Story for the Week
There is a saying that the third time’s a charm. Typically, it relates to when you screw something up or something goes wrong. So you try again…and again…and hopefully after you’ve messed it up twice, the third time will work.
We have three dogs in our home (our first actually lives with my dad), and I think about this saying nearly every day. We love all of our dogs. Whether the third time was a charm, however, is questionable sometimes. 🤣
Almost five years ago, our Shih-Poo Oreo came to live with us. Corinne was really struggling after we lost her dad to cancer, and I felt like she needed something for comfort. I talked to my mom and dad, who had taken in our first dog because Dennis was severely allergic, because I didn’t want them to feel like we were abandoning her. My mom immediately responded with, “Get her something small she can snuggle with.” That was the plan. 🥰
Oreo is easy and quiet. He sleeps all night. He doesn’t annoy me to go out all day every day. If I leave a room for more than a few minutes, he follows me, and if a door is closed, he will scratch to get in. When he needs to go out and I’m still asleep, he wakes me up by pawing my chin. If I ignore him, he will paw a little harder over and over until I open my eyes, get out of bed, and let him outside. When we’re up and about and he wants to go out, he sits in front of me and gives what we call a silent bark. It looks like he’s barking. There should be a sound. But it’s more like a “huff.”
When he gets mad about something, he still doesn’t bark. He scratches like he’s trying to dig, rubbing his face roughly against the couch or the floor or the bed. We say he’s throwing a tantrum. The only time he really barks is when he wants to come in the house and no one is in the kitchen to see him. Or when he traps himself on Corinne’s bed because he can jump from the stairs to the bed but not the bed to the stairs. 🤭
Next in line is Kikyo, a Samoyed my brother-in-law brought home about three and a half years ago. She and Oreo got along right away. She barks when someone comes over because she wants to be pet, and if you stop petting her before she’s ready, prepare to be scolded with more barking until you pet her long enough. When my brother-in-law taunts Oreo, Kikyo barks to defend her canine partner in crime. She barks when she plays, but for the most part, she’s also pretty quiet.
She has her own quirks. We have all typically slept with our bedroom doors closed. Oreo sleeps with me, and Kikyo would sleep with Rodolfo. But at some point, she decided that she doesn’t like to be stuck in the bedroom at night. She wouldn’t necessarily sleep anywhere else in the house, but she started waking Rodolfo up during the night like she wanted to go out. But she wouldn’t go out. She just wanted the door open—like she wants the option to leave the room. 🤷🏼♀️
By that time, the house was mostly without chaos. Then about two years ago, Corinne forwarded a video with a bunch of puppies. I’m way beyond the point of getting baby fever…but puppy fever is real. We both started looking at puppies online, and at one point, she sent me the profile of a puppy at the same time I sent her a photo of a puppy…the same puppy…a Havapoo with the most beautiful chocolate merle coat. I took it as a sign that we were meant to have her.
We all love her. Let me start with that. We really do love her. AND there have been so many times that we have questioned the choice to get a third dog because Isadora is…let’s just say she’s a lot.
Isadora barks at everything. Car door slams outside? Bark, bark, bark. Amazon package delivery? Bark, bark, bark. Rodolfo walks out of his bedroom? Bark, bark, bark. Corinne’s friend Abby who visited for a few days walks into the room singing? Bark, bark, bark. No audible sound that anyone can hear or either of the other two dogs reacts to? Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark.
She has also taught the other two dogs how to be manipulative for treats. 🤨 The dogs have always gotten treats after they go out to relieve themselves. Isadora started asking to go out, and I would get up to let them out, and she would just walk away from the door and look at the box of treats. When I didn’t respond with treats, the other dogs started doing the same thing. They all get scolded now when they do that. I basically tell them that they don’t get treats if they’re not going out just because they want them.
So two-year-old Isadora developed another ploy. She now asks to go out, runs out the back door to the back of the yard, and then turns around and runs back inside. I guess the argument could be made that she went outside, and of course, now the other two dogs have started to use the ploy as well. Points for creativity, but they still don’t get treats.
Isadora is also a face licker and an ear licker, and anytime someone calls one of the other dogs, she comes running to make a nuisance of herself. She likes being the center of attention. And she will viciously guard the snacks that she carries around for hours. Corinne has started calling them her emotional support snacks. They inevitably get stolen by one of the other dogs because Isadora eventually gets distracted by something else and lets her guard down. And it’s usually a distraction that makes her bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark.
She is a classic example of the third time not always being a charm, but we still love her. I mean, look at her. How can you not?
In the book reviewed below, the third time is definitely a charm for Josh and Hazel. Hazel is also a lot, and I loved her too. 😉
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for Josh + Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren
318 pages
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: September 4, 2018
Purchased on Amazon.
Publisher’s Description
Hazel Camille Bradford knows she’s a lot to take—and frankly, most men aren’t up to the challenge. If her army of pets and thrill for the absurd don’t send them running, her lack of filter means she’ll say exactly the wrong thing in a delicate moment. Their loss. She’s a good soul in search of honest fun.
Josh Im has known Hazel since college, where her zany playfulness proved completely incompatible with his mellow restraint. From the first night they met—when she gracelessly threw up on his shoes—to when she sent him an unintelligible email while in a post-surgical haze, Josh has always thought of Hazel more as a spectacle than a peer. But now, ten years later, after a cheating girlfriend has turned his life upside down, going out with Hazel is a breath of fresh air.
Not that Josh and Hazel date. At least, not each other. Because setting each other up on progressively terrible double blind dates means there’s nothing between them…right?
************
Main Characters:
- Hazel Bradford – 25 years old, a third-grade teacher preparing to start a new job at the same school as Emily and Dave Goldrich, has been smitten with Josh since meeting him at a party in college
- Josh Im – 27 years old, a physical therapist, Emily’s older brother (unbeknownst to Hazel)
- Emily Goldrich – Hazel’s best friend, a fifth-grade teacher, she and Hazel met about nine months prior in an online political forum and became fast friends
- Dave Goldrich – Emily’s husband, works as the principal at the school where Emily and Hazel teach
A number of my work colleagues are also avid readers, and I was talking with one of them about writing duos a while back. She mentioned Christina Lauren (writing partners and best friends Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings) as being one of her favorites and recommended this book in particular. It took me a while to get to it, but I’m so glad I put it on my list.
I was hooked with the prologue:
“Hazel Camille Bradford
Before we get started, there are a few things you should know about me:
- I am both broke and lazy—a terrible combination.
- I am perpetually awkward at parties and in an effort to relax will probably end up drinking until I’m topless.
- I tend to like animals more than people.
- I can always be counted on to do or say the worst possible thing in a delicate moment.
In summary, I am superb at making an ass out of myself.
At the outset, this should explain how I have successfully never dated Josh Im: I have made myself entirely undatable in his presence.
For instance, the first time we met, I was eighteen and he was twenty and I vomited on his shoes.”
The second time Hazel meets Josh during her sophomore year finds her in a very compromising position with his roommate. That same year, with Josh as her anatomy TA, Hazel has her impacted wisdom teeth removed. In a painkiller-induced stupor, she sends him an e-mail requesting more time to complete an assignment. His response is what drives Hazel’s determination to be Josh’s best friend.
“Hazel-not-Haley,
I can make this exception. And don’t worry, I’m not embarrassed. It’s not like I puked in your shoes or rolled around naked on your couch.”
The third time Hazel meets Josh is seven years after the vomiting episode when she discovers at a barbecue that her friend and soon-to-be work colleague Emily is Josh’s younger sister. So suddenly, the man who is her blueprint for perfection, who she can never date, is going to be a constant presence in her life.
And all this fun is just in the Prologue!
I could not get through this book fast enough. The chapters alternate between Hazel and Josh, and the authors do a fantastic job of capturing their individual voices. Hazel is extremely chaotic and all over the place. She is who she is and makes no apologies for it. Josh is much more low-key, but he finds himself completely enthralled by Hazel’s personality.
They also become fast friends, and both are determined to find the other that special someone, neither of them really believing that they could be a couple. The art of a romance is setting up the relationship, getting through the conflict, and having the main characters realize that they are better together. Hazel and Josh’s “conflict” is setting each other up on what they call double blind dates. Hazel picks a girl for Josh. Josh picks a guy for Hazel. They go out as a foursome, and of course the dates never work out because Hazel and Josh are more interested in each other than the people they’re being set up with.
It is hilarious to watch as they get closer to the bottom of the barrel for dates, all the while really just wanting to spend time together.
The book has a lot of laughs, a little bit of spice, and just the right amount of sexual tension. When I get through 300+ pages in two days during the work week because I stay up altogether too late at night to keep reading, I know it’s a hit for me. I did not want to put this one down.
I will definitely add Christina Lauren to my list of favorites.
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