Rules for Women in Romantic Comedies

I love romantic comedies, and even though it seems like there’s been a string of not-so-great flicks lately, I’ve gobbled them up happily. Except Because I Said So, which was excruciating. But the newest offering, Music and Lyrics, was witty, fun and just plain adorable. Predictable along with a few of the usual clichés? Maybe so, but still.

It did get me thinking about some of the apparent rules that govern nearly every woman in this type of movie today. Here are a few I’ve noticed:

1. Voicemail? No way. Have a clunky old-fashioned answering machine so you can come home after a hard day's work, push the button, and hear it loudly proclaim "you have NO messages."
2. Speaking of phones, Caller ID is for wusses. Be sure to have phones without it. Whether it's Mr. Right or The Guy Who Broke Your Heart, it's important to be surprised whenever you answer the phone.
3. Get ridiculously drunk the night before? No hangover worries! You'll wake up with a horrible pain in your forehead that lasts for about five seconds, then you'll be good to go for the day.
4. Even though you have the dream job that can only pay peanuts, you will live in a gorgeous, well-appointed condo or bungalow.
5. Either your parents are obnoxious and way too heavily involved in your life, or they’re dead. Sorry.
6. If you wear glasses, no one is going to know you’re smoking hot until you remove them.
7. A man with major allergies is obnoxious and undateable. A woman with major allergies is uptight and conniving. Avoid.
8. Red flags you will not notice: 1) He orders your food for you. 2) His home is professionally decorated in a stark, minimalist theme. 3) He wears even one piece of jewelry.
9. If you have a few drinks, you'll probably black out and have sex with the hottie. When you wake up with him, one or both of you will have no clue if you slept together. Never mind the obvious telltale signs that would normally make it pretty clear if you did. Sorry, but you just won't know.
10. If you go out for Indian food, your date will be ruined as soon as you exit the restaurant. I don't want to get into details, but adjectives like "gurgling" and "explosive" are involved.
11. It's not creepy at all when you get pass-out drunk and a guy you barely know carries you home, flops you on your bed and tenderly strips the nearly-unconscious you of most of your clothing. Sometimes he'll even avert his eyes in a most gentlemanly way and he might even put pajamas on you. It's sweet and caring, right? I mean, you can't sleep in your clothes, nuh uh!
12. Rules for the first kiss: He will kiss you. You jump back, surprised, maybe even angry. Seconds later, overcome, you will go in for the second kiss. Immediately after, you will sleep together.
13. Find yourself without any clothes the morning after? His king-size bed sheet or comforter will wrap easily around your size 0 body. You'll be able to walk around during that awkward "whoops, we did it!" conversation with grace. Really.
14. When you show up on his doorstep unannounced, you will not notice that he clearly has someone inside he doesn’t want you to see. The only way you will know is when, after a minute or two of strained conversation, he inches the door open to reveal a sliver of shirtless chest or he darts a furtive look behind him.
15. It will probably only rain after you’ve broken up with someone.
16. And after the break up, your official look will involve an oversized, ratty sweatshirt, probably gray. And very little, if any, makeup. But you’ll still look adorable.
17. Say you're surfing the net with ease when an accidental XXX site pops up. This will render you suddenly unable to use the computer. You'll probably be stabbing frantically at the keys and hollering "close!" when someone calls or walks in and gets *gasp* the wrong idea.
18. You’ll say every word out loud while typing a message to someone on your computer.
19. If something fishy happens, your dog will look at you quizzically along with a questioning Tim “The Toolman” Taylor whimper. You will not find this strange—or remarkably brilliant—at all.

Picture Frame Trellis

It's the time of year when the crocuses start springing up out of nowhere, coaxing my inner gardening monster out of hibernation. Instead of unleashing the beast at Wight's Nursery to run my debit card through the ringer, this time around I'm going to force it to concentrate on outside projects. Cheap projects. At least, I’m going to try.

Last year my favorite creation was my Picture Frame Trellis. I spent months trying to find the perfect trellis for a bare, just-begging-for-a-pretty-vine area on the front of my little rented house. Every trellis I found was boring or expensive, and usually both. Then I found myself at thrift stores tilting my head thoughtfully at everything from old box springs to headboards to kitchen utensils. Yeah, no. And then it hit me: Maybe I could stack and stagger a bunch of picture frames? Hmm.

I ended up gathering various picture frames from Goodwill, garage sales and the like. I discarded the glass and the backs (it pained me to chuck them, but I couldn’t think of a damn thing to do with them) and spray painted them white. Arranging and rearranging the frames into various configurations on my front lawn, I was pretty much hating what I was coming up with. Then I realized that I could just take a few, lay them in a vertical row, fasten them together and be done with it. I drilled two holes in the tops and bottoms of the frames, tied them together with jute, and hung the creation along with my little beach glass mosaic mirror that was also looking for the perfect home. Voila! Ten bucks for a cute little trellis!

In hindsight, I think the drilling and the jute were a mistake. The drilling cracked some of the frames, and I’m surprised the jute didn’t eventually break under the weight of the healthy lime-hued hops that had taken over by August. I think I’ll be better off screwing two little eye screws (there’s a name for those, right? I have no idea) into the top and bottom, and using small chains instead of jute.

I think I’ll focus on finding frames in unusual shapes and with neat detail for the next go around. But first, maybe I should just head to the nursery to find the perfect vine...

Lizzie: My Buddy Valentine

A year ago, I spent the day of love and kisses driving across the vast, taupe state of Texas, stopping for the night at a dingy motel about 250 miles east of El Paso. My significant others? Two dogs: Hurricane Katrina survivors, en route to their new homes via me and my rented Nissan Altima.

I wasn’t exactly feeling the love, except maybe from the tree with the big heart-shaped scar outside my room. But that was probably meant for the noisy, amorous couple in the room right above me, anyway.

Wild Child, the little German Shepherd mix usually confined to her crate and sedative-induced state, somehow managed to use the very center of the motel bed as her own personal toilet while I assembled her nighttime cage. I shifted the bedding as well as I could to get away from the huge potty spot and lay clinging dangerously to the edge of the bed, trying to drift, when I realized my other companion and future best friend, Lizzie, was leaving me a nice little doggy doo-doo present by the door.

Wild Child

Not exactly starry-eyed romance. But then last Valentine’s Day wasn’t about me. And really, that's just fine — I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’d met Lizzie five weeks earlier at the Best Friends sanctuary assembled in Tylertown, Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina blew through. I had the wonderful opportunity to help care for some of the hundreds of dogs still living there five months after the disaster. I fell head over heels for the sad little rust-and-white girl who looked like a giant Jack Russell terrier with a little Pit Bull thrown in. She was adorable and irresistible with those pleading, scared eyes and cautious but constant tail wags.

Lizzie in her Tylertown kennel

Lizzie had arrived at the sanctuary a month earlier, a stray trapped in one of many abandoned, toppled New Orleans neighborhoods. She was so happy, almost relieved, when she would find it in herself to inch close enough to get a few delicious chin and chest scratches. All she wanted was love. Well, and food, but mostly love. And so the day I was scheduled to leave, I found myself filling out adoption papers. No transport options panned out, so I headed back down a month later and fetched my Valentine.

It was a looooong drive home. Wild Child had that name for a reason—I guiltily fed her the sedatives the Best Friends crew gave me "just in case." Lizzie was sometimes so scared that she’d refuse to leave the car for potty breaks. Eerily, she would not let me out of her sight. I could feel her constant, suspicious gaze on me from wherever she was stationed in the car or in various motel rooms. But sometimes at night, I’d stir in my sleep and she’d trot over and cuddle with me for a just few seconds. So I hoped that meant that maybe was starting to dig me okay, too.

I think that as soon as she got home, she knew it was all going to be okay. She became fast friends with her new sister, Angelyne, relying on the wise, calm old Golden Retriever to help her get through. She immediately became more comfortable with getting loves from me. Just one day after she arrived, she was up on the couch (ahem, sorry, her couch) with a tennis ball—and pretty soon, she was tearing gleeful circles around the house. Since then, the only thing that slowed her down, temporarily, was a grueling heartworm treatment.

Finding it in herself to play on her second day home

As rewarding as it was to deliver Wild Child to her new family in Pasadena and to bring Lizzie home, I must say I’m glad I’ll be spending this Valentine's Day in the comfort of my own home. A nice, clean, dog pee-free bed is certainly preferable. Best of all, I'll have Lizzie: My sweet, tail-wagging package full of unconditional love and hugs and kisses. And I’m pretty sure she's just as thrilled to have me.

Lizzie the love bug