The Dirt Field

I’ve been very lazy busy this week, which is why I haven’t posted anything. However, because I lead quite possibly the most exciting existence ever, a lot has happened in the past seven days, all of which I will share with you, my lucky readers, now. Lay back! Open a cold one! Both of which I’ve already been doing since 9:30 this morning.

Victory (Sort Of) at the Mountain Bike Races
This past Wednesday marked my participation in my second mountain bike race in a series sponsored by several local bicycle clubs and stores. These bike races are very exciting, filled with winding trails, thrilling hills, and great big piles of stretchy spandex. At my first race ever several weeks ago, I came in third in my class, a feat made possible only by the mid-race death of all but two of the other participants. My prize? A bronze medal, a plastic waterbottle, and a packet of energy drink powder.

Determined to win a better prize this time around, I got off to a brilliant start, bombed through both 3.58 mile laps of trail as fast as I could, and scored a solid second place. During a large part of the race, I was immediately behind the first place woman, until she pulled ahead while I was busy exploring the dirt with my face. In the end, she beat me by about twenty seconds, but I am absolutely certain that she should have been riding in a higher level class. I mean, she was incredibly fast and she wore head to toe biker spandex. AND PIGTAILS. AND PINK BODY ARMOR. I kid you not. And although I gave that race my all, at no point was I actually able to chip away at her lead. There were a number of times where I started praying that her tire would fall off or that her body armor would come to life and strangle her in a pink frenzy, but then I realized that taking her out mid-race would cheapen my victory and I’m better than that. Instead, I’m going to find out where she lives and pull a Tanya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan before the next race.

On a side note, scoring a satisfying second place only earned me a silver medal, another plastic waterbottle, and another packet of energy drink powder. Maybe I’m being ungrateful, but what is with the damn waterbottles?!? I’M NOT A THIRSTY PERSON.

Kobe Hit Puberty
When I first bought Kobe and brought him into my life, nowhere did I see a note on him that said THIS DOG MAY EXPERIENCE BREAKOUTS OF ACNE because if I had, I’m sorry, but that would have been a dealbreaker. Imagine my surprise then when I awoke last weekend to see a lump on the end of his fuzzy snout. That lump grew increasingly larger throughout the week, until it looked like a large, red, raised pimple (as opposed to all those small, attractive pimples). I know there are people out there who exercise restraint and don’t pick at their faces, but I am not one of them. I am a picker, and if you’re near me and have something obvious that ought to be addressed, I will want to pick at you too. Thus, this week was very challenging, because Kobe would not hold still for long enough for me to figure out if his horrid growth was something that could be exorcised. Thankfully, it appears to be resolving on its own, because the puppy donation pickup was schedule for tomorrow morning.

This story was disgusting. I’m sorry.

But Not Sorry Enough Not To Share Another
Kobe has also been doing a lot of licking lately. He is by nature a “licky” dog – when left undisturbed, he will alternate between licking his legs, feet, butt, and genitalia until he is drowning in saliva. This is made even more problematic by the fact that his mouth smells as if he gargles garbage on a consistent basis. Lately, however, Kobe’s licking has been confined primarily to his front right paw, and happens almost constantly. The sound, the slobber, and the smell are enough to drive any rational person to pitch him out the window or take him to the vet, but I am not that person. Instead, I ignore what may be a potential medical issue and spend all of my time with him swatting his tongue away from his paw. Look, I’m not cheap, but if the appendage still appears to be fully attached, I’m not throwing money needlessly at the vet. I’ve got more important things to buy, like Diet Mountain Dew.

Because You Can Never Have Too Many Little Green Refrigerators
Bobby and I drink a lot of Diet Mountain Dew. It’s terrible for you – filled with chemicals, caffeine, and artificial glowing color – and utterly addicting. You can never just have a single Diet Mountain Dew; if you have one, you’ll wake up the next day and think immediately of having another. It gets to the point where your throat feels like it is full of sand and if you don’t have a Diet Mountain Dew at once, you’ll DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH. Or maybe that’s just me.

The point being that since the beginning of summer, Bobby and I have drank a lot of Diet Mountain Dew, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a few hundred 20oz bottles. Each of these bottles has a code under the cap that allows you to go to the Mountain Dew website to enter the “Transform Your Summer” contest. When you enter, you select which prize you’d like to win with each code – you can enter all of your codes into the drawing for a single prize or space them out over the dozen or so prizes offered. Because I have terrible luck and never win anything, I suggested that we pick something easy to win and enter as many codes as possible. This turned out to be the Mountain Dew minifridge.

This was about eight weeks ago. Two weeks ago, we received a large box in the mail that turned out to be a shiny green Mountain Dew minifridge. Excitement! Wonder! We’d won! Then a few days later, two more refrigerators arrived in the mail. The catch with the contest is that they don’t tell you when you win; they just ship your prize to you six weeks after you win. As of today, we’ve now entered about seventy codes in total, so I suspect that at some point in the next six weeks, I’ll need to move out of my room in order to make room for all of the green refrigerators.

But That’s Fine; I’ll Just Move Into My Office
I had my annual employee review last Tuesday. My two bosses and I converged in the conference room and they began with a speech about how when I’d started seven months ago, they were taking a chance on me because I did not have a lot of experience, and how, since then, several serious issues had arisen that they were going to address then so that I could work on them over the next year. I thought I was going to die on the spot until one of them said ominously, “…if there is a next year” before bursting into laughter. Then they gave me gold stars and built a monument in my honor, awards you apparently receive when you dedicate your entire life to your job and nothing else. Their only recommendation for improving my performance moving forward was that I take more breaks, and I intend to embrace that suggestion fully. Because really, reading celebrity gossip all day on the Internet can be strenuous, and I really should stop more frequently to go out for drinks.

I Guess That’s My Cue To Go Now
But I’ll be back sooner than next Friday, because otherwise you might miss the chance to know exactly when Kobe licks off an entire toe, and really, how can you go on without staying fully abreast of something that exciting?