Jill Rants and Raves: first dogs, first dates and first dents

There are times when I feel like a little kid who has too many tall stories to tell at the dinner table and gets all out of breath trying to get it all out before getting sent to bed for setting fire to the tablecloth (by mistake obviously). You get my drift though, right?

Susie reminded me on my walk today that I had wanted to blog about all the people I know who have Toyota Prius cars and how they all have dents and bodywork damage. What is that about? Of course, you can't freakin' hear a Prius, so of course people are gonna drive into them. Blind people can't hear them coming and step right out in front of them. Take a look around you. See a Prius? Chances are it will have scratches, dents all down the side. And though I don't want to say bad things about my friends, they all dented their own cars.

Then I am all anxious to write about Bo, the first pup, and how I really don't give a flying fuck whether he is a rescue dog or not. He is a Kennedy dammit, doesn't that count for anything with all you animal rights nuts? Did I just say that? But my thoughts about the hefty debate over this poor Portugese Water dog are just too complex for a warm sunny California day. This is about the crazy fucked up business of animal sheltering, and I warn you - I'll get to it.

Then I wanna venture into affairs of the heart and my gradual awareness that I am simply not equipped, it doesn't seem, to be in a 'relationship' however much I look with envy at all of those Facebook updates about how the wife is cooking dinner, and how someone just cuddled up on the sofa with their sweetie, or that they just got married in the Virgin islands. They all seem to have really nice houses and just one dog or two cats and good jobs. What is that about??? I am just better off it seems being platonically romantically involved with my friends - all at the same time - how about that? Just don't try to seduce me into bed for sex. I will turn the light off so fast your head will spin. But as I curled up with a 10 pound elderly mini dachshund to watch Leonardo di Caprio and Russell Crowe in a movie whose title I have already forgotten, I really did wish I was on a comfy, beautifully designed sofa (instead of Susie and Bonnie's castoff leather Ikea number) with a girl who thinks I'm a hero (of sorts).

But I'm comforted (not really) by a friends experience in the heterosexual dating world. She went out for drinks with a guy on a first date and now knows everything there is to know about him, his divorced wife, her nieces and nephews and their children, his career (he has been retired 10 years), his house, his childhood and his politics. Does he know the same about you, I asked? Well, he didn't ask, she said.

The next morning, having googled her and finding out she is a big animal rights supporter, he sent her an email attachment - a story about a man who as a young man had once removed a massive splinter (huge chunk of wood) from the foot of an elephant, and the elephant had hooted and hollered in appreciation and stomped his now splinterless hoof on the ground a few times, perhaps tapping out 't-h-a-n-k y-o-u d-u-d-e'. Fast forward 25 years and the guy is visiting a zoo and sees an elephant in the enclosure, an elephant who looks him in the eye and stomps his foot in an uncannily familiar way. The man, filled with glee at seeing an old friend jumps into the enclosure, runs up to the elephant who grasps him tight in his trunk - and hurls him against the wall, killing him instantly.

D'ya think my friend's date is just a tad unclear on the concept?

My first dates always end better than that - it's getting past that I have a problem with....