumps up from his seat, and walks onstage past Izzard backstage. The crowd goes wild, of course. Then he comes back onstage with his I-phone and stands there and twitters "On stage with Eddie the caveman Izzard" and then goes to sit back down again. I could go on and on and on about every funny moment, but I won't because eventually you'll be able to buy it on DVD or see it in a great big arena with everyone else, and I want you all to be surprised. And I'm greedy. 

So the show ends, and to kind of pump up his show Mike Birbiglia comes onstage to do a little bit of an interview with Izzard. So he's asking a question and says "... so yeah, the show's great, and all of a sudden that guy from K-Pax is running onstage (big laugh) naw, it's ok man, everybody makes bad movies (crowd goes "ooooooooooh")." Izzard: "Any response, Kevin?" (big laugh).  Spacey, from the crowd "Screw You, man!" (HUGE laugh). 

And so a glorious evening came to an end. As we were filing out, all the celebrity types went to hang out onstage, including Jane Kracinski of 30 Rock who had apparently been in the audience as well. And Eddie Izzard pours them all some wine into little dixie cups. And I said to myself, someday, Amy. Someday. 

Ok, I'm now going to be late to my already half day of work, I hope you can all appreciate this. The sacrifices I make!

Love to all