How Are the Schools? Who Knew?

I don't know why I clicked on this Newsweek article about The 100 Best High Schools in America, but imagine my surprise when I read the photo caption:

Jersey girls: Sophomores at McNair Academic High School in Jersey City, N.J., No. 15 on the list

Awesome! Not that I would necessarily want my daughter hanging around the pictured girls. I'm sure their smart but they look a little like what my mom would call "hard girls." And any daughter of mine would be schooled in fashion as well as the three Rs.

This Just In: Dogs Smell

Angus: Just imagine the wavy lines. They're there.

Seriously man, dogs stink. Why did no one ever tell me about this?

The whole dog thing is new for me. I grew up with house cats, and a hamster, mouse, bird, and guinea pig or two. After I left home, my mom adopted a cocker spaniel from the pound. I named him Paco and then moved 3000 miles away. I was like a divorced weekend mom to Paco - the parent who you could look forward to seeing once in awhile, the one who would take you on walks and throw the tennis ball for you in a way your full-time parent never did. But he was my mom's dog until the end: trailing her every move, creating an imaginary boundary around her in the park to keep intruders away, spending all of his weekdays sitting by the door waiting for her to come home from work. Because he was my mom's dog, he unwittingly took on my mom's traits, including laziness and lack of desire to exercise or even spend much time outside (as well as a good nature and an extremely loving attitude). I don't know if it's because Paco never really went outside or because he and I never got close enough to know the other's smells, but I don't recall Paco being particularly foul smelling.

Herr Guitar also had a cocker spaniel, Henry. Henry definitely trumps me as being the true love of HG’s life - and I think he would admit as much. He carries a picture of Henry in his wallet, has a Henry story for every occasion, and gets misty eyed just thinking about him. I never had the chance to meet Henry, but I know him as a con dog, a fast talker, a liar and a dashing charmer who had a healthy appetite and a devil-may-care attitude about potty training. But I've never heard anything about Henry's stench.

Have dog owners been keeping something from me? Are those design magazines featuring cute dogs adding that special something to exquisite decors cruelly bullshitting me? Or is it just my dog that is putrid?

Angus, the puppy that HG and I adopted last fall, is part cocker spaniel, part Border collie and 100% adorable. I love him unconditionally but have to admit that he smells. Part of it is nature. I've read about "puppy smell" and hope that's what it is while I patiently wait for him to age. Plus, he gets B.O. when sleeping in a sunny room. Sort of endearing, if that's where it ended.

I admit part of it is nurture. The house next door to ours is empty and the fence connecting our yards allows Angus access into the neighboring space. He prefers it to his own yard, probably because whatever is in the soil over there is so rank that if he rolls and digs and frolics over there he can come out smelling like a mercury-poisoned fish foot. I sometimes worry that he will dig up a body over there - what else could it be? Whatever is in the soil is good fertilizer. Last summer, the yard was covered in a variety of plants that grew up to 7 feet tall.

But the real problem is that Angus is, quite simply, an idiot. We took him to a state park a few weeks ago and every few minutes he would drop and roll in the grass. We thought it was his way of communing with nature. Turns out he was communing with deer shit - and the grass was full of it. Last weekend we discovered that he'll even roll in another dog's shit if so inclined.

Listen, Angus, if you want to smell like a dirty hippie, it's your prerogative. But if you want to sit on my couch, let alone put your head in my lap, you're going to have to clean up your act. We've had to wash our couch's upholstery several times since Angus's arrival. It now wears a protective shield. (Angus also likes to boost the smell factor by digging through the garbage, carrying it to the couch, and chewing on it there.) My pregnancy-sensitive nose is being tortured by this. I'm developing an OCD. I smell him everywhere - on the subway, in the park, at the office, on my clothes. I smell him when I look in the mirror, when I eat my lunch, when I hear a favorite song...

On the bright side, he's nuts and loves to take pills. Maybe I can find some sort of chemical internal deodorant for him? Send suggestions if you have them.

By the way, sweet-smelling Paco died about a month ago. Tonight, let's all spill part of our 40 in his memory.

Homesickness

Did I mention that real estate sucks? It does. It totally sucks.

It sucks when you are renting and not ready to buy something - feeling as if you are missing out on ownership and appreciation and tax breaks. Plus, if you had your own place you could finally get a dog and put up some shelves.

It sucks when you are looking and getting ready to buy - because you realize how discouraging the whole thing actually is. How little you have and how much you need. How much things cost and how little they seem worth. You try little tricks, like the oft-hyped "scanning the for sale by owner section of the New York Times to find an honest deal," but you can't even find that section. And no one is going to be honest or give you a deal. You travel to the far reaches of each burrough, except Staten Island of course, hoping to find that hidden gem, that undiscovered nirvana where the gays are starting to move in and plant gardens. Everything you see borders on the projects and is still unaffordable. You learn the difference between a co-op and a condo, and learn that both suck. You learn about real estate taxes and maintenance fees and closing costs, all of which suck. You search in vain for decent closet space, for an in-house washer dryer, for something that doesn't reek of dog pee. You make offers on everything you see, just to see what they'll say. Most go for it, and you feel awkward but relieved as you quickly back out. (You wonder why New York magazine keeps reporting bidding wars when everything you've seen is going for at least 20% below the asking price, and people seem desperate. Is it you?) You finally find something that seems perfect: a house, a quiet neighborhood, great location/proximity to the city, not too near to the projects, a washer dryer, a driveway, a yard. For sale by owner, decent price.

It sucks when you buy something - for so many reasons. You are always second guessing your decision. Should you have waited? Should you have been more aggressive in asking for repairs? Should you sell now and try to make money? Should you wait and try to make more money? If you wait, will the neighborhood slowly decline and cost you money? What's that smell? Is that a leak? You get a dog and shelves, but they are not enough. You troll Home Depot and Lowe's on the weekends, miserably looking for inexpensive ways to keep your property from falling apart. You clean and clean and clean and still you need to clean. You worry about the hardwood floors getting scratched, and actually consider putting carpet over it just for your peace of mind. You get excited when you see a seemingly gay type walking by window - or a hipster, or a student, or a band - but the sightings are few and far between. You don't really like what your neighbors are doing with their yard. You want to join the militant neighborhood association to encourage others to pick up their garbage. And even though you've found an ideal Manhattan-close undiscovered neighborhood, you soon realize that your decision has put you in some club that you had not anticipated: Jersey. Your new home is not in New York, and therefore has a stigma. None of your old friends share your enthusiasm. You are asked if you ever make it into the city, and told that others don't want to keep you out late because you live so far away, but you live closer than they do. You are treated as if you moved to the suburbs, but you have no suburban benefits. You realize that New York is not the scrappy mecca of your teenage fantasies, it has become a parody of a bad Sex in the City episode, filled with wanna be Bigs and Carrie Bradshaws. You should have stayed in California. You should have just moved to Staten Island.