BY QUIRKY...DOES THAT MEAN I'M IGNORANT?

I learned one thing yesterday.

There ARE doggie daycare centers scattered across this great nation of ours.

And I learned that fact over and over and over and over and over yesterday.

I've got it, mmm-kay??

But (and there's always a big "but")... I wouldn't pay $20 a day to board my dog. No way, no how. You're looking at $100 a week, $400 a month. On average, we get 1.5 people looking at the house per week. It's simply not worth it.

So yesterday, I bought a 30 foot chain and a stake to drive into the ground.

Twenty-one dollars.

I attached her to it last night to see how she'd like it.

Naturally, she hated it.

She got tangled up in it quite a few times. I gave her a rawhide which she instantly put in her mouth and tossed beyond the chain's reach and then whined when she couldn't reach it.

I'm chaining her up this morning.

I figure by tonight, she'll have strangled herself, running after a squirrel.

And NOBODY will have come to look at my house.

I was forced (AGH!) to talk to Nosy Assed Neighbor last night.

About 6 p.m. the phone rang. Some lady wanted to come show our house at 6:15. I said sure, hung up and frantically cleaned the house, flipping on every light in the house, vacuuming and dusting at the same time WHILE holding the baby(it CAN be done, don't let any housewife tell you different).

At 6:10, I take Andrew and Maggie outside where I chained Maggie up and we watched her freak out for a while.

Naturally...NAN smelled us from underneath her rock and crawled out, dusted the earthworms from her bathrobe and came over to the fence to spread her negativity.

Last night, I was regaled with her opinion on African-Americans.

She worked with African-Americans for years before she retired, so she knows a thing or two about them.

She informed me that African-Americans have no concept of time. When they say they're going to be somewhere at a certain time, they WON'T be there. And when they do get there, there will be no apologies because that's how they are.

I was kinda taken aback by all this and brought up the fact that my wife, the most caucasian woman on the planet...she's so white she's clear ... is habitually late for everything as well.

"But I'm talking about African Americans, Uncle Bob," NAN reiterated.

Yes, NAN. I'm well aware of that. That would explain why my jaw is currently resting on my chest.

She asked me what time it was. It was 6:20. She PROMISED me that the people coming to look at the house wouldn't be there before 6:30.

For all intents and purposes, she didn't even KNOW if the people coming were African-Americans. It hadn't even been brought up into the conversation. But she's only seen one white couple look at our house. Everyone else was black. Which doesn't shock me, we're fully expecting to sell the house to a black family as our neighborhood is predominantly black these days. Which would explain my recent affinity for wearing my baseball caps backwards and listening to Jay-Z rap about riding in his hooptie with his 40 oz. while sitting on my front porch in my rocking chair, flashing gang signs at passing cars. As well as my latest necklace with a solid gold Mercedes Benz emblem weighing seven pounds. Word. Or whatever.

So for 15 minutes, she went on about "those people", sounding like Hitler talking about the Jews if Hitler had been born with a whiny Southern twang. She talked about the "respectable" African Americans in our neighborhood, like Henry and his family. Henry's a great guy that everyone in the neighborhood knows. I don't think I've ever written about him here, but he's the type of guy who sees you struggling with something in your front yard, he'll run over to help you out. He's lived here longer than most of us and he's the one who calls the police whenever anyone gets out of hand.

She told me how Henry's embarrassed about the neighborhood now. Almost like we're all embarrassed about NAN.

Anyway, she prattled on and on and finally (she was right) at 6:50, a young family and the realtor pulled up in the driveway.

We smiled and stayed in the backyard as they toured the house.

...For all of five minutes.

This was the first time I had been home during someone actually seeing our home. I had no idea it went so quickly.

They came outside, mentioned something about "all the dogs" in the neighborhood" and then left.

I was shocked at how quickly it went. I'm not even sure they bothered to check out the bedrooms.

Anyway...all that rushing around and then standing in the backyard for almost an hour while NAN spouted off her manifesto for five minutes of them looking at the sink, seeing that the home was surrounded by dogs on all side and hightailing it out of here was definitely a bummer.

...As well as the reason I'm not paying $100 a week for my dog to be boarded.

The Season Finale of "Ed" was last night.

No shout-out to Uncle Bob that I could detect. Which is fine. It's a good show. They don't have to drop my name into conversation just to get me to watch.

Speaking of which, I happened to check out Ed's official site on NBC yesterday. Under fan sites, they have Television Without Pity and gave my recaps four and a half stars, calling my recaps "Quirky".

Quirky.

I can live with "quirky". Especially when it's coming from NBC.

There have been a lot of great quirky people in history.

Naturally, I can't think of any right now. I'm drawing a total blank. I mean, I picture Kramer from "Seinfeld", Don Knotts and Michael Jackson. But that's about it.

But I plan on putting a whole new face on the word "quirky".

MY face.

Sir Quirk-A-Lot.

Rawk.

That's it, I've gotta take the kid to daycare and need to get this party started right.

Out peace.