Oscar Bee

Oscar's costume for Halloween this year was a bumble bee. He wasn't a fan of the antennae, but he actually didn't seem to mind the rest of the getup. No trick or treating for him, but we did have a bunch of people over to carve pumpkins last Friday and so he got to just go around the room getting attention from everyone. For him that's the next best thing to candy anyways.

Autumn Leaves

A few weeks ago we took a trip up to New Hampshire for a little romantical getaway. (Note: getaway would have been more romantical if I hadn't been totally distracted by the Red Sox winning games 6 and 7 of the ALCS that weekend...)

However! We did go out hiking with the Oscar Bean and he loved it. For a city dog he really took to being out in nature and quickly decided that he was clearly the toughest and most ferocious creature in the whole forest. Dude loves to scamper over rocks and tree stumps, he's a natural.


"I am a lion, surveying my kingdom..."

Girlfriend Boyfriend

Oscar is quite the smooth little dude. Women want him, and men want to be him. However, Oscar has eyes for only one girl, his number one lady: Remy.

Remy is our next door neighbor. Like him, she's a French bulldog. They just love to hang out with each other--running up and down the hallway, stealing each other's toys, rassling. Actually, once Remy enters the picture, Oscar completely forgets that there's anyone else in the world.

Keep it down, I'm watching my program

We read somewhere that dogs tend to take on the personality of their owners. Which has proven to be true so far, because Oscar loves to chew on a stinky old cow hoof, just like Karen, and he also likes to poop on the floor, just like me.

But what about our other great hobby, the bond that holds us together--TV?


Well, Oscar's down, as you can see. But what's his favorite show?



Veronica Mars, obvs.

Just put me in the overhead bin

For reasons unbeknownst to us, Oscar is obsessed with the little black suitcase we usually use whenever one of goes on a weekend trip. Witness:

Oscar Hungers...Oscar LIVES!!!!

Okay, back by popular demand after a long hiatus. I keep hearing from people saying "Put up more pictures!" I've noticed that they never say, "Put up more words with the pictures!" I can read between the lines. Time to give the people what they want:

All Oscar, all the time.






He's older, he's jowlier, and yet he remains as ruthlessly cute as ever. But don't be drawn in by the cute cuddly facade. In 5 years time, we'll all be working for him...or dead by his paws.

The New York Trifecta

It's been a banner day so far at the House of Kuraham. Oscar started the morning out by taking a big ol' funky dump in the kitchen. For some reason he has one particular tile in front of the oven that he really, *really* likes to poop on; this is, oh, the fourth time he's marked that particular spot.

The weird thing is that I'm developing this sixth sense for when he does this stuff. I had gone to talk to Karen in the bedroom, and she asked me where Oscar was, and I said, "He's in the kitchen..." and I just knew. Which makes me wonder: is this my super power? And if so, it officially has to be the worst super power ever, right? I could be the most banal super hero ever. "Superman, you fly out and destroy the evil spaceship. Spider-Man, trap all the henchman in a web. I'll...oh, wait! My poop sense is tingling! I have to go clean the kitchen."

So anyways.

This being Sunday, Karen and I went out for brunch to Petite Abeille, a favorite brunch place of ours a few blocks down 1st Ave. It's a nice day out, so Karen says we should eat outside. So we do, and aside from a few gusts of wind dusting our brunch with random city grit, it's a lovely meal. And then, as we're about to leave, as Karen is taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r to sign the check and get moving, a distant pigeon takes flight...and sights me in, perhaps drawn to the bright yellow TV on the Radio t-shirt I'm wearing...and this pigeon lets fly his vile payload. Have you ever seen the news footage of Vietnam-era bombing runs, where a bomber drops several bombs and you just see this line of explosions going up, one! two! three! four! Yeah, that's exactly how it happened. A line of pigeon bombs splashed down along our table, hitting my napkin, my water glass, the table cloth in front of me...and finally splatting down on my shirt. My totally awesome favorite shirt.


So to recap: my day started with a big stinky dog crap and continued with pigeon crap. Really, all I need to do now is step in some bum poop and I'll have hit the New York Trifecta.

Some assorted puppy pictures, as a reward for those of you who read all the way through this crappy entry:



Oscar, plotting destruction





Chewing on random things is what makes me "me"



Portrait of a Poop Monster

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball

I think I've written about this before, but Oscar has a completely different internal clock than any reasonable, decent human being. (My ideal internal clock: sleep from 2 am to 11 am, take occasional naps throughout the rest of the day, never really be too awake and alert ever.) I can understand that I'm not the final word on these things, but Oscar's deviation from my standard is just about obscene. It basically involves him going completely crazy and hyper right before bed and then again at around 6-7 in the morning. I can work with a night person, and I can work with a morning person, but how is it that he has to be both a night and a morning person?

Oscar's secret, of course, is that he's not a day person. After he wakes Karen and me up and we're busy grumbling at each other, Oscar goes back to sleep and stays there for the next several hours. He's like some demented little alarm clock.

Anyways, we've been devising methods for dealing with this situation. Mainly, we just try to tire him out before bedtime in the hopes that he'll sleep as long as possible. Last night I tried taking him downstairs to the bodega with me, because he's still at a point where leaving the apartment is so exciting and stimulating and overwhelming that he gets a little worn out by the experience. In that regard, it did work; he burned off a bit of energy on the trip down there. Unfortunately, I forgot to factor in that running down to the store in my building at 1 in the morning on a Saturday night would expose Oscar to all manner of Murray Hill drunks. I hit the line with my bottles of water in one arm and Oscar in the other when I was overwhelmed by four massively drunk girls who thought Oscar was the cutest thing they'd ever seen. In truth, he *IS* the cutest thing they'd ever seen. But the way they showed their appreciation was just so handsy! I felt so violated. They were slurring drunken questions at me and touching Oscar all over. It was grope-y, and not in a good way.

In case any of those drunk girls should happen upon this blog, they probably won't remember any of the conversation. I'll briefly recap my portion of the chat to bring them back up to speed:
1. "His name is Oscar."
2. "He's a boy, I just told you that his name is Oscar. That's not a very good girl's name, really."
3. "Okay, I told your friend over there that his name was Oscar, not you. Sorry for the confusion."
4. "Yes, he is so cute."
5. "Yes, he is so so soooooo cute."
6. "Yes, he is the cutest thing."
7. "Yes, he is the cutest little baby boy. I feel like we've really explored the studio space pretty thoroughly on this line of questioning."
8. "No, I don't think you should hold him. I think he's kinda getting really freaked out."
9. "Seriously, he's freaking out. Me too."
10. "Oh, there goes your boyfriend and his case of Bud Light! You should follow him."
11. "Seriously, there he goes out the door! That direction! Over there!"
12. "No, really, he's leaving you behind and taking the beer. Go to him!"
13. "I think it's really weird that you just had your friend take a picture of you with my dog." (This last was muttered under my breath, not that it mattered.)

Anyways, obviously I decided that last night's method was sub-optimal. It wore Oscar out and he slept well, but I've been feeling sort of shell-shocked and weirded out ever since, so I didn't sleep very well. I was worried it would traumatize Oscar, but he seemed just fine when we got back. I was the one who was traumatized. All the small touching hands and the slurring! All the agreement in re: the cuteness of my dog! All the Murray Hill frat boys glaring at me because Oscar was stealing away the attention of their intended conquests! (Okay, that part was kinda funny. Hours of game and hundreds of dollars worth of vodka-tonics went into getting those girls back so tantalizingly close to the guys' apartments, and not 100 feet from the door all their efforts were blown up by 6 pounds worth of a critter that eats his own poop when he's bored. Not enough to redeem the experience, but it definitely goes in the plus column.)

Whatever, enough words, now for the pictures. Tonight we tried wearing Oscar out using his green Happy Fun Ball. It's got a little face on it and it rattles when you shake it and we got it for free when we ordered some pet supplies, so of course he loves it much more than any of the dozen chew toys that we've bought him ourselves. Tonight we started working on the fundamentals of playing fetch:



Step 1: Get Oscar's attention with Happy Fun Ball. The best way to do this is to hold it about three inches away from him, because what's more fascinating than a toy just tantalizingly out of reach? (btw, sorry about his weird Dune-esque blue eyes in some of these pics. For some reason he gets blue eye instead of red eye in pictures. It's not a sign that he's evil. Not saying he's not evil, because he is a little bundle of fuzzy, adorable, charming, cuddly, near-psychotic evil, no doubt. I'm just saying, the blue eyes aren't part of that.)



Next step: chuck the ball to the other end of the room and watch Oscar skitter across the floor and then slide headfirst into the wall, taking the ball and a flurry of dust bunnies in his wake.



Next step after that last one: Wait for Oscar to get some sort of grasp on Happy Fun Ball and bring it back. (Yeah, it's fetch. There's not really a lot to explain, is there? I'm just trying to tie a couple of cute pictures together.)



Note the little happy face on the ball. Minus Oscar's evil blue eyes, those two have almost the exact same expression.



Now here's where the fetch game comes apart a little bit. As you can see, at the last second Oscar is veering away from me and the camera and towards his bed. He hasn't quite grasped that the last part of fetch is him giving me the ball back so we can repeat the process, so I have to let him hop up on his bed and then I steal the ball away from him. He's cool with it, though. I think that the second he sees the ball in my hand, his little puppy brain forgets the "I just had that ball a second ago!" thought and reverts to, "I really want that ball!" from the first photo above.



Finally, gloriously, after about 20-30 reps of chasing the ball and bonking against the wall, Oscar got worn out. He just dropped the ball and flopped down, as you can see. It was like he deflated. "My arms, my paws...made of rubber, nothing more."



See, now that right there is one pooped puppy. I'm so going to sleep for a whole night tonight.

(This can only mean that Oscar will be up and pulling his little Tasmanian Devil routine at 5:30 tomorrow morning...)

Cary

ps On the iTunes while writing this post: the first Peter, Bjorn & John album and the new Dinosaur Jr album. Just an FYI.

In a Glass Case of Emotions

So tired. Can't believe another weekend is over and we're back to it tomorrow morning...

Oscar is definitely keeping our schedules a bit...out of the ordinary. Karen and I, we're pretty boring. We don't like to get up at 3 in the morning and go out to party, but there are a lot of nights when that's the exact schedule Oscar is on. And let's not talk about the little gift Oscar creates for us every single morning at 6:30, on the dot, like clockwork. I know that a lot of people reading this blog get up at 6:30 normally and thus have no sympathy, but I don't get up at 6:30 and so it's real early for me. Parenthood, man, it's rough.

Anyways, I give you:

The Many Moods of Oscar: A Selection




Here we see Oscar in an earnest, thoughtful moment. Meticulously chewing on a toy, an activity he engages in when he can't find fingers or electrical cords to gnaw on or weird things to lick. (Does the dishwasher inexplicably taste really good? If not, then why does he always go and lick it? What about that one spot on the wall in the bedroom? My sandals? The handle on the drawer of the entertainment center?)



In this shot we find the ferocious young French bulldog on the attack. Or defense. I'm not exactly sure what he intends by this move, actually. What he does is, he puts his head really low to the ground with his front paws out ahead of him, and he sticks his butt way up in the air. Then he sort of fakes like he's lunging forward, but instead he jumps backwards, swatting a paw vaguely in the direction he's looking. So he looks like he's very ferocious, but in fact he's moving backward. Maybe intentionally, maybe not. I saw him challenge a suitcase in the bedroom earlier today, and the showdown ended when he bumped into the far wall behind him, a good 5-6 feet away from where he started his stare-down. After that he sort of came to his senses and walked away, but he really gave that suitcase a wary look as he walked out--"Yeah, suitcase, it's a good thing for you that wall got in the way. I think you know how it was going to end if you and I had to throw down. I think you KNOW."



This is a picture of sad, remorseful Oscar. It's how he looks when he's done something bad.


HA! Just kidding. Oscar is a remorseless eating and pooping machine. He never feels bad about anything at all, ever. We're doing this whole "Power of Positive Dog Training" thing where all the training is based on praising and rewarding him when he does good things, but not doing anything when he does bad things because he doesn't understand when we say stuff like "No!" and "Bad dog!" and it only gets him all excited and confused. I'm not sure how he understands positive reinforcement and not negative reinforcement, but that's why I've never written any award-winning books about dog training but some other much smarter people have.

Anyways, the upshot is that when he does something good, like go to the bathroom on his papers, we get really excited and we praise him and give him a treat. And when he takes a dump behind the leather chair in the living room, we...just totally play it cool and act like nothing happened. It's a world without sin for that little guy. And somewhere out there, Bill Bennett is feverishly working on his own dog-training manual to combat all this liberal namby-pamby moral doggie relativism.



Last we have a bit of Oscar sleeping in what Karen calls the "puppy or chicken?" pose. I actually had to crop the photo down a bit, because his back legs are just flopped down and Oscar's...manhood...is all just out there, for the world to see. He's not modest. At all. Like I said, it's a world without sin for Oscar. No fig leaf for that little dude in his Garden of Eden. And he really has nothing to worry about, because unlike Adam, Oscar has a wildly over-protective Karen out there to obsess over every bit of food he eats and keep him away from "people food" like forbidden apples. Dude is golden.

Cary

Oscar's First Bath

It became necessary to give Oscar a bath. It seems that he's a bit cavalier about going to the bathroom, and he doesn't mind playing around in the same area where he's just...made. I guess that shows sort of a refreshing joie de vivre and a lack of hangups, but we're really hoping he learns soon that maybe he should go to the bathroom and then just clear the area.

That's probably much more information than you wanted, but here's the reality with puppies. Our lives pretty well revolve around a puppy's bathroom schedule now.

Anyways, if you can ignore the reason why he's in the bath, the pics are pretty amusing. Oscar was not a big fan of taking a bath. He was very confused.



He'd just kind of play it cool for a while, and then all of a sudden he'd make a break for it:



I have no idea how a 6-lb. puppy can require two people to hold him down for something like this, but there you go.

Cary

Oscar and Hubert = BFF

One of the many recommendations we gleaned from our stacks and stacks of books about proper puppy care is that it's good to have a stuffed animal roughly the same size as the puppy to share the kennel, so he'll think that he still has one of his littermates in there with him.

Enter Hubert.

Hubert is...we're not really sure. He's vaguely rhino-esque, because of that little horn on his nose. But otherwise, we're not really sure. He has googly eyes and he squeaks when you squeeze his belly, which makes me think he might be descended from Muppets. Anyways, he and Oscar have become fast friends.

Whenever Oscar goes into his crate, he has to take a bit of time to sort out Hubert, find a good spot for him. Oscar can pick Hubert up, but when he wants to take a nap in the crate, he never takes Hubert out. If Hubert's missing from the crate, Oscar seems to get a bit confused. I guess it's just that Oscar thinks Hubert is pretty comfy to have around:

Last night Oscar started bringing Hubert out from the bedroom to the living room, which was pretty entertaining--seeing as Hubert is bigger than Oscar, it takes a little maneuvering. All that work was pretty tough on Oscar, so as soon as he got Hubert out to the living room, he just pulled the rhino Muppet up on the living room bed...and went back to sleep.

Anyways, it's nice that Oscar has someone to keep him company.

ps How do you keep a rhino from charging? Take away his credit cards! I don't know if that works on rhino Muppets, though, but I'd assume it does. It's worth a shot.

Cary

The Oscar Has Landed

Oscar made it home last night, around 9:00 or so. And now it's nearly 1 in the morning, a day later, and I'm only now getting a free minute to post the pics and a couple words about the little rascal. I've gotta say, he's pretty amazingly energetic. And also absolutely completely totally adorable:

Look at that face! You could not say no to that puppy, it's just not possible. And ultimately probably not a big deal, since he really hasn't grasped what the word "no" means. Or any other words, really. We keep calling him "Oscar" and hopefully that's starting to get through to him, but so far not so much.

What else is there to say? It's pretty amazing how much personality he already has. We're already assembling a list of things he likes, including:

* squeaky toys. That squeak just entrances him.

* playing with his reflection in mirrors. We have a floor length mirror in the bedroom, and he is obsessed with finding out where that other dog is. Seriously, I need to videotape this and figure out how to put it on the website.

* toes. Dude's like a tiny little Quentin Tarantino or something. If there are toes around, whether in socks or not, he needs to check that scene out.

* crawling under the coffee table. He gets down with his belly to the ground and kinda shimmies himself under there, for reasons unknown. As you can see below, he just likes to hang out down there sometimes:

Also he tends to respond to Karen and me in completely different ways. With me, for whatever reason, he gets very excited. If I'm in the room and I'm paying attention to him, he'll starting running and hopping around, challenging me. I just rev him up for some reason, and I have no idea why.

With Karen, on the other hand, he's just a little mama's boy. Much more relaxed and cuddly. If she's walking around, he'll follow behind her just to check out what she's doing. And he'll curl up in her lap whenever she sits down. He's much more mellow with her.

Anyways, it's late and I'm tired, and hopefully Oscar is too. He woke up last night at 3 in the morning and again at 6, so we're really hoping he'll make it through the night tonight. He's already in his crate, so let's hope he's chilling out and out for the night:

Cary

The Oscar Comes Home Mixes

Fair warning: this post is about music. We're still in the "waiting for puppy" period and passing the time. By making mixes. If that holds no interest, then...um, you probably won't be interested in this.

I actually finished these. I always feel a little weird about throwing a mix together really quickly, but sometimes they work out. And sometimes they don't. The mix, she is an elusive and perplexing mistress.

Anyways, I figured that the drive is long enough and I had enough songs that I could do a two-disc mix. I tried to break them up roughly so that disc one has a fairly consistent tone, mostly (but not all) jangly indie rock. Disc two is...um, pretty much everything else. Some poppier stuff, some more rock stuff, some techno stuff. Kind of a catch all. Those mixes are usually pretty rough, so we'll see if it holds together. Fingers crossed.

Oscar Comes Home:
1. Camera Obscura: Let's Get Out of this Country
2. Albert Hammond Jr.: 101
3. Voxtrot: Rise Up in the Dirt
4. Jens Lekman: Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill
5. Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins: Rise Up with Fists!!!
6. Cat Power: Could We
7. Papercuts: Unavailable
8. The Changes: On a String
9. Band of Horses: I Go to the Barn Because I Like The
10. Grand Archives: Sleepdriving
11. Idlewild: American English
12. The Twilight Sad: Cold Days from the Birdhouse
13. Bloc Party: I Still Remember
14. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Mama, Won't You Keep Those Castles in the Air + Burning?
15. The Hold Steady: Citrus
16. Jose Gonzalez: Heartbeats
17. Arcade Fire: Intervention
18. Bishop Allen: Little Black Ache
19. Galaxie 500: Parking Lot
20. Sister Vanilla: Delicat
21. The Broken West: Down in the Valley

Oscar Comes Home 2: Oscar Becomes Eclectic
1. Matt & Kim: Silver Tiles
2. Asobi Seksu: And Then He Kissed Me
3. Cheeseburger: Do You Remember?
4. The Thermals: Here's Your Future
5. Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich: Hold Tight
6. Architecture in Helsinki: Wishbone
7. Bloc Party: Positive Tension (The Go! Team Remix)
8. Teddybears: Yours to Keep (feat. Neneh Cherry)
9. DJ Shadow: You Made It
(ed. note: it's so weird that Oscar's introduction to DJ Shadow is going to be "You Made It." I'll get him back to the classic stuff asap, starting with Endtroducing. There's so much he needs to learn about. DJ Shadow, early Massive Attack, post punk, shoegaze... Being a parent is a lot of responsibility. Serious.)
10. Lily Allen: LDN
11. Of Montreal: Wraith Pinned to the Mist
12. New Order: Temptation (Secret Machines Remix)
13. LCD Soundsystem: All My Friends
14. Gui Boratto: Beautiful Life
15. International Pony: Solid Gold (International Version)
16. Peter, Bjorn & John: Young Folks (Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve Remix)
17. TV on the Radio: Province
18. Panda Bear: Bros. (Edit)

So...yeah. That's a whole big list of songs and you can listen to it if you'd like. And you have all those songs, or a bit of credit on iTunes. Or if you want, it might could be arranged for someone to make a copy for you.

I'll test these out tomorrow and see how they go. I hope that Oscar likes them.

Cary

UPDATE: They came out pretty well, I think. Not my best work, but I'm so obsessive now about doing "proper" mixes that I hardly ever complete anything besides these quick little jobs, and these were both good enough for what they were. The first mix, I felt initially like the songs all held together well and fit together nicely...and then I realized, they all fit together a little too nicely. Listening to the mix, they're a bit too consistent. Not similar sounding, exactly, but a similar tone and vibe. Which was by design, but still. The second mix I expected to be too eclectic and not to sound good together at all, but actually it wasn't so bad. I mean, across the board it's a mess, starting off with an energetic rock section, then some sugary pop, then techno and on to some hazy, dreamy stuff at the end. But the transitions weren't too jarring and there seemed to be something new and different coming in each section. There must be a lesson in here somewhere, but I'm too tired to spell it out just now.

T Minus One Night And Counting

It's Friday night, the night before we go to pick up Oscar out in Pennsylvania. I think Karen and I are both a little tense and excited about the whole thing. Kind of like little kids on the night before Christmas, really. We've got the house pretty well set up and puppy proofed in anticipation of Oscar's arrival, and now, per Tom Petty, the waiting's the hardest part.

Anyways, Karen is responding to the pressure by folding and refolding all of the clothes in her dresser. Oh, and watching the Lake House on TV. Keanu has a strangely calming effect on her. I, on the other hand, just watched the Red Sox come back to beat the Yankees in the bottom of the 8th, overcoming 2 Alex Rodriguez homeruns, so I'm pretty well jazzed up. I think I'm going to make a mix disc in honor of Oscar's impending arrival, and I'll post the contents in a bit. Or not. This is the sort of project where I usually lose interest about halfway through.

If you haven't guessed by all the pointless blather (pointless blather? on a blog? shocking!), this is mostly a test post to see how this whole blogspot thing works. Seeing as this blog is nominally about our new French bulldog puppy Oscar, I thought I'd get 'er started off with some good pics of Oscar and his brothers and sister. Oscar is one of the cream-colored puppies, although we won't know which one until tomorrow. The black (aka brindle) one is his sister. Word is that she's the tough one of the bunch.


So melancholy, the introspective little puppy.


I like the little black puppy in the back. She's like that one guy in every picture ever taken in a bar, where no one is focusing on the camera except for one random dude in the back who's looking right at it. She's just a backwards baseball cap and a tallboy of Miller Lite from being that guy.





Lined up perfectly. Right after this picture was taken they started walking forward shoulder to shoulder in slow motion. It was the most adorable pimp walk ever.


PUPPY STAMPEDE!!


PUPPY STAMPEDE 2!!! Just off camera to the right is that little Chuckwagon, blazing trails all over the kitchen.

Cary